January is almost over and Rift patch 1.7 is soon to release. It won’t be long before we’re celebrating the one year anniversary of the MMORPG we so love. One thing I’ve always enjoyed is a good pie-in-the-sky wish list. It is high time I laid out my plans for Rift in 2012. These are the things that I hope to see that aren’t necessarily nuts and bolts oriented. They might not be what you’d consider “valuable” features. They’re just fun things that I think would make the game more enjoyable to me.
10. New Expert Dungeons
I was completely thrilled with the release of Caduceus Rise on Ember Isle. Two new expert dungeons that don’t take too long, provide some challenge, and are generally a better representation of time versus reward. They’re certainly better than some of the alternatives (I’m looking at you DSM). Now that tier one dungeons will be brought up to make them useful this isn’t a big wish and why it rates back at number ten. I would still like to see about three more this year!
9. Looking for Dungeon Revamp
The random algorithm for the LFD tool is prone to the failings of all computer generated randoms: it isn’t. I grow a bit tired of seeing the same dungeon over and over again. I still don’t fully understand why you have to randomly pick a dungeon to get the daily reward. What could possibly be the justification for this? I am willing to meet Trion half way though. A group leader should be able to look at the soon-to-be twelve dungeons and pick four that the random cannot queue up for. It is still random but if you just ran Charmer’s Caldera and don’t want to go again you should have the option to say no.
8. Ember Isle Event Rules for All
Trion did an exceptional job on Ember Isle. The events there are fun and offer an interesting dynamic of attack and defense. If you lose a defense point it isn’t gone forever. You can launch an attack to take it back from the invaders. In the old world, once a point is gone, it is gone. I would like to see the “Ember Isle treatment” done to all of the old zones.
7. New PvP Rifts
It seems that PvP rifts are going to be a big part of world PvP after 1.7. They can give a buff to your entire side (not necessarily a good idea). To put this delicately, PvP rifts are dull. It is far easier to disrupt them to succeed because of the way they work. It only takes two to four skilled players to shut down even twice as many opponents. Everything turns into a simple gank the runner game. When nobody is trying to stop you it is just a boring game of running the shards to the pads. The easiest method to do these is to log in an alt on the opposite side, open the PvP rift, switch back and destroy it. That is what the defiant on Byriel do and, to be honest, it won’t be long before we start doing the same. There needs to be a new dynamic to how these rifts work. They need to be fast and encourage team play. I imagine something like one side attacking the rift while the other tries to keep it alive by achieving objectives in or near it.
6. Cleric Heal Soul Differentiation
I don’t really see eye to eye with Zinbik’s vision for the cleric class and the souls contained within. I mostly say that because it has not been made clear to the community what that vision is and, based on the changes that are made, we are left confused. There are three souls in the cleric class that are only healers. They are poorly differentiated. Purifiers have some shields. Wardens uses HoTs. Sentinels have some direct healing and AoE heals. Are purifiers the main tank healer? They’re certainly good at it and I’d say that is the intent but someone could argue that sentinels are too. Are wardens the group healers? Their abilities seem to suggest it but they certainly don’t do an amazing job of it.
I want to see the healing souls touched up. The purifier tree is a mess with too many points being spent on blessings that are terrible. The warden needs some love to make HoTs more attractive in raiding. The sentinel needs some direction as well. What makes that soul unique? What does it do that others don’t? None of these souls have a single group buff that is not overwritten by another class’s buff. Each soul should have something that the other two can’t do better. They’re not bad but I’d like to see them have a unique flavor.
5. All Roles for all Classes
Rift is about diversity. It is about breaking the old mold of “clerics heal, warriors tank, rogues melee DPS, and mages ranged DPS.” Every class should have at least one soul that fills each role. Yes folks, I am saying there should be a mage tank role. Yes, there should be a warrior heal role. No, it won’t be the end of the world. It won’t ruin the other classes. It will add diversity to the game and open you up to new possibilities. It will mean always having the right tools for the job no matter what class you picked. They should also be flavorful in a way that makes sense.
How can a mage tank? Simple, you make the mage the best tank for the job when it comes to an elemental resist. Some fights are resist heavy and it would be neat to have a mage tanking them. How could a warrior heal? Easy! Paladin’s have always been healers. There are lots of options and neat ideas that could be implemented and the community would only benefit. 2012: All roles for all classes.
