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Author Topic: Gripes, complaints and irritations.  (Read 250691 times)
Paelos
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Reply #315 on: March 17, 2011, 04:50:09 PM

Well i tried it both ways and the way it is now is much better.  Yes, it was that important, the other way sucked horribly.

I can't see how getting a third soul at 20 would suck horribly. Hell I can't see how a third soul is all that useful period, but whatever. All I was saying was that getting it after playing for an hour was very confusing. It's not like I couldn't handle it, but I had no idea what all this shit was for and if it all did the same crap. Also, there's the ever-present fear of a new player that YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG OH NOES!

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Threash
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Reply #316 on: March 17, 2011, 04:52:45 PM

The other way was like removing rifts from low level zones.  There is two things this game has going for it and they, along with most of their playerbase during beta, figured it was better to expose players to it as early as possible.

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Paelos
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Reply #317 on: March 17, 2011, 05:04:20 PM

The other way was like removing rifts from low level zones.  There is two things this game has going for it and they, along with most of their playerbase during beta, figured it was better to expose players to it as early as possible.

Yeah and I got that at like level 3 or something when I got the second soul. I was like cool!

Then in 20 minutes I got another one and I went, woah hey, slow the fuck down, I haven't figured out my bars yet!

I think maybe level 10 I would have been more comfortable with it. Maybe that's where it is now? I have no idea.

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Count Nerfedalot
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Reply #318 on: March 17, 2011, 05:38:34 PM

New Gripe:  Having all the planar consumables on the same timer makes them essentially useless.  You gotta save your highest level ones for oh shit moments meaning you rarely use them, and you can toss off a lower level one for extra giggles in fights where it doesn't matter anyway.  So they end up largely useless wastes of inventory and hotkey space.

And having the planar drops on the same cooldown as the stock mana/health potions is doubly annoying, for the above reasons all over again PLUS duplicated effects.

It was an interesting attempt to copy the ? mechanic (i forget what them clicky disk thingies were called, effects?) from CoH, but as of yet it's far more of an annoyance than a plus for the game.


Old Gripes renewed: They STILL haven't gotten rid of the goddamned debuff mobs give you when you get hit from behind while moving, and they STILL haven't made it possible to run from more than two or three mobs, today's aggro range tweak notwithstanding.  The first also seriously impedes tactics like running to the healer to get the mob off him or gathering up three or four mobs to fight at once.  The second means you are screwed with no chance ever of surviving if you get adds during a close fight or round a corner and run into one of those elite invasion forces.  Unless you stick to "safe" (ie boring) areas you are overpowered for.  Punishing risk taking and rewarding un-fun overcautious play is not the path to increasing retention.

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Threash
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Reply #319 on: March 17, 2011, 05:52:32 PM

Hell my gripe is getting those stupid consumables in the first place, ive never not sold them straight to the vendor.  For oh shit moments i use a health potion, the minor buffs those things give in no way justify giving up the precious bag space.

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Reply #320 on: March 17, 2011, 06:41:46 PM

Yeah, I just vendor them.  I may save a few if they weren't on potion timers, but as it is it's just a little extra cash.

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Abelian75
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Reply #321 on: March 17, 2011, 07:00:43 PM

Well i tried it both ways and the way it is now is much better.  Yes, it was that important, the other way sucked horribly.

I can't see how getting a third soul at 20 would suck horribly. Hell I can't see how a third soul is all that useful period, but whatever. All I was saying was that getting it after playing for an hour was very confusing. It's not like I couldn't handle it, but I had no idea what all this shit was for and if it all did the same crap. Also, there's the ever-present fear of a new player that YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG OH NOES!

Yeah, frankly I just don't believe it.  Sorry, I know that's a dick thing to say, but one of the things you can count on players to do is always want more stuff faster.  It may even make them like the game less, but they still won't say they don't want it.  So the fact that seemingly everyone claims that it's so much more awesome having three active souls at level 6 doesn't mean much to me.  You don't really need to hear opinions on this one.  You just think, "Hey, what does it add to the game to have that much complexity at level 6?  Very little.  You don't have enough points to do anything interesting with the three trees by then.  How much does it slow down the learning process?  A lot.  To the point that you are forcing people to cull abilities at level 2 or 3.  Thumbs down."

