Rift: Planes of Telara

[Ghambit]

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.

This.
One of the few betas I've been in where they dont spend the majority of time working out game engine or server-side bugs.

Speaking of balance and 'range of options' btw.  Anyone else find the "threat" mechanics a bit softcore?  I rolled a riftwalker-saboteur-ranger and I just cant fathom how I can lay that much DPS and not grab threat from my pet.  For those who arent testing, this build is essentially a Ninja who shoots exploding arrows (at 25+ yards no less; oh and you're slowed and DOTed and if you bring friends it's AOE as well) at hapless foes who simultaneously must fend off his raging boar-rhinoceros thing.  Even if they make it past my pet, they run into a hurricane of comboed pointed blade attacks if they make it into melee range.

[Hawkbit]

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.

Just chiming in that I'm in this group of players.  I had a ton of fun questing in WotLK and had a fair amount of fun in the dungeons.  While I do like some parts of Cata, if it weren't for my dad and brother playing, I'd drop my sub and not look back.  It's too homogenized for my liking.  While I do give Blizzard credit for all the design changes they put out there, I just don't think this one is a winner.

RIFT has a pretty nice balance of PvE that I hope they retain.  I *like* the questing as-is, as well as the rift groups. 

[Draegan]

I've got a Dev Tracker up and running on my site if anyone needs it for any reason.

[Sky]

Some nice changes in. They've really pushed forward the whole rift/foothold/invasion mechanic with each beta event (this time around there are raid mobs and upgradable wardstones, new foothold mechanics). Not to mention a ton of soul overhauling.

Just puttering around on my cleric, mostly hoping f13 people might actually show up :P Spent an hour or so with a posse I put together chasing some guardians that got frisky. Pure healer (Sent/Pur/Warden, mostly Sentinel) but the combination of healing (two instant; one direct and one HoT) and instant firepower (two instant nukes and one instant dot) made for a surprisingly good pvp build.

Needs to be better tools for breaking a rogue's stealth, I guess my dot was doing the job but one rogue I was chasing got away twice.

[Spiff]

Speaking of balance and 'range of options' btw.  Anyone else find the "threat" mechanics a bit softcore?  I rolled a riftwalker-saboteur-ranger and I just cant fathom how I can lay that much DPS and not grab threat from my pet.

That rogue boar feels incredibly powerful in PvE yeah, I threw in ranger as a "I dunno what I want for 3d soul" with my assassin build and he basically tanks 2-3 mobs while I backstab 'em to death. Problem I think is you get so much power out of the tree at the start (best pet without a single point).

I'll be very interested to see their approach to balance, because with those extra points and some of the changes they made to the trees they've started on a slippery slope.
I've glimpsed some borderline godmode builds in this beta-phase.

[Malakili]

Speaking of balance and 'range of options' btw.  Anyone else find the "threat" mechanics a bit softcore?  I rolled a riftwalker-saboteur-ranger and I just cant fathom how I can lay that much DPS and not grab threat from my pet.

That rogue boar feels incredibly powerful in PvE yeah, I threw in ranger as a "I dunno what I want for 3d soul" with my assassin build and he basically tanks 2-3 mobs while I backstab 'em to death. Problem I think is you get so much power out of the tree at the start (best pet without a single point).

I'll be very interested to see their approach to balance, because with those extra points and some of the changes they made to the trees they've started on a slippery slope.
I've glimpsed some borderline godmode builds in this beta-phase.

I seem to remember Hartsman saying somewhere (maybe here?) something along the lines of "yea, some builds are going to be really powerful, doesn't that sound fun?"

Found it, not quite as dismissive of balance as I made it out to be:

"We fully expect that people will discover new and exciting things that never occurred to us, and that's ok... that's part of the fun.  We're not trying to overbalance everything and make everyone feel exactly the same."

[Zetor]

I think many souls are very powerful even if you put no points in the tree. Picking dominator as a tertiary soul for my character gave me a 'polymorph' spell that made soloing a ton easier (for double / pet pulls) and improved my group viability a LOT by giving me a reliable CC (yeah, fear 'can' act as crowd control, but it's way too risky).

Compared to that, picking archon as a secondary soul was kinda blah. It got me an extra dot that increases my vitality when I cast it (this is actually a bad thing with lifetap, since the hp lost scales with max hp), and a nuke that steals some stats from an enemy (I guess this is kinda ok).

