Trion had their 17th September 2014 Wednesday Livestream where they talked about PvP in RIFT 3.0: Nightmare Tide as well as the Masteries System.

Click here for a replay of the 17th September Wednesday Livestream video on twitch.tv.

Legend:
Black/Normal Text = Livestream Summary.
[Dark Blue Text] = My own comments. i.e. May not be indicative of actual content.

Trion had their 17th September 2014 Wednesday Livestream with Livestreamer “Cole” Marshall, Community Manager Eric “Ocho” Cleaver and Executive Producer Bill “Daglar” Fisher. Archonix, Vladd and Kiwibird were also on the Livestream Chat Channel.

As always, everything can be subject to change prior to the content hitting Live.

PvP in 3.0

There’s quite a few changes to PvP in 3.0, mainly involving gear.

Gear in 3.0

In Nightmare Tide there will no longer be separate PvP and PvE gear. These have all been combined into one set (DPS/Heals and Tank are still separate). This has been done to allow PvP/PvE players to more easily cross between the two types of content. [and probably to save on itemization/modelling resources] As such, a few things will change up:

• Current currencies will have no use for 3.0 for PvP because there will no longer be PvP currency (besides favor).
• For items that require currencies that are no longer available, those items will no longer be available. I.e. Lots of stuff will be removed from the store that you can no longer earn.
• Level 65 is the next progression in terms of gear for PvP.
• Current Myrmidon gear will not allow you to queue up for Level 65 Experts on their own. The same applies to current Tier 3 Raid gear. – Daglar.

Vengeance/Valor Removed

Vengeance and Valor will be removed from existing PvP gear. This change is already up on the PTS for you to check out.

PvP Gear Changed for 3.0. Info from PTS.

• Vengeance/Valor has been converted to SP/AP/Endurance.
• Other changes include HIT. I.e. my char’s full-myrm gear on the PTS has 624 HIT.
• Your gear hasn’t been ‘replaced’, just changed. Thus you still have your Dream Orbs/Runes on your gear.
• PvP Runes have also been converted. However, this conversion seems to have only applied to Store-based PvP runes. For example, the ‘Vengeful Adamant Rune’ above gained from Depleted Supply Crates still has Vengeance. (This might be a bug as the changes only just appeared in today’s PTS update.)

Changes to PvP Runes. Info from PTS.

As you can see, some of the PvP runes are now better than existing Storm Legion notoriety runes. These still cost favor.

PvP Lockboxes

In replying to concerns over the Depleted Supply Crates and how they functioned in PvP, Daglar stated they will probably add something similar in 3.0. However, since gear is no longer split between PvP and PvE, the lockboxes will be available for use to all players.

We will probably introduce something similar to [Depleted Supply Crates], but since gear is gear, it will be for everybody. It will not be specific to PvPers.

– Daglar

That said, Best-in-Slot gear will not come from lockboxes.

What’s Happening With Prestige?

Prestige will remain and increase to 100 Prestige Rank. However, since gear is combined between PvE and PvP, Prestige will no longer be required for obtaining gear.

Instead, the only use for Prestige will be for titles and getting extra Planar Attunement experience every 5 PA levels.

• Prestige Vials will not change.

Other Gear-Related Info

• There will be 3 sets of new armor/visuals at the launch of Nightmare Tide.
• TOUGHNESS and HIT were combined into HIT.
• GUARD stat (aura around player that provides a benefit/dmg reduction) will also affect PvP.
• Given that PvP and PvE gear are now combined, top end raiders will end up having to do everything (PvP/PvE) if they wish to stay at the top since tokens are gained from everything (PvP/PvE).

PvP Bolstering

Bolstering will work differently in PvP for RIFT 3.0: Nightmare Tide.

