Questions for those that play Rift

[Worldie]

I *cough* found *cough* Parallels 6, guess I'll give Rift a go as now there's free trials. Will give feedback maybe later :p

[twinkfist]

a bunch of coughing going on there...allergies pretty bad right now?

[Worldie]

Indeed I'm allergic to Windows
Downloading Rift now, 8 GB wow that's big.

[Kihra]

I leveled to 50 and did do all of the instances on the way. I played the rogue tank (Riftstalker). It's a bit like druid tanking but with a kitty playstyle (maintain a bunch of buffs and debuffs, stack combo points to 5, etc.) and insane mobility. I had fun, but when I got to 50 with no Dungeon Finder, it just got kind of boring. It was too hard to get groups together for stuff at the times I could play (often late at night after WoW raids).

The encounters were also way too simplistic compared to WoW dungeons, and the lack of add-ons just drove me up the wall. Threat Plates are a great example. Tanking without them is just annoying.

Also, the story/lore is non-existent, and the quests are really uninspired and dull. You won't even bother reading the quest text.

Still, it did manage to hook me enough to get to max level, so that's saying something. It's very pretty, and the UI is polished (it ought to be, since they just cloned WoW).

[Kelaan]

Threat Plates are a great example. Tanking without them is just annoying.

Threat plates and a bag mod are two things I think I couldn't play without. Er, Wouldn't, that is.

[Bobness]

The question is do you really want to play rift....


I had previously tried the alternatives to WOW Conan/WAR & found both lacking for various reasons.

I've bought & started playing rift, it seems to repeat many of the good things about WOW, but it is by no means a WOW killer.

Without momentum it looks likely to part of the stepping stones between WOW & the next big thing.

I quite like it but it doesn't grab me.


Take from that what you will.

[sahiel]

If anyone does decide to get Rift, you could probably do worse than to subscribe to D2D and 'like' their current deal, 50% off when it reaches 500 to those 500 people.

http://blog.direct2drive.com/2011/05/ne ... -off-rift/

[Aerron]

Question on the tanking in this game ...

Friend of mine tells me he tanks on his Cleric, Templar soul I think? I know the Warrior and Rogue classes have tanking souls. Does the Mage class have a tanking soul as well? Do all the classes have healing souls?

I realize I could probably get this info from the official site, but ya know, blocked at work and all that crap ...

[Kelaan]

More importantly, I hear of the cleric tanking, and then I see videos with people saying things like "... healers who think they are tanks". I also follow Taugrim's blog, as he says interesting stuff, and I know he has a tankish class.... but I wonder what the relative effectiveness is.

For PvE, are all the tankable tanks similar in endgame viability, or is it going to be like Vanilla WoW where any non-(wow)warrior is going to face a HARD row to hoe? Then again, it sounds like the game is more pvp focused than wow, too, so maybe worrying about PvE is the wrong idea. I don't know.

[sahiel]

More importantly, I hear of the cleric tanking, and then I see videos with people saying things like "... healers who think they are tanks". I also follow Taugrim's blog, as he says interesting stuff, and I know he has a tankish class.... but I wonder what the relative effectiveness is.

For PvE, are all the tankable tanks similar in endgame viability, or is it going to be like Vanilla WoW where any non-(wow)warrior is going to face a HARD row to hoe? Then again, it sounds like the game is more pvp focused than wow, too, so maybe worrying about PvE is the wrong idea. I don't know.

Cleric tanks are relegated to OT in endgame, most Rogues are too, so yes, Warriors are the tanking class used by far the most, a lot of it is simply because with multiple tank souls to choose from they can switch to whatever is most effective vs a boss (be it magic resistance, physical resistance, AoE tanking, etc), whereas clerics and rogues are stuck in their one spec. Whilst i'm sure some of it is due to "only warriors are real tanks!" the majority is definitely as I said that the clerics and rogues don't have the tools to specialise on a per boss basis to be the absolute best tank possible, so they get to OT adds whilst warriors make the boss faceroll.

I certainly wouldn't say it's pvp focused at all, unless you choose to roll on a pvp server of course. It's almost exactly as pvp 'focused' as WoW, so if you want to, you can pvp a lot, if not, you can do zero and be fine.

