What does this game do well?

Calintz333

 

Every mmo has some kind of niche, or some kind of thing that it does better than other games. For some games that is some special combat system, for others it is a type of game play mechanic that makes it unique. Rift on paper looks like a game very similar to World of Warcraft with a different graphics engine. Now I am currently playing the free trial up to level 20 and am having a moderately good time. My biggest disappointment thus far has been the horrible character aesthetics during the character creation. Needless to say I am not very happy with the way my character looks, but there were no real good options for male characters to begin with imo. Anyhow I digress, what is Rift's unique feature? What is its main draw or lure that makes it different from other fantasy style mmos? What does it do better than the others? 

I can't quite figure this out yet and still do not know if I will subscribe to it or not. As I said earlier, I am having a moderately good time with the game but the aesthetics are just not selling me at this point. The fact that some NPC's are nearly twice the size of my character also significantly bothers me and completely destroys any sense of immersion I would have had during the story Rift events. 

I realize that I have only really played the game for 15 levels so far and have likely not seen any of the major game mechanics and distinctions at work quite yet. With that said, I would really like to understand what the game is about a bit more before I decide whether or not I will shell out my $15/mo for it.

Hope to get some good replies.

Thanks. 

 

Rictis

I played right to about 30ish, then I went back and played it again starting fresh. It still has a decent following as far as that goes, but it doesn't really do anything special. The rift system can be a lot of fun, but from my experience that is all depended on whos in the zone with you and if people are on. Towards the higher levels there is more movement etc, especially with the newer expansion.

I think what Rift does well is also what it does bad, its a decent overall game from beginning to end. However there isn't much razzle dazzle to warrant $15 a month sadly. That seems to be the case with most MMORPGs though lately, good concepts but poor executions.

thecapitaine

Great question and I'm not sure I have as solid of an answer as I should.  I have played Rift on and off for about 6 months and it's a game that I would say is my primary MMO alt.  I think that what Rift does well is provide a good number of diversions and systems to tinker with, as compared to many mainstream MMOs. 

 

Among the biggest is the soul system and the number of roles you can swap between.  Creating a build for farming, another for PvP, and still another for dungeoneering can be a lot of fun in itself, if you want to really get into it.  For instance, my main is a mage and when I queue up for a dungeon I can take on any of three roles-- support, damage, healing-- and can even have different ways of handling most of those tasks.

 

There are also lots of other systems like dimensions, which can suck you in for hour after hour.  Even if you're not a builder per se, you can still regularly burn a lot of free time exploring what other people have designed.  There's the usual pet/mount collecting which can come from faction or finding artifacts, etc.  There are puzzles and cairns in every zone that reward nice goodies.  There's a wardrobe system that allows you to look pretty much any way that you want to, along with dyeable armors.  Of course there are the rifts themselves and zone events and IAs that provide quick bursts of action and socialization if you don't feel like questing.  Conquest, which allows for pseudo RvRvR action (some love it, some hate it).  Chronicles for a solo/duo to tackle to slooowly get high-end gear.  And on and on and on.

 

I never spent any serious time with WoW so I can't relate to it being a clone.  If anything, the game feels a lot like EQ2 to me. The main strength of Rift in my eyes is that there really is a glut of fun things to putter around with, even if the implementation of them aren't mind-shattering.  I've never regretted the money spent on a sub, even if I don't play every day, because I know when I do log in I'll have too many things I can do rather than too little.

Rictis

Now here is the thing about the soul system, its not as great as a lot of people like to think it is. It gives you the illusion that there are more options then there really are. Most of the options it gives you just don't work, there are certain builds floating around the web on what people prefer you to use for your role in a group. The new expansion has added a few new souls but the system itself still suffers from limitations that were not fully thought through.

thecapitaine

Originally posted by Wakygreek
Now here is the thing about the soul system, its not as great as a lot of people like to think it is. It gives you the illusion that there are more options then there really are. Most of the options it gives you just don't work, there are certain builds floating around the web on what people prefer you to use for your role in a group. The new expansion has added a few new souls but the system itself still suffers from limitations that were not fully thought through.