And it isn't a binary choice anyway.  If 20 was too late for the third soul (again, I am skeptical, since I still do not need my third soul in any of the four specs I currently use at level 43), then make it 15.  Do not adjust the second soul down from 5 to 2, and then put the third at 5.  Just flat out dumb.  Sorry, I know I'm just asserting an opinion at you, and that's sort of a dick move, but things like this are just so fundamental to one's understanding of games it's impossible to debate it, really.  I'm not trying to convince you so much as saying this because frankly I think they need to be called out for it.

And, once again, I feel the need to reassert that I have no issue with gaining 8 souls at the rate you do now.  Just with three active at once happening so early.   I reassert this only because nobody ever comes back with, "No, it wasn't that it sucked having to wait so long to try out all 8 souls.  It was fine not getting 8 souls until level 50.  What sucked is not having three active souls at once until level 20, specifically."  Because frankly I agree that it would suck not being able to play with the souls earlier on, and I think people are assuming those two changes are necessarily connected.  They aren't.

That said, this is totally one of those complaints that actually indicates my profound love for the game in most every other way.  I only get angry about this mistake because I want to know that people trying out the game aren't turned off for some retarded reason.  I don't care about it personally while playing.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 07:02:41 PM by Abelian75 »
veredus
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Reply #322 on: March 17, 2011, 07:34:42 PM

I agree with Threash. It sucked waiting until 20 to get the third soul. I much prefer it this way.
Paelos
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Reply #323 on: March 17, 2011, 07:50:14 PM

I agree with Threash. It sucked waiting until 20 to get the third soul. I much prefer it this way.

Ok so let's delve into that a little. What do you use your third soul for up to 20 now? Do you see a lot more utility in the early levels? How did you spec it out?

I'm curious given I only made it to level 10 on a warrior.

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Threash
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Reply #324 on: March 17, 2011, 07:53:34 PM

My armor randomly goes black sometimes, my gripe is that i wish it stayed that way.

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Draegan
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Reply #325 on: March 17, 2011, 07:54:23 PM

It was actually a change made early in the betas after massive requests and feedback about opening up the main draw of their game up sooner.  Used to be you got to pick between three souls to start, opened up the second on what is now the third soul quest and didn't get the third until level 20 or so.  It blew, this is much better.

Yeah, I, uh, don't believe you.  I mean, I believe you that this what was changed, I do not believe that this was a good change though, or that anyone's experience was enriched by having three souls active at level 6 rather than 20 (I could see pushing it to 15 or so though).


It was asked for universally in alpha and beta.  It's better the way it is.  Who wants to play 5-6 hours before you get your second soul at level 15?


« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 08:05:00 PM by Draegan »
Rendakor
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Reply #326 on: March 17, 2011, 07:56:50 PM

Abelian, I disagree with what you said.

For almost all of my classes the third soul has been a 0p pet soul, that makes early survivability much greater because I now have some form of add control. I leveled my rogue as MM/Bard/0p Ranger to 30 or so; that experience would have been fundamentally different (read: unplayable) if I had to wait until 20 or 15 or whenever-the-fuck to get my pet. I would have had to spec MM/Ranger, dumping points into a tree I had no intent of using (since you get an extra point every third level) only to respec them into what I want to be my second soul when I unlocked it as a third. It's fucking stupid, it was bad design.

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Reply #327 on: March 17, 2011, 08:00:50 PM

My armor randomly goes black sometimes, my gripe is that i wish it stayed that way.

Yah, my warrior looks pretty rad when that color palette weirdness happens.

I agree with Threash. It sucked waiting until 20 to get the third soul. I much prefer it this way.

Ok so let's delve into that a little. What do you use your third soul for up to 20 now? Do you see a lot more utility in the early levels? How did you spec it out?

I'm curious given I only made it to level 10 on a warrior.

