Have We Been Set Adrift?

[Euthan]

Sadly, I am not being facetious.

I have played this game since early beta and was even in the later stages of the Alpha and in all that time I have never seen things in such a poor state.

I, genuinely, thought that the release of a B2P expansion was an indication of reinvestment into the franchise but after the continued neglect of class balance, rampant bugs and crashes and an ongoing drought of endgame content I feel it necessary to sincerely ask; Has this game been set adrift as a bit of turn-key side revenue for a company that has, for all intents and purposes, moved on?

[Andracleric]

Unfortunately- many have moved on from the game. Too many bugs (some are being fixed- others are not), and not enough fresh content has made some unhappy. Many have left my guild- for greener pastures- and there are tumbleweeds blowing through Hailol. Hope springs eternal things will improve- but at the moment- things are not what they were.

[forbiddenlake]

Hyperbole much? You obviously didn't come here genuinely, but here's a quick answer: obviously not, if you'd pay attention to the livestream and dev posts. Fortress sieges are coming next week. LFR soon (at the same time?). 4th dungeon in the works. Producer's Letter soon (tm). Have a nice day.

[Holyroller12]

It may be a little hard to keep up with sometimes, but I think more people should join the official RIFT discord. Lots of discussions and things being posted by devs and players alike. It's certainly refreshing reading some of the chats vs the doom and gloom that is the general forum.

[Rhumble]

Friday night used to be our raid night, right before expansion we were getting 20. I was the last person still logged on halfway through raid time tonight.

We'll be lucky if we can get 1/2 of them back playing again. Many have not logged on in weeks now.

And anyone who thinks that is hyperbole is just out of touch. I think Trion is starting to understand how badly they messed up, by kicking literally 100's of players to the curb. Brasse mentioning the first boss going up on PTS like a million times (that is what hyperbole looks like!) kind of gave it away. But we'll be lucky to get half of these players back anytime soon.

The sad reality is there is story after story of guilds on the forums here, that have been around for years having very few log on after the first couple weeks of the expansion.

[Orochan]

It may be a little hard to keep up with sometimes, but I think more people should join the official RIFT discord. Lots of discussions and things being posted by devs and players alike. It's certainly refreshing reading some of the chats vs the doom and gloom that is the general forum.

This is the problem though. Why do the majority of the dicussions feel like they happen on the discord and not on the forums?

Shouldn't devs also communicate here? I think they should, and I don't by the whole devs don't like posting on the forums. I don't like some things about my job but I still have to do them, because well...it's my job lol

The forums should be where players can readily get information about rift as a game and currently they are not providing that information. It's a cycle too because the more devs don't post here, the harsher the feedback becomes when they finally do post, which causes them to not post here often, which in turn causes even harsher feedback.

[Elayara]

...but I think more people should join the official RIFT discord....

Heaven forbid that all the bad haters from the forums go to discord, or the devs will abadon that place too.

[Andracleric]

I am not hater- in fact I am a Rift lover that has been seriously disappointed in SFP. I am aware "good things are coming" but it is too little too late. At least for my raiders and free to play folks in my guild. In addition- I pre-purchased the expansion thinking "good things are coming" already were there. Those of you who think everything is wonderful fail to see what any guild who raided regularly sees. I do not want to join a special snowflake chat channel or secret dev handshake site. I want transparency. I want customer service. I want what most consumers want- if you buy a product you get what you paid for. If you do not get what you paid for you complain and get a replacement or a refund. It should not be hard and should not take months.

[Meteorblade]

Hyperbole much?

Go and read Raiders anyone ? where half a dozen Guild Masters, of guilds that have existed and raided for 4, 5 or 6 years tell the story of their guilds bring gutted by SFP to the point where they foresee no way for their guilds to recover.

Two months into an expansion and we still have no raid. Sorry, but a 4th dungeon (which is a re-hash of one from NMT that we've been running for the last two years) and a fancy zone event aren't going to bring back the people that have left.

Rift's dead in the water.

[Elayara]

in fact I am a Rift lover that has been seriously disappointed in SFP.

Which means you are a hater, at least by the standards that are defined around here.

Jokes aside, I fully agree with what you said. If the game has a forum, there should be no need to join some third-party sites, only to avoid people with snarky forum signatures.

[Ongar]

I, genuinely, thought that the release of a B2P expansion was an indication of reinvestment into the franchise but after the continued neglect of class balance, rampant bugs and crashes and an ongoing drought of endgame content I feel it necessary to sincerely ask; ?
...

