Rift battle general discussion

[fanghoul]

Well, if nothing else works, there's always the strategy of taking a Double with max chaos and some +crit% moves and just trying to cheese your way through the fight. It's not terribly reliable because you have to get Double to the right element, but after that you're just piling 20 second debuffs on the enemy and almost anything becomes relatively easy.

Or you can take Grey Matter with you, and have your person pull out their blockbusters before the enemy can anyway.

As a desperate alternative, theoretically you can just launch the person up in the air or low attack them every time they run towards you instead of blocking, but that would take a lot of practice to be effective.

 

[Ryouhi]

Nah. The modifier says "if the opponent is blocking". But since the modifier is applied to enemy AI, you are "the opponent" as defined by the modifier.
So when you block, you feed the enemy meter.

wow, somehow i at least haven't lost on that node yet despite completely misremembering what it does haha

good to know though

 

[TonyPartridge30]

... or low attack them every time they run towards you instead of blocking, but that would take a lot of practice to be effective.

This move is hard to pull off consistently. Do it too much, and the opponent will start faking out to ruin your timing. I have decent luck with this using Fortune.

 

[Dusty00]

Man, I hate Transducer modifier.
It gave me a big dillema.
I need to block, opponent's level 3 blockbuster activated.
If I don't use block, I've beaten up.
What should I do?

Have you tried practicing just in time blocking? I learned how to do that better after playing double for some time to keep the transmutation to a certain element. I don’t have Star Crossed Parasoul but it would be a similar idea. Should generate less meter if you only block the last second.

 

[vucaar]

The problem is... Those character you mentioned are not my aces, and usually defense's team are still too high for these.

1. There are another alternatives, in example, my main is Eliza so I always try to have equipped a "middle of the sphynx" move (except in Diva that controls meter with SA so...)

2. A "Countervenom: sedative" blockbuster with Valentine.

3. Ivy League with slow and wither SA (I forgot her)

I usually use Eliza or Valentine in that node and never got defeated, yeah I have lost a character, but not the battle. Hope it would work for you.

 

[educavalcantee]

Man, I hate Transducer modifier.
It gave me a big dillema.
I need to block, opponent's level 3 blockbuster activated.
If I don't use block, I've beaten up.
What should I do?

Another alternative is to use fast back dashers characters, like filia or ms fortune. You can start like this and then, intercepet the IA dash, comboing off. Is a little tricky, but works. Not in big band though.

 

[Splendid]

Oh my, since the reset I've been matched with people who outclass me too often. I'm not too strong at D4 but I'm matched with D3s and D2s all the time, 6 times this week already. I only have 10 diamonds (with another 2 that I have no diamond keys for) and my strongest fighter is only 19.1k, and I'm expected to fight people whose entire base are made up of real, good diamonds? this has never happened until the last 2 seasons.

 

[Mech3k]

Oh my, since the reset I've been matched with people who outclass me too often. I'm not too strong at D4 but I'm matched with D3s and D2s all the time, 6 times this week already. I only have 10 diamonds (with another 2 that I have no diamond keys for) and my strongest fighter is only 19.1k, and I'm expected to fight people whose entire base are made up of real, good diamonds? this has never happened until the last 2 seasons.

I know that feel. After last update, opponents selection logic just killing me.
My true raiting D4. My enemy D2, D1 and now:

 

[educavalcantee]

I know that feel. After last update, opponents selection logic just killing me.
My true raiting D4. My enemy D2, D1 and now:

That's rank 1, 2 or 3?

 

[Mech3k]

That's rank 1, 2 or 3?

If I'm not mistaken, this is "Phenom", 3rd Place in the Rift Battles ranking.

 

[fanghoul]

Hey everyone!

Now that most of you have had a chance to get your feet wet with 3.1 Rift Battles, was hoping to hear more about what everyone thinks of the new changes. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts in this thread! The conversations and feedback here has proven to be very helpful.

