Disappointed in 3.0... ( no hate thread )

[catcommando]

OT: Well, I'm still super turned off by how they've decided to gate the epic Rift currency behind weekly caps and how they've set the price for earrings/planewalker water so high in order to strongarm folks towards the packs, but I'm warming up to the expansion. Felt it was a really rough start, but as I'm leveling I'm finding myself quite enjoying the variety of stuff I do via questing, even if the endless "run back and forth between quest hub" is getting on my nerves. First dungeon was pretty solid, still haven't done the second (just hit 64 and I've been too lazy to queue up for the second yet since I'm enjoying the questing).

I've been thinking of buying the $25 pack anyways, and it unlocking earring slots and planewalker water will be nice, but at the same time I don't want to support that kind of behavior. So I'm kinda stuck : /

I don't really care about the pw:w gear, mainly because I'm a filthy casual and as long as there are other gear available that don't require the attunement I'm ok with it. Read your post in the other thread and bought a bunch of cheap NT quality 60/61 gear off the AH for my cleric. (She's 60, but I'm not done with SL zones and since it's my first time through there I wanted to see the storylines.) It's just lame to put it on leveling quest rewards, and the whole thing reminds me somewhat of SWTOR's artifact authorization unlocks and quest reward limits. It's bad juju in general to mess with players' rewards.

What I find problematic is gating the earrings slots behind a paywall. If /4 chat is to be believed and those earrings are in <60 loot tables, what is Trion saying to newer players? "Welcome! No tricks, no traps. Oh by the way those L20 earrings you just got? We want $25 for you to equip them now. Or wait until L60+ and grind out 100k VS to wear them." I'm sure that will go over well with your new customers. It doesn't matter that we all have leveled without the earrings, this is the new "now" and players have an expectation of equipping class appropriate loot that they've acquired.

I get that they want to be paid for their work and I'd like to see them get paid for their work, but this is a very inelegant solution. I really would have rather they charge everybody $30-40 base for access to the new content, for the new souls and have none of this bullshit. Yes, it would have gone against "completely free to play" but at least it's upfront without having to put in some exasperated eyeroll inducing pain points just to get people to grudgingly pay you $25. Only other solution they can do is sell these things for credits, but if that's to happen at all my guess is it will be towards the end of this expansion cycle where they won't be cannibalizing the collectors edition sales. I'll likely pay $25 later mainly because I just don't have that kind of time to grind out all those VS. But like you, I'm torn with not wanting to encourage more of this kind of behavior.

[Lathais]

I don't really care about the pw:w gear, mainly because I'm a filthy casual and as long as there are other gear available that don't require the attunement I'm ok with it. Read your post in the other thread and bought a bunch of cheap NT quality 60/61 gear off the AH for my cleric. (She's 60, but I'm not done with SL zones and since it's my first time through there I wanted to see the storylines.) It's just lame to put it on leveling quest rewards, and the whole thing reminds me somewhat of SWTOR's artifact authorization unlocks and quest reward limits. It's bad juju in general to mess with players' rewards.

What I find problematic is gating the earrings slots behind a paywall. If /4 chat is to be believed and those earrings are in <60 loot tables, what is Trion saying to newer players? "Welcome! No tricks, no traps. Oh by the way those L20 earrings you just got? We want $25 for you to equip them now. Or wait until L60+ and grind out 100k VS to wear them." I'm sure that will go over well with your new customers. It doesn't matter that we all have leveled without the earrings, this is the new "now" and players have an expectation of equipping class appropriate loot that they've acquired.

I get that they want to be paid for their work and I'd like to see them get paid for their work, but this is a very inelegant solution. I really would have rather they charge everybody $30-40 base for access to the new content, for the new souls and have none of this bullshit. Yes, it would have gone against "completely free to play" but at least it's upfront without having to put in some exasperated eyeroll inducing pain points just to get people to grudgingly pay you $25. Only other solution they can do is sell these things for credits, but if that's to happen at all my guess is it will be towards the end of this expansion cycle where they won't be cannibalizing the collectors edition sales. I'll likely pay $25 later mainly because I just don't have that kind of time to grind out all those VS. But like you, I'm torn with not wanting to encourage more of this kind of behavior.

Wait, the unlock can not be bought with credits or gifted?

[Edge-]

Wait, the unlock can not be bought with credits or gifted?

Correct. you either unlock the earrings per-character and the planewalker water on your account (IIRC it's a one time unlock, unlike the earrings), or you purchase one of the expansion bundles and get the earrings/planewalker water unlocked on your account for all characters.