On my tanky warrior, that third soul can provide some pretty powerful stock buffs from minute I get it. I can either opt for more magic damage mitigation or being 5% harder to hit in melee. 

While you never sink any significant points in it early on, the third soul provides for some nice flavor and utility.  It's also a nice "well crud, this second soul doesn't work so well with _____ " for ultra noobs.  No need to wait until 13 to decide that perhaps you should get that 0 pt pet.

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Draegan
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Reply #328 on: March 17, 2011, 08:05:07 PM

I agree with Threash. It sucked waiting until 20 to get the third soul. I much prefer it this way.

Ok so let's delve into that a little. What do you use your third soul for up to 20 now? Do you see a lot more utility in the early levels? How did you spec it out?

I'm curious given I only made it to level 10 on a warrior.

As a rogue 0pt that helps:
Assassin - Free poison
Riftstalker - Free blink
Ranger - Free pet
Sab - Free AOE Snare
Blade Dancer - Free Dodge buff

As a cleric 0pt that helps:
DOT, Instant Heal, Shield, Healing Pet

Warrior - I forget
Mage - Necro pet, chloro spores, instant damage, instant dots
Rendakor
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Reply #329 on: March 17, 2011, 08:05:22 PM

I think what the people against getting the soul(s) early don't understand is that most Rift players have played WoW or some other MMO; as a WoW mage (for example) you get several skills early that you will not use all of: Fireball, Arcane Missiles and Frost Bolt. Of those three, you will use whichever one you spec into primarily, and this is not difficult to grasp.

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Reply #330 on: March 17, 2011, 08:14:32 PM

Warrior - I forget

BM - pet
RB - 100% weapon dmg as dot on crits weapon buff
VK - 5% less magic dmg taken
Warlord -  -5% hit chance on enemies around you
pali - 10% block chance melee ability

Paragon, champion and reaver don't really give anything other than their standard melee abilities at 0 points.

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Abelian75
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Reply #331 on: March 17, 2011, 10:04:08 PM

It was actually a change made early in the betas after massive requests and feedback about opening up the main draw of their game up sooner.  Used to be you got to pick between three souls to start, opened up the second on what is now the third soul quest and didn't get the third until level 20 or so.  It blew, this is much better.

Yeah, I, uh, don't believe you.  I mean, I believe you that this what was changed, I do not believe that this was a good change though, or that anyone's experience was enriched by having three souls active at level 6 rather than 20 (I could see pushing it to 15 or so though).


It was asked for universally in alpha and beta.  It's better the way it is.  Who wants to play 5-6 hours before you get your second soul at level 15?




15 is too late.  5-6 is fine for the second active soul.  15 would probably be good for the third active soul, but even 10 would make a world of difference (in a good way).

And again, I'm speaking not of soul acquisition rate (which is fine) but active souls simultaneously.

And I play tons of MMOs, and I still responded to the preposterous second soul choice at level 3 by just tearing off the abilities from my bars, because I spotted the redundant abilities and realized what was going on.  My friend who I tried to get into the game, who I played WoW with for years, was intimidated as fuck by the fact that he was having to choose a second tree within a few minutes of starting the game.  It's just preposterous, I'm sorry.  Talking about how it sucked to wait until level 20 to get a second soul is strawmanning the hell out of things.  I'm not saying anything like that, I'm just saying that choosing a second soul should not happen after you have killed perhaps 15 mobs in the entire game.  I mean, come on.

And yeah, I use the third soul for a pet (typically a druid) while leveling too.  What I'm saying is the game wouldn't be significantly different if I had to wait until level 15 to do that, and the cost right now is probably the most unapproachable game system I have seen thus far in an MMO.  I mean, it's really crazy dudes.  Christ, WoW waited until level 10 to even show you the trees (and that was good, btw).  Here you have to be analyzing them for synergy at fucking level two.

I think this feels sort of like the point Lakov was trying to make in a different area (not to say he cares one way or the other about this particular change).  I really don't think the majority of MMO players love analyzing game systems.  They just want to pick a cool sounding class and play it.  Now, you may very well be able to argue that supporting those types isn't that important when it comes to raiding, but I can't imagine why you can't just tell the analysis-crazy types to just wait until goddamn level 10 or so for their soul loadout fun so that the other peeps can have a relatively pleasant early game experience.

