Rift: Planes of Telara

[March]

If you're feeling magey, roll a necro/warlock/chloro.  Fast grinding, never die.

Necro/Warlock has some of the best early synergy that I've worked with so far.  I tried 0 pt Dominator for Insta-nuke and squirrel... works lovely.

On the other side of the spectrum I specced 16 pts stormcaller and immediately re-specced when I saw that I had a bar full of overlapping blue icons that seemed to do everything and nothing the same.  I hear stormcaller is fun, but I just didn't want to waste as much time as would be required to figure out all the conditional spells that seem to make it work.

[Tannhauser]

Currently trying Purifier/Cabalist/Inq.  Purifier gives me shield and single target nukes.  I have two dots and, if I pull multiple mobs, I can switch to the cabbie aoe nukes.  It's working fairly good so far but I still feel a bit squishy.  The theory is that Purifer gets me groups as main healer and Cabalist will be good for pvp.

My bard/rift/ass is pretty effective but with most of my points in bard, I've gotten a bit bored.  Going to an instance and see how it does in group play.

[Minvaren]

Shaman/Purifier/Justicar is what I'm going with thus far - need to put a few more points in the latter for raid heals.

And holy crap, rift events are FUN!  I might have to break down and buy this.

[fuser]

The twitter integration is kinda neat. You can /tweetpic comment for a screenshot anytime. The game automatically sends twitter updates on achievements: http://twitter.com/binfuser/status/39372606071242752

[Bzalthek]

And holy crap, rift events are FUN!  I might have to break down and buy this.

Agreed.  I had an amazon gift cert sitting around since Sept so I went ahead and splurged a bit on the collector's edition pre-order. 

Does anyone know if we are going to have a Bat Country for a few weeks or is everybody running with different crews?

[Morfiend]

And holy crap, rift events are FUN!  I might have to break down and buy this.

Agreed.  I had an amazon gift cert sitting around since Sept so I went ahead and splurged a bit on the collector's edition pre-order. 

Does anyone know if we are going to have a Bat Country for a few weeks or is everybody running with different crews?

I invited anyone who wants to play on PVP to come join my crew on Sunrest. There is a PVE guild forming also, but I forget which server.

[Bzalthek]

I'm really bad at PvP which mean PvP sucks and is the devil!  I appreciate the offer though.

[Pennilenko]

I would try to join a pve bat country guild, if i wasn't sure it would be dead in 30 days.

[Nebu]

Shaman/Purifier/Justicar is what I'm going with thus far - need to put a few more points in the latter for raid heals.

And holy crap, rift events are FUN!  I might have to break down and buy this.

I've been playing a purifier/cabalist/shaman.  It makes me wonder why anyone would play a mage. 

I have some concerns about this game. 

1) Some sets synergize better than others.  I perceive this to be a serious balance issue.  In their attempts to balance, it seems impossible to avoid disenfranchising players.  DAoC suffered this issue badly.  In Mythic's attempts to balance classes they ended up having fotm classes.  The result was that hardcore players would reroll every three months to ensure that they always had the most powerful toons.  While this may be great for retention, it's terrible for casual players... particularly with PvP.

2) What role will PvP have in their decision making process?  I can see balance getting really screwed up if the pendulum swings too far toward either pvp or pve.  I'd hope that they err on the pve side as I see this as a pve title.

3) Itemization seems to be lacking, at least in the lower levels.  Perhaps a robust crafting system will solve this.  I'm still trying to get a feel for crafting.

4) Rifts are novel, but I can see myself getting bored with them quickly.  They will also suffer from the same population shifts that WAR did.  What happens when the game matures and few people are in the lower level zones? 

5) Combat is uninspiring.  I hope this improves in the end game.  Right now, it feels neither tactical nor responsive. 

6) Movement in the early game feels painfully slow. 

7) I can't help but feel "been there, done that" with this game.  Kill X.  Gather Y.  Click on Z items.  You almost have to have PvP to keep the boredom down to a minimum.

Summary: This game seems far too shifted toward achiever.  I tend toward the killer/explorer sides and Rifts feels far too on rails to allow for much of that.  Balance really kills the killer aspect and I imagien that will get worse when people really understand the intracacies of squeezing every drop out of a toon. 

[kildorn]

I didn't think defiant pcs were meant to be "the one", but just one ascended among many.  You could see them making more at the starting place.

The plot text basically makes you the only one that worked out, and thus the powerful thing they manage to send back.

The guardian plot is a lot better in that regard. It's weaker story wise than the defiant, but at least it logically puts forwards the idea of lots of ascended.

