Introducing Conquest – Test the latest in RIFT PvP on Thursday, 5/17

[Anuhart]

The only reason I can see for having a major problem testing is being a first time 50 via Fluffy and not knowing your skills well enough to handle it. With Fluffy, you get gear, you get plat, you get prestige, so, you are in fact a viable 50 for Conquest. The fact that you failed to press N, failed to get the gear, failed to enchant it or, failed to train then read about all of your skills and thus devise a working plan to use those skills and gear is hardly Trion's fault.

What?

Failed to? I had no intention of boosting P rank or gear. Thus I didn't, and tested Conquest as I would on live, in PvE gear.

"With Fluffy, you get gear, you get plat, you get prestige, so, you are in fact a viable 50 for Conquest."

Meaning that you are not viable for Conquest on live unless you are P50 in full P50 gear? Mkhai.

By transferring your lvl 50 character from live to PTS, you have your gear, you have your plat, you have your prestige, so you are in fact a viable 50 for Conquest, as you would be on live.

[SeaDrift]

Excellent idea and sounds exciting

[Goodberry]

It's close enough to open world, depending on the numbers. In fact, it's far superior to open world, as you are only fighting people who want to fight, rather than just ganking people not paying attention. As pvpers I'm sure we all prefer to fight people who can fight back, rather than blindsiding some poor kid who just started and is trying to quest in his/her mix of blues and t1 pvp gear, right?

I hope you are being sarcastic. LOL

[Kadeth]

The point is we were told to roll new toons, Fluffy to 50 and get the new gear. Now if you didn't do as the majority did, because that is what the devs wanted. Well sorry you died too fast but, that was the test. If they want varied levels with varied gear, they will tell us that, for this test they wanted us to be 50 with the new gear.

[Telnedra]

Is there a new test today? If so hope its still going on due to not off work till 5pm server.

[GoldenTiger]

This doesn't really matter. Case in point, World of Warcraft. WoW was even less of a PVP game. Heck WoW had no pvp at all until halfway through its first year. But they added battlegrounds, wintergrasp and areas as things to appeal to the pvp population. I wouldn't say WoW is ever going to be a strong pvp game, but alot of people pvp in WoW so mission accomplished for Blizzard. What I'm trying to say is "if you build it they will come". In the end thats all that really matters.

I'm coming back to look at Conquest (resubscribed and patching PTS now)... I'm a former player who really enjoyed the game but was always wishing it had a better PVP system. If they build this well, you indeed can bet people will come, old players & new. RIFT has a pretty good reputation in the hardware forums I browse in terms of being a fun game. I campaigned a lot since the closed Alpha tests in 2010 for more PVP content/systems, and it looks like they're finally shifting some focus towards it (some may recognize my name who are long-time players). I have no doubt that Trion will do what they set themselves to do, well. They've consistently put out solid-to-great content when they push it out.

Between this and maybe an expansion (which sounds like it's on the way: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/25/ri...us-puzzle-box/ ) with some further content for the Conquest system/RVR-type gameplay, and all the good stuff RIFT has added in general over its life & all the usual expansion goodies, I think upon x-pack time it's going to see a nice surge that stays with it.

RIFT has always had a very intriguing setup for PVP with the soul system allowing immense customization... they've added a better prestige rank (pvp rank) system, planar attunement that flows with both PVE and PVP, and still have a decent crossover of gear so people can enjoy both without dedicating themselves entirely to one and sucking in the other. Add in Conquest & further PVP content on top of that (which I think we can expect more of Conquest come expansion-time plus more warfronts), and the extremely robust, fun PVE game that's here with the usual expansion stuff for that (new raids, maybe level cap increase, more fluff, iteration on existing systems like chronicles & instant adventure that fizzled some from what I hear, new zones, etc.), and RIFT becomes a compelling overall game to come back to or see for the first time.

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Quick feedback for Trion on reading about the Conquest system... currently it sounds like it can end relatively quickly due to only needing 60% of the map for 10 minutes, or 5000 kills. While the kill # is easy to tweak, I'd highly suggest lengthening the timer for Conquest to be "conquered" to 60-120 minutes (see which resonates with people). This will give it a more persistent-type feel, and end the game when it's truly well and dominated rather than tipping briefly.

[Gelfen]

I'm under the impression (possibly mistaken) that the huge ability (not fps) lag issues associated with large zone events in Ember Isle are the result of either server side bandwidth limitations or some limitation in the Rift engine itself (I presume the former). So if we really get a lot of folks PvP'ing in this intriguing new large scale battleground are we going to see similar lag issues? If so, that would kill it for me. Or has Trion figured out a way to avoid that in case we get 100+ players all congregated in the same section of landscape?

I was thinking the same thing. If the lag is so bad in EI with the amount of people there during an event, what is it going to be like with 100 people or more in one area? I hope Trion has that issue addressed.

[GoldenTiger]

I was thinking the same thing. If the lag is so bad in EI with the amount of people there during an event, what is it going to be like with 100 people or more in one area? I hope Trion has that issue addressed.

