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The things I like and don't like
Just purchased the game and the expansion. So I'm about a day into the game and so far I'm having a good time. I'll try to update here now and again as things come up. This is just me bla bla bla about my experiences, nothing earth shattering.
I made a dwarf female ranger/assassin. So far I'm pretty happy with my choice. I am coming from GW2 where I was playing ranger, so I feel comfortable in that role. I used to always play tanks, but got tired of it I guess. I think I like the pet aspect. Bows and guns are pretty cool too. I play almost exclusively human characters, sometimes elves. Aesthetically those are usually my favorite and then I pick gender by who looks the best. This time though I chose a short humanoid race. I couldn't help myself, she's so cute. I love her emotes too, very sassy.
The game looks great at times. I started out at ultra settings, but sometimes I change to high. The ground textures looked blurry and there were little jaggies. So bumping up anistropic and adding smooth edge AA and now my fps goes down from 40-44 to 26 -33. It depends a lot on the zone too and what's going on around me. Not too happy about that, but a beautiful world really helps to immerse me.
I feel like I'm leveling pretty fast. I'm a day in and complete newb, but I got to level 14. As usual, I sometimes get distracted and wonder off or start exploring. Can't seem to help myself there. The quests go pretty fast, probably because I'm not competing with many other players. Population is similar to my GW2 server, but seems less. Also tried Instant Adventuring. I like it...seems to be good xp, coin and loot, and the quests go by very quickly.
The community seems pretty nice so far. I was standing at a mount vendor, looking at the different horses and wishing I had enough coin. I saw a pretty elf girl on her mount next to me so I waved and said hello. I'm a friendly dwarf. She smiled down at me and waved. Then she gave me enough to buy a horse. I was so happy! Now I'm riding around in style. I don't hear a lot of talk between players but I'm in the newb areas, and the people that are around are busy.
Tried some fishing. There were other players also fishing so I asked how the fishing was around here. The consensus was boring...just like fishing in real life I guess. I made some good coin doing it though.
Oh yeah! And I got my house. It's a little closet on a hill, but it has a view. Spent at least a couple hours playing around with it. I need a bigger house though before I start getting serious with it. Also checked out some public houses.
The only negative I have so far is performance. Several lag spikes and two crashes. I don't know why. GW2 by comparison runs very smooth for me almost all the time and I have never had a crash to desktop. That's it, I'll probably add to this post and put up some pics when I have time. Got a busy day planned today though so not sure how much play time I'll get.
Comments
I have been meaning to update here but I've been putting in some long hours in Rift and it's eating up my free time. Suffice it to say, I love, love, love the game and am having a blast. I recently dinged 54 and 300 + in butchery. So far I have about 500 plat, which feels adequate for my needs, and as I level the money rolls in with increasing frequency.
Some things that have made an impression upon me.
1) Character customization.
Your avatars get 'wardrobes', in which they can have the look of an entire outfit while retaining your stats from other gear. Each item, and this is very important, each clothing or armor piece that can be worn can be hidden or shown simply by checking or unchecking a box. And as a leather wearing rogue, I can still wear everything from plate to cloth under the wardrobe tab for appearances. It is so great for RP'ers. There are....5 + wardrobe slots. Sorry, writing this off the top of my head, but I know there are at least 5. They have a HUGE, HUGE selection of really great clothing and armor....kudos to the artist. So many games have bad clothing and armor design, but Rift does it right.
You can have multiple roles with the same character. For example, I am rogue. I can buy an additional 'role' like healer, tank, mage, so I don't have to roll another character. Initially the cost is small and very manageable, but as you add more roles, the cost to purchase them increases. That seems fair for such a wonderful feature!
Within each role, rogue, tank, healer, mage...you get to choose a few 'souls'..what in other games is called skill trees. As you add points into the skill trees it unlocks abilities and improves others. It's great for really customizing your character and making them unique. Two persons of the same role can be very, very different and fullfill different roles, like healing, support, tank, damage, etc. Or you can create a hybrid character.
