*blows some dust off the ol’ blog*

I have been out and haven’t updated this in a while, I’ve been busy working on my decorating site and running raids.  However, I got inspired today to do some writing because I have been thinking alot about Class balance in RIFT.

My guild used to be primarily mages.  We would run a 10 man raid with a warrior, 2 clerics, and mages.

We were successful most of the time, but not perfect.  In Storm Legion my guild acquired a few rogues, and it has shifted the balance in a good way on our raids, however I have noticed a few things in my grouping.

There is a boss in Empryean Core (expert), that has a lot of mechanics.  They aren’t complicated mechanics, it is just a lot.

The first part is there is alot of adds, big ones that need to be burned, little ones that chase someone.  He also has a lazer beam you have to dodge as well as trying to angle smaller adds into him without running into them.  It is a heavy movement fight.

I have defeated this fight 4 times.

I have attempted this fight 63 times.

The 4 times I have won – I had at least 1 rogue in my group.

The majority of the time, because my guild is so heavily centered on mages I end up with Myself (warrior), Cleric, and 3 mages or a cleric and 2 mages.

Every time on this fight we fail if we don’t have a rogue or ranged warrior.
I got to thinking about why this is, is it because there’s just a lot going on? is it because the mages die faster?

No.

It is because there is one huge difference between mage dps and rogue dps in RIFT.  Mages (and clerics to a smaller degree) require to stand still to cast their biggest damage spells.  Rogues? They can fire and move for the majority of their damage.

So in a heavy movement fight like this boss, rogues are constantly killing the large adds that tend to stack up on me when I only have mages.  Rogues are aoeing the crap out of the smaller adds, when the mages can’t get an aoe off because they are moving.

I see the differences in DPS on raids, as well on fights we have to do a lot of movement on, the mages are under the rogues and warriors.

So while the potential is definitely there that a mage can top the parse, because of the mechanics in the encounters, they don’t.  I think this is one of the fundamental broken parts of balance in RIFT.  If they are trying to achieve having all DPS classes (all 4) have equivalent dps, then they need to provide the mage a way to move and cast.  Even if it is a buff or temporary buff deep in the dps trees so you cannot use it for a cholro build.  Something needs to be done for mages on heavy movement fights to keep them competitive to rogues.

This is just my take on it, but I feel that Mages get a bad wrap because they are one of the better healing and support classes, and they are expected to do heavy dps, but with the way that RIFTs fights turn out, they are typically 2nd and even 3rd on the scale of desirability.

I hit level 60 about 3 weeks after SL launch.  As I’ve stated in previous posts, my guild is a small casual raid guild and I am the main tank.

Now that I am 60, the next step is to get gear so that I can be ready when we get to raiding.  I looked at my options.  I have 3 really.  I can grind infinity stones into oblivion, its really not that hard but I think I’ve done the Ashora death event about 60 times now.  I can grind normal dungeons until I some how magically get a drop that might help me (so far no luck with that).  I can have things crafted, and go into experts as DPS (hit is easier to get than toughness) to get the Tank pants that have toughness….or I can run the chronicle once a day and hope for a miracle.

All in all only one of those options is viable, the infinity stone one.  So That is what I have done since Dec 1.  I now have 7 pieces of basic infinity gear, and enough toughness and hit to get into experts, horray…not.

I find out from my officer who is a cleric tank that the expert marks don’t drop off the bosses, so I have 7 dailies, that give me a few each, and a chronicle that gives me one per day.  On average I can get 1 piece of gear a week if I run all my dailies…really?  I hear from a good friend that PVP requires marks from the dailies, that you only get 3 per day before r70.  Really?

Isn’t the object of this game to get people to play the content?  So what I draw from this is that I should only run one expert and one PVP warfront a day, and then just hang out in zones to get infinity stones for events.  That doesn’t seem productive to me.

Here is a better way to do it:

Give the same amount or marks for the dailies for both PVP and Dungeons.

For PVP: Give a blue token (freeholder?…I don’t pvp) for a win in a warfront.  This will do two things.  Encourage people to queue for warfronts if the want the gear bad enough, and also give them incentive to win.  Perhaps every 10 or 20 wins grant a purple mark.