4. New Races
If I knock Trion for one thing it is the anemic race choices in Rift. Where they spent so much time and effort on the class system they basically phoned in the race system. I’d like to see two new and exotic races. And, get this, they can either be Defiant OR Guardian (because it doesn’t matter). I would even go a step further and have these be “prestige races” like back in the old MUD days. When you reach max level they are unlocked and you can use them. My race of choice suggestion? Wolf-people from Gloamwood!
3. Giant Wolf Mounts
How is this number three for me? I really want one! I always have! Giant wolf mount for Ferrel, thank you!
2. Less Instant Death Mechanics
I hate instant death mechanics in MMORPGs. Without sounding like a total ass they’re lazy design. When a developer cannot figure out anything else to do they throw in a one shot. You can’t out gear, out skill, or out play an instant death mechanic. You simply die and usually end up confused. They’re not fun. They’re not clever. They’re dull. We need more things that require coordination, team work, and tactics. We don’t need things that put the focus on one poor player who can’t move fast enough and ruin the raid for everyone else. That is decisive. Raiding isn’t about that. Raiding is about winning as a team.
1. Scott Hartsman
I know Scott is a busy guy. I know he is the COO for all of Trion. I don’t care. Scott is a talented guy and when he is taking a day to day interest in an MMORPG it shows. Rift was very successful in the beginning because he had a hand in almost everything. In the last few months he has been below the radar. No one at the Rift team (no offense guys) has stepped up and instilled confidence in the player base like Scott does. We need Scott Hartsman. I want him back!
There you have it
That is my 2012 wish list. That is what I want to see accomplished this year! I know some of you have ideas as well. Why not toss them out so we can all share in them!
All characters are © 2007 - 2012
A lot to like on that list. Also a few comments.
9. LFD requires a pool of players who are willing to do something completely random so that those who do select something specific don’t experience ridiculously long queue times. If you consider it a punishment for queuing for something specific, it feels negative. But if you look at it as a reward for helping those who want to do something specific, it feels quite a bit more positive. Fortunately, there really aren’t any expert dungeons that I hate enough to be annoyed if I’m forced to do them (though the Konstantin fight in King’s Breach(?) comes close, and Rictus in Runic Descent has way too much of a luck element to it).
8. Excellent idea. I’ve noticed that zone events are most often failed due to losing the defensive objectives (rewards for defending are way inferior to the rewards for going out and stomping rifts and bosses). Being able to recapture these objectives would go a long way toward fixing this issue. Making defense more rewarding wouldn’t hurt, either ;^)
7. PvP rifts are possibly the single worst-implemented feature in Rift. They’re effectively a PvP activity that makes you hope for no PvP to occur. It’s darned near impossible to successfully complete a PvP rift if even a handful of opponents show up and interfere. That’s not fun. And, quite frankly, the other side of the coin isn’t much fun either: you don’t have much control over the opening of opposing rifts (unless you use the borderline exploit of logging in an opposite-side character and opening one), there’s not much challenge involved in ganking runners (who are almost always alone or under-escorted due to the random objective mechanic), and unless you bring in enough force, you’re going to end up not being able to destroy the rift (while still preventing the opposing team from successfully completing it). All around it’s a lousy system and the fact that they’re adding more “rewards” does nothing to fix the fact that the actual gameplay involved is terrible.
5. Not sure this is really necessary. I wouldn’t mind if they added new souls to fit the bill, but I wouldn’t much enjoy if they just revamp existing souls instead.
2. Absolutely. There’s nothing more frustrating than being “that guy” who wipes the raid due to slow reflexes. You can have fantastic DPS, know your character and its capabilities inside out, and have exercised all the requisite “due diligence” of gearing up and bringing consumables, but if you have some issue with one specific mechanic, you suddenly become a liability to the team. That sucks for everyone involved.
1. Agreed. EQ2 was at its finest under his direction. The incredible agility that Trion has exhibited with Rift (patches just about every week, major content every six weeks, gamebreaking problems generally detected and hotfixed within 24 hours) points toward superb project management skills. Scott is clearly one of the best in the business right now. Of course, credit also goes to whoever he has assisting him, because good management is never a solo sport ;^)
“I still don’t fully understand why you have to randomly pick a dungeon to get the daily reward. What could possibly be the justification for this?”