Okay, some thoughts on Rift Battles after a third week. (Sorry it's a whole essay)

I know my feelings about Rift Battles are heavily dependent on how I've been doing in them. And I did really well the past couple weeks, where I ended up as a Diamond 2 rank twice, which was really unexpected. So I'm probably looking at this through rose colored glasses.

I guess the five major changes are

1) Rift coins for individual node wins

2) Can use characters twice, but only twice

3) Various point change and node changes

4) The whole haircut for points over 2000 thing.

5) Changing limits for Diamond 4 upward


My Opinions:

1) Adding Rift Coins for individual wins

A really good change. It makes sure that I still get something even in a matchup that's bad for me. Actually, I find it fun in that case to try and figure out how to maximize the number of coins I still get. This change also seems to encourage less "just giving up" from my opponents and myself, which seems good for engagement, and also has led to some unexpected wins (and losses)

I think this rift coins for winning individual nodes change has also probably made it less appealing for some players to be rising and sinking, deliberately, all the time. (Well, an argument could be made for doing both, but it's hopefully going to be less obviously appealing to people now that there's more rewards to fighting Rift Battles normally)


2) Can use characters twice but only twice

This seems like it's addressed one of my main concerns, of people appearing to literally buying themselves wins for individual rift battles. I've quite easily gone up a rank since this change was implemented, so that suspicion might have not been totally unfounded. I like the strategy that this change brings to Rift Battles too. Being able to bring my best characters to two different nodes makes it so I have to weigh whether I'm going to gain more points from an easier win than I lose from using them twice.

With the change in 1) of getting Rift coins from individual nodes, I've also found this useful. Being totally outmatched, I don't really care about points, I just care about being able to get through as many nodes as possible, and being able to use my best characters twice helps me do that.

Being able to use characters a second time also means feeling less completely hopeless if I lose a battle. It's still a big hole to climb out of, but it's not "spend Theonite, or you have no hope at all now" sort of hopeless.


3) More general point and node power changes

I guess I like all these? It feels more fair to me, in that matches are closer, instead of being totally determined by whether you can clear the boss node. I'm not particularly a graceful player, and I have a real talent for taking all but 1% of someone's health bar with my last blockbuster, but I guess I like that it's making me try harder than I have before.

I think the changes in the modifiers for some nodes is a good thing, even if I don't like all the changes. It just has made things different enough to make the mode a bit fresher, even if it hasn't made me actually change the layout of my map that much. The fact that it's making me consider it though is a good thing, and changes should keep being made to the node modifiers to encourage active engagement with the mode.

The new boss node modifiers are in fact pretty weak. The nodes I now have the hardest time with are the 1 v 1 ones on the side, just because there's really no room for error on those, and the mini-boss nodes, which feels a little weird maybe?


4) Giving all scores over 2000 a hair cut each week

This one is a lot harder. I can see what it's trying to do: There's always going to be a long tail at the Diamond 1 end of the distribution of points in Rift battles. Capping the highest score to 2000 means that tail isn't going to get infinitely long, which is probably a good thing.

Throwing us all in a pile at 2000 though, and making us fight out new ranks from there was a pretty rough way of dealing with the problem though. I've come out on top mostly, but it's definitely been a time where I've both been thrown up against people both vastly more powerful and less powerful than I am. Hopefully that will change with time, but I'm not sure how good match making at the high end is ever going to get. Like, the top 200 players spans a huge amount of ground of how many diamonds they have. And there's only 200 of them. Match making as it is will always going to require some punching down, because the chances of another of the top 200 players deciding to have a rift battle at the exact same time as you is so low.


5) Raising the cutoff for Diamond 4

I expressed in the past that I thought that it was likely that having such a sharp cut-off for ready access to diamond keys was going to make a culture of haves and have-nots, where people in Diamond 4 would keep getting more powerful at a faster rate than those who were Gold 1. This really only makes that problem worse, and is also going to make the match selection for the top 200 players even worse. For the top 200 players to have someone to fight against that's not completely lopsided, we need more players growing faster, not fewer. That's just a selfish look at the problem. It's probably not great for the game in general for there to be such a small class of people that can readily upgrade their natural diamonds, when there's mechanics in place that make it so *everyone* is going to have natural diamonds. I don't know. It seems like it'd be really frustrating to everyone else.