For PVE:

Idea 1: Grant a expert dungeon token per boss.  So if your zone has 6 bosses, and you can’t kill the last two, at least you’ve gotten 4 Marks.

Idea 2: After the dalies are done, give a “completion” bonus for continuing to queue up, perhaps 1 Mark and some plat.

In the end it is all about the incentive.  I am not going to queue for hard dungeons as a tank in a PUG if I am not going to get anything but drops.  If I am grinding for expert gear, then that is the reason I am running the zones…not out of the goodness of my heart.

The carrots in Storm Legion seem to be smaller than in the past.  In the past dungeon mobs at least dropped some token that was useful for gearing up to get to raid level.  Now after my Dailies are done, I just go wander and farm crafting mats…which is not social play.

So, not a lot of time here, so I just thought I’d post something quickly that I’ve been thinking about as my eyes bleed reading the warrior forums.

I would like to tip my hat to RIFT Warrior Dev Attrius for weathering the insanity that is the warrior class and forums right now.  Just reading the forum makes my brain hurt…so thank you Attrius for putting up with us warriors and working with us to fix the issues we are bringing to you.

Also, secondly, please balance us fairly against the other tank classes (I’m a tank not dps so I am not going to comment on dps).  I would rather have an equal boring chance of standing up against a boss than some flashy have to click the buttons in some order ability to get the same effect.

So anyways…from one tank to another….thank you for continuing to put up us.

http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-general-discussions/classes-telara/warrior-discussion/342001-some-upcoming-buffs-fixes-2-1-a.html

I have spent a week getting down and dirty with Storm Legion.  Mostly with the 50-54 content and dimensions.  My new motto is “Must…Stop…Decorating *eye twitch*”.

I will touch on the content and stabby stuff in another post.  This post, is all about dimensions.

I started gaming in Everquest, but really got into EQ2.  EQ2 was the housing game at the time, no one did it better (not sure anyone does do it better still).  I was very excited about Dimensions, and guess what, theres no But in this sentance.  I love them.

There are a few complaints, which I will touch on below, but I will say this.  RIFT is my home game, and now I have a home within a home (within a home).

Those who know me from EQ2, know that I love finding ways out of my house.  I broke out of all of my houses in EQ2, I built structures where we weren’t supposed to travel….I broke out my guild as well in our guild hall.

When I was at PAX this year in 2012, I spoke with the Project Lead? about dimensions.  My guild mate who was there with me said that I broke out of every house I owned, that i’d probably do the same in RIFT.  She kind of got a funny look like…oh no, but we laughed about it…then I realized maybe she thought I wouldn’t be able to break out.

Within the first hour I bought my first dimension, Empyrean Mill.  Beautiful but small zone, with no outdoor areas.  It wasn’t for me.

I then bought Plaza Aurentine.   This one had everything I was looking for…a good structure, a good outside….and a lot of places to get in trouble.

Within minutes I was already climbing my pirate ladders….Could I reach the causeway above? No…damn that would have been an awesome house…stupid ceiling.

So I started testing roof tops looking for holes.  I found one, and then I found that my house has a basement.  A square area fairly large that I could convert into a room.  I only had to find a way to get people in and out as painlessly as possible.

I kept falling but couldn’t find a way to get back up.  So I scrapped the idea for the moment, and built a roof top garden near the place where I fell in.  Once the garden was completed, I started exploring on what else was solid enough to climb up, and lo and behold I found another hole down to my basement.

Placing items carefully not to block the narrow passage, but to keep people from wandering around in the dangerous underworld of my dimension, I worked my way down.  I used stone walls to block in my room, and create a tunnel out.  The pirate staircases (Thank you Trion for adding these last minute!), were my savior.

2 days later my house was finished.  My Dimension has a 2 story house, a basement that is outside the realm of my dimension and a rooftop garden.  I had a blast.

If you would like to see it I am on the Greybrier Shard, the house is under Starseeker, labeled: Starseeker’s Sanctuary.

Now to the nitty gritty.

