Not enough Raiders in Trion Rift - Raids nerfed 50% ???

[Ahovv]

Depends on what they consider to be "doing well".

By your own description, you're not really the "meat and potatoes" demographic of any game. You're the guy that considers himself so elite that even "Top 100 guilds in WoW" are too casual and annoying for your taste, as you put it in another thread.

So yeah, you and Brasse can both be correct here. The game can be doing just fine while not catering to you.

This current thread is based around raiding, indeed titled "Not enough Raiders in Trion Rift - Raids nerfed 50% ???"

If someone like Brasse wishes to claim the game is doing well, they can claim it's doing well in other areas. As I mentioned, it's likely that a lot of new players are trying out the game and spending money on lockboxes. But it would be a boldfaced lie to claim the game is doing well with raiding at this current time.

But even the lockbox claim would be questionable. Is it really acceptable to claim a title is "doing well" when the company isn't expanding its content compared to previous releases? For example, just compare Nightmare Tide to Storm Legion. Compare the amount of open-world content. Compare the quality of raid content and art. So yeah, perhaps with a skeleton crew it could be claimed the game is doing relatively well. But by definition that would mean the standards have dropped. That's like changing a failing grade from D to F and claiming students are doing well because less of them failed.

Of course, this is pure conjecture and will remain as such because the only response we would receive is typical PR bullshit.

[TirielWoW]

shame on you if you bought the 40% mount with plat and not with honor :x

I already had a mount, but I don't pvp, so no I wouldn't buy it with honor.

[theWocky]

This current thread is based around raiding, indeed titled "Not enough Raiders in Trion Rift - Raids nerfed 50% ???"

If someone like Brasse wishes to claim the game is doing well, they can claim it's doing well in other areas. As I mentioned, it's likely that a lot of new players are trying out the game and spending money on lockboxes. But it would be a boldfaced lie to claim the game is doing well with raiding at this current time.

I think Ahovv is correct here. The reason for the raid nerfs is because I think the raiding community has hit an all-time low. I think player retention is a huge problem too.

It seems that the top end guilds have very little positive to say to the new guys coming up. The general consensus is "I play because my mates do" ~ which is why I keep it installed. There are some genuinely selfless, generous people in my guild, Harshmallows. One guy offered to run me through a dungeon several times even to level me as I found the 42mil XP at level 64 (with 160% pots, mind you) mind-numbingly boring.

What people don't realize is that when a game is based on raiding. You can dispute that all you want, but that was the draw to RIFT from the beginning, and the raiders stop playing, the game economy ends up in ruins. Raiding drives the game economy.

While I am excited to see the US$50 promo. As people pointed out on Twitter, it is just a promo. It should be permanent.

Edge pointed out as well that this has been planned for quite a while.

Many people I chat on Teamspeak immediately go all negative and say it's just another desperate "Cash Grab". So, is it desperation for players?

They really have been pushing give-aways and things. The massive one month give-away did almost nothing (steam charts players actually dropped) to boost numbers, but the carnival (semi-new content) seemed to reflect a bump on the steam charts.

Many things still remain un-addressed and broken in this game. I am, however, cautiously optimistic that their numbers have fallen so far, that desperation makes them fix things moving forward.

It is nice to see a Trion CM on the forums and be able to speak without being banned when you criticize.
She still doesn't bother responding to my PM's on the forums, however - I needed some clarification for my video. No need - already did the promo video.

[Super Kami Dende]

I used to recommend RIFT to people.

I no longer do since it went from one of the genuinely good F2P models to this atrocious hacked up piece of shit B2P garbage.

For shame.

[Ahovv]

They can say that the game is overall doing well regardless of the title of the thread. There's no obligation for every single statement to be restricted to one specific thing.

Of course, no employee is going to say that the game is doing poorly in public, so eh.

Once again, there is no real evidence to support the claim. She/Trion can claim it all they want; I don't know anyone from Rift who would agree with that.

