PTS Update for 17th September 2014

A large 2.4GB update hit RIFT’s Public Test Shard for the 17th September 2014. TEST-300-22-A-941144.

Click here for information on datamined files with this update.

Updated information shown below:

Summary:

• General Info: NT Digital Edition pack items up on PTS + New Nightmare Tide Screens.
• Cleric Inquisitor Changes are Up.
• Crafting Changes – Limit on Craft Marks increased; new mat similar to Coruscating Ethereal Shards added in.
• New Mini-Map Elevation Icons.
• PvP Gear Changes – Removal of Vengeance/Valor + No more PvP category in RIFT Store.
• Minions System Updated.
• ‘Sidekicking’ Option.
• New Achievements.

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General Info

Nightmare Tide Digital Editions Up

The vast majority of items for Nightmare Tide Digital Editions are allegedly now available on the PTS including the Bloop companion pet and a few others such as Shadow Scion dimension key.

Exclusive Bag Slot Unlock

The Exclusive Bag Slot Unlock gained from any of the NT Digital Edition packs is now shown on the PTS. The UI for the bag slots and  platinum information has also changed slightly to become more compact.

Bloop Companion Pet

Bloop Companion Pet. This is exclusive to Infusion and Ultimate Nightmare NT Digital Edition packs.

New Nightmare Tide Screens

First up as soon as your game loads you are presented with a new Nightmare Tide launch screen. To the left is the giant Sea Colossus and to the right is Matrodtraum, the First Demon.

The character select screen has also bee updated to show the Rhen of Fate building in the background and some Akylios statues.

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Cleric Inquisitor Changes are Up!

As Kervik announced previously, Cleric’s Inquisitor soul is undergoing some changes. These changes are now up on the PTS and will remain there for approx. 1 week before being applied to Live (unless there’s further adjustments needed). ETA for Live is approx week before 3.0, or 3.0 launch week.

Changes are as follows: [r]

• Reduce cooldown of Fanaticism to 30s.
• Remove Perseverance from the GCD. Reduce cooldown and duration of Perseverance to 1 min.
• Fix Spiritual Scrutiny’s armor/resist penetration to affect the dot portion of Sanction Heretic.
• Exocommunicate now off GCD and snares affected enemies, reducing their movement speed by 30%, for up to 10sec.
• Trepidation now only breaks on damage after the enemy has received damage equal to 5% of the caster’s max health.
• Increase duration of Bewilder to 4s.
• Life and Death Concord now has a max stack size of 4. Stacks reduce the cast time of Bolt of Depravity by 0.2/0.4/0.6 per stack.
• Unified Theory now triggers at 4 stacks
• Consuming Unified Theory reduces the active cooldown of Nysyr’s Rebuke by 4s.
• Radical Coalescence now only resets cooldowns of damaging abilities.
• The GCD reduction from Spiritual Scrutiny now affects all abilities.
• Harsh Discipline now heals for 15% of the caster’s max health over 3s.
• Increase damage of Harsh Discipline and cooldown to 1 min.
• PVP ability Retribution instant instead of keeping its current cast time.

Test them out on the PTS and provide feedback in-game or via the thread here.

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Crafting Changes

Craft Mark Cap Raised

• Master Craftsman Marks cap has been raised to 1,000.
• Grandmaster Craftsman Marks cap has been raised to 500.

Crafting Reagents

New Crafting Reagents – one for each profession – have been added to the PTS. These mostly cost 1 plat each (so higher than the 20g Grandmaster reagents).

There’s also the Nightmare Tide replacement for Coruscating Ethereal Shards called Abyssal Shard that requires Abyssal Crusader’s Marks gained from completing Random Expert dailies.

(Thanks to Xxii@Brisesol for the Crafting info!)

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New Mini-Map Elevation Icons

All major information on your Mini-Map now has Above/Below elevation icons to indicate whether the NPC/node/objective is above or below you. This is to help out with the depth of various content in Nightmare Tide.

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PvP Gear Changes

There’s a few changes to PvP gear slated for Nightmare Tide that are now up on the PTS. Mainly, PvP and PvE gear will be combined. [r]

Removal of Vengeance/Valor

Vengeance and Valor have been removed and replaced with SP, AP and/or Endurance. There’s also been an increase in HIT on PvP gear so now a full Myrmidon-geared player should have around 624 HIT on them. Note that this is still not enough to access Level 65 Experts.

Your gear has not been replaced though – only the stats changed – so you still have your runes and dream orbs on them.

PvP Runes Adjusted

Just like with the other PvP Gear, PvP Runes have been adjusted. Specifically, Store/Vendor-bought runes have been changed. It looks like the PvP Runes from Depleted Supply Crates have not been adjusted (so they still have Vengeance).

Note: Since the PvP Runes will now be able to be applied to all gear, Vengeful Intrepid Rune can be a nice little boost whilst leveling up since it gives END + 30, CP + 71 on Feet (Lustrous Intrepid Rune gives +71 CP-only).

No More PvP in RIFT Store

Since PvP and PvE gear will be combined in the Nightmare Tide expansion, the PvP category in the RIFT Store has been removed. Some PvP gear is still available under the Equipment category and they are still available from PvP vendors in Tempest Bay.

However, Trion have stated that any gear that requires PvP currency (other than Favor) will likely be removed because those currencies will no longer be obtainable/used in 3.0.