What I like about dimensions:

• The tools to move items, this is a huge upgrade from the dark ages where we had to stack items to get them to float.
• The varity of zones we can choose from for the dimension.
• Building blocks- OMGWTFBBQ awesome.
• The +1 system
• That items drop in rifts, quests, off mobs and can be bought/made.

Things that bug me:

• Not being able to move the natural geography of the zone.  Example: Not being able to move the cabin in stonefeild, not being able to move the palm trees in Faen’s Retreat…I find this very anoying….remove the trees/rocks if we can’t move them, sometimes that crap just gets in the way.
• Low item count – I have so many ideas and have already maxed my 400 max count.  I don’t even have every area of my dimension filled.
• Small amount of items to choose from.  This will change with time, but only having 4 chairs or 4 beds or 1 dresser is irritating.

Things that I hate about dimensions:

• The green wall of You Shall NOT Pass….make it a clear wall so we can see our views if we build corner to corner. Most of us are smart enough to know when our character stops moving it means we can’t go that way.
• Alot of the best features are skimped. Example; Necropolis- there is one building and a whole waterfall that would have made this dimension awesome, but you can’t get to them.  Plaza Aurentine would have been cool if you could reach the causeway and build on it (Jetsons anyone?) but it’s out of reach.  it seems alot of the cooler features were cut off by the green wall of YSNP.

My Wish List:

• Animals.  How can I build a fish tank without any fish? (I did, and even have fish in it, but still).  A forest with no deer or squirrels.  Convert the planar squirrel pets from the planar merchants into dimension models.  Give us the standing mounts that hang out near the mount merchants so we can build barns.
• Nature tiles: One of the big things that I feel we are missing is grass, snow, sand, dirt, glass tiles. Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to make a disco dance floor with planar items below floating and bobbing around? Can’t do it without a see through floor…Want to make a grassy yard? Not possible without grass tiles.
• More flowers, trees, shrubs.  More of everything I guess.

Also…MAKE GLOAMWOOD COTTAGE A DIMENSION…thank you that is all.

T’was the day before Storm Legion…and Starseeker grabbed her fishing pole and went fishing.

I love fishing in real life, I hate fishing in RIFT.  I will just get that out of the way to start off.  When it first came out, I was very excited about it, until I realized that the skill ups are agonizingly slow.

With Storm Legion coming out, well today, I had wanted to get all of my harvesting skills maxed…including fishing.

Fishing was my big issue, short of being a sleep aid, I just couldn’t stand there and click my mouse over and over and over for a very small pay off.

I was determined to get maxed in this skill however, so at 9:30 AM server time, I took off for Gloamwood and my measely 48 skill in fishing.

This is the time line of my adventure:

• 9am-11:30am – Fishing in Gloamwood.
• 11:30- 1:30pm – Fishing in Scarlet Gorge.
• 1:30pm – 3:30pm – Fishing in Lake Solace
• 3:30-4:38pm- Fishing in Moonshade Highlands.

Do the math.  That is 7 1/2 hours give or take.  Guess where I left off on my fishing after I couldn’t take it anymore?

Skill level 162.

In the total of 7 1/2 hours of fishing I gained 114 skill points.  That is an average of 1 skill point every 4 minutes.  4 minutes of throwing my stupid lure in waiting, and clicking a button.

I really hope some day they look at this, because I have never spent 7 1/2 hours doing anything one thing in the game.  It is NOT fun. It is NOT entertaining.  It is rather boring, and while I was bound and determined to get it maxed, I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to do something that was more entertaining like sorting my bank slots for the expansion.

So one of my major complaints in my previous post was the lack of a preview for dimension items.  I was invited to the 24/7 beta, and I played around with the preview option that Hartsman hinted at in the comments of my previous post.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed.  The preview is great, don’t get me wrong, it’s way better than not having any idea what the item looks like…here comes the but…

The preview box is very small, and makes the item very small, in some cases microscopic (I bug reported those).  There is no way to change the Y axis.  So you can rotate the object around in a circle, but not up or down, and the preview box shows from a top point of view, so it is very hard to see some items clearly.  Here is an example from the website I am working on:

This picture is of the item when it is placed in the house:

This picture is of the same jug in the preview window:

This item doesn’t look too bad in the preview window, however when you start looking at trees, the rift items like the glowing orbs, banners, or larger items, they all are at very strange angles and very hard to see.

