While we still don’t know exactly when RIFT 2.3 is coming out, Daglar did toss out a hint about one thing we’ll see in RIFT 2.4– a new 20-man raid. He also gave us one bit of reassuring news on the length of time that will go between these next two updates:

Originally posted by Daglar (Source)

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Next question is when is 2.4? Currently scheduled for a shorter amount of time than 2.2 to 2.3.

Daglar wasn’t quite as generous with hints when it came to the PvP front of the game. In this forum thread, he mentioned the following:

“There is no current ETA for another Warfront. There is no need for conspiracy theories that no one plays PvP in RIFT – quite a few folks do. The content of PvP is typically, the PvP itself. New maps are great, and we’d love to provide more when the time is right – but I cannot give you a date and or time when a new Warfront will be delivered.”

Cyzo, a member of RIFT’s developer dungeon team, recently announced that Trion will be offering future dungeon and raid content player testing on the Public Test Server from now on instead of holding private tests. After the success of the recent Hard Mode Endless Eclipse and Frozen Tempest encounter tests on the PTS, the team decided it was simply a wise move due to the amount of feedback available with open testing. Cyzo gave us another update yesterday, this time with a few important details that strike a compromise many raiders were asking for:

Originally posted by Cyzo (Source)

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Thanks for the feedback everyone, bear in mind we are still a ways away from testing the next tier of 20-man content so we have plenty of time to refine the system that works best both for us and you: the raiding community. I’m only going to address some updates to the 20-man system with this post since I feel like everyone is on board with 5-man and 10-man content being completely open.

• We want Raiders to maintain an interest in testing and not burn themselves out by spending weeks or months on an encounter before it goes live. To this end we are planning on doing a rotation of which bosses are available on the PTS; most likely one or two bosses a given week. This will give us a very quick feedback loop, allow for noticeable iteration, and keep things fresh for those that are testing content.
• We want to maintain some sense of progression and competition between guilds. Depending on the size of the raid we will keep the last one or two bosses more guarded. Exact testing procedures aren’t nailed down yet but these specific encounters might only be active for a day or two at a time to test the more complex mechanics with a developer observing. There is also a good chance that we will keep some mechanics on ALL of the raid encounters internal until they hit live.
• We want to respect your time and for you to have fun! We’re putting in measures that make testing as quick and painless as possible. Apparently some of you enjoy the dev presence as well so if you let us know when you are testing we can try and drop by. The new 10-man will help us perfect these new measures and get situated with guilds that want to have a larger part in the raiding scene.

I realize that change is hard and that many of you enjoyed the old system but with more content open to more people we can create a fairer testing environment while getting the bug count to as close to 0 as possible before the content goes live.

This approach makes a lot more sense.

When Trion started testing the first couple of encounters in Hard Mode Frozen Tempest and Hard Mode Endless Eclipse back in January, the dungeon team decided to utilize the PTS (Player Test Server) for player testing instead of holding private testing sessions with select guilds. This led to a bit of guild drama, naturally, but it also led to Trion receiving a solid amount of testing feedback in the way of bug reports, etc. Feedback, as we all know, is vital to releasing bug-free content, and Trion’s dungeon team seems rather pleased with the results of this trial of sorts for PTS raid testing. They’re pleased enough, in fact, to plan on moving all dungeon content testing to the PTS.

Keep reading to read the dev tracker post.

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.

As Storm Legion’s launch day approaches, one RIFT fan put together this cool compilation of their top 10 favorite raid encounters of classic RIFT (chocolate or vanilla work too). There’s no doubt about it– Trion’s definitely released some fun raids. What have been your favorite fights, and why?

Trion’s livestreams from the PAX convention floor every day over the holiday weekend presented a deluge of information for viewers and attendees, and amongst the many things shown was a first look at Endless Eclipse, one of the new raids in Storm Legion. The final boss of this gigantic new zone? “One of the two dragons that are left,” said Russ Brown, VP of Development for RIFT, while giving the internet a tour of the raid for Trion’s TwitchTV page.

A dragon, eh? Well if Crucia is on the Storm Legion cover that probably leaves… yep, that’s right, it’s time to face down Regulos, previously known as the big baddie from vanilla RIFT. In fact, at one point near the end of the tour a zone name popped up on the screen: “Regulos Raid Death Chamber”. Let’s just hope it’s his death and not ours, right?

