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  1. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by Syridian View Post
    Out of interest, what does an instance having ''several modes'' available actually take away from the experience? Challenge modes for example give a completely different play experience to Heroic. You would prefer there simply being 'less'?
    Rift does have multiple modes for most instances - Normal (tuned for a level between 15 and 48, mostly), Expert (which is tuned for level 50), and Master (which is tuned for well geared 50). The Expert mode generally extends the Normal instance in some way - additional bosses, new mechanics in the existing fights, that type of thing. The two Master Mode instances are different beasts - MMDD is just one more boss (above the Expert mode), while the MMCR is the combination of two Expert mode dungeons (Upper and Lower Caduceus Rise), with a few additional wandering bosses tossed in the mix.

    Also, there are leaderboards, but no rewards or normalized gear. All about getting the best number for the week in different pools.

  2. #62
    Scarab Lord Azuri's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Onorvele View Post
    Rift does have multiple modes for most instances
    I think the reference was to 10 & 20 man raiding. 5 mans don't require the time commitment that raiding does. I don't think people mind the 5 man changes since each mode brings in new bosses/areas and keeps the content relevant longer. In raiding when a raid is cleared and farmed for gear for a bit then raiders expect a new raid.

    5 mans are mostly stepping stones for some people. Once they start raiding they rarely go back to five mans beyond a daily for marks. For people who don't raid yes freshening up the 5 mans seems viable for their advancement too.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Azuri View Post
    I think the reference was to 10 & 20 man raiding. 5 mans don't require the time commitment that raiding does. I don't think people mind the 5 man changes since each mode brings in new bosses/areas and keeps the content relevant longer.
    Agreed. Also, I think there is enough difference between the modes (new bosses or wings of an instance, and not just boss mechanics) that sufficiently differentiates Normal, expert and master modes - it isn't the same stuff with minor tweaks.
    {I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. }

  4. #64
    @ spambanjo - you will not be sorry. Rift's talent/soul system is incredible. If that's your thing be prepared to spend hours of joy making little tweaks here and there to maximize your dps/hps. Tired of that ranged dps build as a rogue? switch your soul - go play melee dps for a while. Not your thing, maybe tanking - no need to re-roll class, your rogue is ready to tank just need to setup a spec through souls. I knew I was in the right mmo the first time I hit the "n" key.

  5. #65
    The Lightbringer WarpedAcorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by flavie View Post
    first char at lv 16 now, and really enjoy it so far. Still often not sure what's happening, like invasions and all these different colours of arrows on the worldmap etc. I'll get a hang of it eventually, but it's refreshing after 6 years of wow to feel like a noob again

    Can't wait to try out more classes/specs/souls, or w/e I'm on Icewatch too btw, and idd a tad laggy now and then. Even had a queue of a whopping 4 ppl last nite
    Glad to hear you're enjoying it. As someone who just started as well, I will say this. If you have started doing Instant Adventures then now if a great time to start. Between IA's, Zone Events, and Rifts...I've done relatively little questing (and I actually do want to do the quests to learn about the lore of the land).

  6. #66
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by slime View Post
    @ spambanjo - you will not be sorry. Rift's talent/soul system is incredible. If that's your thing be prepared to spend hours of joy making little tweaks here and there to maximize your dps/hps. Tired of that ranged dps build as a rogue? switch your soul - go play melee dps for a while. Not your thing, maybe tanking - no need to re-roll class, your rogue is ready to tank just need to setup a spec through souls. I knew I was in the right mmo the first time I hit the "n" key.
    One step ahead of you good sir! Every time I get a new point and press "n" it's like... well... I'm not sure I can post such obscenities on MMO-Champ... lest just say it feels great and there's a growing danger of me needing to change my underwear.

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by Syridian View Post
    Out of interest, what does an instance having ''several modes'' available actually take away from the experience? Challenge modes for example give a completely different play experience to Heroic. You would prefer there simply being 'less'?
    When you get an instance with an easy version you get to see everything there is in it immediately, and usually this is accompanied by very high rewards to lure the slackers (soz for being harsh) into getting in.

    The high rewards in turn, are pushing the normal (or heroic if you wish) version to be tuned so hard that usually is making the easy mode version mandatory.
    Add to that that the easy mode version adds in the utility that you can join an auto created group with the push of a button and you understand that it is becoming pretty much mandatory.