Edit: there's also a bit in the guardian story about who the "bad" defiant is, and it's kept up in the first 20 minutes of the defiant story with "uh, hey dude.. I don't remember YOU from the defiants in the future! You'd think they would have mentioned you..." but I don't know if it keeps up with the revelation that he's totally not on the player's side.

[Falconeer]

Just two short things from your llist:

1) Some sets synergize better than others.  I perceive this to be a serious balance issue.  In their attempts to balance, it seems impossible to avoid disenfranchising players.  DAoC suffered this issue badly.  In Mythic's attempts to balance classes they ended up having fotm classes.  The result was that hardcore players would reroll every three months to ensure that they always had the
most powerful toons.  While this may be great for retention, it's terrible for casual players... particularly with PvP.

There's no need to reroll. There can be a flavor of the month, but there are so many combinations that it would impact Rift less than any other MMO with less classes. Additionally, respeccing and the 4 role slots make rerolling pretty useless unless you want to try a completely different archetype, which is beyond the point of rerolling due to FotM.

4) Rifts are novel, but I can see myself getting bored with them quickly.  They will also suffer from the same population shifts that WAR did.  What happens when the game matures and few people are in the lower level zones? 

You can get bored of anything, but rifts are just an ADDITIONAL feature on top of what is the norm for MMORPGs. Sure you can get bored of it, the same way you can get bored of questing. Then eventually, you can get bored of any game. Rifts are 100% optional, so if you get bored, don't do it. And about the few players in lower level zones: are you aware of the fact that rifts spawn dynamically, based on the number of people in a zone? Meaning, if you are the only dude in an area, that area will only spawn minor rifts you can probably solo, while if it's packed then it will spawn gigantic raid stuff that require more players? Yes, it is that clever, and yes, it works.

[Minvaren]

What are people running for video cards in this game?  My 4870 is lagging mightily in places...

[Threash]

GTS 450, runs like a dream.

[Falconeer]

GTX295, runs like a dream but it's overheating like a stove. I am seriously concerned about it.

[Bzalthek]

ATI Radeon HD 4650.  I was fine at the start but when I got into open country with all the tall grass blowing around I lagged like a bitch until I turned that off.  Then I was fine until I had 100+ mobs and 80ish PCs running around in the same place with sparklies everyfuckingwhere.

[Simond]

Regulos.  And yeah, one thing I find interesting about the storyline of the game is that, ok, the Guardians kinda saved the world back when the king of Mathosia tried to sell out to Regulos or something, and apparently at that time, Orphiel and some of the major Defiants were on Regulos's side, but the game also shows us that the Guardians won in that timeline, crushed the Defiants, and then Regulos wins and eats the world or whatever.

Also, Guardians certainly don't seem particularly better, they may not seem to be the type to do experiments or whatever on you, but apparently they are just fine with killing the Defiants' soldier-types, destroying their weaponry and defenses, and then leaving them to the undead once they're defenseless.

So the Guardians may actually have been right in the first place (Defiant machines were, apparently, what broke down the barrier keeping Regulos out in the first place) but at the point in time that the game's 'current' timeline takes place in, the Guardians are unequivocally wrong, and if they wipe out the Defiants like they did in the failed timeline, Regulos wins without question.  The fact that this is so absolute an observation - Guardians win, Regulos also wins by default - since it already happened in the failed timeline seems like an odd decision from a story perspective.  Course, the Guardians don't know what happened in that failed future and they probably wouldn't believe the Defiant time traveler anyway, but either way, they are definitely way more focused on punishing the Defiants for what happened in the past than focusing on defeating Regulos.

On the other hand, the Defiants pretty much handed Telara to Regulos on a silver platter (twice), then bitched about the Guardians not being able to save the world from their colossal fuck-up. 

I also thought that the game's going so far to make you the Special One was a little silly from a story perspective, cause every player is apparently the one Defiant that came back from the future.  Instead of, y'know, having that one be a specific NPC, and having all the players be new Defiant ascended created with the data brought back from the future.

Handwave: Alternate future timelines all travelling back to the same shared past.

[Abelian75]

Handwave: Alternate future timelines all travelling back to the same shared past.

That just blew my mind.

[Bzalthek]

In other words, virtually every alternate timeline leads to us being royally fucked.

[Lantyssa]

In all of those alternate timelines, they didn't perfect a Defiant soul until the very end.  But now they're all congregating at one point in time, so things can play out differently.

[Pennilenko]

What are people running for video cards in this game?  My 4870 is lagging mightily in places...

My 4870 runs the game like a dream. What are your settings like? I set the slider to ultra and then moved a few things down slightly. I also don't have AA on because i don't like the way it makes things look.

