People saying Rift has content updates every 1-3 months? Raid questions...

[alturic]

So, I'm totally loving Rift after 7 years of WoW, so don't take this as a bashing post. I've seen more than a handful of people on here as well as other places say Trion is one of the few devs who "regularly" release content patches, and I think it's pretty much shown that it has. My question (being I just re-subbed from the launch trial) is how many raids were there at launch? How many are there now? Same with dungeons. Also, I'm fairly certain that there is no "heroic" version of raids, it's just one difficulty which, hopefully means the raids are harder than your typical WoW (normal/heroic) ones are. I guess what I'm saying is that, IF they released a new raid every 1-3 months I would assume that, being a developer, they expect the majority of the player-base that does raid, to see all the bosses, which in turn would equate to raids being somewhat easy considering not everyone is a skilled player.

Also, considering in MOST gear-based MMO's there isn't/doesn't need a patch that doesn't introduce a new raid/dungeon/rift (in Rifts case) every 1-3 months, although 3 months is kinda pushing content to it's palatable limit. So what all is in the usual "patch" if it didn't entail a new raid/dungeon/rift?

So to reiterate I'm completely loving Rift and can't wait to hit 50 (currently 35 after about a week playing) but I'm just curious what all is in these regular content patches everyone talks about, and yes I know the things they are introducing in 1.9. This also isn't a "WoW is hard, they got it right, Rift didn't" kind of post either. Primarily it's more-so things I think of while leveling and figured I'd post before I fired up Rift to continue the leveling again. :P

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Edit: The one thing, that I personally think a developer should do is randomly timed boss abilities. Obviously don't make something like "Hand of Doom" (big damage spell) able to be cast within 5 seconds of each other, I'm more-so talking:

Abilities:
Hand of Doom, once every 15-60 seconds
Bigger Hand of Doom, interval once every 30-75 seconds but no less than 30 seconds before or after Hand of Doom
Ultimate Hand of Doom, interval once every 60-120 seconds but no less than 60 seconds before or after Hand of Doom or Bigger Hand of Doom

I know the numbers above don't exactly make sense, but I'm talking still having a "scripted" boss fight, but having the abilities cast randomly each time, but obviously having a "buffer" inbetween the cast, and not having Ultimate Hand of Doom cast consecutively for the duration of the fight. It's still almost exactly what they do now (scripting wise) just using randomly generated timers of when the events happen instead of "at 60s fire off eventA" type scripting.

[Tarien]

At launch there was only GSB, a 20man five boss raid. Since then Trion have added:

River of Souls: Tier 1, 20man, 4 bosses.
Drowned Halls: Tier 1, 10man, 4 bosses.
Guilded Prophecy: Tier 1, 10man, 4 bosses.
Hammerknell: Tier 2, 20man, 11 bosses.
Rise of the Phoenix: Tier 2, 10man, 4 bosses.
Infernal Dawn: Tier 3, 20man, 8 bosses.
Primeval Feast: Tier 3, 10man, not sure on bosses, it is released in a couple weeks time with 1.9.

There were 10 dungeons at launch, two more have been added since (upper and lower Caduceus Rise), there have also been two master modes added, which are harder than expert (heroic) dungeons and offer improved loot.

The raiding content is definitely more than enough to keep any raider happy, though admittedly Infernal Dawn was a long time in coming for the most hardcore of guilds who had Hammerknell on farm months beforehand. The thing to remember is that a lot of other content has been added, there is a complete list here.

With regards randomly timed and powered abilities, the issue there is that for the bosses that are cutting edge in terms of challenge you will end up relying on an RNG friendly fight where abilities are infrequent and light on damage, and feeling frustrated when the RNG works against you. I do like the idea that you are suggesting, it has occurred to me before, but the realities of it are not so desirable.

[alturic]

With regards randomly timed and powered abilities, the issue there is that for the bosses that are cutting edge in terms of challenge you will end up relying on an RNG friendly fight where abilities are infrequent and light on damage, and feeling frustrated when the RNG works against you. I do like the idea that you are suggesting, it has occurred to me before, but the realities of it are not so desirable.

See, the way I'm "envisioning" it though would be that all of the abilities (obviously depending on killtime/damage in) would happen the exact same amount of times in every fight, just "randomly".

So let's take a 10 minute fight (no clue how long the typical fight is in Rift) on a current scripted fight you would have Hand of Doom cast 10 times, Bigger Hand cast 5 times and Ultimate Hand cast 2 times. In a "randomly timed" fight in 10 minutes it would still be the same amount of times casted, but just at random times. So instead of the first ability casting 30 seconds in, it MAY be only 10 seconds in. While sure, on a "world first" type of level you could say the kills with better "timing" of these ability casts have the advantage it would definitely (obvious?) make the encounters more dynamic. Maybe that's the wording I should have used from the get-go without the use of timers and such. :P More dynamic fights would be amazing, in any game.

Also, in 15 months they added 7 raids, so every 4 months a new raid? Doesn't seem too bad, how "difficulty" are the raids? I mean is your "typical" (hope I don't get eaten alive for saying this) "casual" guild farming all of them?

