Trion is stamping out builds that don't fit the traditional mold for each calling. There are some arguably over powered builds they haven't touched or have actually buffed, because they fall with in the narrow imagining of what a Warrior, Cleric, Mage or Rogue "should" be able to do.
They are basically taking away what made the game unique and are morphing it into what the critics had initially claimed it to be, "a clone game with a class system that only offers the illusion of choice".
I also agree with a poster a few posts up. The desire to keep playing the game doesn't just suffer from seeing your build nerfed. It comes from the knowledge that Trion will systematically identify and kill all the powerful or creative builds people will come up with, (with a few eceptions that become exemplars of the old, stagnant class roles), until (almost) everyone sucks equally and you end up with a game that might as well just have four pre-built classes.
Just adjust? Knowing that if you find anything that pushes the curve, it will be squashed as well? No thank you.
To be clear, we are not talking about careful adjustments to tweak builds that might be a little too far beyond an acceptable curve. What they are doing is finding these builds and making changes that don't make targeted adjustments, but rather destroy them completely.
I guess it's easier to balance the game when you eliminate synergistic skills entirely, but then you arrive at the point where the Soul System is truly just gimmick, trying to obscure that the game's classes are just like every other Fantasy MMORPG out there.
BTW, it's hard to believe that the Alpha testers, who had access to the full content while the game was in development, didn't come up with many of these same builds or that the devs didn't understand all these synergies existed. I think they probably knew and understood, but decided to save the "redesign" until after launch, so that the Soul System could serve it's purpose as "gimmick".
Either that, or they are just completely spineless and have decided to abandon their core game design because a vocal minority couldn't stand builds that could be good at something typically reserved for another class in "traditional" MMORPGs.
You might be right, it is not good if they nerf all interesting non standard combos the players figure out. Keeping the game interesting is one thing but the point of customization is many choices and taking them away is dangerous, particularly since Rift only have 4 classes.
On the other hand are we still just amonth after release so we don't really know where things will be in a few months, maybe they are able to fix it up again.
Trion have so far been pretty good on listening to the players but in this case might that be a bad thing, if too many players whine and they change the classes to be more traditional will Rift become a game with just 4 classes but without the customization that is the best thing in the entire game.
It might be that this level of customization just doesn't work in a PvP game. Guildwars are able to balance it even if you have loads of skills and dual classing there but they have more or less identical gear and 99% of all players PvP ing is max level there. And they have been balancing for 6 years.
Trion is stamping out builds that don't fit the traditional mold for each calling. There are some arguably over powered builds they haven't touched or have actually buffed, because they fall with in the narrow imagining of what a Warrior, Cleric, Mage or Rogue "should" be able to do.
They are basically taking away what made the game unique and are morphing it into what the critics had initially claimed it to be, "a clone game with a class system that only offers the illusion of choice".
I also agree with a poster a few posts up. The desire to keep playing the game doesn't just suffer from seeing your build nerfed. It comes from the knowledge that Trion will systematically identify and kill all the powerful or creative builds people will come up with, (with a few eceptions that become exemplars of the old, stagnant class roles), until (almost) everyone sucks equally and you end up with a game that might as well just have four pre-built classes.
Just adjust? Knowing that if you find anything that pushes the curve, it will be squashed as well? No thank you.
To be clear, we are not talking about careful adjustments to tweak builds that might be a little too far beyond an acceptable curve. What they are doing is finding these builds and making changes that don't make targeted adjustments, but rather destroy them completely.
I guess it's easier to balance the game when you eliminate synergistic skills entirely, but then you arrive at the point where the Soul System is truly just gimmick, trying to obscure that the game's classes are just like every other Fantasy MMORPG out there.
BTW, it's hard to believe that the Alpha testers, who had access to the full content while the game was in development, didn't come up with many of these same builds or that the devs didn't understand all these synergies existed. I think they probably knew and understood, but decided to save the "redesign" until after launch, so that the Soul System could serve it's purpose as "gimmick".
Either that, or they are just completely spineless and have decided to abandon their core game design because a vocal minority couldn't stand builds that could be good at something typically reserved for another class in "traditional" MMORPGs.
