PTS Event Thursday 5/31 @ 4PM PDT – Mentoring in Instant Adventure

[Walsingham]

We’ve now made it easier than ever to go adventuring with your fellow ascended. Soon you’ll get to experience the thrill of the new Mentoring system!

Join us on the PTS Thursday, May 31 @ 4PM PDT (11PM GMT), for your first look at the RIFT Mentoring feature as we try to find any kinks, bugs, or pressure points. This is a brand new feature – so don’t expect it to be 100% fully functional but that’s what PTS is for!

The primary focus of this test will be Instant Adventure in the lower levels. IA Random Adventure currently isn't mentoring people down to a lower IA group if one does not already exist.
You can now only queue for Random Adventure or the zone you are currently in. This is by design now.

In order to test lower level IAs with mentoring, people will need to go to Silverwood(10-14), Freemarch(10-14), or Gloamwood(20-26), set their mentor level accordingly, then join the IA queue.

Known Issues:

· Pets are overpowered
· You can remove your mentor level while in an IA group or dungeon
· We will be adding a “take me where I’m needed” option for LFD queuing.
· We will be increasing incentive for doing random normal dungeons as a mentor
· Mentors will receive a limited XP bonus for doing a certain amount of IAs using Random Adventure.
· Zone Events will reward based on your true level if you are mentored down.

Mentoring

Players will be able to de-level themselves in order to either match a lower level player, or to set the level of their choice in order to complete lower level content. When a player lowers their level, they are known as an Ascended Mentor. Because of this, their effectiveness is reduced as a result.

Mentors receive appropriate XP rewards because content that would be grey, now registers and awards according to their modified level. Players in a group with an Ascended Mentor, whose natural level is close to the Ascended Mentor's level, are known as Ascended Apprentices. Ascended Mentors and Ascended Apprentices receive benefits from grouping together. This system broadens the amount of content higher level players can be rewarded for, and provides lower level players with a wider pool of people to group with.

Please note that Mentoring will not be available in warfronts, conquest, nor are rewards given to Mentors in open world PvP.

To test the new mentoring feature, you must mentor yourself down first by right clicking your portrait and then making a choice as to the desired level. Once you have mentored down, sign up for instant adventure. What could be any better than that? You can still converse in level 50 chat while you are playing at the lower level!


Character Copy to PTS!

You can now copy your character to the Public Test Shard! Simply click the Transfer button when you’re at Character select on the Live client and select “Copy to PTS” – it’s as easy as that! (though there may be a few bugs/limitations we’re working out). We will no longer be offering Gear/Leveling vendors with the introduction of this feature (except when testing requires it.)

You will need to download the PTS client if you have not done so already, this is approximately the same size as installing the full game and may take some time. For more information about PTS and how to access it please see:

Welcome to the Public Test Shard! – Getting Started

Have fun!

[Zoam]

· We will be increasing incentive for doing random normal dungeons as a mentor

http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-gene...ld-useful.html

^ And put the Experts and Normals on different counters especially if you don't do all the things in my thread :P

[Kiika]

How exactly will the take me where I’m needed” option for LFD work??

[Behindya]

@Kiika
I'd imagine “take me where I’m needed” would look for any groups and adjust your mentor level as needed.

@Trion
Great stuff guys. Now with mentoring and low level IA's, I'm a happy chap.

[Slipmat]

Just doing some of the Gloamwood IA's ahead of time, as it'll be midnight here for the testing...

One of the stages called "On Dusken Wings" to Net Dusk Bats appears to be not working

You have to 'channel' an ability from your temporary ability bar but it has no effect, i've tried everything, lowering the bat's health slowly, then channeling, channeling from range, mob always turns red but i can't capture or "net" it

Had to abandon that particular IA, onto the next

[Slipmat]

Another slight update, had to log off PTS and go on Live as it's raid time here in Europe, but did find a few more things to check out...

Most of the bugs seem to occur in Silkweb Pass..

