When Trion added Conquest to RIFT, one of the team’s stated goals was that they wanted to help build a bridge between dedicated PvP players and dedicated PvE players. Conquest was planned as the perfect large-scale playground for players who enjoyed slaying other players, of course, but it was also designed with PvE players in mind. The roles of crafting and objective taking were going to be brought to the forefront, and the developer team hoped that small, organized groups would play a vital part. The plan was to make Conquest’s rewards worthwhile to both PvE players and PvP players.

During the first months of Conquest, this plan went fairly well. Without taking the early catastrophes of Conquest into consideration, everyone at least tried out the new feature, even players who weren’t known to PvP. Despite Trion’s hopes, Conquest quickly delved into a large-scale zerg fest where small groups generally weren’t formed and Conquest became a battle between which side had the most players clumped up. A large portion of PvE players still took part despite the lack of PvE gameplay for two reasons– Conquest Point perks and the stat trinket– both of which were great for PvE purposes.

Now we find ourselves three months into Storm Legion. Our Conquest map hasn’t changed. We’ve seen some quality-of-life updates to Conquest including a better queue system, but for the most part, the three-faction system plays similar to how it played at level 50. It’s a PvP zerg fest, essentially, which is great for players who enjoy that type of PvP action. For other players, those two desirable rewards still stand out. The problem with the perks and trinket this time around, however, is far more pronounced and is beginning to leave a sour taste is many PvE players’ mouths.

One of the hottest debates within the RIFT community since the addition of Conquest has been whether or not it was a good idea to place perks that benefit both PvP and PvE inside a PvP-only system. Many high-end raiders were frustrated with the Conquest Power perks and the addition of the Conquest trinkets. There were also PvP players who disliked the requirement of Infinity Stones for PvP planar essences. These items and perks that blur the lines between PvP and PvE content were set up this way intentionally. Daglar clarified the team’s stance on cross-content perks and items on the forums yesterday:

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

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There are going to be portions of the game where content crosses over and it grants benefits. You are not absolutely required by the game to take part in this activity. You feel that you must as you are a high end raider. We absolutely give you an incentive to engage in this content – I will not argue that point.

I have seen these requests before – I will see them again. We will not be removing the PvE benefits from Conquest. We will not be removing the trinkets from working in PvE.

The same holds true of requiring infinity stones for essences from PvP. There are other aspects of the game that we want you to engage in. This is why we create a variety of reward paths.

He also clarified a few other things along the same lines, including whether or not Thunderous Leap will be making a return in instances and raids. The short answer: Nope. Keep reading to see the (slightly) longer answer as well as Daglar’s current thoughts on the development direction of Conquest.

Since the recent hotfix, some players have been experiencing an odd bug that would place them into a Conquest queue while queueing up for Warfronts. This bug has been tracked down by Trion, and the team found out that it happens due to internal changes that are being made to the Conquest queue. These changes should make it into the next hotfix. Pithos decided to share these changes with the community yesterday:

Originally posted by Pithos (Source)

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The Conquest queue bug some of you have experienced has been tracked down internally. As some of you may suspect, it’s due to some upcoming changes for the Conquest queue, currently planned for the next hotfix.

When joining conquest, you now will only be able to specify which team you prefer. If you don’t care, there’s a random button available to make the choice for you. If a team is full, the button for that team will say “Full” instead of “Join”. You can still attempt to join a “Full” team. After a few seconds, you’ll see the “Would you like to enter conquest?” prompt. If the team you were attempting to join is full at that time, you will be shifted onto another, non-full team. In this case, the prompt will contain additional text explaining that the team you requested was full, and notifying you as to what team you will be playing on.

We hope this change will make Conquest a better experience for everyone, and we’ll be watching to see how things change.

Keep reading for more details and to see a sample screenshot of the updated Conquest queue menu.

We received two dev tracker posts of value yesterday, one regarding some upcoming fixes to runecrafting materials and runebreaking, and another with some good news for folks who weren’t able to pick up the first Conquest trinket. First, the trinket bit, which was posted by Daglar as a sort of Fae Yule surprise for players:

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

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We have updated the merchants such that there is a voucher (non-tradable) for the previous season’s Marks of Conquest purchasable with the current seasons Freelancer Marks of Conquest.. You will be capable of transferring the new marks into the old.

This should go out with the next hot fix, that we hope to have out this week.

Daglar also followed up with a hint that we will soon see new items added to the Ridge Runner faction vendor.