With guilds being able to house players of both factions in RIFT 1.10 and Soul Legion on the horizon, is it perhaps time for Trion to rethink the current raid lockout system? Some players wondered just that in one forum topic recently, and even came up with an interesting and unique suggestion. Here’s the general gist of the idea:

“If you guys are familiar with the Warcraft looking for raid system, they have a “loot lock” system in place. Though WoW developed this idea, they didn’t take it to its full potential. The loot lock system allows a player to run a raid as many times as they like during a week, but that player can only roll on the gear or get marks ONCE per week per character. Now the great thing about Rift is the Planar Attunement system brings in a reward for those that are locked to the bosses they help kill. You get the exp from the mobs killed as usual, but as an added bonus, if you are loot locked, you get a 50k PA exp item. This would allow people in guilds that do the weeklies as a guild to help their friends finish the weeklies. Also, if a player gets locked to say 2 bosses in a raid and missed the continuation, they can jump in a fresh run to finish the raid and get loot off the remaining bosses they have not locked.”

Basically, the idea is that players would get locked to each boss according to loot they choose to pick up, not the instance ID or individual boss fight. So, for instance, a large guild can run the upper levels of HK multiple times a week, bringing in players who need specific pieces and trading them out once they obtain what they need. This would also let players help other guildmates when trying to complete weekly raid quests as well as let smaller guilds call on friends who’ve already ran the content that week when short on raid nights.

RIFT has a decently-sized raiding crew, and there’s a good reason why– Trion’s raids are large, expansive, beautiful, and for the most part, contain some pretty awesome fights. The game’s raiding community is made up of all types of players– those who enjoy a more casual approach to raiding and scheduling raids, those who enjoy the competitive raiding scene, and all kinds of folks in between. With Infernal Dawn (ID) out, and a large portion of those raiders delving deep into the new fights, there’s one large, looming problem that multiple people from multiple groups have experienced– Infernal Dawn, so far, is just too easy.

This is a problem, and not just a problem for the “hardcore” community, that is, the players at the top of the food chain, with the maximum amount of planar attunement (PA) and all the best gear from Hammerknell (HK). Many guilds who don’t even consider themselves hardcore or serious are having the same experience. The fights in ID so far simply don’t have the same oomph, the same adrenaline-punched feeling of not knowing whether this attempt will be the one, the feeling of knowing those couple hours of wipes were worth it after downing a tough boss and listening to the guild explode over voice chat.

That feeling’s pretty damn amazing, and a large part of the reason most raiders enjoy raiding. Hammerknell had a ton of fights that produced those feelings, and many players were expecting to feel the same in ID. Guilds spent months upon months farming HK, farming PA, and building just the right raid force. And now they’re finding themselves a bit underwhelmed, a bit discouraged, and quite confused.

The beginning stages of RIFT’s Patch 1.7 are now on the PTS for player testing, and with the patch come some interesting changes to endgame. The PTS patch notes can be found here if you haven’t had a chance to check them out yet. The changes are an attempt to smooth out endgame progression in general and the gear obtained during the various phases of endgame. What does this mean, exactly? For starters, it’s a step in the right direction.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an editorial summing up the current state of RIFT’s endgame. In it, I basically discuss a gap that seems to be increasing in size between RIFT’s casual/social population and its raider population. The world of Telara is a great place to relax and enjoy small group content, but it also supports a thriving raiding community that’s eager to get back into action when Infernal Dawn is released. The problem is, there aren’t a lot of players in between these two groups. Thus, a gap is created. This makes it difficult for Hammerknell guilds to recruit and for players to obtain the gear necessary to become recruited.

RIFT has now had some time to settle into its cozy endgame state. The majority of players have had plenty of time to explore and decide on an endgame playstyle. Some players enjoy RIFT for its raiding content, others enjoy the casual and social aspects of the game’s solo, small group, and collection/achievement features. Most players know exactly what they want to achieve while they’re level 50, and this is a good thing, because it means that the game is stable.

One issue with this stability is the fact that there’s currently a sort of gap between the two largest groups of endgame players. RIFT, in general, has a split focus. Trion has been marketing the game toward raiders and toward casual solo/small group players. This is an excellent marketing strategy, but as a result, players are seeing a sort of a dichotomy between the two groups. RIFT has a large number of Hammerknell raiders, a large number of players who enjoy small group content, Chronicles, events, and achievements, and not a lot of players in between. This makes it difficult for raiding guilds to recruit.