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Rift's Soul System=When everyone is Special! No one is.
The soul system at its core is actually pretty awesome. 8 different Souls in 4 different archtypes with varying skills contained in each soul that can be mixed and matched allows a player to really build something unqiue that few others will have exactly.
BUT Trion ruined it in the end. They gave everyone the ability to own all 8 souls per archtype at the same time. While that sounds cool it means that a player doesnt actually have to commit to anything or make any real choices. Character development is a lie. To make it worse Trion also gave players the ability to save 4 builds at once that can be switched at the flick of a button. Want that FOTW build or need to drop a soul because it got nerfed? Dont worry just respec and save todays most OP build! This game screams "have your cake and eat it too."
This is basically class anarchy. Without rules and structure anything will become a mess. The negatives will always outweigh any positives. In all walks of life. IT NEVER WORKS OUT.
Its like playing a game of monopoly but throwing out the rules, letting everyone be the car, giving everyone a piece of every property, and when you pass go you get a Ecto-cooler juicebox with oreos and everyone is a winner!
The ability to create a unique class is mostly an illusion in Rift. In the end there are really only 4 classes in this game. Its going to be very apparent to everyone else soon enough once the honeymoon period ends and they realize the reality is that almost everyone is the same 4 things.
Like the old saying goes,"When everyone is special. No one is."
Comments
Yes yes yes so terrible just like how GW's unlimited access to skills ruined that game and made one op build that just cant be beat. A real shame. :P
That's what has been bother me about the game as well.
I'm someone that really likes the game but yeah I think the op has a point . Ultimatly you will only want to roll 4 alts because you can do everthing pretty much within rogue/warrior/cleric/mage in them . It the reason I did'nt like dual classes in WoW and its been taken one step further here . Its not a deal breaker as such it just could limit the longevity of the game
Agree with OP 100%.
All this means is that folks will go for the flavor of the month build. So everybody is basicly going to have almost the same cookie cutter build. I could see that one was going to happen.
All in all a huge mistake.
yeah its one of the problems in rift
OP has a point, but it doesn't really bother me too much. Although, I doubt people will want to carry around 4 different armor sets with them for each spec.
I'll admit, I agree with the op.
I like the idea of players making their decisions and molding their characters based on those decisions.
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Only rolling 4 alts (per faction) is a huge plus for me, actually. Means that once I get those 4 alts capped out, I can focus on getting them gear for their different builds, and on tweaking the builds they have, rather than having to re-roll. Also, since it's 4 alts per faction, you can actually have 8 fairly different characters.
But to the point that the OP makes here: Will there be flavor of the month/week? Sure there will, any game with numbers involved will have that. Will it be possible to make very gimpy builds that are nearly useless? Sure, that's the drawback of a system like this.
However, using the "noone is special" argument doesn't really hold water, and here's why:
You can't inspect other people's builds, only judge them by what skills they use.
There is enough variety, and enough different combinations, that it will be entirely possible to keep finding new, interesting combinations to use, especially if you get to enhance that with gear in the end-game.
Since you can't inspect other people, and since there will -always- be room for improvement, there will be probably a lot of well-guarded "secret" builds that their creators aren't sharing.
Look at DDO. They're in the same shoes. A ton of classes, multiclassing allowed, and a metric crap-ton of choices within each class. Sure, you can't switch them easily as you can in Rift, but there are more different builds out there than you can count. And while there are certainly a lot of FOTM builds, new ones always seem to pop up every now and then.
I doubt it will be as doomy as you predict, simply because there will always be weirdoes out there (like myself) who will want to play, say, a warrior-paragon tank, and do everything they can to make it work. And before you ask, yes, I have made that work to a certain degree - something which I'm sure can be tweaked a lot in live.
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Totally agree with the OP.
They should add a cash-shop for reset as well, then it would be harder for people to reset their soultree and not switch to much.
Besides, the soultrees are way to deep and advanced for the ordinary MMO player, and should be simplified. I bet many will feel like the system has way to many choices and will spend to much time looking at the tree instead of actually playing the game......
