PTS Update for 8-9th April 2015

RIFT’s Public Test Shard (‘PTS’) was updated on the 8th and 9th of April 2015 with ~530mb and 140mb downloads.

Patch versions are TEST-302-10-A-995631 and TEST-302-11-A-996030.

Table of Contents:

• Tier 1 Store Weapon Upgrades. Stats and upgrade costs.
• Tier 1 Armor Cost Reverted
• Fragments of Madness Added. Quest rewards and weekly cap raised. Tier 2 armor cost also increased.
  
• Wardrobe Dye Info. Some dye issues and new bundle to unlock all dye buckets.
• New IA Turn-in Daily. New Instant Adventure Notoriety turn-ins for each major city.
• Other Info. Omega Shard unlocked; ‘Ghar Badge of Honor’ quest item and a change to Aky achieve reward.

As always, everything below is subject to change prior to hitting Live and some things included below may never make it to Live release.

---

Tier 1 Store Weapon Upgrades

As you might know, last week’s PST Updates added Tier 1 Weapons to the RIFT Store for 25k Fragments of Horror or various Credits prices. The update on the 8th April has added Relic upgrade paths to each.

The Stats

Cleric T1 Store Weapon Upgrade

Mage T1 Store Weapon Upgrade

Warrior T1 Store Weapon Upgrade

Rogue T1 Store Weapon Upgrade

Upgrade Costs

Cost differs depending on item.

• Every upgrade requires a Heart of the Frozen.
• All 1-handers/oh/shield requires 13 Abyssal Crusader’s Accelerators.
• All 2-handers require 26 Abyssal Crusader’s Accelerators.

The relic Amenders crafted by various professions differ depending on gear:

• 2-handers require 2x Dreaming Ornament Amender [Artificer].
• 1-handers require 1x Nightmare Weapon Amender [Weaponsmith].
• Ranged/Off-Hand requires 1x Dreaming Ornament Amender [Artificer].
• Shields require 1x Nightmare Metal Amender [Armorsmith].

The weapons and their upgrades have no procs.

These weapons can be found under RIFT Store -> Equipment -> Weapons.

---

Tier 1 Armor Cost Reverted

Tier 1 Store Armor is back to their original prices (8.55k/13k/16.5k). The March 31st update had them at 6.84k/10.4k/13.2k. Unsure if this reversal is intentional or perhaps the reductions are planned for a later date (i.e. not with 3.2 launch) so they’ve reverted it for now.

The Credits price on each armor piece has not changed.

---

Fragments of Madness Added

Fragments of Madness is the currency used for Nightmare Tide Tier 2. It has been available on the PTS for a while now, dropping off the bosses of Return to Hammerknell Fortress. However, there’s been a weekly cap change and NT quests now reward the currency.

Quest Reward – Fragments of Madness

Fragments of Madness is now rewarded from the following quests:

• Random Nightmare Tide Expert Dailies: 80 FoM.
• Random Warfront Dailies: 80 FoM.
• NT Onslaught Weekly: 160 FoM.
• 30x Adventure Weekly: 160 FoM.
• Zone Event Weekly: 160 FoM.
• Nightmare Rift Boss Weekly: 160 FoM.
• Raid Rift Weekly: 160 FoM.
• PvP CQ Win Weekly: 480 FoM.
• PvP CQ Kills Weekly: 480 FoM.
• PvP Warfront Kills Weekly: 480 FoM.
• PvP Warfronts Win Weekly: 480 FoM.

In total that’s 2,720 from weeklies and 1,120 from dailies (assuming only 7 charges). Total of 3,840 Fragments of Madness per week (4,320 for Patrons with 10 daily charges).

Note: The upcoming Crafting Weekly does not reward Fragments of Madness. It is also unknown if we’ll end up getting a Raid Weekly like in Vanilla or Storm Legion.

Weekly Cap – Fragments of Madness

The weekly cap for Fragments of Madness has been adjusted to 8,650 from 5,400. That means for Patrons they can get 10 marks shy of 50% of weekly cap without stepping foot into the Tier 2 raid. This does not account for any bonuses that might trigger with the new currency.

Note: Existing currencies have not had their caps adjusted.

The adjustment has also resulted in an increase in the cost of the Tier 2 Store Armor.

Tier 2 Armor Cost Increased

Tier 2 Armor cost has been increased in light of the change to the weekly cap for Fragments of Madness.

Changes are as follows:

• Chest/Legs – From 16,500 to 25,900 Fragments of Madness each.
• Helm/Shoulders – From 13,000 to 20,900 FoM each.
• Gloves/Belt/Boots – From 8,550 to 13,700 FoM each.