Rouges (bards) and Mages (Chloros) CAN still heal, Sabs aren't getting the 'core' debuff anymore and the game is being tuned so it's less punishing on the melee players compeared to the ranged, not forgetting that Rouges in the their tanking build havn't really been touched as they work fine already
most of the 1.1 changes aren't 'distroying' soul builds at all all Trion have really done is stop the 'mass dps healer' teams from completly trivalising the content (and stopping the 'battle of the healer' pvp numbers) down to the fact that 2/3 dps healers stack heals on TEN players at once healing far better then direct healing..
I don't see where you assumed Trion were pigeonholing the archtypes back to where all the rest of the MMOs have them as no soul has been left 'unplayable' to the point we are 'forced' to play the game a set way.
Lets not forget that these patch notes are, for the most part, tentative. Those patch notes are the changes being tested on their alpha server, it however does not mean that those changes will hit live.
I was actually afraid of this during beta because they did stomp several synergies in the beta test. But I figured they were just getting things ready for launch and when launch came -- everything would be all balanced up and ready to go. But trion did not put away the 50lb sledge.
People discovered elegant synergies and methods of play that they didnt like -- so they knee-capped them.
In the case of paladins they knee-capped them in the first balance patch by reducing BOP/TTT by fully 55% by removing the AP from affecting the ability. Unfortunately as far as they were concerned, people managed to adapt and tighten up their builds to "perfection out of necessity."
So they capped the other knee with another 55% nerf to BOP/TTT and left paladins crawling in the dirt.
I actually feel sorry for people with say a non-optimized paladin build trying to level after 1.1. Unless you have everything perfect you will be so inferior it will not be funny -- and that is exactly what I was hoping to avoid with rift.
Back in the beta there were a LOT of builds that worked just fine. These were decoupled and the number of successful builds dropped. It was pretty obvious they were trying to shuffle people into 51/x/x and 44/x/x builds and away from 32/24/10 or 33/33/0 builds. By the time 1.1 hits the number of viable builds is dropping down towards a scant few very similar builds.
This isnt the game I signed up for and I voted with my feet by cancelling my paladin and submitting my opinions in their exit survey.
----
What is really sad is that if they TRUSTED their beta testers a bit more they could have avoided a lot of this. I mean they had the one alpha server of "trusted" people to do the endgame content etc but it obviously was not close to enough. The number of people chosen for betas 1 through 3 were a limited number of people that filled a small number of servers compared to the vast numbers opened later. If when beta 5 hit they gave anyone who played 1 through 3 the ability to have a level 41 character on 5 special servers instead (testing the last 3 zones and eventually endgame content) on servers that did not close as a middle-batch of testers, the higher end zones would have come out a lot more polished and they would have found out that stacking block did indeed give a paladin the ability to tank 2 invasions at the same time before release.
Actually what did it was that 500 heal on a block PE they came up with. Without that a paladin wouldnt have been able to do some of this stuff. It would have been far better to nerf an item than nerf a class.
Nevertheless, i've said to myself well the game is new, give them time etc. Therefore, i've tried to level a healer only by doing rifts and instances and warfronts - impossible, those activities do not generate enough gold even to buy next level skills. Even at cap level, you are somehow forced to do daily quests or gather/craft (i do not like any of those) to generate income. I want a game where the things i like to do ingame take care of the gold i generate.
Why would i continue to pay for something which:
- Forces me into questing, regardless of level
- Offers the same type of content as WoW, but in much, much smaller numbers (not that i'm going there anytime soon)
While I agree on this game beeing much of a wow-clone in many aspects, I have to say I leveled my healer doing almost exclusively dungeons.
I hardly did any quest, only while looking for the next group for next dungeon, something that used to happen really quick, (specially since when our team had a healer already I could go as a dot-fest dps guy anyway).
I still have not used the AH once, not sold anything to any player. Still, I have always had enough money to buy my skill upgrades, my mount, all the slots on my bank, using the porticulums as often as I want, soul repairs, crafting materials, faction jewelry, many soul respecs, my 4 different soul setups and enough 18 slots bags for myself and for all the bank extra slots.
I won't and my friends either. This game is by far one of the best mmorpg launches Ive experienced so far and is an overall polished game, even tho its only a month old. Was happy from the start till the end. atm raiding T2 dungeons and waiting for TERA. another 3-5 months should be enough to see everything Rift has to offer.