    Doing everything the easy way only to redo them again the hard (and some times the even more hard) way, is taking part of the satisfaction of defeating the encounter in the higher setting away.
    It is not fresh content.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    It's lazy development.
    Yep it allows devs to be lazy, that’s true. But this is not the only reason that multiple difficulties have been chosen by mmo companies.

    It is also because they insist of judging the success of the content by the % of their customers that gets to “experience it”.

    Now this is a total failure to comprehend that it is completely natural various bits of the content should not be expected to be visited by the entire player base to be successful.

    As I stated in another thread, designing and mmo as a box is in my opinion wrong.
    The mmo rpg should be viewed as a pyramid.
    Solo mode experience to be flat in the bottom and as the requirement to group up with people increases the accessibility is also decreasing.
    It is quite natural and healthy; it is also creating “a myth” around your high end content.
    Marketing is also a vital part for a game success, and honestly a hammerknell that would have been wide open to all from day one, would do little to bolster the “myth” around rift raids.

    There should be a balance in all, and I do find some reason behind the multiple difficulty models, but that doesn’t mean that I like it.
    If possible I would prefer it out of the high end pve game activities, and I would include a pvp option into this as well.
    Hand made groups one level playing field, tough challenges at launch that are getting gradually nerfed by gear, and possibly by actual nerfs once new content is available.

    I guess I am quite old fashioned in my approach, maybe that is why I find rifts raiding part to be so fascinating without ever having tried it.

    But I do acknowledge that there is more to a multilevel difficulty approach than plain lazy attitude.
    I just find this approach when it expands to everything damaging and miss leaded.

  8. #68
    Yep it allows devs to be lazy, that’s true. But this is not the only reason that multiple difficulties have been chosen by mmo companies.
    It's just cost effective.

    Developing 2 discrete maps commands more resources than creating 1 map w. multiple modes. The latter being a +/- in a spreadsheet, effectively.

    Design-wise, same map/multiple modes draws out existing content in a subscription based game.

    That's all it comes down to: $.

  9. #69
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    It's just cost effective.

    Developing 2 discrete maps commands more resources than creating 1 map w. multiple modes. The latter being a +/- in a spreadsheet, effectively.

    Design-wise, same map/multiple modes draws out existing content in a subscription based game.

    That's all it comes down to: $.
    While you are ofc right in one sense, don't forget the fact that there are a lot of players would have demanded this kind of feature if it wasn't already present. I can't comment on the specific implementation having not yet experienced end game in RIFT, but I can certainly sympathise with the situation from my own experiences of repeatedly face-rolling mind-numbingly easy content in WoW.

    Having one difficulty inevitably means that the instance will be over-tuned for some and under-tuned for others, often painfully under-tuned. With WoW, even during TBC I remember people asking for harder versions of HCs with bosses that could still pose a challenge once you were in raid gear. It seems to me like the devs just catered to a niche they felt was inevitably going to exist.

  10. #70
    I have played Rift for a long time as well as WoW. Rift is really a fantastic game. The raids are fun, the game looks great, the class designs are really interesting. However, there are some serious flaws with it. Mainly the engine optimization and their servers. Coming from a game like WoW, which has by far the smoothest gameplay of any MMO ever made in terms of really being in control your character, you will be very frustrated with Rift. If it weren't for how poorly the game runs and how bad their servers are, I would probably still be playing it. With the new expansion and many more people playing, the game performance is only going to get worse.

    Just my opinion and warning from a past player.

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by Lance Icestrong View Post
    With the new expansion and many more people playing, the game performance is only going to get worse.
    Actually I had better performance on the beta, seems to be a fair bit more optimized than live client.

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by Lance Icestrong View Post
    I have played Rift for a long time as well as WoW. Rift is really a fantastic game. The raids are fun, the game looks great, the class designs are really interesting. However, there are some serious flaws with it. Mainly the engine optimization and their servers. Coming from a game like WoW, which has by far the smoothest gameplay of any MMO ever made in terms of really being in control your character, you will be very frustrated with Rift. If it weren't for how poorly the game runs and how bad their servers are, I would probably still be playing it. With the new expansion and many more people playing, the game performance is only going to get worse.

    Just my opinion and warning from a past player.
    Please post your system specs before making claims like this. As long as I do not turn the settings up too high for my system, and I am not doing something like conquest or zone events where there are 200+ people packed in a small space, gameplay is smooth.