My hope is there will be a way to zoom and reposition the item so you can look at more of the side than the top eventually.

What I was hoping for, was something similar to the wardrobe preview, larger, and a side view instead of a “from above view”.

The NDA is down for Storm Legion so I can talk a little about my short amount of time in beta.

I’m sure that sites like massively and mmorpg have full scale articles on the stuff.

I didn’t play really in the open world, I refused to spoil it for launch… so I stuck to dimensions (also because I’m doing a dimension related fan site).

Dimensions are great.  I love the tools that we have to move items more easily, size them, and rotate them.

The varieties of zones are great too.  A little bit of everything with more to come.

There are a few things that I do not like about dimensions but not many, here are the biggest 3:

1. I can own them all but only have one active.  If I want to go to another one I own it will pack up my house.

- Suggestion -
Add a save feature for each dimension, so that I can save my layout.  Or Alternatively allow us to have more than one dimension active.

2. Item counts seem very low.  400 items is not alot if your trying ot build a castle…and put furnature in it.

3. The exsisting items in a zone such as the house in faen’s retreat, trees, rocks etc cannot be moved.  So if I want to move the house in faen’s retreat to be a lake side house, I can’t.  I am not sure i like that, since there are a few dimensions that have alot of trees (dormant core) which will bleed through the walls of anything I build.

Those are my main problems with dimensions. Small things really.

The fun part of dimensions is actually going to see what others have built.  On beta there are a few houses that are very impressive.  Elrar visited a few during the Extra Life live stream.

It was fun to take some friends and just hop from Dimension to Dimension checking them out.

A few other things from beta that my friends like:

Carnage quests…they are a big hit.  I Haven’t done any personally, but they are a great addition.

Tagging is done with, so I can kill mobs that other people have pulled and get quest credit…this is a huge addition and I am very happy to see that it is in.

Many other things too…including a huge amount of soul changes.  I will have to review my souls again and maybe post here my thoughts on them, but I have been so busy with dimensions I’ve not really looked at anything else!

That is a lot of Ds….starting to think I should have used that name!

I love housing and dimensions, and I was excited to hear they were adding it in RIFT.

Yes, there is a but.

There is no way to preview items from the merchants, unless you buy them, go to your house and drop them down in your house.  There is no way to view the Dimensions themselves without buying them (unless you go to someone elses dimension).

Thinking about these issues, I have decided to start my own database of housing locations and items.  I will do the best that I can, but I work alone and my resources aren’t infinite.

I’ve fired up RIFT DECORATORS (riftdecorators.com), it will be a place where you can view dimension items and where to find them (npc or otherwise).  There won’t be any guides, quest guides, or anything of that sort here, I’ll leave that to sites like ZAM.
This site is primarily for those who are looking at a merchant or crafting recipie and going “do I really want this?”.

Now you can preview it before you buy at my site

Please understand it is a work in progress, I haven’t even sent an email to Trion yet to get it added to the fan site list.

So much going on and so little time to write.

Rift expansion is incoming in less than a month, and there has been much preparation so not much here.

1.11 came out yesterday, and my head exploded.  Not really but just about.  There is a lot of changes to take in, a lot of things I have un-think and un-habitize myself to.

I play a main tank in a small raid guild, so looking at the tanking changes, I can understand why they did alot of things.

I am glad that Trion seems to be taking the initiative now to curb inflation of stats/gear instead of waiting 5 years (yes I’m looking at you eq2) when players are really set in their ways, and so to compensate bosses have to be made ridiculous just to challenge players.

There is a flip side to gear inflation too.  It widens the gap between newbie and veteran.  One of the things I am most looking forward to in this expansion is the reset button.

Reset button you say? Yes. It’s what others call a level increase.  Right now, it is difficult to get new players into my raid because of gear requirements, 350 hit, 250 toughness, high dps numbers.  To get a new player ready to raid with my crew I have to take my crew through old stale content that gives them nothing and sets our own progress back.

