Dendrome Discussion

[Lathais]

Ok. Enjoy the clouds, friend.

Rift is starting to lose it's veteran players, cater towards casuals with easy open world content and not updating near as fast as they used to. You think this patch looks like an expansion when it's not even close to what SL brought us. Whose head is in the clouds?

[Puremallace]

Rift is starting to lose it's veteran players, cater towards casuals with easy open world content and not updating near as fast as they used to. You think this patch looks like an expansion when it's not even close to what SL brought us. Whose head is in the clouds?

This time in original Rift we were only getting Hammerknell. While I admit Carnival was a fucking dud due to the cost of the items turning off the entire player base. Have they artificially extended content with prices on stuff...uhh yeah. Will 2.3 Dendrome be bigger then 1.8 Ember Isle...uhh yeah

Most of us veterans as you call us still have 160+ days on our subs FYI btw

[Calliso]

Not to point out the obvious here, but people did take note of where these open world bosses were right? They were behind what I would count as a fuck ton of elites, so griefing will be hard. KEYWORD...If they are located in the same spots as they are on the pts, then oh yeah easily grief.

We will have to see how it goes. Clearly some part of the playerbase wanted this. They even said it in the live stream. I like the idea alot. I am still waiting on news of what Strongholds are? Are these the open world raids?

Yeah I think those bosses are going to be found inside that hive we were shown. I think they are just where they are on the pts because Dendrome isn't ready for testing yet. Of course I could be wrong and I don't think those are the only open world bosses *at least that is the impression I got* So maybe not all of them will be in the hive. But the bosses that are behind all those elites I doubt those will be too easy to get to. We will see however. I understand with it being open world content they can't really make it super hard but I am really hoping for some difficulty. As for what Strongholds are I do not think they are connected with the open world raids. I am really hoping this next live stream or maybe before they tell us about them or at least give us a hint! Been wondering what they are what for the past two monthes?

---------- Post added 2013-04-29 at 06:23 PM ----------

Where did I mention a post count? Oh, not once. Don't put words in my mouth or slander me by alluding to things I never said.

I used the date your account was created which was a fair assumption. Combined with the fact that you clearly display no knowledge of my posts on Rift other than the last month, how else could it explain your misplaced assessment?

Now you have given me the truth and I can respond appropriately. You've had ample time and claim to have read many posts, but still hold the opinion you do, now I know you are out to blatantly cause trouble. Thank you for showing the wolf in sheep's clothing so quickly, though in truth I knew it from the first few posts you made.

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OT: I like hearing that the zone is 1.5 times the size of Ember Isle, but I hope it doesn't follow suit with other SL zones. Too much land, not enough anything else. If it's 1.5 times and packed with quests, objectives, new ways to earn gear...you'll find me pleasantly surprised and hopefully playing for some months to come.

Time will tell though, not going to assume we're being given a bar of gold until I've seen it myself.

Yeah as excited as I am about this patch and as good as it is looking there is still chances for disappointment here. It being bigger then Ember Island is cool and all but only if it has the content to support it. If its another Ashora/Steppes then well major disappointment to say the least. Speaking of Ashora and Steppes I am really hoping that they get some more quests next patch as well. With the opening of Dendrome at the very least it would make sense I think that Ashora would get more quests. But we will see.

---------- Post added 2013-04-29 at 06:41 PM ----------

1) That'll keep me busy for a few weeks at best.
2) A dungeon, Master Mode? If so great, if not, it's just a dungeon, run it a couple times and it's stale, with likely rewards not as good as my current gear either, since it's only 5-man.
3) Open world raid encounters. Open world means it's gonna be easy. Super easy. They also clearly state they punish the player not the raid, so casuals that suck can show up and get free loot. About as bad as LFR, if not worse.
4) So a new zone. Myself and many others chewed through all of SL in under a week. One zone is not gonna last me more than all that. The quests will be done and it will be stale within a month.
5) Neat, I guess.
6) See answer for Dungeon. Chronicles are a great idea, but it's a little late when peoples gear is already past 5-man content, much sell solo/duo content.
7) This could very well be the saving grace, however it will probably get old about as fast as Hunt Rifts did unless it is really really great.
8) Feature, not content.
9) Feature not content.

