1.9 In-Progress Set #1 - 5/22/12

[Puremallace]

So lots of stuff right...notice the CROSS SHARD TEXT!

NOTES: RIFT 1.9 In-Progress Set #1 - 5/22/12

The usual disclaimer applies - all of this is in early stages, highly variable, and this first set does not represent the entirety of what may or may not be on deck for 1.9.

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FEATURES IN TESTING ON PTS

CONQUEST
* 5/22 PTS NOTE: Tweaked a bunch of Conquest numbers for ongoing testing!
* An early version of Conquest is now on PTS for testing! At this point, Conquest will only be accessible when specifically enabled for a playtest.
* Align yourself with one of the three warring groups - the Dominion, the Oathsworn, or the Nightfall, and join three-way cross-shard conflict in a contested sliver of Stillmoor.
* Capture, defend, and enhance conflict points to not only control the region but also gain access to bonuses and resources for your team.
* Fight Colossi on the field of battle to demonstrate your power and gain additional buffs.
* The Conquest Bar displays your current Conquest bonuses and can be found in the 'K' menu under Conquest.
* For those looking to contribute in ways other than direct combat, gather Sourcestone resources and use them to create beneficial effects that help everyone in your faction. These resources can be deposited in a depot inside your base where other crafters can also process them.
* New crafting recipes for use during Conquest are now available on the trainers in Sanctum and Meridian.
* Matches begin to lock down when a single team claims 40% of the control points, or when 5,000 deaths have taken place in the match; at that point a 10 minute timer will begin for a last chance at rallying your troops!


MENTORING
* New Mentoring system allows you to set your character's level below what it actually is, whether you're on your own or playing with a lower-level character.
* Mentoring is available for characters of level 11+ and you can only reduce your current level, not increase it.
* The new Set Ascended Mentor Level menu option now appears when right clicking your own character portrait. You can choose what level you'd like to set your character to from this option.
* When right-clicking the portrait of another character, the menu option to set your mentor level to the target's level appears.
* While mentoring, your stats, abilities, regeneration, etc. will be temporarily reduced in line with the target level.
* Grouped characters using mentoring will receive bonus experience as long as the character with the lower natural level remains within 2 levels of the mentor and the mentor remains at least 5 levels below their natural level.


PRESTIGE RANKS / ARMOR
* Prestige Ranks are now increased to 50!
* The added ranks offer new milestone titles and additional Planar Attunement bonus experience when attained - 2 Planar Attunement levels worth for each rank.
* A new set of PvP Armor is now available in line with the Prestige Rank increase.
* Increased the effect of Bolstering in line with the addition of new PvP gear. Warfront Bolstering is now applied to all characters up to rank 25, and up to rank 36 in Conquest.
* PTS NOTE: The new rank set armor is temporarily using the previous set's appearances on PTS.


1.9 WORLD EVENT now in testing on PTS!
LOW-LEVEL INSTANT ADVENTURE now in testing on PTS!

FISHING AND SURVIVAL
* The Undead Fish artifact collection has, at long last, been added to Hammerknell - both Chronicle and Raid. Even more reason to fish in Hammerknell!
* The Rare Artifact Attractor will no longer yield common artifacts that existed in the game prior to patch 1.8.
* When fished, the pool at Scarred Mire and Harlan's Lament will now only yield junk (though some lures will still allow you to catch fish there).
* Schools of Fish, Rare Fish, and Clever Fish now sometimes drop treasure chests.
* Fishing and Survival now have daily quests!
* The Survivalist and Fisher Artisan store NPCs have arrived. Now you're cooking with MEAT.
* Don't know what to do with your piles of common fish? Now you can turn them into Lures! Check out the recipes on the new artisan store NPC.
* Inspired chefs have developed a new Feast recipe for more variety in feasting.
* Survival: The appearance of Feasts also got updated! 'Feasts' is also a strange looking word when you type it enough. Feasty feast.

