RIFT Team Letter - November 8, 2018

[Rhipf]

For QoL I would like to suggest not merging shards.

Hear me out here. If shards are merged into 2 or 3 to concentrate the population (a good thing for group activities) then the QoL for many players may actually go down. Hopping shards is one of the ways that a player can get quest objectives done in a reasonable time. If you have played on Prime this may have become quite apparent. There are many times on Prime that I would really like to hop shards to complete an objective until I remember that I am playing on Prime and only have the one shard.

[CopperFields]

I'm sorry to say this, but: This letter, in this exact wording, could have been posted within 3 days of gamigo taking over. Except for the focus on QoL, there is literally nothing that could not have been announced back then. And there is nothing in this that makes me think it will be worth my time waiting for the new team to get settled in.

I will pop back in from time to time, to see if any actual announcements have been made, but for now I am out. My Patron was cancelled on day 1, it runs out in a few days and when that happens I no longer have a reason to log in. I know it takes time to develop new stuff, so I don't expect anything new for the next year or so. I don't have any incentive to stick around that long.

While this team letter is the biggest chunk of communication we have recieved since gamigo took over, it is no better than a wall of silence. After all this time, it should be possible to announce more than QoL changes.

I have to agree with you Ambrodel. The Letter didn't give any important info, just a fancy dance around all the questions we still have. Because they used the word "Future" people are thinking Rift has a one. It's just another way to keep money coming into the game til it gets the hatchet. From what I read in the replies to this letter, many are renewing their patron. I believe that is what this letter was intended for. If Rift does have a future, I don't plan on renewing my patron with gamigo. I have read reports that gamigo is unsafe and many accounts have been hacked, over the years. That being said, not only did I stop my patron but also removed my payment method.

[Skiye]

I have to agree with you Ambrodel. The Letter didn't give any important info, just a fancy dance around all the questions we still have. Because they used the word "Future" people are thinking Rift has a one. It's just another way to keep money coming into the game til it gets the hatchet. From what I read in the replies to this letter, many are renewing their patron. I believe that is what this letter was intended for. If Rift does have a future, I don't plan on renewing my patron with gamigo. I have read reports that gamigo is unsafe and many accounts have been hacked, over the years. That being said, not only did I stop my patron but also removed my payment method.

I've done the same but hacked accounts happen in every online game.

That said I don't plan to renew or put back a default payment method until we see some roadmaps for actual content. Not seasonal cash shop events or rehashed events that already exist. But new raids, zones, or dungeons.

Since Prime was released the content in this game has progressed to the point where it's way beyond stale.

If the rift team started a GoFundMe I'd consider donating if it meant new devs and fresh content, but I won't give them another cent until there's something to do in this game again.

I sympathize with the salvage operation that the remaining devs have. But you can't expect players to hang around and keep killing the same 3 bosses in BoS, for the next foreseeable year.

[keepor]

Will there be a part 2 of the letter with informations we do not already know or is this an out of season April Fool's joke?

[ArcticGypsy]

Yea why allow players to play with their friends, leave it up to RNG just what we are advocating to change.

Overpowered, pay to win geared Pre-mades are one of the things that made warfronts terrible. it makes for very unbalanced teams. It should have always been random...and playing against a friend is hilarious. I have played against my husband numerous times. It's funny. lol

[ArcticGypsy]

some things i'ed like to have

1) a dim tab or vault that can store all dim items. a tab or vault that is cross character/shard and can hold every dim item you own untill you put them in a dim. just a text list with each item and how many is fine even if there is a max item limit.

I love this idea. I usually make my storage by creating a large dim on an alt and dumping everything in there. Your dim vault idea would work so much better.

3) let 70's (max level) que in any dungeon bracket and still complete weeklies. this would fill lower level ques and let us not do the same dungeons over and over and over again.

This would be great to see.

4) 3 but with ia's

Yes plz

5) easy and hardcore modes on dungeons/raids. hard core players need a place too but in hard core dungeons drop things like bind on equip pets, mounts, and outfits instead of gear (since you should be fairly geared to even try these). i ask for boe so they can sell them for raid costs and so casuals will not feel the need to fail raids to try and get them also maybe add the players name to the item like "found by Lootinany". this would make the player feel better about selling/giving the item away as they may see it on some random player in a city.

Cool idea

[Envoy Of The Shadow King]

Go forward with the game lower the purchase prices for items with credits in Rift Store massively and more ppl will use it and more often.

Good to have you new and old people on the game.

[ArcticGypsy]

For QoL I would like to suggest not merging shards.