Back in the beta there were a LOT of builds that worked just fine. These were decoupled and the number of successful builds dropped. It was pretty obvious they were trying to shuffle people into 51/x/x and 44/x/x builds and away from 32/24/10 or 33/33/0 builds. By the time 1.1 hits the number of viable builds is dropping down towards a scant few very similar builds.
*shrugs*
None of my 4 builds is 51/x/x or 44/x/x.
Actually, 3 of them are 32/32/2, and they work just perfect. And I do know players running on 32/32/2 that can pull insane dps, crit heals over 7k or take on 10 mobs at a time and survive.
To me it sounds you are just upset becouse they nerfed your FOTM OP build and you are unable to find another build with a decent level of performance. I may be wrong, but that's the impression I got.
I have decided to cancel rift. I think it has to do more with me being tired of playing fantasy quest based mmo's more then the actual game.
So, what you're saying is, it's not so much that Rift is a bad game, it's jjust, you're tired of WoW clones and playing the same game over and over? Yeah, welcome to 6 years ago when WoW came out. I was tired with it then. -_-
I believe I have finally found an mmo thats has taken the best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely.
I was a wow player for 5 years, what kept me in that game wasn't the gameplay itself but the community. Wow has been dumbed down so much it is nothing like the original best it used to be. As for cata I only played that for 2 weeks and uninstalled.
Ok now back to Rift, I see they have a very good team onboard with a wide range of backgrounds but noticably the fact there is talent from EQ 2, vanguard, electronic arts. I feel from the people involved and in how fast they are fixing things that we are in great hands.
If they continue their current form then this game is going to be here for a long time.
I believe I have finally found an mmo thats has taken the best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely.
I was a wow player for 5 years, what kept me in that game wasn't the gameplay itself but the community. Wow has been dumbed down so much it is nothing like the original best it used to be. As for cata I only played that for 2 weeks and uninstalled.
Ok.. so.. you ;like Rift because it did nothing new and didn't really improve on anything. You also liked WoW for it's community (what) and think that WoW's been dumbed down? WoW is literally the simplest MMO on the market and always has been...
I believe I have finally found an mmo thats has taken the best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely.
I was a wow player for 5 years, what kept me in that game wasn't the gameplay itself but the community. Wow has been dumbed down so much it is nothing like the original best it used to be. As for cata I only played that for 2 weeks and uninstalled.
Ok.. so.. you ;like Rift because it did nothing new and didn't really improve on anything. You also liked WoW for it's community (what) and think that WoW's been dumbed down? WoW is literally the simplest MMO on the market and always has been...
best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely. - How does this equate to "didn't really improve on anything". We understand you're old and grumpy, but there's no need to twist other peoples words. "WoW is literally the simplest MMO always has been..." - come on now.
I believe I have finally found an mmo thats has taken the best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely.
I was a wow player for 5 years, what kept me in that game wasn't the gameplay itself but the community. Wow has been dumbed down so much it is nothing like the original best it used to be. As for cata I only played that for 2 weeks and uninstalled.
Ok.. so.. you ;like Rift because it did nothing new and didn't really improve on anything. You also liked WoW for it's community (what) and think that WoW's been dumbed down? WoW is literally the simplest MMO on the market and always has been...
To say WoW is the simplest MMO on the market is a bit foolish imo. Free Realms, Toon town online, Pirates of the Carribean Online, Fusion fall, Clone wars, etc... are by far more simplier games. WoW is one of the most accessible games on the market I would say. Too many hate WoW for what I do not know. I have yet to see any evidence of how WoW has harmed anyone to this day to deserve the amount of bashing it gets. Teenagers are so funny how they want to be unique by following the crowd.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
Ok.. so.. you ;like Rift because it did nothing new and didn't really improve on anything. You also liked WoW for it's community (what) and think that WoW's been dumbed down? WoW is literally the simplest MMO on the market and always has been...
To say WoW is the simplest MMO on the market is a bit foolish imo. Free Realms, Toon town online, Pirates of the Carribean Online, Fusion fall, Clone wars, etc... are by far more simplier games. WoW is one of the most accessible games on the market I would say. Too many hate WoW for what I do not know. I have yet to see any evidence of how WoW has harmed anyone to this day to deserve the amount of bashing it gets. Teenagers are so funny how they want to be unique by following the crowd.
