Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Finally.. My Impression of Rift
So, I'm finally going to write my impression of Rift so far. I haven't given my opinion on these forums for quite some time, if at all, becuase it seems a little frustrating at times with the trolls and so forth, but this is just a basic observation, from my end, about Rift. If someone disagrees with me, thats great, and if someone agrees with me that even better.
First, of course, I have been playing MMO's for about eleven years. I started with EQ, then went to DaoC and played just about everything in between. Interesting enough I didn't get stuck on WoW for too long. I played the original WoW then sold my account when the first expansion came out. I tried to keep playing but it sucked my soul..
So, in Rift I have a level 35 Rogue, a level 25 Necro, and a few other level 10's and so forth. I'd like to point out what I really enjoy about the game. I play on my lap top and havne't even seen the game played on a desktop, but the graphics for me are great. I think if people do not care for the graphics they are looking at it as a "style" perspective and not a "quality" perspective. The quality in the world is so far wonderful to me. The colors, animations (besides fighting) are all very cool to me. I also really enjoy the GUI. Even though it is not original it does seem friendly, as well as good to monkey around with. I like that I can move the UI to how I want to without using an addon.
I also, of course, like the soul system. However, I am finding it a little difficult to buy multiple souls and learning how to play multiple roles with my character. As a Rogue I like to DPS, but if I switch my soul to a Tanking role it all gets a bit confusing for me. That is not a problem with the game, rather a problem with me not taking the time to go ahead and learn the multiple game play styles I can achieve with one character..
I do not care for the instances.. Well, what I have seen so dar atleast. I have only done three so far and they all seem pretty drab. There isn't too much skill involved, they are short, and they just seem a little boring. I would like to see more terrain differences to make them a bit more interesting for me, but that is just becuase I am used to raiding in other games so I may be ju,ping the gun a little bit here. I'm not sure. The bosses are simple and the drops seem to be nice as well.
Speaking of drops, loot in the game is coming very quickly. I seem to find loot being dropped easily and I'm finding it hard to sell a lot of gear that isn't "blue".
I think the thing I like the most about the game are the different things a person can do in it. If I get bored questing (which I find to be only a level driven purpose instead of lore, becuase the quest lines seem incredibly dull) I'll go Rifting, if I don't want to rift I can craft, but what I like a lot are the artifacts. The artifacts are a wonderful part of the economy and the game in general. I think they could improve on this by giving more than just tokens for completing artifact sets. I make most my money in the AH by selling these, atleast on my shard.
Now, I'm noticing that I am staying on line longer than usual with my previous MMO expereince. Usually I would log after a few hours of gaming, but not with Rift. I can stay logged in for quite some time. Between grduate school, my girl friend, and bartending, I am able to play a few hours at once. I find myself playing as much as I can, and I do that for one reason, I like my character.
This is what I like most about Rift. For some reason I am enjoying my character's development a lot. It took me a bit to find a toon that I enjoyed to play, but once I started playing my Assassin there were many things that I was able to do. I find it challenging to play, immersive, as well as well rounded. I have much to learn and a lot more to play.
However, I think I will burn out in the game like I usually do with MMO's. I'm not sure how long I can hold on to Rift but I really want to make it last. I'm the type of fella who will go to one game to the next, but if I game doesn't hold my attention I won't play it at all even if there isn't something else to play. That being said, when ToR comes out, I will be playing that and this. I will see what direction I go in.
All in all, I enjoy Rift. I have that old school MMO feeling back again and I havne't had that sense the first two months WoW came out and before that DAoC and before that my first two month playing EQ. All in all I'm happy to see the success of the game, the great community (on my shard) and the challenege it has to offer. I really hope that the end game raiding will be challenging as well. I'm looking forward for my Shard to have people atr higher levels..
Comments
Sounds like a fair review. Would like to hear a little more about crafting, which can make or break a game for me.
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
Craftins is essentially meaningless and non-existent to anything resembling contributory, interesting or rewarding. You collect one raw material, click on a loom or workshop, purchase an ancillary component or philter from the merchant standing right there, click 'make' and watch your progression bar go from start to finish.
I have done a bit of crafting in the game so far but I hvaen't maxed it out by any means. I do like the crafting for the itemd that can be made but by no means is it complex or intricate. It is, again in my opinion, simple and straight forward. It does become more involved later in the game but for right now it is very similar to WoW's. There are areas where you need to be standing to your "loom" in order to craft and of course you can gather your items in the world.
One thing I did find I like about the gathering is the rexipees/quests that can be found. I am a miner and I found a quest that would give me a good recipee for making a certain style of ore as well as a great weapon. THe drop rates of these are very low but it is just another cool thing to keep in mind while you are gathering.
I do wish some of the items I was crafting were actually more useful in game. I am making weapons and armor so I ca nsee a reason why it is a little difficult at the time, but overall I don't see a lot of people buying the gear that I am making. There could be a little more variety with the weapons and make the more difficult recipess available to people who do not do daily crafting quests all the time.