Hear me out here. If shards are merged into 2 or 3 to concentrate the population (a good thing for group activities) then the QoL for many players may actually go down. Hopping shards is one of the ways that a player can get quest objectives done in a reasonable time. If you have played on Prime this may have become quite apparent. There are many times on Prime that I would really like to hop shards to complete an objective until I remember that I am playing on Prime and only have the one shard.

Some great points. Another thing to consider is what would happen to players that have filled up their character slots with alts across the server? Would more slots be provided so characters don't have to be deleted?

[aphoticrogue]

Overpowered, pay to win geared Pre-mades are one of the things that made warfronts terrible. it makes for very unbalanced teams. It should have always been random...and playing against a friend is hilarious. I have played against my husband numerous times. It's funny. lol

The overpowered pay to win gear should be addressed then not taking away players ability to play with their friends, I mean its a no brainier. Pushing for more randomness is a slippery slope.

Players have had enough taken away from them at least they get to choose who they want to play/party with, and now you even want that taken away.

Also maybe adding PVP arena would help the pvp scene but they have to do some class balancing beforehand.

[Barbinrehard]

Some great points. Another thing to consider is what would happen to players that have filled up their character slots with alts across the server? Would more slots be provided so characters don't have to be deleted?

I was wondering this too although so far only players have suggested reducing shards.I have about 10 lvl 70s and around 25 other characters of various levels. I wouldn't like to lose any of them but would definitely want to have the capacity for at least 15. One of the things I love most in Rift is creating new characters based largely on interesting wardrobe items I've found and then levelling them in Intrepid IAs. I'd welcome more IA options, more wardrobes and even more character slots. Other ways to level characters would be great too. (I've finished all the quest lines too many times for the interest to remain there.)

The ideas regarding dimension item storage have been great.

I also like ideas that have been shared around sales in the store and making mounts more freely available. There must be a lot of wardrobes from the past that could turn some quick cash if they were put on the store. I know I would love to buy the widowmaker set on its own.

The ideas around dropping chest/troves are good. I really miss the gear from the weekly troves. It wasn't competitive but it was account bound and great for sending to alts.

Would love for the old Expert dungeons to have lvl 70 versions with interesting wardrobe drops/mounts/blue gear as rewards.

[Flashmemory]

Players have had enough taken away from them at least they get to choose who they want to play/party with, and now you even want that taken away.

Premades are okay when there are dedicated avenue for them. This is a proven concept in almost every game since the early to mid 90s- RTS, MOBA, MMOS, FPS etc. Trion is one of the few companies that still allow premades to constantly be pit against random players many with lower gear scores or noobs over and over and over again. This is basically developers allowing players to grief others for hours on end and have ruined PvP for years. They have never once tried removing premades from grief-ing other players in instance PvP. They should try it just because of that.

However, I always advocated that premades need their own niche of PvP and like others have said they should create incentives for premades to face eachother where Participating in it is rewarding enough not just winning. I know how awesome it feels to premade for hours vs. noobs especially late night and keep getting win after win after win. It feels great. I have been in PvP guilds and I have even said this would feel awful if I was on that side. Even logged in the middle of matches since I felt dirty doing it to friends. I have had my rogue up pass 68% in rate after 150 games played at one point after premading late nights. It is a horrible concept that I will never support. I didn't like doing for conquest either especially because of the way conquest was designed but at least there were some times when it was challenging during peek hours. During off hours it was a complete joke though..

[MissGreen]

I think everyone pretty much covered everything I wanted to address.

As for short term someone had said to keep the weekly/weekend events going such as Mechs on parade while the team gets things together. I think this is a good idea for now and of course getting ready for Fae Yule. It will give us something to do even though I always have stuff to do in the game. I literally am a busy bee with many things going on at once, this is why I'm not really wanting content as much as most players.But as far as future goes, new content is a must! Another thing the team can do on and off is add the xp bonus here and there or maybe just on weekends.Who doesn't like bonus xp? I surely appreciate it." Keep it simple " someone else said in this thread and I agree 100% with them. I realize the team is putting ideas together and just getting in the groove of things so I would suggest small things for now and also fixing bugs that may come up which will help the team learn the game more and this will ensure we are being taking care of as well.

On that note, the game runs horribly when many players are in one area I mean my pc freezes up and I have to restart it. I realize its most likely a lot to do with my rig but many players experience some type of lag just perhaps not as bad as me.. This truly needs to be looked at FIRST before any servers are merged together otherwise the new team may be over encumbered by dealing with crash reports and tickets and lots of complaining. Just a heads up! ;) As far as the servers go themselves, maybe keep an RP server(faeblight) and a regular server and a pvp server. This way when new players do come to the game which I'm sure some will they have an option. Also keeping such servers will benefit if plans for the future entail something pvp wise.