Cheers!
I was scratching my head at that comment, as well. There are literally hundreds of MMOs far simpler than WoW, and many AAA studio developed ones are on that list. I can't speak for a Rift. So far, I've yet to try it, because I fear its too much like WoW.
I believe I have finally found an mmo thats has taken the best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely.
I was a wow player for 5 years, what kept me in that game wasn't the gameplay itself but the community. Wow has been dumbed down so much it is nothing like the original best it used to be. As for cata I only played that for 2 weeks and uninstalled.
Ok.. so.. you ;like Rift because it did nothing new and didn't really improve on anything. You also liked WoW for it's community (what) and think that WoW's been dumbed down? WoW is literally the simplest MMO on the market and always has been...
It never did do anything new apart from rift invasions but as for improving on things I did mention they took best bits from other mmos and perfected it, meaning they improved on it.
As for WOW it was better than its current state and as for community I am not talking about the trash people in normal chat but in guilds that I was a part of over the 5 years. There were alot of normal good people that played wow too not just the gutter trash morons.
Comments
You might be right, it is not good if they nerf all interesting non standard combos the players figure out. Keeping the game interesting is one thing but the point of customization is many choices and taking them away is dangerous, particularly since Rift only have 4 classes.
On the other hand are we still just amonth after release so we don't really know where things will be in a few months, maybe they are able to fix it up again.
Trion have so far been pretty good on listening to the players but in this case might that be a bad thing, if too many players whine and they change the classes to be more traditional will Rift become a game with just 4 classes but without the customization that is the best thing in the entire game.
It might be that this level of customization just doesn't work in a PvP game. Guildwars are able to balance it even if you have loads of skills and dual classing there but they have more or less identical gear and 99% of all players PvP ing is max level there. And they have been balancing for 6 years.
http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?140020-Balance-Update-25th-March-2011
Rouges (bards) and Mages (Chloros) CAN still heal, Sabs aren't getting the 'core' debuff anymore and the game is being tuned so it's less punishing on the melee players compeared to the ranged, not forgetting that Rouges in the their tanking build havn't really been touched as they work fine already
most of the 1.1 changes aren't 'distroying' soul builds at all all Trion have really done is stop the 'mass dps healer' teams from completly trivalising the content (and stopping the 'battle of the healer' pvp numbers) down to the fact that 2/3 dps healers stack heals on TEN players at once healing far better then direct healing..
I don't see where you assumed Trion were pigeonholing the archtypes back to where all the rest of the MMOs have them as no soul has been left 'unplayable' to the point we are 'forced' to play the game a set way.
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
omg the developers are making a balancing patch! the sky is falling! the game will fail!
right ...
For those who actually play the game, all the points mentioned need to be addressed as soon as possible.
Lets not forget that these patch notes are, for the most part, tentative. Those patch notes are the changes being tested on their alpha server, it however does not mean that those changes will hit live.
I was actually afraid of this during beta because they did stomp several synergies in the beta test. But I figured they were just getting things ready for launch and when launch came -- everything would be all balanced up and ready to go. But trion did not put away the 50lb sledge.
People discovered elegant synergies and methods of play that they didnt like -- so they knee-capped them.
In the case of paladins they knee-capped them in the first balance patch by reducing BOP/TTT by fully 55% by removing the AP from affecting the ability. Unfortunately as far as they were concerned, people managed to adapt and tighten up their builds to "perfection out of necessity."
So they capped the other knee with another 55% nerf to BOP/TTT and left paladins crawling in the dirt.
I actually feel sorry for people with say a non-optimized paladin build trying to level after 1.1. Unless you have everything perfect you will be so inferior it will not be funny -- and that is exactly what I was hoping to avoid with rift.
Back in the beta there were a LOT of builds that worked just fine. These were decoupled and the number of successful builds dropped. It was pretty obvious they were trying to shuffle people into 51/x/x and 44/x/x builds and away from 32/24/10 or 33/33/0 builds. By the time 1.1 hits the number of viable builds is dropping down towards a scant few very similar builds.
This isnt the game I signed up for and I voted with my feet by cancelling my paladin and submitting my opinions in their exit survey.
