What Aspects of RIFT Belong or Don't Belong in EQ2?

[gourdon]

Quite a few of us spent time playing the RIFT free trial while EQ2 was down.  More importantly, these were probably people that are happy with EQ2 and haven't participated in the Beta or bought the game.  I think it is important that we give feedback on what we think of that game, in particular the dynamic events that occur with the rifts and the contested nodes.  Undoubtedly, some of the developers have played RIFT and have their opinions about how to make Norrath more dynamic, but our input might help them.

I would like to start by saying that the rift events reminded me of the Void Storm event in EQ2.  This is not a surprise considering who the lead developer is on RIFT.

As for what I thought of their dynamic events, I liked them, but there were problems that are evident immediately and others that will cause problems down the road.

Good:

When the invaders show up, they are all over the place and kill all of the other mobs in the area.  This disrupts the ability to do quests, but is an important part of the event.  The battles in Storm Gorge could use a little more of an open ended flavor with a less focused battle occurring with less focus on winning the battle and more on defeating objectives to help the Cold Dain (or the Rime).  This would require going to tokens instead of equipment for rewards.

Bad:

The high frequency of the events cheapens the experience and will likely cause fatigue with players being forced into the conflict constantly.

The faction conflict nodes are plain dumb.  Attacking inanimate objects like this has been in SWG for years.  There has to be a better way.

[Econometr]

I have been looking at RIFT.  Much of the design looks a lot like EQ2: the number and types of classes, the complexity of the talent trees, crafting, etc.  However, I thought the racial system was underdeveloped.  Only six races, and to avoid balance issues, none of the races have active abilities that can be used in combat.  A more notable problem involves the talent trees.  For several classes, the optimal talent selection involves spreading points almost equally among two trees rather than maxing out one tree and allocating a smaller number of points to a second tree.  To me, it represents a design failure if players do not value the highest-level talents in a calling's tree.

[Lookout]

I see the rift events such as attacking towns as entertaining, but not sure if that could really be added to EQII as is.

RE: Talent trees, I feel the opposite: Each point ideally should be worth the same placed anywhere in any tree (retaining its value as a point).  The higher sections of trees should contain more specialized abilities and modifications to things.

[Katz]

I liked the talent trees and the way you could loot all corpses in the nearby area quickly, that is you didn't have to click on each one separately.  I like that the items you need to click on for quest updates are in the quest log so you don't have to search every where for it in your bags.  I only played to level 6 so thats all I remember.

My friend who subscribed and played a while said he quit because its a one trick pony.  After you have closed one rift its just totally repetitive.  

Edit: typos

[Elwin]

Quest helper -  If the quest requires a 'clicky' there is an icon next to the quest and instead of searching through bags looking for the item you just click the icon. Something simple but much more user friendly than searching through bags.

'Join Public Group' button. May or may not work well for PQ's. My take on PQ's is it really doesn't matter what classes are in them as long as you have a few heals but a lot don't see it that way. 

Tbh what I like most about Rift is there is good and evil and they are enemies. It's too late to bring that back in EQ, that feeling went a long time ago.

[Valkanith]

Here's one

EQ2? I can't walk 5 feet in a city without lagging on EXTREME PERFORMANCE.

Rift? It actually uses my video card!

Good enough reason for me.

[Mirrian]

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

[Elwin]

Mirrian wrote:

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

The tradeskills are awesome! There isn't more than in EQ just muting/adorns/harvesting are classed as tradeskills. The difficulty in crafting is finding the materials to craft with rather than the crafting itself which is cake. There is also daily tradeskill quests.

You also don't need to get a new role to change your class. You can just swap out 'classes' and respec.

'Auctioneer' in Rift is actually an auction. You can list a start price auction and a buyout price and list it for a set time. I think that would be a pretty cool idea in EQ too.

[p3t3rl1]

Having played rift for a bit (got a level 45 char), I still log into rift sometimes to play casually.

Here are some good and bad features of rift I like.

1. as someone already mentioned, the ability to loot multiple corpses nearby is pretty neat. 

2. Able to swap specs whenever not in combat rather than having to go to your house and use the AA mirror is pretty neat as well. Is less hassle really and allow groups to be more versatile. 

3. able to click on someone's name to report spam and ignore the person at the same time is cool too but EQ2 has a pretty good plat spammer filter that this is not necessary. 

