Rift: Planes of Telara

[Modern Angel]

Or that there are more abilities granted in the first half of the trees, including nice passives, than the latter half.  Specs can be viable by splitting or by concentrating.

Oh I think there's a lot of latitude in secondary and tertiary specs, which is where the design part really comes into play. But people are going to need to go 31 into a tree. I've already listed examples which you can tell at a glance are necessary, though Draegan unfortunately never rebutted it after contending that there were no "required" 31 pointers.

[Draegan]

I will define them right now if you define what situation we're using these specs for; i.e. PVP or PVE (group, raid, solo).

[El Gallo]

I assume there is respeccing or dual-speccing here, but that it's limited to within one archetype.  I.e., there's some way for me to switch my warrior from a reaver/beastmaster/warlord to a paragon/paladin/void knight, but no way to switch to any kind of cleric or mage build.

[Modern Angel]

I will define them right now if you define what situation we're using these specs for; i.e. PVP or PVE (group, raid, solo).

I basically always mean PvE. PvP is a lot more fluid.

[Nebu]

Of course they are.

In many games, you can turn off the ability of others to inspect anything more than your class.  I happen to like this as it forces communication.  I'm also one of those people that likes to know as little as possible to promote immersion.  Name and primary class is sufficient for me.

[Lantyssa]

Talking about viable specs at endgame is either NDA breaking, or pointless faffling with nothing to back you up. Either is a bad thing.

All the abilities are visible in the soul trees.  My highest character is 15.  I'm extrapolating based on existing play and what we do know.  So it's not entirely pointless faffling.  Only mostly.

[Simond]

Meanwhile, Trion's server farm is currently melting a path to the Earth's core. 

[Draegan]

I will define them right now if you define what situation we're using these specs for; i.e. PVP or PVE (group, raid, solo).

I basically always mean PvE. PvP is a lot more fluid.

Ok, I'm also assuming you're in a group/raid because in the end, any solo build is just for you,  Who cares since you call what is necessary or not..  I'll do the Rogue Calling First:

Assassin: Slip Away - Re-enter stealth in combat, remove snares.  2 min cooldown.  
>>>Cooldown is too high to make it useful in a group/raid environment.  Pretty good if you're soloing though.

Bard: Virtuoso - All Codas don't consume energy/combo points. 3 minute CD
>>>Ok this one is pretty badass.

Blade Dancer - Melee ranged channeled AOE. 2 minute cooldown
>>>2 minute cooldown makes it fun once in a while, but not really reliable.

Marksman - Strafe - Channeled damage spell that you can use while moving and you are not snarable. 1m CD
>>>More of a PVP ability than anything else.  It seems DPS can be higher using 4 single attack shots and since you're channeling you're not auto attacking either.

Ranger - Blood Raptor - New pet
>>>Pets are squishy.  Someone should test these guys during beta.  The Shadow pet is almost twice as good as the wolf dps wise.

Night Blade - Dusk to Dawn - DD channeled spell 1m CD
>>> See BD/MM reasoning.  Longer cooldown, more damage likely with autoattack and other damage abilities.

Rift Stalker - Planar Switch - switches over combo points from one target to another.  10s CD
>>> Could be useful during trash packs perhaps.  I don't see it as completely necessary.

Saboteur - Land Mines - New Trap
>>> I don't see this being good enough to use on any basis outside PVP perhaps.  The other Sab traps are meh in any case.

--------

End result, outside the Bards 31pt ability (which is still situational due to the CD), I don't see anything else that is really necessary at all and better off spent getting 1% more damage or whatever.


Edit:
Pulling all info from here: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html

[Nebu]

Assassin: Slip Away - Re-enter stealth in combat, remove snares.  2 min cooldown.  
>>>Cooldown is too high to make it useful in a group/raid environment.  Pretty good if you're soloing though.

While I know that you were discussing raid/pve, this looks like a pretty powerful pvp power. In that case, I think the cooldown should be longer.   Along that vein, knowing that Rifts has both stealth and pvp is a real disappointment.

I see many of the other powers as more of a pvp focus as well, which is a shame.  MMOs really need to decide on a focus (pve vs pvp) and balance for it.  If the game is pve first, then let the pvp people whine their hearts out... the game isn't built for them.

