Rift: Planes of Telara

[Mrbloodworth]

I can't agree with the lack of ambition statement. The title is incredibly ambitious on a number of fronts, and the systems created and being that polished is a testament to the skill of the people on the team and the years of experience and creativity.

However the scope of the rifts system and the skill system will be irrelevant to the end user.

[Nebu]

For forcing social gameplay, that has been working pretty well as people will beat the rifts but just not group. Grouping isn't really as important anyways since contribution seems to be done on an individual basis.

This sends off warning bells in my head.  How do they evaluate contribution? What about someone playing a tank vs a healer?  How can a healer do their job efficiently outside of a group?  

The second concern I have is with regard to rifts themselves.  How long can you fight these rifts before it starts to dawn on you that you're repeating fights that you've had in the past.  One beauty of using Dungeon mechanics is that it tricks the player into thinking they are doing something different when they really are just repeating the same mechanics in a fresh setting.  Can they keep the game fresh and if so, for how long?

[Segoris]

This sends off warning bells in my head.  How do they evaluate contribution? What about someone playing a tank vs a healer?  How can a healer do their job efficiently outside of a group?  

The second concern I have is with regard to rifts themselves.  How long can you fight these rifts before it starts to dawn on you that you're repeating fights that you've had in the past.  One beauty of using Dungeon mechanics is that it tricks the player into thinking they are doing something different when they really are just repeating the same mechanics in a fresh setting.  Can they keep the game fresh and if so, for how long?

For healer and tank - I've played a tank in 3 events and a healer in 2, I don't think I've ever been ranked below 3rd for contribution when I've been at a rift from beginning to end. I'm unsure of the exact way everything is calculated, but I do know that I don't worry about it as a tank or a healer as I did when I was playing WAR. Some of my assumptions on how generation works is a mix of damage done, taken, and healed along with some sort of threat modifier.

I consider the thread modifier because when tanking raid mobs during the large zone wide invasions, I tanked almost every single boss and was still top 3 at all times. During those times I was a spec that didn't allow much of anything for AE dmg (so my damage was low from not attacking multiple mobs as well as being a sword/board tank lowering my damage already) and a lot of the mobs knock back the tank (so I was out of the fight at times until I could run/charge back).

As for how a healer can be effective outside of a group, that is easy - use a mix of target a mob and cast your heal which will in turn heal whoever the mob is attacking and general awareness of watching where a mob is going and use preemptive healing. Otherwise, invite people. Just because the anti-social crowd still works with rifts doesn't mean the social crowd can't still be social.

As for keeping things fresh, I think those dungeon mechanics you mentioned work somewhat similarly with rifts on a lesser scale. Basically, 1 dungeon is equal to 1 type of rift (say death for example). Death rift mobs can be different, some are casters, some are melee, some are healers, some use a buddy-system type of aggro with one weaker mobs and one stronger mob, etc. It seems that as the level and size of the rift increases, the mobs it spawns differs a little. The setting is changed because rifts spawn in different locations. Sure, some areas are more likely to have a rift spawn, but the rifts can and do spawn just about everywhere, meaning different mobs can be joining in on the fights at times if they wander into the rift area. Yes, it will get old at some point, just like dungeons, but I don't think that is unavoidable entirely. I do think there is just enough randomness in the spawn location and mob variance to keep it about a similar retention level as the dungeons that are used for leveling. I can't say anything about the raid style rifts as I have no idea how those will pan out.

Edit - clarify the never ranking low on a rift as a healer or tank bit is subject to when I've been at the rift from start to end

[Lucas]

What soul combination would you suggest to obtain a character that play similar to Mesmers in Guild Wars? (so far, the class I had the most fun playing with among all the MMOGs I played). Hmm, Dominator/Archon?

[Lantyssa]

What type of Mesmer?  There aren't a lot of interrupts that I've noticed, so a lot of the Inspiration-type abilities wouldn't have an equivalent.

The casting classes have a lot of variety though, so you might be able to make something.  Dominator for sure.  I don't recall what the Archon gets.  Chloromancer perhaps as a third.

[EWSpider]

I got a Beta4 invite so I'll definitely be checking out the Warfronts this weekend.  This will be my first time playing so I'll report back with my first impressions.  I'll probably start out with some sort of Warlock/Chloromancer build and then check out some sort of Assassin/xxx build time permitting.

[Draegan]

The second concern I have is with regard to rifts themselves.  How long can you fight these rifts before it starts to dawn on you that you're repeating fights that you've had in the past.  One beauty of using Dungeon mechanics is that it tricks the player into thinking they are doing something different when they really are just repeating the same mechanics in a fresh setting.  Can they keep the game fresh and if so, for how long?

