PTS Update: Patch 3.5 Content

RIFT’s Public Test Shard (‘PTS’) was updated on the 19th November 2015 with ~2.92GB download. Patch 3.5 content mentioned in the 3.5 livestream are now up on the PTS: Affinity System, Tier 2 PvP weapons and armor; Fae Yule store items & Faelight sparkle quest, and a few other additions.

You can also check out what was in the data files here. A bunch more dimension keys!

Patch version is TEST-303-83-A-1058935.

Summary:

• Graphics Issues. Assets all over the place; capes preview not moving; weapons on ground for preview.
• Affinity System. Affinity System is on PTS now with Affinity Rewards on the RIFT Store. Includes new Tarken Lifter mount.
• PvP Additions. Marauder’s Supply Cache armor & accessories upgrade to Tier 2; new Tier 1 PvP weapons on RIFT Store that upgrade to Tier 2 with procs; PvP Weekly adjustments.
  
• Fae Yule Additions. New portrait badges, minion cards, pets, animated backpacks, capes and dimension items. There’s also Level 65 Necklaces upgradeable to Tier 2 and Level 65 Essences.
• Other Info. Trove and Shal Korva Dimension Key bundles/grab bags; currencies now display Affinity and Referral Coins; crafting reagent popup added; and new Shal Korva achievement.
  

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

---

Graphics Issues

First up, the latest PTS Update seems to have introduced a whole heap of graphics issues to the test client. You’ll probably notice buildings, floors, ceilings and objects are all over the place, although NPCs seem to remain in their usual positions.

There’s also issues with capes in preview not moving as your character rotates, and weapon previews show the weapon on the floor underneath your character.

This will probably be fixed up with the next PTS patch. For now though, you can still view all the windows, such as the RIFT Store.

(There’s a thread about this you can check out here).

---

Affinity System

As was mentioned in the 3.5 Livestream, the Affinity System is coming to Patch 3.5. It rewards Patrons for daily login and hours played (up to a cap). The Affinity Rewards are now up on the PTS, and players are able to earn the Affinity currency.

Affinity Currency

From the PTS, Affinity seems to be gained at a rate of 5 for daily login and 1 for each hour played. However, there’s currently a bug where the 1 Affinity you get for hour played isn’t added to your total.

Unknown what the hour-based cap is.

Affinity Rewards

Affinity Rewards are as mentioned in last week’s livestream. A whole bunch of previously lockbox-only mounts, as well as a companion pet. There might be more added in the future.

The cost of the mounts are 350/450/625 Affinity depending on their mount speed and whether or not they are Amphibious or Land mounts. Interestingly, the Volt mount is 60% whereas all the others are either 155% or matches fastest mount speed; or match-only.

The Bolt and Volt mounts also have a Credit option (3,000 Credits; 2,700 for Patrons).

There’s also the Tasty Lamb companion pet for 150 Affinity, which is the same model as the Succulent Lamb from Referral Rewards.

Mounts are Bind on Pickup and it looks as though they are per-char and not account-wide unlock.

Tarken Lifter Mount

There’s also a new Tarken Lifter mount available from Affinity Rewards.

It’s an amphibious, 155% mount (or matches fastest mount speed). Bind on pickup. Costs 625 Affinity.

---

PvP Additions

PvP has a few additions including a new upgrade tier for armor from the Marauder’s Supply Cache with Tier 2 hit as well as Tier 1 weapons purchasable on the RIFT Store and upgradeable to Tier 2 weapons with procs.

Warmonger’s Armor & Accessories

• Frenetic armor & accessories now upgrades to Warmonger’s armor. This has Tier 2 (+175) Hit.
• No upgrades for Marauder’s Supply Cache essences or weapons.

Upgrade costs from Frenetic to Warmonger are the same as from Dreambreaker to Frenetic.

Check out Stihl’s thread on the RIFT Forums here, which lists all Warmonger stats and upgrade costs in a neat table format!

Warmonger’s Weapons

Warmonger’s Tier 1 weapons are now purchasable using new Warmonger’s Marks from RIFT Store -> Equipment -> Weapons.

• Costs 12/24 Warmonger’s Marks for the base 1h/2h Tier 1 weapon.
• These weapons can be upgraded to become Tier 2 with +175/350 Hit. The upgrade also adds a proc to the weapon.
• There’s dps, heals and tank weapons.

The upgrade to Tier 2 costs Abyssal Crusader’s Accelerators and Favor Infused Accelerators.

Check out Stihl’s thread on the RIFT Forums here, which lists all the pvp weapon stats, upgrade costs as well as the full range of procs!

Warmonger’s Marks

Warmonger’s Marks are obtained from RIFT Store -> Equipment -> Upgrade Parts for 100,000 Favor.

• There is a weekly cap of 6 Warmonger’s Marks.
• You can have a maximum of 30 Warmonger’s Marks at any one time.
• Warmonger’s Marks are used to purchase the new Tier 1 PvP weapons.

