Make Lunar Rifts Great Again

Discussion in 'Quests & Lore' started by Beaumaris, Jan 12, 2019.

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  1. Elwyn

    Elwyn Avatar

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    But there already is. It's just not useful.

    Right. This is why it was okay that they used up all 8 destinations already. The new lands will have their own system, and there shouldn't be such an easy way between expansions. I'd be fine if TTZ was only within one expansion and you had to go to a port town, take a ferry, and use up another TTZ in the other land. I know about the reason they made transportation around Novia so easy, to keep it from scaring away new players, but I'm not so sure that would be nearly as important with expansion areas.

    The original idea I heard back at SotaCon was that you would be able to save only a certain number of bind points, and you could upgrade the number of slots on the store. What we got instead (you can go to ANY zone you've been to before, and selling the scrolls on the store even though they are craftable by players) wasn't even a shadow of that.

    That much I can agree with. There isn't even so much as art of the stone circle on the map to say "hey there's a rift in here!", and even that would be a start. Next would be making sure that there is an entrance from the overworld that goes to or near the rift (new Solace Bridge fails on this). They could also make them usable from the overworld, but I feel like that would be going a bit too far in the theme-parky direction.
     
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  2. kaeshiva

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    Load screen time and performance are some of the key drivers for increased transport options. Most of the time, I don't mind walking across Novia - don't think it was an issue for many people.
    Before the QOL changes though, it could take 45 minutes to just [zone out of where you were] Walk, encounter [load in] [load out] walk a bit...encounter....[load in][load out]...get to destination town...yay...siege [load in][load out]. Its much better now that the encounters are less obnoxiously aggressive and the sieges are bypassable.

    The lunar rifts though, are another thing entirely. I find a lunar rift that points to a particular destination at any given time about as useful as a stopped clock that is right two times a day. It is almost never more convenient to take the rift, unless you happen to live in one of the towns that has one, which is a small % of people. Furthermore, their presence seems to "confuse" the compass markers - a friend I tried to get playing the game ended up ragequitting over his quest telling him to take the rift and every day that he logged in and took the time to go walk to it, it was never pointed to the right place. By the time I figured out what was frustrating him and told him he could just walk there, he didn't have to take the rift, he was already at ragequit level with the quest system in general and the rift thing was icing on the cake.

    From a lore standpoint, the rifts are cool.
    Putting them on the world map is an excellent idea.
    I'd rethink them as a key travel network though - it really isn't necessary anymore. Might be something for cross-continental travel once more landmasses are in.
     
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  3. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I'd scrap the way they work currently, and have them link to the new lands instead. Put eight in the new areas, and make them shift links each lunar phase. Use one, you end up in the new lands, but you might still need to walk a bit once you get there, depending on phase. (Maybe make one or two of the areas of new lands only accessible by rift, so you would need to figure out which rift gets you there.) That makes them useful, but not too much of a pain. You could still get there via a port town or two as well, but this way, if you live near Aerie, you don't have to run all the way to Grannus or Brittainy or wherever the boat is.

    And move them to the overworld!
     
  4. Vladamir Begemot

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    If the Rifts were usable from the world map, no loading needed, they would be useful. Still not needed in our current setup, but if you were running by Highvale you could mouse over the rift, see it's pointing to Etceter and click "Use Rift". You'd pop out on the world map by Etceter and continue on your way to Ardoris. For example.

    Zero loads, cut off 30 seconds of time from travel (no big deal) but also had a neat interaction with the game (a win!)
     
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  5. Elwyn

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    That's where a rift clock app comes in. Mine is at http://xi6.com/i/sotaclock.html and being a DHTML app, it can even be copied to and run from your local hard drive. Caveat: the server clock was about 45 seconds fast before the server move, but I haven't had a chance to check it again. I still need to make a single .zip of the whole thing, but I had been waiting for the Lost Vale thing to settle down, and now it's easier to simply look at the game date and know it's on the 2nd, 13th, and 24th of the month.

    That's when it sees a quest that is in one of the areas with a rift, it is trying to encourage you to go through the rift to do the quest. This is bad for multiple reasons, mostly because of quests that won't clear, but also it doesn't respect the current rift phase. The whole quest markers not going away problem is well known, but they still won't be able to fix it for a while.
     