4. some people may say this is way too easymode but having the ability to see if a mob is for quest or not is pretty nice. 

5. overall, Rift has a better looking environment that I don't think will be possible with EQ2's aging graphic engine. 

[LordPazuzu]

Baubo@Unrest wrote:

Mirrian wrote:

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

The tradeskills are awesome! There isn't more than in EQ just muting/adorns/harvesting are classed as tradeskills. The difficulty in crafting is finding the materials to craft with rather than the crafting itself which is cake. There is also daily tradeskill quests.

You also don't need to get a new role to change your class. You can just swap out 'classes' and respec.

'Auctioneer' in Rift is actually an auction. You can list a start price auction and a buyout price and list it for a set time. I think that would be a pretty cool idea in EQ too.

Rift's crafting, harvesting, and auctioneer were copy and pasted directly from WoW.  Almost exactly.

Honestly, I thought Rift was really good looking.  The character models are amazing.  I thought the gameplay was tedious and boring.

[Elwin]

I've never played WoW so I can't compare it to that.

You know what I did and do find somewhat amusing. The number of players I've grouped with in Rift who are from WoW that have never even heard of EQ. To put it mildly I was shocked. How can you not of heard of EQ... I think I can safely assume that every player on EQ has heard of WoW.

Advertising is your friend EQ. Maybe you should try it.

[LordPazuzu]

Baubo@Unrest wrote:

I've never played WoW so I can't compare it to that.

You know what I did and do find somewhat amusing. The number of players I've grouped with in Rift who are from WoW that have never even heard of EQ. To put it mildly I was shocked. How can you not of heard of EQ... I think I can safely assume that every player on EQ has heard of WoW.

Advertising is your friend EQ. Maybe you should try it.

Most of those WoW players are not what you'd consider MMO veterans.  They jumped on the MMO bandwagon when WoW got huge.  Alot of them have no clue that the genre even existed before WoW.

[agnott]

gourdon wrote:

.

Bad:

The high frequency of the events cheapens the experience and will likely cause fatigue with players being forced into the conflict constantly.

The faction conflict nodes are plain dumb.  Attacking inanimate objects like this has been in SWG for years.  There has to be a better way.

What objects in SWG are you talking about?   ...like the rebel bases you would have to destroy from a mission you would get?

[thesiren]

I can't believe everyone seems to be overlooking this in a "what ideas can be incorporated into EQ2 from Rift" thread, so here it is:

One of Rift's biggest selling features is not only it's amazing array of classes, but the ability for one main class (warrior, priest, mage or rogue) to have all 9 sub-classes of its main class on one character.

EQ2 is almost uniquely positioned in the MMO industry to incorporate this idea into itself as well!

There are 6 mages, 6 priests, 6 tanks and 6 rogues here-- and the ability already exists in-game to "remember" previous spells and their upgrades when betraying from one sub-class to another (i.e. from wizard to warlock).  Why couldn't this be expanded upon so that, say, an EQ2 mage could not only go from wizard to warlock and back again but from wizard, to conjuror, or necro, or illusionist, or coercer as well at will, just like in Rift?

That would SO ROCK.    Think about it-- your AA points and gear would still remain reuseable, you'd just be investing in extra spells.

And as far as getting new players into the game, it would be a fantastic idea to offer for a come-back campaign as well.  If newbies or long-since-quit players felt like characters they leveled weren't turning out the way they'd imagined, they could try five other builds without losing AAs/gear/quest progress.  Even jaded old-timers wouldn't have to hash through the same content they've already seen time and time again whilst grinding AAs to try a new class.

I'm not saying a Guardian should be able to become an Insta-Fury, lol.  Keep it to changing between the six sub-classes of a main given class.  They should ditch the last of the "good side/bad side Pally/SK etc." restrictions too.

[Kigneer]

Wouldn't want Rift content to be in EQ2, as much as EQ2 to be in RIFT.

The main attraction to RIFT is it opened up the game world again. Instead of doing all the player business locked in cities or guild halls (and thus isolating the players in enclaves), people are now out and about the game world persistently. Because it is random and players can "hop in" at anytime, there is also no ilevel/Gearscore; and you can be 10 levels lower and still participate in rifts 10 levels higher (die a lot but can still team up with friends). Due to this players can unite to just having fun. Trion even took out the scoreboard that showed who damaged/healed the most. So no performance anxieties, just come on in and play. That access is refreshing, especially if coming from WoW where min/max and conformity is stressed (more so than in EQ2).

