Rift Beta #5 #Rift

A huge number of changes have gone in since Beta #4, and I’m curious as to how it will play. On one hand I’m incredibly happy to find that Trion seems to be listening very well to the feedback – but on the other hand I’m wondering if the “majority” of those feedback comments include making the game “easier” – because that is not the game that I want (as was mentioned in twitter this morning). There’s still a few hours before Beta 5 goes live, so we’ll just have to wait and see. If you’re interested in the notes I’ve posted them below, and I’ll make a few comments in bold afterward. Be sure to leave your own questions and comments below! Also remember you can find me on the Guardian side of Faeblight as Stargrace, and the Defiant side of Wolfsbane as Ellithia.

Beta 5
1/24/2011

=== FEATURED ===
* Public Groups are now in! See below under PUBLIC GROUPS for details. [INCREDIBLY glad to see this implemented, it was my main concern in previous betas]
* Discovery system is in progress! See under DISCOVERY for more details.
* Added a Currency panel to the character sheet that replaces currency tokens previously taking up inventory space. [Another game that doesn’t believe that currency includes money?]
* Updates to tab targeting system below under TARGETING.
* Added a toggled PvP Auto Flag option to help with accidental flagging. See under PVP AUTO-FLAGGING.
* The Raid Manager and Raidframes now colorize player names based on Role, instead of Calling.
* Apothecary crafting skill has gotten a complete makeover! See below under CRAFTING for details.
* Rogues now regenerate Energy during the global cooldown. Using abilities will no longer pause energy regeneration. Energy Regeneration rate is now consistent at 20/second.

GENERAL GAMEPLAY
* Completing Artifact collections now awards Lucky Coins. Turn these in to Artifact Collectors in Sanctum and Meridian for new rewards!
* Many meta-collections now have unique rewards!
* Pets now keep their custom names after you increase the rank of the ability that summons them.
* Nameplates for companion pets now say ‘(Yourname)’s Companion’. These are 50% smaller than regular nameplates.
* Added additional filtering for pet names.
* Players can no longer hide from /target with a cleverly named pet.
* Failed area quests (such as zone events) can now be abandoned from the quest log, and are also auto-removed from the log when the player logs out. [Very happy to see this, it was something I specifically sent in feedback about]
* Quests that remove their quest items when deleted or abandoned now also check your bank.
* Questgivers should not have icons over their heads when they are dead or in combat.
* Guild quests now added for guild levels 11-20.
* Rest experience is only gained in friendly hubs.
* If a teleport fails, you now get a message indicating it didn’t work.
* Random name generator should now spit out a wider variety of names.
* You can no longer equip or unequip items while dead.
* Corpse tooltips no longer show ‘level 0’.
* Minimum character name length has been set to 2 characters.
* You will now be disconnected if you are AFK at the character selection screen for 1 hour.

PUBLIC GROUPS
* A new ‘Join Public Group’ button will appear on-screen when fighting an event (Rift, Invasion, etc.) with someone willing to group.
* You can toggle your availability for public groups by right-clicking your character portrait. Your setting will persist through logout.
* Group or Raid leaders gain an option in their character’s context menu that sets whether the group/raid is Public or Private. This option is not available in Warfronts. Changing this setting sends a message to current group/raid members with the updated status.
* If a targeted player is available for public grouping, there will be a button above their portrait. Mousing over the button will show current grouping information and click the button to join them.
* If a group is full, you will see the same button with an appropriate X mark across it.
* If you are a group/raid leader and your group will fit, clicking the button to join someone’s public group will disband your group/raid and act as though all members just joined the selected person’s.
* If your group/raid won’t fit in the selected person’s open slots, you get an error message.
* Destination groups will convert to raids as needed.

DISCOVERY
* We now call out in Say and Guild chat channels when the following occurs on a server:
– The first time an Elite or special loot-dropping NPC is killed,
– The first time a Rare or higher Item is looted,
– The first time a specific Quest has been completed,
– The first time a particular Achievement is earned,
– The first time an individual Collection is turned in,
– Including the person who did it.
* Additional milestones that are called out in Say chat only:
– Server-first for items of less than Rare quality.
– Server-first kills for general NPCs.
* Some special server-firsts may even be broadcast to everyone!
* This system doesn’t give retroactive credit – so everything is going to be considered ‘new’ on Beta for this.