  13. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by Lance Icestrong View Post
    I have played Rift for a long time as well as WoW. Rift is really a fantastic game. The raids are fun, the game looks great, the class designs are really interesting. However, there are some serious flaws with it. Mainly the engine optimization and their servers. Coming from a game like WoW, which has by far the smoothest gameplay of any MMO ever made in terms of really being in control your character, you will be very frustrated with Rift. If it weren't for how poorly the game runs and how bad their servers are, I would probably still be playing it. With the new expansion and many more people playing, the game performance is only going to get worse.

    Just my opinion and warning from a past player.
    That is not my experience at all from original beta to present in Rift. The game runs very smoothly for me and everything feels nice & snappy.

    Coincidentally, I was talking to another mod last night how I never played an MMO where I felt as in control of my character as in Rift.

    I tried out Cataclysm for a month having played Rift a fair bit beforehand. I am not much of a World of Warcraft historically. But I struggled to play WoW as I felt it was very slow and the classes very singular. A trait that had bothered me since vanilla WoW- one of the reasons I never stuck with WoW actually.

    I remember firing off skills like Shockwave, Execute and Revenge on my Warrior never quite sure if my macro was working correctly. Or the particular action on Revenge, etc.

    I know exactly what I am firing off on my Warrior in Rift. The precise order and timing. I can see and hear those skills fire. Even in the old style of huge macros;

    #show Soul Sickness
    suppressmacrofailures
    cast Aggressive Block
    cast Soul Sickness
    cast Blood Fever
    cast Necrotic Wounds
    cast Plague Bringer
    cast Retaliation
    cast Tempered Will

    ^ I knew exactly what stage in the macro I was in at all times. I knew exactly by sound when my Aggressive Block fired. When I blocked and had Light's Reprisal or Retaliation was going to fire.

    In xpac they broke up a lot of those macros. But I feel no less connected or in control now than back then.

    I feel a similar sense of disconnect in SWTOR and Secret World by comparison as well. SWTOR in particular felt like I was sorta standing there doing nothing for 3-4 seconds at a time.

    It all a matter of familiarity. Not actual playability. That's sort of a World of Warcraft myth. What people really mean to say is, "I am familiar with this style". Common to almost every MMO when a Warcraft control comparison is made.

    I will agree WoW is smooth as silk in terms of engine optimization. But WOW run on an engine almost 10 years old now. Originally it ran on a modified Warcraft 3 engine. I was in the alpha, I remember it.

    Think my ipad can run WOW, tbh.

  14. #74
    I'm new to Rift and this site and I stumbled upon these Rift forums. I've been a longtime player of WoW and have been playing Rift now for about 3 weeks. I quit WoW in early Cata and returned for MoP and it's sad that WoW is just a shell of it's former self. Anyways I'm not here to bash on WoW I enjoyed it for the years I played it and decided to give Rift a chance. My excuse for continued playing of WoW was due to my invested time in my characters and of course friends. After playing Rift for a few weeks I really wish I tried this game sooner and not just stuck it out with a game I now realized I wasn't enjoying. I gave the open beta for SL a go on the weekend as well and was pleasantly surprised.

    I'm still fairly noob to the game but hope to contribute to these forums as I learn more about the game. I guess my post hasn't added anything really to the discussion other then my glowing review of the game. I've pre-ordered SL and look forward to melting many faces!

    I do have one question does anyone know if they will be updating the recruit a friend program to give rewards better geared towards Storm Legion? I'm almost certain I will bring several friends over to Rift who are in similar situation with WoW's direction.

    Thanks for reading my ramble!

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Noriks View Post
    I'm new to Rift and this site and I stumbled upon these Rift forums. I've been a longtime player of WoW and have been playing Rift now for about 3 weeks. I quit WoW in early Cata and returned for MoP and it's sad that WoW is just a shell of it's former self. Anyways I'm not here to bash on WoW I enjoyed it for the years I played it and decided to give Rift a chance. My excuse for continued playing of WoW was due to my invested time in my characters and of course friends. After playing Rift for a few weeks I really wish I tried this game sooner and not just stuck it out with a game I now realized I wasn't enjoying. I gave the open beta for SL a go on the weekend as well and was pleasantly surprised.