Wouldn't mind a form of rift style gameplay in EQ2, but a game this old such changes would go against the grain of the community that's set in the dungeon-raid mindset. Now in EQNext, yeah, it would be sweet.

Love to raid but busy schedules means setting aside blocks of time to play is impossible. So ad hoc raids at anytime is a nice feature and fun, and sure beats being bored.

[gourdon]

agnott wrote:

gourdon wrote:

.

Bad:

The high frequency of the events cheapens the experience and will likely cause fatigue with players being forced into the conflict constantly.

The faction conflict nodes are plain dumb.  Attacking inanimate objects like this has been in SWG for years.  There has to be a better way.

What objects in SWG are you talking about?   ...like the rebel bases you would have to destroy from a mission you would get?

I think you're right, but I will explain better.  When you do player created quests from the various mission terminals, there are flags or mounds that you have to destroy.  The stations where you defend or attack the enemy in RIFT are a lot like that.

[gourdon]

Mirrian wrote:

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

Clearly you can't innundate the world with events.  They need to be placed in specific places where high level players are, are in an expected location, or are announced server-wide when they occur.

[gourdon]

I agree with previous posters regarding Public Raid and area loot.  Public Raids are absolutely necessary to make dynamic events work better.

[Elwin]

gourdon wrote:

Mirrian wrote:

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

Clearly you can't innundate the world with events.  They need to be placed in specific places where high level players are, are in an expected location, or are announced server-wide when they occur.

Part of the charm of Rift though is that any level can participate in them. They don't ignore the low level player base, I think they start from around lvl 8. The fact that they quite often spawn near quest hubs can be downright annoying but just adds to the 'omg must kill the enemy' buzz.

It's also not uncommon for level 50's to join raid with youngens to kill these things. Tbh it's just a whole different atmosphere and I think a lot of that has to do with there being no housing or guild halls. Like the poster said above somewhere players are visible. 

EQ needs to fix the stats on armor in all tiers. It annoyed me when it was brought in but now after seeing useful stats on Rift armor in all levels and being able to decide which pc of armor I'd like to chose I realise how much it still annoys me in EQ. Ok so a lot of people race to 90 but a lot still like to enjoy the ride and even more raise alts. Getting to level 86? before your stats are useful is pathetic. 

[Felshades]

Econometrix wrote:

I have been looking at RIFT.  Much of the design looks a lot like EQ2: the number and types of classes, the complexity of the talent trees, crafting, etc.  However, I thought the racial system was underdeveloped.  Only six races, and to avoid balance issues, none of the races have active abilities that can be used in combat.  A more notable problem involves the talent trees.  For several classes, the optimal talent selection involves spreading points almost equally among two trees rather than maxing out one tree and allocating a smaller number of points to a second tree.  To me, it represents a design failure if players do not value the highest-level talents in a calling's tree.

By not making racial actives, there's no "omg this race is better than my race whaaaa nerf" whines for PvP. Much like WoW has.

By making it so that it doesn't really matter what you put your talent point thingies in, there's no cookie cutter specs. The whole point of systems like that is to be options; but in every game that has them there is a cookie cutter build. Eliminate those and you have less balance issues.

[Felshades]

gourdon wrote:

Mirrian wrote:

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

Clearly you can't innundate the world with events.  They need to be placed in specific places where high level players are, are in an expected location, or are announced server-wide when they occur.

Personally I dislike world events like this.

I don't want to be forced to group up with people in the zone or whine in level chat repeatedly to see if anyone will come help clear it out so I can finish questing, and after a while, it will get boring. People will stop doing it. Much like every other world event thing in every other game.

[Elwin]

Sakiri@Crushbone wrote:

gourdon wrote:

Mirrian wrote:

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

Clearly you can't innundate the world with events.  They need to be placed in specific places where high level players are, are in an expected location, or are announced server-wide when they occur.

Personally I dislike world events like this.

I don't want to be forced to group up with people in the zone or whine in level chat repeatedly to see if anyone will come help clear it out so I can finish questing, and after a while, it will get boring. People will stop doing it. Much like every other world event thing in every other game.

A button comes up 'Join Public Group'. You either press it or you don't. Simple.

I think it would be a good idea for PQ's.

[Felshades]

Baubo, that doesn't help when no one wants to kill it.