I'm imagineonce they feel they've sold as many bundles as they can that they'll transition earring/planewalker water unlocks to credits, but that probably won't be for a while.

[Lathais]

Correct. you either unlock the earrings per-character and the planewalker water on your account (IIRC it's a one time unlock, unlike the earrings), or you purchase one of the expansion bundles and get the earrings/planewalker water unlocked on your account for all characters.

I'm imagineonce they feel they've sold as many bundles as they can that they'll transition earring/planewalker water unlocks to credits, but that probably won't be for a while.

It can still be bought in-game with stones though right?

[catcommando]

It can still be bought in-game with stones though right?

Yes, but from what I gathered on the official forums there's not a whole places where you can get the Void Stones at the moment...as expected.

[Lathais]

Yes, but from what I gathered on the official forums there's not a whole places where you can get the Void Stones at the moment...as expected.

As long as it is still achievable without spending cash it's ok by me. Myself, I'll just spend the money and get it. As for anyone complaining, you can either spend the money or grind it out. The grind is nothing compared to other games.

[Edge-]

It can still be bought in-game with stones though right?

Correct. However the issue with that is the length of the grind.

At minimum, it is 3 weeks of capping (or just under capping) stones in order to get a single unlock (35k cap, unlocks are 95k I believe), and you have 2 earrings (character specific) and planewalker water (account specific, which is fine).

That's assuming you cap each week, which from what I've seen is a pretty tall order unless you have an absurd amount of time to do dailies and grind out NM Rifts, so it's more reasonably putting the unlocks around a month+ of work per unlock.

Normally, I wouldn't be too miffed by that, but those earring slots are pretty huge in terms of their stat impact, putting players at a big disadvantage if they want to progress in raiding etc.

If there wasn't a cap and you could just spend a ton of time grinding, I'd be cool with it, because at least you could poopsock and get it in a "short" amount of time (but a ton of playtime). If the time gating was lower (i.e. a week and a half per, assuming you were capping each week) I'd be totally cool because that would create a delay, but wouldn't be a significant hindrance to players who spent the time capping (but would still require players that didn't cap each week to spend more time getting it).

I know I'm sounding like it's a situation of "damned if they do, damned if they don't", but I really feel like they could have nailed this in a way that would totally reward paying players and be something desireable as part of their expansion bundles, but would still be something free players would be totally cool with not-purchasing but farming in-game. And hell, even subs, because I'm a sub and I have to deal with grinding it out and it's still looking pretty awful, even with the 40% currency buff.

[Lathais]

Correct. However the issue with that is the length of the grind.

At minimum, it is 3 weeks of capping (or just under capping) stones in order to get a single unlock (35k cap, unlocks are 95k I believe), and you have 2 earrings (character specific) and planewalker water (account specific, which is fine).

That's assuming you cap each week, which from what I've seen is a pretty tall order unless you have an absurd amount of time to do dailies and grind out NM Rifts, so it's more reasonably putting the unlocks around a month+ of work per unlock.

Normally, I wouldn't be too miffed by that, but those earring slots are pretty huge in terms of their stat impact, putting players at a big disadvantage if they want to progress in raiding etc.

If there wasn't a cap and you could just spend a ton of time grinding, I'd be cool with it, because at least you could poopsock and get it in a "short" amount of time (but a ton of playtime). If the time gating was lower (i.e. a week and a half per, assuming you were capping each week) I'd be totally cool because that would create a delay, but wouldn't be a significant hindrance to players who spent the time capping (but would still require players that didn't cap each week to spend more time getting it).

I know I'm sounding like it's a situation of "damned if they do, damned if they don't", but I really feel like they could have nailed this in a way that would totally reward paying players and be something desireable as part of their expansion bundles, but would still be something free players would be totally cool with not-purchasing but farming in-game. And hell, even subs, because I'm a sub and I have to deal with grinding it out and it's still looking pretty awful, even with the 40% currency buff.

and if this expansion lasts as long as the last one you have over a year to get it. This stuff will not be needed for the first tier, will help out in the second tier and probably be needed for the third tier. I mean come on, this is BiS stuff we are talking here. Just like raid gear, it's not something you'll get in 1 or 2 weeks. Just like you can only run raids once per week you have a cap to how many you can earn per week. I am a mostly free player and I am totally cool with farming it in-game. Kinda like grinding out Torvan rep and needing stones for BiS essences. That took weeks and weeks for me personally.