Inorder for me to get recipees that are more uncommon or rare I have to d othe daily crafting quests in order to get the currency needed to buy the recipess. If I do not do the daily crafting quests then I can't get the currency and won't be able to buy to recipee. To me that is a little lame. I don't want to do the daily crating quests (make something x 10 then go drop x 10 off at another location) It is expensive and the pay off isn't worth it. To get the ore needed for crafting, especially for a daily quest, is difficult and time consuming or it can be extremly expensive. So, for me to get mroe rare recipess is difficult and a little tedious.
Even though I have this opinion I still craft. I haven't immersed myself in the system but I think I will wait a little longer before I invest tons of gold to get the gear, items, and level I want from crafting. It just seems a little unballanced at the moment.
I certainly hope they do something to crafting then so it makes it more interesting. From a wow stand point they had their problems at start. Here is hoping they do more to the crafting at some point in the future.
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
I wonder about this as well. I'm concerned about the foundation of the crafting system. It is just boring. Im not sure if they can totally restructure the crafting system but it is definately not original or fun. I craft right now just becuase I want to get it to a higher level, not becuase it is fun. I'm not sure what direction they will take, how they will make the changes, but in my mind they could have spent a little mroe time creating something original with the system. I mean, most games have very simoplar crafting situations and I think there is so much room to take chances on this system. Im suprised that Trion didn't take a risk and try to make a new system worth while for the crafting. Who knows whats in store..
Not quite as brain dead as that.
Augments add flavor to crafting.
A good augment can make a crafted item better than most drops at a similar level. Augments are not gueranteed to work however, and can fail causing the item to craft without the bonus.
It's not a SWG level of crafting, but it's a step up from WoW.
Crafting is much like it is with wow.. It's a uninteresting but safe route for Trion to take.. It's been proven over the years and it certainly works.. My complaint is the use of some of the crafting gear, it dosn't look much better then dropped gear.. But it is cool you can add certain things to you're crafts to get a +Wisdom stat on the item, or +Str, or whatever.. So that does add a little customization.. Not to mention i just found dyes in the game, which is cool being able to make you're char color cordinated lol.
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
Yeah, you are correct about taht. There are the augments that can really make ore break an item. Basically they are like item buffs that are used during crafting to increase certain stats. It isn't SWG level of crafting, but indeed it is a level up from WoW, a low level, but still a level. I think the only thing differently really are the augments.
Crafting has some similarities to the familiar WOW system but also a few differences that make it easier and more enjoyable.
First of these is the ability to break down almost anything into components that can then be used to craft something else. This difference alone makes crafting feel a little bit less grindy and it certainly cuts down in expenses and creates some synergies.
An example is the pairing of Runecrafting and Outfitting that is popular with many mages. Outfitting allows you to create cloth and leather armor and bags primarily. All of that armor that has enhancements (i.e greens and above) can then be "runebroken" to obtain the ingredients for runecrafting which in turn allows you to make "runes" which are enhancements that can be applied to armor and weapons. So essentially from gathering cloth and harvesting leather you can easily level-up both, outfitting and runecrafting cheaply and efficiently. I know that this is very similar to combining tailoring and enchanting in WOW except there you can not get everything you need to level enchantment from just breaking down cloth and leather since many components only come from breaking down weapons....additionaly, you can optionally break down the same cloth armor into special types of cloth and leather which can be used to make the other things you can make with outfitting: consumable buffs that give you temporary running or mounted movement increases.
Second, In most cases, you can continue to craft level-appropriate gear in the normal course of questing and running instances. This is quite different from WOW where it is very tough and very expensive to do that with the current economy since there is almost no way to be self-suficient...sure you can do it with multiple characters and minimize paying AH prices for what you need but in Rift you can easily do it all with a single character at practically 0 cost.
I play a mage and at all times, up to and including my current level cap, I have been armored in a mixture of good drops and my own crafting... and all my gear has been self-enchanted with the best runes at all levels.
However, improvements are still needed particularly at the high crafting levels. Currently there is an awkward system for obtaining epic recipes that depend more on luck and RNG than anything else and the chance is ridiiculously low to boot. But they've already announced that they are working on changes to make obtaining the currency used to purchase the better epic recipes obtainable in more predictable ways.
The other problem is related to the current state of the economy which can best be described as unsettled. But that's to be expected with a new game and is also somewhat influenced by the easier crafting. You can't have it both ways: if crafting is easier to level, everyone will do it and the demad at the AH will be much lower. Level 50 rare and epics is where the money is--which isn't all that different from WOW, just a bit more pronounced here.
I had a max level enchanter and scribe in WOW and imho, the biggest difference is that in WOW leveling those 2 felt like a chore. In Rift, crafting can just be easily incorporated into your normal leveling routine without much hassle.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED