Over on the PTS forums, Tacitus has been excellent about helping us keep tabs on the low-level Instant Adventures currently in development. While providing feedback regarding a few questions, this tidbit of information was uncovered:

Originally posted by Tacitus (Source)

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Regarding being a level 10 going up against level 14 mobs, we DO have a plan in place to add a vote system to skip the current adventure. The idea being that it would let a group that found itself in an adventure that they could not beat, they would have the power to move on past it. The trade off will be that it starts a new adventure arc – progress towards a rare encounter is reset. Unfortunately, that feature MIGHT not make it into 1.9. It is a feature I strongly favor, but getting other features finished for IA might crowd it out until a little bit later.

The idea of a vote system that offers players a choice to skip current steps of an Instant Adventure and move on to something easier sounds like it would be a very solid addition to all types of IAs, especially those in lower level areas. This would allow players to complete IA chains without needing to depend on a full group in order to do so, and would also account for various level/gear differences while new players are leveling.

Instant Adventures are one of easiest ways to access RIFT’s group content and dynamic content. They’re also great ways to farm currency, PA experience, and faction notoriety. Making them even more user-friendly and accessible by all levels and types of players? Great move, Trion. Keep up the good work.

Originally posted by Tacitus (Source)

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The ratio for loot should be roughly the same, they even share some of the same loot tables. That may have just been a bad run of luck, but I will keep an eye on it.

Regarding being a level 10 going up against level 14 mobs, we DO have a plan in place to add a vote system to skip the current adventure. The idea being that it would let a group that found itself in an adventure that they could not beat, they would have the power to move on past it. The trade off will be that it starts a new adventure arc – progress towards a rare encounter is reset. Unfortunately, that feature MIGHT not make it into 1.9. It is a feature I strongly favor, but getting other features finished for IA might crowd it out until a little bit later.

Finally, the teleports should be working. The bigger issue is that the teleports are prompted based on a distance check. The distance check is universal for all zones and the distances in a place like FM are actually very short – so the teleports rarely pop up. That said – the amount of running on foot is NOT fun currently. For all of our internal playtests, I play as a fresh level 10 or 11 just to keep that experience foremost in my mind and the traveling was an immediate concern. We plan on making the distance test set on a per zone basis so we can tune it better, AND we have some additional ideas to aid low-level IA travel time issues as well, but those are still being finalized and I am not yet ready to discuss them in detail. But I hear you and completely agree with the concern!

OH! And the wardstone defense adventures – we are not forgetting them! They are already being implemented for GW and SF IA. We avoided putting them into SW/FM IA because most characters (that aren’t mentored down) will not have the AoE abilities to deal with such an onslaught. I agree they are fun, but there is a need to balance that with what tools natural low-level characters have at their disposal. There is still the possibility that we may include them in the second band of FM/SW content (level 15-19).

Thank you for the feedback!

Originally posted by Tacitus (Source)

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Ran a few IA’s in Silverwood yesterday, only the level 10-14 range one is enabled.

All of them ran smooth, every stage popped, each one was different with different objectives and a “new” boss at the end, eg Hylas, Atrophinius, a big wasp boss, Goblin Chiefs and so on

[...] seeing as the level 15-19 range isn’t active yet

Just for some clarity, the adventures should be in a fairly final state so any bugs found in them I am most keen to hear. Also interested in how the balance feels for objective numbers vs availibility of targets, both for kill adventures and the non-kill types.

Also, the lvl 15-19 band of SW/FM will not be in 1.9. At patch launch will be the current lvl 10-14 band seen on the PTS and lvl 20-26 GW/SF due on PTS soon. As noted, you do NOT need to be level 50 to use mentoring, so as of 1.9 it will be possible to level from 10-50 purely through IA.

I will be working on lvl 15-19 SW/FM before 1.9 goes Live, however, and ideally we will not wait for 1.10 to release it. Eventually, you will see all of the current leveling range of content represented through IA as well.

As an aside, I have also tried where possible to integrate much of the current normal quest content with IA counterparts. For example, if you are on the quest “Beautiful Wreck” in FM, the Glamour Stones you collect count both towards the normal version of the quest and towards the IA version if you happen to be on both at the same time. There will be a few places where this is not the case due to technical limitations, such as the SW quest “Mischief Un-Makers”, but those should be rare exceptions.

We have a lot of ideas of things to do with IA, so the variety of content is only going to keep growing!

RIFT’s Public Test Shard is useful for all kinds of things: testing out new features like Conquest, playing with new builds, and keeping tabs on world events. Oh, and datamining! Since the PTS client is closer to the client Trion’s development team works on, every now and then PTS players are able to glimpse into the world of Telara as imagined in the future, and find out about the cool things headed our way that haven’t been announced publicly. Most of the information datamined is pure speculation at this point, but that’s half the fun!

This past week, a couple PTS players noticed some very interesting additions to the achievements tab. One of which is pictured above, and was located under the “Zones” section. Yep, that’s right. Six new zones. Six. Dusken Spires, Eternal City, Pelladane, Seratos, Morban, and Steppes of Infinity. Interestingly enough, there are six planes. Could these possibly be the new zones in the next huge content addition?

Trion, in the past, has talked about the addition of expansion-type content that will eventually allow players to move through the planes, and take part in battles in a world we are unfamiliar with. It’s possible that these zones are connected to that content, since the numbers match. It’s also possible that these zones are connected to content located in Planetouched Wilds, which is an area discovered on the PTS last year, or a new continent entirely.

Planetouched Wilds is rumored to be the area to the north of Droughtlands and to the east of Freemarch. The area is circled in the image above. The area is definitely visible on current maps, just displayed greyed out, as seen in maps like this. Last August, the area was briefly available on the PTS for players to explore its half-developed state.

Here is one of the videos captured during that time:

While it seems possible that the new six zones have to do with Wildtouched Planes (and maybe even probable, given the fact that players have been to the zone, and know it’s in development), it seems a little unlikely that six zones worth of achievements will be found within that peninsula. This has led a few players to believe the zones may be part of a larger continent.

The new continent theory has been around a while now, too, first seen last November, when images of Infernal Dawn and a new city in development were datamined from the PTS. The name “Shi-Ming” was also discovered, which may be the continent’s name. It seems likely that we will see another continent at some point in RIFT’s future, especially given the implementation of Ember Isle. The team at Trion has also mentioned the fact that RIFT’s world expands far beyond one continent. Here is an image of the datamined continent (click to bring up a larger version):

If a new continent is indeed the home for these six zones, it may be a while before we see their implementation. That’s also true with the theory about traveling across the planes to new elemental zones. Still, all three theories are rather exciting to think about. New zone achievements weren’t the only discoveries made last week, either. Players also discovered a new achievement category under “Planes”, called Hunt Rifts. It seems we have another type of rifts headed our way! Will they be a new tier of raid/group rifts, or are they a new type altogether?

The name makes me think of the rare creature quests from Scarwood Reach, and my first thought was a new type of rift that starts a scavenger hunt of sorts, requiring players to kill a particular creature from the rift, that might dash off into the environment. This would add a little more dynamism into RIFT’s dymanic content. It’s also possible that hunt rifts are actually connected to the new zones, and act as a portal of sorts that enable players to hunt across the planes.

A couple new dungeon names were also discovered: Empyrean Core and Golem Foundry. Since both dungeons and chronicles are located in the same achievement tab, these places may end up being either chronicles or dungeons at this point. It would be very awesome to see another dungeon similar to Caduceus Rise, both in difficulty and environment, although more chronicles would be welcome additions as well.

A new meta category for world events also popped up: Summerfest. This one’s fairly self-explanatory. After the implementation of Fae Yule, a new summer-themed holiday event doesn’t surprise me in the least, and my only hope is that it’s as creative as the Carnival of the Ascended if not more so. The good thing? There’s really a ton of creative room when it comes to implementing a summer-based event. Fishing and camping (using survival) events come to mind in particular.

These achievements were quickly taken off the PTS, so once again we are left to speculate among ourselves. Interesting stuff, though, and interesting times ahead! Special thanks to the players in this thread and others who have taken the time to share these PTS goodies with us.

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

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Thanks for all the feedback folks and for coming out to see the first iteration on PTS!

The team is going through the feedback now and working out the next set of changes to Conquest. What you see on PTS today is not what will go live – this is a sneak peak, a work in progress, a place where we can show the early ideas and first iteration

I wanted to take this opportunity to answer a few things that were commonly asked or commented on during the match up yesterday.

• Faction Wide Communication – This is in it was the /1 or conquest channel. The channel was not obvious due to its default coloring being like every other chat channel.
• Faction Swapping – The NPC that allows you to reset your faction at will is not intended to go live. That was purely for PTS purposes. It also won’t be a lizard person in live!
• Faction Balancing – We have variables in place for this, but they were set far to high by default. We are tweaking this.
• Getting out of the Match – Yep we didn’t spawn the NPCs that let you out  You were trapped unless you soul recalled or it ended.
• 40% control to initiate lockdown – Yep to low. You will see changes to this before it goes live.
• Requests for PvP Hotspots on the map – Those are actually in, but based on your zoom level on the map they may disappear.

Why didn’t we tell you all the details about how it works up front? There was a lot of confusion over how things work because we didn’t explain everything in detail. That was actually part of the point of the first test. We wanted to see how understandable things are at a basic level to help us identify where we need to streamline and tweak things.

Once again, thanks for playing and feel free to send in more feedback. The team is looking forward to getting changes in and getting another playtest up and running!

Daglar
Lead Game Designer: Rift

Hit us after the break for a full list of videos.

UPDATE 05/09/12: Added Ember Conclave
UPDATE 05/18/12: Added Gorlach and Muglak

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For a game that’s been out for only a little over a year, RIFT has a solid assortment of quality-of-life features. These are the little things that often go unnoticed, but really make a difference when to comes to our enjoyment within the game: smooth, built-in UI features, and the ability to customize those UIs further. A polished AH, the guild perk system, being able to flip between souls on the fly, the dungeon finder, achievement system, and the wardrobe system. Oh, yeah, and AoE looting. Other games have since added it, but RIFT was among the first big MMOs that added the feature.

Among the latest added 1.8 features, we’ve seen even more great quality-of-life features. The guild finder, the fishing and survival additions, and the new fishing dailies. The NPCs for which that are in actual convenient spots. Convenience? Come on– how often does that appear in an MMO? And last but not least, we can’t forget about leaderboards. They’re convenient in the sense that they display information that’s normally quite difficult to obtain, and what’s more– leaderboards are fun, and profit all kinds of players.

The coolest aspect about leaderboards is probably the fact that you can find out so friggen’ much with them. You can see data from your server, guild, or all servers. You can see data within the various divisions and leagues, or just see the top 50 players within a category. There are 89 leaderboards total, which is, well, a lot. They’re separated into five different ladders: PvE General, PvE Group, PvE Raid, PvP, and Crafting. Like I said– something for everyone. Trion posted a handy little introductory guide on using leaderboards this week. Take a peek!

Leaderboards are, of course, great for players who raid. It’s now easy to keep track of what guilds have completed which raids, and also keep track of the number of achievements obtained in the lower-tier raids. This helps players get a feel for the raiding situation on various servers, and since different chunks of time can be used as a filter, players can also get a sense for which guilds and players are actually active. This is vital for players looking for a new possible guild.

The feature’s great for players who don’t raid, as well. Players who love to run dungeons can time themselves against other groups, or compete against other players for slaying rare monster, closing rifts, collecting artifacts, gathering PA experience, and many other score cards that were previously pretty hard to track. Crafters are also able to keep track of the rest of the crafting world around them, and add a little competitive step to their normal crafting weeknight.

PvPers can have a little fun with the feature, too, and use it to track wins, healing, damage, kills, favor, and various warfront objectives. Leaderboards aren’t a measure of PvP skill, but they are another way to add a little competitive fun to instanced PvP. Players who enjoy PvP but don’t always enjoy farming out ranks or favor may find keeping track of leaderboard statistics enjoyable, and may find themselves more eager to follow warfront objectives and help lead their team to more wins.

Competition, though, is an interesting notion. Many gamers thrive on competition, and because of it, will strive to greater heights, perform better, and approach raids, currency/experience grinds, and PvP matches with a heated passion rarely seen without that competition. Passion, as we all know, can be helpful or it can be destructive. Lately, on RIFT’s official forums, I’ve seen a couple of cases of players frustrated about the higher level of competition seen in some players since the addition of leaderboards.

MMO players, by and large, will always find something to complain about, but I find these particular cases interesting because of the simple fact that leaderboards don’t offer any type of reward. They don’t offer anything by the way of fancy mounts, pets, artifacts, or even achievement points. Why would some players take the leaderboard system so seriously as to anger other players? It all goes back to competition, and bragging rights, of course.

The best example of this phenomenon I can think of is the idea of a new level 50 player, barely able to queue for an expert dungeon. Let’s say they queue as a healer. The tank and all three DPS in the group are geared to the teeth and proceed to gather up entire rooms full of mobs in order to obtain the quickest time possible. The healer finds themselves frustrated, and for good reason. They may not be able to keep up mana-wise, but here’s the kicker, I think– if the tank is that geared, it’s their responsibility to either slow down, or toss on some more survivability gear in order to take less damage.

Competition may be fun, and even more fun thanks to the leaderboards, but with that competition comes responsibility. Players need to be aware of who they’re playing with, and against. They need to know their group’s limits, and hold those limits to a higher priority than their leaderboard rank. Also, players should use a little common sense when running leaderboard runs. Grab a similarly-geared tank and healer, and DPS if possible. Grab people you know, who are after that same goal, and issues like this won’t arise.

