Rift: Planes of Telara

[Rendakor]

Jesus christ, if you're that fucking picky maybe the game isn't for you. It's like you're TRYING to find shit to dislike. I'm probably not even buying this, but "When I train a spell it goes on my bar" is not a valid complaint, particularly since you've been using the retarded perspective of someone who's never played an MMO before.

Competing with WoW != ripping off every single UI change as soon as they're patched in.

[Threash]

One catch-all bolt removes an element of skill from the PVP; the system as it exists allows for considerable variation and choice when you cast spells. Having one button do it all would make gear (or class imbalance) play a larger role by removing player skill from the equation.

This is just the bolt. If you look at the early abilities in all talent trees, they all share a few similar abilities. Every mage tree has an energy bolt, some kind of DoT, a shield, etc. They are core abilities that they all share. Once you get deeper in the tree they diverge so skill duplication wouldn't be an issue.

I don't actually care about PvP, but I do think they made the right choice completely separating PvE and PvP skill trees.

Oh, and one more thing-- having to go to the trainer to train rank X+1 of your fireball spell sucks. This is particularly annoying when you're training effectively the same spell three times, then taking two of them off your bars. Awesome, I made level 7! Time to go train void bolt 3, parmesan topping 3, and fireball 3! I imagine at later levels you get access to all 8 soul trees, so you end up training a total of eight identical bolt spells when you level. During design sessions, how did nobody think of this as a problem?

This is another spot where Rift could learn from WoW, where you train abilities once and they scale as you level. WoW also tells you what you can train as you level, so you can plan when you want/need to train. It's a recent interface improvement but again, you need to compete with the market leader now, not what it looked like 5 years ago.

Or you could do the obvious thing and only train the stuff you are using.

[sam, an eggplant]

Rendakor, I obviously don't give a shit about Rift. I just like talking about game design. These are not the vaultnetwork boards, or whatever the fanboy analogue is these days.

The "obvious thing" when you go to the trainer is to train all your new abilities. With the ability to easily respec and switch between multiple specs, it's also the right thing to do in Rift.

[Rendakor]

Except that your last point was just that the spell-training doesn't work exactly like WoW, and so, it's bad. Skills going on your bar when you train them, however, is more helpful to your hypothetical noob who might have forgotten that he has Skill_X. It's also easier when you get a new skill so you can use it immediately, unlike (IN WOW!) sorting through pages of your spellbook trying to find it.

[sam, an eggplant]

You came to an unsupported conclusion. I didn't say that WoW is the one true and right way to handle it, just that their method is superior.

I can easily come up with even better mechanisms. Why should you have to run back to town to train every level or two in the first place? It's just a money and time sink. Time sinks are abominations and money can be removed from the economy in other ways. Just give players abilities when they level alongside a short pop-up explaining what they do.

Even better-- Here's how I would do it myself, given infinite freedom and budget. I would trim the ability list way back so each skill tree only has 3-5 "soul-defining" abilities. These abilities are all useful, powerful, and most importantly, cool and unique. When you reach the proper level for each soul-defining ability, you're given a teleport keystone to a private solo instance that teaches you how to use them both alone and in conjunction with your other abilities, and both solo and with other players.

One example, for the crowd control ability, you're in a "group" with 4 NPCs about to pull a group of mobs and have to turn the opposing healer into a cockroach, for example. Then you need to open a chest with a 10 second channel time and jump into a rift to escape, but it's guarded by a giant minotaur that would one-shot your entire party-- which you turn into a cockroach. These instances would be short, taking around 10 minutes to complete, but story-rich and fully scripted. Players would level souls just to see them. Concentrated coolness.

That's what I would do.

[Rendakor]

Your idea would work pretty well (provided they were optional and not required to learn your skills), except that dev houses have been reluctant to create lots of content that can only be seen by a portion of the playerbase because it is seen as a poor use of dev time.

[Draegan]

Not all souls are created equal in abilities at lower levels.  Not even close.

[sam, an eggplant]

Sure, but there are ways to minimize that impact so you don't need to create 40 different instances per class.