B2P seemed like a reaction to the complaints when they removed the grind option for earrings.

And then it seemed that people expected a content avalanche even if it should have been clear with the announcment that thats not the case. It seemed that people compared the xpac with subscription MMOs, rather than actual B2P MMOs.

Anyway at this point in time I think its safe to say that B2P wasnt the perfect business model for this xpac and I expect adjustments further down the road.

[Laeti]

This is the problem though. Why do the majority of the dicussions feel like they happen on the discord and not on the forums?

Shouldn't devs also communicate here? I think they should, and I don't by the whole devs don't like posting on the forums. I don't like some things about my job but I still have to do them, because well...it's my job lol

The forums should be where players can readily get information about rift as a game and currently they are not providing that information. It's a cycle too because the more devs don't post here, the harsher the feedback becomes when they finally do post, which causes them to not post here often, which in turn causes even harsher feedback.

The reason why Discord is favorited by lots of players (as well as the Devs we have there) is that the quality of communication is much higher there. It's strictly moderated against trolling, personal attacks and other things that make people feel unwelcome. As much as many of us enjoy the forums, Discord is the place where people can relax and discuss without having to forum pvp. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for more communication between the players and the company, but I can see why so many people prefer Discord to the forums or any other boards.

[Bart Savagewood]

Hyperbole much? You obviously didn't come here genuinely, but here's a quick answer: obviously not, if you'd pay attention to the livestream and dev posts. Fortress sieges are coming next week. LFR soon (at the same time?). 4th dungeon in the works. Producer's Letter soon (tm). Have a nice day.

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means...everything the OP said was dead on.

Fortress Sieges are two months late - how long do you expect this new world event to keep you busy?
LFR - why would we need LFR with no R available? I'm not saying it's a bad thing but nothing most folks are looking forward to any more than they look forward to using the queue for dungeons.
A 4th dungeon is being copy/pasted - not exactly the new content folks are looking for and especially not for such a recent dungeon.
Producer's Letter - is this where we are at now, getting excited over over a marketing gimmick? I for one, am looking for actual content, not intentions.

Remember when they said the initial lack of SFP content was due to insisting everything was polished? Was it? Was it even close?

Have a great day!

[dundare]

I have been here since Beta as well and never took a break from the game. I feel like we have been cast adrift or at least cast overboard. People can spit sunshine all they want, but I am watching a guild I spent almost 6 years building, which has survived everything thrown at us and kept raiding, just slowly fade. People who logged in 6-7 days a week logging in 2-3, senior members and officers saying enough is enough and announcing they will check back when Trion actually does something, tons of people picking up sidegames which have quickly become their main games. A guild we spent a lot of time building for 20 man raiding and then have been attempting to refocus onto solely 10 man raiding now has...no raiding. On top of no raiding it has no raid rifts, no nightmare rifts, no real expert dungeons, no reason to really do anything since everyone has been waiting for raids.

Given the - to be polite - easiness of the experts at launch is it fair to assume raiding is going this way? If so, it is dead. I doubt that many of the guilds that post on topofrift will be around in this expac in their current forms. I do not see how with this expac that we didnt get normal and expert dungeons. I dont get how we dont have raid or nightmare rifts and dont give me this crap about waiting months forfortres sieges.

Trion has given us a small amount of beautiful looking but boring as can be content in this expac to date. PVP is gutted, serious PVE appears gutted, Raiding looks gutted. All the stuff we were told in the past about committment to the players, about the long term planning that goes into an expac and how before one is done the next is begun, and also all the wonders of rifts soul system. Lol, where has that gotten us? To SFP the worst expac I have ever been part of in an MMO. I was more excited when Ember Isle came. I had a better time at the launch of an expac even when someone forgot to properly backup shards and their was a rollback on an expac launch (I lost 4 levels on the venerable faeblight). This has been awful awful awful. I wish I had anything better to say but the more I think on this the madder I get at the people who are in charge of maintaining and carrying on this game (most of the originals are gone).

If you played Rift from the beginning it has been a long slow decline from a A+ beginning down to something that was more like a B-. But man I loved that B-. This expac has ignored the gentlemans C. It has ignored the holy cow I passed D+ and headed right for F territory.

[Rhumble]

Heaven forbid that all the bad haters from the forums go to discord, or the devs will abadon that place too.

At this stage, if the Rift Devs have been getting their info from Discord, they should stop, because clearly they're getting information that has caused longtime players to leave in droves. But guess it made them feel good about it... And that's what matters. No?