TARGETING
* Tab Target ordering is now based on a cone in front of the character first, then everything else.
* Tab order is reset if you select a target with the mouse, or a target is selected for you (aggro).
* Target selection distances now use a more sensitive calculation based on the closest ‘edge’ of a potential target, rather than a centerpoint.
* Pressing tab during combat will no longer select “Yellow” mobs.
* Enemy Players will only be included in Tab targeting if that player is currently attackable.
* Tab will now only allow one target change per keypress, instead of zooming through different targets if held down.

PVP AUTO-FLAGGING
* Added a PvP Auto Flagging option that defaults to ON – turn this off to restrict auto flagging of any kind. Keep in mind that, while disabled, you cannot take any PvP action until you flag yourself – so be careful around enemy guards! While this is disabled:
– AoE cast by non-flagged players will not damage a flagged player.
– Pets of non-flagged players should not be able to attack flagged players or their pets.
– You will not be able to fight back against a flagged NPC (Guards) until you flag yourself.
– Moving into an area that *should* flag you for PvP – such as Warfronts – will still flag you.
– You should not be able to heal a PvP flagged player.
– You should still be able to buff a PvP flagged NPC if they are out of combat and have no players on their aggro list.
* Turning on auto-attack will no longer flag you for PvP if you are too far away to actually hit your target.

CHARACTER SHEET UPDATES
* Implemented a new character sheet layout. It’s shiny!
* New character sheet includes a Planar Focus UI, so you no longer need to shift-right click your Focus to see what you have equipped.
* Two additional stats are now displayed on the Character sheet. Valor affects damage received from other players – the more you have, the less damage you take. Toughness is a high-level tanking stat that mitigates critical damage from NPCs.
* Pet stat displays only have Valor.

CURRENCY
* Added a Currency panel to the character sheet.
* All tokens that were converted to currency type items will be auto-converted on login.
* Motes of Sourcestone are now referred to in-game as Planarite. Sourcestone items will no longer drop, and existing Sourcestone in your bank or inventory will be converted into Planarite.
* All future currency obtained will automatically go to the Currency tab instead of taking up inventory space.
* All Sourcestone-bought items have had their costs converted to appropriate Planarite costs, and Rift events now drop Planarite in appropriate amounts.
* Updated Sourcestone collecting Achievements to reference Planarite instead.

LOOTING (aka SHINY THINGS)
* All loot rolls go to Party chat if you are partied, and Raid chat if raided.
* When in a party or raid, you will only see loot roll results if you participated in the roll.
* Roll results are no longer displayed as system messages.
* /roll no longer displays the channel name to make it more visually distinct from chat messages on the same channel.
* We now display the items in the loot window that are being rolled on for group loot. If everyone passes and the item is still there after rolling, you can click on it to loot it.
* Fixed an issue with area quest loot not being rewarded when your inventory was full, and then disappearing.
* Fixed another pesky loot-sparkling corpse bug where there wasn’t actually loot to obtain.

MAIL
* Mail with attached items now bounces back to the sender when it expires.
* Adjusted mail expiration: 7 days for CoD mail, 30 days for regular mail, and 90 days for returned mail.
* Increased mailbox size limits.
* We have temporarily disabled the ability to send COD mail until a technical issue is resolved.

RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Experience and money rewards have been removed from zone-wide event completions. Other event rewards remain. [Hrms. What is supposed to entice people to complete these.. if rewards are being removed ]
* The amount of health granted to Rift NPCs when there is high population in the area has gained some additional granularity and smarts when it comes to actually affecting the NPCs.
* Non-event based Wardstones no longer regenerate health.
* Defiant Invasions should now scare the more timid Guardian hub NPCs.
* And Guardian Invasions should scare the more timid Defiant hub NPCs.
* Invasions summoned by player flares will now despawn 60 seconds after winning or losing regardless of their combat state. This solves a bug where these Invaders were getting stuck hanging out in the world.
* Each Wardstone or Idol can only be attacked by a player spawned invasion once every 2 minutes.
* Invasions which succeed will now despawn after 10 minutes, or 3 minutes if left out of combat.
* Invasions will place ‘Invader’s Barrier’ on any Idol they spawn, preventing all damage to it for the next 10 minutes or until that invader is defeated.
* Invasions no longer aggro as a group and can be split.
* If an Invasion general is despawned, rather than killed, it will not count as a ‘kill’ for rewards or quests. Same with Footholds and despawning versus defeating them.
* The large Rift Invaders – colossi – should be more visible from a distance.
* Wandering mobs should no longer wander on top of upgraded wardstones.
* Enemy footholds now show on the map.
* Foothold NPCs have their leashing length increased, preventing players from attacking an idol outside of the effective range of its defenders.