This patch is not basically an expansion, excluding the T2 Raid, it's stuff that -should- have been in the expansion. It is a large patch, I'll give you that, but it is not near an expansion. Also, I already have unsubbed thank you. I have just been keeping an eye on it because I really do want to sub again, but if this is what they have to offer, I probably won't.

Well first of all not everyone rushes through content. I don't think it is possible for them to keep up with the people that rush through the content as fast as they can. Unless they released an expansion every 3 months or something. Which I think we can all agree would not be realistic. I think for many people a new zone combined with all the other things we are getting will keep them occupied for a couple months at least. Then hopefully by then we have another patch. As for chronicles not everyone does regular dungeons and raiding. I know I solo 99% of the time so Chronicles are a good way for me to see content that I otherwise could not see. I do think they need to come out faster though and it bums me that we will probably not get to see a Infernal Dawn Chronicle not to mention we really needed another HK chronicle as well. As for Strongholds I hope they have some variety to them and are not the same thing everytime. Otherwise yeah unless they are just amazing it will get old before long.

[Deleted]

u are negative for a patch that u havent even seen at the pts yet.
Wait for the patch and then say ur opinion about it.
There are still many things we have to see from 2.3. For me it seems that it will be a huge and fun patch. with many things to keep occupied all type of players ( well maybe except pvps :P )

[Calliso]

u are negative for a patch that u havent even seen at the pts yet.
Wait for the patch and then say ur opinion about it.
There are still many things we have to see from 2.3. For me it seems that it will be a huge and fun patch. with many things to keep occupied all type of players ( well maybe except pvps :P )

Yep I agree.

[Lathais]

Well first of all not everyone rushes through content. I don't think it is possible for them to keep up with the people that rush through the content as fast as they can. Unless they released an expansion every 3 months or something. Which I think we can all agree would not be realistic. I think for many people a new zone combined with all the other things we are getting will keep them occupied for a couple months at least. Then hopefully by then we have another patch. As for chronicles not everyone does regular dungeons and raiding. I know I solo 99% of the time so Chronicles are a good way for me to see content that I otherwise could not see. I do think they need to come out faster though and it bums me that we will probably not get to see a Infernal Dawn Chronicle not to mention we really needed another HK chronicle as well. As for Strongholds I hope they have some variety to them and are not the same thing everytime. Otherwise yeah unless they are just amazing it will get old before long.

That was not really rushing. If I wanted to rush i would have been world first. I took my time. Yeah, I took a little time off work, but I spent a lot of that time with my family as well. Not asking for 3 months between expansions, I am asking for what we got pre-SL which is regular large patches every 6-8 weeks that had enough to keep people busy with things other than straight stupid grinds and recycled content. As for Chronicles, I am glad you choose to play an MMO by yourself, I prefer to play with others, which is why I think the whole Chronicle idea is flawed from the start. However, it's a decent step in between regular dungeons and Experts, and should be released at such a time to make them accessible when that's where the curve on progression is. Sorry, we are way past that now.

[Calliso]

That was not really rushing. If I wanted to rush i would have been world first. I took my time. Yeah, I took a little time off work, but I spent a lot of that time with my family as well. Not asking for 3 months between expansions, I am asking for what we got pre-SL which is regular large patches every 6-8 weeks that had enough to keep people busy with things other than straight stupid grinds and recycled content. As for Chronicles, I am glad you choose to play an MMO by yourself, I prefer to play with others, which is why I think the whole Chronicle idea is flawed from the start. However, it's a decent step in between regular dungeons and Experts, and should be released at such a time to make them accessible when that's where the curve on progression is. Sorry, we are way past that now.