[Draegan]

Two minutes is an eternity in PVP.  It's quite long enough.  I think it's probably an awesome ability to use for solo questing/farming too.  A nice oh shit button.

[Modern Angel]

I'll quote what I said initially because it's relevant:

Druid, Justicar, Purifier, Sentinel, Shaman, probably Warden, Archon, Elementalist, Chloromancer for raids only, Pyromancer, Necromancer...

I don't think I need to hit the other two classes to make the point. Just because I still have it open, Lich Form for the Necromancer? A 2 minute cooldown transformation which gives you 30sec of 20% more mana regen, 20% more damage and 30% more pet damage? TWO MINUTES? If you don't think that's far and away necessary in that tree for group content of any size (assuming you go Necromancer at all) you're wrong. I don't have to even see the content to know you're wrong because that's absurdly good.

Or Justicar, at random. A five minute cooldown battle rez which returns the target to 100% life? That may not be sexy but every raid or serious PvP group in the game better bring that.

EDIT: Glancing through the other classes most of the melee ones are not so hot. But that Bard capstone is absurd.

So yes, maintaining that the melee ones aren't so hot but caster ones are almost universally absurd.

A couple quibbles, however.

1) Ranger: With the sheer number of pet damage increases that 31 point pet is probably going to be necessary.

2) All the two minute cooldown abilities. You're calling those long cooldowns. Those are extremely *short* cooldowns by any prior game's definition and, since Rift isn't treading new territory with the actual abilities themselves, will probably be the same here. Some of those abilities last 30ish seconds, giving you a downtime of only 1:30ish. For comparison, class/spec defining abilities in WoW are invariably longer than two minutes with a good handful at two minutes. Just because I play one, you wouldn't be telling fire mages not to bring new Combustion because two minutes is too long a cooldown.

EDIT: On that return to stealth ability, that's amazing *if* the class revolves primarily around stealth dependent damage abilities. Which I'm unsure of.

[Nebu]

Two minutes is an eternity in PVP.  It's quite long enough.  I think it's probably an awesome ability to use for solo questing/farming too.  A nice oh shit button.

I played a stealther in DAoC for over 5 years.  I know.  If powers like this are up too often, they provides a huge power advantage for stealth.  That's my point... stealth is a very difficult thing to balance.  Stealthers already have initiative.  Allowing them easy escape on the back end adds to their power as well.

[Nebu]

2) All the two minute cooldown abilities. You're calling those long cooldowns. Those are extremely *short* cooldowns by any prior game's definition and, sense Rift isn't treading new territory with the actual abilities themselves, will probably be the same here. Some of those abilities last 30ish seconds, giving you a downtime of only 1:30ish. For comparison, class/spec defining abilities in WoW are invariably longer than two minutes with a good handful at two minutes. Just because I play one, you wouldn't be telling fire mages not to bring new Combustion because two minutes is too long a cooldown.

I agree.  Powerful abilities should be very tactical in their use.  If the reuse timer is too short, they just get spammed when up.  Make the cooldown something like 10 minutes and they start requiring thought and planning.

[Modern Angel]

Well there's two ways to go with that which is short term cooldown juggling, where the cooldowns usually work in conjunction with your other abilities, or long cooldown game breakers. Either is fine and they're not the same.

[Nebu]

I think having shorter cooldowns in pve is fine depending on how you balance your encounters.  In pvp, they can be game-breaking.  That's kind of my point in saying that having both pve and pvp in a game is a very demanding choice to make in terms of balance. 

[Modern Angel]

Oh, right. Different thrust from the PvE discussion. I completely agree, though the pacing feels about like WoW's PvP, ie that two minute cooldown ability is a "once per life" thing.

[Draegan]

I'll quote what I said initially because it's relevant:

Druid, Justicar, Purifier, Sentinel, Shaman, probably Warden, Archon, Elementalist, Chloromancer for raids only, Pyromancer, Necromancer...

I don't think I need to hit the other two classes to make the point. Just because I still have it open, Lich Form for the Necromancer? A 2 minute cooldown transformation which gives you 30sec of 20% more mana regen, 20% more damage and 30% more pet damage? TWO MINUTES? If you don't think that's far and away necessary in that tree for group content of any size (assuming you go Necromancer at all) you're wrong. I don't have to even see the content to know you're wrong because that's absurdly good.

