Originally Posted by
Vespian
There's a few downsides to Rift compared to WoW or GW2.
- It doesn't feel as free as GW2 does.
- It's even more linear (within the respective leveling areas).
- Animations and controls are worse than both WoW and GW2. There is no skill queueing, or rather, the skill queue is very tight, so you can't just queue two skills up right from the start, you'll have to wait for the mid/end of the GCD. I loveeee skill queueing. I hate that it isn't in Rift and I constantly mess up rotations due to this, because I occasionally don't cast and occasionally doublecast when I feel that I didn't cast. Horrible. Responsiveness is also worse than both. Skill animations trigger, but in your screen it shows you're out of range. This can be very misleading, potentially making you miss tight rotation windows.
- Weapon swinging animations are arguably the worst of any MMO I ever played. Not all of them, but some are ridiculously looking, as if they wanted to make each swing unique for each race, but without reaching for established Martial Arts (the weapon ones), but rather creating their own. And it's absolutely fugly. I like the 2h male Bahmi swing though.
- It's more grindy than late tBC, less grindy than early tBC. Nowhere near Vanilla.
But, for all it's flawes, it has just as many merits.
- The Soul system can occasionally lead to unique builds. Let's face it, there's always a superior spec, but the thing is, outside the raiding environment, it doesn't matter and you can switch around nearly indefinitely for free (roles) and quite cheap (respec of a role). I have a Roleplaying Rogue build that I personally love and simply don't know whether it's any good, according to math. I just love it, so it's good for me. And I'm not even heavy on roleplaying.
- The dungeons are fun (and properly voiced), at least once (they were more fun when they were still hard, but at least the atmosphere is still there).
- Macro's really make your life easy, sometimes too easy.
- The mentor system, which scales you down, but still makes you receive XP at the same rate you would otherwise, perfect for teaming up with low level friends and currently unique among AAA+ MMO titles, as far as I'm aware.
- The Wardrobe. Just received my full Icewatch set, so I bought a second slot. And became member, by accident, of Eskimo's in the Desert, WUT? There is no better wardrobe system in any other current mmo title.
- Switching shards, free once each week. No buying server transfers.
And then there's the "plus-minusses".
- Rifts. They're great, but can turn grindy reasonably quick.
- Instant adventure. They're great, but turn you into a mindless zombie very quickly.
- Dimensions. If you like them, great, but if you don't, they have no effect on the actual game whatsoever, making it a gimmicky addition.