=

GENERAL
* Added a new 'Bag Sort' button to the inventory bag bar and the bank window. Bag Sort will rearrange the items in your bags to group them into similar categories (Artifacts next to artifacts, crafting items next to crafting items, etc.).
* Added a new visual warning that buffs are about to expire; the buff icon now fades out when the duration is getting low. This option can be turned on/off in the Settings > Display menu.
* Tells can now be sent to any player on a shard in the same region (NA or EU). Use the Player@Shard format to send messages cross-shard (ex: /tell Asha@Greybriar). Ignore also works the same way - you can ignore someone cross-shard now.
* Quests that allow party-sharing will now be offered to all Raid members.
* Experience locking has been removed now that you can set your level lower via Mentoring!
* Companion Pets no longer have a summoning/casting time or casting animations. They can only be summoned while out of combat.
* Newly-created Guilds now have default permissions that allow all members to use Guild Rally Banners, if the guild has that perk.
* Looking For Group: Fixed a bug where LFG players not inside the dungeon when the final boss is killed would not receive LFG rewards.


LEADERBOARDS
* Viewing a Leaderboard with the 'Top 50' filter selected now shows your actual score at the top instead of a '0' if you're not in the list, and will not incorrectly display your rank as '51'.
* Fixed timed scores that ended in zero seconds so they don't omit digits.


COMBAT
* NPCs: Riftblade NPCs no longer use Rift Storm.

SOULS
* Pets now have a maximum active distance from their owner that when reached, will cause them to stop what they're doing and return to you.
* Slight tweak to Charge-type attack abilities; the only noticeable change should be that attacks involving a Charge can now critically hit on their own.

MAGE

CHLOROMANCER
* Wild Growth: Fixed a pushback issue where Wild Growth could be cast faster if the Chloromancer is damaged while casting it.

DOMINATOR
* Controlled Opportunity: Fixed an issue with how this is applied to targets when using mouseover macros.
* Haunting Pain: Effects that modify DoT damage, like the Warlock's Neddra's Influence, now properly affect Haunting Pain.

NECROMANCER
* Feign Death: No longer completely despawns pets. Pets will be invisible while Feign Death is active, and reappear as soon as the ability ends or is deactivated.
* Neddra's Torture: Fixed a pushback issue where Neddra's Torture could be cast faster if the Necromancer is damaged while casting it.

PYROMANCER
* Fixed Fire Armor and Pyromancer's Armor being castable while Silenced.
* Backdraft: Will now deal damage to the target even if they are immune to the Stun portion of the ability.

WARLOCK
* Mortality: No longer affected by damage pushback when casting.


ROGUE

RIFTSTALKER
* Rift Barrier: Now generates threat from non-reflectable attacks received while Rift Guard is active.


WARRIOR

BEASTMASTER
* Fierce Strike: Fixed a bug with Rank 6 that caused it to repeatedly chain damage.

CHAMPION
* Destroyer's Bearing: Can now trigger off of Deathblow.
* Cornered Beast: Now properly grants immunity to Knockback and Polymorph.

PARAGON
* Flurry: Now properly grants immunity to Knockback and Polymorph.

WARLORD
* Intercept: Now has a range of 30 meters.
* Distractions now properly stack with each other so you can have two Warlords using different Distractions.


ZONES

GLOAMWOOD
* Where the Moon Blossoms: Increased the quantity of Moon Blossoms in the Greybriar Hollow cave.

SCARLET GORGE
* A Bit of Subterfuge: Female characters will now get disguised as females while on this quest.


CRAFTING
* The Track Fish ability has been added. If you already have Fishing, you'll find it in the Abilities window. Otherwise it will be granted automatically when training Fishing.
* Outfitter: Bulk Recipes have been added to Outfitter Trainers for base materials. These new recipes allow you to process 40 cloth directly into 20 bolts.
* Outfitter: Spellspun Cowl recipe now requires 260 skill to learn, to match the skill required to make the item.


UI/SETTINGS
* Active buffs/debuffs with durations now show specific time remaining amounts on their tooltips.
* Fishing Lures now correctly appear under the Misc > Fishing section in the Auction House.
* Successful Auction messages now include the stack size of the item sold.
* Combat Log text now more closely matches the on-screen combat text color formatting.
- There are two new types of damage shown in the Combat Log now: Block and Deflect. Combat Log textfile parsers will likely need to be updated.
* Fixed a case where Nameplates could show class mechanic UIs for classes other than your own.
* NPCs with very large models will now have their Nameplate anchored at their feet if the normal position is not visible.
* Nameplates now show casting bars for both yourself and your target.