Once you hit 50, you continue to advance in another way called Planar Attunement. Basicially you put points you earn through killing mobs or other players into another skill tree. PVP is a really fast way to accrue these points. I've already completed tier 1 and 2 and started on another. In the particular trees that I chose, I am increasing dexterity, attack power, and resistances to elements. They also unlock abilities and improve others, like run speed or decreasing cool down timers. It's another thing to play with.
2) Housing.
Simply put, if you are going to create custom housing, this is the way to do it. Resize items, put them anywhere, rotate, x/y/z axis placement. They have a wide variety of items to furnish your home, or add elements to create your own. For a creative exercise and a place to call your own, this is it!
Basically you purchase instances for your home, called dimensions. There are small, medium and large. Your first one with the expansion is free when you complete the quest, probably around level 10 or even lower. After that, small instances are 10 plat, mediums about 100 to 150...and the larger zones about 300 plat. Still bigger dimensions are available for guilds, not sure of the prices on those.
Furniture items are purchased at vendors, loot drops, reeled in from fishing, or crafted.
Unfortunatly you can not store things like your armor or use it as a bank vault, yet. Perhaps someday. For now it is simply a space to exercise your creativity and share with friends.
3) Exploration.
There are so many places to go and things to see! I've pretty much covered the continent that came with launch, as well as Ember Isle and Tempest Isle, which is a huge city hub. After that if you have the expansion, jump on over to the two new continents, they are huge.
On your travels, you may come across 'artifacts', little shinies in the world that are looted and added to collections. When you complete collections, you get a type of currency that can be used to purchase items. In some cases, completeing a collection will get you an item as well in addition to currency.
4) Pvp/Dungeon/Pve
Mostly I've done PVE in the open world as well as some dungeons and instances. The open world pve is pretty much par for the course, but the world and the mobs are interesting. I find with my particular build I can kill 1 mob or 6 just as fast as I have a lot of AOE in my build. This is great for leveling and getting coin.
PVP...still out on that one. Yes I have done it and some days I get my ass handed to me and other days I eek out a win. It's team vs team in a variety of different match types from capture the flag to capture an item and hold. I'm not really clear on all the varieties of pvp yet, I'm still a newb. Also, I haven't built up any stats for vengeance and valor yet, the attack and defend stats. Also, I'm level 54 as of this morning and I think I'm going against 60's, so as I increase in levels and get better gear and abilities, my performance should improve so long as I work on it.
Raids are okay. Decent rewards, sometimes great rewards. They don't take too long, especially with a good group. I've done some on expert with 5 party members I think...and then there are chronicles which you can do solo or with another party member.
That's all I have for now. Luckily I type fast, because I want to jump back into the game. Hope someone takes something positive away from my post. Sadly, the Rift forum and interest in general seems lacking, which is a shame, because this game is GREAT. Seriously, I love it. The fact that I am in a nice guild helps, I'm sure. But I am having a blast and playing way too much.
Later~
* Edit: cleaning up some typos and may add pictures later of various UI windows and stuff.
Actually, the pvp doesnt work that way
Bolstering gives everyone the same gear, at least in the 50s. Seals and trinkets are your best bets for a small advantage, as well as planar attunement points. But bolstering gives everyone pvp gear so no need to worry about that. Also, if you are level 54 you are not playing against level 60s. You are playing against levels 50-55. Great post though, glad you enjoying and hope you try out some more pvp. Cya.
Yeah, I finished tier 2 of Air planar attunement and decided to start the pvp tier 1. I'm already starting to see some improvement. Either that or I'm getting better.
This game is really great, it's the best pve in the themepark category. It makes me sad this game's forum is so dead, and so many people are missing a great game. But there seems to be plenty of people in the world so maybe word is starting to get out.
Its just that most people don't like Rift. Trion is terrific at marketing, and i would wager at this point more people have tried Rift than have tried EQ2 (which would get my personal vote as best themepark). But SoE couldnt market their way out of a paper bag. At the end of the day though, awareness isnt the issue for either game. People just don't like them, or they don't like them enough to play long term.