[Lathais]

Well, if you feel like plat won't be that much of an effort for you to get what you want for plats then it's good for you
I farmed plats back when lvl 60 was max, and it was quite a struggle back then and also the REX cost was probably half of what I hear it currently is on EU, and also there were not always REX on AH, and from what it seems it has not become easier to get the plat... rather the opposite.
When I logged in last time, in january this year, there were no REX at all available on AH.
But I'm glad you are positive, keep posting on how things are going :)

I am at close to 2000 plat now and hit 64 this weekend, did not get to play as much as I had hoped. However, that seems pretty good, by the time I am 65 I should have enough to buy one REX pretty easily, maybe a little bit of farming. The part that's bothering me the most though is that I got to the final zone and was getting level 65 quests while I was still 63. I guess not having Patron caused that so I went and did some IA to get to 64 so I could equip the quest rewards. Quest rewards should not have level restrictions, if I beat the quest I should be able to equip the gear. Also why PW:W and Earrings as quest rewards bother me still, I beat the quest but now I can not equip the reward? I should be able to equip earrings soon at least, as I will buy a REX and get that unlocked as soon as I am able as it appears I may need them to get geared up for Experts. Have not decided if I want to go the healer or tank route yet, but likely healer as I think Tank will be harder to gear up for at first.

[theWocky]

I am at close to 2000 plat now and hit 64 this weekend,

Not bad going, actually. What are you doing to make platinum? I've only got like 700p from 61 to 64 - from Questing, mining, herbs, wood. EU Auction House economy is not good, I think.

I take it you're on US if you can get a REX for +/- 2.5k ? What server?
EU is like over 4k per REX, so double the effort needed to farm for us EU players.

Also, how many REX you gonna need to open the earring slots and to open the PlaneWater gear on the cash store?

I was going to buy that US$50 thing, but I gave it some thought this weekend - just find the levelling grind just too damn extreme - that's with 160% pots (no 40% patron), and then the mind-numbing grind to get raid-ready - I think me and Rift are going to part ways for now. I'm subbed to 3 other mmo's anyway right now. Maybe they'll keep the promo and I'll reconsider later.

However, I'm finding most of the levelling while questing is carnage / killing / gathering as well. I don't see the point of playing a game and watching a movie on a second screen because it is so grindy/ boring - just to make the time bearable - hence why I didn't do the IA bit.

I found the questing in SL a lot more fun - levelled three characters. Here in the NT expansion, it took me ages to get to 64 1/3.

[Lathais]

Not bad going, actually. What are you doing to make platinum? I've only got like 700p from 61 to 64 - from Questing, mining, herbs, wood. EU Auction House economy is not good, I think.

I take it you're on US if you can get a REX for +/- 2.5k ? What server?
EU is like over 4k per REX, so double the effort needed to farm for us EU players.

Also, how many REX you gonna need to open the earring slots and to open the PlaneWater gear on the cash store?

I was going to buy that US$50 thing, but I gave it some thought this weekend - just find the levelling grind just too damn extreme - that's with 160% pots (no 40% patron), and then the mind-numbing grind to get raid-ready - so I think me and Rift are going to part ways for now.

However, I'm finding most of the levelling while questing is carnage / killing / gathering as well. I don't see the point of playing a game and watching a movie on a second screen because it is so grindy/ boring - just to make the time bearable - hence why I didn't do the IA bit.

I found the questing in SL a lot more fun - levelled three characters. Here in the expansion, I've been stuck on 64 1/3 for ages.

I've just been selling pretty much everything I find on the AH. My mage is Mining/Herbalism/Butcher and I make sure to gather everything I see as I am out leveling. I am also selling gear and other items that drop that are not Soulbound, aside from some nice purple rogue pants that dropped, gave those to my wife as she started playing again too. It goes a little slower, but the results speak for themselves.

Yes, I am US, on Deepwood. Last check saw REX at 2.4K ea with about half a dozen or so for sale.

I think it will take 2-3 REX but I think I can also skip out on PW:W and just get the earrings which I may be able to do with 1 REX, so it's really not that bad at all.

I am more interested in the fact that it seems so much harder to do on the EU servers. I would think that if REX is more expensive there, all the items I am selling on the AH would be too, perhaps we can compare the prices of the basic mats later and see.

I almost enjoy mindless grinds sometimes, call me crazy. It's almost like meditation for me. At the end of the day I can log in and just kinda turn my brain off and go grind mode for a bit and unwind. Yeah, I am weird.

[theWocky]

Yes, I am US, on Deepwood. Last check saw REX at 2.4K ea with about half a dozen or so for sale.

I am more interested in the fact that it seems so much harder to do on the EU servers. I would think that if REX is more expensive there, all the items I am selling on the AH would be too, perhaps we can compare the prices of the basic mats later and see.

I have a character on Deepwood that is near an auction house. I will do a check sometime on high end mats and other and update.

The economy on EU is bad and servers almost always on low. Only Brutwacht really goes to medium pop ever. I've often had things auctions expire on me in spite of undercutting. The AH fees as a non-patron bite quite a bit as well.