CLIENT
* The Screenshot and Movie save file location is now under the Windows 'My Documents' folder.

[Fencers]

I noticed you cross post these type of threads across several forums. Do you work for Trion by chance? It's a sincere question- I am not sure if you do.

[Puremallace]

I noticed you cross post these type of threads across several forums. Do you work for Trion by chance? It's a sincere question- I am not sure if you do.

Nope I just post on several forums. Mostly this one because it is Curse and I like them. MMORPG does not have such ridiculous rules when it comes to talking about mmo's.

[Fencers]

Gotcha. That's awesome dedication. Keeping doing your thing.

[Pachycrocuta]

* Experience locking has been removed now that you can set your level lower via Mentoring!

Curious about this. So, any level 50 can reduce his level to 19 and queue for pvp and enter the 10-19 bracket? From what I understood, they are still going to allow experience gain while your mentor level is set to lower than max, since 50s gain experience for planar attunement. How are twinks taking this news? Does the Valor/Vengeance (I think that's the pvp stats) scale down as well? Or does that drop off if you lower your level?

And is it just your stats that get reduced? Or do you lose any skills that you can't earn at that level? Unfortunately I can't ask any of these questions on the official forums as I don't have an active sub at the moment.

[Puremallace]

Curious about this. So, any level 50 can reduce his level to 19 and queue for pvp and enter the 10-19 bracket? From what I understood, they are still going to allow experience gain while your mentor level is set to lower than max, since 50s gain experience for planar attunement. How are twinks taking this news? Does the Valor/Vengeance (I think that's the pvp stats) scale down as well? Or does that drop off if you lower your level?

And is it just your stats that get reduced? Or do you lose any skills that you can't earn at that level? Unfortunately I can't ask any of these questions on the official forums as I don't have an active sub at the moment.

Think they confirmed you will not be able to queue for pvp while mentored. Basically this is the death of twinking in Rift. If you think about it honestly Twinking was a consequence of a action taken to help people on the PVE side of the game. Now that mentoring is in the game level locking is no longer needed.

[Tarien]

I like the cross realm chat, I guess that is as good as it gets without a battle.net type system and I am glad to see it going in. Also really hope that Pure is right and twinks are going away. Wonder how much QQing will go on in the official forums tho.

[Tarien]

It's already started. I'm all for the death of twinking. The mentoring covers the need to not overlevel the quests just fine for PvE.

Yeah I don't believe the argument for twinking at all except the one that it's easier and more competitive to twink at certain levels, but if that is the case they should have asked for seperate twink only PvP queues, now they are reaping the whirlwind. I noticed a few QQ posts already, and some vague hints about 'there are other games'. There sure are, LoL for one, maybe WoW's arena system.

In all honesty I wouldn't mind an arena system in RIFT, as long as Trion didn't let problems there influence class balance in PvE. Mind you I am more a fan of large scale battles like this Conquest thing, can't wait to see how that pans out. Hope it's a success.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

I hadn't heard about disabled mentoring for PvP. That's awesome. I figured with the removal of XP locking, everyone, save for the honest-to-goodness levelers would become twinks thanks to mentoring. Looks like twinking is officially in its death throes.

For that and all the other notes offered thus far, 1.9 is looking amazing.

[Slipmat]

I hadn't heard about disabled mentoring for PvP. That's awesome

They had to, when you mentor down to, say, even level 11 you still retain your full 66 point Soul trees, all your PA levels, relics etc...imagine been a new person in level 10-19 Warfront with maybe 5 main abilities and in comes little Johnny solo hero rocking HK relics and some ID weapons with all abilities....

[Pachycrocuta]

This is very good news indeed. Glad they are taking out the experience lock in favor of mentoring, as I think that was the main reason they added in the lock, was for people to finish up a zone at level. So, you do still gain experience when you mentor your level down, correct? And can you queue for IAs of lower level zones when you mentor down?

[Slipmat]

can you queue for IAs of lower level zones when you mentor down?

