Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
More Nails in the RIFT coffin
Thunderballs
Member Posts: 365
"The people that left WoW due to everything being dumbed down to the extent that YOU NEVER BOTHERED USING CROWD CONTROL OR HALF YOUR ABILITIES BECAUSE ALL THEY DID WAS LOWER AOE DPS is here too now.
All instances compose of is round up mobs, aoe them dead and repeat ad finitum. Hell even many boss fights are like that now. Tank and spank with a few nice ground effects that you can heal through.
You just ruined your game."
"This is a sad sad move made by TRION...The worst they could have done.
This is a "child-run" now. I hope they have something coming out soon, or this is going to be the death of dungeonruns."
"We got an epic shield and wand last night. We didn't bother learning strats, was our first FC run. I sound like I'm repeating myself...
It was easy. It was dull. I watched unaware members of our group standing in ground effects and being just healed through them by a bard solo healing (not that is isnt easy to step out of them anyways even when they hit hard).
We had terrible dps due to all of us being undergeared but we didn't break sweat once. How exciting...
I just hit 50 don't start with all the "elitist" and "bads" generalisations because I am neither. please help address the issue of these instances being completely ruined on expert difficulty.
Trion do not need to release new content to make up for this oversight on their part. They need to fix this before it's too late and also bring out new content with the correct level of challenge as they seem to have no idea and listen to the wrong types that make all the noise on a forum.
I am upset I only have a couple of evenings to play experts at their previous difficulty. I feel I have missed the short lived pinnacle of this game which is unlikely to never return."
Dumbing down the content to the point that it is ...pointless ...really.
Caveat Emptor
Comments
The problem with the old design was that dungeons took too long to complete. In my opinion anything above one hour (including some mishaps) is too long and some of the dungeons were 4-5 hours affairs. So in my opinion they adjusted the dungeons so as:
It's faster to go through them
It takes one healer to do the same content (meaning said healer is not overgeared for it)
They needed a system that worked well with the new LFG tool (which incidentally still have glitches understanding specs, and progression requirements)
I believe that due to a combination of the above factors the dungeons as we knew them were changed. I have not played them myself after the changes to give a personal opinion of feeling of difficulty though (too much PvPing, almost 1.1M favor now and working on getting the final full PvP set). Incidentally, favor is also a lot easier to get after patch and I don't mind, even though I've almost reached all my goals with the old system. A healthy competition and some decent fights is what I'm looking for and I won't find them with undergeared people in PvP.
I've completed every expert dungeon almost 10 times each in RIFT, havent raided yet and don't plan to.
I must admit though rift is very easy, it is really dumbed down, and i hate easy MMO's.
I hope SWTOR is a lot harder and more unforgiving than RIFT, or everyone will just breeze through it like RIFT.
I'm guessing SWTOR is going to be pretty easy though to cater to everyone
my web design: www.advancedws.com.au
^^^
and all before the recent nerfs ? How ever did you manage it given the whole 4-5 hr requirement and no lfg tool ?
^^^^
^^^^
Isnt rift supposed to be an mmorpg and not an FPS shooter ?
Caveat Emptor
I just did my first expert dungeons this week with guildies and was very disappointed with the experience. As noted above, it was pull a mass of mobs and AoE them down until the boss fight which was also easy. We did this until we hit the lock-out on the experts. I just can't imagine doing that over and over again to get plaques.
raid content is still hard. also the new 10 mans are pretty much impossible to complete at the moment. i am pretty much done with t2s so it doesnt affect me too much. As time goes on I am losing more and more faith in trion. at times it seems like they really know what they are doing, but nowadays it seems they are just making terrible decisions and becoming more half-assed.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
I just ran king's breech for the first time at lvl 33, and I have to say it seemed the exact right amount of lvl appropriate challenge. We had a couple of bosses we had to whack at more than once, but it wasn't so difficult that people left the group or put us too late in the evening to finish it.
