Pros and Cons of Rift: Storm Legion

[Nightmaarez]

Like the title says, what are the good and bad things of Rift? I am currently leaning on the fence like crazy about Rift. One day I want to buy it, the next I dont. What are the things that will keep me playing Rift, and what are the things that will make me quit? I doubt I would be raiding at 60, but I might raid once the next expansion comes out.

[Fencers]

Well, in my view:

Pros:

- Class and role flexible via hybrid talent/soul system
- Discrete 10 and 20 man raids
- Robust content support by developers
- Robust UI and secondary system out-of-box without using addons
- Addon support
- Varied leveling paths
- Non destructive, any type to any type gear reskining
- Import/export system settings and options
- Free character and guild transfers
- Alternative gearing paths at endgame
- Planar Attunement, Alternate Advancement system
- Modular player and guild housing
- Solid game mechanics in combat, crafting, travel and all core gameplay systems
- Faction-less guilds
- Multi tier dungeons and raids


Cons:

- Subscription fee
- Lacks compelling art direction [very personal/subjective]
- Fairly standard post-World of Warcraft gameplay

[Buxton McGraff]

I love most everything about Rift, other than how long it takes to level from 50-60. I enjoy it for the most part, I just wish I could finally see some of the raids I've been hearing about.

[Tarien]

Well, in my view:

Pros:

- Class and role flexible via hybrid talent/soul system
- Discrete 10 and 20 man raids
- Robust content support by developers
- Robust UI and secondary system out-of-box without using addons
- Addon support
- Varied leveling paths
- Non destructive, any type to any type gear reskining
- Import/export system settings and options
- Free character and guild transfers
- Alternative gearing paths at endgame
- Planar Attunement, Alternate Advancement system
- Modular player and guild housing
- Solid game mechanics in combat, crafting, travel and all core gameplay systems
- Faction-less guilds
- Multi tier dungeons and raids


Cons:

- Subscription fee
- Lacks compelling art direction [very personal/subjective]
- Fairly standard post-World of Warcraft gameplay

Pretty much this, though I don't really agree with the cons. The game is well worth the sub, I personally love the art in the game, I enjoy the gameplay as it is at the moment.

My only cons would be that the PvP is pretty awful, and that Europe desperately needs something doing about the latency on Icewatch, but this last is really not that big of a deal if you don't plan to raid.

Although if you plan on picking it up now, no reason you can't raid. We're right at the start of the expansion, it will be 18+ months til the next, so I expect a new Tier of raids and PuG raids of the first tier within six months.

[ro9ue]

It's worth it

[theWocky]

Pro:
It's a lot like an enhanced version of TBC - my favourite period in WoW. Some good, some bad, though.
Raids are separate, different 10 and 20 mans.
Do content once, not the same content at multiple difficulties - except for incoming "hard modes" which is like Ulduar (which was fine).
Good story & lore - if you actually bother to read the quests and finish each zone.
Good developer support with regular new content.
Polished game with many things to keep your time occupied.

EDIT: still my favourite mmo!

Cons:
It's a lot like TBC with faction grinding - feels very grindy to me as I don't get much time to play and seems I will never max it out.
There is no arena - this is not a problem for me, but for some people it will be.
PvP is apparently not to good - which is fine by me as I enjoy the odd warfront and I am okay with it. I'm not a PvP'er.
Lag on EU is a bit crazy. I don't get why US servers seem to handle Volan with 300+ players and EU lags.
Too damn long to level to 60 - if your goal is to get to 60 as soon as possible.
Some activities still don't give enough reputation for people that only log on twice a week. Should be "rested" reputation bonus in my opinion.


My pet gripe with any mmo: I fail to see why, after an expansion has been out for a few months why they don't DRASTICALLY drop the leveling speed so that new players can get to 60 ASAP and join the end-game playerbase. What is it? Some form of punishment? Game begins at end-game - let people get there quick - not only a problem with Rift, however, but with such an innovative, progressive thinking team, you would think they'd see this and do something about it. For those people thinking new players "deserve" to go through a grind, you are, in my opinion, being short-sighted and selfish - the more people at 60, the better the game is for everyone. Leveling should just be long enough to not feel like a grind, but allow people to get familiar with their class. Killing hundreds of mobs teaches you nothing about your class.