Overall impression:

I think I like Rift Battles more than I did before these changes. Again, I'm not great at separating how I'm doing at the moment from some objective measure of "this is fun" but I do seem to be sighing less when I finally get to the battle screen and see all the nodes laid out in front of me, and am looking forward to doing the battles more, rather than dreading each one. Yay!

I think there's still more to do on this front though. I think Diamond 4 should be moved to include more players. And there's always the opportunity to change up the nodes even more. More changes, more frequently! It'd be a bit of a pain for both players and developers, but it keeps the mode from stagnating. It's why every prize fight doesn't have the exact same modifiers.

It'd be a huge amount of developer work, but it also might be good to think of a way to do better match making through asynchronous or scheduled Rift Battles. The pool's sort of too shallow at the top end to support the current system, and everyone's suffering for it.

 

[Splendid]

Okay, some thoughts on Rift Battles after a third week. (Sorry it's a whole essay)

I know my feelings about Rift Battles are heavily dependent on how I've been doing in them. And I did really well the past couple weeks, where I ended up as a Diamond 2 rank twice, which was really unexpected. So I'm probably looking at this through rose colored glasses.

I guess the five major changes are

1) Rift coins for individual node wins

2) Can use characters twice, but only twice

3) Various point change and node changes

4) The whole haircut for points over 2000 thing.

5) Changing limits for Diamond 4 upward


My Opinions:

1) Adding Rift Coins for individual wins

A really good change. It makes sure that I still get something even in a matchup that's bad for me. Actually, I find it fun in that case to try and figure out how to maximize the number of coins I still get. This change also seems to encourage less "just giving up" from my opponents and myself, which seems good for engagement, and also has led to some unexpected wins (and losses)

I think this rift coins for winning individual nodes change has also probably made it less appealing for some players to be rising and sinking, deliberately, all the time. (Well, an argument could be made for doing both, but it's hopefully going to be less obviously appealing to people now that there's more rewards to fighting Rift Battles normally)


2) Can use characters twice but only twice

This seems like it's addressed one of my main concerns, of people appearing to literally buying themselves wins for individual rift battles. I've quite easily gone up a rank since this change was implemented, so that suspicion might have not been totally unfounded. I like the strategy that this change brings to Rift Battles too. Being able to bring my best characters to two different nodes makes it so I have to weigh whether I'm going to gain more points from an easier win than I lose from using them twice.

With the change in 1) of getting Rift coins from individual nodes, I've also found this useful. Being totally outmatched, I don't really care about points, I just care about being able to get through as many nodes as possible, and being able to use my best characters twice helps me do that.

Being able to use characters a second time also means feeling less completely hopeless if I lose a battle. It's still a big hole to climb out of, but it's not "spend Theonite, or you have no hope at all now" sort of hopeless.


3) More general point and node power changes

I guess I like all these? It feels more fair to me, in that matches are closer, instead of being totally determined by whether you can clear the boss node. I'm not particularly a graceful player, and I have a real talent for taking all but 1% of someone's health bar with my last blockbuster, but I guess I like that it's making me try harder than I have before.

I think the changes in the modifiers for some nodes is a good thing, even if I don't like all the changes. It just has made things different enough to make the mode a bit fresher, even if it hasn't made me actually change the layout of my map that much. The fact that it's making me consider it though is a good thing, and changes should keep being made to the node modifiers to encourage active engagement with the mode.

The new boss node modifiers are in fact pretty weak. The nodes I now have the hardest time with are the 1 v 1 ones on the side, just because there's really no room for error on those, and the mini-boss nodes, which feels a little weird maybe?


4) Giving all scores over 2000 a hair cut each week

This one is a lot harder. I can see what it's trying to do: There's always going to be a long tail at the Diamond 1 end of the distribution of points in Rift battles. Capping the highest score to 2000 means that tail isn't going to get infinitely long, which is probably a good thing.