Maybe they decreased difficulty on expert, maybe it needed a tweek and they overtweeked it, maybe its just a growing pains issue and they tinker with it again to adjust.
I just don't see that this is a 'sky is falling' , the game is 'ruined', 'nails in the coffin' scenario here. At most, its a balance issue and it'll get addressed.
Have you tried a polite give and take on the official forums, give them feedback rather than contempt?
Just seems a little early to be jumping to extremes, especially when this is a little irritation we all put up with in the first year or two of a games release.
Face it, there are just some aspects of game balance which cannot be tweeked until the servers go live and they see how the game works with the 'actual' audience, rather than the controlled test group.
Patience, understanding, reason - these are all good things
I just picked it up again, got on my 50, and started doing dungeons, and I have to say I'm having a blast. Moreso than before. not necessarily because of the difficulty being made easier, just the fact that the dungeon finder actually gets you groups, instead of using the /5 and talking to 50's to try to form one, becuase 90% of the time the chat is either silent or just talking about invasions. It was incredibly hard to find a group before, now it's quite simple. Sure, it's less communication, but it sure is equaling more fun for me.
No offense to you but making the T1 and T2 expert level dungeons easier doesn't kill the game, it probably saves it. All the hardcores have been level 50 for a while and raiding. Making this content easier means that it's more accessible to the general public.
In turn this will mean you will see more people doing the end game stuff and eventually raiding. Then once new raids come out they'll nerf back the old raids so that more people can do those and move up to the next tier of raids. That's a smart decision which will keep the game running.
No one hits Level 50 and goes DAMMIT NOW THESE DUNGEONS ARE GOING TO TAKE SHORTER TIME AND I CAN SPEND LESS TIME GRINDING GEAR... DAMIT!
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
Statements like this always puzzle me. I'm guessing beating every expert dungeon 10 times each took quite a bit of time. I also assume after the first or second time you ran through a dungeon, you realized it was too easy for you.
So here is what we know: 1. You hate easy MMO's. 2. Rift is an easy MMO (for you at least). 3. You continued to play even after you realized numbers one and two.
Why keep playing if you hate the game?
its stupid to ask a person this, as there's many reasons why they might.
they could have irl friends that play it and if they didnt play it with them they'd be excluded from them.
their spouse might like/love it and you sometimes have to do things your spouse wants to do even if you dont like it.
or there could be nothing better out on the market right now so they're toughing it out until the next best thing(tho most just went back to WoW)
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
I like the new changes. For someone like me who gets 2 hours a day to play, the new changes are most welcome.
Well, that's why I'm asking the question. I would like to know why anyone (in this case, Pitt_Hammer) would spend an excessive amount of time playing a game that they hate.
To respond to your examples, I would argue that it's stupid to do something you "hate" because others are doing it or because you can't find something better to do with your time.
My wife loves the Lifetime channel and reality TV shows. I can't stand them so she gets to do those things by herself or with her friends. Many of my friends are heavily into college basketball. I don't pretend to enjoy it just to fit in with them. I love video games and fishing. Some of my friends do those things and some don't.
And, the statement that there is "nothing better out on the market right now" implies that he would not "hate" the game but actually think that it's pretty great. ie. He feels that it is better than all other games (or MMO's at least) currently available for purchase.
If dungeons take too long you cut down on the trash mobs, you don't make things easier.
the grind is what gets me.i am really tired of mmo endgame = grind even if you are casual.i rather go to a dungeon when i like and then hope for that rare drop to fall like in old EQ1.then have grind x number of dungeons 1000 times.
These are exactly the kinds of problems that tiered dungeons and end-game gear grind bring.
They need to go the way of the dodo.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
exactly i came back for recent patch. and immediatly didnt like what i see so i left
whats shocking pre patch is that ,they actually had a podcast where some dev did a whole song and dance about how they are going to get rid of the grind because any mmo which has enough content will never need to force people to grind much.
then they release patch 1.2 which though thankfully made dungeon runs faster they now drop less plaques whch means to get your gear u need to take more time even,few people have been bothered to do the maths and did say it took almost 30-50% more runs to gain the needed plaques as pre patch and honestly i don't think the dungeon runs are more then 30% faster now.