[Draegan]

Every calling has some pretty good 0pt abilities.

Mage:
Necromancer - Pet
Elementalist - Pet
Dominator - Polymorph
Chloromancer - Heal Proc

Warrior:
Champion - Charge
Riftblade - Weapon Proc
Beastmaster - Pet

Rogue:
Ranger - Pet
Assassin - Weapon Proc (poison)

Cleric:
Warden - HOT
Druid - Pet that heals
Sentinel - Instant Cast Heal
Shaman - Weapon Proc
Purifier - Self-Only Shield

[Hawkbit]

I went Paladin/Warlord/Reaver this time around and it's solid.  At lvl 11 I can comfortably take 3 mobs, 4 if all goes well.  The Paladin/Reaver combo seems very strong for tanking, as the reaver DoTs keep building threat.  It's not often that someone pulls a mob from me in a rift.  And I don't even have decent threat abilities yet. 

I really, really like that I can put points in another soul without sacrificing points in my main tree.  Having a lot of fun! 

[Draegan]

I really, really like that I can put points in another soul without sacrificing points in my main tree.  Having a lot of fun! 

Yeah that's pretty good.

A cool thing happened to me last night in one of the level 11-12ish quest hubs while soloing.  All of the sudden two or three Life Invasions charged into the quest area and 5 to 10 of us fended them off.  There was a mixture of elite invasions and regular invasions.  It was chaos but in the end we gained a ton of experience and it was incredibly fun.

Took a breather and then all of the sudden...

A Life Invasion, a Fire Invasion and a Defiant Invasion all came at us in the space of 30 seconds.  It was a four way melee.  Life vs. Fire vs. Defiant vs. Us.  These were all NPCs and Guardian PCs.

Oh the glory of mass confusion. 

This whole experience lasted maybe 10-15 minutes?  I gained more than half a level and got a few shiny bits from rewards.

Upgrading the Wardstones are pretty awesome.  They start off has normal blue crystal things, then you get one gargoyle turret (they graphic needs help imo) then you get a second one, then you get a floating angel above the stone and it gives you a 20% damage redux buff and a 20% damage increase buff.

[Tarami]

Who's the cockmunch who decided that the rare planar weapons should cost 10 emblems rather than 2 as in last beta?

Rifts/invasions/et cetera - they're not that fun. I can stand doing a few here and there as breaks from the quest grind. I'm not going to grind them too.

[Blackluck]

Upgrading the Wardstones are pretty awesome.  They start off has normal blue crystal things, then you get one gargoyle turret (they graphic needs help imo) then you get a second one, then you get a floating angel above the stone and it gives you a 20% damage redux buff and a 20% damage increase buff.

Upgrading the wardstones? Sorry to sound stupid, but how is this done?

Re costs for the planer items, agreed, way too high, not to mention they're only useful for a handful of levels.
However, I do enjoy running around fighting the rifts as I harvest. Prior to hitting 20 I would do both those and quests, so I never got bored with one or the other.

[Ghambit]

A cool thing happened to me last night in one of the level 11-12ish quest hubs while soloing.  All of the sudden two or three Life Invasions charged into the quest area and 5 to 10 of us fended them off.  There was a mixture of elite invasions and regular invasions.  It was chaos but in the end we gained a ton of experience and it was incredibly fun.

Took a breather and then all of the sudden...

A Life Invasion, a Fire Invasion and a Defiant Invasion all came at us in the space of 30 seconds.  It was a four way melee.  Life vs. Fire vs. Defiant vs. Us.  These were all NPCs and Guardian PCs.

Oh the glory of mass confusion.  

This whole experience lasted maybe 10-15 minutes?  I gained more than half a level and got a few shiny bits from rewards.

Upgrading the Wardstones are pretty awesome.  They start off has normal blue crystal things, then you get one gargoyle turret (they graphic needs help imo) then you get a second one, then you get a floating angel above the stone and it gives you a 20% damage redux buff and a 20% damage increase buff.

What?  FML, I havent even fooled with the wardstones yet aside from destroying them and/or calling in reinforcements.

Hartsman's right about not wanting to gimp the crazy builds people are coming up with.  I had a shitton of fun last night with my porting-giant-bomberman-ninja build.  The Bhaami racial plays right into the rogue class and the ranger's sniping+pet means the enemy is half dead before you even toss a single bomb or blade combo.  Things get dicey?  Toss a slow bomb and Port away...heh.  All this before even reaching level 10.   Crazy.