Hard to believe in SL, I had like 50k from the AH.
Artifacts were a good cash cow back then - now they kill their value by giving artifacts to everyone for free at login each day.
Also, (while they are nice), the new 21 day cycle daily login rewards / mats, etc further screw up the economy making it harder to make cash.

I suspect bots are a huge issue, maybe keep the prices down? I don't ever see gold-sellers though, so they must be external gold sites or something. I have seen a lot of people complain about bots, however.

This all goes back to the main topic of this post - I suspect due to there being so few raiding guilds, demand for mats is at an all-time low.

[Lathais]

This all goes back to the main topic of this post - I suspect due to there being so few raiding guilds, demand for mats is at an all-time low.

Mats are what make me the most money though. Sometimes they even sell the second I put them up, which I can only guess is due to those buy orders? If demand is at an all time low, how are they selling so fast for me? Someone out there wants them.

[StrawberryZebra]

I am more interested in the fact that it seems so much harder to do on the EU servers. I would think that if REX is more expensive there, all the items I am selling on the AH would be too, perhaps we can compare the prices of the basic mats later and see.

From having checked out the AH on both sides, the cost of most basic mats is more or less comparable. REX on the other hand is a more limited commodity on EU servers, hence the prices are higher. On Gelidra they're frequently upwards of 4k. More if you use the AH, assuming you can even find REX there.

As for the nerfing helping people getting into raiding... I spent a good portion of the weekend trying to find myself a pug group for either RoF or MS with no success. Having neither the 1200+ hit practically every group demands now nor the achivements makes it hard to convince people to invite you. I was frequently told that I was "bad and lazy" for not having the achivements already. With RoF in particular, I've done the chronicle 10-15 times helping guildies out, I know how to handle all the mechanics, both normal mode and hard. But no achivements no invite.

I stand by what I said earlier in this thread. If Trion want more people to get into raiding, make raiding easier to get into. Making your raids easier is not the correct answer, and it primarily benefits those who are already doing it.

[Lathais]

From having checked out the AH on both sides, the cost of most basic mats is more or less comparable. REX on the other hand is a more limited commodity on EU servers, hence the prices are higher. On Gelidra they're frequently upwards of 4k. More if you use the AH, assuming you can even find REX there.

As for the nerfing helping people getting into raiding... I spent a good portion of the weekend trying to find myself a pug group for either RoF or MS with no success. Having neither the 1200+ hit practically every group demands now nor the achivements makes it hard to convince people to invite you. I was frequently told that I was "bad and lazy" for not having the achivements already. With RoF in particular, I've done the chronicle 10-15 times helping guildies out, I know how to handle all the mechanics, both normal mode and hard. But no achivements no invite.

I stand by what I said earlier in this thread. If Trion want more people to get into raiding, make raiding easier to get into. Making your raids easier is not the correct answer, and it primarily benefits those who are already doing it.

I am not there yet, but will keep updating as I get there. I recall people complaining about this in SL as well, yet I never had a problem. Sometimes I would outright lie and just tell people this is my alt, my main has it, and if needed have a friend link them achievements for me, lol. Usually however, an explanation that I am a new/returning player, so it's not laziness it's just that I just came back, was enough to be given a shot. Joining a guild helps too, as people are usually much more forgiving of not having stuff done if you are in their guild, even if you are a new member and do not know the people, just having the same guild tag as them makes them your friend and want to help you, as long as you are not rude and actually show you know what you are doing.

I should hit 65 this week and will begin the gearing up process, then look for a guild and see how easy I can get back in to the raiding scene. Unfortunately, I still have not seen anyone on my friends list log in, so I will not have an easy way in to a raiding guild at this point it appears and will have to "start from scratch" so to speak, as any other new player would.

[StrawberryZebra]

Unfortunately I carved myself out a reputation as being the Go-To guy for any and all of your needs. That does mean I've got a wide selection of players I talk to regularly, crafters some of whom I've made extremly wealthy, Artifact hunters, dimension builders and so on who are after some of the harder to find items they want. Not many of them are people who do pug raids often, and they certainly wouldn't offer me a spot in them.

While I do have some friends who are serious raiders, I've even done massive bulk orders of consumables, runes and such for entire guilds before now so people already know who I am, they're far beyond the content I'm currently on. Probably the only way I'd get into one of their raids is by giving them their Plat back and buying my way in.