Edit:  Once again I feel the need to assert that I do actually love this game in general.  Ahem.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 10:26:02 PM by Abelian75 »
Spiff
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Reply #332 on: March 18, 2011, 12:00:53 AM

I'm going to chime in here and say the old way of getting souls later on wasn't better imo either.

Now the point of getting more sooner isn't really you want more than 1 or 2 active souls at a lower level, and in fact I see why that can even be a downside.

The main problem as I saw it was that some souls just don't have the power to stand alone (or even in pair) at low levels, it was simply very, very easy to gimp your toon: this is not a good early experience for new customers.
Example: bard sounds neato! let's try that -> you were screwed for the first 10 levels.

People don't want to hear: "just wait 10 levels, it'll get better" or "you'll get a better soul for solo'ing in 2 hours of play", they want to gripe on forums screaming bloody murder about how unbalanced this game is after 15 minutes of play (This is what they did btw, I was silly enough to read the Trion beta forums from time to time).

Couple that with the fact there really wasn't a clear way to show people what a soul was all about short of actually letting them experience it and they just dumped the lot on you and said: "figure it out for yourself!"  awesome, for real

Not the most elegant solution perhaps, but I am certain it's better than the old system which would simply scare of newer/less tenacious MMO players.

tl;dr: If they hadn't, you would have about 10 times as many posts by now about how unbalanced the game is (from arguably misinformed people, but has that ever stopped anyone from posting their opinion?  why so serious?)
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Reply #333 on: March 18, 2011, 03:26:23 AM


I appreciate that this is already happening, but since I am absolutely on the 'three souls at 6, what were you thinking?' side -- for the reasons already exhaustively and cogently explained by Abelian -- I am also really curious what the people who are in favour see as the advantage here. The most interesting idea (to me) put forth so far is that this offers an 'oh shit' backup plan in case the second soul you chose turned out to be completely non-useful with the first. That seems like a legitimate case where the average user might get some genuine benefit and/or avoid frustration, though again this seems like something that would be just fine at level 10. 1, 2, 6 is crazy.

So far most of the responses in favour have just been 'the old way sucked' or 'there are some useful 0 point abilities!', but that doesn't really seem like much of a perk compared to the concerns brought up in terms of the basic user's experience of starting the game and being overloaded with choices for which they have absolutely zero context other than the 'suggested combination' tooltips. I mean you can't even preview the souls to see what their abilities look like, even if you were some kind of crazy MMO-veteran optimizer who is salivating to get his teeth into the ideal level 2 -> 6 synergistic levelling curve.

To bring in my own anecdotal experience, I picked my second and third souls completely blindly, and what do you know -- I only now (at level 46!) have started respeccing my primary role to start trying to find more legitimate synergies with the playstyle I was pursuing. Meanwhile I just had 90% of my points in my first soul, the whole way to level 45+. I am not an unsophisticated game player by any means, and while I never felt actively overwhelmed I think this is pretty good evidence that on some level I just decided to shut off the 'cope with this stuff' operation very, very early on in the game. I thought about respeccing many times, and probably if I had a really crappy primary soul (instead I had Champion) I would have done so earlier -- but the way I avoided respeccing and secondary roles even after I 'wanted' to try them out suggests that even with a gimped build I probably would have spent many, many hours just trying to push through it before considering respeccing. After all, the new player has no context for what is or isn't effective, short of constant death -- and the levelling PvE just isn't that hard.

I think the argument that having 3 active souls by level 6 is getting more of the 'good stuff' up front is extremely tenuous, given the possibility of this sort of reaction. If you overwhelm people with options they will just make arbitrary decisions -- and because those decisions are arbitrary they will be less likely to reevaluate them later on, compared to an informed decision. It seems just as likely to me that the current system causes people to avoid the 'good stuff' in order to preserve their feeling of mastery/control over the game, when a more sensible time frame -- and a few free respecs, and a tutorial on Role Switching while you're at it -- would actually result in more people taking earlier advantage of a major perk of the game.
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Reply #334 on: March 18, 2011, 06:07:27 AM

Yeah, I, uh, don't believe you.  I mean, I believe you that this what was changed, I do not believe that this was a good change though, or that anyone's experience was enriched by having three souls active at level 6 rather than 20 (I could see pushing it to 15 or so though).
It sucked.  Verily.