Throwing us all in a pile at 2000 though, and making us fight out new ranks from there was a pretty rough way of dealing with the problem though. I've come out on top mostly, but it's definitely been a time where I've both been thrown up against people both vastly more powerful and less powerful than I am. Hopefully that will change with time, but I'm not sure how good match making at the high end is ever going to get. Like, the top 200 players spans a huge amount of ground of how many diamonds they have. And there's only 200 of them. Match making as it is will always going to require some punching down, because the chances of another of the top 200 players deciding to have a rift battle at the exact same time as you is so low.


5) Raising the cutoff for Diamond 4

I expressed in the past that I thought that it was likely that having such a sharp cut-off for ready access to diamond keys was going to make a culture of haves and have-nots, where people in Diamond 4 would keep getting more powerful at a faster rate than those who were Gold 1. This really only makes that problem worse, and is also going to make the match selection for the top 200 players even worse. For the top 200 players to have someone to fight against that's not completely lopsided, we need more players growing faster, not fewer. That's just a selfish look at the problem. It's probably not great for the game in general for there to be such a small class of people that can readily upgrade their natural diamonds, when there's mechanics in place that make it so *everyone* is going to have natural diamonds. I don't know. It seems like it'd be really frustrating to everyone else.


Overall impression:

I think I like Rift Battles more than I did before these changes. Again, I'm not great at separating how I'm doing at the moment from some objective measure of "this is fun" but I do seem to be sighing less when I finally get to the battle screen and see all the nodes laid out in front of me, and am looking forward to doing the battles more, rather than dreading each one. Yay!

I think there's still more to do on this front though. I think Diamond 4 should be moved to include more players. And there's always the opportunity to change up the nodes even more. More changes, more frequently! It'd be a bit of a pain for both players and developers, but it keeps the mode from stagnating. It's why every prize fight doesn't have the exact same modifiers.

It'd be a huge amount of developer work, but it also might be good to think of a way to do better match making through asynchronous or scheduled Rift Battles. The pool's sort of too shallow at the top end to support the current system, and everyone's suffering for it.

Completely agree with you there Fanghoul, ever since the haircut i've been matched with either people a rank or two above with vastly superior teams (we're talking full board of diamonds levels 45+) or (this is rarer) some gold 1 whose entire collection is half the strength of my top 10 fighters. I was forced to play all 14 games a week, which takes a ton of time (at least 1 hour/day for 2 rift matches), to keep being diamond 4 because raising natural diamonds is like raising children in germany after world war 1. Hopefully some changes will be made to make most matches more even in terms of fighter strength not some ambiguous rift ratings.

 

[Dusty00]

One last post before I give up trying to come up with possible solutions to this game mode and the game overall. The new catalyst mechanics really was the straw for me.

Anyway, ideas for rift battles.

@fanghoul pointed out the truth that the current rift mode’s structure and rewards is separating players at a very scary rate. Top players only get even stronger while it is impossible for new players to ever catch up or even have fun in this mode.

Rift Battles rewards provides the best rewards for players who pay and/or play like there’s no tomorrow. There are almost no skills involved to win when your characters are just stronger. Players generally enjoy games when the playing field is even and there is just the right amount of challenge. At the same time, I get that the Devs want to keep the whales playing by giving them a strong incentive to keep playing and pay to support the game.

So what about instead of just 1 type of Rift modes where it rewards Whales, instead we have 2 modes that go on a rotation? Let’s first take a look at what this second mode might look like.

Introducing All-Star Rift Mode. This mode of Rift battle lets everyone use the same characters at the same level. You select 20 characters of any variant, all at level 60 diamond status with fully upgraded moves. This allows every player to enjoy the game mode on even grounds for a fair competition. New players can have a shot at scoring high and it will keep veterans and whales alert, not able to rely on their overpowered collection. Another advantage is that new players get to try out variants that they never were lucky enough to pull from bad rng luck. Talk about PR and motivation for players to build the character they eventually want! Of course, these characters are locked from other game modes.