You know I am going to have to go look at what chocolate Rift had in each of its patches. I know its patches came quicker but I don't remember all of them being big patches with lots of content. I remember chocolate being rather grindy as well. But to be fair not as much as SL. I do play with other people sometimes like in zone events and stuff not to mention I am in a guild. But I like many others for various reasons prefer to solo or maybe duo with a friend or spouse. I did the whole raiding/dungeon thing in WoW and burned out on it. I do agree though that chronicles should be released sooner then they are. But at the same time I do not think they are meant for those that raid and do regular dungeons. They are meant for those that either solo or duo.

[Synoviarift]

Rift is starting to lose it's veteran players, cater towards casuals with easy open world content and not updating near as fast as they used to. You think this patch looks like an expansion when it's not even close to what SL brought us. Whose head is in the clouds?

Alright let's back up.

First of all, I apologize to Kitty and you Lathais for my rudeness earlier. Today and Friday were really shitty days at work as I basically spun my wheels both days trying to figure out an issue and seemingly made no progress on it. I feel I took out some of this frustration on you guys and for that I apologize. I'll try and keep it more tactful in the future.

As for being a "fanboi" of Trion, I suppose I'm guilty as charged. Without an iota of exaggeration, I've been playing MMOs for over a decade including 7 years of hardcore raiding in WoW and never has an MMO company impressed me the way Trion has - thus the "fanboi-ish-ness".

As to the quoted comment above, Lathais, I can't say I agree with your reasoning. My perspective is one of raiding and "end-game" content so-to-speak but I can say with confidence, having cleared all current content along with one of the hardmodes that there are encounters in this expansion that make anything I did during 7 years of WoW look like a joke. Granted our guild's progression was done prior to any real nerfs on the encounters. For example, we progressed on Matriarch for two solid weeks until finally we barely eeked out a killed. Regulos took us longer than that. Twins took almost as long as either of those (we were using the four-tank strat as I don't believe the two-tank strat was all that viable back then sadly). From a non-raiding perspective, the leveling in Storm Legion, to me, was decisively more challenging than any stretch of leveling I ever did in WoW be it 60-70, 70-80, 80-85, or 85-86 (I don't think I even hit level 86 because I was so bored with MoP). I recall the initial forum posts about Storm Legion leveling crying that it was too challenging and that one mob took too long to kill. It was almost like Ember Isle all over again where each fight was actually somewhat of a challenge.

If the argument about Rift becoming casual is based on subsequent nerfs to content such as, for example, the dumbing down of the Crucia encounter, I'd point out that this is a staple of any MMO after content has been out for a while so that this content can be experience by more of the population prior to the release of new content.

[Lathais]

Alright let's back up.

First of all, I apologize to Kitty and you Lathais for my rudeness earlier. Today and Friday were really shitty days at work as I basically spun my wheels both days trying to figure out an issue and seemingly made no progress on it. I feel I took out some of this frustration on you guys and for that I apologize. I'll try and keep it more tactful in the future.

As for being a "fanboi" of Trion, I suppose I'm guilty as charged. Without an iota of exaggeration, I've been playing MMOs for over a decade including 7 years of hardcore raiding in WoW and never has an MMO company impressed me the way Trion has - thus the "fanboi-ish-ness".

As to the quoted comment above, Lathais, I can't say I agree with your reasoning. My perspective is one of raiding and "end-game" content so-to-speak but I can say with confidence, having cleared all current content along with one of the hardmodes that there are encounters in this expansion that make anything I did during 7 years of WoW look like a joke. Granted our guild's progression was done prior to any real nerfs on the encounters. For example, we progressed on Matriarch for two solid weeks until finally we barely eeked out a killed. Regulos took us longer than that. Twins took almost as long as either of those (we were using the four-tank strat as I don't believe the two-tank strat was all that viable back then sadly). From a non-raiding perspective, the leveling in Storm Legion, to me, was decisively more challenging than any stretch of leveling I ever did in WoW be it 60-70, 70-80, 80-85, or 85-86 (I don't think I even hit level 86 because I was so bored with MoP). I recall the initial forum posts about Storm Legion leveling crying that it was too challenging and that one mob took too long to kill. It was almost like Ember Isle all over again where each fight was actually somewhat of a challenge.

