Returning after a long long break, couple of questions.

[Deleted]

So I am trying to re find my love for rift. As it was once my fav game

A few things confuse me though

1) patron status, I upgraded to patron right away, to support the game, but when I look at the store and what you still need to purchase, I'm finding it hard to justify that monthly fee.
I assumed being a patron would get you access to all basic services. Like the bag slots, minion slots and bank vaults.
However all these still need to be purchased seperate , , I would of thought being a patron would give you some monthly credits to spend at least
This isn't a complaint, just wondering since the perks don't seem that great, if it's better to cancel patron and just buy gems monthly so I can get the slots etc and the souls. Don't mind switching but I do mind having to pay a sub and then still pay extra for basics

2) levelling, I know when I use to play, that I'm sure IA gave a ton of XP, but finding each IA is giving a fraction of a bar of XP at 40, am I missing something, is there a certain group of IA I should do or just random it
I briefly tried intrepid but that seems a tad chaotic, had no tank, and everyone was just running around like a headless chicken, died so much I hit zero vitality so left, and that was on the first intrepid.

3) planarite, been doing every rift I come across, but planarite seems to be in very short supply, is there another way to get some, or just spam rifts

4) questing and dungeons - I've noticed when out questing, it's a very lonely place, don't think I have actually bumped into anyone out questing, queued for dungeons and only one that even popped was realm of the fae, since then I just gave up as they took forever, yes I'm dps and I know they always draw the short straw when queueing

5) final one (sorry for long post) I came back and rolled a new character so I could get use to the game again, I think I'm at the stage of going back to my old toon who's 60, but where do I start the nightmare tide expansion, been all over sanctum and can't find a quest to start it like storm legion had at all

Sorry for the long post, and hope someone can help

Oh also... I keep getting trove keys, I remember the chests use to drop quite frequently, but not seen a single drop in 40 levels, was it changed?

Thanks again, and woohoo back in the game I loved the most

[Fencers]

1. Depending on how intensely one plans to play Rift, having Patron Status is far better than not having it. The main benefit of Patronage is the buff. It's not really an all-inclusive subscription if you read the website carefully.

2. Not sure. It's been a long time since I did an IAs. When I did, it's not like I took measure of XP gains and so on. Best advice I can think of is to simply do something else- quest, run some dungeons, etc.

3. Rifts mostly. Perhaps this shortage of planarite is related to you sticking around low level areas a bit too long. Just get all the low level stuff over with ASAP, in Rift, the endgame is everything. One ends up swimming in relevant currency by endgame. More than you can spend really- unless you LOVE housing.

4. Again, endgame. The low level areas are years old at this point. Most of the player population is in the elder game.

5. I don't recall. I think it is in Tempest Bay.

I think the trouble is you are trouncing about in the 'old world' of Rift. Whereas the bulk of the game has moved on by full two expansions and few major updates like Ember Island, Planetouched Wilds and so on.

Rift is sort of like Everquest 2 at this point- it's a mature game that is largely 'top down'.

[Deleted]

Thanks so much fencers for the reply.
Really appreciate it
Yeah I think the OCD in me is making me stay in low level areas to get the achievements, so most likely the cause
IA XP does seem a tad low tho, but I guess if I go to current level zones to quest it will flyby
I founding quest, thank you! Was as you said in tempest bay, stupid me thought it would be in sanctum for some reason lol

Thanks again for the info, truly is appreciated

[Slipmat]

Welcome back

To play a bit of catch up, check out this site to help keep you informed of any major changes:

http://riftgrate.com/

Jonus usually keeps it fully updated, even if it's rumors or a tidbit of info, always worth checking out the site for latest Dev info/newest Datamines from test server info.

`1: Only 2 weeks ago they introduced a new reward system for Patrons called the Affinity system which is basically you earn Affinity Points by logging in daily and by playing at least 3 hours out of 24 hours between resets (which is 4am to 4am), you get 5 points for logging in, then earn a point for each hour, you can make up this hour anyway you like within the reset time, play 3 hours together, play an hour here and there, rack up 20 mns here, 20 mins there etc.

Note you can only earn a max of 8 points a day, 5 from first log in then 3 from 3 hours playing so it's fair and not open to abuse.