So, the game can alternate between normal rift mode (so whales and veteran players still have an edge) and the all-star mode. Talented new players can utilize this mode to catch up, getting rewards that they normally wouldn’t be able to obtain. @crx would you mind sharing this idea with ch800 players and see what they thinks? @RancorSnp you seem like the bridge to discord folks - see what they think about this idea as well would you? Thanks!

There are certainly other ways, but the core concept here is to provide opportunities for all players to play and compete with the same criteria. Alternating the modes would still reward whales (lets call them VIPs instead...) for their contributions to the game. The only downside I can see is that some players might just quit normal rift mode, and that becomes a mode no one other than whales would play.

Okay, last post from me until the game starts to take a different direction. Good luck and have fun everyone!

 

[fanghoul]

One last post before I give up trying to come up with possible solutions to this game mode and the game overall. The new catalyst mechanics really was the straw for me.

Anyway, ideas for rift battles.

@fanghoul pointed out the truth that the current rift mode’s structure and rewards is separating players at a very scary rate. Top players only get even stronger while it is impossible for new players to ever catch up or even have fun in this mode.

Rift Battles rewards provides the best rewards for players who pay and/or play like there’s no tomorrow. There are almost no skills involved to win when your characters are just stronger. Players generally enjoy games when the playing field is even and there is just the right amount of challenge. At the same time, I get that the Devs want to keep the whales playing by giving them a strong incentive to keep playing and pay to support the game.

So what about instead of just 1 type of Rift modes where it rewards Whales, instead we have 2 modes that go on a rotation? Let’s first take a look at what this second mode might look like.

Introducing All-Star Rift Mode. This mode of Rift battle lets everyone use the same characters at the same level. You select 20 characters of any variant, all at level 60 diamond status with fully upgraded moves. This allows every player to enjoy the game mode on even grounds for a fair competition. New players can have a shot at scoring high and it will keep veterans and whales alert, not able to rely on their overpowered collection. Another advantage is that new players get to try out variants that they never were lucky enough to pull from bad rng luck. Talk about PR and motivation for players to build the character they eventually want! Of course, these characters are locked from other game modes.

So, the game can alternate between normal rift mode (so whales and veteran players still have an edge) and the all-star mode. Talented new players can utilize this mode to catch up, getting rewards that they normally wouldn’t be able to obtain. @crx would you mind sharing this idea with ch800 players and see what they thinks? @RancorSnp you seem like the bridge to discord folks - see what they think about this idea as well would you? Thanks!

There are certainly other ways, but the core concept here is to provide opportunities for all players to play and compete with the same criteria. Alternating the modes would still reward whales (lets call them VIPs instead...) for their contributions to the game. The only downside I can see is that some players might just quit normal rift mode, and that becomes a mode no one other than whales would play.

Okay, last post from me until the game starts to take a different direction. Good luck and have fun everyone!

As a member of the "plays too much" faction, I can say that I'd enjoy all-star mode for a lot of reasons. I ultimately enjoy most being a total goof in how I play, so being mixed in with more people that are not the whales and uber-serious folks would be an improvement to my life. Plus All-Star mode sounds like it'd be an entertaining way to try things out without having to make the investment of millions of canopy coins to confirm whether or not something works for you. I could also see it motivating people to get those characters permanently on their rosters too.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

Sometimes I feel like the ratings are useless. You get matched against somebody close to your rating, even close to your account level, and yet they still blow through your Rift map like it was nothing. Rift battles feel more annoying that anything else, and the crappy thing is that it's a non-avoidable annoyance if you want to get Diamond tier fighters. I shouldn't feel apprehensive about playing an aspect of the game, worrying about whether the matchmaking gods will forsake me. I should want to go into Rift battles, excited to enjoy a high-stakes yet fair fight.

