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Expansion changes
Obviously, there will be a lot of changes coming to Rift with the expansion, but there are three things I'm most interested in:
1 Will the Storm Legion grind be toned down? I made it to level 53 when SL hit and I just couldn't force myself to go on. That was the last time I played Rift after subbing from launch.
2 I'm not into raiding any more. I heard there were a lot of things to do at endgame to get good gear besides raiding, like some type of rifts...Has this already happened or is it coming with the xpac? What is there to do besides raiding?
3 How is pvp these days? I'm happy with WoW/SWTOR type lobby pvp in my themepark games. I have other games I play for different types of pvp.
Thanks.
Comments
Thank you for the link, Gorwe. Some good information there. I really like that pvp and pve gear will be the same. I never liked having to grind out two different sets of gear.
I didn't see any info on xp adjustments for the Storm Legion content. Do you know anything about that?
New rifts you are asking about are nightmare rifts. If you remember normal rifts, they have some amount of stages. This is "unlimited" stages type. Achievements go as far as to stage 300 on difficulty 5. Earlier max difficulty on PTS was 7 or 8 so i think they are saving it for later in latest iteration. As you progress through stages it grows increasingly difficult. Every X stages (can't remember, may not be fixed number even) there is boss. Higher you go, more mechanics is there to do. There is time limit on stages you have to meet to progress through them as well.
No idea about SL XP adjustments but to give you idea, you need some 12M XP to get to 61. Safe bet for total XP 60-65 is somewhere between 70 to 100M XP if not more. When you enter new areas, first story line quest will give you 357210 XP. Not super high number but doesn't look too grindy right now. Might get worse later but it's probably going to be better to simply do nightmare rifts for almost anything. I am not fan of leveling so i didn't test this on PTS.
There are new dungeons coming so no need to raid. Might be too similar to raiding for you, i don't know. But there are 4 new lvl 65 dungeons + 2 old ones : Return to Empyrean Core and Return to Iron Tomb, both being 65 experts only.
Crafting get extended to 450 maximum with one material added to each gather (1 new ore, 1 new herb, etc). As far as i know crafting will play bigger role as well and you will be able to fully craft all pieces of very nice gear (say expert level). 2 new slots for earrings as well.
Zones look to me +- as size of SL top zones (Ashora for example) and we are getting 3 of them.
PvP i don't know much about, only that Conquest should be turned off for some time to allow people reach 65.
They are adding minions. If you played Star Wars Old Republic then they behave just like your crew. You send them to some mission and they will bring you back materials, etc back after some time.
Sadly we don't get to see much optimization so some areas in new zones can drop your FPS pretty low. A little bad but i don't think they can do much unless they changed engine completely.
So yes, a lot of changes coming. Personally i see them as very positive, apart from optimization there is only little to complain about. Content addition is very decent and is for free so any time you have time and mood you can simply swing into game and check it out.
Probably the biggest two new features coming in 3.0 are mentoring up and minions.
Mentoring up will work like mentoring down, so it has a lot of potential for mixing up the leveling grind. Minions are sent out on certain types of missions to fulfill over a set time period, and they return with what sounds like decent loot. They also work while you are offline, so provide that "oh goody, what did I get?" excitement when you get back in game.
If you haven't played Rift since shortly after 2.0 went live, there are a lot of changes to the game. Namely F2P. But also the new Patron (subscriber) buffs are pretty awesome, with passive 40% increase to XP, PA, currencies, notoriety, etc., plus a daily artifact tracker vial to show all the shinies on the map. Since you were subbed for a long time before you left, you'll also have a nice chunk of Loyalty waiting for you with all the gifts that provides, regardless of your current account status.
The PTS is open if you want to download it and check things out. Caveat Emptor: DO NOT spend any credits on the PTS, as they come from your Live account and are not refunable.
3.0 is pretty much doing away with pvp. Not only is there no new pvp content, theyre actually getting rid of the pvp armor many of us worked years to put together. Theyre going to turn that hard earned armor in to pve gear. So basically now you have to pve (blech) in order to have the best gear for pvp.
They turned their back on pvp, getting rid of CQ points and pvp earned gear. Its a complete pve game now. Its a shame.
My guess is that they want to pigeonhole pvprs into AA where it costs real life money to be competitive, and is thus more lucrative for Trion.
Thanks for the replies.
It sounds like a lot of interesting changes. It's been so long since I played, that I would have to consider starting a new toon till I remember what to do on my main. I just really didn't have fun with the SL leveling content, but if I could do rifts instead, that would be preferable, with instant adventures, an occasional dungeon, and some pvp thrown in for variety during leveling.
I'm sorry to hear pvp-ers feel like they got the shaft on their gear. As I said before, I don't like to grind out two sets. I think I would prefer just one set and all activities whether pvp or pve-related contribute to the same set. You just play the way you want when you want to. Can't you also get pve gear by pvp, then?
I just gear then calling it pve or pvp gear, and even if you have the best gear in pve/pvp or worst, you get boosted up to fight people with higher level of gear can get in pvp so you can beat them now then how the old system worked, or boosted down from higher level of gear you can get in pve to be level off to the pvp players, so people dont have to do pvp all the time, but they can to get the gear they want and do other thing other then pvp just give more of a option.