Other Suggestions for Rift 2.0 improvement

[Mornedil]

Rift 2.0 has overall been an improvement over old rifts, with the smaller bases, modifiers changing weekly, and the asynchronous matchmaking system.
With all of these changes (and more good stuff), Rift 2.0 appeals to a much larger player base.

However, there are some big issues that make Rift 2.0 both frustrating and stressful, and demanding too much time and attention away from our real lives.

Here are some of those issues, and my suggestions how to solve them:

1. Seasonal rift rating reset
At a first glance, this may seem like it would make rifts less stressful, by allowing you to skip a week and jump right back in at any time.
But in reality, this only causes frustration to a large percentage of the game's player base. Every week, lower levelled players will get absolutely destroyed by higher levelled players making their way up again, making rifts a nightmare for those people.
It's kind of like putting every zoo animal in the same cage and watch them kill or be killed. Those at the bottom of the food chain aren't given much of a chance. Only those at the top will thrive.

My suggestion:
Don't reset EVERYONE to rank 1000.
If we already know who the strongest cats in the jungle are, we dont need to bring them towards the prey.
It could be as simple as having just a few different tiers we are reset to. Bronzes get reset to 1000, silvers to 1050, golds to 1100 and diamonds+ to 1150 (for example).
This way, the weekly climb isn't removed, and weaker players would have to climb UPWARDS before they start facing higher ranks. Even tho it won't completely filter out higher level players from lower ranks, it would at least to some extent prevent active rifters from starting every week by bullying people completely out of their league.


2. Last minute end-of-season attacks
Allowing players to attack bases near the end of the season is extremely frustrating and stressful. People are losing sleep over this.
The season end is in the middle of the night or early morning for a lot of people. And with the current rift system which makes you lose points when someone beats you, while giving a chance to revenge them, a lot of people get anxious near the season end.
I have already seen plenty of people say they're staying up late or waking up in the middle of the night just to check their rift history to make sure they dont get sniped in the last hours.
On top of this, people abuse last-minute attacks as an easy way to get points with low chance of being revenged. For example, I was attacked by 3 different people with less than an hour left of the season. I had to disrupt my sleep to revenge one of them, but didn't have time to revenge the other 2.


My suggestion:
Reserve the final 12 hours of the rift season for only revenge matches.
In other words, don't let players fight a new opponent or refresh their lists. Only let them fight people by pressing the "revenge" button in their defense history.
However, to prevent people from abusing this and saving easy revenges for the last 12 hours, i suggest to also limit it to taking out revenge on players who beat your base in the past during Saturday or Sunday.
That way, people could check in near the season end, check their history, do some revenges if they're not happy with their score, and then be done with it.
(The reason I'm suggesting 12 hours is because average amount of sleep a person needs is 8 hours, so your sleep won't be disturbed by the seasonal end and you'll have time to check in either before bed or after you wake up depending on your time zone)


3. The 12 hour streak reset
One of the things that were "advertised" with Rift 2.0 was that we could take as long as we wanted with each rift battle, and that we didn't have to worry about the timer anymore. But... then another stressful element was added?
This streak reset time intrudes too much in our daily life schedule, by forcing us to come back several times per day just keep our streak.
We basically need to have 3 different rift sessions per day to keep our streak.
2 isn't enough, because if you do one in the morning, and one in the evening, you have to time it perfectly or your streak would run out.
So basically, what we have to do to keep our streak is:
- Start our morning with a rift battle.
- do another during the day
- do another just before we sleep
This is just way too demanding.

My suggestion:
Remove the streak timer altogether. Make it reset at the end of the season.
(I have seen some people suggests a 24 hour timer instead, but that creates the same issue. Let's pretend I have one rift session per day. On Monday and Tuesday, i play at 6pm. But on Wednesday, I'm busy and play at 8pm. My streak would have reset, despite playing daily. That's why im suggesting no timer.)


4. Pay to win mechanics
It made me really sad to see that Rift 2.0 has the ability to spend theonite on buying more rift tickets, and spending theonite on refreshing opponents.
You may not see it as "pay to win" since you also need a good base and a good offense. But no matter how good your collection is, the amount of rift rating you can gain each week is highly influenced by the amount of tickets you have.
If you still don't agree with this, just imagine if this applied to prize fights. You can challenge 21 prize fight teams every week, but to challenge more beyond that, you need to spend resources.
Who would this benefit? People who can spend the most resources. And who can spend the most resources? People who buy them with real money.

My suggestion:
- Don't let us spend theonite on rift tickets. We get 21 green tickets per week and we can earn more red tickets by beating all 3 opponents or by winning a revenge.
- Don't let us spend theonite on refreshing opponents. We can already refresh once every 2 hours. Having a "freemium" refresh system on top of that isn't fair.




If these Rift 2.0 mechanics were changed, rifts would be less stressful, less intrusive in our daily lives, and more fair.

 

[Robokit]

Got attacked twice in the last hour. Very likely to score a revenge win, but just couldn't be bothered.

If I could add to your suggestion:

1. would like to be able to see the opponent profile in battle history to evaluate likelyhood of successful revenge. (mainly because some players have names that are difficult to enter, otherwise could easily find them with the friend search system)
2. (should the devs decide to keep the streak reset timer) be able to see the timer when we're in battle mode with a specific opponent
3. would be nice if we could attack our own base to test its efficacy

 

[Mornedil]

1. would like to be able to see the opponent profile in battle history to evaluate likelyhood of successful revenge. (mainly because some players have names that are difficult to enter, otherwise could easily find them with the friend search system)

I just wanted to reply and say this is possible without typing in their names!
You have to click "revenge", then before you confirm that you want to fight them, you can click a "profile" button.

