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10.2.5
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10.2.6
Rift v.s. WoW
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Post by
138638
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
144978
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Adamsm
Shin, the OP hasn't posted since Feb; don't think he'll be responding to you here.
Post by
Umega
Screw you, young whippersnappers. I still play Ultima Online.
I played like 15 mins of Ultima Online a few days ago, I'm a bit of an old school gamer myself so I didn't mind the graphics, but I found the gameplay was a bit of a mess, confusing and unclear. For example you have to manually remove a piece of gear to equip another piece, it's not automatic. =/
Post by
138638
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gates
Been playing Rift lately. The game is pretty fun. Definitely won't kill WoW, and it also has some major issues.
Balancing, for example. Mages are by-far the best damage dealers, killing things in less than a third of the time it takes any other class.
PvP is horrid. Most of the maps are small clusters, where people just mob together and blow each other up. Not much strategy involved.
The aggro system is a bit whacky, and seems kind of random.
Questing is excessively linear.
Classes don't really change as you level up; I am using the same fighting style at level 30 as level 15.
Item models are very bland and kind of boring.
Overall, the game is pretty bland in terms of class variety and content. But, the game is also very beautiful, and just exploring the world is fun in itself (something WoW can't provide for a person who has played since Vanilla, like I have). Dungeons also seem pretty fun so far. The game is like a more unbalanced version of Vanilla with a lot more issues than WoW had at release. It's fun for the time being, but I can't see it holding my interest in the future.
Post by
seebs
I have not seen that imbalance you describe between mages and other classes. At least in PvE, which is all I play. DPS roles kill stuff much, much, faster than tanks or healers, to be sure, but if I swap my cleric from tank to DPS, she kills just as fast as my mage does. Similarly, my rogue kills just as fast, or possibly faster, in DPS mode. There is absolutely, for sure, not a factor of three difference here.
I am not sure what you mean about "more issues". I didn't play WoW back at release, I only started around 1.8.x, but I can't remember any time during those five years during which WoW struck me as less buggy than RIFT is now. I just took it for granted that sometimes a quest would be bugged for a few months.
Class variety... Here's where I start wondering whether you're actually talking about the same game I am. Most of my characters are up to three roles or so, and they usually play completely differently from each other. There isn't as much change in fighting style as you level as WoW used to have, but that's because the classes are mostly built so that your primary abilities and strategies are available fairly early on.
Overall, I'm quite happy. Trion's implemented several things that I spent five years asking Blizzard for, and the most obvious remaining one is coming in the 1.2 patch, which is about a week and a half out. We get our "appearance tab".
I will agree that item models are, for the most part, fairly bland. I don't mind this, myself; I actually like that most of the armor models look at least vaguely like armor, and the weapons look like you could hit someone with them.
But... I really can't figure out how you could describe this as "more unbalanced" than vanilla, or having more issues than WoW had at release. I've been playing since head start, and I have not yet had a single client crash, and I may have seen one server glitch severe enough to result in anything but a little lag opening a window or something. There are things about RIFT I'd certainly criticize, but their stability is excellent. Balance, well, it's not great, but I have never heard anyone describe Vanilla as "balanced" before.
Post by
Gates
When I was speaking about mages being extremely imbalanced, I was speaking of PvP.
Mages do so much damage, and so quickly (especially later), that, when grouped together, a few mages casting a few aoes can kill a group of 5-6 players in a matter of seconds. It makes matters even worse when said aoes are instant cast spells with no cooldown (stormcaller). Mages generally dominate every single PvP arena. In PvE, they are close to other dps classes, but from what I understand, they pull far ahead at around level 50. And, in terms of AoE damage, they far excel above any other class. And my mage tends to kill a lot more efficiently than my rogue or warrior, at least from my experience.
As for "more imbalanced," I am referring to Rift's unmanageable 4 classes that each have (9?) interchangeable specializations system. The developers gave up on it before the game was even released. They stated (no link, sadly) that they were not interested in balancing the game, especially concerning PvP. I am assuming Trion realized that the system they created themselves was unmanageable. This feels like a big fail on their part to me.
Vanilla was of course not balanced. However, I believe Blizzard at least put thought into their system before release. 3 specs per class is not extremely hard to balance, especially when getting skills is not reliant on putting points into said specs. With Rift's system, there are just too many possible combinations for them to even consider balance.
However, the game IS fun, at least for now. I just can't see people staying interested unless Trion does something to seriously revamp their balance system, in which case the game would probably be ruined anyway, since all customization would go out the window. Blegh.