I'm in a guild with people who, mostly, quit playing after the whole ear ring debacle. Those who are still here are leveling up and doing more casual content. We couldn't even get a group put together for an Expert dungeon but even if we could somehow get enough people online for a raid, theres little to no interest in actually doing it. Leaving is an option, but I've not yet found an English speaking guild that has raid times that would work for me.

That leaves me with trying to find a pug, and while I could try lieing my way in, I wouldn't want to call my integrity into question by doing so. I need people to be able to trust me for what I do to actually work. Best just to be up front and honest about lacking achivements.

[Lathais]

So you are not willing to join a guild that is focused on the progression you need and that's the games fault somehow? I mean, I get it to an extent, but that's your own fault. PuGs for raids are often people that are in guilds that are past that content but still need/want to run it for that one piece of gear that never dropped or for alts. They want fast quick runs with experienced players, and I get that. There is nothing worse that having already run T1 raids to death with your guild and then falling back to PuGs because your guild is done with it and struggling through it. It's really annoying when you know your guild can clear a raid in 45-60 minutes to join a PuG that takes 2 hours to do the same thing. They don't want to mess with that, so put requirements on it. PuG groups are basically farming groups. If you want progression, you need progression guild.

[StrawberryZebra]

So you are not willing to join a guild that is focused on the progression you need and that's the games fault somehow?

I said nothing of the sort. Its a community created problem, pure and simple.

I would be willing to join a T1 progression guild, the problem is that those guilds no longer exist. There are >10 Raiding guilds left on Gelidra at the moment, and thats being generous and including a couple that are just glorified pug groups, one thats on an extended leave of absence, and even that one run by Mwlandwii, who spends all his time online AFK in PvP telling other people how bad they are at it. As far as I can tell his guild has never so much as organised a piss up in a brewary, but they slap 4/4 ROF in their recruitment so I'm counting them.

Most of said guilds raid on Wednesdays and Thursdays, which are days I have other commitments. By the end of the Summer you'll probably be able to count the number of raiding guilds here on one hand. Based on both their recruitment spam and the way they're frequently having to try pug 5+ spots, all of these guilds are undermanned at the moment. At the time of writing this there are just 19 people in Tempest Bay including myself, there are just not enough players to support the current number of guilds.

Potential new raiders are kept out by a very selective raiding community who, as you say, just want to get things over and done for the week. They also have no good way of catching up with older raiders, as to replace those who leave Rift for one reason or another. With a shrinking raiding population, and no new players to replace them, naturally thats going to lead to a decline in raid participation and the collapse of raiding guilds. I believe that the 50% HP nerf was an attempt by Trion to encourage more people to try raiding, to help fix these issues before they become acute. While I applaud them for making the effort, its done nothing to help would-be raiders actually get involved in raiding because of how exclusive the raiding community is. Ultimately, its a poorly thought out change that benefits those same raiders who just want to get things over and done with ASAP.

[anaxie]

Since a certain Trion ambassador posts all the fluffy stuff, I'll continue to post the unpleasant facts.

When they're not putting the Auction House, Earing slots behind a paywall, giving an essentially free piece of T3 (highest level) gear to subscribers each month, taking away long-standing F2P perks and making them "subscriber only", adding incomplete classes and souls to the game (and mostly ignoring many older ones), putting another RNG lock box on store, putting a double-RNG credit only "minion" adventure that gives you access to the BiS essence components in the game. Trion appear now hard at work attempting to find new and inventive ways to dumb down and kill their game.

An Interesting post appeared today on the Dev forum by Dev_Anony.
(off topic: interestingly from one of the dev's that was apparently part of a massive scandal that involved Rift's top guild quitting for WoW)

http://forums.riftgame.com/game-disc...ty-update.html

"Why Mind of Madness is extremely hard and with Comet of Ahnket slated for release in the near future, we wanted to open it up to more players. So we're dramatically cutting the difficulty of all bosses except Arisen Arak. This involves a massive change to the health pools and targeted mechanic difficulty reductions. Difficulty reductions that will impact the fight time pretty significantly. How significantly? We've cut a lot of the DPS requirements in half."


Only 37 guilds have downed a boss in the latest tier. Many only the FIRST boss out of nine. The game is hemorrhaging raiders.

I don't think the main problem is the difficulty. It's bugs (not only limited to game crashes, graphical abnormalities, fps, lag, raids, events, etc), rushed, unpolished content and grind. Oh... my... god... The gear treadmill for new players is extreme to say the least - unless you're prepared to open your wallet and buy a full set of T2 gear from the shop.

Yes, you can BUY gear with stats - not just cosmetic on the Rift in-game cash shop and be immediately ready to raid the latest content.