[Minvaren]

What are people running for video cards in this game?  My 4870 is lagging mightily in places...

My 4870 runs the game like a dream. What are your settings like? I set the slider to ultra and then moved a few things down slightly. I also don't have AA on because i don't like the way it makes things look.

Much the same as yours - Ultra to start, AA off, around 4x AF, shadows and similar stuff knocked down.  I'm starting to think it has to do with ground clutter and number of people nearby at present...

[Pennilenko]

What are people running for video cards in this game?  My 4870 is lagging mightily in places...

My 4870 runs the game like a dream. What are your settings like? I set the slider to ultra and then moved a few things down slightly. I also don't have AA on because i don't like the way it makes things look.

Much the same as yours - Ultra to start, AA off, around 4x AF, shadows and similar stuff knocked down.  I'm starting to think it has to do with ground clutter and number of people nearby at present...

What type of processor and how much ram are you running? We are using almost identical settings and I am not experiencing a major slowdown with lots of people on screen or in big open areas with things moving around.

[Minvaren]

Phenom x4 945, 4gb ddr2-533 interleaved.

The lag is intermittent, will play with it some more to see if I can tell when it's happening regularly.  Overall framerate is generally 40fps, just the odd spikes down to 10-15...

What resolution are you running, btw?  I'm at 1680x1050.

(edit : noticed the HD LED is going when it happens, looks like either texture swapping or Windows doing something in the background)

[Bzalthek]

Note: The Harbringer of Regulos is a bunny named Hoppy. 

[Pennilenko]

Phenom x4 945, 4gb ddr2-533 interleaved.

The lag is intermittent, will play with it some more to see if I can tell when it's happening regularly.  Overall framerate is generally 40fps, just the odd spikes down to 10-15...

What resolution are you running, btw?  I'm at 1680x1050.

(edit : noticed the HD LED is going when it happens, looks like either texture swapping or Windows doing something in the background)

1920X1080. I am using an I7 920, with 6gigs ddr3. I also have a 150 gig SSD that has my operating system and games that are important to me. Windows 7.

[Abelian75]

Note: The Harbringer of Regulos is a bunny named Hoppy. 

Omg you aren't kidding.  I choose to believe this is a buffy reference and am filled with joy.

[Bzalthek]

Yessir, he's real!  I took a screenshot just for you! (he popped up as a purple pet in one of those level 15 random loot thingies you get from public shit)


Oh, I'm not finding anything specific, but is it possible to quest a calling change?  Like can I eventually swap from rogue to warrior and use those souls (not mix and match, just change)?

[kildorn]

You can never change rogue/warrior/cleric/mage. Just souls within those.

[Bzalthek]

Ah, ok, I must have misremembered that from somewhere.  Thanks.

[Draegan]

4) Rifts are novel, but I can see myself getting bored with them quickly.  They will also suffer from the same population shifts that WAR did.  What happens when the game matures and few people are in the lower level zones? 

Rifts at the beginning zones are pretty simple, they can do some amazing things towards the end.  Their difficulty (to some degree) also dynamically change depending on local population.   And you can solo all rifts in any case, but perhaps you won't be able to do the bonus rounds.

[Tannhauser]

I'd like to join the PVE BC server.  I'll be playing a main healer type.

[Shatter]

What are people running for video cards in this game?  My 4870 is lagging mightily in places...

(2) GTX 460's in SLI are giving me 40+ FPS at worst.  Running the game at almost maxed settings, toned a few things down since the prettiness wasnt worth the performance loss.  Been in some pretty heavily populated areas and didnt lag at all which was nice to see. 

[Hawkbit]

I'd like to join the PVE BC server.  I'll be playing a main healer type.

From what I've seen so far, nothing has been decided and nobody seems interested in leading the charge.  Decisions should be made soon, as the servers switch to live on Thursday.

Morfiend has a guild starting on a PvP-RP server, see here if interested:  http://www.dreadguard.com/

[Xanthippe]

Server names will change, apparently.  They will be announced in the next couple of days.

I played mostly defiant in beta, but I think I'm going guardian for release (probably pvp-rp).  I am probably going to level 2 characters at first, a ranger/bard/something and a purifier/warden/sentinel.

[kildorn]

Server names will change, apparently.  They will be announced in the next couple of days.

I played mostly defiant in beta, but I think I'm going guardian for release (probably pvp-rp).  I am probably going to level 2 characters at first, a ranger/bard/something and a purifier/warden/sentinel.

Ah, the best way to fuck up a headstart for preorders: confuse everyone on day 1 by not making server names available a week beforehand so people can coordinate <3