NOT!!!
This can go either way. And in the end this does not show how Trion failed, but how we fail as humans.
According to the OP, the only way to create a uniquness is to force people to be stuck with what they choose. All this means is people will reroll alot, or when there build is no longer the FOTM then they will rage quite or stop playing. Or at least this is what the OP is hinting at even if subconciously.
In truth, these FOTM problems are generally small issues, unless a class/spec/build is really broken. Its we as people that need to have the best, even if its just a 1% better gain then the rest. We eschew being different, because it could mean being not as good. Trion didnt limit choices by giving us so many, we did that by instead of playing what fun to us, we force ourselves into whats best, playing the game from a disconnected, "numbers only matter" approach where personal flavor has no place.
I was not huge into rift, played every beta from the first one for hours, and by the last closed beta didnt feel like the game had anything for me. But the Soul System is a blessing that will be used as a tool of the games demise by people who hate the idea that someone can play how they like.
If the Soul System fails, its because WE FAILED IT. We forgot games are meant to be fun, we forgot that min/maxing should not be the sole reason to make a decision. If you are only happy when you min/max then Rift gives you the option to play how you want. But it also gives you the option to be "special" and play a build that intrigues you...you just have to ingore all the haters that spam you with crap lies "you have a crappy build, you must be a noob" and play whats fun to YOU.
On a related note, as long as Trion does not follow WoW with there absurd love of numbers (DPS, HPS etc) and keeps that crap out of the game, then this game can go the route of LOTRO. You build is less important in lotro then your ability to play your build. Sure a healer with dps traits is asking for trouble, but a healer who can keep the group alive is a good healer, regardless of build. And since there is none of the damage meters or heal meters, there is no push to max out. You play what works and what you enjoy.
Warcraft is all about maxing out. Sure you can kill that raid boss, but one of the raid members did not do it with the max possible dps. Therefore he must be a noob, because real raiders dont have fun playing, they only live to be at the top of the meter. If your having fun AND killing a boss, you must be doing somthing wrong.
It's one of the core design decisions that Trion has made with the game. They feel that it's a problem, and that enough players hate, being pigeon-holed into a narrow role because of their class selection.
So they've expanded the flexibility of the classes, and one person can perform multiple tasks with the same character instead of having to roll up alternates. The real question is whether Trion is wrong, and players *liked* being pigeons!
Until the game is well past the release date, nobody really knows the answer, so I can't dismiss the OP out of hand.
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Just not true.
With 9 souls in each tree and 3 trees in each build there are 143 combinations of builds. This doesn't count builds with the same three souls but with points alternated between them; example 35-25-6 then using the same three souls 6-25-35 or any other combination. You are only allowed to have 4 builds per toon, so it is impossible to have every build possible.
It is just hard for me to imagine with so many combinations that there would be a "cookie-cutter" build that everyone would want to play.
I ahve been in the game since beta 2 and have found that I enjoy several different builds and feel "special" with each one. It feels like mine with my choice and that I am different from others. Unlike WOW where you ppick the FOTM build with the talents already chosen for you other than the last 5 or 6 although those maybe have a "failed at talent selection" if you pick something that reduces your min/max build by 1%.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
I think that this is the main reason that I feel no sense of attachment to any of the characters I've created in Rift. In Rift, you simply make "toons".
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
I like the idea. I've never been one to roll alt's, i personally hate it because in MMOs you just redo everything all over again with a new character. (Mainly the reason why i do plan on rolling a few alts for TOR is because its different depending on class). So the faction Trion made it possible to have a decent choice is only a plus.
I'll have to roll an alt if i want a different calling but you really shouldn't be forced to roll a billion toons in order to get the full experience of your chosen calling.
True but in reality the majority of people will see it differently . I would just like to point out here this is the best game I,ve seen in a long long time and by no means did I mean to troll it . Its just a minor concern . BUY IT even if it only lasts you six months its still well worth it .
Surely this post is in jest. It must be. There is no way the OP seriously made such sweeping statements of doom and anarchy with regards to other players not being pigeonholed by their choices. Darn Trion and their desire to offer flexibility.
