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

[Grimt]

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?

[Am0n]

This sounds really amazing and I am happy for all of you that are interested in large scale PvP, I will be at the testing to support it, sadly this is the opposite end of the spectrum at least PvP wise that I am looking for.

I am a matched opts kind of guy, even if it is large scale I prefer sides to be even, zerg style PvP never was my thing, and neither was partnering with strangers.

5v5 or 100v100 I like to PvP with a tight group, I guess I just never met the right mindset guild in Rift.

Maybe this can turn out to be more than that, but I am gonna stick to my small scale PvP games =P
I'll still have my sub here, can keep on dreamin!

[TehFrank]

Clearly the Nightfall - may you worship the flying pop-tart feline in the sky, for he is truly Ascended!

In that case... to space!

[Rymer]

Uh no, I think you are completely wrong. Despite not having much info they specifically said YOU will be able to change factions which means you choose the side you are on. And it sounds to me like this is a persistant warfront ala Old School Alterac Valley in WoW. So I don't think there will be mercing.

Right now, you get to choose whether you are Defiant or Guardian. That choice is then discarded in warfronts. In Rift, just because you can choose a side, doesn't mean that you'll end up fighting for that side.

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"

Exactly. But I'll go further than that. People focus primarily on queue times, and thats what Trion trots out the most -- but in one of their few comments on mercenaries, the justification that they gave was that certain battlefields were being dominated by one faction. So, its not just queue times, but battlefield balance. If one faction is winning the preponderance of battles, I would expect mercing to be used to even that out.

Which is my original point. The three faction "lore" is just window dressing. 1.7 took us from Defiants vs. Guardians to A vs B. 1.9 will give us A vs B vs C.

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.

Perhaps... but those arguing for opt-out of mercenary asked for something even less strong than this and were roundly ignored by Trion. Much more likely: No choice at all. You'll just be merced to another faction for a certain percentage of battles. Thats the way it is now and everyone but a "vocal minority" is happy with it -- so why would Trion change it?

Of course, Elrar could answer this pretty quickly. How about it Elrar? Will mercing in the three faction system be the same as it now? Or will it not be present at all? Or will it be present, but players will be able to opt out of it?

[Lightsleeper]

So the EQ gap between the starting players and those who played just grows.

[DaBigNob]

I must be the only person that feels let down, was really looking forward to something more epic. First of all we are going back to is a terrible zone... one we have been in since day 1 launch!

That's intersting. I didn't know Stillmoor was a starter zone.

On "day 1 launch" as a Guardian, I found myself in Silverwood. It wasn't until about 6 weeks later before I first stepped foot in Stillmoor.

Anyway, no, you're probably not the only person who feels let down. I'm sure there are plenty of other hyper-critical naysayers out there ready to moan and complain about something they haven't even seen or tried.

[Lightsleeper]

^Well, better stillmoor than the sand-thingie.

[Salamol]

Thank you GW2 for forcing Trion's hand and making 3-way PvP happen in Rift

I'm actually looking forward to this, just hope it's not a rushed job resulting in an oversized codex with a myriad of issues. Take your time Trion. I'm not expecting much, but it will be good to give it a go!

[Pett]

So much negativity.....

Come on guys, you havent even seen it yet, point out flaws and whine if you need to once you have actually seen it. All you're doing now is making sure that your opinions are ignored when they actually matter - ever read 'the boy who cried wolf'?

It sounds good, and i always liked world pvp. I would have preferred a new map, but tbh the community isnt willing to wait that long. It looks like the buffs extend outside the sliver, please make a system so that normal WF entry clears those buffs on porting in, maybe raids too. Otherwise the risk is that one game aspect will have too much impact on the game overall.

My main hopes are:
Its a continuing battle that you can join and leave as you please. No locking to it, no deserter debuff etc
That there is a balance of PvE, don't make people able to ignore PvP and win
Bolstering of lower ranks that works effectively, otherwise they will get steam-rolled
No merc system for it - that would defeat the whole 'choose your side' concept.

As far as new PvP gear is concerned, its about time. Just please make the weapons on a par with relics and buff the rank 36 ones while you're at it, basicly the rank 36 = HK relic, rank 46(?) = ID relic.

[DaBigNob]

Trion's world of Telara is a small one by any competitor's comparison, so I feel like to excel in this area each Zone and setting needs to be chock-full of color and micro-oriented love. Detail-dense, so to speak. Ember Isle was a great display of variance mixed with grand scale

Ember Isle is an amazing zone. It's astonishing just how huge and varied that place is, all the while being just a single zone. There's just so much to do and see there. I still haven't seen every nook and cranny of that place.

I think it shows that Trion understands the need for variety, texture, and detail in a zone's design. It's such a huge leap forward from the original zones and it really does convey a sense of vastness. I think it's safe to conclude that EI has moved the bar higher and that future content will be more like EI or even better.

In the case of Conquest, some of you complainers need to take a chill pill. Trion is introducing a whole new gameplay mechanic with this. They've got plenty of work on their plate just to release this new idea without having to create a whole new zone on top of everything else they are doing. In the real world of constrained resources (time, manpower, budgets), it makes perfect sense to do this in an existing zone. And I think it's actually a cool idea. It sounds like all of the mobs have been removed fom the zone, and it's going to be an interesting twist to be able to capture and hold the Citadel. Also, those towns will make for some very interesting PVP choke points, not to mention the Eye of Regulos. That whole part of the map is hardly ever used outside of the original quest chains, so I welcome anything that brings masses of players into a 3-way brawl down in the middle of the map.