After the arrival of yesterday’s RIFT Patch 2.1, players found themselves unexpectedly dropped down to 0 accrued Conquest Power. This effect was unintended by Trion, and Elrar made this statement later in the afternoon regarding it:

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

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Hey all,

We know that with Update 2.1 being released in North America this morning an inadvertent issue was discovered that caused all Conquest Power accrued to reset to 0.

Unfortunately, there is no easy or immediate way for us to restore individual amounts – so in accordance with the new season, and to provide the most rapid solution possible, we’ve gone ahead and provided 100,000 free Conquest power to everyone.

This is 50% of the total conquest power you can earn and maintain. This payout of Conquest Power will be made when you enter your first round of Conquest following my post here.

Our apologies for the surprise and frustration this has caused – thanks for bringing it to our attention so quickly!

This is rather unfortunate for players who had farmed up to the 200k maximum Conquest Power right before Storm Legion launched, but at least Trion quickly made note of the blunder and has provided a sort of middle-of-the-road solution. For a list of other RIFT Patch 2.1 known issues, check out this forum thread.

Lately there’s been no shortage of information from Trion about Storm Legion. We’ve heard a lot about new additions to the game like Dimensions and hunt rifts and have been promised literally tens of pages of PvE patch note changes. So far, though, things have been pretty quiet on the subject of PvP additions. Is Trion neglecting PvP in Storm Legion, or do players just need to be more patient?

There are currently five different warfronts in the game for level 50 characters, and while there have been vague assurances that Storm Legion will ship with a new one no further details have yet been shared. Even if the new warfront is a hit with players, only one new map in the rotation will do little to relieve the tedium of a longtime player’s PvP grind.

Trion, unlike many MMO developers, is willing to take risks at times for the betterment of RIFT. We received an announcement regarding one such risk yesterday, when Elrar invited Public Test Shard (PTS) players to join the team on Tuesday, August 14th at 4 PM PST to test out a completely new style of PvP gameplay– Normalized PvP. Yep– normalized stats across the board, including baseline reductions to damage done and healing done, as well as a reduction to healing debuffs. This will mean that gear won’t matter, but PA, consumables, temporary abilities, and class abilities will.

Sounds pretty risky, right? Trion fully understands that, which is why both Elrar and Daglar repeated the fact that this is merely a test– an experiment. In fact, the test that will be conducted on the PTS today is merely a precursor for the real test, which will be taking place on live servers at a later date and will last one week. After the week, the change will be completely reverted. The team will then take the metrics and data recorded during the live test, and see if it’s even worthwhile to take the idea further.

During Scott Hartsman’s Ask Me (Almost) Anything Reddit chat last Friday, Hartsman gave his honest opinions and some rather large answers to questions that RIFT players were curious about. There were specifics about Storm Legion, for example, that he couldn’t reveal, but for the most part, he answered the questions very thoroughly. He delved into some interesting subjects including the different types of PvP players in RIFT, the MMO industry’s past, the MMO industry’s future, the future of the Bard soul, and Trion’s stance on one day turning toward a free-to-play model.

Massively published an article yesterday in which the author takes a closer look at the answers Hartsman issued about these subjects, and speculates a bit about what they might mean for the future of RIFT.

Elrar gave us some updated information yesterday on this weekend’s Conquest Weekend. Trion even listened to the player suggestions of including sourcestone gathering in the Specialist title requirements. Now there will be multiple Specialist titles going out– one for crafting, and another for harvesting.

Originally posted by Elrar (Source)

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Hey all,

A couple of things -

On the Faction titles:
- We pull the stats for each day, to earn the title you just need to play a majority of your matches on one of the days to qualify for that factions title.
- Play a majority of your matches on a different faction each day for 3 days and you’ve earned yourself all three titles.

For the Specialist title -
- We will totally award top Empowered Sourcestone harvesters for each day with the Specialist title in addition to the top crafters, thanks for your feedback – good idea!

From the clarifications, it seems like we’ll be able to play as long or as little as we want, and still grab all three titles by simply playing one faction per day. That definitely makes obtaining all three titles possible.

The weekend starts a little early around Telara this week. From Wednesday, July 25th to Sunday, July 29th, Trion’s hosting a special Conquest event, and inviting everyone to take part. The team is even giving players with previous subscriptions a few days of free, unrestricted game access. Conquest itself doesn’t seem like it will receive any special limited time bonuses during the event, but there will be special titles obtainable for players who take part. And just in case you’ve ever wanted to chase after a RIFT developer and smash them in the face with a virtual sword– well, now’s your chance!