Shorter queue times for everyone. If you let people pick, you end up with a situation where there are five players in the queue but they all have to keep waiting because there isn’t a dungeon that all five agreed to run. There’s also the secondary issue that there are almost certainly at least 2 dungeons out of the dozen that almost everyone would vote to skip, effectively reducing the pool of options. This exactly the opposite of what you should be doing in a daily dungeon system if you want to reduce burnout – you would hate your least favorite a lot less if it had been one of ten options instead of one of five. On top of all that, as Vatec says, players who need a specific unpopular dungeon for whatever reason would be screwed.
I see your point. I would argue that if everyone universally skips a certain two that would be a good metric to tell Trion something is up!
Would love to see new races…elemental races maybe. Like the bahmi I suppose but thinking back to my dnd roots where you had the Genasi, which were basically half elementals…they had fire hair, or blue skin with wisps around them, or just things that made them look unique.
I also agree that hearing from scott hartsman would go a long way in instilling confidence in Rift players. It’s been nearly 6 mo or more since he did a state of the game address. Would be nice if he did that more often. Hal Hanlin is an awesome guy, met him in person, but he just doesn’t spread that excitement like hartsman does.
The roles for all classes would be tricky to pull off. A warrior healer could easily end up in the “icar” boat. I would even compromise to see 3 of 4 roles for all classes: Rogue: Tank, Utility, DPS. Mage: DPS, Utility, Healing, Warrior: DPS, Utility, Tank, Cleric: Healer, Tank, DPS. IMO, the warlord soul should have been a utility soul for warriors. One could argue that beastmaster is…but imo not enough.
sitting here supervising exams, i find i have time to comment on your wishlist
10 + 9: Not running many dungeons, these don’t have a lot of impact on me. I’ll add to what GA wrote though, by pointing out that when LOTRO introduced their LFG tool a few months ago, the random feature was explicitly defended as an attempt to make players see all content, not just their favourite/ the easiest content. The consequent outrage from the player base saw that position changed to ‘this is just a beta; subsequent iterations will bring player choice to the tool’.
LFD tools *are* as much about developer desire as player choice, and giving players choice a: fragments queues and thus makes them longer; and b: allows players to farm the best reward-for-effort dungeons, something developers-as-artists really don’t want.
8: I’d love EI event rules for lower level zones as well; i’d also like to see the return of ancient wardstones
7: As someone who has all PvP rift achievements, i really enjoy them – but they’re totally unbalanced, and they’ve been around long enough for players to have worked out the risk/reward ratios: thus, Defiants on Argent-EU *also* log Guardian alts to close them; it’s simply far easier to close one of the opposite faction than it is to close your own. I’m seriously considering bringing my lvl 40-something defiant alt to Argent to do the same, if no changes are made. personally, I’d make them a lot easier to close if you open them – that would encourage more solo groups or small groups to open them. Having something that isn’t as boring as an uncontested PvP rift would also be nice – but a contested, or contesting, a PvP rift, even if outnumbered, is a lot of fun.
6 + 5: I don’t think we’ll see significant soul-rebuilding this year; and i actively do NOT want all-classes-fill-all roles. It simply isn’t possible to balance all classes equally in all roles. I’d point to all the rogue whining about DPS and warrior whining about tanking on the forums, but that’s hardly reliable. Instead, i’ll pose a situation:
Suppose you are in a progression raid (farm-status doesn’t count; you can bring anything you want to those). You have a choice between two otherwise identical DPS characters of different classes: one has 10 DPS more than the other. Which do you bring? It’s progression remember. You have a choice between two otherwise identical DPS chars of different classes, with only a 10 DPS difference *under certain circumstances*. Which do you bring?
The honest answer – I’m specifying, of course, that everything else inclusive of player skill, availability and personality are equal – is the one with the higher DPS. Even if it’s a tiny difference, that difference might be enough in a 1% wipe situation. We all do this as raid leaders (I know full well I’ve done it) and it simply ISN’T possible to make callings identical in DPS/ Tanking/ HPS/ whatever… thus, on a progression raid – which is the only time that counts, but also the one time that really matters – there will ALWAYS be a preference. It can’t BE otherwise, it simply isn’t humanly possible.