... to be replaced with what, though?
If not better gear, then what motivation would you replace for people to do end-game content that's added?
There would have to be something to make doing that content seem worthwhile to people, or it would end up like all the entire quest chains that go ignored in other MMOs 'becuase the rewards aren't worth it', or the dungeons that fall into disuse because "nothing good drops in them" or entire regions of the world map are unused because "the mobs don't give efficient enough xp".
I'm not saying "you're wrong, those things need to say!". I'm saying that what you're suggesting is half the equation.
The other half is to replace them with something equally worthwhile for those players to spend their time doing and keep them interested.
Now... to introduce a related side discussion here...
The irony here is that, for at least a portion of the players... what you describe is not a problem. They are the people who are not solely interested in getting to level-cap and raiding non-stop to get the best gear, so they can be ready for the next dungeons to be implemented with better gear, etc..
Using myself for example, I couldn't care less about the rewards in raid dungeons most times because I'm not a raiding type. I have no desire to set my life up on a schedule that revolves around playing a game. That goes for when I decide to play the game and for what I decide to do while logged in. My enjoyment of MMORPGs comes from the experience of playing the game from level 1 up 'til whatever level happens to be the cap... There is almost always plenty to see and do, and I take my time.
Over the time I've played MMOs, I've met many others like myself. In any MMO I play, I see people starting from scratch, racing through the game, following only the "most efficient path to end-game", using all the "optimal template builds" and playing only the "best classes for soloing through the low levels". They ignore all the other content as it's deemed "useless" to what they're trying to accomplish. So they get to end game in near record time, and begin the wash-rinse-repeat process of doing raids for better gear that allows them to do better raids for better gear that allows them to do better raids... etc.
It doesn't even require conversations on forums like these to see who these people are.
I can't begin to recall the number of times I've mentioned wanting to do a dungeon, or camp an item or do a quest-chain to someone, only to have them say "Don't waste your time." When asked why, "Because there's no point. There are no good drops in there" or, "that quest chain doesn't have a good reward"... Everything with them is "about the payoff". I say "That's fine. I'm not in it for the reward. I want to see the dungeon and go through it". They usually respond in some way to make it clear they think I'm wasting my time, and probably that I'm a complete fool.
Other people, those more like myself, will often say without missing a beat, "Oh cool. I'll go through with you. I haven't done that yet" or "I love that place".
For the "rewards-driven" type, once they've burned through that process... in a few months time, typically... They find themselves bored.. so they start an alt... and do exactly the same thing... finding themselves bored. So they start another alt... and do exactly the same thing... finding themselves bored... Ironically, they eventually become frustrated at why the devs don't give them more to do...
Others all around them are enjoying the rest of the game as well, taking their time and having a ball, while those who raced through everything are calling the devs "clueless", declaring "the game sucks" and is "nothing but a grind"... and moving on to the next shiny new MMO that they think will be "different". Only it won't be different. Because they'll repeat the same exact process that will end the same exact way.
So many people are the architects of their own misery in these games, and never realize it.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Finnaly someone who plays like me xD
Currently Playing:
Rift + Starcraft II + Gears Of War 3 Beta
You, Sir. Are a literary genius. This was the most well written post I've seen in a while.
Welcome to the new world of casual game design.
Soon we wil all have 5 henchman and 20 minute raids becuase some group of peeps convinced game designers that they have a life and need it to be easy street. Look at cataclysm as an example of our gaming future. Look at what we know about TOR so far.
It easy street my friends and gaming that matters is going the way of the free epics crowd.
WSIMikes post was interesting but not really groundbreaking.
He doesn't really explain his own gaming style.
He does admit to playing all theese games though and that says a lot.
I'll stick to Neverwinter Nights 1 still for my MMO fix....