Or Justicar, at random. A five minute cooldown battle rez which returns the target to 100% life? That may not be sexy but every raid or serious PvP group in the game better bring that.

EDIT: Glancing through the other classes most of the melee ones are not so hot. But that Bard capstone is absurd.

So yes, maintaining that the melee ones aren't so hot but caster ones are almost universally absurd.

A couple quibbles, however.

1) Ranger: With the sheer number of pet damage increases that 31 point pet is probably going to be necessary.

2) All the two minute cooldown abilities. You're calling those long cooldowns. Those are extremely *short* cooldowns by any prior game's definition and, since Rift isn't treading new territory with the actual abilities themselves, will probably be the same here. Some of those abilities last 30ish seconds, giving you a downtime of only 1:30ish. For comparison, class/spec defining abilities in WoW are invariably longer than two minutes with a good handful at two minutes. Just because I play one, you wouldn't be telling fire mages not to bring new Combustion because two minutes is too long a cooldown.

EDIT: On that return to stealth ability, that's amazing *if* the class revolves primarily around stealth dependent damage abilities. Which I'm unsure of.

The assassin has a few stealth abilities but they don't hit very hard or do so much damage.  The stun is nice however.

As for the Ranger I don't see any huge pet increases.  You'll have to test it.  Pets are squishy though and die easily to elite invaders.  I can't imagine how they would hold up in a raid environment.  Probably like old WOW hunter pets dieing a lot.

For Justicar, yes that 31 pt ability is very nice.  How much potential are you losing by having someone go Justicar just for that?  Their healing and dps appears to be subpar just by reading the numbers on the attacks.  We'll have to see how they scale.

There are some nice cooldowns that you might be able to use once or twice a fight, I'll give you that.  But how much are you losing by going that high up in the tree where you could potentially be spending more points in another tree?  For example say the 2nd and third highest tier are mediocre but the last tier is excellent.  That's 10 filler points right there.  Sometimes those 10 points in the first part of a tree can mean 5% crit and 5% damage across the board.

It's a balancing act for sure.  It'll make for an interesting theorycrafting game.

[Modern Angel]

Re: Justicar. Most of that stuff is contingent on someone going Class X in the first place, which is way beyond what we can do right now. But if you're bringing a Justicar, yeah, you probably want that battle rez.

[Draegan]

Re: Justicar. Most of that stuff is contingent on someone going Class X in the first place, which is way beyond what we can do right now. But if you're bringing a Justicar, yeah, you probably want that battle rez.

I'd rather have a Sentinel spec 32 pts in for their battle res (10 minute CD) because you are probably bringing one to the raid/group anyway since they are one of the three main healer souls.

[Sky]

Or both.

I still think not separating out pvp and pve rulesets (ala EQ2, some skills work differently in pve or pvp) is a horrid idea.

[Hawkbit]

Daaammmnn... 4xAA and Ultra looks freaking awesome.  Too bad it brings my card to its knees.

[Hoax]

I may play during this beta event that started today, I'm on Harrow playing Defiant. Hit me up on steam if interested, only west coast (-8) prime times though.

[trias_e]

This game is shockingly like Warhammer Online for the first 10 levels, in terms of the barebones WoW-light questing scheme and public questing.  Warhammer Online was pretty fun for the first 10 levels, so this isn't a terrible thing necessarily, but it's bringing back all sorts of bad memories.

The class system is a joy to play with and makes me oh so happy.  My Marksman/Riftstalker/Bard is just hilariously awesome.  He circle strafes mobs with his speed buffs, and then blasts them with music if forced to melee.  And can blink.  So cool.

[Hoax]

My day 1 verdict? I'd pay $5/month to see where this goes, I'm a maybe at $10/month. Sadly I'm just not in the demographic that is willing to buy a MMO (which is at best a work in progress) for $50 for the privileged to play the first 30 days. I'd pay $5 to play it for a month without hesitation but what would I be paying $50 for exactly on steam? Your not selling me anything but the month of gametime and that is worth by the most generous estimates $15.

My other major thought was just wow this feels like EQ1, I felt soooooo slow and the animations (especially jump) felt so labored. I kept wanting to beg for a SOW so I could stand traveling from place to place. My camera panning also felt really bad, not smooth at all not sure if that was my end or their end. I wasn't getting any other performance failures even as I cranked the settings up and up though nowhere near the game's potential maximum I'm sure.