Souls are the strength of the game.  Without the ability to pick them up quickly and easily you just felt like a weak member of any of 28 classes.  Though it might be a little overwhelming for someone to be gaining them so quickly, it allows the player to start playing around with the system right away.  None of this needing to be half-way through the game to play it philosophy.

I cannot remember a single voice at the time saying it was a bad change.

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Reply #335 on: March 18, 2011, 06:44:25 AM

It is also so cheap and easy to switch things around... that even people like me, who consistently choose horrible talent mixes (like my first Justi/druid/shaman spec) can easily "fix" their "Oh No I did it wrong"! in this game.

If nothing else, the three souls helps you screw it up faster... and then realize just how easy it is to "fix", so you don't fee so pressured to do it perfectly and have confidence that you can experiment how you want and come back and change things as you see fit.  I now have a couple of soul mixes that my guild wants (DPS/Healing) and one that is purely mine to play around with...
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Reply #336 on: March 18, 2011, 06:52:33 AM

Yeah, I, uh, don't believe you.  I mean, I believe you that this what was changed, I do not believe that this was a good change though, or that anyone's experience was enriched by having three souls active at level 6 rather than 20 (I could see pushing it to 15 or so though).
It sucked.  Verily.

Souls are the strength of the game.  Without the ability to pick them up quickly and easily you just felt like a weak member of any of 28 classes.  Though it might be a little overwhelming for someone to be gaining them so quickly, it allows the player to start playing around with the system right away.  None of this needing to be half-way through the game to play it philosophy.

I cannot remember a single voice at the time saying it was a bad change.

This.

The system isn't very difficult unless you have no or very little experience with Diku MMOGs.  The game tosses the system at you and you have to learn on the fly.  The great thing is that it's impossible to gimp yourself early on.  And if you end up picking a pretty bad build, you'll learn long before it matters.

Trust me, you would see a lot more complaining about how boring and annoying the game is if it was the old way.

Why would you want to limit your players the core gameplay of your game.  It's the whole reason why they went from having a total of 51 points to now 66?  That was boring as shit too.

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Reply #337 on: March 18, 2011, 07:04:25 AM

Free respecs before 10 is a nice feature. My initial chloro heavy build was a mana hog that couldn't kill shit and lacked any of the chloro healing that makes it good (an untalented spores was pretty much it, and the silly dot), but a respec later and my mageling was off murdering things with void bolt until Chloro becomes a good choice again.

That said: second souls are usually not confusing. The only confusion occurs when you play the minmax "what stacks" and "does this modifier improve Y?" games. Shared cooldowns are usually not very well displayed between souls.
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Reply #338 on: March 18, 2011, 07:08:56 AM

It's not the variety of souls in the beginning that is the problem so much as dozens of abilities even at low levels, most of which are redundant. I'm not saying every soul shouldn't have distinct abilities but the way they implemented them is pretty  swamp poop

This could easily have been solved by only getting the base abilities from a primary soul and moving a lot of the crossover skills to the upper tree so that you actually choose them. For instance: My warrior does three near identical weapon strikes but the spear in his secondary soul is something unique so put the spear in the upper tree and all the crossover stuff in the bottom tree, make me never need the bottom tree and don't give me access to it.

Rift has some great choices but nearly any spec you pick you are going to have a glut of abilities you simply will not use and that's poor design and very confusing to new player.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2011, 07:10:36 AM by Lakov_Sanite »

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Reply #339 on: March 18, 2011, 07:12:06 AM

You can easily afford your second role at the very first class trainer and respecs are free at low levels.  Maybe the third soul doesnt add much to your original spec but it sure as hell opens up a lot more options and variety.  My first three souls were riftblade paladin and void knight, i had three completely different playstyles to choose from by lvl 6.  That is exactly what this game is about and cockblocking players from things like that is one of the most common complaints in F13 about every single game and changing it was one of the biggest "this guys DO get it" things Trion has done.