It's pretty obvious (in my opinion) why they're doing this nerf. I suspect they realize that they can't put T3 on the shop for sale until T4 content is out.

Oh, and in other news, they've just ditched class-specific designated designers.
http://forums.riftgame.com/general-d...m-changes.html

Why am I so salty? Sad to see one of the best alternatives to WoW (in 2011) fall so hard and so far from grace. A game I heavily promoted for 3 years, invested several hundred dollars in, not to mention hundreds of hours doing YouTube videos.

Then, from No Tricks, no traps to what I regard on of the F2P titles with an payment model identity crisis. Not only Rift, but every Trion game appears to have followed this route.

"caveat emptor" - from their actions in Rift, what is a F2P feature today in any Trion game may suddenly become a "patron / subscriber" feature when they need to make subscriptions more popular. This is unethical and a blatant breach of trust.

Not only the latest T3 raids, but ALL RAIDS are to be nerfed.


(This Anony dev guy allegedly allowed an opposing guild to use an exploit to down a boss for world 1st)

DETAILS: http://massivelyop.com/2016/01/04/ri...r-suspensions/

If you mention Apotheosys in-game or on the forums or even on a site like this, you're likely to be put on Trion's ban list.

To be fair when they started relaunching all the dragon fights again and then Hammerknell redux it was pretty obvious where things were going and I didn't even play Rift.

I LOVED the idea of the game and thought it was a pretty solid 2nd to WoW in raiding MMO genre till midway through it's Storm Legion. And then it all just ran out.

Sad to see it happen.

- - - Updated - - -

I really, really wish people would just stop with saying this. In TBC Blizzard added improved gear you could buy from farming heroics as they added later tiers of raiding, and they allowed those same currencies to drop from raids too. Barriers to entry were progressively removed as TBC went on, by the time Sunwell was live you could get from fresh 60 to being ready for the Sunwell in under a month, even without having to work at it 24/7. You didn't even have to do much work rep grinding, my guild had tens of thousands of Aldor and Scryers rep tokens stashed away for new guys who needed the shoulder enchants.

Save for the first 6 or so months, TBC used the exact same raid and gearing models that WotLK, Cata and so on did.

Bro you forgot about the PVP gear for honor. Season 2 = T5

[Slipmat]

I spent a good portion of the weekend trying to find myself a pug group for either RoF or MS with no success. Having neither the 1200+ hit practically every group demands now nor the achivements makes it hard to convince people to invite you

Everyone that enters a T1 Raid now like RoF, MS or TF gets boosted (or down bolstered) to 1200 hit and plus 1500 Health

[kiramon]

I have every class at 63-65 and I have no idea how to gear up.to get into.the 3200 or whatever main stat requirement dungeons let alone a raid

[Slipmat]

I have every class at 63-65 and I have no idea how to gear up.to get into.the 3200 or whatever main stat requirement dungeons let alone a raid

You should have been collecting Void Stones as part of rewards from quests, Rift, dailies etc, they're now used to buy Gear so check the Rift Store under equipment.

A few weeklies are also open to you at level 63 like the complete 30 Instant Adventures one, this will give you tokens towards T3 raid gear, Expert gear, Raid 1 gear etc.

When you reach level 65, or even now, head to Tarken Glacier to Port Scuddra, outside are some boats with hidden chests that will give you gear for your calling with +hit on it, check out this video.

[theWocky]

Mats are what make me the most money though. Sometimes they even sell the second I put them up, which I can only guess is due to those buy orders? If demand is at an all time low, how are they selling so fast for me? Someone out there wants them.

I think that only really applies to US. Population is definitely a bit healthier there. I do occasionally see one of the realms on US bump up from low to medium.

Now that they've nerfed the raids, I would really like your feedback on gearing up and how you did it from 65 to raid-ready. From what I understand, if a guild doesn't run you through things, you're pretty much screwed. It's a chance they have to take and hope it pays off.

In my guild, Harshmallows EU, had a guy (Meteor) already offer to run me through some dungeon several times to level me up. I refused. I have an absolute phobia about wasting other people's time, however. I didn't want him to put in the effort and I didn't stick around - especially as I've become such a wandering mmo player lately.

The most depressing thing about Rift is the (1) rose-tinted spectacles I still have and the (2) PvE game itself (bar PvP - Trion really doesn't give a crap about PvP) is not too bad. It's dragged down by many other issues internally and externally that I sincerely don't see changing - ever - due to any attempt being too little too late.