Thus, for me, the solutions is two-fold: make one class NOT possible at one thing, and make the mechanics of a fight more varied. If I can’t bring my cleric as DPS, I’m not going to complain (as much) about not going as DPS; if I know I’m never getting a Mage tanking role, I won’t try and go as Mage tanking. plus – and this also relates to the instant-death thing, the infamous dance – raids really need to make more use of calling skills.
One of the (few) strengths of LOTRO raiding (I did this for a long time, it’s thus what I use as a reference) was that, for most fights, correct co-ordination wasn’t so much an issue as correct execution of (sometimes otherwise unused) skills. Requiring the use of the full range of skills, however obscure, ensures that there’s always room for that calling with that skill – even if, for example, the Lore-Master doesn’t like being pigeonholed as the Power Supply, there is at least always a role for them, DPS failings or no.
Instant Death mechanics suck for many reasons, but reducing raids to DPS races (because, the faster you kill that boss, the fewer instant death mechanics to avoid) is, for me, their greatest failing.
4: Oh god no. The anemic flavour of Rifts races aside, I really do NOT want to see anything that diverts Trion away from the point of the game – not outside an expansion, anyway. New classes, new races, always take a lot of time to bed down: how long did DKs take to be properly balanced in WoW, for Wardens to be accepted as tanks in LOTRO, for Blood Elves not to be, well, everywhere? Please no. It’s like people calling for third factions: I keep wanting to shake them and say ‘you do realise you want a completely new game, right??’
3. Sure, why not?
i think you’ll probably get one, too.
My number 1, and what i think you mean with your #1, is ‘for Trion to keep being brave’.
Personally, I have serious fears about the coming PvP revamps: I’m rank 8 now on my main, it’s a mage and it uses the PvP tree, so i’ve got the most to (potentially) lose. but I LOVE the fact that Trion will grasp a nettle and say ‘let’s change it and make it better’; not just ‘let’s band-aid on a partial fix’.
It’s the bravery of introducing a hard EI *and* an easy IA; of rebuilding souls *and then* saying ‘we’re not going to rebuild souls any more’; of ditching a central plank of the game (pvp souls) because, longterm, they couldn’t be balanced: I don’t always agree with Trion’s decisions, but the fact they are willing to take the hard ones gives me great confidence. I really hope they don’t lose that confidence – which might well come down to ‘make Hartsman do more work on the actual game, goddammit!’
LFD tools *are* as much about developer desire as player choice, and giving players choice a: fragments queues and thus makes them longer; and b: allows players to farm the best reward-for-effort dungeons, something developers-as-artists really don’t want.
I think the real request I have here is “pre-mades” should not have to random. If I’m with four guild mates and we agree on a dungeon we should get the bonus. That is probably easier than locking certain ones. If we choose not to see all of the content that should be our choice.
Instant Death mechanics suck for many reasons, but reducing raids to DPS races (because, the faster you kill that boss, the fewer instant death mechanics to avoid) is, for me, their greatest failing.
Yes, raids are all about margins for sure and DPS races to avoid those instant death mechanics are annoying. As far as the 10 DPS difference I don’t thing it holds up as well in Rift as other titles because of the soul system. As an example, the first boss in Rise of the Phoenix. If I had a melee DPS that does 2300 DPS and a ranged DPS that does 2100 I’d prefer the ranged one. If you’re talking two of the identical roles yeah you go with higher (we don’t honestly but we’re okay with progressing slower). I don’t think not adding every role to each class intersects this. The idea is every class should offer something unique. If they do than it works like LotRO where you need them. A mage tank could be the best at resisting magic damage, as an example. If a fight does physical there would be no expectation of tanking it.
4
Comparatively speaking, races are extremely low on development time and don’t overlap with things I think you’d consider “the point of the game” for the most part. Adding a third faction? Yeah, that is an insane request. Adding races involves art and animation teams. It is a fluff thing though! I just find the three generic choices per side to be generic and I don’t think they inspire much interest from new players. I truly believe players underestimate the draw of variety and uniqueness.
They say don’t judge a book by its cover but that is exactly what folks do. Race choice is often one of the very first thing a player is presented with and as much as I love Rift, it barely gets an F on this.