 

[xcapibara]

The only way to fix the rift matchmaking is, imo, for it to be based on the total fighter score of a defenders base. Remove the ‘map cleared’ and ‘boss’ bonuses at the end of the match. Add longshot bonuses. Merge various tiers into one (less tiers overall). Remove the rating decay. Remove the minimum battles per season (or at least reduce it to 3 or something). Add the much requested ‘finished’ button.

 

[Enthasius]

I'm officially giving up on Rift Battles until some balance changes occur, though I'm still not optimistic. I'm 0/6 win/loss for rift battles (I'm going to complete the seventh battle though, out of morbid curiosity if I can go 0/7), I start physically shaking at the prospect of actually playing them anymore, going against people with these expertely crafted teams that just crush me, my defense teams and I just lack the skill to make any headway. I've sought some advice but there's only so much you can do when you're lacking specific top tier characters that people joke about having several of and your own attempts to make teams that you struggle with get laughed out by your opponents.

I was managing by since Rift battles started. I even started making a little headway, getting to 2000 score and bouncing back and forth. I'm now at 1870 and in rapid decline, I expect I'll be relegated in quick order. Hell, I might stop playing altogether for a few weeks because I shouldn't be relying on anti-anxiety medication to feel like I'm making the progress required to upgrade diamond characters, since diamond keys are both fleeting in the shop and I don't have money to burn on the cash store.

 

[Luke]

I'm officially giving up on Rift Battles until some balance changes occur, though I'm still not optimistic. I'm 0/6 win/loss for rift battles (I'm going to complete the seventh battle though, out of morbid curiosity if I can go 0/7), I start physically shaking at the prospect of actually playing them anymore, going against people with these expertely crafted teams that just crush me, my defense teams and I just lack the skill to make any headway. I've sought some advice but there's only so much you can do when you're lacking specific top tier characters that people joke about having several of and your own attempts to make teams that you struggle with get laughed out by your opponents.

I was managing by since Rift battles started. I even started making a little headway, getting to 2000 score and bouncing back and forth. I'm now at 1870 and in rapid decline, I expect I'll be relegated in quick order. Hell, I might stop playing altogether for a few weeks because I shouldn't be relying on anti-anxiety medication to feel like I'm making the progress required to upgrade diamond characters, since diamond keys are both fleeting in the shop and I don't have money to burn on the cash store.

It’s good to take short breaks in grind games this this. Few weeks to a month. When you come back you’ll find nothing’s changed. Ppl still complaining about top tier hard and pf cut off is still 18mil.

 

[TasiaChaan]

Is there any ways to abandon Rift without making it visible or losing points?

I'M SICK OF THIS CRAPPY MODE!!!

I'm OUT!!!

Before the update, everything going well and I almost have a good relationship with this mode because many opponents seems "forget" to play until I had great streak (I don't mean to boast, my streak is still lower than you all that time).

Since update and (in my case) got 4 Rift Coins, I feel like forced to play any node (and usually 5 node is enough for 20 Coins) and opponent below my level and rank but higher FS always make my mood down so fast. So, bye...

If I'm a hacker, I'll delete this mode's code and everything about Rift. But, NO! no one want to get banned.

I have a long time not visit here, and now I am here to searching for "A Shoulder to Cry On" because I have no close friend to confine myself.

...and, 2 nodes above and below the Boss Node, why they're harder than the boss itself? WHY??? I hate u all, rift.

 

[Veeko]

It’s honestly amazing just how not fun this mode is. Like what an incredible mind-numbing slog. Either the other person has no chance or doesn’t even bother fighting back, or I get absolutely pounded into dust. I just want to upgrade my nat diamonds. It’s pretty clear at this point nobody likes Rift Battles- they’ve just gotten worse and worse since release and I’m starting to lose hope that they’ll ever be actually playable. Even if they are, I don’t think I’ll want to. Devs, please at least add another reasonable way to get Diamond keys. Not a million canopy coins, not a smaller chance than getting an actual diamond character. People who weren’t already in the top 1% of players with tons of maxed evolved diamonds deserve to be able to upgrade nats too.