[Deleted]

PVP is lacking modes and balance. TTK is too low.
PVE is pretty standard, not missing anything if you have any pve checkboxes and it will likely add a couple new ones when it comes to casual content, the raids look fancy and all, but they are in general under-tuned and buggy more often than not on release. The raiding scene is also - despite being small - rather bad. The non raiding community is definitely better.

The pro is that the overall package is good, the con is that most people hanging around websites like this have kinda burned them selves out, and especially those whose only standards when it comes to mmos derive from their wow experience will have trouble into anything that is different but resembles the one thing they know.

It's pretty good if you're looking for something to sink a lot of time in with a casual approach.

[Nightmaarez]

Thank you everybody for these all great replies . Although The Wocky, how bad was TBC grinding? I have played WoW since Vanilla, but have only been max level since WotLK came out (was very casual during vanilla and burning crusade). Is the rep grinding worse than it is in MoP? That is what really turned me away from WoW.

[Deleted]

Unless you plan on topping parsers and raiding top end you've nothing to worry about. The only things you gain is BiS runes for 3 gear items, and the ability to buy some essences that have +endurance compared to ones that you can gain access by running pug/ or guild raid rifts (its just an extremely easy bit of grouped open world content, its not "really" a raid).

[Fencers]

Yea, the rep grinds are sorta overblown. It's just a series of dailies/kills like any other. I am not a World of Warcraft player so I have no real comparison to MOP. But don't find Rift's "rep grinds" any better or worse than other modern MMOs. It's hardly EQ rep.

[Nightmaarez]

Alright. Just to give you an idea, MoP grinding is about 10-15 dailies for each faction, with about 4 factions. There are also more factions you can grind rep for, just mostly for professions and cosmetic items though.

[Primalthirst]

There only really 2 factions you can do stereotypical daily quests for and 1 you do a daily Rift for. The rep can be obtained in other ways though and just takes a long time overall.

[theWocky]

Thank you everybody for these all great replies . Although The Wocky, how bad was TBC grinding? I have played WoW since Vanilla, but have only been max level since WotLK came out (was very casual during vanilla and burning crusade). Is the rep grinding worse than it is in MoP? That is what really turned me away from WoW.

It was terrible - had to run those SSC dungeons over and over and over to get that epic mace :P
Slave Pens, Steam Vaults, etc.

MoP - no idea about rep - I am currently not interested in going back to WoW as it no longer appeals. Just too many newer things out there or coming out.

Also, I don't care about the rep grind in MoP nor do I care about the rep grind in comparison to other mmo's. From what I've gathered from MoP, WoW has gone a bit backward with this. I may be wrong. Personally, I feel the "faction" rep shirts promoted more people doing dungeons.

I only care about Rifts and how it can be better. I still believe a rested "rep" would be an awesome, innovative idea. This is the whole point behind rested xp and I see no reason why it can't be implemented for rep.

Hunt Rifts are a bit mindless for rep grind in my opinion. I do my crafting dailies every day and get most of my rep from that for the other factions. At least they drop essences and other mats, however. Haven't got time like some of my guildies to spend a whole day doing hunt rifts.

Please note that I do get bored easily. After doing a raid boss a few times, getting the tactics down, I can't be arsed to farm it over and over for BiS gear. Maybe 5 to 10 times tops is the max I would do a raid. Was different in WoW as back then I had more time. I don't now.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 09:45 AM ----------

Yea, the rep grinds are sorta overblown. It's just a series of dailies/kills like any other. I am not a World of Warcraft player so I have no real comparison to MOP. But don't find Rift's "rep grinds" any better or worse than other modern MMOs. It's hardly EQ rep.

@ Nightmarez - For most players, I agree with Fencers here. Rep is most certainly no worse than any other mmo. I am just a more casual player and would like to see a few more changes implemented for guys like me. Don't judge the game on what I think. I have very limited play time. If you liked WoW and want something like WoW with a few extra things to do, something fresh, you will love Rift. Blizz is really going to have to dangle some huge carrot to get me to go back to WoW.

[Fencers]

Rift occupies an interesting niche; it's basically World of Warcraft for people who don't like World of Warcraft.

Like if you enjoy trinity class design, raiding, mounts and narrow stat driven MMOs but don't like say the cartoony look of WOW or it's overly casual gameplay-- Rift has got your number.

