Thinking of Coming Back to Rift. Can I get some info please

[Melon]

Hello all rift peeps.

I am thinking of coming back to Rift. I am a 4 Year player of WoW and stupidly bored of the game now. I do have the AP with them but even with the pandas I am just not up for it anymore. Wish I could cancel the dam thing to be honest.

I have been watching more and more Rift content and frankly it is interesting me more.

How is the game doing now, has rift got content outside Raiding and PvP except for Rifts ofc.

Normally I would put a post like this up but I saw the shard list and saw alot of Low Pop realms and a couple medium ones, I am EU player aswell

Really Really interested in coming back.

Cheers to all that can give me some feedback

[rajadog20]

Yes, Rift is doing very well right now and there is tons to do at endgame. I do not have much time to write much right now but I will leave you with this. I copy and pasted this from another thread which should give you a general idea of what there is to do at endgame.

Rift’s Endgame PvE Activities



1. Normal-mode L48-50 dungeons (5-player group): These might not be considered “endgame,” but I’m listing them anyway because it’s something that L50s can do. These are generally not difficult, and really only serve as a way to gear up for Experts. These dungeons include Charmer’s Caldera, Abyssal Precipice, and Caduceus Rise.

2. Chronicles (1-2 players): These are mini-dungeons designed for one or two L50 players. There are currently four of them, including one that is specifically designed to introduce new L50 players to endgame content and progression (Ceremony of Attunement). The other three are each based on a 20-player raid instance, providing a way for solo/duo players to experience incredibly simplified versions of the raid content.

3. Expert Rifts (5+ players): These have never been that significant, and are even less so now. They require special lures to open. We’ll probably do some of these, but we won’t go out of our way for them.

4. Expert-mode dungeons (5-player group, 100 Hit/Focus required): The bulk of our time in PvE will be spent doing these. Every dungeon in the game has both a Normal mode and an Expert mode. Experts used to be divided into Tier 1 and Tier 2 dungeons, but have since all been recalibrated into a single tier. You must have at least 100 Hit or Focus to even queue for these. There is a 24-hour lockout on any specific Expert dungeon, but this doesn’t apply to Experts that are selected randomly by the LFG tool.

5. Master-mode dungeons (5-player group, 200 Hit/Focus required): These are dungeons that have been calibrated to a difficulty roughly equivalent to Tier 1 raiding, and that provide raid-quality loot. They require a well-balanced group with requirements for multiple specs. Currently there are only two dungeons with Master modes, Darkening Deeps and Caduceus Rise. The lockouts for Master-modes reset twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays (I think)These are actually Sunday. at 4:00 AM server time.

6. Open-world raid bosses (10+ players?): Almost no one does these, and I’m not sure they ever did. I am aware of two static bosses, one in Stillmoor and the other in Shimmersand. They can also be spawned from “Idols of the Deep” that appear on the floor of the seas. I have no idea as to how difficult they are, but they might be worth attempting with a 5-player Master-ready group just to check them out.

7. Raid Rifts (10+ players, 200 Hit/Focus recommended): Although these rifts are tuned for groups of 10 players, no one does them in 10-player groups; instead full 20-player raid groups faceroll them and trivialize the content. On a PvP server that’s not necessarily a bad thing – safety in numbers and all that. These rifts also require special lures to open. Tier 1 raid rifts are opened can be opened on the main continent, and Tier 2 raid rifts can be opened in Ember Isle.

8. Slivers (10-player group, 200/300 Hit/Focus required): Slivers are Rift’s 10-player raid instances. There are currently three of these: Gilded Prophecy (GP), Drowned Halls (DH), and Rise of the Phoenix (RotP). GP and DH are both Tier 1 raids, with 200 Hit/Focus required; DH is considered the easier of the two. I believe that RotP is a Tier 2 raid, requiring 300 Hit/Focus.