You could easily recycle resources for multiple training scenarios, limiting the amount of asset generation required. Each instance could have multiple resolution mechanics as well. For example, the simple scenario where the player needs to execute a 10s channel to open a chest while avoiding death from a big bad minotaur could be resolved through:

- If you're a dominator, turn the minotaur into a cow and simply open the chest. Afterwards your NPC group cooks him up and serves a roast beef dinner toasting your ingenuity avoiding the fight entirely.
-  If you're a pyromancer, cast "burn hands" on the minotaur, causing him to drop his giant 2H axe on his foot, doing terrible damage and letting your NPC group easily tank/kill him.
- If you're a warlock, use fear and snare on the minotaur, allowing your group to kill him while he runs around toppling over fine glassware and china.
- If you're an archon, turns out the minotaur's heavy damage is really due to him stacking curses on the tank. Decurse to win.

And so on and so forth.

[Malakili]

I'm going to be streaming on and off today  www.livestream.com/newslang if you are interested.  Feel free to chat, I'll be watching the window and can answer questions.

[Hawkbit]

Odd, this.  In playing Cata recently I realized that if we have scaling abilities, why not remove the need to run to a trainer to get new spells altogether?  Find another way to pull the money from the economy.  They removed the need for ranks, why not remove the need for the trainer as well.  It just flows better.

So, in playing RIFT I realized the same:  spells should scale and trainers should be removed.  It removes one step from the process that offers no 'fun'.  Running back to town to train makes you no better at any part of the game.  It's simply antiquated.  

This coming from someone who will be playing this game, for likely a long time.

[Mrbloodworth]

Some games do. Some games use the money sink, and as a reason to ever go to NPC towns.

[sam, an eggplant]

Training is an ineffective money sink since costs must be kept affordable. If players can't afford to train their new abilities upon leveling, they revolt.
And of course it's obviously one time per character. Since it's a crappy money sink, why charge at all? Streamline the process.  Remove trainers and training costs.

Towns are for quest hubs, trading, and trade skills. Forcing players to travel back to town while leveling is just a time sink, and time sinks are abominations.

[Lantyssa]

While I'd like it as an option, the philosophy is that it gives a visual cue as to 'new' abilities.  Perhaps to revisit a spell you rarely use or to introduce you to a completely new one.  If it just showed up in the middle of a big fight, the player might never realize it exists.

It also tickles the ding-gratz nerve.

[Threash]

That role builder site has out dated info on most classes, bleh.

[Hawkbit]

While I'd like it as an option, the philosophy is that it gives a visual cue as to 'new' abilities.  Perhaps to revisit a spell you rarely use or to introduce you to a completely new one.  If it just showed up in the middle of a big fight, the player might never realize it exists.

It also tickles the ding-gratz nerve.

But in RIFT, you get your new abilities from the soul tree, not a trainer.  The trainer only serves to make your known abilities stronger.

[Sky]

It's almost as if some mmo players are difficult to please.

[Mrbloodworth]

It's almost as if some mmo players are difficult to please.

lol. Your on a roll with getting me to giggle today.

[Draegan]

It's almost as if some mmo players are difficult to please.

I would like this in limerick form please.

[Paelos]

It's almost as if some mmo players are difficult to please.

I would like this in limerick form please.

There once was a player from Belize, whose epeen hung down to his knees. But without any furries, his game caused him worries. Some mmo players are difficult to please.

[Modern Angel]

There once was a man named Sam
Who just didn't give a damn
He hated to train
But loved golden rains
So I pissed in his girlfriend's clam

[Hawkbit]

It's almost as if some mmo players are difficult to please.

I'm convinced that the world will end if we stop telling developers how to design their own game.  Besides, we know how to do it better anyways.

[sam, an eggplant]

It's almost as if some mmo players are difficult to please.

We're used to eating the finest dry aged perfectly seared prime strip steak. It's downright delectable. Thing is, we've had the same steak every night for the past 7 years. It keeps getting better every 2 years or so, but it's still the same steak. Delicious, absolutely fucking tasty beyond belief, but we'd love some variety. A palate-cleanser, if you will.

What I'd really love is to get away from steak entirely and nosh on a nice dish of lobster thermidor. But if it's gotta be steak (and it really, really seems like it does) you'd better put some motherfucking DELICIOUS steer on that table or I will walk away.

Rifts serves up a competently cooked supermarket quality USDA Choice ribeye. It's a bit fatty, and I have to cut it off the bone myself, but overall fairly well executed. It doesn't need A1 sauce, lets put it that way, it's pretty tasty. Thing is, it's still a steak, so it's entirely appropriate to compare the ribeye to the strip steak... and it comes up short in almost every way. How do you directly compete with a perfectly cooked dry-aged steak? It takes years to build to that level of consistent execution, and you can't make money doing it without economies of scale anyway.