Buy Neverwinter Nights 1 here! | Unofficial NWN1 homepage | NWN1 guild on X-Fire
The vast majority of people that are complaining are people doing T1s in groups with raiders in raid level gear. What you get is similar to raiders in WoW that are in all 372 gear running level 85 regulars and heroics and saying they are too easy. Just as in WoW, gear and skill/experience make a large difference in how easy lower tier content is...
Lower tiered instances in Rift need to be reasonable for lesser geared people to be able to run them in a reasonable time frame. Speaking from experience with characters of varying levels and gear levels the higher tier instances are still challenging enough if you are appropriately geared and the appropriate level. No, it's not perfect, but it's not nearly as bad as the queue-queue-ers are whining about.
-------------------------
"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
I just take my time and enjoy the game. I see no need to rush just to get on a raid treadmill though in the case of Rift I see no need to log in at all and I only it 35.
I'm really sick of the mini-rants on these forums directed at us "hardcore" or "end-game rushers" or whatever you want to call us. It really has nothing to do with the topic, so I'm not going to go into a rant about it here, just that I don't understand why casuals consistently want to blame us for ruining their game/experience or make us out to be some selfish player who only cares about reward rather than a sense of accomplishment.
So anyway, on topic, they really did nerf the expert content. Currently expert mode in Tier 1s (and even some Tier 2s) is far easier than content in normal mode. There really isn't a sense of accomplishment doing the dungeons anymore as mechanics can be flat out ignored without penalty. Healing through them is extremely boring now, and you don't have to know a thing about your class to get through them.
Now, if I'm not mistaken casuals like challenges too. Tier 1 content was previously a perfect challenge for a casual (who could later move on to Tier 2 and even raid content albeit at a slower pace) as you could do this as a fresh 50 with a couple pieces of crafted gear and easily complete the dungeon after learning the mechanics of the boss. Now, there was too much trash and they did have too much HP that made these dungeons unnecessarily long, but the nerfs to the damage of bosses and trash were unwarrented.
Instead of being actual content that took some effort to learn and clear through (actual content you could fail at potientially) you now have what is essentially just a gear grind. Any group of players will complete a Tier 1, fresh 50s, with likely no wipes or learning of any mechanics, through their first play through in minimal time. No risk, plenty of reward. Worse yet they made grinding out to prepare for raiding even worse by nerfing the rate of epic drops off all but the final bosses and making plaques harder to get and raising the amount of plaques you need for Tier armor sets. Basically they added to the grind, but removed the challenge.
A casual can raid in the end-game on a casuals play time. We have several people in our guild that have cleared all raid content (GP, RoS, and GSB) and only play 15 hours or less per week. Fairly casual, definitely not hardcore. Casuals can raid once a week and clear GSB, the problem right now is Expert content will not prepare them for raiding if they want to participate in it. Yes, I realize most casuals do not care to participate in raiding especially with the hardcore stigma about it, but those that do will have a hard time in the transition. There is only a single boss (well two, but one is after a more difficult boss) that could be considered easy for a group of casuals who don't have time to fully gear from Experts and even then the transition from the current Expert content to that first boss in GSB would be pretty shocking for any casual guild looking to raid, since you actually have to manage and learn the mechanics of the fight.
There was previously a challenge in Tier 1 and Tier 2. Anyone looking to play without raiding and looking for a challenge may as well play another game, or just do Rift dungeons on normal mode for a few months (it takes about 50-70 hours to hit max level in Rift) and move onto another game afterwards. There is little challenge here for casuals and now only raiders really have content (which as an evil selfish end-game rushing raider, is actually very satisifying content and is much better designed than WoW). Aside from trash HP and the amount of trash, the previous levels of Tier 1 and Tier 2 experts actually provided a significant challenge to those clearing it for the first time (and minimal after being raid geared) which would give casuals several months of good content, now have been reduced to mindless gear grinds. That's the problem I think the OP is trying to address here.