With this new expansion everyones gear will again be on the same level. So I say good on Trion for seeing the inflation problem before we all level up and get crazy up graded gear.

I have spoke to both veteran and new player, i have friends in both camps.  I have a friend who refused to play Rift because he felt it was not balanced, that his class had no identity….he’s now currently playing his 30day free trial a year late, and he likes the changes that they made.  He feels Trion is going in the right direction, and honestly so do I.

It will be harder, yes without the 2 button macro mash, but if the rest of the world is balanced around these changes, if raids can be tuned around souls having more of a identity then I think things will be better.

I know, in a month there will be a cookie cutter spec like 38 reaver.  It happens, but I now have more choices.  My souls feel new, feel like they have an identity and a purpose instead of “4 tank and 4 dps” with one or two being better than the other 6.

I am excited for the changes…I want to write about more about the expansion but my lips are sealed for the moment.

At Pax East 2012, there was a Future of MMOs pannel where the Arena net producer (Unfortunately I do not remember his name) said that in the end mechanics don’t matter as long as it’s FUN.

I agreed, if a game is Fun it doesn’t matter how you get there.  Unfortunately the very game he is working on has some strange notions of “fun”.

Granted, I am not max level in GW2, but I am missing or not understanding what is fun about this game.  Let me run you through my experience so far with the game so you can understand where I am at.

I have a level 10 Norn:

I have done all the heart quests in the starting area for the norn.  These quests consisted of:

• Gathering Ravens eggs
• Killing things in leopard form with 10 other people doing it.
• Trapping fish and running back and forth to feed them to bears.
• Following slow wolf npcs around to kill 4-5 bad guys
• Scratching some paintings off the walls

Then I went to the town, and then I left the town and went out into the world where I:

• Carried bags of rabbit food where I was slowed and the rabbits would knock me down if I didn’t push F.
• Threw snowballs at delinquent children
• Followed a merchant around.

Add in a few dynamic events that don’t change, and that are severely lacking any participants, and that has been my experience on my Norn.

Enter my two human characters, Elementalist and Guardian.  My elementalist is a commoner.

• Try to group with friends, can’t find each other till we both get into the real world, no join options.
• Turns out friend is a noble and I’m a commoner, now we have to do two sets of instances for story quests.

I switched to my guardian who is also a noble to make life easier.

Go out into the world and:

• Feed cows and water corn.
• Shake bushes and get ambushed
• Kill spiders and bats in an orchard, for 20 minutes
• Trap drakes and kill them in 3 hits
• Do a dynamic event to protect pipes that consists of 20 people just mowing over everything with no real organization.

So my take on this game so far, is that I don’t feel like I hero. I feel like some schmuck out in the world shoveling cow poop and scooping up eggs off the farm for the uppity ups.  The pacing on the game is very slow.  I don’t feel like I am making much headway.  After I finish a heart  and a story line quest I feel a little lost on what to do except wander over to one of the “dynamic” events I’ve done 10  times already while trying not to fall asleep carrying cow poop around.  I find that I get behind on levels for the story quests, but have no idea how to get levels except to go do the same dynamic events 40 times or just go out and grind kill monsters. Both of which get old fast and do nothing to open up the game to me.

Grouping irritates me, most of the time I cannot find my party members without logging in and out several times, and then having to do different instances (or do them solo) for story quests was a feature I found unfun from SW:tor.  Why can I not progress in the game with my friends seamlessly without having to go to instances, special story groups or anything for 10 minutes at a time while they wait or follow me along for something that doesn’t even involve them?

MMOs are meant to be Multiplayer, but lately it seems like they are single player games with multiplayer features.  This is my take on GW2.  I’m playing a slow, want to be sandbox single player game that’s not quite a sandbox.  Sure exploration is great, trying to get to the vistas, points etc is an interesting way to work on maps…it’s one thing the rest just feels hollow and souless.

I feel like I am missing something.  Many people I like and respect like this game….but to me it feels unepic, slow and boring…with no soul. Beautiful, but empty.