Rift News: Prime and the 3/21 Patch

There has been some activity over the past week regarding Rift Prime, it’s pacing, class balance, and ongoing lag woes.  The Rift team is attempting to address these, as plenty of discussion has taken place both on Discord and the Forums.  The Rift Team has provided official word on several ongoing problems.

 

Updates for Live content

Unfortunately, there are no updates at this time for Live content.  The Tenebrean prison warfront went live with 4.4 and Prime, but it was not in the patch notes.  There is not much else to note here at the moment.

 

Prime Expert Dungeon Gear

This will probably warrant it’s own post about how Rift itemization works.  Suffice to say, Prime T1 Expert Dungeon gear is actually slightly more powerful than Launch T1 raid gear.  The “Epic” quality crafted armor is on par with this expert dungeon gear.  To add onto this, Expert Rifts drop jewelry that is on par with this tier as well.  Expert Rifts are relevant! Go out and do them!

This replacement of Classic T1 gear makes sense, since it is NOT guaranteed that the level 50 version of Hammerknell Keep will be making a return to Rift Prime.  It is entirely likely that Prime’s T1 gear will be at the same level as Classic’s T2 gear, allowing Infernal Dawn gear to be relatively unchanged.

Source: Reports from various guilds & level 50 players combined with my own Rift itemization datamining.  Hopefully more details to come!

 

Rift Prime Lag

The team is actively looking into the lag issues going on with the Vigil shard.

“Dev has been closely examining all data flow and they are looking at some likely culprits that will undergo further testing this week, particularly with regard to “ability lag.” Please stay tuned as they work on this more and can provide you with a more detailed response.

Meanwhile, we have found that relogging usually resolves the issue for the majority of people. It’s not a fix, and it’s annoying, but it’s a workaround while the team works this out!”

Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-prim…ml#post5345211

 

On Prime XP Rates and pacing

“The good news is that one of the changes going out in this next patch is additional tech that will facilitate us adjusting quest XP values on the fly. But hopefully we won’t have to, as the increase to quest XP in the coming patch is quite substantial” (Emphasis mine) 

Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-prim…ml#post5345447

 

On Class Balance (my personal opinion)

So this one is difficult. Yes, there are some OP specs while leveling, but those change as you get higher, and fall out of style.

If you know of something that is clearly unbalanced, don’t assume that the team will automatically 100% know what it is and why. Write up a report, submit something to the class forums, report it, describe why it has issues, and what changes you feel are needed.

I know players have been crying for almost a year now for balance, but for Prime you still need to describe what and why instead of “balance is <insert opinion here>!” when a meta has yet to completely solidify on Prime.

The problem with tweaking the lower levels for souls is fourfold:

1. Soul changes on prime impact Live.
2. Souls in Prime are expected to eventually catch up with Live, so they can’t make special case exceptions to balance at 50, only to ruin 60, 65, and/or 70.
3. Skill ranks were removed back in Storm Legion, so they can’t really adjust damage on a per level basis anymore. (to the best of my knowledge anyway)
4. All souls are balanced towards a 61-point investment, meaning they will completely change how they play and their power balance at level 60, not at 50.

All balance changes really need to be made with an eye towards level 70 and live characters.

I don’t mean to say “Prime balance does not suck” – it is clear there are issues that need to be looked into deeper. However, to look into fixes for balance issues on Prime without keeping level 60, 65, and 70 in mind will do more long term harm than good.