  6. kaeshiva

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    Yeah, I know there's a clock thing.. But I'm one of those people that thinks any system that encourages the player to log out of / tab out of the game because there is insufficient explanation/support/clarity within the game itself, is a system that needs to be looked at. There was some minimal reason to do this before, as if the rift near you happened to be in the right phase it -might- have been faster than walking, assuming you had no friends to teleport to. But with teleport to zone it is now almost entirely moot.
     
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  7. Elwyn

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    No reason they can't make a rift clock deco just like the regular in-game clocks. And maybe a "pocket watch" version that would momentarily pop up a circular art on your screen with the current state. I think I want one.
     
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  8. Astirian

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    I was just about to post about this but I searched the forum for Lunar Rift first! :)

    Would love to see this ingame. Ornate Moonwatch... Little pocketwatch comes up as a gump with a tooltip that tells you the current destination. Couple that with overworld rifts and you have a right winner!

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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  9. Jason_M

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    At first blush I wasn't keen on the idea lf lunar rifts on the world map, but I like the idea. However, some mystery should surround them. Players should use some trial and error or enter the scene. It will br much more satisfying when they know the right moon to teleport them.

    If there's no loading screens it would be aomething cool for people to learn.
     
  10. Daxxe Diggler

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    One of the first things a new player does in this game (after creating your appearance and speaking to the Oracle in Isle of Storms) is use the Lunar Rift to go to your desired starting area.

    It seems like it will be a fundamental means of transportation throughout the game... yet after that we rarely use them.

    I'm sort of in agreement with @Bowen Bloodgood in that there should only be 3 of them ( or at least only 3 destinations available ) for Episode 1.

    They should only take you to the starting point of the Truth, Love, and Courage starting scenes. It should be made abundantly clear in the "tutorials" and NPC conversations in the starting scenes and outskirt scenes that these lunar rifts will quickly and safely transport avatars between these starting areas.

    This will help guide them into doing all 3 simultaneously and lead them to complete the easier content before tackling the harder parts of the Shroud series.

    I know they were added all over the map to help get to the outlying scenes of the quest lines... but now that the control points don't prohibit low level players from accessing them, it's easy enough to just travel to them on the overworld map.

    I guess those that are in scenes can remain active... but perhaps they should only lead to one of the 3 current Virtue starting areas? Then, as other episodes get added, new Rifts can open up and additional locations can be added to travel to the newly discovered lands as they are added.

    As they are now, they are rarely used except early on because scrolls are simply more convenient. New players may not have enough scrolls yet, so this might be a staple means of transportation for them. Therefore, they should cater to them and be made part of the lore to help spice it up a bit.
     
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  11. shadtek

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    The thing is, once you can teleport anywhere you want to be, there is no reason to use the overland map and it shows...
    Since the scrolls were released, the traffic on the overland map has decreased.
     
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  12. majoria70

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    I love teleporting anywhere. I use the map when I need to. I now go mining just at the drop of the hat and then recall or zone back to Wizards Rest if something comes up. We now know others are in the game if we want to because we have universal chat. Just say is anyone there and walah if they feel like it they can do a role call for us;). This is a segregated world and always will be. Giving teleport anywhere is a lovely thing. There is not as much need to see anyone since we can ask anything we like just like that. To get the zone locations you do have to visit them which marks your zone scroll with those locations as soon as you enter them. I am not saying that reasons to use the map could be implemented if that is the way the game goes. So no messing with our teleports. Finally we do not have so many restrictions and barriers to get to places. I know there are reasons for and against which are fine for other types of games but it just didn't work out this way so far for this game. A segregated world always needed a way past that. This is no small single player game but for the single player portion of the game perhaps there could be more strict rules but multiplayer needs interesting solutions to the many frustrations it has struggled with. Ok imo. The walls are coming down and let them keep coming down. I know there are people who will not be happy with the instant gratification but travel is important in a world full of zones and loading times that can make anyone a bit crazy at times. To improve this game look at the many systems that need added in and current systems that need completed with interesting details. For now there is no reason to deter us from traveling.
     
  13. Astirian

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    Dunno, we did have this bad boy:

    [​IMG]
     
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