Yeah, I remember some of the larger zergs during events causing problems with the clipping radius & overall performance myself. Hopefully they're working on that seriously, and by the time the expansion rolls around it's vastly improved.

[Zengar Zombolt]

Between this and maybe an expansion (which sounds like it's on the way: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/25/ri...us-puzzle-box/ ) with some further content for the Conquest system/RVR-type gameplay, and all the good stuff RIFT has added in general over its life & all the usual expansion goodies, I think upon x-pack time it's going to see a nice surge that stays with it.

o.o Awesome... can't wait to hear more about that if that really is true. Especially if he was to be right about the "four new souls" thing (wondering if it would mean each class gets a new soul or each class gets four new souls... either way it'd be neat to get even more customization).

Quick feedback for Trion on reading about the Conquest system... currently it sounds like it can end relatively quickly due to only needing 60% of the map for 10 minutes, or 5000 kills. While the kill # is easy to tweak, I'd highly suggest lengthening the timer for Conquest to be "conquered" to 60-120 minutes (see which resonates with people). This will give it a more persistent-type feel, and end the game when it's truly well and dominated rather than tipping briefly.

When it was being officially tested, it was two full hours into the first game and it was Oathsworn: 6, Nightfall: 18, Dominion: 18. You need 22 out of the 36 nodes to trigger the countdown. The teams were pretty much evenly balanced out and each team was fluctuating in controlled nodes (Dominion first started low, then pushed back and Nightfall was low in nodes (and was sandwiched between the two factions for at least half an hour), then Nightfall managed to push back and compete with Dominion). And the deaths remaining until countdown was ~2200-2500 (remaining deaths) if I remember right. So two full hours only got the kill count down a little past half way.

So basically if the official testing phase had continued on, the game would've lasted potentially around 2 more hours. But it ended at about two hours and forty minutes in when people started leaving due to the official testing being over. And a guild of people all queued up on Nightfall's side so Nightfall won it and the zone locked down after about 40 minutes with the official portion of the test being over.

>_> So yeah it went well over 60-120 minutes and -could- have continued going much further than that if all sides were still properly motivated to play.


When teams aren't balanced it can be over much quickly obviously. Last week's test was proof of that when Nightfall owned the entire map, lol.

[Lightborne]

Hmm, this could be interesting!

[swordfish]

Does it have ballista and trebuchets we can buy, deploy and use against our enemies?

[Credo]

Does it have ballista and trebuchets we can buy, deploy and use against our enemies?

You can upgrade turrents at the control points much like Onslaught, but nothing you can control at this point in time.

[Xdcc321]

I think you will be sadly mistaken, unfortunately. When it comes to the "battle" and the only numbers are 50 ravens 10 oath and 7 rams (or whatever of the faction) I don't think they can not afford to not "merc"

More than likely it will be something like this scenario. Battle opens.. choose your side. oops the one you want is currently "full" choose one of the other 2 sides until finally 2 sides are filled and there is only one side left that you get put into so that there is the same "fairness" as all other WF. They all "have" to have the same amount of people on each team or you will sit in a queue hoping the team you want (that may be full) drops someone.

Unfortunately this is the reality I see with Rifts current WF system

Wow... I guess I nailed this one lol

Posted by Daglar:

I need to ping Walshingham, but there is not intended to be a playtest today the 14th. It looks like he mixed up the schedule for next week with this week.

There is intended to be a playtest on Friday the 15th, and potentially Thursday the 21st. Not Thursday the 14th.

As for changes here are the biggest ones:

-Addition of an end phase where only the "winning" team may respawn. There are various footholds and a colossi that the winning team can break open for rewards (rewards not attached!). Those not on the winning team are not forced out of the map, but cannot respawn.

-There is a new flow for getting into Conquest. When it is available you will be able to open the Conquest Menu and select a side for the duration of that Conquest match. If a side is full you won't be able to select it.

-The Conquest menu has received a facelift.

-Conquest Power is now awarded at a set interval during the match based on your personal contribution as well as when the phase changes.

-The decay rate for Conquest Power has been modified so you are not losing it during the match.

-Afk auto kicking has been enabled.

-Control points now have names on mouseover.

-Two additional crafting recipies have been added to all main trades. You may now craft a portable turret or a portable lifespring.

-Neutral control points now have less health.

~Daglar

[Plastique]

17 pages..not even gonna try to read through all of that right now, I just wanted to add that if (for whatever reason) while inside Conquest you are removed or leave the raid party you are in, you can not re-enter it. It gives an error along the lines of "You can not join a cross-shard party".

[Ravin Nightwing]

It's been a trend with Trion to release somewhat similar features right before a new game comes out with said features. So I see where that comment is coming from.

Swtor crafts from bank, bam, we craft from bank. GW2, bam, Conquest. They are even taunting them a bit with that lil quip about not hiding in a castle. I'm sure there's more examples too.

HA!! You make that sound like TOR's innovation. Star Trek Online had crafting from the bank long before TOR had a working crafting system.

Anyhow, I'm an Aries so it looks like Ram for me, can't wait to see this feature tomorrow when I get off work.