I partly agree with this.  The way the souls works doesn't allow for mixing to happen as much as it could and the synergies between souls remain frustratingly more limited than they should be.  Also, there are continuing problems with some souls simply being underpowered or too narrow and, thus, underused.  Still, unless you're a serious raider or min-maxer, there's a lot more freedom for building and multi-speccing a character than most games offer.  The fact that my mage can specialize among two pet classes, a high burst glass cannon, a melee dd, a dot-heavy slowburner, an all-AOE dd, a buffer/debuffer, and a healer (and lots of combinations between all of them), as well as switch between them on the fly, makes Rift one of the best when it comes to building a character.

 

Edit: Oh yeah, I can also spec into a CC build as well.

Rthuth434

Originally posted by Wakygreek
Now here is the thing about the soul system, its not as great as a lot of people like to think it is. It gives you the illusion that there are more options then there really are. Most of the options it gives you just don't work, there are certain builds floating around the web on what people prefer you to use for your role in a group. The new expansion has added a few new souls but the system itself still suffers from limitations that were not fully thought through.

this.

 

as for what it does well? the same things WoW and EQ2 do well, as they've simply copied those things. now look at what RIFT(and TRION) do poorly(everything that they didn't xerox from blizz/SOE). class balance, RvR(lol so bad). now Defiance is riddled with as many probelms as a Funcom game.

Siveria

Rift is bascally a wow clone/generic mmorpg, that does just enough diffrent to not feel like a complete copy and paste unlike most mmo's released after wow. The soul system is neat even though its not setup the best it could be, like someone already said in this thread, there are certan souls just that work too well together, and ones that are just too narrow and underused. A popular combo was Harbinger and cholormancer, the melee dd, and healer mage souls, can retain fairly high dps, and also be able to heal yourself well, its a great combo for soloing. Instances actually are a bit diffcult as well in the storm legion expansion. Best feature though imo in rift, is how you can switch your role on the fly when not in combat, Boss fight is not melee friendly? switch to a ranged DD for your class, cleric needs a diffrent type of healing? switch souls, since there are 3 diffrent healer souls, and each heals diffrently than the other one.

Bascally Rift's best feature imo is the adaptablilty of the classes, best class in the game IMO is the Cleric, since they can do any role and do it very well. Lets just say with how many roles the cleric can fill, 6-8 spec slots is not enough.

Anyway, yeah, if your looking for a simmlar experence to world of warcraft but also want it to be a bit diffrent, Rift is probally your best bet atm. I didn't bother with raiding though, I find it pointless to raid in these mmorpgs lately, because they don't put in any non-instance raid uses for the gear at all. Was the same for me in wow back in vanallia, didn't see a point to raid due to lack of stuff to use the gear for after you get it. Its like.. why do all that work for gear that really has no more uses cept more of the same raids. I really do not understand why raiders bother with it so much like they do. When its so dead-ended. But thats just my opinion on it. Only game I know of where raiding is actually worth it so far is everquest 2, since they didn't get stupid and seperate pve from pvp. So you can take your raid gear and pvp in it, or work on alternate advancement in it, mentoring down to do dungeons and content that you missed.

Calintz333

Doesn't really sound like it would be the kind of game I would be willing to pay a monthly fee for. 

Thanks for the info guys. 

ShakyMo

Copy wow.

thecapitaine

Well, good luck with whatever game you end up playing.  May want to give LOTRO a shot, if Rift was in the vein of a game you wanted to play.  Or even EQ2 on one of their busy servers.