----
What is really sad is that if they TRUSTED their beta testers a bit more they could have avoided a lot of this. I mean they had the one alpha server of "trusted" people to do the endgame content etc but it obviously was not close to enough. The number of people chosen for betas 1 through 3 were a limited number of people that filled a small number of servers compared to the vast numbers opened later. If when beta 5 hit they gave anyone who played 1 through 3 the ability to have a level 41 character on 5 special servers instead (testing the last 3 zones and eventually endgame content) on servers that did not close as a middle-batch of testers, the higher end zones would have come out a lot more polished and they would have found out that stacking block did indeed give a paladin the ability to tank 2 invasions at the same time before release.
Actually what did it was that 500 heal on a block PE they came up with. Without that a paladin wouldnt have been able to do some of this stuff. It would have been far better to nerf an item than nerf a class.
While I agree on this game beeing much of a wow-clone in many aspects, I have to say I leveled my healer doing almost exclusively dungeons.
I hardly did any quest, only while looking for the next group for next dungeon, something that used to happen really quick, (specially since when our team had a healer already I could go as a dot-fest dps guy anyway).
I still have not used the AH once, not sold anything to any player. Still, I have always had enough money to buy my skill upgrades, my mount, all the slots on my bank, using the porticulums as often as I want, soul repairs, crafting materials, faction jewelry, many soul respecs, my 4 different soul setups and enough 18 slots bags for myself and for all the bank extra slots.
I dare to say you are doing something wrong.
I won't and my friends either. This game is by far one of the best mmorpg launches Ive experienced so far and is an overall polished game, even tho its only a month old. Was happy from the start till the end. atm raiding T2 dungeons and waiting for TERA.
another 3-5 months should be enough to see everything Rift has to offer.
great game
*shrugs*
None of my 4 builds is 51/x/x or 44/x/x.
Actually, 3 of them are 32/32/2, and they work just perfect. And I do know players running on 32/32/2 that can pull insane dps, crit heals over 7k or take on 10 mobs at a time and survive.
To me it sounds you are just upset becouse they nerfed your FOTM OP build and you are unable to find another build with a decent level of performance. I may be wrong, but that's the impression I got.
Edit: typos
So, what you're saying is, it's not so much that Rift is a bad game, it's jjust, you're tired of WoW clones and playing the same game over and over? Yeah, welcome to 6 years ago when WoW came out. I was tired with it then. -_-
I believe I have finally found an mmo thats has taken the best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely.
I was a wow player for 5 years, what kept me in that game wasn't the gameplay itself but the community. Wow has been dumbed down so much it is nothing like the original best it used to be. As for cata I only played that for 2 weeks and uninstalled.
Ok now back to Rift, I see they have a very good team onboard with a wide range of backgrounds but noticably the fact there is talent from EQ 2, vanguard, electronic arts. I feel from the people involved and in how fast they are fixing things that we are in great hands.
If they continue their current form then this game is going to be here for a long time.
Ok.. so.. you ;like Rift because it did nothing new and didn't really improve on anything. You also liked WoW for it's community (what) and think that WoW's been dumbed down? WoW is literally the simplest MMO on the market and always has been...
best bits from other mmos and perfected it nicely. - How does this equate to "didn't really improve on anything". We understand you're old and grumpy, but there's no need to twist other peoples words. "WoW is literally the simplest MMO always has been..." - come on now.
To say WoW is the simplest MMO on the market is a bit foolish imo. Free Realms, Toon town online, Pirates of the Carribean Online, Fusion fall, Clone wars, etc... are by far more simplier games. WoW is one of the most accessible games on the market I would say. Too many hate WoW for what I do not know. I have yet to see any evidence of how WoW has harmed anyone to this day to deserve the amount of bashing it gets. Teenagers are so funny how they want to be unique by following the crowd.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
I was scratching my head at that comment, as well. There are literally hundreds of MMOs far simpler than WoW, and many AAA studio developed ones are on that list. I can't speak for a Rift. So far, I've yet to try it, because I fear its too much like WoW.
It never did do anything new apart from rift invasions but as for improving on things I did mention they took best bits from other mmos and perfected it, meaning they improved on it.
As for WOW it was better than its current state and as for community I am not talking about the trash people in normal chat but in guilds that I was a part of over the 5 years. There were alot of normal good people that played wow too not just the gutter trash morons.