9. Raids (20-player group, 200/300/400 Hit/Focus required): Rift currently has four 20-player raids: Greenscale’s Blight (GSB), River of Souls (RoS), Hammerknell (HK), and Infernal Dawn (ID). GSB and RoS are both Tier 1, HK is Tier 2, and ID is Tier 3.





Facets of PvE Progression



There are three facets to Rift PvE progression: gear, Planar Attunement (PA), and Notoriety (Rift’s name for reputation). Gear should further be divided into non-Sigil and Sigil gear, as the activities to advance either are completely different.



Non-sigil gear is primarily acquired as loot from dungeons, although gear from the PvE vendors can speed the process. Essentially, L50 players begin by farming Normal-mode dungeons and Chronicles in order to acquire the 100 Hit/Focus required for Experts. They then farm Experts for gear they need to be raid- or Master-ready, and farm Tier 1 raids and/or Masters to get T2-ready. Players acquire PvE currency as a matter of course in farming for gear.



There are currently four PvE currencies:



1. Plaques of Achievement: This is the lowest-grade currency, used to purchase entry-level PvE gear. Most of this gear simply isn’t worth purchasing. The best use of Plaques of Achievement now is for purchasing Minor Catalysts, which are used in crafting many high-grade items.

2. Marks of Ascension: This was the high-end currency at release, and has long since been obsolesced.

3. Greater Marks of Ascension: This is used to purchase T2 raid-quality gear from the PvE vendors in Reclaimer’s Hold. It was recently obsolesced in 1.8.

4. Infernal Marks of Ascension: This is the current high-end currency. I presume these vendors are somewhere on Ember Isle.



Generally, you should always prefer the highest-grade currency when given the choice.



Sigils are comprised of the Sigils themselves, Greater Planar Essences, and Lesser Planar Essences. You already have the best PvE Sigil in the game, the Barnacle Encrusted Sigil of the Five – acquiring that during the last World Event was one of the most important things you could do for your PvE progression. Essences can either be dropped as loot from rifts, or purchased from vendors using a combination of Planarite and Inscribed Sourcestone (both of which also come from farming rifts and IA). The really, really good essences are either drops from raid rifts or offered expensively by the planar vendors in Sanctum. This is one reason why we’ll be farming a shitload of Instant Adventure at Level 50: we’ll need lots of ISS to purchase those high-end essences.



Planar Attunement is Rift’s alternate advancement system for L50 characters. It was originally intended to be another way of rewarding L50 players for continuing to play, providing small incremental bonuses to stats and the occasional new ability. However, it has since become a vitally important facet of progression for both PvE and PvP - the bonuses conferred from maxed PA are easily equivalent to a full tier of gear, and perhaps even two full tiers. The mechanic used is simply XP, with 100 PA points being awarded after every 500k XP. But Trion has greatly incentivized specific activities to speed up the PA process, awarding sick amounts of PA XP for specific activities. I’ll identify the most important of those activities in the next section.



Notoriety is the final facet of PvE progression, and probably the least important. There are at least three high-end factions with which you should acquire Notoriety, and possibly two more. The most important of all of these is Order of Mathos, which at Glorified provides access to the best belt rune in the game. Belt runes can only be purchased from rep vendors, not crafted, so Mathos rep is highly important. Two other factions, The Dragonslayer Covenant and The Icewatch, also offer excellent runes at Glorified – Dragonslayer offers a leg rune, and Icewatch offers a head rune. However Runecrafters can make other head and leg runes, so Notoriety with those two factions is probably only important if you are raiding competitively. I haven’t had enough experience with the two Ember Isle factions (Farclan and Keepers) to assess their value.





Activities for Progression



These activities are best reserved for when we are together in a group:



1. Random Expert dungeons: Every week you are allotted seven quests for completing a random Expert dungeon, with 250k PA XP as the reward. The counter resets at 4:00 AM server time Wednesday morning. Needless to say, we should strive to complete all seven of these each week when we can.