Eir_S

I tried it, enjoyed the time I played, but couldn't get into it after playing WoW (which it heavily "borrows" from).  The combat was just too slow-paced for me and the story wasn't interesting.  Once in a while a rift or invasion would pop, making things exciting for a brief moment, but then it was back to "point A point B" questing.  I might try it again if I can get someone to play with me, but solo'ing the game was an exercise in frustration.

What it does well (IMO) is character and gear models.

Metanol

In my opinion, Rift's class system stood out quite nicely and the game certainly had polish. Shame that it was lame high fantasy with over-epic tones and no innovation in gameplay mechanics. Then again, the no innovation isn't that bad, I certainly had a blast playing my Bard/ranger mix.

But do I think that Rift is worth playing for? Sadly, no.

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Metanol

Originally posted by ZedTheRock
Compared to WoW not much.  The 2H attack animations are very bad in Rift, Dual Wield isn't much better.  The combat is fairly bad as well.  Everything else about the game is an almost identical port of WoW.  If you want to play Rift I would say play something better like WoW. 

I would disagree with this post. Rift certainly is better for me than WoW, in every possible way, from aesthetics and animations to gameplay related design decisions.

Astraeis

What made Rift stand out for me rom the rest was having the most depressing story line of all mmorpg's I have ever played. Other things it did well were, let me think, there must be something...It had a lot of potential and it was very polished.

Calmmo

It's better than wow in every single way but for storyline. Tough luck if you're a RPer. and also worse in terms of handholding, and it is not very carebear friendly (if thats what you are after and therefore still playing wow)

Oh yeah and they have 1/100th of the budget Activision have. (oh sorry i meant Blizzard for those who think it's still the same company)

 

itchmon

what's it do well?

 

in one skull's opinion obv

 

1) theorycrafting / class customization (classes have 9 talent trees of which you use 3 to make your own customized class)

2) housing (dimensions)

3) public quests

4) community, at least on the RP server/s

5) five-person dungeons

Nitth

Rift really lacked character customization options which didn't allow me to 'connect' with my character.

I think if they fixed that and added some more alternative (Horizontal?) progression than i probably would be subbed atm.

Purutzil

The talent system. So much ability to customize and device different builds that makes it quite fun figuring one out.

 

The raiding is really good, Hammerknell (original Rift raid) is in my opinion one of the best raids I've seen in an MMO.  I highly suggest checking it out sometime if you can. Not since WOW TBC have I had a raid impress me like Hammerknell managed to do so. 

 

Combat can be quite fun and challenging, though there are some flaws in it with some speccs being a joke with others being very difficult with the 'reward' being a bit lack luster (same dps if not less often) though its not really something unique to Rift. 

strangiato2112

Originally posted by Calmmo

It's better than wow in every single way but for storyline. Tough luck if you're a RPer. and also worse in terms of handholding, and it is not very carebear friendly (if thats what you are after and therefore still playing wow)

Oh yeah and they have 1/100th of the budget Activision have. (oh sorry i meant Blizzard for those who think it's still the same company)

 

I strongly disagree with your first statement.  very strongly.

 

WoW's combat is simply better.  Rift for most classes/builds is such a spammy game, especially warriors and rogues where its click click lcik click click in rhythm every gcd.  Sometimes youll double click to fire off a reaction type ability.  Not saying WoW is the pinnacle of combat, but they do this style better than anyone else currently.

And if you like battleground style PvP, Rift can't hold a candle to WoW, and this is (imo) because of the soul system.  The classes in WoW are just much better defined and makes PvP a deeper experience because of it.  not saying the soul system is bad by any stretch, its just that it has its drawbacks especially in PvP.  Neither game has top notch PvP anyway.

Rift's Hammerknell is indeed the same quality of a place like Ulduar.  However its now about 20 months old and nothing has come close to it in quality since.  outside of Hammerknell Rift's raiding is merely decent.

And WoW now easily has a faster content pace (the tables have certainly turned fast in this regard).