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Reply #340 on: March 18, 2011, 07:14:51 AM

Rift has some great choices but nearly any spec you pick you are going to have a glut of abilities you simply will not use and that's poor design and very confusing to new player.

That's not true from what I see - you get a choice of 1 to 3 trees in the sole. IE- Nightblade you can choose to go heavy ranged, heavy melee or heavy extra damage. It's not obvious from the tree itself what helps what (the vertical lines don't quite match up) but it's designed so you generally WON'T put all your points into 1 sole.

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Reply #341 on: March 18, 2011, 07:32:19 AM

That is exactly what this game is about and cockblocking players from things like that is one of the most common complaints in F13 about every single game and changing it was one of the biggest "this guys DO get it" things Trion has done.

OK, calling waiting until level 6 to select a second talent tree for your character "cockblocking" is being pretty disingenuous.  Someone commented earlier about how it would have sucked in a similar way if they had not had rifts right at the start of the game.  Oh, wait, they DON'T.  You wait until level 6 to be trained on your first rift, and after you leave the newbie zone there are rifts about for you to play with.  That is fine pacing.

In the guardian starting area, your first quest has you choose a soul.  The next quest has you kill six dudes.  Then you get two quests, one of them being to collect four swords, the other being to kill another six dudes.  Upon completing these quests, you get your second soul, with no supporting quest text explaining why you are choosing a second soul (because it was just hacked in at the last minute).  Saying it is silly to be choosing something like that after killing a grand total of 12 mobs in the game is not asking for a "cockblock."
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Reply #342 on: March 18, 2011, 07:34:10 AM

Ranger/marksman and any melee rogue is exactly what I'm talking about. All those base ranged abilities are great but they they dont mesh well at ALL with the melee rogue types, especially when they require stealth. What of you go saboteur/marksman? Well your primary attacks are already ranged so you'll end up using one-two of the marksman skills beyond your main sab skills because most of your attacks are redundant or won't mesh together(sab charges)

So even focusing on one tree with extra points in a second end up giving you a ton of near worthless abilities, situational abilities at best. God help you if you try for some strange 50/50 build.

Rift may be a min/maxers dream but I really think that is more accidental than intentional on the part of trion, shit just feels way too slapped together in parts.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2011, 07:35:45 AM by Lakov_Sanite »

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Reply #343 on: March 18, 2011, 07:35:44 AM

And it's not like we are speaking in hypotheticals here, what you guys suggest was tried and it was universally panned.  So far nobody who played both ways has supported the second soul at 6 third at 20 system.  There's a good reason for that.

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AcidCat
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Reply #344 on: March 18, 2011, 07:43:52 AM

Who are these gamers that are "intimidated" by making a choice in a fucking videogame? They must really shit themselves in the cereal aisle at the local grocery. I don't get that at all. More choice is a good thing, period, and the sooner I can make those choices for my character the better.
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Reply #345 on: March 18, 2011, 08:40:46 AM

Who are these gamers that are "intimidated" by making a choice in a fucking videogame? They must really shit themselves in the cereal aisle at the local grocery. I don't get that at all. More choice is a good thing, period, and the sooner I can make those choices for my character the better.

I think overwhelmed is much better than intimidated. I was certainly overwhelmed at first by all the stuff. I can't believe that experience was isolated. You push through it if you want to and you bought the game. I was playing a demo, saw lots about the game I also saw in WAR or WoW, and decided to wait on a purchase until the game was more defined.

While I concur that choice in general is a good idea, it is not always better. Sometimes you can bombard your players with lots of meaningless choices that serve to hinder their experiences rather than enhance them. I'm not saying they do that here, but I don't like the blanket statement that choice always = greatness.