[Hawkbit]

EDIT:  It's too early for this shit....  :/

[Nebu]

EDIT:  It's too early for this shit....  :/

I don't think so.  What you're seeing in beta now is likely pretty close to what we'll all see at release. 

The way I see it with this game is that if it's only a wee bit different from WoW, then most people will play it like Aion/WAR.  It will sell a bunch of boxes and entertain them for a few months.  If anyone is going to take significant numbers in a subscription model, they're going to have to offer something either substantially better or substantially different from WoW.  Else, the game becomes a short-term diversion. 

[trias_e]

My day 1 verdict? I'd pay $5/month to see where this goes, I'm a maybe at $10/month. Sadly I'm just not in the demographic that is willing to buy a MMO (which is at best a work in progress) for $50 for the privileged to play the first 30 days. I'd pay $5 to play it for a month without hesitation but what would I be paying $50 for exactly on steam? Your not selling me anything but the month of gametime and that is worth by the most generous estimates $15.

My other major thought was just wow this feels like EQ1, I felt soooooo slow and the animations (especially jump) felt so labored. I kept wanting to beg for a SOW so I could stand traveling from place to place. My camera panning also felt really bad, not smooth at all not sure if that was my end or their end. I wasn't getting any other performance failures even as I cranked the settings up and up though nowhere near the game's potential maximum I'm sure.

I'm not sure if you played a big race, and while it's true in any MMO, in this game it seems doubly so for some reason:  Don't pick the biggest race.  Nothing like your perception being skewed due to the camera being higher off the ground.  There's a big difference between the smaller races and the big race for the defiant in terms of movement speed perception for me.  First thing I did was make a big defiant dude, and the first thing I thought was "Damn, I move insanely slow".  I was happier once I switched to a smaller race, although I still felt I moved a bit too slowly.  Then I picked Marksman/bard so I could improve move speed, and life was good.

I don't see how I could play a role with no soul with movement speed buffs in this game though to be honest.  

[Hawkbit]

For me, being a six-year WoW player, ranging in periods of catass to casual, this last WoW expansion put me off.  Now I was somewhat interested in RIFT before all this Cata crap went down, but now RIFT is looking to take my main MMO spot because it reminds me of older WoW play, but not all Catajunked up.  I can't be the only one feeling this way. 

[Malakili]

EDIT:  It's too early for this shit....  :/

I don't think so.  What you're seeing in beta now is likely pretty close to what we'll all see at release. 

The way I see it with this game is that if it's only a wee bit different from WoW, then most people will play it like Aion/WAR.  It will sell a bunch of boxes and entertain them for a few months.  If anyone is going to take significant numbers in a subscription model, they're going to have to offer something either substantially better or substantially different from WoW.  Else, the game becomes a short-term diversion. 

I think that sums it up well.  Basically the thing that stopped me in my tracks from caring about this game was sometime about an hour or two in to the first time I tested it and thought "why would I buy this instead of Cataclysm?"   The rift things got me briefly excited again, but it got old fast, and then I was left with a WoW-alike in which I didn't already have an established character or guild to go back to if I wanted.   Easy call.

[Hawkbit]

As to the issue of speed, while it felt slow in 1-20, when I got my mount at 60% speed, it felt a lot better.  Honestly, it wouldn't hurt them to give the 60% speed mount at lvl 1, but w/e.  

[Shatter]

Im rolling bard, 15% run speed around level 11.  Even with that I feel slow :(

[Threash]

I didn't feel any slower than in other games.

[kildorn]

It only feels slow to me in that without a mount or fast travel options, the first large zones take ages to hunt down rifts in, and are too fond of giving out backtracking quests.

So you can easily run across the same open fields a few dozen times in a play session.

[Shatter]

I didn't feel any slower than in other games.

It does to me only because in other games I have a speed enhancement of some kind whether its mount, etc.  If I were to go back to before I had that I would agree.  I think I have just become spoiled but the run speed in Rift isnt going to stop me from playing, especially since I get my pre-order mount at 20.  Does anyone know if you attack someone on a mount do they become dismounted or can you fight while on the mount(I'm assuming not)? 

[Hawkbit]

No mounted fighting, and in fact most times there's very little damage taken before being dismounted.  I ran through some grey cons and got dismounted on the first one...