Rift is just over a year old and look at this amazing body of work that just continues to grow at an astounding rate. So yeah, some of you may be growing weary of Stillmoor, but rather than focus on the negative, why not look at what's being offered to you. And if it succeeds, it's a fairly safe bet that Trion will add additional conquest zones in the future.

But for now, I think you naysayers need to cut Trion some slack and look at the positive side of things for once in your life.

These forums never cease to amaze me. I personally love the hell out of Rift. Each and every time I play, there's always something interesting to do. And it's generally an enjoyable experience. Then I come here to read the forums. So many complainers, so many whiners, so many unsatisfied, picky, spoiled-rotten naysayers. It's just amazing to me how some of the people on this forum can be so negative about Rift in general. For me personally it's the best MMO I've ever played and it only keeps getting better and better.

[Zyzyx]

I'm going to be a lion.

Just so I can yell, " GRYPHONDORRRRRRRRR!" As I charge into battle.

[Maeloda]

Ember Isle is an amazing zone. It's astonishing just how huge and varied that place is, all the while being just a single zone. There's just so much to do and see there. I still haven't seen every nook and cranny of that place.

I think it shows that Trion understands the need for variety, texture, and detail in a zone's design. It's such a huge leap forward from the original zones and it really does convey a sense of vastness. I think it's safe to conclude that EI has moved the bar higher and that future content will be more like EI or even better.

In the case of Conquest, some of you complainers need to take a chill pill. Trion is introducing a whole new gameplay mechanic with this. They've got plenty of work on their plate just to release this new idea without having to create a whole new zone on top of everything else they are doing. In the real world of constrained resources (time, manpower, budgets), it makes perfect sense to do this in an existing zone. And I think it's actually a cool idea. It sounds like all of the mobs have been removed fom the zone, and it's going to be an interesting twist to be able to capture and hold the Citadel. Also, those towns will make for some very interesting PVP choke points, not to mention the Eye of Regulos. That whole part of the map is hardly ever used outside of the original quest chains, so I welcome anything that brings masses of players into a 3-way brawl down in the middle of the map.

Rift is just over a year old and look at this amazing body of work that just continues to grow at an astounding rate. So yeah, some of you may be growing weary of Stillmoor, but rather than focus on the negative, why not look at what's being offered to you. And if it succeeds, it's a fairly safe bet that Trion will add additional conquest zones in the future.

But for now, I think you naysayers need to cut Trion some slack and look at the positive side of things for once in your life.

These forums never cease to amaze me. I personally love the hell out of Rift. Each and every time I play, there's always something interesting to do. And it's generally an enjoyable experience. Then I come here to read the forums. So many complainers, so many whiners, so many unsatisfied, picky, spoiled-rotten naysayers. It's just amazing to me how some of the people on this forum can be so negative about Rift in general. For me personally it's the best MMO I've ever played and it only keeps getting better and better.

I like this, and its where I come to with Rift in the end, time after time.

Though I do insist that Trion looks at making sliver-Stillmoor...quite different from Telara-Stillmoor. To the point of making the Eye of Regulos not the Eye of Regulos, but something else. Also the colors used, and the skybox (obviously). That sort of stuff.

[Zengar Zombolt]

It'll be really cool to see what Trion does with this. It sounds like it has the potential to be something unique and amazingly fun.

One thing I'm kind of curious about is if this is going to be soley for level 50s or like 40+'s, or if lower leveled players can hop into it.

'cause that would be fun to have people of all levels able to contribute to it. The lower leveled players could do back-line stuff (ie: if this is going to be a war zone, they'd totally use catapults and such, right? lower leveled players could totally man those) while the higher leveled players could take care of the front lines and stuff like that. And it would make yet another way for lower leveled players to level up (and would give them an alternative to Warfronts if they want to level solely through PvP) - especially if you could get like... tiered [by levels (ie:10-19, 20-29, and so on)] Conquest gear. If that didn't happen it'd be no biggie. I imagine something like that would be possible in the future, especially if they expand the Conquest feature out to other zones (would be fun to see Freemarch/Silverwood get Conquest treatment, where you fight over capital cities or such).

Random idea rambling aside, definitely looking forward to checking it out on Thursday

[Aphophis]

People actually thought there would be a permanent 3rd faction in the game? That's pretty stupid. If Trion would implement a third faction, the only part of the game that would may be benefit is PvP. And while PvP could use a little boost, it should not come at the cost of everything else.

3 factions would destroy current guilds, create a bigger problem in faction balance and recruitment, not to mention make waiting times for dungeons a whole lot longer, unless they implemented a way that you could merc up for that.

It was pretty obvious it was going to be a red vs blue vs yellow pvp setting, as an extension to the already existing merc system. If you feel let down by this announcement, you pretty much set yourself up for it. And complaining that this is a rehashed model and raiders get all the new stuff. All 10 men instances are rehashed models... they're called slivers and show an alternate reality. Just like this one.

[Anuhart]

I was going to ask how you planned to tackle the self defeating issue of valor and stats. Meaning, your PvP system is built around mechanics that will reduce population over time. I was wondering whether this new feature was going to encourage people to dangle a foot in the water without getting it instantly bit off. Whether the penny finally dropped that a PvP system based on stats which mean a new player hits a vet for 5% of their HP, a vet hits a new player for 50% of their HP, has a recruitment flaw.

Separate - but might as well just mention it: yes, you'll be seeing new Prestige Ranks with all new weapons and armor coming soon as well

But it looks like you really don't want to make PvP encouraging for anyone new.