Not sure if Rift will ever be an MMO for people looking for something dramatically apart from World of Warcraft. It sorta occupies a weird space between Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft before the Lich King expansion. Yet with shockingly modern game systems like integrated Youtube record/uploading and on-the-fly complete UI modding without third party aid.

Someone on a podcast once said of Rift, "I wasn't looking for an MMO different from WOW. I just wanted a better WoW."

Seems about right in spirit to me.

[Kelimbror]

Rift occupies an interesting niche; it's basically World of Warcraft for people who don't like World of Warcraft.

I see people say things like this a lot. I have played WoW since release, have raided in every expansion pack, and played Mists up until about 1-2 months ago. As someone with that much WoW experience, I don't see why people say this game is so much like it. The similarities between the games could be said of just about any MMO. I still haven't seen one good explanation as to why this game gets harped on as so much like WoW by lovers and haters.

Here is a more accurate statement: If you have played WoW, you will be comfortable playing Rift. That's about as far as it goes. The interface, the feel of gameplay, will be familiar...not alike, or the same, etc.

Rift lured me in because it was a tabula rasa. I didn't have 10 max level characters with 12k achievement points, but I had a wide open space of things to earn, complete, and achieve. The currency systems are streamlined and you are rewarded for many avenues of play. There are 'dynamic' events, content that scales based on how many people are doing it, the ability to play on your own or as a group with ease.

I find the artwork to be refreshing as a much darker fantasy setting. To me everything just clicks. If you want to be casual? This game will fill a huge hole. If you want to be hardcore, there are always things to be earning and doing.

[Puremallace]

Leave the world of warcraft shit to the general forums up top. I HAVE NEVER ONCE in all my bitching, and anyone who reads these forums can tell you I bitch about everything complained Trion was not putting my money to work and pumping out content.

I had 4,000+ post on the WoW forums when I was actively playing and roughly 1,000+ of those were asking what the hell they did with the subscription money.

You want a major pro? The content might be redundant sometimes, but they also pump it out fast..Trion just laid off 30+ people, but will still roll out the next content patch faster then anyone else including the all mighty Blizzard. Trion does not leave me in the cold holding my dick and some new dailies and call it content, so get off the soap box because you will have better luck preaching that to the GW2 or TOR crowd.

The con is the MMO player base wanting theme park over sandbox elements. Trion caters to their playerbase and if you want to call it a con then go ahead that is a personel opinion. A major con in my book is the way they do raid PTS testing. It only leads to drama and hypocrite top guilds turning on Trion when they catch a exploit, exploit it on live servers, then bitch when they get caught.

Take a note from Blizzard and open the raids for 2 hours at a time for mass testing by 50+ guilds and not this elitism shit we have seen for 2+ years.

Another con: A lot of people will hate me for this, but no LFR. You can cry and say it is easy mode and zomg it sucks it dumbs down the game, but it also allows 99% of the playerbase to see the end game. Right now you cannot pug in Rift unless you already have the achievement which you cannot get unless you run with your guild...but if you run with your guild why would you want to pug?!??! The logic behind the current system is fucking mentally retarded at best.

Since nerfing is also considered the great SATAN just create the same damn buff I get in pvp and apply it to the LFR. No more need to NERF raids, so elitist can keep their e-peens and casuals get to see the content also. You gusy might hate it, but it is a pretty damn simple solution to raid nerfing.

[Azuri]

Another con: A lot of people will hate me for this, but no LFR. You can cry and say it is easy mode and zomg it sucks it dumbs down the game, but it also allows 99% of the playerbase to see the end game. Right now you cannot pug in Rift unless you already have the achievement which you cannot get unless you run with your guild...but if you run with your guild why would you want to pug?!??! The logic behind the current system is fucking mentally retarded at best.

Why play RIFT then? WoW has LFR go play that? Many people play Rift since it's "different" LFR just lets you do the content on roflstomp mode and trivializes the raid experiance. Rift nerfs content overtime to let others see it when a new Tier comes out and then the old tier is made easy. It differentiates the two games.

Since SL is still newish there is only one tier available it will be made "accessible" to the less hardcore raiders and pugs soon. Pretty simple concept imo.


This reminds me of D3 & POE argument they are made to appeal to different audiences.