With the adjustment of the weekly cap to 8,650, it will now take:

• ~3 weeks to get a Chest/Leg piece;
• ~2.4 weeks to get a Helm/Shoulder piece;
• ~1.6 weeks to get Gloves/Belt/Boots piece.

This assumes you cap out each week.

You can check out the new models here if you missed the 31st March 2015 PTS Update article.

---

Wardrobe Dye Info

Dye Problems

There’s currently an issue with dyes on the PTS that has appeared with the latest update. You might notice that a lot of your wardrobe pieces don’t have their associated dye applied to the slot. To fix this, change appearances for each slot that is affected and then revert back to your old appearance and click Save. This should fix the dye issue.

Fabulous Bundle of Dye Buckets

There’s now a new bundle under RIFT Store -> Services that has all Dye Bucket color unlocks. 74 account-wide unlocks for all the unlimited use Dye Bucket colors.

The bundle costs 18,000 Credits (16,200 for Patrons). This is a discount to the 21,200 Credits (19,080 for Patrons) that the Dye Buckets would cost if purchased individually. (Thanks to Accol for the maths!)

---

New IA Turn-in Daily

A new turn-in daily is available in all major cities. Various NPCs will ask for some “Commendations of Renown” gained from doing Instant Adventures in any zone. These act like Marks of Notoriety and you simply speak to the appropriate NPC to turn them in for notoriety and some plat.

There’s 4 turn-ins:

A Reputation for Adventure

The Nightmare Tide turn-in is next to the Marks of Notoriety turn-in guy in Flargle Plaza, Draumheim. Turn-in is with Tacitus the Elder at /setwaypoint 5476 5589.

Rewards your choice of: 650 Atragarian, Cerulean Rhenke or Onir notoriety + 3plat 83g 78s for 15x Commendations of Renown.

A Nose for Adventure

The Storm Legion turn-in is in the main building where almost all SL PvE vendors and quests are located in Tempest Bay. Turn-in is with Tacitus the Elder at /setwaypoint 13106 11518.

Rewards your choice of: 1,1250 Eternal City Survivors, Necropolis, Achyati, Hailol, Lycini, Qaijiri or Empyreal Alliance notoriety + 2plat 55g for 10x Commendations of Renown.

A Taste for Adventure

The Mathosia turn-in is separate between Guardian and Defiant.

• Guardian turn-in NPC is Sergeant Deucer in Sanctum’s crafting area next to the Runecrafter and Artificer trainers. /setwaypoint 7403 2960.
• Defiant turn-in NPC is Optio Lyis who is near the Porticulum in Meridian. /setwaypoint 6174 5148.

Rewards your choice of: 1,500 with any Mathosia faction of your choice (including Ember Isle factions) + 31 gold 50s for 10x Commendations of Renown.

---

Other Info

A few other tidbits from latest PTS Update:

Omega Shard

Not sure if this has existed before, but you can now shard-hop to Omega (PvP) Shard on the PTS. The shard itself doesn’t force you to autoflag and there’s no difference between the two shards as far as I know, but just an interesting tidbit.

Interestingly, it’s also unlocked in Shard Select on the PTS. Never seen that before.

Ghar Badge of Honor Quest Item

Now here’s something interesting. I was browsing the wares of the various NT faction merchants and “The Ghar Store” <The Ghar Planar Goods> NPC in Flargle Plaza, Draumheim, was selling a ‘Ghar Badge of Honor’. The merchant doesn’t sell this on Live.

It seems to be a quest item according to the tooltip and requires The Ghar: Honored notoriety. Costs 1 silver so it’s clearly something for the PTS.

Is this quest item for a new quest? Perhaps for a hidden minion card? Or is it something left over on the PTS from the Nightmare Tide beta?

Aky Achieve Reward Change

“The Akylionic Scripture” achievement found under Achievements -> Zones -> RIFT -> Moonshade Highlands has had its reward changed. Instead of what looked like an on-use Akylios sound item, it now rewards the Tendrils of Madness (tentacles) Portrait. It is an account-wide reward.

Interestingly it’s called “Tendrils of Madness” whilst the one on the RIFT Store is called “Akylios’s Grasp”. Are they different? Perhaps the RIFT Store version is animated whilst the achievement version is static.

---

Some raid armor adjustments, upgrades and other tidbits with the latest two PTS Updates. HK IAs are still inaccessible so RIFT 3.2 is unlikely to pop up this week on Live.

For past PTS Updates, click here. You can also find past datamining here.