The RIFT – Podcast 38: Producer Adam Gershowitz on Class Balance & Patch 1.1

by on Apr.11, 2011, under Podcast

Adam ‘Gersh’ Gershowitz joins the podcast team today in order to clarify and answer some things which arose with Patch 1.1

  • Class Balance and Changes
  • Raid Healing Alterations
  • Corrupted Soul scarcity
  • New Rift contribution system
  • World Event
  • Profession Plaques
  • Dungeons Plaques
  • The Missing Dye Vendor

Sadly the 2nd phase of the World Event has been postponed until next weekend. There are some mentions of it starting on the previous Saturday as was originally intended.

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Written by Arithion

Arithion was insane enough to start the production of The Rift Podcast back in June 2010. Apart from hosting The Rift with Desikis she also writes articles for the site and has a fascination with corgis.


6 Comments for this entry

  • Shezz
    April 11th, 2011 on 3:59 pm

    It would be fantastic if in one of the future interviews you quizzed one of the devs in regards to Trion’s plans for RvR on behalf of the PvP community!

  • Elindor
    April 12th, 2011 on 10:29 am

    If they were trying to correct the fact that some builds did 40-60% more dmg than all others did they unleash the Pyro monster??? Its like they are playing balancing whack-a-mole!

  • Paul
    April 13th, 2011 on 7:03 am

    Not intending to flame, that being said past performance and recent changes surely indicate that Adam G is a poor choice for balance changes. It is my understanding that he was heavily involved in Warhammer Online – where the Brightwizard and the Warrior Priest were the class to play. BW was massively OP in comparison to ALL classes and WP was heads and shoulders above the exact same class Disciple of Khain on the oposing faction. Following 1.1 we now have a Pyro combo that can easily out dps pretty much every class and can PVP 2-4 individuals with fair confidence. Enhancing the Armour value of Cloth to the same point of Leather………..
    There needs to be BALANCE in class changes – and past performance indicates that this is something that AG cannot provide…………..
    There should be NO WAY that a pyro/mage combo can solo pvp a warrior AND a rogue – thats not balance its IMBALANCE.
    I agree that there needed to be changes however it seems the scales of balance have been tipped too far.
    There should never be a Nerf and Buff to different classes at the same time – there is no way to “judge” the overall change to the game. What we saw was nerfs to warrior/rogues and buffs to mages compounded by changes to armour for mages too. Way too much in one change.
    Now onto Clerics……. Clerics can effectively out tank warrior tanks while still shipping more damage than them. Please for the sake (and life of the game) do not BUFF clerics, yes by all means sort out a single target dps issue here, eg boss fights – but the class as a whole does not need buffing – just tweaking.
    Warriors need genuine rolls in the game – Tank/DPS and support (obviously healing is not really an option). It would make complete sense to sort out the Warlord – give him a genuine support role and possibility of either mini heals or range dps.
    How about something along the lines of bard buffs – damage increase/damage reduction/ap-sp buff and a 3 buff bonus – stats + 5% or something. Or even a Chloro style synthesis – but they take a % of the damage from the “synthesised” person. Or perhaps an aggro movement/threat degeneration from everyone except the synthesised person – from healers/squishies to them selves. But, as it stands Wlords fulfill no real role or enhance the game as a whole.

    For the record my main character is a rogue Bard/Sab – as sab is the only “real” choice to go with bard to make them useful – but moving onto T2′s my healing as bard is much inferior to Chloro or Cleric. However thats a seperate issue.

  • Paul
    April 13th, 2011 on 7:58 am

    Continuing on from that there are some simple questions to ask yourself before you consider a class is balanced and logical extension of that, the game.

    1) Can a group be wholely comprised of two or less classes – eg 1 war tank and 4 mages or 1 cleric tank and 4 mages (or insert 1 healing cleric for 1 mage)
    2) If subsequent to “balance” changes there is a population “splurge” of a particular class – then you can be fairly certain that class is, in reality, OP
    3) Specifically to Rift, are people playing the SAME combo’s of souls – this infers that the other souls are not working as a combination.

    I love the content updates – to my mind this is the only real way to keep the game “fresh”, by all means go the WOW route and have annual content updates by purchase for new instances/areas whatever, but monthly or bi-monthly updates keep the game feeling like its developing and story threads help with this too.

    I will say that I LOVE the game – i really, honestly and truely do not want it to go the way of Warhammer Online eg death by patches or overall failure by “balance (insert imbalance) changes”

  • Elrikh
    April 16th, 2011 on 7:53 am

    I know it’s been mentioned previously, but is there any sort of timeline before server transfers are available?

    Thanks! Much appreciated.

    • Shyntyrr
      April 16th, 2011 on 11:51 am

      Hi Elrikh!
      Sorry, there have been no announced dates as far as I know. We can pose the question again, but I think until they’re ready, we’ll just hear “Soon(tm)” :)

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