And the time will come when they are nothing but a nuisance. It always does.

[gourdon]

Sakiri@Crushbone wrote:

Baubo, that doesn't help when no one wants to kill it.

And the time will come when they are nothing but a nuisance. It always does.

I agree that there is a risk that they become a nuisance.  I am rather certain that will happen with RIFT, sooner rather than later.  This problem can be limited in a number of ways.  First, events can be made relatively rare.  It could also be set up where there are small events more frequently and large events less frequently.  There also could be some permanent impact to the game to keep it interesting.  Contribution by guilds or servers can be tracked.  Results could spawn crafting quests to repair damage on both the Coldain and Rime side in Storm Gorge, with the results on the field of battle determining who needs the most repairs.  There could be some sort of oscillation between war and rebuilding that feed off of one another.  The hardest part of what I'm suggesting to code is the dynamic quest itself.  The most important part of a solution is to make sure there are many reasons and many ways to participate.

[gourdon]

Baubo@Unrest wrote:

gourdon wrote:

Mirrian wrote:

I hate to say it but the populations of eq2 along with the massive size of the 'world' would make anything remotely like Rift impossible..so a rift opens up...90% of the time nobody is even going to be near it and if you do happen to be there, you will most likely be the only one there..and soloing (or trying to) a rift isn't a fun thing. I agree with the other poster on the class system..too many classes and half of them either to general to be useful or too specific to a given task. I do like the ability to have several roles available...that is, to me, the saving grace of the class system they have, if you level up and find you don't like the play style, you can change it..up to a point at least, you only get 4 roles, but that should in most cases, be enough. The graphics are really nice, the tradeskills are a joke..kinda like the classes..way too many and very hard to figure out which one does what, just look on the broker and they have a couple sub level 10 items and all the rest level 50. There are some things I really like, but looking at the whole thing I think there's a lot more Rift could gain from eq2 than the other way around. A lot more.

Clearly you can't innundate the world with events.  They need to be placed in specific places where high level players are, are in an expected location, or are announced server-wide when they occur.

Part of the charm of Rift though is that any level can participate in them. They don't ignore the low level player base, I think they start from around lvl 8. The fact that they quite often spawn near quest hubs can be downright annoying but just adds to the 'omg must kill the enemy' buzz.

It's also not uncommon for level 50's to join raid with youngens to kill these things. Tbh it's just a whole different atmosphere and I think a lot of that has to do with there being no housing or guild halls. Like the poster said above somewhere players are visible. 

EQ needs to fix the stats on armor in all tiers. It annoyed me when it was brought in but now after seeing useful stats on Rift armor in all levels and being able to decide which pc of armor I'd like to chose I realise how much it still annoys me in EQ. Ok so a lot of people race to 90 but a lot still like to enjoy the ride and even more raise alts. Getting to level 86? before your stats are useful is pathetic. 

I think level 8 was about where they start and yes, the higher level players come to take on the lower level events.  I think it would be a good idea to consider placing events in the Commonlands and Antonica.  However, there would need to be a system to announce the event server-wide and the higher level mobs, which should be present along with lower level, should ignore low level players unless significantly hurt by them.  The point would not be that it would only be for high level, but that it be visible to high level players when it occurs.

[MurFalad]

The question could as well have been "What aspects of WoW" since apart from the rifts every other feature of that game has been slavishly copied from WoW with the intention of attracting WoW players, even their latest campaign aludes to WoW again.

gourdon wrote:

Undoubtedly, some of the developers have played RIFT and have their opinions about how to make Norrath more dynamic, but our input might help them.

Well I think Smedley did check it out since in a January 18th Interview he said

"One thing that we've learned over our company's history is that it takes time to make great games. And we're not trying to make cookie-cutter MMOs. There's some stuff coming out in the next two or three months, MMO-wise, and a lot of it is generic copycats of other games. That's not what we want to do."

gourdon wrote:

Good:

When the invaders show up, they are all over the place and kill all of the other mobs in the area.  This disrupts the ability to do quests, but is an important part of the event.  The battles in Storm Gorge could use a little more of an open ended flavor with a less focused battle occurring with less focus on winning the battle and more on defeating objectives to help the Cold Dain (or the Rime).  This would require going to tokens instead of equipment for rewards.

Since there is only one new feature in that MMO (the multi class system I believe is bad for future playability and the RPG core of a MMO) and that's rifts I'll throw in my comments.