[Lathais]

Another con: A lot of people will hate me for this, but no LFR. You can cry and say it is easy mode and zomg it sucks it dumbs down the game, but it also allows 99% of the playerbase to see the end game. Right now you cannot pug in Rift unless you already have the achievement which you cannot get unless you run with your guild...but if you run with your guild why would you want to pug?!??! The logic behind the current system is fucking mentally retarded at best.

Since nerfing is also considered the great SATAN just create the same damn buff I get in pvp and apply it to the LFR. No more need to NERF raids, so elitist can keep their e-peens and casuals get to see the content also. You gusy might hate it, but it is a pretty damn simple solution to raid nerfing.

Simple solutions are often not the best. In this case, it actually makes getting into raiding harder as the players, not Trion, then place an extra requirement on getting into raiding. You want to raid normal mode? Guilds will add the requirement to have the gear from the LFR mode first. Now a "casual" raider like me has yet one more step to go through, adding one more thing for me to do every week, before I can raid the content I want to raid. There is no easy solution to this, so as it sits, if you want to PuG raids, you just gotta wait until the next tier comes out and the guilds are not focusing on it anymore so they have geared experienced people out PuGing it. In a system with LFR, those people are less likely to be pugging last tiers raids as they will be too busy gearing up in the new LFRs then running the next tier, not bothering to go run the first tier because the gear from LFR is just as good. Basically, due to the players, it ends up having the opposite effect of what it should.

I guess you could just put it there, with no sort of decent rewards, but then what's the point. To say you got to experience it? But you didn't. You did not get the experience of putting together a guild or joining one, getting to know your guild mate, working together with a group to overcome a challenge. All you get is free loot. Asking for LFR is the same thing as asking for free loot in my opinion. Free loot just should not happen. period.

[Puremallace]

Why play RIFT then? WoW has LFR go play that? Many people play Rift since it's "different" LFR just lets you do the content on roflstomp mode and trivializes the raid experiance. Rift nerfs content overtime to let others see it when a new Tier comes out and then the old tier is made easy. It differentiates the two games.

Since SL is still newish there is only one tier available it will be made "accessible" to the less hardcore raiders and pugs soon. Pretty simple concept imo.


This reminds me of D3 & POE argument they are made to appeal to different audiences.

LFR removes the need for nerfing PERIOD. Put the shiny purple in the hard raids that guilds can run and put the ok purples in the raids the casuals can run. How many people bitch that "man they nerfed it and our guild was so close". Well LFR gets rid of that. Just boost stats in LFR and keep the difficulty. I am willing to deal with the derpiness in a LFR pug then the pure elitism in these pugs we have now. One wipe and half the raid quits is a joke.

The current set of raid designed are catering to guilds who treat them and talk about them like DOG SHIT. Go read No Quarters little response to the raiding scandal and tell me why they should be catered too?

The developer is supposed to bring out the best qualities not the worst and this current system is based on failed principles and needs to be revamped.

If we had this policy we could still have the ultimate akylios achievement and not the watered down version. Regulos would still be a extreme accomplishment and not just a consolation prize for getting to the finish line late. Everybody seems fine when they apply the boosting policy to pvp, but god forbid they touch pve with the same idea.

[Kelimbror]

I agree that including features like LFR that let larger audiences see things created for the game is a great thing for the longevity and playerbase....but I totally udnerstand if they are trying to cultivate a specific environment that LFR goes against that.

I think an alternative is to simply provide content outside of raiding that can get almost as good gear, but I have outlined that in other posts already. LFR is an easier way out, because it requires less content creation. I think most people who play Rift would rather have a more in depth alternate gearing strategy.

In my mind, getting in at least 1-2 more solo chronicles and 2-3 2 man chronicles that have gear as good as entry level raids when the next tier launches would be a stellar move. I think you should be able to combine Infinity stones, dungeon marks, and things from the chronicle to build a gear set. This way you can choose how you want to progress and gear up.

I find that solution to be preferable over LFR, because then it does keep that distinction of a raiding community while still providing the same benefit of LFR. Addtionally, I think most raiders would agree that having to do chronicles daily, running rifts, running dungeons, and doing events is an appropriate amount of work to still have less gear than you can get from raiding. Addtionally, raiders could put in that extra work to help build their raid gear quality.

In my mind it is a win/win situation.