For the near future I'm going to suggest basically what others have stated. One very important key thing in keeping the game going is how to get and keep new players and old players alike. I would for sure start to advertise the game as soon as the team feels adequate and ready enough to sustain the game.

For Pvp-One thing I'd like to propose is maybe looking at how guild wars2 operates their mentoring system when it comes to balance in pvp. Basically any player can join their arenas at lower lvls and go straight to max lvl by auto mentoring up. However they are given the specific gear needed to be efficient in them, which I think is cool because it gives everyone a chance who wants to pvp in the warfronts at lower lvls. I realize this might be hard to implement the gear needed. So perhaps another way will work out better. Overall, new players need a chance to experience all content without restrictions such as not enough players to join a warfront at low lvls. This is something that needs to be dealt with sooner or later because it will help new players stick around.
If you guys keep the pvp server, perhaps give some pvp items such as favor or gear to those who partake in any events on that server. This can be very rewarding to those who enjoy pvp in mmo's.

For PVE- I have no ideas, haha!. I think most people covered this with many great ideas. Props to my game mates.

Dimensions- Keep them alive! The dim community is one of the best I've ever witnessed in any game, period. These people are truly a huge part of this game. Also Rift has hands down the best housing in any game. This alone attracts people, and to be honest Rift never really advertised enough about this great feature so keep that in mind when it comes to advertising. Say it how it is , Rift has the BEST housing of any game has to offer! Surely folks will flock to this game to check it out. Just another heads up! keep the dimmers happy!

Above all else ,Keep the great things about this game that makes it stand out/unique. The dims, the artifacts,puzzles,Instant adventures, the awesome wardrobes and minions. Work on the Rifts themselves. Give more incentives for doing them at lower lvls such as raid gear marks. Work on the crafting, make it great again add bis recipes to each profession that can craft gear.

I know there is much to take on in this game so just take it one step at a time and also do polls of ideas the team has to see what players want the most first and go from there. If anything just keep communication with us and we will stick around to help out in any way we can.This is a very loyal fan base for the most part. Good luck to everyone on the team. I truly think that things can turn around for the better. This game has so much to offer still and it deserves an honest second chance so I appreciate that the game will go on, it means a lot and I feel much better about things and I'm sure I am speaking for my fellow game mates as well.

looking forward to meeting the team and moving forward.

[sofeorus]

quality of life? it's all hakuna matata from here folks. don't worry. be happy.

[Tamarama]

If you have specific feedback on the kinds of quality of life changes you’d like to see, be sure to share them with us!

-The RIFT Team

A dimension item bank has been suggested many times and would be a great QOL change especially as more dimension items are introduced in the future. I wanted to share my thoughts on how that could work and how it could generate income for Rift.

First off, those building dimensions would appreciate an item bank that was region wide. If not accessible from all toons in a region, then server wide would be great, especially if asking more than a few dollars for the service. I would buy the item bank and, like we have now, I'd buy a dimension item that allowed me to access my item bank from within the dim I was building.

Secondly, the value of an item bank could be increased by allowing tabs within the bank for each category of items (mirroring the AH would make sense). There are so many dim items these days that finding them all if they were dumped into one holding bin would be a nightmare.

Each organising tab could be sold separately so that the poorer players can buy as they can afford. For instance, a building tile tab might cost $10 US and pretty much everyone would buy it. The plant tab would also be popular but interactive not so much (maybe it could be cheaper).

This idea could be developed further by breaking down categories again. I'd pay to have my food items separated from the rest of the household items. Plants could be organised into grasses, aquatic or fungal (since the coding already exists for these categories). I'd like to see these at a lesser cost than the wider categories but hey, you guys gotta make a living.

Dimensions are in a healthy place right now. While we always like new items and dimensions, there is enough variety to keep us creating for months. There are so many dimension items in the game from old premium boxes or achievements that are no longer possible to get, maybe it's time to release those instead of making new content.

Cheers Radish.

[nessis]

The overpowered pay to win gear should be addressed then not taking away players ability to play with their friends, I mean its a no brainier. Pushing for more randomness is a slippery slope.

Players have had enough taken away from them at least they get to choose who they want to play/party with, and now you even want that taken away.

Also maybe adding PVP arena would help the pvp scene but they have to do some class balancing beforehand.

the ability to randomize your part to either side should not be over looked even if its optional. like your party will be in the BG but you may not all be on the same side. fighting your friends is fun.

i never liked arenas if you're talking about 2vs2, 3vs3, ect. these do show what is broken in your game though as people only use the op/broken builds and bad one never get used so i guess it does serve a purpose but rift would needs some pvp balance before this is even though of.