Some players have suggested an additional option to select when queuing up for expert dungeons that would announce a player’s interest in running a speed run. The problem with this? Unless the option has an additional gear requirement (which would require a lot more coding), players in all levels of gear would select the option in hopes of getting a super-short run. I’m also not sure the issue’s prominent enough to warrant a solution like this.

At the end of the day, it’s really left in the hands of the players. Looking for a speed leaderboard-ranked run? Gather a select team. Treat it like any difficult achievement. With a hand-picked team, players stand their best chances of obtaining that ranked time. That way, everyone wins.

Despite random competition issues, I think the leaderboard system is a solid, fun quality-of-life addition to RIFT. Many gamers like statistics, and for them, leaderboards are perfect. The system also has some great potential for future additions that will be easy for Trion to implement. It’d be nice to see some cooler PvE and raiding categories that track particular, difficult achievements. What else would you like to see added to the leaderboard system?

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One of the problems with diving back into the world of Telara on an alt or completely new character is the fact that, well, RIFT’s quests aren’t always that exciting. Sure, some of the quest chains are awesome. Some entire maps are awesome. I’m a huge fan of Gloamwood and Iron Pine Peaks, for example. Other maps, for me, prove a little more difficult to muddle through the second or third time around (Scarwood Reach and Scarlet Gorge, I’m looking at you). I don’t know what it is about the 30-40 leveling hurdle, but for some reason, my alts always get stuck there.

I don’t think I’m the only one with similar leveling hurdles, either, because many new players that are trying out RIFT for the first time find themselves a little underwhelmed at around the same levels. Trion was pretty quick to notice one of the glaring issues at these levels and have since changed the entire look of Scarwood Reach. The lush, green surroundings are a huge improvement, believe me, but there’s still… something off about the 30-40 level range.

Maybe it’s the fact that both Scarwood Reach and Scarlet Gorge share similar arid, war-torn environments. Moonshade Highlands always seems like a breath of moist air after questing in other areas, and it, of course, is. Until you know, Droughtlands comes into play. Ugh. As silly as it may sound, our questing environments matter, because they help immerse us and make us feel involved.

I think, in part, that’s why for those of us with characters at endgame, Ember Isle is so exciting to wander around in. Ember Isle has a bit of everything– gorgeous shoreline, lush forests, dangerous peaks, and tons of currency and PA to gather. Trion, take note of this. Just in case, you know, you guys are developing an awesome, new city for us to wander around in the future. Mmm, new city…

Where was I? Ah, yes, leveling hurdles. There are currently a couple ways of overcoming these hurdles. First, players can skip questing altogether, and level through dungeons, rifts, warfronts, or some combination of all of those. All ways are quite possible, and can be pretty fun. I personally am having way more fun than I thought I would by just running around to the nearest rifts and planar tears on my Rogue. I find myself ahead of the leveling curve, and with a solid chunk of planarite that will only help me when I reach level 50.

Leveling through dungeons and warfronts isn’t quite as simple. Possible, sure, but in the case of dungeons, players may have to learn to embrace all of the roles of their class if they plan to make the most of the queue. Not that this is a bad thing– I encourage any player new to RIFT or to a particular class to try out all of the possible roles. That’s where RIFT branches off from the “other” MMOs. We’re free to experiment and do a little bit of everything. It’s encouraged, it’s allowed, and it’s fun. Learn to tank, learn to heal, and learn to plunk away at motifs! Just uh, don’t fall asleep doing the last one.

Warfront queues move quicker, but twinks (players with maxed-level characters who intentionally create a set of “perfect” gear for their lower-level alt in order to perform well in PvP) often get an advantage when it comes to playing against newer players. Many players are frustrated regarding the issue, but unfortunately there isn’t a lot that can be done about it unless Trion decides it’s necessary to do so.

The remaining solution? Powering through the levels with the realization that yes, better things are to come. RIFT’s endgame is where the action’s at, and levels 40-50 are quite amazing as well. Some of my best RIFT memories took part during these levels, where the maps get large, expansive, and there are multiple goodies to start working toward as far as planarite, sourcestones, and crafting materials are concerned.

Speaking of better things, Instant Adventures while leveling, which are currently in development, should be amazing for alts and players new to RIFT. Paired with the mentoring system which is now on the public test shard, I think many of these sluggish leveling spots will easily become rectified. I talked about this subject a few weeks ago.

There’s also always the possibility of Trion going back and adjusting the leveling content again, to help new players look at questing through a different colored lens. World of Warcraft did a complete overhaul to their questing system, and many players found themselves eager to suddenly level a whole bunch of new characters. Sometimes a little creativity goes a long way when it comes to quest implementation.

For the meantime, we’re left with the options at hand– warfronts, dungeons, powering through quests and dynamic content, and the promise of some cool features headed our way. Fear not, altaholics and new players, Trion’s on our side, too.