2: Intrepid Instant Adventures were added a few months back, they're designed to give people who don't raid a "taster" of the raid itself, only one in game right now, Hammerknell, which is probably one of the finest raids out there but now at level 10 you get to experience the same bosses and experience the raid environmentas the hardcore raider does, albeit with many of the mechanics tuned well back obviously

Get a bad IA raid though and there will be deaths, normal IA's are the same, out in the Open World but now it's been streamlined so you can ported around all the zones at random, can be in Silverwood for a few stages, then suddenly the whole raid gets ported to Ashora, keeps it fresh and changing.

Plans are to add the newest Tier 3 raid, Mind of Madness, as an instant adventure soon and it's an awesome looking raid with awesome bosses so can look forward to another Intrepid IA

3: As Fencers said, you need to be in the new 60-65 zones to start earning the planarite and currencies "stones" drops, there's new types of Rifts called Nightmare Rifts which keep gooing and going until the timer fails, some have been to stage 300+ and beyond, after a few NMRs you#ll be swimming in planarite and artifacts and minion drops from your Rift llot bag

4: You will still find a few low level players around the zones, people still do start playing Rift as a totally new player but once they discover Instant Adventures, most seem happy to run IA's as their primary way to level up, especially as Rift has mentoring both down and up, you can join a group with a level 65 and it will scale you up to level 65 also, albeith with only the same talents you might have at level 10, anyhow, just enjoy the ride, there's been a heck of a lot added since you last played, even i get overwhelmed at times by info overload

[Deleted]

Thanks slipmat for all the advice, truly appreciated.
Yeah I noticed the affinity addition, looks nice, some nice rewards on it, do they have plans to expand it do you know? I've become a minion hoarder, already up to 52 lol, and would be nice to see some patron only minions, just a thought

Tried intrepid again last night, actually went smoothly up to some kraken boss, then it all went to hell as healers left, but was nice experiencing proper group content. A marvellous addition.

An IA dumped me in a level 65 zone that was absolutely brutal, we didn't even come close to clearing objectives. Can't remember name of it but was all covered in ice. All zones so far have been fantastic, but that one I can see me dropping out of it it ever pops up again.

Absolutely loving the changes to the game, have a few gripes that have made me frown, but then I think everyone can say that about any game

Anyone able to answer the troves question? I'm now up to three orange keys, six purple, and four blue keys but not seeing any chest drops

Thanks again both of you for all the help

Now I just need to figure out which things I need to buy on the store to be able to play all content

[Heathy]

lockboxes are pretty rare, when it comes to the keys and boxes, its the box that is actually worth anything. keys are almost a dime a dozen.

you'll get 4 or more every month from the weekly patron box, those are already unlocked for you.

considering t3 has just been released i think we have a year of this tier, plenty of time to get into it. i doubt we'll even hear anything about the next expansion until summer.

[Deleted]

Thanks for clearing that up for me Heathy, appreciate it

[Heathy]

no worries, its a little annoying that you don't really get any permanent unlocks from going patron, although it will give you large amounts of loyalty which does eventually give you nice stuff.

over the last 6 months i've started raiding again and so i picked up the soul packs and i think you can grab a typhoon edition key from somewhere for like the price of a month sub so that saves you a bit of a grind. but you can play the game just fine without the souls (you'll find that most ppl can do everything in a 20 man), it would be better to have alts before buying those then you at least get to try them all out as opposed to buying them for one character. those and the new primalist are probably the most indepth replayability adding unlocks. bags you can get from buying a classic key if you can find one. or a storm legion key.

once you get to 65 and the void stones start rolling in there is a 32 slot i think it is on the store for something like 40k voids. they did also recently add in that 38 slot beast, so even with only 4 bag slots you could eventually end up with a reasonable amount of space.

[Deleted]

Yeah the lack of unlocks is what I can't get my head around, having to buy bag slots for each alt. That's just something I would assume would come naturally with a subbed account.

I'm at 20 slot bags right now, and finding I'm having to create alts to mail stuff too to save space already lol
Will keep an eye out for the buy able bigger bags, thanks!
Gonna get the typhoon addition Monday, someone said in game I'd need to buy the power pack and into the wilds, I think they called it pack. If I wanted to enjoy max level?

