I'm In!

Seffren

 

Up until beta phase 3 I was on the fence.

Beta 4 for me was make or break. It came through with flying colors so I'm in. As you all know phase 4 was about the pvp, in particular warfronts. And boy did I have a blast. 

Up to now I had a Cleric Sentinel as main (Warden sec). It was quite fun questing and good for the first tier dungeon. Coming from a history of playing dps classes, this was a new experience for me. Rifting itself had to grow on me.

 

My feeling up to phase 3:

• 
  World: kinda feels smaller compared to other games but this is caused by the fact that mobs are around every corner and this raises a sense of danger that you just can't shake. The world is at war. And yes when you start playing you really get that Warhammer feeling ... but that fades away with each day you play and the Rift identity slowly but decisively takes over and makes War a distant memory of the past.
• 
  Quests: samo samo as other games. 
• 
  Dungeons: seemed a bit more interesting for me. But tbh this could have been caused by playing healer class for the frst time.
• 
  Rifts: hmm, the zergs put me off a bit.
• 
  Soul system + roles: very good and gave me a good laugh at one point.

 

Now what happened in 4.

Rifts: grew on me. As soon as I avoided the big zerg Rifts and focused on the lesser crowded ones (these also were accompanied with faster forming groups) it all became more exciting and challenging. Having a tight nit group with people looking out for each other raised this part of the game to a new level for me. Rewards are pretty good and showed me that Rifting can be as effective for leveling as questing, etc.

 

Quests: I did not do questing  a lot in this phase but when I did it I tried a different approach. Late at night I would read quests and figure out where to go. Switch of my ui and wonder into the world. The immersion was incredible (graphics really shine in this game for me). My brother and I decided to do our questing this way when we go in at  release. 

 

Pvp Warfronts: a sentinel in pvp? I kinda want to do some damage to ... up close if possible. No problem. Activate your second role and equip another soul. I decided to go for Justicar = Melee Healer type class. Got this soul by doing a cool quest. There is an interesting ability which casts your overheals on a target. I had some serious dual killing sprees going I took Warden as secundary because it was the only one (except for Sentinel) I had lying around. Most probably there are better soul combos but I just wanted to get in the fight.

I Raised my pvp points and got the pvp soul (Templar). Equip ... et voila some usefull pvp abilities at your disposal.

2 maps, great fun. Ballance wise I did not have any complaints. Its obvious there's some kind off anti-class system going on. But when you fight in groups and people know their role ... well you know what I'm getting at.

Gear gives you advantage but skilled people whill kill you, even if you are better equipped or higher level, I did it myself a few times (strokes own back

 

Miscellaneous: Technically the game runs smooth. The fps has gone up each beta phase for me. I hope come release when debugging is switched off (assuming its still on) we will get another boost in performance.

Graphically it's beautifull. Just under AOC and FFXIV and way above WOW. While AOC blew me away graphically I have to say Rift runs much smoother. So the tradeoff is well worth it.

The pollish on this game is something I have not seen in a long time for game in beta phase. Kudos on Trion team for this quality.

 

I'm going to stop now, because post is getting rather big, but I'll leave you with a short anecdote.

 

While waiting for a warfront (which literally took seconds to pop) I had a whisper from someone to go Darkening Deeps (2nd tier Guardian Dungeon). I went in with my justicar role...

At a certain point we whiped and the first healer asked me to rez since he allready used his soul walk. I responded to say I couldn't since I did not have that ability with my justicar soul + secundaries. People had to corps run.

We moved along and after a while it came clear that we needed more healing. Just when we were about to disband I lolled at myself and warned the group that I could just switch roles to my sentinel one. I completely forgot this was possible. At the click of a button the group had now 2 full-fleshed healers ... both with rezzing powers

We all lolled at the previous corps run.

(Community is great in this game ... another world would have caused a flame fest in party chat for my naïveté).