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Abelian75
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Reply #346 on: March 18, 2011, 08:53:02 AM

Who are these gamers that are "intimidated" by making a choice in a fucking videogame? They must really shit themselves in the cereal aisle at the local grocery. I don't get that at all. More choice is a good thing, period, and the sooner I can make those choices for my character the better.

Yeah, that's just absolutely something I disagree with.  The "choice is always good" mantra gets repeated a lot but never questioned.  It's obviously not true in general.  Just think of any good game, and add choices to it.  Add three times as many classes to WoW.  Make it so there are five active soul trees in Rift rather than three.  It's just obviously not true.  A choice is good when it is an interesting choice.  Soul choices are interesting when you have the knowledge to understand the choice you are making.  You don't have that knowledge five minutes into the game.  So you now have an uninteresting, flow-breaking choice five minutes into the game, and you also lose what would have been an interesting choice slightly later.  (And I emphasize "slightly."  I am not advocating a second soul at 20 or anything.  I think the second at six is probably ideal.)

And by "intimidated" I don't mean that they are literally afraid of the game.  Overwhelmed may indeed be a better word.  Someone affected by this problem won't know that it was this issue that bothered them.  They'll just say the game was boring, it sucked, it was shallow, etc.

And yeah, I was overwhelmed by it as well, but I don't shy away easily and don't play solely for my enjoyment as a player.  I also just like to keep up to speed on MMOs.  So yeah, I kept playing, and I'm really glad I did.  But right off the bat I assumed that their skills had no real design behind them, because the presentation makes it feel like there is no thought behind it (it doesn't even tell you why you are selecting a second soul).  Granted, when I later discovered the keybinding system, the fact that the map fades when you move, the incremental search on your inventory, etc., I realized that there is in fact a ton of love and thought that went into the game, and that I was wrong about that first assumption.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2011, 09:03:33 AM by Abelian75 »
Segoris
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Reply #347 on: March 18, 2011, 08:55:09 AM

All of this talk about being overwhelmed by the soul trees and roles - is this before or after reading the help panel that was added? I don't know if it's new or not and I didn't read it, but I did notice there was some info about souls, branch abilities, and root abilities in an effort to help make the system a lot more new-user friendly.

As for what is better - the current system of having options to all souls, and gaining more souls earlier is miles ahead of where it used to be. Especially since before you only earned one talent point per level, without the extra point every third level. The changes made were very good.
Spiff
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Reply #348 on: March 18, 2011, 09:03:37 AM

I think overwhelmed is much better than intimidated. I was certainly overwhelmed at first by all the stuff. I can't believe that experience was isolated.

Fair enough, but the difference is you can ignore much of the choice 'till later on like someone already pointed out.
It may not be ideal, but consider the way it was: people that wanted more choice sooner (and there certainly were many of them) simply had no way of achieving that.

The system as it is now simply caters to a wider player-experience; it infringes (slightly) on people that would prefer a slow trickle instead of a waterfall, instead of completely ignoring the ones that do want as much as possible as fast as possible (which is what the the 21st century is all about: "I want moar and I want it nao!!" get with the times!  why so serious?)
Abelian75
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Posts: 678


Reply #349 on: March 18, 2011, 09:06:47 AM

All of this talk about being overwhelmed by the soul trees and roles - is this before or after reading the help panel that was added? I don't know if it's new or not and I didn't read it, but I did notice there was some info about souls, branch abilities, and root abilities in an effort to help make the system a lot more new-user friendly.

As for what is better - the current system of having options to all souls, and gaining more souls earlier is miles ahead of where it used to be. Especially since before you only earned one talent point per level, without the extra point every third level. The changes made were very good.


But again, there aren't just two options.  I totally agree that having all 8 souls by level 16 or 17 (I got them somewhere around there personally) kicked ass.  That is awesome and it is way, way better than the way it was before (from what I understand, you didn't get all 8 until level 50).

However, you don't need to jump all the way to having three quests between your first and second soul choices.  There is an enormous, enormous gap between those two options.  You also don't need to make it so that one of the defiant starting area quests has you go out and acquire a second soul to become a "true" ascended, even though you actually randomly got a second soul five minutes into the game as an entirely unexplained quest reward.
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