Quest: "Creeping Paralysis": rescue cocooned victims... no green circle on map to indicate the search area, no big deal but click on a cocoon says "requires Web Solvent" ..cocoon victim tooltip was identifying it as for the quest alright

Quest: "Trailblazing" : Burn Gloamsilk Skitterlings in Silkweb Pass 0/12

Plenty of these around, even if at times hard to see and target as tab-targetting doesn't seem to work on these level 1 yellow 'neutral' mobs, no biggie, but using the temporary ability fire bomb on them, has no effect, quest wouldn't update, timer ran out

Quest: "Reclaim Silkweb Pass" : Kill Gloamsilk spiders in Silkweb Pass 0/12

Only issue, if you can even call it one, no green circle area on map, given that all of silkweb pass is filled from end to end with spiders, no biggie

Looking forward to a bit more testing later tonight

[Tacitus]

Well, the good news is that every one of those issues I checked in fixes for on Friday night but but it was so late that I missed the cut off for the build currently on PTS. It sounds like a new build with my changes included should be hitting the PTS today.

[Chanalia]

Currently no one in my guild is able to log on to PTS. We're all getting the same error and are unable to patch. Might wanna fix that before any attempt is made to test things.

[Zoam]

Gloamwood is pretty annoying with some of the locations. Many deaths due to fall dmg and the like lol.


Also, I found that you cant mentor while running which may be intentional, but I figured it was worth noting since it was kinda annoying :P

[Kazzic]

There are a few objectives that have you running across the whole map. An example being dealing with the spiders in the south and then burning goblin totems in the north. Either a teleport or maybe some kind of speed boost for those without level 50 mounts would be nice.

There are also two locations (that I stumbled into) that cause 'Spider Net' to pop up without being on the relevant quest. Locations are roughly are 3961, 2200 south east of the standing stones and 4251, 2667 near the mill bridge.

[Muffinmans]

Just about everything seems to be working well.
Only bugs I found is lower level Rifts give you lower level rewards, from completely closing a level ~12 water rift, I received one olde tablet, and 6 planarite.
Also my healing breath seemed really under-powered, it only healed for ~50 mentored down to 12. Not sure if this is how it does on a level 12 or not since its been a wile though. Those were the only bugs I found.

The wardstone defense IA's are the best! So much fun! It is great to see so many mobs on screen and actually die during an IA. The wardestone IA's in SS and SM and EI were a blast and I would really love to see them in the lower levels.
Thanks!

[cjwprostar]

A couple issues with skills while mentored...
Sacrifice Life: Damage, Sacrifice Life: Mana, and Reclaim Power aren't taking away enough HP. (see attached screenshots)

Reclaim Power took 11 HP from 475 total.
SL: Dmg and Mana took 17 HP from 796 total.

Other than that, it was really fun. This will be a great break from the typical grind.

[Kadeth]

Overall it was great fun. I do think we had too many on Freemarch initially as it felt like a cake walk one that gave me 4 each PA and ISS) but still far too easy. Part of that was due to the OP mage pets, but mostly because so many were doing the same thing.

Dark Armor and Nedra's might gave level 50 buffs, tool tip showed a drop immediately on mentoring but, that went back up in a few seconds and, the tip changed accordingly - while I had it open.

Now if Trion wants a bunch of mentored mages framing IAs for PA and ISS - it's perfect but, I don't think that is the intention. If so, hey I'll happily farm with OP buffs and pets. :P (4 each per 30-40 mins, av 6 per hour each, day off, that's 60-70 each, no sweat.) And not the intention of mentoring but, fun while it lasts.

[Slipmat]

Managed to run 37 IA's in Gloamwood by myself before the main testing started (too late to keep going from Europe)

Glad to say all the previous issues in Silkweb Pass were addressed like "Creeping Paralysis" etc and worked fine

Will agree with some posters though, at times it was a bit annoying to be at, say, Standing Stones, then next step was head to Silkweb Pass, then when you finished at Silkweb, head back up again to near Standing Stones for next step

New players will feel a bit left behind on their 60% mounts as mentored 50's on 110% speed plus PA perks will have finished the objectives before they can reach them

Only found one entire issue last night and it was just a typo

For the quest "Glowworms" near the mill, the snakes in question are called "Shadetouched Nichtcrawlers" in the quest description as opposed to Shadetouched Nightcrawlers

[Myuriel]

New players will feel a bit left behind on their 60% mounts as mentored 50's on 110% speed plus PA perks will have finished the objectives before they can reach them

This is a pretty good point, and hopefully can be addressed some way. Those 60% mounts are going to be left in the dust on the journey from one point to another.