[PsiVen]

Yeah, among many of the glaring problems Rift has managed to take away from WoW is the inherently unbalanced/unpleasant concept of a dedicated tanking archetype relegated to OT duty at endgame. Playing a "rogue tank" made it pretty clear that little effort was made to balance their effectiveness with the "real tanks."

Despite this, the thing that really sealed the deal for me was the lack of nameplates... and the apparent disinterest in ever adding them. I don't know how I ever tanked without nameplates but I'm sure it was terrible.

[Nothan]

Ok, I can say that the LFG dungeon finder tool is absolutely terrible. It may be my server or it may be there's hardly anyone in my level range, but I queued for one and never got one group for an instance in 4-5 hours. On top of that I can only queue for the one instance in my range.

[laterna]

This has to do with rift being dead on lower level ranges. At lvl 50 it works perfectly fine, but the critical factor is the playerbase right now. The thing is however, they could make it work across multiple servers, but as shown a million times before, if you put humans in the same place, with no direct way for one to affect the other, the amount of griefing, sadness and general distress will go through the roof.

Personally, I prefer them keeping it server based. Atleast I know that at lvl 50, if I ignore enough "supreme uberawesome cupcakes" i'll be able to find a proper group.

Also another minor note on rift. For some reason, everyone who played WoW before going into this game, has done LK25HC is a gladiator and can rape you anyday. If you plan on playing, just tell everyone you're a noob who wiped in normals. Its much easier for you that way. I've ran into lvl 50 warriors telling me that my build is completely stupid, and not the proper build that Riftjunkies has on their site. I told them, its a modified leveling specc focusing on limiting downtime, increasing stun and cc potential for stupid pulls and maximising my burst style damage. I have yet to meet a person who understands this and says " oh that makes sence". Everyone just thinks they are mighty in this game to be honest...

TMI of the day : I play a paragon/champion build, with improved charge, tread the trees. Killing stuff for me when I'm soloing means that I charge in, kill a guy, charge to the next, kill, charge to the next etc

[semp]

Is there a server with a large maintankadin population? I am only playing in my 7 day free trial and have no tie to my current server. Game seems cool enough to eventually buy.

[Punkss2]

How can one go about getting a free trial?
Not sure on this one, check out the homepage www.riftgame.com I know they have a refer a friend program.

What are the major game play differences?
Like it's been said before, there are almost to many spells available. You have 3 soul trees with a total of 8 PVE and 1 PVP soul to mix and match with. You now have 5 different roles you can have ie. you can have a PVE tank, PVP tank, etc. spec.

Is tanking a chore when you're not in raids?
I'm playing a warrior, and I have started running my pvp tank spec when grinding rep quests and such. If I have a healer I have tanked expert rifts with no problem. Macros are king in this game too.

Is the end game content difficult?
I have only done one T1 dungeon. They have 5 tiers if you will. Normal mode (only 2 available at lvl 50), T1 5man, T2, 5man, T1 Raid, T2 Raid. These are all instanced raid/dungeons. You have the opportunity to do Raid rifts, which i beleive are 10 man tuned. These are out in the playable world, so anyone can join in to help/grief you.
As for the actual difficulty, they just nerfed most of the 5man "experts" so its really not that hard, not that it seemed like it was hard before if you had half a brain.

Is there enough of it?
They just released the game in March. They already have had 2 major patches I think. One of them introduced new raid content, and they are going to contiue to expand. The game is still relitively in its infancy.

What is there to actually DO in the game when you're not raiding. Mind you things like achievements and leveling a 40th alt hold zero interest for me.
Rifting, farming, getting mats for recipies, grinding rep, doing epic questline,etc

If I can make 2 million gold in wow, think I'll do well in Rift? =P
You will do fine. If you can make money in one MMO you will do well in any other. As stated the economy of your shard (server) will determine how much you make on the AH, etc

Most importantly, what is the community like?
Good for the most part IMO. It's a MMO community, so you will have jerks out there, but most people will be helpful for the most part. There are still the elitests out there who think theyre God's gift to the game.

I'll add this as I PVP alot too
PVP is imbalanced. It's something I've learned to live with and try to adapt my spec to handle. Also running in "premades" (you can only que with a party of 5) helps especially if you have a couple decent healers. I'm half way to Rank 4 atm due to being a family man, but most of my guildies are Rank 4-6 (6 is highest atm). Just be prepared to get rocked in PVP at lvl 50 when you start.

If you have any more questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them as I can.