If the argument about Rift becoming casual is based on subsequent nerfs to content such as, for example, the dumbing down of the Crucia encounter, I'd point out that this is a staple of any MMO after content has been out for a while so that this content can be experience by more of the population prior to the release of new content.

You could call me a fanboy too really. Believe it or not I love Rift. I too am taking all this from a raiders perspective, having raided in WoW from Vanilla through Cata and clearing all content, clearing all content in SWtoR as well, and as far as I could get in Chocolate Rift. I was late to the party and didn't even start playing until around ID release, by the time I was 60, it was really tough to find a group to run it with, especially being on a PvP server(due to "friends"). I full cleared TotDQ and FT and was 3/5 EE with my last guild before quitting. I'll admit, the raid content is far superior to WoW, by a long shot.

From a non-raiding perspective, sure, leveling in SL was chellenging, if you consider unnecessarily long grinds and large open areas where the mobs are sparse hard. I call that artificially drug out though, not hard. There was nothing very challenging in leveling, aside from competing for things you had to pick up the first week. Just too many people and respawns not fast enough for the amount of people. Again, not hard, just gated. I recall each fight being long, but long =/= challenge, it equals poor balance of damaging abilities and mob HP.

No, the argument of becoming more casual is about open world raids. That's worse than LFR. Any flunkie can just show up and join a public party and get a shot at loot. You don't even have to meet requirements or have a week lockout like LFR. Just show up. Sure, it says it requires 500 Hit/Focus/Toughness, but that's really only gonna affect your tanks. Your DPSers will show up and do dub-par DPS, but it probably won't matter because it's open world, so DPS check requirements will be lower. That's called catering to casuals and IMO, is worse than LFR. Especially when, since it's open world, they admitted to removing mechanics that cause one person to wipe the raid. That tells me there is not going to any difficult tanking mechanics, probably light on the heals so sub-par healers that are not used to real raiding can handle it. It's not about nerfs at all, I completely understand nerfs to content after it has been out a bit, it makes sense. However, open world raids????

Now all that said, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time in Rift. Moreso than any other MMO I have played, and I have played most of them. I still think it is the best MMO on the market. I still would recommend it to anyone interested in playing an MMO that has not already burned through all the content in Rift. However, if your like me, and that content is done old and stale, it's not that great anymore.

[Calliso]

I still like the idea of the open world raid/dungeon but the more I think about it the more it becomes clear that it will be very hard to pull off correctly. I think there has been some good ideas on the official forums that may work though. As for catering to casuals on the one hand I would say that casuals are probably the majority so it makes sense to cater to them. On the other I can understand the concern that they will go to far and soon the more serious raiders will be left with little because everything has been so nerfed/dumbed down. I do really hope that they make this open world raid/dungeon fairly challenging. Of course I realize being what it is it can't be too challenging I mean I understand why for instance they want mechanics to punish the player and not the raid. Because it could become a nightmare if a few people that didn't know what they were doing could come along and ruin everything. They do need to find a way to limit who can participate beyond the 500 hit and toughness people on the forums have talked about soft lockouts I guess and other things. I think they also need to limit how much these spawn so they can't just be farmed constantly.

[Lathais]

I mean I understand why for instance they want mechanics to punish the player and not the raid. Because it could become a nightmare if a few people that didn't know what they were doing could come along and ruin everything.

Or a few people who did know what they were doing could come along and grief everyone. It's the main reason why open world must be made simple and difficult to fail, which means easy, non-challenging content.

They do need to find a way to limit who can participate beyond the 500 hit and toughness people on the forums have talked about soft lockouts I guess and other things.

There is already a way to do this, it's called instancing......you know, just like all the other raids.
I guess they could lock individual players out from receiving loot more than once a week, just seems like a lot of hassle to engineer and code when you could just make a raid. Call it Tier 1.5, zone in to an outdoor area and have a raid.

I think they also need to limit how much these spawn so they can't just be farmed constantly.

I thought I read 3 minutes, but that may just be while it is on the PTS for testing purposes. Who knows.


