I'm Interested in Rift ... Advice?

[Deleted]

Its clear you not only attack on a personal level, but gloss over what you feel like; fine.

I didn't gloss over it, saying you didn't have a point, it was silly argument, then giving reasons for why, is not ad hominem, you might consider that blutn or even rude, but that is not the same as ad hominem.

If that is in fact, what I did say, then sure, you can make that claim. pointing out what Trion has done and pointing out that you can't argue based on anecdotal evidence is hardly a proclamation that everything is "wonderful because I say so". Then again, isn't that exactly what these forums are for, for me to proclaim exactly, and as loudly as I want, what I think is wonderful?

People can argue on whatever evidence they like, it is not a court of law, your argumentns consist virtually entirely of ancedotal evidence, unsubstantiated opinion or incorrect claims such as they have solved the PvP gear issue. The point being if person X's post in the Rift forum are worthless, then why are you bothering to post as your opinon is just as worthless or in teh case of PvP more worthless as you claim to not enjoy it outside of conquest (which they have turned off).

Yes they will. Only its very clear that that same discussion can't be had with you without a full fledged argument against the internet in its entirety. I'm not going to argue against what ex-pvpers have to say, or riftstatus (Monitoring Low/High/Med/full or whatever is very informative) or what the Vatican's official website has to say about Rift.

You mean I actually like to point to actual data like Riftstatus rather then simply your opinion vs my opinion, which is essentially meaningless.

Finally, seven of the 11 patches in classic Rift have either introduced PvP features or new BG's or PvP Concepts (such as Conquest) - to say that this is an ignored aspect of the game is clearly a fallacy in every regard.

There have been two WF, Conquest and PvP Rifts introduced, plus leaderboards (which most regard as useless and is for PvE as well) & mercs which was introduced due to falling PvP numbers / ever increasing queues. So basically even after nearly two years they have less PvP content than many other games start with, furthermore much of it is not original PvP content, just rehashed PvE areas / features (Library of the Runemaster, Conquest, PvP Rifts) or lacks features compared to other games - conquest is feeble compared to the equivilents in GW2, DAoC, etc, not to mention poolry designed for anyone that actually likes to PvP. The amount of resources used on PvP compared to PvE is pathetic.

Bottom line is this, I don't really care what the threads say, I don't care what ex-pvpers say, The only PvP feature Ive ever enjoyed in an MMO has been conquest

So how often do you actually do PvP then, given conquest is currently turned off?

For whatever reason, you don't seem to see that Rift has moved away from the PvP concept in the open world altogether; and there are significantly higher advantages to PvE servers than PvP ones. Since 1.10 was announced, several guilds on PvP servers migrated to PvE ones. you can check that for yourself in the Bloodiron and seastone realm sub-forums, the dates in which guilds announced their moves are there for all to see.

For whatever reason, you don't seem to see most of the PvP guilds and playerbase left the game before 1.10 was even announced, there is a reason for that and is not that Rift is wonderful game for PvP.

I'm not sure I can discuss the merits of PvP with you on any level because, frankly, you've compiled a list of what is considered to be universal PvP problems in every MMO out there and your justifications for why they apply to Rift are based entirely what other people say, not a single personal insight or example is provided other than random checks on a PvP shard outside of peak hours or raid times - every single time you've posted.

Some of my personal opinions should be inferred - e.g - raid gear being better for PvP makes for bad PvP and has been partly responsible for the decrease in PvP players, but no I point to other stuff, because that is what matters, people in this thread have tried to excuse, gloss over the decrease in population in the EU, now me simply saying person X is wrong, who cares, hence I point to actual data like Riftstatus, or I point to someone who is generally known as one of the best healers (PvP) in Rift and not one to normally complain in regard to healers being underpowered, again because it holds more weight than simply my opinion or yours, simpy stating your personal (in many cases very unobjective opinion) is meaningless much of the time.