 

Rift does have a great housing system (WoW has none) and does a better job with group content difficulty (although rift certainly isnt a difficult game by any stretch, its a tad tougher than WoW).  And of course the soul system, (WoWs big weakness is the removal of interesting character building (that went out the door inbetween BC and WOTLK, even before they removed the talent trees)

 

And as far as the budgets, WoW cost around 60 million, Rift cost "over 50 million".  So the development budgets were similar.  of course 2011 dollars is different than 2004 dollars in the game programming world, but its not like Rift wasnt a big budget game with a large team.  That team got a lot smaller last december though, while WoW is finally hiring more programmers.  WoW clearly has the bigger revenue stream which is what you were getting at but that is irrelevant to the quality of the two games.  if one game is great with a huge staff vs mediocre with a modest staff, im not going to be more likely to play the mediocre one just because it may have more quality per dev.

Token1337Guy

Personally, the only things I can agree with are WoW has better PvP, animations, and music.  I'd be willing to say Rift absolutely does eveything else better.  Storm Legion feels like the expansion Blizzard has kept screwing up every time they've released a new one.  If you're the type of person that liked WoW in the Burning Crusade era, take a really close look at this game.  Don't let people whining about "WoW clones" scare you away - Rift is a better WoW than WoW is today.

 

Also, the storyline in Rift isn't bad, it's just not shoved in your face.  Going out of your way to collect books, read quests, and talk to NPCs fills in the details nicely.  These days, Warcraft's lore is laughable in comparison.

perran7691

As a former WOW player (five years)  two years sober and current Rift player. i REALLY like Rift. Yes it's alot like WOW and very different also. Less cartoony and community for the most part is very cool.Lore isn't bad and the game on max is freaking beautiful (Tempest Bay cherry blossoms pop). The instances are varied and fun unlike cough cough  GW2. The grind isn't real bad you can quest, do conquests and instant adventures next thing you know you are starting Storm legion areas. My advice give it a try. It's free to level  twenty. If someone gives you a raptr code for Rift and SL expansion do not put it in til you hit level twenty that way you'll have another thirty days to really get into the game. One thing about Dimensions, they are really time/platnium sinks. Last weekend I was farting around in mine and the next thing i knew it was five  hours later.

Malvious

I quit playing it due to the fact that if you want to raid aka PVE they pretty much enforce you to do PVP these days (conquest buffs). I hate pvping in a game where pvp truly sucks.

asmkm22

It does everything "well."  Unfortunately, it doesn't stand out in any way either.  Generic combat.  Generic setting.  Generic MMO features.

It really just lacks originality and soul.

itchmon

Originally posted by asmkm22

It does everything "well."  Unfortunately, it doesn't stand out in any way either.  Generic combat.  Generic setting.  Generic MMO features.

It really just lacks originality and soul.

soul is hard to quantify.  i agree that its important in a game ... its that intangible that breaths life into the world- though i do feel rift has it.   the art style is subdued compared to wow but the game world to me has that soul factor.

 

as opposed to WAR and SWTOR for example which i felt dramaticallly lacked soul.

Wizardry

I am not hating on the game but imo it did nothing well,that is why i could not stick with it.

I am not saying it did anything bad,well except Invasions,they were done terribly cheap.The game just basically does everything same old on an average basis.

Every game i have enjoyed it did do something unique and little bit different and that is why i stuck with those games.I beleive the op and a lot others are looking for that same uniqueness in games.

I won't bother to go into al lthe details,post will be too long but i can post some of the long list of games that did soemthing special to attract me.

Doom,Quake,Unreal,Unreal Tournament,Half Life,Serious Sam,Everquest,Everquest 2,Ultima,FFXi,Vanguard,Age of Conan.

There are several other games ,some very old,some very new but the yal ldid something a little different or speical to separate them from the other games.

I know some people might be thinking,well wait Rifts were different,unique?Nope they are exactly the same idea that went into FFXI's Campaign design,the only difference of course is the visual.