You can find out more information about the changes to PvP gear from the Livestream Summary of 17th Sept 2014’s 3.0 PvP livestream.

Conquest Power/Perks Removed

As Trion have stated months ago, Conquest Power – and thus Conquest Perks – will be removed for the Nightmare Tide Expansion. The PTS has since removed these perks and replaced it with general text.

Conquest will also be disabled when Nightmare Tide launches until there’s enough players at Level 65 to re-enable it.

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Minions System Updated

The Minions System has been updated. You can access the Minions System on the PTS by either pressing ‘v‘ or going to your mini menu-bar, selecting ‘Activities’ (‘play’ button) and going to Minions.

Adventure Cards Reward Type Updated

The Reward Types in Adventure Cards have been updated to include text on what the rewards actually are (instead of just the icons). The 1 minute Adventure Cards have also had their Reward Type graphic updated to the correct graphic (an animated exp orb).

Minions Cards Updated

The Minions Cards have also been updated – mainly a reduction in the model size to be closer to scale as well as a brief, descriptive text for each card.

Hurry and Unlock Slot Costs Updated

The “Hurry” and “Unlock Slot” buttons’ prices have been updated. The platinum option in the earlier version of the Minions UI has been removed. The above prices are Patron-adjusted, so original prices would be 30 Credits to Hurry up an Adventure with 4min 45sec left and 600 Credits to unlock an additional Minion Slot.

• The more time is left for an Adventure to complete, the higher the Credits cost.
• Minion Slots refer to how many Adventures you can go on at any one time.

Other Minions Changes

Gingers has posted complete changes in the latest PTS Update below:

• The 1 minute Adventures now show the correct reward graphic.
• Adventures that give minion experience (MXP) now show text in the chat console (it defaults to your combat chat tab).
• Many small improvements to the look of the cards.
• You should no longer have the issue of not being able to send out your minions.
• Prices and reward amounts have been adjusted but all are still not yet final.
• Promo adventures and hurry now only cost Credits, again prices are not yet final.
• The Shop button now works and sends you to a placeholder minion.
• Nicknames have been removed.
• Some minions now have flavor text.
• The word “Mission” has been replaced with “Adventure” in Achievements.
• Minions work after you teleport now.
• The minion item can not give you repeat minions and won’t be consumed if you already have it.
• Added confirmation popup when consuming a minion.
• When adding a minion, the UI will now open, scroll to the minion card with the icon pulsing.
• The scroll bars on the adventure tab now scroll using the mouse wheel.
• In progress adventures now use the correct banner color (it should match the planar themed of the adventure).

[Source: Gingers]

Please send all feedback about the new changes either in-game or in the thread here.

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‘Sidekicking’ Option

There’s a new option called ‘Sidekicking’ when you right-click your character’s portrait. This option – when you Enable it – will allow you to automatically mentor up to the highest level/mentor-leveled player in your group.

It is defaulted to ‘Disabled’.

You can still use the “Set Ascended Mentor level” to manually mentor down.

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New Achievements

Overall achievements have been adjusted up 765 points to 32,667.

• Zones -> RIFT: Nightmare Tide -> Tarken Glacier. Pts reduced from 245 to 210.
• Planes -> Air. Increased 430 to 460.
• Planes -> Death. Increased 375 to 405.
• Planes -> Earth. Increased 340 to 370.
• Planes -> Fire. Increased 880 to 910.
• Planes -> Life. Increased 445 to 475.
• Planes -> Water. Increased 330 to 360.
• Planes -> Nightmare -> Nightmare I-V all increased from 158 to 258.
• PvP. Increased by 5pts. Added Prestige Rank 100 with Title: “Dreambreaker”.
• Promotions. ‘Veteran: ## Month Loyalty’ achievements are now all under Promotions.

Planes  – Main Achievements

Every single major Planes category has been updated with more Footholds, Invasions and Rifts achievements as well as an updated meta. Reward is the usual Dimension planar items like the old reward for Storm Legion.

There’s also one zone event per major Planes category that has an achieve for each of the three Nightmare Tide zones: Goboro Reef, Draumheim and Tarken Glacier.

Planes – Nightmare Rifts Achievements

The main Nightmare achievement category has meta achievements for each rank of Nightmare Rifts. Note that these are likely old achievements that haven’t been adjusted yet since they show 7 ranks, not the updated 5 ranks of Nightmare Rifts.

The Nightmare 1 achievements are for Rank 1 Nightmare Rifts. The above shows a handful of the achievements in this sub-category. Besides the above, there are also achievements for each boss. The other ranks also have very similar achievements.

The achievements show that there are daily quests for each rank, Bonus Reward Phases that stack back-to-back as well as ‘Visions’ in the Nightmare 1 Rifts.

PvP Achievement

A new Prestige Rank of 100 will exist at Nightmare Tide launch. Obtaining this rank grants the achievement “Dreambreaker” and the Title: “Dreambreaker”.

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Quite a few things available on the surface. A large portion of the ~2.4GB download is likely due to polish, itemization and maps being re-downloaded.

Click here for information on datamined files with this update.

For past PTS Updates, click here. You can also find past datamining and 3.0-related news updates.
Want to know what’s coming in RIFT 2.8: Madness Wakes? There’s a few bits of information we’ve been able to obtain prior to tomorrow’s patchnotes here.