• The ‘floor’ on bolstering that currently exists will continue to exist in 3.0. Thus there will still be bolstering up.
• There is now a new ‘ceiling’ on stats that will apply to any gear that is above a certain stat value that Trion sets for each gear slot. Thus there will be bolstering down in PvP. This will ‘hopefully’ prevent Raiders with BiS dropped gear from having an overwhelming stat advantage in PvP. No details on how a PvPer who doesn’t Raid will fare though (i.e. what exactly will be the stat ceiling).
• If your gear is bolstered, any dream orbs or runes that you have on that gear will continue to apply to your stats.

For Open World PvP, damage and healing will be reduced by about 85% so that players don’t just melt each other now that Valor is removed. This reduction will apply whenever you are engaged in combat with another player.

Although the top Raid-dropped gear will be bolstered down due to the stat ceiling in PvP, the addition of new tiers may change the bolstering so that previously best raid gear ends up becoming fully useable in PvP.

Warfronts

There will be a new warfront coming in the expansion. Art assets have arrived as of this Monday and Trion hopes to have it ready by 3.0 launch. No details on what this warfront involves although they hinted that it potentially has a new playstyle.

Other Warfront-related information:

• No underwater warfront.
• No changes to the Mercenary system. – Archonix.
  
• Archonix in the livestream chat channel mentioned that Trion have been discussing adding a 3v3 map to Ranked Black Garden.

Matchmaking Improvements

Daglar mistakenly mentioned previously that Elo rating was only based on win/loss. However, he re-confirmed recently that damage was also having an effect on a player’s Elo rating.

Next week, your Elo rating will no longer be affected by damage.

Balancing Healers/DPS

For match-making improvements, Trion is working on balancing healers and DPS in warfronts.

• This is an on/off switch that they will be testing out in the expansion to see how negatively it affects queue times.
• It won’t be via your own personal selection (so not like the LFG window). Instead, the matchmaking system will take a look at your play history. If you are typically a healer in warfronts, you might be counted as a healer during matchmaking.

Losing Streak Adjustment

If you happen to be on a losing streak, the matchmaking system will try to pair you up so that two players on a losing streak will be on opposite teams. Thus, at least one of the two players on a losing streak will win that match.

Conquest

• Conquest will be turned off until a decent amount of players are Level 65.
• Conquest Power is completely gone. Same with Conquest Perks.
• Trion will likely maintain Weekly Conquest Quests that will reward the new tokens once CQ is back up.
• There is potential for a new CQ map in the future, but not on release of 3.0.

Other PvP-related Information

• No new PvP quests on launch of the expansion although the PvP quests will be added later on.
• PvP Looting will not be automatic so you no longer have to loot corpses.
• Seastone (US) will not become a PvE shard.
• A player on the livestream suggested adding an item for Dimensions that would allow PvP Bolstering. Daglar stated it was a ‘great suggestion’ but ‘no promises’ for its implementation.
• Trion will never add rewards for ‘arenas’ (5v5 Black Garden).

Masteries System

Masteries are a new addition for RIFT 3.0: Nightmare Tide that replacing soul points for Level 61-65. Instead of soul points, you get to choose between multiple Masteries for each level above 60.

The reason why there are Masteries instead of new soul points is because new soul points would have been an information overload for the class devs.  Adding new soul points would have killed off any hybrids due to the complexity of additional soul points.

These Masteries are saved per spec, but you can adjust them whilst out of combat (so you don’t need to go to a Class Trainer to reset them). The Masteries include both passive and active abilities.

You can find more information about Masteries as well as full ability lists here.

Livestream Giveaways

During the Livestream, a handful of livestream chat channel viewers received:

• 1x Ducklar companion pet to 5 livestream viewers.
• 10x Black Squirrel Trove to 3 livestream viewers.
• 1x Nightmare Tide Ultimate Edition Pack to 1 lucky livestream viewer!

Congratulations to all the winners!

(From Left to Right: Cole, Daglar and Ocho)

CM Ocho has also posted an ‘Informal PvP Stream Summary’ here and has also been posting responses to players’ questions in that thread.

You can check out other Nightmare Tide Content information we’ve compiled here, or delve a little deeper and read up on all the latest Nightmare Tide-related articles here.

Past Livestream Summaries can be accessed here.