And no they aren't universal problems to PvP, not every game goes for the dumb two faction design, not every game has PvE gear better then PvP gear for PvP, not every game has such huge gear differentials (yes, Rift has got better on this aspect), not every game has lost population (particularly PvP pop) so quickly, not every game's designers are so inept they think they can balance around huge passively applied healing debuffs, not every game neglects PvP to the extent Rift does and so on.

[-aiko-]

A lot of good information here, thanks for those who have been contributing.

As a new player myself, I have a question to add on as well. I've read a lot about how it is not a 'holy trinity' but that there are indeed 4 viable roles: tank, dps, healer, support. The idea of support interests my greatly. Want I want to know is how viable is it really...? I have my eye on the bard class, and since my goal is to raid I want to make sure I don't end up playing a role that nobody desires. It is extremely intimidating to start a game so late, when guilds have already formed, so I don't want to make it even harder on myself. New players are generally not treated to well during the learning curve, either.

[Deleted]

its 10 to 4 in the morning here, i play on icewatch. im getting ques of around 4-20 seconds, having a blast being bolsterd and being given the merc set. im playing chloramancer and having no problem healing people . i enjoy rift pvp because of its diversity. i still play WoW pvp and i can tell you know its a hell of a lot more un-balanced, (mages and warriors 1 hitting you, resto shamans beind to good etc..) the merc set negates and makes pve gear in WF's useless because you dont benefit from it. (say jim has full epic and relic raid gear, he goes into pvp and all his gear is replaced with the basic pvp gear, making his pve gear useless in pvp not giving him the upper hand because he is a raider) i like these changes and so-far i really am enjoying pvp in rift. with my vet reward vials i am blasting through ranks which is also awesome. seeing other people complain does not bother me to be honest because im having fun. rank 31, 49 ranks to go! B-)

[Maeen]

Some good reads here.

[theWocky]

Personally, I regard Rift as PvE game with PvP elements.

Everything in the game is "team" orientated. Warfronts needs a team - like in PvE. Conquest needs a team - like in PvE. The better balanced the team, the more adherance to tactics, the better the results.

One thing that games like this have shown, however, is that battlegrounds with 200 players become zerg fests. That is not to say that there is no strategy involved.

From my brief look at it, in my opinion, if you want to play a really good PvP game, try planetside 2. That, however, is also not one-on-one. It has definitely perked my interest and I intend to look at it from time to time.

Rift reminds me of everything that TBC WoW used to have - with a helluva lot more added to it.

Personally, I would prefer more "quests" that each person must do in the PvP battleground, but for the moment, as far as mass battle's go, it is a better version of WoW Alterac Valley.

As a PvE player that likes team work, I prefer the Warfront mechanic over the arena mechanic.

You can say what you want about Rift. There are at least people out in the world participating in events most of the time unlike other mmo's.

I struggle to understand why, for a PvE game, that this company supports so well (Patch 2.1 is already on the test servers) there are not more players. It really is an mmo experience that I have not seen any other company come close to compete with in terms of quality and content.

[Slipmat]

EU has one busy server Icewatch, the others (there are only 4 in total on the EU) range between low and virtually empty

I'd suggest staying in school until you learn to use both hands and all fingers to count, EU has ten shards

[Deleted]

eu has 10 shards.4 of them are very busy. the other are low but it doesnt mean that none plays there.At blightweald there are many top raiding guilds

[Antipathy]

I didn't gloss over it, saying you didn't have a point, it was silly argument, then giving reasons for why, is not ad hominem, you might consider that blutn or even rude, but that is not the same as ad hominem.

Glossing is taking a single comment out of many and choosing to retort to it while letting everything else that was raised slip through the cracks. Let this drop because as long as you don't go back to that style, I'm happy to discuss things with you using my somewhat limited observational capabilities. In my dictionary, basing an entire conclusion on a single forum thread is limited as best, and if to you that is silly, then fine, live and let live.