You're assuming every single Rift Event from Minor to Major of Normal, Expert and Raids to have exactly the same mechanics from levels 1 to 50.

[sam, an eggplant]

Please, do educate us. How do rift mechanics evolve at higher levels?

[Hawkbit]

The game isn't for everyone; many of you are going to rip it apart.  It's what we do here... 

RIFTs quests are derivative and that part is disappointing.  But after seeing what WoW did with phasing their whole world apart into disconnected little pieces, I'm glad RIFT went with a simple storyline breadcrumb quest hub deal, because in my opinion WoW just ruined much of what was fun for me.  WoW may as well just have the 1-85 quest world as a single player offliine world.  There's no reason to talk to another person unless you go into a dungeon.  At least with RIFT we get a new shot at decent lore. 

RIFT succeeds because of the randomness of the whole rift experience.  Seeing a random rift open, going over and closing it:  that's a simple experience.  But being in the middle of an invasion (which happened in lvl 12-20 zone -  that's early!!) is successful because there is no spawn point, no rules.  Sure, there's an overarching quest to complete.  But its all random. 

I had a damn rift open up on my head at one point.  I died multiple times and I never thought it was cheese.  It was, simply, fun.  I do think that they need to design it so the monsters win sometimes, which isn't something WoW allows. 

Some of you won't find that fun.  That's okay.  I tried EVE about 12 times and never could stay more than a trial.  I just don't get the fun. 

[Margalis]

Randomness tends to look like other randomness. I think that's the underlying cause of the complaints about the rifts being underwhelming.

If you go into photoshop and run 10 different noise filters you get 10 different textures, but they're all pretty much the same noise texture. They may be technically completely different but the experience of viewing them is identical across all. This is the same problem with randomly generated terrain.

From the sounds of it they need to try to make the rifts events more distinct, so that you remember an event as "the time that one super gigantic squid appeared" or "the time a million bats and only bats clouded the sky" and less "yet another time a random soup of enemies attacked."

That's just my impression reading the feedback without having played. Things like more mob variance may not things any better if that doesn't lead to distinct events or observable configurations and patterns.

[Draegan]

Please, do educate us. How do rift mechanics evolve at higher levels?

Just speculating here, but since they are having Rift Raids, I would think they would implement Raid scripts and mechanics.  I'm sure you can extrapolate that down to non-raid rifts.

Even in the Beta that had one weird rift where you had to drink beer before the next round would spawn.

[Spiff]

From the sounds of it they need to try to make the rifts events more distinct, so that you remember an event as "the time that one super gigantic squid appeared" or "the time a million bats and only bats clouded the sky" and less "yet another time a random soup of enemies attacked."

That's definitely part of it, but it has a lot to do with the large influx of players into most rifts imo.
The system fell down a bit there; when it was < 5 people I did see some different tactics and funky mechanics (like the drinking game Draegan mentions), but rifts have a tendency to lure in the masses (oddly enough ... in a game called Rift) and when there's 10+ people it all just fades into a dps-race.
A lot of the time I was lucky to get of a finisher on a boss-mob they went down so fast.

That's one of the reasons the events worked for me, no matter how many people turned up it was still chaos.

Sure there may be raid-rifts addressing that at some point, sure there will be less people in the starter areas at some point (although if the game's a success that should take a while), but a lot of people will be bundled up in a small area the first few months at least and they will rush every rift in sight; they can't really launch a mega-event every 4 hours can they?

[Ratman_tf]

I got a beta invite for this weekend.

[sam, an eggplant]

Just speculating here, but since they are having Rift Raids, I would think they would implement Raid scripts and mechanics.  I'm sure you can extrapolate that down to non-raid rifts.

Even in the Beta that had one weird rift where you had to drink beer before the next round would spawn.

I can read between the lines. Anyway, I didn't see that one, but it's good to hear that they're doing more than just a couple monster waves followed by a tank/spank miniboss. It would probably be a good idea to show us more of that sort of thing in the "open beta" promotional periods going on now rather than only letting people under NDA see the cool stuff. So far all the public has seen is boring rifts and bear ass collection quests.

[Tarami]

I got a beta invite for this weekend.

I got two. HAH!

[Threash]

I got a beta invite for this weekend.

I got two. HAH!

Ditto, lol.

[sam, an eggplant]

Same here. I assume it's because we all have "VIP" accounts from the free fileplanet signup thingie.