I never really looked into the raids in Rift, but the only thing right off the bat I don't like is how it's 1 version (10/20) instead of an option for both or literally just 1 size. The biggest problem that faced any guild in WoW (my game of choice for 7 years) was going from 10 to 25. Sure, make 2 10mans, which would mean 4 tanks, 6-10 healers and then when you goto 25 you only need 2-3 tanks, 3-5 healers so it leaves people "out". Once again, sure you can say that's what dual-spec is for, but you rarely have the option of having players with equally geared specs.

Either way, I don't play on being a GM in Rift at least for a considering amount of time, so as long as guilds need pro tanks I'll be good. :P

[Tarien]

See, the way I'm "envisioning" it though would be that all of the abilities (obviously depending on killtime/damage in) would happen the exact same amount of times in every fight, just "randomly".

So let's take a 10 minute fight (no clue how long the typical fight is in Rift) on a current scripted fight you would have Hand of Doom cast 10 times, Bigger Hand cast 5 times and Ultimate Hand cast 2 times. In a "randomly timed" fight in 10 minutes it would still be the same amount of times casted, but just at random times. So instead of the first ability casting 30 seconds in, it MAY be only 10 seconds in. While sure, on a "world first" type of level you could say the kills with better "timing" of these ability casts have the advantage it would definitely (obvious?) make the encounters more dynamic. Maybe that's the wording I should have used from the get-go without the use of timers and such. :P More dynamic fights would be amazing, in any game.

I guess, but imagine that you're building a really challenging fight, so it strains the limits of what people can handle in any given time period. You either work with the assumption of lots of tough abilities coming close together because RNG made all the tough parts come together, or you build the fight on the assumption that the abilities are spread evenly. In the first assumption, the fight is doable but half of it will be easy because you dealt with the tough stuff in the first half. In the second assumption if all the hard stuff comes close together it's more than the raid can handle.

There is also the question of timing. If you can cast 10 abilities in a fight, do you tie that to an enrage timer or to health %? If you tie them to a timer then guilds that finish a fight quicker will find the fight becomes very easy very quickly as you circumvent some of those 10 abilities. If you tie it to health %, you could hold off taking a boss below a certain health % to prepare for the next ability.

It's a nice idea but I think there are a lot of challenges to overcome. Feel free to suggest solutions and ideas tho, I enjoy a good discussion on raid mechanics

[Khelendros]

See, the way I'm "envisioning" it though would be that all of the abilities (obviously depending on killtime/damage in) would happen the exact same amount of times in every fight, just "randomly".

So let's take a 10 minute fight (no clue how long the typical fight is in Rift) on a current scripted fight you would have Hand of Doom cast 10 times, Bigger Hand cast 5 times and Ultimate Hand cast 2 times. In a "randomly timed" fight in 10 minutes it would still be the same amount of times casted, but just at random times. So instead of the first ability casting 30 seconds in, it MAY be only 10 seconds in. While sure, on a "world first" type of level you could say the kills with better "timing" of these ability casts have the advantage it would definitely (obvious?) make the encounters more dynamic. Maybe that's the wording I should have used from the get-go without the use of timers and such. :P More dynamic fights would be amazing, in any game.

Also, in 15 months they added 7 raids, so every 4 months a new raid? Doesn't seem too bad, how "difficulty" are the raids? I mean is your "typical" (hope I don't get eaten alive for saying this) "casual" guild farming all of them?

I never really looked into the raids in Rift, but the only thing right off the bat I don't like is how it's 1 version (10/20) instead of an option for both or literally just 1 size. The biggest problem that faced any guild in WoW (my game of choice for 7 years) was going from 10 to 25. Sure, make 2 10mans, which would mean 4 tanks, 6-10 healers and then when you goto 25 you only need 2-3 tanks, 3-5 healers so it leaves people "out". Once again, sure you can say that's what dual-spec is for, but you rarely have the option of having players with equally geared specs.

Either way, I don't play on being a GM in Rift at least for a considering amount of time, so as long as guilds need pro tanks I'll be good. :P

10 and 20 are their own progression path though. So its not really like WoW. One thing Rift is playing with is triggered hard modes. They did 1 in Infernal Dawn and it wasn't to hard, but I like the idea of it. Ulduar style. Raiding in Rift is harder than in most raiding MMO's. Its about on par with heroic WoW raids or in between maybe. Especially the later encounters of some raids.

A fight like Ituziel despite being early on is more challenging than a normal mode WoW raid boss at the same point in said raid. Is it as hard as said encounter in heroic? Err...I dunno. When I did progression raiding in WoW there were no modes in raids. I'd say the easiest point of comparison is Burning Crusade. Raiding in Rift is pretty much identical to raiding in Burning Crusade...minus the silly instance locks. I think thats a good thing as I consider BC the pinnacle of MMO raiding.