PvP Quest Adjustments

As Trion mentioned last week:

• Guns for Hire now only required completing 7 warfronts in the usual lineup, instead of the current 9. Port Scion should also have been removed from the weekly’s objectives.
• Conquest Carnage now only requires you kill 1,800 players, instead of 2,000 in CQ.

---

Fae Yule Additions

The World Event tab is up on the PTS with Fae Yule items. There’s also Fae Yule Instant Adventures and the Faelight Sparkle quest is up.

Fae Yule Store Items – Overview

Only listing new things here:

• Fae Yule Bell Portrait Badge and a Fae Yule Hellbug Portrait Badge. No preview.
• 36-slot bag: Greatfather’s Grand Sack. Unique.
• Holly Corgi companion pet. No preview.
• Fae Yule Gnome Gift Backpack. Gnome’s head/mouth/eyes move, and the stocking also moves.
• Fae Yule Celebration Backpack. Doesn’t seem to be animated.
• Fae Yule Fur and Fae Yule Holly Capes. Can’t preview due to the cape graphics bug on PTS.
• Fae Yule Dimension Grab Bag for 2015.
• New Minion Card: Grish. Unlocks 5 more cards. The 2014 Fae Yule Minion Adventure Pack is also available for those who missed last year’s minions.
• Level 65 Necks with 150 Hit that can be upgraded to 175 Hit; and Level 65 essences.

The Midnight and blue-colored Mink mounts were not in the RIFT Store.

Level 65 Fae Yule Necklaces

Level 65 Fae Yule Necklaces have popped up under RIFT Store -> World Event on the PTS, slated for Fae Yule in December. Each necklace costs either 30x Dark Icicles + 2,300 Unique Snowflakes, or 2,100 Credits (1,890 for Patrons) each.

Tier 1 (150 Hit), but can be upgraded with 5x Abyssal Crusader’s Marks and 1x Dreaming Ornament Amender into Tier 2 (175 Hit).

You can check out the stats for each necklace and their upgrade below:

Level 65 Fae Yule Essences

There’s also essences for Level 65 players during this year’s Fae Yule World Event found under RIFT Store -> World Event for 30 Dark Icicles + 750 Unique Snowflakes, or 1,280 Credits (1,152 for Patron) each.

There might be other stuff popping up, including new achievements but they aren’t in the latest PTS update.

Faelight Sparkle Quest

Faelight Sparkles make a return this year, this time as a one-off quest called “Faelight Sparkle Returns”. The quest is available on the PTS from Stuttk Fyrirthig in Tempest Bay or Flargle Plaza, Draumheim just like last year.

• Quest objective: Collect 500x Faelight Sparkles.
• Quest reward: Choice of either Sparkling Shard of Wonder (dps/heals) or Reinforced Sparkling Shard of Wonder (tank). Gives you random Tier 3 armor.

So far from what I’ve seen, here’s a few ways to obtain the Faelight Sparkles:

• 6x from Expert/Warfront random charge.
• 2x from Spirit of Adventure (30x IA), Five If By Sea (5x Raid Rift) and Cerebral Catharsis (20x NMR bosses) weeklies.
• 2x from Raid Rift daily.
• Aquias Avenger, PTW and PvP weeklies do not reward any Faelight Sparkles.
• Zone events in Nightmare Tide should also reward some.

Fae Yule Instant Adventures

The Instant Adventure window now has Fae Yule in Iron Pine Peak as its Featured adventure. You’ll follow Atrophinius and Greatfather Frost throughout the zone.

---

Other Info

Dimension Grab Bags

Besides the new Fae Yule Dimension Grab Bag, you can also find the Trove Dimension Item Promo Bundle and the Shal Korva Dimension Key Grab Bag under RIFT Store -> Dimensions.

As the Shal Korva Dimension Key Grab Bag states, it has an “ultra rare” chance of obtaining a new Shal Korva dimension key!

The Trove Dimension Item Promo Bundle probably contains the building blocks and trees related to Trion’s other game, Trove, whose icons were datamined recently below:

Since it’s a ‘bundle’ and not a ‘grab bag’, it might contain a decent few (or maybe all) of the dimension items above. Tooltip unfortunately doesn’t mention anything.

Currency Display Update

Affinity and Referral Coins that you have now displays in the Currencies tab.

Crafting Reagent Store Pop

As Gingers mentioned in last week’s livestream, there’s now a “+” sign next to all reagents in crafting recipes. Clicking on it will open up the RIFT Store to the correct category for that reagent and highlight it for you.

Shal Korva Achievement

Only one 5pt achievement was added in the latest PTS update called “Come Fly Away”. Found under Achievements -> Zones -> RIFT -> Planetouched Wilds, it involves completing the quest “Soaring Over Shal Korva”.

---

Quite a large update today that seems to have included most of the Patch 3.5 content that was mentioned during the 3.5 livestream. Given the update is still missing three of the new Fae Yule mounts, it’s likely that there will be further PTS updates in the coming weeks.

You can check out the datamining article here.

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