Feels like the Diku-Fantasy version of ChampO only with meaningful stats.  And yah, I feel more "Ascended" now.

[Draegan]

Upgrading the wardstones? Sorry to sound stupid, but how is this done?

There's an item I got from rewards of quests and other rifts that you can target your own wardstone and it buffs it.

[AutomaticZen]

Faeblight, Defiant side. Bat Country charter started. I'm rolling with my cleric Kamata from beta 1 with a dps and heal role set up.

Use the teamspeak server! Info stickied in MMO forum.

I only work a couple hours this week, so I'll be on a bit to PL people if they want. Be nice to do a couple f13 dungeon runs before this beta cycle is over and get people prepped for next beta cycle with some level 20s.

Life struck (not in a bad way, just busy) and took my game time away, but soon I shall return, and I see a few beta emails in my inbox already.  Keen.

[sam, an eggplant]

Hartsman's right about not wanting to gimp the crazy builds people are coming up with.

The day will come when he bitterly regrets saying that. Bigtime.

He probably already does.

[Malakili]

Hartsman's right about not wanting to gimp the crazy builds people are coming up with.

The day will come when he bitterly regrets saying that. Bigtime.

He probably already does.

I think this is sad but true.  If there is one things the extreme ease of respecing + changing souls is going to do it is that flavor of the month builds are going to be extremely common.  That may or may not be a bad thing, but there will definitely be ways to gimp yourself, and ways to make yourself very powerful, and thats walking a fine line.  Last game I tried with that possibility was Champions Online, and I think a lot of people just ended up quitting because the hero they wanted to make sucked compared to the heros they didn't.  Granted...CO had a lot of other problems RIft seems to be avoiding.

[Sky]

Every calling has some pretty good 0pt abilities.

Question is, how do they scale at later levels. The boar might be awesome for the 1-20 game we're seeing, but deeper in the trees are other pets and Greater versions, leading me to believe that a 0pt pet at level 50 won't be nearly as effective as a 0pt pet at 20.

As far as gimping builds, every beta event I've run with a different build because the previous one was nerfed :p The nerf bat is in full effect, so take Hartsman's quote with a grain, he's not going to let some comment he made stand in the way of making the game he's trying to make.

Who's the cockmunch who decided that the rare planar weapons should cost 10 emblems rather than 2 as in last beta?

Rifts/invasions/et cetera - they're not that fun. I can stand doing a few here and there as breaks from the quest grind. I'm not going to grind them too.

I was thinking the same thing last night. We killed a raid boss rift, I got a second emblem and rushed off to the vendor...10? For a level 13 item that's not even as good as the level 20 stuff I have, including some greens? PFFT!

[Spiff]

I was thinking the same thing last night. We killed a raid boss rift, I got a second emblem and rushed off to the vendor...10? For a level 13 item that's not even as good as the level 20 stuff I have, including some greens? PFFT!

Pretty sure someone messed up on those rewards for this beta tbh, there was just one bow and only warriors could use it and some sort of hammer with +wisdom that again only warriors could use (iirc).

I've been looking more into those rift specific consumables you get as well and there's some fun ones; one that allows you to call in NPC reinforcements at an enemy foothold for instance.
They are cluttering up my bags something awful though.

[Draegan]

The zero point pets, for example, don't level passed 30.  Soooo once you're 35 they're useless.  Great leveling tool though.

[sam, an eggplant]

The nerf bat is in full effect, so take Hartsman's quote with a grain, he's not going to let some comment he made stand in the way of making the game he's trying to make.

Obviously. So why say it?

Players are going to quote that line back to his CM team on an hourly basis until the heat death of the universe.

[Nija]

I knew that I wasn't this games target audience when I accepted and installed and whatnot. I knew that it was a complete WoW clone. I really did know exactly what I was getting into.

I wasn't prepared for how badly it would bug me, though. Seeing a blue item linked in chat and seeing that it has +spellpower on it was pretty much the final straw. I'm no IP lawyer, but damn.

NOTHX. Enjoy.

[Sky]

Probably my biggest problem with the game, as well. I don't like WoW.

[Threash]

Yeah, that's kind of a big one there. 