People can argue on whatever evidence they like, it is not a court of law, your argumentns consist virtually entirely of ancedotal evidence, unsubstantiated opinion or incorrect claims such as they have solved the PvP gear issue. The point being if person X's post in the Rift forum are worthless, then why are you bothering to post as your opinon is just as worthless or in teh case of PvP more worthless as you claim to not enjoy it outside of conquest (which they have turned off). You mean I actually like to point to actual data like Riftstatus rather then simply your opinion vs my opinion, which is essentially meaningless.

All intelligent discourse is essentially the exchange of worthless ideas and/or an inference or review of informal statistics. if you want to start quoting facts (such as possibly things published by Trion, for example, or investor reports issued by firms (should you assume that they are accurate), or information obtained from a specific, scientific survey, then that becomes an exchange of information. (all examples, ofc)


I did not claim to not enjoy any PvP in Rift other than conquest, I claimed, specifically, that Conquest is the most enjoyable PvP feature in any MMO I have played. That is not an exclusion by any measure of WF's or other PvP features in the game. Conquest has been disabled for three weeks, which doesn't bother me in the slightest as its meant to be an end level feature, and I'm still blissfully 59. I assume (as does everyone else) that it will return shortly in Patch 2.1.

Not to take a dig at you, but I don't find anyone's opinion to be meaningless (especially not my own) and I'm not sure why you'd view your own thoughts in that light.

There have been two WF, Conquest and PvP Rifts introduced, plus leaderboards (which most regard as useless and is for PvE as well) & mercs which was introduced due to falling PvP numbers / ever increasing queues. So basically even after nearly two years they have less PvP content than many other games start with, furthermore much of it is not original PvP content, just rehashed PvE areas / features (Library of the Runemaster, Conquest, PvP Rifts) or lacks features compared to other games - conquest is feeble compared to the equivilents in GW2, DAoC, etc, not to mention poolry designed for anyone that actually likes to PvP. The amount of resources used on PvP compared to PvE is pathetic.

This is biased on so many levels. It is one thing to say the addition of three warfronts in the span of two years is not enough, and it is another entirely to say that it is not original/rehashed or features. Conquest, to my knowledge, was the very first of its kind or scale attempted by any MMO. if you want a history lesson, there are now 6 WF's in Rift and Conquest additionally, Deployed in the span of two years. Do you want to look up how many there were in WoW untill its second expansion? How many did SWOTOR launch with?

You say rehashes, fine. What is Karthan Ridge a rehash of? What on earth is Conquest a rehash of? who the hell even attempted anything like that and on that scale, before GW2? What features does Rift lack compared to other games? Arena and that's it?

I can accept your opinions, but making a statement predicated on fact that other games have launched with more PvP stuff than Rift has had either at launch or in its current state is easily as incorrect as saying that the developers have not busted their balls to produce PvP Content. (good or bad, that's where the discussion diverges)

Fine, you don't like the additions, anyone can accept that. But saying they didn't try or haven't introduced things for the PvP community is such a massive elephant in the room and its really just downright dishonest. I Like Leaderboards. I love the mercenary system, and I like PvP Rifts. Library is one of my favorite BG's, and KR is visually fantastic and has a nice twist to it. I can accept you don't like these introductions, If I'm a fanboy for not discounting that RIft has developed all of this for PvPers, then fine. at least I'm a realistic fanboy.

You've also forgot to neglect the number of times they've reworked the ranking system, made changes to PvP Souls, Adding PvP to PA, introducing new ranks, and gear - all of which were things introduced many many times across different patches.

Come out and say "the new additions, in my view sucked", its all good. but don't come out and say "they never did anything" because that's just easily refuted by the patch notes.

So how often do you actually do PvP then, given conquest is currently turned off?

I'm casual about the game since I started Playing, I barely raid - and I mean barely, you can count the number of times I've been in a raid on one hand probably; so I usually do zone invasions, participate in world events, and PvP. Other than my Main(s) I have leveled a rogue, which is now 48, that was leveled entirely through WF's. I also tend to participate in the PTS PvP dedicated events whenever I can. I'm not Mr. PvP, by any measure, but I think the above gives you an idea, I'd say a third of my time is spent PvPing. as I mentioned above, CQ is disabled but I'm busy leveling anyway.