1) They're not really dynamic, because like every other MMO out there the players do not direct the action, instead they respond to it.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing, that sort of gameplay is clearly fun as EQ2, WoW etc shows, but if someone wanted to do something new and interesting then having the players direct how events and the world changes would be exciting.

2) Which leads me onto my second point, the world doesn't change.  In essence they are no more then slightly more complex ring events, something happens (this time not activated by a player), the player responds, the event ends, nothing changes.

Why not have towns switch allegance depending on how the battle goes?  This could open up and close down questing/dungeon options, a more dynamic world.

Why not have towns and buildings destroyed meaning that the world changes, and then have the ability for crafters to come in and rebuild, maybe in their own image in a little way (e.g. touches of Fae architecture)?

In essence I'd like to see something where the players direct the storyline with every action effecting the world (even if in only a tiny way), in a way this happens in Planetside, there are no need for quests to be given out, but simply capturing/upgrading/combat engineering and resupplying buildings does alter the map at least a little, although this is of course for PVP only.

The storytelling that can be done by then adding in NPCs to fight against and alongside I think would be good fun.

As for the graphics engine, I think Eve is the inspiration of how things could be done with EQ2, there they have revamped it a few times and even phased out support for shader 1 and shader 2 since they are too old now.

[Kigneer]

MurFalad wrote:

The question could as well have been "What aspects of WoW" since apart from the rifts every other feature of that game has been slavishly copied from WoW with the intention of attracting WoW players, even their latest campaign aludes to WoW again.

That's patently untrue. Their "shiny" achievement system is from EQ2. Even Trion avoids the fail of archaeology, and thank god it wasn't implimented into RIFT.

Truth is if RIFT was totally unique in gameplay folks wouldn't play it, simply because the UI would be different. In a genre where everyone but fanbois are playing multiple MMOs, it becomes more and more essential that new franchises have similiar elements in them to entice players over. Trion just makes it a marketing point with WoW.

[Eugam]

Hi,

i played a cleric to 25 then gave up. Then played a warrior to 50. The first patches amde the game dull, so i canceled my sub.

You dont want anything from Rift. The bad thing is, EQ2 already has to much of Rift.

The soul system is not really existing, because you ll be forced to use certain builds. And its worse then "forced" AA specs in EQ2.

Rift solo endgame, while you wait for buddies to log on or so, is dull and boring faction grind. Grind for stuff you dont need if you group, since the dungeon offer better rewards. Same with crafting, its the worst RNG grind and waste of time ever and the rewards arent worth it. There are nice items, but if you are unlucky you ll never get the recipe for it. And you need to go to dungeons to get the rare raws. Silly...

The events are useless for the most part. There are different faction merchands through the tiers. They sell nice items, but it is close to impossible to not outlevel them while getting them. The whole invasion thing wasnt implemented well.

It is awesome to defend or to capture back you quest hub or even city. But its useless. The invaders are able to break down the beacons and set up their own. But the revive points remain uncaptured. Means there is no motivation for playeres to really defend and re-capture. Once the boss spawns on the map, everyone is runnign towards him. No matter if the invaders still slaughter the NPCs or few players who want to defend the town. Its just a clickfest and then hitting the boss pinata. This would change if the invaders where able to take down the players spawn points. That way they could drive out the lazy defenders from the whole map.  But this never happens, although the maps seem to be build for such. Most towns have strategic spots to defend, just nobody uses or plays them. To be cool it should be, that the boss only spawns if the defenders have been sucessfully on defending their spawnpoints.

In the end EQ2 is superior. It lost a lot of its feeling since RoK and TSO, but its still more content. Rift is, after a few weeks just a nice looking but extremely dull theme park.

Just my 2 cents

[Ealthina]

Eugam wrote:

Hi,

i played a cleric to 25 then gave up. Then played a warrior to 50. The first patches amde the game dull, so i canceled my sub.

You dont want anything from Rift. The bad thing is, EQ2 already has to much of Rift.

The soul system is not really existing, because you ll be forced to use certain builds. And its worse then "forced" AA specs in EQ2.

Rift solo endgame, while you wait for buddies to log on or so, is dull and boring faction grind. Grind for stuff you dont need if you group, since the dungeon offer better rewards. Same with crafting, its the worst RNG grind and waste of time ever and the rewards arent worth it. There are nice items, but if you are unlucky you ll never get the recipe for it. And you need to go to dungeons to get the rare raws. Silly...