[Hawkbit]

How does one drop the Fang of Regulos in the Warfront?  I ask in chat and they say - "just die".  I know that can't be right. 

[Modern Angel]

Why would you want to drop it? Why would the devs let you drop it? I don't know if it's intended for it to be undroppable or not but I can see some obnoxiousness from ticking down from Fang damage and then dropping it deliberately to ping pong. The mechanics are more like the murderball games from WAR than CTF.

[Threash]

I am dissappointed that the kelari racial has yet to be nerfed.

[Ratman_tf]

Ugh. 1 hour to patch up the client. For a weekend worth of gaming. And I'm going to be gone in the middle for my sis's B-Day.

I won't get to play this very much.

[Hawkbit]

Why would you want to drop it? Why would the devs let you drop it? I don't know if it's intended for it to be undroppable or not but I can see some obnoxiousness from ticking down from Fang damage and then dropping it deliberately to ping pong. The mechanics are more like the murderball games from WAR than CTF.

From what I saw the damage on it was building up over time, got to a point that a healer couldn't keep me up.  Again, just from observance - I wasn't running a parse or anything.  When I died with it, the warrior next to me picked it up and started the cycle over.  I assumed that the fang could be dropped, but I guess not.  Oh wells. 

Did anyone get BC up and running?  I keep looking for Sky's cleric and never see it online. 

[Cadaverine]

I'm playing on Faeblight, but I've no idea who else is, or if/when they're around.

[Ratman_tf]

Very first impression: WoW clone with soupier controls and boring graphics.

More to come! 

[Ghambit]

Aaaaand, no one's on TS.  Would be nice to have a decent crowd for this lil' PvP weekend.

[rattran]

I was on for a couple hours earlier. Will play some tomorrow again. What PvP server are people playing on?

[Ard]

Aaaaand, no one's on TS.  Would be nice to have a decent crowd for this lil' PvP weekend.

I've had a horrific cold all week and literally can't speak right now from coughing, otherwise I'd come hang out. 

[Ratman_tf]

Level 5. Every few minutes the game freezes and then my graphics card resets. I think there was some notice when I started up that my card wasn't supported, but who pays attention to shit like that?  

I'm sticking with it to see if it's just me burned out on MMORPG WoWish gameplay, or if this game is bland and uninspired.

*Edit*

Yeah. This is some reheated WoW leftovers. Each box should come with a bottle of NoDoze.

[Shatter]

What are the Warfront opinions?  I have figured out that level is very important.  A level 12 cant barely touch a level 16 -18 character for example and the higher level player can essentially kill the lower player very easily.  Guess I should of expected that ....

[Modern Angel]

I was pleasantly surprised in some ways, disappointed in others. The WoW grouping by 9 levels isn't so hot. WAR kicked that out the door and it should stay locked out. Ranged is a little too powerful on the Fang of Regulos map, being able to keep the opposition at bay if you group up at the drop off point near spawn.

But, I was pleased that it was murderball and not CTF. I fucking hate CTF. It's lazy, uncreative design and matches are always, always interminably long for little action. Aside from the choke points ranged can use the map is engaging and fun, with lots of areas to LOS the opposition and set ambushes. Classes are pretty fun in combat, though balance is tough to determine right now.

[kildorn]

Since it's opinion time: the defiant zone at least needs another design pass. Because the quest options just DIE at around 16/17 and apparently pick up a few levels later. The flow is wrong and leaves you standing around wondering what the hell you're supposed to do now.

Also trying to figure out the plot. Either they're going with the boring "both sides are dicks/feel the other side are evil" angle, or they're heavily telegraphing a betrayal plotline by the defiant dude.

[Tarami]

There are few quests because they don't want you to quest. This becomes apparent the fifth time the very same quest hub is overrun by an invasion and you have to wait for 5+ other people to be able to clear it out. It's awesome!

[Malakili]

There are few quests because they don't want you to quest. This becomes apparent the fifth time the very same quest hub is overrun by an invasion and you have to wait for 5+ other people to be able to clear it out. It's awesome!

This is exactly why Rifts won't work for most people.  The opportunity to kill an invasion instead of grind more quests sounds like a great change of pace to me in theory, but it seems like people just get cranky because it interrupts their boar farming.

[Tarami]

Problem is that they're equally boring after the first ten times. Or fun. Whatever floats your boat.

[Threash]

Page one on the "things wow taught us five years ago" handbook: 8 second cast times for pets in pvp unfairly punish pet classes, stop making pets unsummon when dying in pvp.  Or at all really.