Yes to both, you still gain Planar XP, you still get Inscribed Sourcestones and XP crystals when you do Instant Adventures at low levels

Made a very quick, spur of the moment video as i was getting my evil level 50 Defiant ready for some Conquest work for tomorrow night

[Deleted]

I wonder how lowlvl warfront queues will be affected without the twinks... like them or hate them - they were still quite active players.
Personally I haven't had a problem with twinking, while leveling up you usually don't spend much time with them anyway since most people are aiming for lvl 50. I also think it's better to have the ability to twink rather than not. Seems to have been many sad pandas in the forums though, that the road bumps in shape of twinks on their way to lvl50 really made them cry. Strange and yea, well, strange. And I guess qq if the queue time go back to before will be even worse as well.

It might also be trion to blame for the twinking, because I bet it's way faster pimping your twink char out with great gear than going for all that gear at lvl 50. There has also been lack of reason to get all the lvl 50 gear since people haven't got any info about how pvp will be developed in this game. Now hope conquest really makes lvl 50 pvp more exciting to the players. Still no info how they will balance the factions which seemed to have been the main issue to the people that tried it last time. Guess you people will tell how it after the test tonight?

Forgot to add though, I think mentoring is better than locking xp... (even though keeping both should be a ok as well). There are probably more people that play that either outlevel or are being outleveled by friends so they can't queue warfronts together. At least that was issues I experienced while leveling up. And now some of my friends won't have any excuse not to pick this game up again =) The best part is also that mentoring is something you choose to do, not forced downscaling as in GW2. 1-0 to Trion on that part =)

Oh mentoring didnt work in lowlvl pvp? What kind of crap is that =( Back to 2h warfront queues on lowlvl then to the people leveling up, people will pray to get those twinks back :P

[Slipmat]

A few additions have appeared on the PTS, mostly some new Achievements and stuff

First off, seems you can't chose to queue for a specific IA now, it's 'random', not sure how this will go down



Every zone now has IA achievements, here's Silverwood and Freemarch as examples...





Fed up getting roflstomped by Ochrin's gold piles or bar-b-q'ed by Scerrion? fear not, Ember Isle has two new Zone Events coming, Air and Death bosses



This new World Event Achievement will probably cause floods of QQ on the Forum from people who didn't buy any of the "fun" weapon enchants during the Events....

[Primalthirst]

Since the old event currency is being removed and new ways of acquiring previous World Event rewards is being made available all that QQ will be for naught.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Back to 2h warfront queues on lowlvl then to the people leveling up, people will pray to get those twinks back :P

I don't quite understand the logic behind the complaints.

Low level PvP queues shouldn't be huge; between the merc system and players no longer afraid of being stomped by twinks, queue times should be fine. Additionally, players will no longer stick to one particular bracket, instead participating from level 11 (or whatever) all the way up to 50, improving potential participants all across the spectrum.

Lower level PvP queues stand more to lose from mentoring IAs, new professions and Alternate Advancement than the eradication of twinking.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I think that's definitely a case of twinks overestimating their own importance to the game.

Well, I did level up my first char before locking xp was added to the game. It was horrible wait for queues to pop and wasn't a viable way to level up at all. When I leveled my other char and the xp lock was in game, well queues popped nearly instantly. Sure mercenary will make it a liiiiittle bit better, but just wait and see. I can assure you the queues will increase. This is a none twink calling as well, so cant blame me for that.

I dont understand why mentoring wouldn't work. Look at star wars when at lvl 10 you play same warfronts as up to lvl 49. The higher the level the more the spells, but most classes get enough abilities to be viable at around 15-16. It's working fine, and should be able to do it in rift as well.
I'm just worried, questing isn't amazing in rift, and leveling up in warfronts sure was extremely fun. I personally take twinks any day over 2h queues and it will hurt the game if what I say become reality.

But it's not the players fault that they had to take action on this. If they had a more successful endgame pvp in Rift people would have stopped making twinks anyway because of boredom. Fingers crossed for conquest being really epic, Rift really needs it to keep players that already have lvl 50 toons especially now when they remove one kind of pvp content several players did enjoy. If something gets replaced, it must be with something better and ofc as long lasting.

[Slipmat]

Time to check out the new Survivalist and Fishing recipes vendor currently up on the PTS

This guy has 52 different recipes for sale, mostly bought with Master Craftsman Marks and Artisan marks, also, seem you can get some wardrobe pieces down at the end














Also thanks to a find by Primalthirst, seems Capes will be coming soon