Live Stream Summary – October 27

Today was the 4.3 launch livestream, featuring Archonix, Yaviey, Keyens, and a surprise appearance by Captain Cursor, Lord of Lore.  The team went over Mystic Archer, discussed a few details about 4.3 and the changes that came with it, and answered several viewer and forum questions. 

Bullet points from the livestream after the jump!

October 27, 2017 Live Stream (Click here for a link to the stream)

• The team discussed several soul ideas for mage.
• examples:
  • Sword + staff gandalf
  • Earth only focused
• Decided on a new weapon-mage.
• Wanted something open world, since the team has not focused on open world capable souls for a while.
• The bow that comes with Mystic Archer is, intentionally, not something new, so you didn’t have to get the pack in order to get the appearance.

PvP change Discussion

• PvP changes were made to mitigate instant killing that occurs.
• PvP data for 66-70 was not set to the values it needed to be, it was higher than it should have been from the start.
• Wanted to try out PvP with longer TTK, and allow the team to target obvious targets.
• Risks such as tanks being too aggressive, and items not obeying PvP rules are major concerns.
• Want fights to matter, and not kill hunting.
• Making new adjustments to the numbers after watching how things change, probably in mid November. (EDITOR’S NOTE: no exact date was given, or promise for a change at this point!).

More talk about balance

• We want souls to fill as many purposes as possible, but that’s not always feasible.  The more we push something to open world the more careful we have to be.  Utility for open world can easily become OP in a raid situation.
• Biggest eternal weapon change was an update for mages, cleric, and warriors.  We had to change warriors because their bonus would allow them to scale forever, which the team did not want.
• Wanted to buff Cleric and Mage by a lot.
• Wanted to rework % bonuses into flat bonuses, gave Warrior the highest flat bonus to help them keep up because of how they are structured.
• Team has decided to stop looking at souls as groups of 5. Instead, they plan to focus on one soul at a time and then sell that soul individually.  This allows them to focus more design time on a new soul, and provide some new gameplay due to more time to put into a new soul.
• Mystic Archer would not have been possible to implement in a traditional soul pack.
• No new souls to arrive in 2017.

Q&A portion of the stream

• Why were there no bug fixes for Mages in the patch?
  • There were a lot of other design documents being put together for future content. This has taken a lot of time, alongside implementing Mystic Archer.  Aside from tackling a few bugs, this has taken up most class dev time coming up to 4.3.
  • Next step is to look at a few outliers, especially for raiding, but expect things closer to mid-November so the team can watch how the meta for raiding changes.  (EDITOR’S NOTE: no exact date was given, or promise for a change at this point!).
• Why is it that the lockboxes have been changed to include cosmetic items that, in years past, were available via currency or credits?
  • The team always tries new things for lockboxes, so they were wanting to add additional to the lockboxes this year so players could get stuff other than just the broom mount.  This was intended to add more variety to the lockbox rewards.  (EDITOR’s NOTE: It did not sound like they are planning to change this, but you never know)
• Can we get some livestream confirmation on whether or not the trash in Bastion of Steel actually drops loot?
  • There was supposed to be some loot, hence the lockout.  This will be removed in the next patch.  The current loot is more common items instead of major gear.
• What’s the future plan for new souls?
  • Add one new soul at a time per calling, because creating souls is an involved process that takes a month, best case, from design to initial implementation for ONE soul.
  • Add new soul ideas to the suggestions forums! That is checked at least weekly.
• Souls are always being worked on, but there are specs and plans for updated and new souls.  The team can’t share anything else right now.
• TwitchCon was successful, demo’d Rift to a lot of players that did not play MMORPGs.
• Got feedback from TwitchCon about how to make games, such as Rift.
• Any chances for T1 equipment packs where you use marks to buy them?
  • No idea, the team has not discussed this
• Plans to extend the upgrade system for Eternal gear (armor and weapons), but no details right now
• Catch up mechanics?
  • Dev_Trion_Vladd: Can certainly do some catch up on the eternal quest line. (EDITOR’S NOTE: no exact date was given, or promise for a change at this point!).
• Can we get Captured Intel added to more Celestial Lands content?
  • Being discussed on how to add catchup mechanics for Captured Intel, no details yet.
• Is there a better way to get a mage bow?
  • The Bow that comes with Mystic Archer is currently the best bow you can get for Mages.  However, you can wardrobe a bow over a wand for the same effect.
• Make options for active upgrades?  That is, do activity A OR B for a step.
  • Like the idea, but it’s not an option right now
• Dev_Trion_Vladd: Can certainly look at upping the planarite cap. (EDITOR’S NOTE: no exact date was given, or promise for a change at this point!).
• Autumn Harvest warfront “Monster Mash Black Garden” missing was a big “OOPS!” it will be turned on on Wednesday
• Reminder that Extra Life 2017 is November 4th!!
• RoughRaptors would like to remind everyone that he will be streaming for 24-hours from 8am PST November 4th, to 8am PST November 5th.  The majority of his stream will not be Rift, but Rift will be streamed.  Stream and Donation prizes include the Rough Raptors minion, Rough Raptors mount, and 1 year of patron. Details on donation prizes can be found at http://www.extra-life.org/participant/roughraptors

(Additional details on Extra Life streams from the Rift Community will be posted later this week! stay tuned!)