Storm Legion 2.1 Hotfixes

[Edge-]

No-one looking for an MMO is going to say 'Oh no this has falling damage, won't play that it's ridiculous' but some people might say 'There's no falling damage? That's weird and ruins my experience so I won't play this game' and then Trion gets slightly less money for paying baws devs to make amazing content for me.

There are about a hundred things they could say the same thing about in Rift, and falling damage is pretty low on that list of things (near the bottom, in fact). The soul system turns off far more people to the game than a lack of falling damage ever well.

I think one of the issues is that the zones have far more elevation changes (specifically Ashora/SoI) than the old world did, and we're moving much faster. I can't count how many times I've been near a cliff and gone over the edge to fall to my near or actual death, simply because my mount went over a small lip and was airborne for a second.

[Azuri]

In some games, they may help with load times, however, with most MMORPGs you are waiting on data from the server, not your client. The possible exception to this rule is SWTOR which loads a fair amount from your HDD instead of loading it into RAM. This is either a byproduct of the Hero Engine or just piss poor coding on thier part. Much easier and cheaper solution to this is RAMDisk as stated. There are even free programs for WoW and SWTOR that will set up the RAMDisk for you and remove it when done, automatically. Even then, we are talking 3-5 seconds of improvement on the loading screens, no performance gains. Rift has it's own optimization problems as well, but they are server side, not client.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-ssd,3062.html
Guess you're right.
Thought SSDs help with the load in games like Rift or WOW, looks like they don't.

I would recommend a SSD for a game like SWTOR and GW2 that uses excessive amounts of load screens though. I think the bang for buck is well worth it over staring at load screens. I still think everyone gamer or not should be using a SSD with a HDD for storage purposes. (if you can pony up the money for it)

Back on topic Rift is a huge resource hog more so in zone events where there can be 200 people in close proximity. Things like 5 mans or raids shouldn't choke a fairly newish system. Old dated laptops or PC's are pretty much SOL for Rift SL is better optimized then classic but still no where as smooth as say Tera.

Interesting devs post here on the topic of multiple players in a small area:

forums.riftgame.com/official-rift-news/dev-tracker/347510-brianmorin-any-promising-mmos-hoirzon.htm

[Kelimbror]

I can't count how many times I've been near a cliff and gone over the edge to fall to my near or actual death, simply because my mount went over a small lip and was airborne for a second.

Exactly

Like I said earlier, there are a lot of issues with this game in comparison to others or standalone that make it hard for a player to judge when they will fall or how high of a fall will kill them. It was a burden on the player that doesn't add anything real to the gameplay. The mounts do strange things coming up ramps, stairs, inclines, and lips of geography. To fix just these alone would have taken hours of reprogramming things that could have broken the game. Much easier to just remove fall damage...and that's just one reason.

Some people (like myself) actually have weird in-game vertigo brought on from years of falling death. I am honestly not making this up. My pulse elevates and I get dizzy when falling from a large height when I know my character is going to splat. I honestly don't know why, I have no problems with heights in real life. It's probably triggered from anxiety of not knowing whether I'll survive. Sounds silly, I know, but since there is no concern of my character dying it actually makes falling long distances enjoyable/not panic inducing.

[Lathais]

I would recommend a SSD for a game like SWTOR and GW2 that uses excessive amounts of load screens though. I think the bang for buck is well worth it over staring at load screens. I still think everyone gamer or not should be using a SSD with a HDD for storage purposes. (if you can pony up the money for it)

Back on topic Rift is a huge resource hog more so in zone events where there can be 200 people in close proximity. Things like 5 mans or raids shouldn't choke a fairly newish system. Old dated laptops or PC's are pretty much SOL for Rift SL is better optimized then classic but still no where as smooth as say Tera.

Interesting devs post here on the topic of multiple players in a small area:

http://www.forums.riftgame.com/offic...s-hoirzon.html

you need to remove the www. from the front of the link.

[Azuri]

you need to remove the www. from the front of the link.

Yeah tried that before you posted this and lost the ability to direct link from here. /shrug

[Kelimbror]

Yeah tried that before you posted this and lost the ability to direct link from here. /shrug

I can't get it to work no matter how I put the link in

[Tharkkun]

The performance issues on the world events are better than the 2nd week of release which leads me to believe it's definitely a server side issue. My FPS are steady, network utilization and latency doesn't change but there is major ability lag. Rift just goes kaput when 100 players are doing things in a small area. It kinda surprises me because Dark Age of Camelot handled it well with 200+ people present and they used a prior version of the current engine.