So lets assume your backers have final control over the menu and they mandate you must serve steak. You know you can't compete with that dry-aged ribeye. Blizzard's steakhouse has been around for years. They have an enormous budget and even better public relations-- they can do no wrong. You know, you know that their steak will be better than yours and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. But you have to serve steak!

Maybe the solution is to focus on the side dishes. How about hash browns fried in goose fat? Creamed spinach with shaved white truffle? Traditional caesar salad built tableside? Make a spectacle of it to take the focus off the steak. Yeah, it's right in the center of the plate, and yeah you're a steakhouse, but your side dishes aren't afterthoughts.

[Hawkbit]

Could you redo that with ice cream flavors please?

[Draegan]

I would prefer different flavors of skittles.

[Lucas]

 

[Margalis]

Is there some sort F13 award for most labored analogy of the year?

[Ratama]

I wasn't aware that anyone SHOULD be optimistic about Rift's PvP. Is it remotely a main thrust of the game? At least I haven't seen it presented as such.

So he's basically being "that guy".

God, I hope not.

It's actually Trion's devs that came out and said that they intend their PvP to be more accessible and less scary for the average player (than WoW's PvP, I'm guessing).

Just saying that much of their game design in general, and recent PvP-oriented changes particularly, run in the face of that statement.

Also, sam's analogy ftw; they're not going to out-PvE WoW.  If they're counting on that to keep subs, then they're fucked.

[Ghambit]

"Boorsube," Faeblight, Defiant.
Giant Rogue of asshatery.    /friend

[Margalis]

I don't want to kill 6 bears and collect their uterii unless there's neat scripting justifying it like WoW:Cataclysm or a fully voiced story with branching responses and decisions like SWTOR.

Did anyone else find this incredibly sad?

For all his talk about amazing steak what sam is really saying is that he's perfectly happy with rancid liver and onions as long it's drowned in enough Velveeta to mask the taste.

[Draegan]

I'm live streaming if anyone wants to take a peak.

http://www.own3d.tv/live/11388

[sam, an eggplant]

Like I said, I'd prefer a nice lobster thermidor. Sadly, steakhouses are seen as more profitable.

[Modern Angel]

they're not going to out-PvE WoW.  If they're counting on that to keep subs, then they're fucked.

Why aren't they? I know that the hyper-scripted, cutscene heavy, gated by story content that WoW's become is pretty popular in a lot of quarters but it's not worn well everywhere. A lot of my friends (and I) were ready to stab ourselves to death after Vashjir and Uldum. I'm also not convinced that they've picked things up after the WLK drop off in dungeon quality, though I've been hearing good things about the raids. The five mans in Cataclysm are a bit better but vary widely in quality.

So I think there's plenty room for PvE WoW style with some randomized content and quirky classes mixed in with the standard stuff. Is it 3 million subs or something like that? Christ no, but I certainly think they'll pick up enough to sustain themselves.

[Margalis]

Why aren't they? I know that the hyper-scripted, cutscene heavy, gated by story content that WoW's become is pretty popular in a lot of quarters but it's not worn well everywhere. A lot of my friends (and I) were ready to stab ourselves to death after Vashjir and Uldum.

I don't think that's an isolated opinion. With WotLK I saw basically nothing but universal praise for the questing. With Cata I've seen a significant number of complaints about the things you're talking about. From the perspective of someone who does not play WOW this is the most negative response I've seen to an expansion.

[Hoax]

I don't want to kill 6 bears and collect their uterii unless there's neat scripting justifying it like WoW:Cataclysm or a fully voiced story with branching responses and decisions like SWTOR.

Did anyone else find this incredibly sad?

For all his talk about amazing steak what sam is really saying is that he's perfectly happy with rancid liver and onions as long it's drowned in enough Velveeta to mask the taste.

I fucking love you man.

[Lantyssa]

I don't think that's an isolated opinion. With WotLK I saw basically nothing but universal praise for the questing. With Cata I've seen a significant number of complaints about the things you're talking about. From the perspective of someone who does not play WOW this is the most negative response I've seen to an expansion.

Fully agree.

Also Trion seems to be doing something you don't see often in other betas... the fundamentals seem down pretty well, but they're testing the range of options.  They're actually making use of the beta to look at player behavior.