[Malakili]

Probably my biggest problem with the game, as well. I don't like WoW.

Funny thing is, in spite of that its really close to doing something interesting anyway.  I just wish it was more viable to get off the quest treadmill.  I made it to 15 in the last beta and only 13 this time, before just wanting to put the game down altogether, thats not the best sign.

[Threash]

Probably my biggest problem with the game, as well. I don't like WoW.

Funny thing is, in spite of that its really close to doing something interesting anyway.  I just wish it was more viable to get off the quest treadmill.  I made it to 15 in the last beta and only 13 this time, before just wanting to put the game down altogether, thats not the best sign.

Well i love the game but i feel the same way.  Doing the newbie grind over and over is pretty much the best way to burn out on a game fast.  I keep rerolling to try new stuff and frankly i'm sick of it by now, i think i'm done until launch.

[Malakili]

Probably my biggest problem with the game, as well. I don't like WoW.

Funny thing is, in spite of that its really close to doing something interesting anyway.  I just wish it was more viable to get off the quest treadmill.  I made it to 15 in the last beta and only 13 this time, before just wanting to put the game down altogether, thats not the best sign.

Well i love the game but i feel the same way.  Doing the newbie grind over and over is pretty much the best way to burn out on a game fast.  I keep rerolling to try new stuff and frankly i'm sick of it by now, i think i'm done until launch.

I've only done it twice, so it isn't as if I've done it 20 times and am now sick of it.  I think its more than unless the game changes drastically over level 20, I've played this game before, and I just can't bring myself to do it again.

[Modern Angel]

There's plenty that's just straight lifted. Like I said, it's a clone in very blatant ways that other games have at least tried to have the pretense of being different. +spellpower. Items are Soulbound. Flasks by a different name.

[Azuredream]

I'm getting excited about this game because I DO like WoW, and it'd be fun to play something with near-WoW quality and is similar but wasn't.. you know, WoW.

[Chimpy]

Seeing a blue item linked in chat and seeing that it has +spellpower on it was pretty much the final straw. I'm no IP lawyer, but damn.

Perfect use for my term "Brain Power" IMO!

[Raguel]

I'm really torn. On the one hand I love the soul/class system and the Rift Raid at around midnight was pretty fun; on the other hand the pve in general is just awful.

I found it ironic that one of the quests was named "Trials of Ascension". For those that don't know, there was a mmorpg in development (now canned) by the same name. The devs wanted to create a truly unique game; unfortunately, their talents/founding didn't match their aspirations.

[Ghambit]

I chalk Rift up to being that super-polished trimmed down MMO that wont require too much "Life" input to play.  It's the casual-MMO that's brainy enough to inspire a few minmaxers and loreboys out there.
So those folks who wanted WoW, but not AS MUCH as WoW, this is probably the game for you.  Leveling is faster, more machine-like, quest hubs and towns are compact, and the Rifts keep you on your toes during the monotonous times.

So if they price the game right it'll be a fine buy.  If they want big money, frankly I dont see the "oomph" that'd justify it.  Game just isn't grandiose enough, and at the higher pricepoints I may as well play AoC.

What WOULD justify a high pricepoint??  More server-side magic that's what.  More on-the-fly gamemastering along with more effect on the gameworld, etc.  People will pay for a well designed, small game that's actively GMed.  They wont for just a plain ol' small game.

[Modern Angel]

Except they're billing it as a game for veteran MMO players and it's not as casual as WoW.

[Tarami]

Help me out here, what's the point of the rifts? Yeah, I go around whack generic mobs for a while, then get some generic loot... what's the leverage? What's the twist that supposedly makes this fun for more than a week? Because I'm seriously not seeing it, no matter how much people keep telling me "it's awesome!"

[Malakili]

Help me out here, what's the point of the rifts? Yeah, I go around whack generic mobs for a while, then get some generic loot... what's the leverage? What's the twist that supposedly makes this fun for more than a week? Because I'm seriously not seeing it, no matter how much people keep telling me "it's awesome!"

Well the standard randomly spawning PQ thing is kind of take it or leave it.  The really big events are awesome though, where the whole zone gets invaded, there are rifts and footholds and invasion forces everywhere.  That is legitimately neat and worth seeing.  Unfortunately, it seems such a rare event that the rest of the generic questing hardly seems worth enduring.