Post by
seebs
I don't think it's at all the case that they haven't considered balance. I agree that there are imbalances, but they've clearly given this thought, and tweaked things in ways that seem to address, at any given time, the most obvious balance problems.
It's not meant to be balanced finely for 1v1, but it's certainly broadly balanced in that there are a whole lot of specs which are viable.
I don't see the current state of balance as a barrier to staying interested. It is balanced
enough
.
Post by
Gates
I think what I was getting at is that the roles can't really ever be close to equal.
Clerics, for example, have the strongest healing (and basically the only healing), so making their dps just as viable as other classes would give them a dps value that is equal to other classes, while still maintaining the most powerful healing in the game (and basically, the only healing in the game).
But sadly, it is NOT balanced enough.
People are quitting at 50 because they despise the PvP. Either mages need a major nerf bat, or other classes need to be brought up to par in terms of PvP damage/survivability. And, since a large portion the MMO community lives on PvP, this is very bad for the game's health, especially considering how little end-game content currently exists. With bad PvP and (from what I have heard) very simple endgame content, there just isn't anything to keep people interested in once they reach the level cap.
Post by
OverZealous
I think people are looking at RIFT with their Wow-tinted glasses. It isn't WoW. Trion Worlds has stated, I believe, that they do not wish to balance the game around PvP. People coming into Rift looking for balanced WoW-PvP with better graphics are bound to be disappointed. Trion doesn't "need" to nerf anything. The people who think they do just need to take a look at where Trion wants to go with the game.
Post by
173035
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gates
Clerics, for example, have the strongest healing (and basically the only healing), so making their dps just as viable as other classes would give them a dps value that is equal to other classes, while still maintaining the most powerful healing in the game (and basically, the only healing in the game).
But sadly, it is NOT balanced enough.
In other words, you've never run with a halfway decent chloromancer? Any chloro worth their salt can pump out twice as much single-target healing as any cleric, while putting out a bit of dps at the same time, and they don't run out of mana. Sure, 5 mans are a bit more difficult, but as long as there's a bard around for backup it's fine, and once a chloro gets some decent gear they can solo heal experts too.
I agree PvP needs balancing, cleric tanks need to be brought up to par with warriors and rogues, something really needs to be done to make the warrior tanking souls more distinct, and dps has to be evened out across the board, but overall every class has something they're good at, and PvE imbalance isn't nearly as bad as PvP. Since I don't care about PvP, Rift is therefore doing perfectly fine from my point of view.
Sure, chloro's are fine, I was just using clerics as a broad example. Homogenization is something Trion is trying to avoid, but they created such a complicated class system that I don't think they can achieve balance without it.
And it's not really the PvP I'm worried about, I was just using it as an example. I'm more worried about PvE balance, and the differences between specs of a single class.
Rogues, for example. I greatly enjoyed playing my rogue as bladedancer, and yet, I still dropped the spec. Why? My bladedancer spec was doing maybe a third of the dps any of the other rogue specs I tried out (nightblade, assassin, etc.). Now, I only played this rogue to 24 before dropping it for my mage, so I have no idea how it plays how end-game, but early game, there is a large difference in usefulness.
A large variety of specs is nice, but meaningless if some specs are extraordinarily better than others. I believe Trion is fixing this in the next patch (they said they are increasing rogue damage, doing various balancing fixes, etc.) so I guess we'll see how that goes. I just hate having to give up a spec I like just out of the necessity of picking a spec that is actually...viable.
And as far as PvE goes, I would like some mechanics that go a bit deeper than simply don't stand in the fire. But Trion has a long time to iron out new mechanics with the raids they will be throwing at us, so hopefully they can make some interesting encounters.
Post by
Gates
Think I am quitting already honestly. Why? The quests and classes bore the heck out of me.
I have tried each of the four classes, and about 80% of the specs within those classes. EVERY spec I have tried has played the same way. Press button 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in order, wait for cds, do it again. Or, the occasional class has you randomly flailing on buttons whenever CDs are up, with no priority in hitting them present at all.
And, while WoW has the same general 9-10 types of quests found everywhere with the occasional randomly entertaining quest thrown in, Rift only has 4 types of quests: kill, collect items, use items on enemies, or go from point A to point B. I can't even stand to get past the 30s zone. I am pretty disappointed with all of the hype this game got overall; there just isn't anything particularly fun or engaging about it.
My experience overall: a big thumbs down. Will probably end up back on WoW in a matter of weeks, and here I am, only two weeks into the "experience," if you can call it that.
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