2. Stillmoor quests: Some of these may be a little tough in the beginning, because the areas in Stillmoor are so MOB-infested (Elites, too). Stillmoor also is a favored PvP zone even when it is not the PvP daily zone. We should probably strive to quest here together as a group, perhaps as a matter of course while doing IA.

3. Expert rifts: There is a daily quest for these, but it awards nominal amounts of XP and ISS. Not many players do Expert rifts, as they require a fair bit of effort and coordination for rather paltry rewards.

4. Anything in Ember Isle: Ember Isle is a tough place. Although the quests and other activities in EI offer lots of PA XP, we really need to be decked out in PvP gear if we want to survive there.



These activities are best done on our own time:



1. Chronicles: These can only be done in groups of maximum size two, so these are no-brainers. There is a new daily Chronicle quest that awards 150k PA XP. You and Debbie should do this daily whenever possible, and it probably isn’t worthwhile to do any more than that.

2. Daily Warfront quest: This quest awards 250k PA XP, so it should be done daily whenever possible. It also contributes significantly to our PvP progression. Other things being equal, we would prefer to do this together with you two – but there are mitigating circumstances. The first of these is the stupid matchmaking system, which will punish us for queuing as a 4-person group. The second is the possibility that as new L50s queuing together as a group we may actually be reducing our chances of victory with each one of us taking up a slot on our team that a better-geared player could take. The third is that our playtime together with you guys is usually quite limited, and probably best spent running Expert dungeons. All things considered, it is probably better that we try to complete the daily WF quest as individual couples. L

3. Shimmersand and IPP questing: Dragonslayer and Icewatch rep isn’t that important to us, and these quests are easy enough to do as individual couples.



These activities can be done either as a group or on our own time:



1. Instant Adventure: At the very least you should complete the daily for this. IA is easily the most efficient way of farming ISS, and is also a good source of PA XP. I wouldn’t recommend doing the Ember Isle IA without us, though.

2. World Event quests: If you are out in the open world and have the opportunity to complete a daily, please feel free to do so. These can often be completed as a matter of course while doing IA, although some are difficult and best done with a group.

3. Raid rifts: Once you are raid-ready (200+ Hit/Focus), feel free to ask for invites to any raid rift group that spontaneously forms, particularly if no drops are reserved. The daily raid rift (DRR) quest offers 150k PA XP, so it’s worth doing whenever possible.

4. Zone events: There is a weekly quest to participate in four successfully completed zone events. Each zone event offers a minimum of 70k PA XP (if I recall correctly), and completion of the weekly awards 10 ISS. These probably aren’t worth going out of our way to do, but are worth doing if it’s convenient.



Dailies reset at 4:00 AM server time. Weeklies reset on Wednesdays at 4:00 AM server time.

[rajadog20]

Here is a little something I wrote on the forums not too long ago, it has some more details about raiding. This was witten for someone else in another thread, so when I say OP, I don't mean you :P.. Actually, it looks like I will have to split this one up as it has too many pics and videos..

In my opinion, Rift does most everything that wow does and then some. As you have noticed, the class system is brilliant. When you level up one "calling" you are actually leveling 8 classes which you can mix and match to make hundreds of combinations. Want to tank as a rogue? You can do that. Want to Heal as a Mage? Easy. Want to support as a warrior? Fine with me. Rift's class system allows 3 of the 4 callings to heal, 3 of the 4 to tank, and all support and dps. As you have found out already, you are not too found of the leveling. Rift's strong point is not the leveling. Because when you level up one character, you really are leveling up 8 classes, they focused all their time into making the best possible engame experience imaginable. The quests aren't the best while leveling but that is why you level pretty damn fast. I leveled my second 50 in just over 2 days of play time casually. There are also zone events to do while leveling, and rifts which really get you doing something other than questing and can be a blast.