Rift has had zero issues getting people to try their game. And they have a pretty high percentage of people that initially like the game. But their long term retention has proven terrible. Rift launched with 58 active (most VERY active) North American servers. Its now down to 8.
However, you arent alone. Rift has its base of people that love it, and a good portion of those playing are the long termers who arent going anywhere. Hopefully for this core of people Trion recovers from the EoN disaster and can keep rift running at a high level.
Try switching off AF and AA in the game's options and enable these settings in your videocard drivers.
The implementation of AF/AA in game is terrible and you shouldn't lose that many fps by using the driver's AF and AA.
If you like to go for some extra fiddling, give FXAA a try (search for "Rift fxaa" and "Rift fxaa injector" on the internet), it's awesome.
This is good advice and actually helps on my system. Good luck and I hope you are enjoying one of the better themeparks around still
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
Rift FXAA discussion on the official forums, incl. many example screenshots and comparison of user settings::
http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-general-discussions/tech-support/237630-alternative-edge-smoothing-aa.html
The game is extremely active still. I will agree with the poster who mentioned everquest II being the best themepark, but that game is hard for new players to get involved with, especially if they want to pvp. Rift has made it easy for new players to be competetive in PVP, as well as have accessibility to all aspects of the game. Rift's soul system is in my opinion the main reason why it's so fun, especially in pvp. There are lots of chances and tons of players for that matter, to end up with a bad build. Those who research online, or like me, who experiment a ton, get an instant advantage that gear doesnt come close to giving.
I would love to play everquest II again, but their engine is not as stable and fluent as Rifts for my computer. And as mentioned, there is such a large initial learning curve for those wanting to pvp competetively.
Rift is growing steadily, without slowing down in the last few months since the expansion. Conquest hurt Rift I believe however. It was poorly initialized, and forced pve players to pvp, most of which went afk or fished in the instance just to farm the marks for finishing. Trion put the work in it though, and it's much better, but not where I feel it should be. Would love more open world PVP incentives. And to the poster who said everyone has tried Rift, I would challenge that. I'm meeting many who are first timers and have leveled all the way up with their characters. Dimensions provided a much needed alternative to combat, and that can't be underestimated. GGs everyone
Conquest was a mistake, but they had made a lot of improvements. I really think dimensions have added a very nice element to the game as well.
Well Rift launched with an insane amount of hype. If you recall "were not in azeroth anymore" direct market to wow players, along with their revolutionary soul system which was going to bring about countless "classes" with massive diversity...and the rifts themself, being revolutionary.
Turned out, you were in azeroth, the soul system plays more like a skill tree with a lot of overlapping skills and skills that dont make sense to use with other...a lot of builds need certain skills which shoehorn people into a few builds....and the rifts themselfs...just like WAR and their PQ...awesome at first then boring then annoying...
What Rift turned out to be was a decent themepark made in the image of wow...like so many others. Thing is Trion is a really good company from the players point of view and the game is solid for what it is. So instead of losing 90% of the players after launch and slowly dieing...they have retained a nice community.
I tried to go back last free weekend. The fact that theres still only one linear path to leveling up got me...was still burned out on the lower levels after going through them a few times at launch and in beta.
I remember Rift as a game with fantastic and challanging endgame pve that no one did and boring pvp that everyone participated in while ignoring the good and difficult endgame pve...which im sure they have made super easy by now.
Personally i think Rift is destined to a medium pop game for life. Theres only so many people willing to stick to a decent themepark. Most would rather jumping around new games that promise the same tired things and deliver the same tired game. I commend Trion for what they have done with the game however. A lesser company would have let it sit out to rot, or gone for the f2p money grab. A game like Rift kinda makes me wish i was capable of really enjoying themeparks.
One linear path?
I think not.
First play though, you'll quest probably.
Second character you level up you'll probably have vetern rewards, exp potions so the fastest way is through insta adventure.
Now when leveling you'll probably play on the weekedns so you'll want to get the bonsuses from the weekend warfront.
You'll also be doing dungeons either path you take.
50-60 feels like 1-50 pre-nerf
Rift