Falling damage though? It adds that level of depth where you go oh shit....but after the 3rd time of taking a rez because you can't get your body it's just lame. It's more of a punishment just to punish.

[Lathais]

Yeah, I get the "Why would you have a Xeon?!" response a lot if people ask my specs. I have a 2009 i-7 type Xeon, since I do a lot of video encoding. Games well, too. :P

However, I have an i5 box that my daughters use, and it doesn't run Rift as well as my i7 class Xeon, so, I'm not sure how an i7 could be 'bad' for Rift. :P

It's not that it's bad, it's that the only difference between the same gen and model, so let's take an i5-3570k compared to an i7-3770k is that the i7 supports Hyperthreading. Rift, and pretty much all games, do not support Hyperthreading and in some games, Rift not being one of them, the Hyperthreading can cause stuttering in game and you have to turn it of rendering it the exact same thing as an i5-3570k. If your computer runs Rift better than your daughters computer you likely have higher cloack speed to begin with or other components, such as GPU, that are better than theirs as well.

---------- Post added 2013-01-10 at 11:50 AM ----------

I can't get it to work no matter how I put the link in

http://forums.riftgame.com/official-...s-hoirzon.html

It basically states that as more players arrive the server load goes up exponentially because it not only has to figure out what everyone is doing, but then communicate that to each person there. So each person that arrives increases the amount of processing needed for each person already there.

[Azuri]

Thanks for the link fix Lathais. It's cumbersome on my smartphone doing what is normally easy on my PC at home.

Yeah as the devs says things are added up exponentially as more people get added into the equation. We discussed this in another topc and the answer was to have "channels" of players like I seen and were used in Tera at launch and other games. To me this is still "ok" for a fix but doesn't really fix the hundreds of players in a confined area but does eliminate realms.

[Kelimbror]

I think he does a great job of talking about the issue, but also skirting it. I don't see many people capable of doing these things with no problem on any setting other than stick figure mode. For a game that is already much smaller than the 'competition' you'd think they'd be working harder to make this work. They can't pull an Ilum in this game.

Not saying that they will, but I am kinda dreading the experience I may be in for.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Ok, just to be clear, it doesn't break immersion that you are immortal anyway? I dunno, immersion is broken for me in any MMO where I die, the my soul cab go back to my corpse and come back to life. Dieing from falling is simply annoying and that's all. It's a 1-2 minute side-track to get back to my corpse. How about every time you fall off a cliff, type /sleep so you lay down, then wait a few seconds to pull yourself back up. Same effect.

Sorry, I never understood this so called "immersion" in any game that isn't like Hardcore Diablo, where when you die, that's it. No multiple lives, no immortality.

It's not about immersion. I don't RP, and would be embarrassed to even try it. I'm not strung up on physics-defying leaps or anything, I'm disappointed because it feels like the Trion is neutering a form of gameplay.

For players who enjoy seeking achievements, collecting artifacts, discovering cairns, or hunting down rare spawns, dealing with the terrain is no different than clearing trash on the way to a raid boss. It's not meant to kill you, but if you fuck up, you're gonna die. Dead Simon has done some ridiculous things over the last 2 years. He's laid out artifacts in the most ridiculous locations. Some require precision steps and navigational skills. Others are nearly pure luck-based. Death from failing isn't great, nor is it an absolute requirement to keep things interesting, but it's enough of a deterrent to keep you focused on your tasks, and helps weed out some of the other players who won't invest the time.

Lot of hardcore players here, many of whom simply won't understand the appeal, which is fine. But this is a fairly unique gameplay opportunity/element rarely found in other MMOs.

[Edge-]

Trion is neutering a form of gameplay.

I fail to see how this is a form of gameplay when there is no real consequence. You can SW/corpse run back to your body if you die, and if you die from falling while trying to get to a high place, you'll need to get back up there anyways.

The death penalties are pretty much a joke anyways. 10 deaths before anything happens, and the repair costs are inconsequential.

I really don't see how this in any way adds to gameplay to begin with. It's been more of a, "It's always existed so let's just put it in." type of thing for me.