Endgame is really when Rift shines. There is just so much to do. In Rift, once you get 50, you are not forced to raid to progress like you are in WoW. Once you get 50, the progression is like this

This was how progression was at launch. You can still progress this way but there is so much more to do now. Once at 50 you can do normal 50 5-man dungeons or 1-2 man Chronicle dungeons which take place in the Raid instances (mainly for people who don't raid to see the raids) to gear up for expert dungeons. You can also do expert rifts and Zone Events to gear up. The zone events are pretty amazing and require you to defend a zone against the Planar Invaders, and in the end, fighiting a big boss with hundreds of other people.

These zone events can really be a substitute for gearing through chronicles and dungeons and you can acquire tier 1 quality raid gear from them. So you can basically play the whole game in the open world and never step into an instance and still get great gear. Now if you choose not to do zone events, or want to level faster, after chronicles and normal 50 dungeons comes the expert dungeons. These dungeons are pretty big compared to dungeons in WoW. At release, the largest one would take up to 6 hours to beat as they were brutal. Now that everyone is overgeared and they were nerfed a bit, they are about the length of WoW dungeons. Although if you get in with a group that doesn't overgear it, it can still take some time and involve some wiping.
After Dungeons, the next step in progression is raiding. Rift has some pretty amazing raid content. There are 4 20 man raids and 3 10 man raids currently in game. The first tier of 20 man raiding is not bad. The raids are greenscale's blight and river of souls. They are decent instances, but nothing to get excited about. Do not play though these and think this is representative of the other raids, as they are not close to the quality of the others and are pretty. There are also 2 10 mans in the first tier that are pretty fun. Also, you can do Master mode dungeons that drop tier 1 raid quality gear instead of doing greenscale and river of souls if you would like. The second tier of 20 man raiding is Hammerknell. Let me tell you, this place is pretty great. If you are a hardcore raider, this is the stuff you are looking for. It took over 2 months, almost 3 for any guild to get world first on the last boss in the instance, Akylios, and there was no gating, all bosses were available since day one. This place was mind-nummingly hard, fights would often last well over 10 mins and akylios still take about 20 mins. The art is also beautiful, this place is the Ulduar of Rift. The raid has been nerfed recently since it has been out almost a year so that people can pug the first few bosses. This is really where the good raids begin. Also there is another 10 man that you can do in this tier which is also pretty cool.
Hammerknell- Amazing

Next up comes the third tier of raiding, Infernal Dawn! It is new and just came out, but so far, the difficulty is pretty tough, but not as bad as hammerknell. The mechanics are a blast, just watch this video.

[rajadog20]

That is the second boss, Ituziel, you have to dodge waves of Fire! This is as far as my guild has gotten so far, so thats all I can say about it. It seems to be pretty fun so far.

Overall the raiding in Rift is great. Much more fun than in wow in my opinion.
Next up is the alternate advancement system. As you do everything in rift at endgame, you get Planar Attunement points that can be spent for increases in stuff like core stats, to movement speed, to consumables to convience items. At 50 in rift, you are never wasting your time as you are always progressing.

Also if you haven't noticed, Rift is amazing at their speed of content updates. In one year alone, they have released 7 thats right, 7!! major content patches and they are showing no signs of slowing down. Trion really cares about its customers and really wants to earn your money, your 15$ here actually goes back into the game.

No, I am not going to do a TLDR, I took about an hour to write this, so I hope you take the time to Read it OP. In the end, I hope you do not quit at level 30 and really give Rift the shot it deserves. I hope that you can truely see what is so great about the game, and why people like me absolutely adore it.

More videos showcasing rifts features.

Main Features

[rajadog20]

Last boss of Hammerknell

Developer video about the past and future of Rift


Hopefully this isnt too many videos to break the post

Also, the first expansion was announced a week ago. They did a live stream of one of the new world bosses coming with Storm Legion.

Yeaaa.. pretty amazing...
Thank you for reading, have fun!