Well, while i agree with you, I don't see what else they could do. You have to have all the souls, because the devs are never going to be able to balance them all. Flavor of the months builds will come, people will go to them, and that will be the balance.
It's still a cool system, you can play your own little fun specs on the side, but then will have to switch to the good ones wen getting down to business.Among my complaints, this one is not a big deal tbh, it's kind of to be expected from themepark games thesedays.
No one's special in the first place... all that's gonna happen is people are gonna spec the "best" template for their archtype.
Even though there are options, there might as well not be for most people unless they want to be called noobs, etc,for not speccing the fotm.
I agree. They took a great idea and gutted it. I don't know about your "when everyone is special" line, but it does boil down to this. An MMO with only four classes. I'll still be playing, but, yeah.. I don't know why they did that.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I do not know, what game has a skill that is not overpowering? Really, that one special set-up that everyone works to get so the can be...what do they call it theser days? OP? Yea, is see it coming, the guild that only lets you in if you have yada yada soul set-up and this or that weap and skill like XXX. Then the next guild does the same and then, yep, the OP is right, everyone has the same set-up to be...op.
I don't think it's about being FOTM or "special" so much as some of us liking to feel a bit unique. (Maybe that's what the OP means by "special?") I don't want to be the best, uber, FOTM, OP, whatever, but I want my decisions to be the decisions I get to play with. Make the system too flexible, the ability to change on a whim, and try out everything on one character, and that uniqueness goes out the window. We'll all be playing the same jack-of-all-trades character.
It may not feel like it now, with so many just starting out, but give it a month or two, when being near the level cap means we all get that flexibility, and the choices we made along the way lose their significance. I think some people don't get it, becuase not everyone cares about character development the same way. Not everyone cares about being unique, special, or striving to set themselves apart in some way. For some of us, it's a huge part of what makes MMOs fun, though.
What's the point of having a personality, if its the same one everyone else's got?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Also, you have to spec and spend points on each individual Soul. Which holds alot of different possiblities. Unless people are so lame as to carbon copy FOTM builds, then that's another story.
4 alts doesn't cover both sides. You can play both sides on one server.
The story of the game doesn't say anything about just 1 special person that has to save the world.
You are part of an Army of souls that has been called upon in an epic struggle to re-write history and save your world from destruction.
From the limited time I have spent with the game it didn't seem like there was a way for me to wipe the skills chosen and choose others. I could only spend my points differently with a reset within the chosen souls or pick different roles. I didn't see a choice to wipe a roll completely. This means that there will still be reason to roll more characters than 4 if you want to have more soul modifications. 4 soul rolls will not allow you to explore every combo within the 9 souls available. Everyone seems to always leave the 9th soul...PvP out since they haven't had experiance with it yet. The game is going to be released soon and this is the beginning we have to work with for character customization. We don't know if they might have other souls at endgame that might be unlockable similar to the PvP soul via a quest or reputation.
I don't think it's about being FOTM or "special" so much as some of us liking to feel a bit unique. (Maybe that's what the OP means by "special?")
I don't want to be the best, uber, FOTM, OP, whatever, but I want my decisions to be the decisions I get to play with. Make the system too flexible, the ability to change on a whim, and try out everything on one character, and that uniqueness goes out the window. We'll all be playing the same jack-of-all-trades character. It may not feel like it now, with so many just starting out, but give it a month or two, when being near the level cap means we all get that flexibility, and the choices we made along the way lose their significance.
I think some people don't get it, becuase not everyone cares about character development the same way. Not everyone cares about being unique, special, or striving to set themselves apart in some way. For some of us, it's a huge part of what makes MMOs fun, though.
What's the point of having a personality, if its the same one everyone else's got?
Best way to prove your worth in this game is by skill and personality. I like that we are not led like a herd of sheep and be forced to play a role unless we log off and switch toons. Prove your worth by out shining others if you want to feel special. I don't feel special because I am a ranger or an assassin.Also if you actually read the lore of the game, it makes sense about having many souls. We are not normal mortals.