    I'm still fairly noob to the game but hope to contribute to these forums as I learn more about the game. I guess my post hasn't added anything really to the discussion other then my glowing review of the game. I've pre-ordered SL and look forward to melting many faces!

    I do have one question does anyone know if they will be updating the recruit a friend program to give rewards better geared towards Storm Legion? I'm almost certain I will bring several friends over to Rift who are in similar situation with WoW's direction.

    Thanks for reading my ramble!
    I'd say the rewards they are currently giving at Ascend-a-Friend seem ok to me, or at least, have no -huge- level restrictions that would be a problem for Storm Legion, I mean, it isn't to the level of WoW where you have to go through about 4 expansion zones to catch up with your friend, plus they make leveling pretty easy now. But yeah, I'd assume they may add new stuff mid expansion or in a few months afterwards, we shall see.

  16. #76
    Deleted
    I've played Rift before. Clocked up 326 hours according to Steam. I have been interested in coming back, but the big hinderance is doing everything all over again, and again, with no one to play with. Rifts past level 20 aren't soloable, just doing the occasional invasion when you see it without doing Rifts, isn't rewarding enough. The quests are rather tired and too linear. Basically, the fun, more free 5-20 then turns into a melanchony grind from whence there is little options for alternatives.

    Any suggestions to counter that? I've talked to countless people to try persuade them to play it with me, all of them more interested in SWTOR's F2P model, which they also had its criticisms off. There will probably be the occasional 'if you log in, there will be people to play with' sentence in response. And as a 7 year MMO player, there never is. I could look, I do look, but none of them are very interesting people. Just get the job done and leave the group.

    Any ideas?

  17. #77
    Pandaren Monk Beefsquatch's Avatar
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    I really wanted to get into this game, it sounds like an improved version of WoW. And it's growing, new shit being added all the time. But the thing that drove me away from it...as retarded as it may be, was the character movements. Like, the running and jumping of the characters/mounts. It all seems so...stiff for some reason. I find that highly important in MMOs and I just couldn't play it past level 10 in the beta so I never really gave the game a chance. Haven't touched it since so for those that have played the betas and are still playing....are the movements of characters still stiff and awkward?

  18. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by Asseymcgee View Post
    Haven't touched it since so for those that have played the betas and are still playing....are the movements of characters still stiff and awkward?
    Any game that doesn't feel like the one you are used to will feel awkward, it's more a question of getting used to than something being wrong with the game.

  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Reiwyn View Post
    I've played Rift before. Clocked up 326 hours according to Steam. I have been interested in coming back, but the big hinderance is doing everything all over again, and again, with no one to play with. Rifts past level 20 aren't soloable, just doing the occasional invasion when you see it without doing Rifts, isn't rewarding enough. The quests are rather tired and too linear. Basically, the fun, more free 5-20 then turns into a melanchony grind from whence there is little options for alternatives.

    Any suggestions to counter that? I've talked to countless people to try persuade them to play it with me, all of them more interested in SWTOR's F2P model, which they also had its criticisms off. There will probably be the occasional 'if you log in, there will be people to play with' sentence in response. And as a 7 year MMO player, there never is. I could look, I do look, but none of them are very interesting people. Just get the job done and leave the group.

    Any ideas?
    Rifts pass level 20 are def. soloable. I do it all the time.

    But to answer you more specifically; Rift now is even faster to level up in. There are hotjoin instant adventures, level down-scaling effectively doubling the potential teammates. Guardians and Defiants are able to play together freely and join the same guilds. There is LFG/D which spans all dungeons and also allows mentoring, also cross faction.

    Should also add that Rift now allows gearing through multiple paths; raiding, dungeons, master dungeons, open world events and solo content can all gear you out in best gear available or just 1 tier of gear under the top items. That's pretty big considering a lot of that you can do on your own, mix & match, etc.

    Instant Adventures are what you need to look into, brah. They span every level range and zone in the game. Best way to explain it is open world quests raids- that you join on the fly and are teleported to the action instantly. No pun.



  20. #80
    I played Rifts freebie version for a bit and decided to buy in going with choloromancer, because I like the concept of dps turning into healing. (Im an ex-disc priest)
    Im only level 21, but so far ive enjoyed it alot, but am wondering if the at max level I will still be able to wander the world and find people doing rifts or whatever and be able to join them, because that is what drew me in.

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