For whatever reason, you don't seem to see most of the PvP guilds and playerbase left the game before 1.10 was even announced, there is a reason for that and is not that Rift is wonderful game for PvP.

This is something many of us have agreed with you on in the past - including the moderators of this sub-forum. I don't know what the reason is, my premise is the observation that PvPers tend to be locusts who migrate from game to game and onto greener pastures all the time. GW2 in addition was a fantastic PvP oriented game and based on my personal (and anecdotal) experiences, we started seeing decline in PvP activity when the open betas of GW2 came about and 1.10 was announced.

In my (largely uneducated view) on PvP matters, players dedicated to PvP want a holistic experience - WoW, because of its sheer numbers and ranking mechanisms is a platform for prestige, GW2 provides the tailored PvP experience that rewards skill and has introduced more large scale- massive involvement. I don't know of any MMO other than GW2 that has - in any shape or form - been compelling to the PvP crowd in the manner it has been.

The Argument I'm making (which is substantiated by the thread dates and forum posts) is that people wanted the advantage brought about by 1.10, and accordingly PvP realms became something of disadvantageous environment (less xp gain in the open world, less recruitment possibilities, and less opportunities to make new friends) and so many have migrated to PvE realms.

I've said it to you time and time again, everyone is aware that Rift's Population has dropped. not a single game in the entire industry has been able hold on to the record numbers of the past - and for many reasons. Could PvP have been the deciding factor? maybe. my argument (and you can trace this back to our earlier posts) is that whatever the case may be, it is not for Trion's lack of trying.

Some of my personal opinions should be inferred - e.g - raid gear being better for PvP makes for bad PvP and has been partly responsible for the decrease in PvP players, but no I point to other stuff, because that is what matters, people in this thread have tried to excuse, gloss over the decrease in population in the EU, now me simply saying person X is wrong, who cares, hence I point to actual data like Riftstatus, or I point to someone who is generally known as one of the best healers (PvP) in Rift and not one to normally complain in regard to healers being underpowered, again because it holds more weight than simply my opinion or yours, simpy stating your personal (in many cases very unobjective opinion) is meaningless much of the time.

And no they aren't universal problems to PvP, not every game goes for the dumb two faction design, not every game has PvE gear better then PvP gear for PvP, not every game has such huge gear differentials (yes, Rift has got better on this aspect), not every game has lost population (particularly PvP pop) so quickly, not every game's designers are so inept they think they can balance around huge passively applied healing debuffs, not every game neglects PvP to the extent Rift does and so on.

This is all fair and dandy, but I disagree with you on many elements (which are too many to enumerate). PvP gear that you refer to is starter level, and is much easier to acquire than PvE gear (you can get several pieces just when you ding 60 with favor) If the issue is PvP gear being ineffective for questing then that's a bit of a moot point since you can quest pretty much with level 52 greens at 59. With PvP gear you can pull more mobs, take more damage, (more armor and more endurance) as opposed to picking one mob off at a time.

The rest is all debatable. I think its easier to argue that games like SWOTOR have effectively lost far more of a proportion of their population (PvP and PvE) than Rift ever has. We don't have the figures on the player-type that Blizzard lost during the epic downturn that was Cataclysm, so we can't really make comparisons. without any hard data on GW2, you simply don't know about any population downturn in that game either and whether it was motivated by PvP aspects or not. what we are left with is your statement that they are inept and ignore PvP, which has been the entire point of all our discussions, and my response to that is: "fine, view them as inept, but you simply cannot make the claim that PvP is ignored, and I have, across so many posts, shown what modifications they have made to the game in order to deal with PvP comments raised by the community. This is the same company that invited their entire community to participate in a test to see whether or not gear can be removed as a concept from PvP in its entirety, and I've lost count of the number of PvP PTS activities that they have established rewards for.