[Edge-]

I don't view a gear slot as "BiS", especially when gear is dropping for that slot and being rewarded as quest rewards right from the start of the expansions content.

[Khelendros]

You get stones with pretty much everything. The issue is the number of stones. Recognizing this it looks like they did make a move to bump people into raids faster by putting hit on world drops and quest items at level 65, enough hit to get you into experts. For the time being this is ok because the 10 man is the only raid out at the moment. Mount Sharax should unlock in a week or two though, so I wonder if that will be enough time to get the majority of the world first competing guilds up to 20 man raid readiness.

Though I have to say Rhen of Fate is pretty good practice for Mount Sharax. Its a pretty tough 10 man.

[Lathais]

I don't view a gear slot as "BiS", especially when gear is dropping for that slot and being rewarded as quest rewards right from the start of the expansions content.

You have to have the slot open to get the BiS.

[Edge-]

You have to have the slot open to get the BiS.

Indeed, but without the slot you can't get anything at all, is the issue. You can't even roll up with level 60-62 quest reward items.

It's a bloody gear slot, an I/d be willing to put money on the fact that raiding, even T1, is built around having it. Missing two item slots in any previous tier of chocolate/SL would have been a massive disadvantage, so much so that many guilds would likely pass up on you entirely. I can view this being the same very, very easily, especially given how strict the social conventions in-game have been with regards to hit requirements for raids.

[notorious98]

I feel it is a kind of a "small" expansion. But that is only by comparison to Storm Legion. SL was a major overhaul of the game though; NT is not. So it makes sense SL was more expansive comparatively.

SL was also released during the P2P time and cost money to purchase. I think it was expected to be somewhat expansive. Some, like myself, feel it was a little TOO expansive. I haven't played NT yet, but I'm sure I'll jump into it at some point. I prefer it to be smaller though. Story has never been their strong suit, so leveling isn't as important. 5 levels and 3 zones is more than enough.

[Tragedia]

Quick question, do I really have to download the full game again? It says:

Your local files cannot be upgraded to the current content version. A full re-download is required. Do you want to continue?

[Fencers]

No. It's just a terrible launcher.

[Tragedia]

No. It's just a terrible launcher.

Is there any way to fix it? I set my folder to the actual RIFT file and it still says the same thing. Tried opening RIFT instead of Glyph and nothing changes.

[Khelendros]

SL was also released during the P2P time and cost money to purchase. I think it was expected to be somewhat expansive. Some, like myself, feel it was a little TOO expansive. I haven't played NT yet, but I'm sure I'll jump into it at some point. I prefer it to be smaller though. Story has never been their strong suit, so leveling isn't as important. 5 levels and 3 zones is more than enough.

Suprisingly the story is actually really good in this expansion. I feel asleep during most of the story in SL. Nightmare Tide's story quests quite frankly kick ass.

[Edge-]

Is there any way to fix it? I set my folder to the actual RIFT file and it still says the same thing. Tried opening RIFT instead of Glyph and nothing changes.

Click yes. It will not reinstall the game, it will just install the update. It's a bug that they still haven't fixed and it's stupid.

Wish Trion would do away with Glyph already, it's been nothing but headaches and poor functionality.

[Slipmat]

Bare in mind the latest hotfix(es), EU got both 3 and 4 combined already, NA gets #4 later today, is 1.04GB large so don't get confused that you're redownloading the whole game with this big, phatt patch

[Nogardgib]

I have been playing Rift here and there since release. I played it before summer for about 3 months then 1 month after summer , trying to like the game again. But at the end i was bored, like mostly are before a new expansion. Now I realized it was released this monday and I gave it a try. But meh.. The patch notes are none existent. It doesn't seem that there is any changes to spells at all. just a few new ones i guess, havent seen them. I walk around and everything feels the same.

Since i haven even played more than 30 min, this is what i see is new to the game:

1. Dungeons and raids. That is it. For me as a pve:er this could just have been a normal patch where they give us a new dungeon and a raid, like they always do. I call wasted ''expansion''

am i the only one who feel this way? maybe i was hoping too much?

On top of all the other things pointed out by other posters, you h ave to understand how Trion does its releases now. There will be much much more coming down the pipe in the near future. When they do a major patch or expansion they only release part of it, then they release more a few weeks to a month later and so on and so forth. There is another land mass still not unlocked sort of like Dendrome was in Storm Legion expansion and that will be release at some point also.

So far I have been having fun in the expansion and have yet to find myself bored.

Just my $0.02 .