Again, appreciate the advice

[Heathy]

honestly you don't need to put any cash in to enjoy the game, typhoon will save you having to farm up over 100,000 void stones. at max level its nice to have patron mainly because you get more stones from the weeklies so you can cap them faster.

I wanted oracle and defiler for my cleric mainly so I didn't need another character to play support. but its in no way required and for the most part situational, support is only really useful in raids same as defiler. depending on your class, you can squeeze a bit more dps out of a spec if you have the soul packs, but its in the range of 5% or so.

i think mages get a nice combo with harbchon petty op burst dps. if your into min maxing i would definitely go for the souls eventually. it just sucks a bit that to get the most out of them you'd have to make one of each class as they each get 1 souls from each pack. i only have one max level character still slowly levelling my first alt. i do want to try out phystact at some point.

[Deleted]

Ah ok, will stick with just typhoon for now, thanks.
Rolled a harbinger earlier, well the suggested build, it's insanely OP, took me a fraction of the time, to level to 15 unlike others I've tried.
Really impressed with it, guessing that's an unlock I must of bought in the past lol
Must admit found my love for the game again, and really loving the minion system, sure there's a few tweaks that would be nice, namely the long 10hr one, seems to have low rewards compared to even the 15 min one.
Already finished this years fae Yule chain, now working on last years for the cards

[Heathy]

I have to admit i've been a little slow recently, my bro plays rift almost exclusively, but i juggle games and find it hard to justify lengthy grinds.

its like the current 500 sparkles quest, would be nice to get that piece of t3 but bleh, i just can't be arsed to grind it out haha.

my bro keeps telling me 'you'll never get gear if you don't do your weeklies' and i'm just like 'ill gear up in the raids' then he said 'no you won't'

last weeks igp, got 3 pieces of gear wooo. its like we have enough ppl to start doing HK but not getting the signs atm. the way i see it, we still have mostly likely a year to get through t2 and start on t3, heck we managed to kill murdantix and only about half the raid had 1200 hit. when ppl start signing for t2 ill start taking the weeklies more seriously. rift is a bit of a bitch at end game, gear pieces are just extremely marginal upgrades until you go from one tier to the next.

I like playing rift but when i start going down the path of hard core grinding it starts to chafe me. i just like natural progression hate trying to force it.

[Deleted]

Ah handy to know that I have one epic grind to come lol
Then again surely it can't be as bad as ffxiv can it?
That game made me feel like a robot
Think I might stick to harbinger for now, done some IAs last night, that scaled me right up, and was able to solo the empowered mobs for objectives, where as before I struggled on the normals lol

[Heathy]

its not so bad tbh, the grind can be real, but its manageable and the rewards are decent in rift, you can progress pretty smoothly without feeling forced to raid. it all depends on your personal pace, rift is very easy to play casually but sometimes it does feel like your missing out.. for example the dungeon stacks, remember to keep that below 7 so your always accumulating a new charge each day, AIs are great for levelling if you keep doing hammerknell, i'm not sure about the others, but hammerknell i know gives you marks of notoriety in those little reward boxes, those will give you a huge amount of xp plat and rep when you get to the NT main hub at 60 something.

AIs are also a great place to try new builds and rotations, if you don't want to say, jump right into healing expert dungeons, practice getting the flow/rotation right inside the AI group, then when you feel ready. you get a pretty decent place to practice without too much weight on your shoulders. works pretty well for tanking too. likewise for nightmare rifts as the challenge scales a little more.

[Deleted]

I don't mind a grind, , As long as it isn't login and do same thing day in and day out, that will burn me out fast
Got to 61 now, really loving the reef, the zone makes you feel fully immersed, so massive thumbs up to the art team for that

Ended up switching my original elementalist Mage over to the harbinger, since it's so much easier to kill on harb
One thing I will say,wow has absolute spoiled me with bank access, one click deposit all crafting materials was a god send on that, and a pain in rift, but I am sure I will get use to it lol

Thanks again for all the advice, really is appreciated.
Starting to find my feet in rift again,