The events are useless for the most part. There are different faction merchands through the tiers. They sell nice items, but it is close to impossible to not outlevel them while getting them. The whole invasion thing wasnt implemented well.

It is awesome to defend or to capture back you quest hub or even city. But its useless. The invaders are able to break down the beacons and set up their own. But the revive points remain uncaptured. Means there is no motivation for playeres to really defend and re-capture. Once the boss spawns on the map, everyone is runnign towards him. No matter if the invaders still slaughter the NPCs or few players who want to defend the town. Its just a clickfest and then hitting the boss pinata. This would change if the invaders where able to take down the players spawn points. That way they could drive out the lazy defenders from the whole map.  But this never happens, although the maps seem to be build for such. Most towns have strategic spots to defend, just nobody uses or plays them. To be cool it should be, that the boss only spawns if the defenders have been sucessfully on defending their spawnpoints.

In the end EQ2 is superior. It lost a lot of its feeling since RoK and TSO, but its still more content. Rift is, after a few weeks just a nice looking but extremely dull theme park.

Just my 2 cents

If you feel you are forced to "build" a specific way then you need to learn to play...  Seriously.  EVERY combo is viable in group/rais/solo...  yes some work in better combos then others, but if you feel you need to min/max perfect you never even wanted to give Rift an objective try and already had your mind made up.  I admit openly I no longer play EQ2 and only play Rift(account stays active for wife as a broker mule)  I agree with earlier statments that EQ2 classes would be tailor made to copy the Rift soul style.  Warrior/Cleric/Mage/Rouge..  They specialize and or mix in any of the sub class styles as you see fit.  Perfect.

[Rick777]

Played the Rift beta and got a healer and mage up to 25.   I think overall I didn't have a bad experience, the best word I can sum up Rift with is a big fat "Meh".  The graphics, while well touted, seemed very bland and cheap to me, and this is on the absoulte highest graphic setting.  So right there I'd say one thing I wouldn't like brought over from Rift is the graphics.  I can honestly say EQ2 graphics are much better, and more than just quality they are much more diverse and unique.  Along the same lines EQ2 dungeons are so well thought out, Rift dungeons seem like the devs just used a random dungeon generator and then used a random mob placer as well, they seemed very random and didn't have the "spirit" EQ2 dungeons have.

Things I would bring in from Rift.  The swappable builds are complete genius, being able to swap on the fly between a single target healer, group healer, dps healer, etc was just awesome.  This brought about a deep flexibility in group setups that was unprecedented.  The only downside I see to this is eq2 (and most mmo's) have the tendency to gather players who just want to blow thru the zone as quickly as possible, and this level of strategy may actually be a hindrance.  While I pine for the old days when a dungeon run was truly epic and you had to plan it out, it just ain't the reality anymore.  Still this system deserves consideration and sadly SOE has the tools right there already waiting, all they need to do is give us a portable AA mirror.

Public quests were pretty cool, although very repetetive later on with not great rewards.  It seems like public quests are the way to go in some ways and I'm sure eq2 will continue to incorporate public quests.  Solo questing was ok, not much differetn from eq2 but the main difference was there is only one questline to follow the entire game in rift and there is absolutely no attempt at sugarcoating it, every single quest is a variation of the dreaded kill x of these, collect x of those, or deliver this.  At least in eq2 they spend some time putting some lore in there and kind of covering up the mundane nature of soloquesting, and in eq2 there are usually several questlines in different zones available in each level bracket so if you get tired of an area you can switch over somewhere else, or you can try to put together a group for the tons of dungeon content at any level.

Also talking about questing there was an INCREDIBLE feature rift had, I'd beg eq2 to take advantage of.  When you got a quest with an item you needed to click on, you would actually get a clicky button in your quest helper right on screen!  So you never ever had to look thru all your bags to find the clicky, you just clicked the button on your quest helper.  VERY slick IMO, I'm extremely sick of having 6 30+ slot bags and getting a quest item in the heat of a group battle and trying to figure out where it went.

I can probably elaborate further on specifics, but overall I think I'd like the vast majority of Rift aspects to stay far away from eq2.  Seems like Rift has perfected the art of catering to the VERY casual, and that's my one major sadness with the direction eq2 is heading, I'd like to see if I can squeeze another year out of eq2 before it totally becomes easyquest.