I'd say prenerf Akylios (once he was killable) was on par with Yogg 0 or Heroic Arthas. But not as hard as Pre Nerf Muru. Alot of fight in Naxx 40 were harder also but comparing a 40 man to a 20 man is kinda unfair.

[alturic]

10 and 20 are their own progression path though. So its not really like WoW. One thing Rift is playing with is triggered hard modes. They did 1 in Infernal Dawn and it wasn't to hard, but I like the idea of it. Ulduar style. Raiding in Rift is harder than in most raiding MMO's. Its about on par with heroic WoW raids or in between maybe. Especially the later encounters of some raids.

A fight like Ituziel despite being early on is more challenging than a normal mode WoW raid boss at the same point in said raid. Is it as hard as said encounter in heroic? Err...I dunno. When I did progression raiding in WoW there were no modes in raids. I'd say the easiest point of comparison is Burning Crusade. Raiding in Rift is pretty much identical to raiding in Burning Crusade...minus the silly instance locks. I think thats a good thing as I consider BC the pinnacle of MMO raiding.

I'd say prenerf Akylios (once he was killable) was on par with Yogg 0 or Heroic Arthas. But not as hard as Pre Nerf Muru. Alot of fight in Naxx 40 were harder also but comparing a 40 man to a 20 man is kinda unfair.

Um, if you are seriously saying that raiding if Rift equates to raiding in BC, I think I definitely just found my new love. I'm going to have to read up on raiding in Rift though because I'm really curious how the 10/20 are different progression paths, because (and I'm not trying to invalidate you, seriously) I don't see how that would work considering (if the guy I was quoting is right) there's only 4 20man raids?

Maybe I misunderstood what you mean by progression path, because the way I view it, that would mean as a 20 main guild you would "theoretically" only have 4 raids you'd be concerned with?

[Fencers]

Think he just meant every raid is it's own discrete zone. Guilds typically do both 10 and 20 man raids. There are few "20 man only" guilds. In fact, I know of none. There are simply raiding and casual guilds.

10 man raids were released at the same tier as the 20 man.Though 10mans are shorter and thus offer an avenue of advancement for those unable to kill 11 bosses a night or whatever. Most guilds farm both till they have gained all possible upgrades.

Raiding is tougher than WOW circa WotlK, about on par with TBC. Trion have not conceded to laziness yet, a new raid is a whole new zone/area/bosses be it 10 or 20 man.

[Azuri]

Trion have not conceded to laziness yet, a new raid is a whole new zone/area/bosses be it 10 or 20 man.

For me personally this is a game breaker. One of the biggest deciding factors why I don't play/pay two other sub-based games that share their raid content multiple times with just different difficulty levels. Just plain lazy.

[Fencers]

That was a deal breaker for me in WOW and in TOR as well. I left WOW at the end of TBC. Jumped back in for 3 months mid-WotLK. Didn't go baclk to WoW . TOR's OPs were severely disappointing, sparse and the rehashed content just put me off to the point of cancellation.

Not interested in recycling 1 raid zone 6 times and calling it "content". I do not enjoy the multi-mode stuff at all.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

It should be noted that many aspects of the 10-man raids are pre-existing game assets. Many mobs and bosses are reused models, and a lot of the zone may be a slightly altered version of an existing landscape.

That's not to say Trion have been cheap or lazy, as there are certainly new locales and sub-sections of these 10 man raids, but new players might come in thinking 10 man slivers are always totally new dungeon-structures, as opposed to the alternative realities they really are.

In WoW terms, it's a bit like the Hour of Twilight, taking place in an alternate future version of Dragonblight, instead of a new instanced 10 man raid in Twilight Highlands.

[Pachycrocuta]

One thing to remember with Trion: a major content patch (1.1, 1.2, etc) does not always equal a raid, though seems only 2 patches were released without a raid (not sure if any of the 10-mans were released together with another 10-man as I didn't really follow the updates until 1.7 came out). Each patch comes with quite a number of things, with many things incorporated into the game that normally others reserve for expansion content.

And I think he meant by different progression, meaning that there are no 10-man versions of the 20-mans, and no 20-man versions of the 10 mans. And many people have compared Rift raiding to TBC raiding, not only with 10 and 20 man raids being their own things, but with the tiered progression and difficulties. And by tiered progression I mean having to go through tier 1 to do tier 2 to do tier 3. Though there are ways to bypass this, but its not nearly the same as how WoW did it (just running 5-mans to be geared up for the new tier of raid they added with Wrath and Cata). You would need a month for each piece of gear to get the latest from 5-mans, or loads of platinum to purchase crafted items, or farm absurd amounts of ISS from invasions.

[Deleted]

One more thing, Raid rifts! 20 man open world rift, they were very fun at the start of the game but like all old content it's pretty easy nowdays. But that will hopefully change in the expansion with the addition of more rifts!

[Deleted]

Just a few Video's for you to get an Idea of what some of the Boss Encounters look like in RIFT

Akylios (End Boss- Hammerknell Fortress)

Laethys (6th Boss - Infernal Dawn)

Soulrender Zilas (Hammerknell)

Ituziel (Infernal Dawn)