[Kelimbror]

For players who enjoy seeking achievements, collecting artifacts, discovering cairns, or hunting down rare spawns, dealing with the terrain is no different than clearing trash on the way to a raid boss. *snip*
Lot of hardcore players here, many of whom simply won't understand the appeal, which is fine. But this is a fairly unique gameplay opportunity/element rarely found in other MMOs.

Hardcore WoW player here who has plans to do exactly what I underlined in this game. It doesn't make it any more interesting for me to have the ability to fall to my death. The falling is what makes it challenging and interesting. Having to run back to my corpse before I run back up the mountain just adds artificial time in between me and challenges. This is 100% not fun and adds nothing to the gameplay.

It would be neutering the content if when you fell a magical cloud put you back where you came from.

[Fathme]

NVM








10char

[Fencers]

As an immortal Warrior capable of withstanding the direct attacks of a living deity, dying to then run back to my corpse and catch up with the rest of the zerg because I fell 3 feet breaks my immersion.

Excuse me while I RP walk to the medic to repair my soul and enjoy some gameplay.

[Edge-]

Yea....but you also have to consider the amount of people that play rift, it of course makes sense for them to increase player interaction in any way possible, this wouldn't be realistic in larger mmos like wow.(Or atleast pointless really)That doesn't however take away from how much I like trion, as I'm currently playing both. What is does do IMO is make trion stand out against other smaller mmo companies, as you're right, they really do have the right idea, I hope other companies learn from them too

Erm...except it is possible in WoW? WoW has grouping for dungeons/BG's cross server with the RealID feature. And it has cross-realm zones to help with the unpopulated zones. So, it is realistic in larger MMO's like WoW, where apparently many servers have population issues.

[Lathais]

It's not about immersion. I don't RP, and would be embarrassed to even try it. I'm not strung up on physics-defying leaps or anything, I'm disappointed because it feels like the Trion is neutering a form of gameplay.

For players who enjoy seeking achievements, collecting artifacts, discovering cairns, or hunting down rare spawns, dealing with the terrain is no different than clearing trash on the way to a raid boss. It's not meant to kill you, but if you fuck up, you're gonna die. Dead Simon has done some ridiculous things over the last 2 years. He's laid out artifacts in the most ridiculous locations. Some require precision steps and navigational skills. Others are nearly pure luck-based. Death from failing isn't great, nor is it an absolute requirement to keep things interesting, but it's enough of a deterrent to keep you focused on your tasks, and helps weed out some of the other players who won't invest the time.

Lot of hardcore players here, many of whom simply won't understand the appeal, which is fine. But this is a fairly unique gameplay opportunity/element rarely found in other MMOs.

The game play is still there. If you fall, you still have to go around the cliff face to get back up, walk around the mountain to get back to the path, jump your way back up that precarious path or whatever the heck it is you were doing. it's not like when you fall it places you at the goal, truly removing the game play. That game play did not just go away, all that did is the small amount of damage at the end, or possibly the death that you then just soul walk and are right there anyway. In the worst case it saves a long walk back to your corpse. How is a long walk back to your corpse game play? It isn't, if anything, this change allows you to get back to that interesting game play faster than before. Less time running across a zone with no threats, more time playing your jump puzzles, or reaching that artifact, or whatever this unique fun game play you speak of is. If you think the run back to your corpse is fun and unique gameplay, why are you not playing EQ where you get to run back to your corpse with all the same threats of getting there in the first place minus your gear?

[Kelimbror]

why are you not playing EQ where you get to run back to your corpse with all the same threats of getting there in the first place minus your gear?

I am so glad WoW was my first MMO. Eff that noise.

[Azuri]

Well I'll be dammed I missed this first time around until I read this Tweet. So you know can do cross realm raids!?!? I'm not talking about LFG where you que with random people at a trivial difficulty level you can now in fact invite cross realm with friends or strangers (either faction I might add) and raid. Now that's pretty sweet imo.

[Lathais]

Well I'll be dammed I missed this first time around until I read this Tweet. So you know can do cross realm raids!?!? I'm not talking about LFG where you que with random people at a trivial difficulty level you can now in fact invite cross realm with friends or strangers (either faction I might add) and raid. Now that's pretty sweet imo.

Yup, any instanced activity can be cross server. Dungeons, Experts, WFs, CQ(well, not too much difference here I guess, since you could join, meet up and form group anyway, easier though for sure) and Raids. Ran an Expert with my RL buddy on Seastone last night. Was pretty cool.