The more I think about this whole thing the more I like the idea of LFR. Granted not in the way WoW used it, but more like chronicles or something. Set up separate raids that are independent from the others, similar to how 10 and 20 mans are entirely separate in Rift. Call them Tx.5 and let there be an LFR. I still would not like that either, but that would be more acceptable than this. This is just ridiculous.

[Slipmat]

Went for a snoop around the Infinity Gate to try and get some screenies of the new World Bosses in their "natural state" without any pyro effects

Used my sneaky Rogue to get close

Ahkane the Eternal



Kaaz-Ra



Senbora the Devourer

[Calliso]

Or a few people who did know what they were doing could come along and grief everyone. It's the main reason why open world must be made simple and difficult to fail, which means easy, non-challenging content.



There is already a way to do this, it's called instancing......you know, just like all the other raids.
I guess they could lock individual players out from receiving loot more than once a week, just seems like a lot of hassle to engineer and code when you could just make a raid. Call it Tier 1.5, zone in to an outdoor area and have a raid.



I thought I read 3 minutes, but that may just be while it is on the PTS for testing purposes. Who knows.


The more I think about this whole thing the more I like the idea of LFR. Granted not in the way WoW used it, but more like chronicles or something. Set up separate raids that are independent from the others, similar to how 10 and 20 mans are entirely separate in Rift. Call them Tx.5 and let there be an LFR. I still would not like that either, but that would be more acceptable than this. This is just ridiculous.

Yeah I still think we need to wait and see what they do. But I totally understand your concerns. I just think we need to know more about how this will work before we claim it sucks. I mean all we know right now is that there will be an open world raid/dungeon that involves that hive we saw in the livestream. Two suggestions that I saw that would be good I think are that only stones/marks should drop no actual gear and you should not be able to summon people into the hive.

---------- Post added 2013-04-30 at 11:59 AM ----------

Went for a snoop around the Infinity Gate to try and get some screenies of the new World Bosses in their "natural state" without any pyro effects

Used my sneaky Rogue to get close

Ahkane the Eternal



Kaaz-Ra



Senbora the Devourer

Those looks pretty awesome!

[Fencers]

I'm kinda tired of fighting variants of Plutonus.

[Myray]

Yeah I still think we need to wait and see what they do. But I totally understand your concerns. I just think we need to know more about how this will work before we claim it sucks. I mean all we know right now is that there will be an open world raid/dungeon that involves that hive we saw in the livestream. Two suggestions that I saw that would be good I think are that only stones/marks should drop no actual gear and you should not be able to summon people into the hive.

i like the idea of an open world raid summon per guildbanner would be fine too as long mob hp increase with player hp
i got somehow the idea of fighting a boss where constantly trash spawns and you cant get out of fight to rezz someone and simple 1 shoot mechanics if you fail
just locate the soulhealer at the beginning
and like you said we dont know how trion will pull it off perhaps ist just a test perhaps they plan a 2. harder or more challenging open world raid if the player like it we dont know
and for the loot they could do something like a once a week looting like the wow lfr if i remember it right or just some infinity stones for the 2. 3. etc kill if the raid is good i can see myself go there more than just once a week just for fun

guess im dreaming about a SOA like open raid

[Padwarle]

Another update is up... not sure when it was put in, though. :P

Small one - about 15.3mb for playable stage.

[Slipmat]

Another update is up... not sure when it was put in, though.

Only change i noticed was the World boss Senbora is now very small, compared to that screenie i posted, he's like one of the Vhars now in size

[Padwarle]

Not sure if this means anything, but the PTS is currently down, as in when you try to log in, it get to "sending protocol" (or something like that) and d/cs you.

I can only hope that this means... something.

(wishful thinking!)

[Padwarle]

I found something new (not related to Dendrome though.) on the PTS.

WARNING: Large images ahead!









Should be good for newer players.

[Lathais]

-snipity-

Should be good for newer players.

Very nice. Something I missed from WoW. Sure, once you learn your way around it's no big deal, but can be very helpful for new players or those Brain Fart moments. Really glad to see them still squeezing in QoL things like this.