It took me a while to figure out, because i was worried clicking revenge would immediately make me revenge them. So it's an easy to miss feature.

 

[Dusty00]

As always, careful observations and practical suggestions. Nicely done Morn!

One thing to add is that if you don’t rift at all during weekdays, you will almost never get attacked because your rift rating stays low while others climb quickly. This is the reality when they take away that algorithm of matching by rift base strength.

Agreed that a tiered reset would overall be more fair for all. As things are now, matches are not evened out until Saturday where you get matches around similar collection strength. Diamonds should always reset to 1000. Then maybe 900 for gold, 800 for silver, and 700 for bronze. This way, a bronze could do their 21 free matches a week to climb to 1015 if they win all. If someone takes a break, it’d only take a week to climb back up which isn’t bad.

I get that they added the 12hr streak reset to encourage more game play, but in reality you don’t have to start playing until Thursday which is something I like. It’s just funny how I can use fight assist to steamroll through the first 9 opponents, making this a very similar experience as PF where the first 20 matches are always just a grind with fight assist.

One suggestion is that revenge should cost no tickets rather than awarding a ticket on success. This would encourage more revenge fights since most high rank players know it’s currently more efficient to gain points back by fighting someone new.

Finally, I also don’t like how everyone is rushing during last hour or so. There’s already enough to do on Sundays with elemental PF and Medici PF. The game is currently so bloated with too much grindy content all ending on the same day. Perhaps by setting a limit of maximum use 5 red tickets a day could be helpful. Or, red tickets can only be used for revenge after 5 per day use.

 

[ZeoW]

Thank you so much for making this post. I share a lot of the same viewpoints but have been holding back because I'm not sure whether this only applies to me since I haven't seen anyone with the same concerns.

I absolutely do not like the rift rating reset to the minimum. I've mentioned this a few times in chat. Yes, rifts are easier now but as someone who used to hover around the D2 rank in Rift 1.0, the current Rift 2.0 is a huge grind fest and not something I enjoy. This second week alone I had to go through 20+ fights just to meet someone within a similar rank. Assuming each fight takes 10 minutes, that's 200 minutes of gameplay against easy opponents before I find a challenging match that may take more time but would be more fun. And I'm not even doing it for the rank, I'm simply content of being in D4 to get weekly Diamond keys but I'm also trying to make weekly rift videos highlighting challenging bases and I can't be bothered to keep going through 20+ matches every single week when I still have dailies + prize fights to deal with. If it's one or the other, I'd abandon rifts and focus on dailies.

Also, due to my busy schedule, I've only started playing around mid-week like Thursday to try and get my streaks up; 12 hours is indeed too short and I've lost it a couple of times because I couldn't be bothered to rift at 11pm. What I found is that I went through 20+ battles with only two people challenging my base (I think one is a revenge match) during the weekend. I only started matching with other Diamond rank players (at least D4) at around the ~17th match or so, probably because I started late. And I simply have no time to do elemental or medici PFs cause I had to keep up for lost time during the weekdays.

Overall though, the gameplay of Rifts 2.0 is fast, snappy and great. Hope it can be less like Prize Fights than it currently is.

 

[Matsuru]

Two weeks have passed in rifts 4.3, we can start to suggest some changes. Thanks Mornedil to start this discussion.

Regarding the different points you raised:
1. Seasonal rift rating reset - I definitely agree on this point. As a D1, rifts are now pure and simple bullying up to late Saturday (if I spend only green tickets), while Monday and Tuesday may even look like dailies. It makes things boring for higher tiers, while probably somewhat frustrating for low tiers.The reset scores you propose seem a good start and could always be modified in the future.
2. Last minute end-of-season attacks - I also agree on your statement but not with the solution you offer since a timer on last possible offensive rift will always favor some time zones over others (e.g. if you're sleeping during the 24-to-12h before season reset). Dusty's proposal with a limit on how many red tickets one can use daily seems more fair. It will also make people climb a bit harder before and prevents the current Sunday cheese where you can climb from low gold to high dia within a day without facing any issue. It doesn't provide a direct answer to the last minute attacks for sure, but things could balance in the long run.
3. The 12 hour streak reset - the main challenge this 4.3 rifts have been giving me is to maintain streak will having a social life. Best way I could find is to do one rift and clear everything but one node in the next one to save streak efficiently. Still it makes me open the game when I don't want to and that's not what I'm looking for in a game that is already very grindy and time-consuming. Streak rewards are way too important at a competitive level (+30% atk and hp is basically more than you could get from leveling your offense moves from lvl.12 to 15) not to care about keeping it live. Extending it to 16h or 24 would still make things easier, while keeping enough incentive for people to play regularly at a competitive level.
4. Pay to win mechanics - I don't see this as a main issue right now, since it has always been the case since rifts were created. I see it more as an unfortunate consequence of the lack of both competitiveness and a good revenge mechanics in rifts 4.3.

Then, I would add some points that have not been raised here:
1. Moves, moves, moves! - I cannot agree more with Dusty (in some other posts) when he states the dire need for QoL features above new content. One feature that the community has been asking for +1y is some auto-equip/group-equip feature for moves. Re-equipping all your fighters before starting a rift was already a tedious work in 4.2, but you could check everything before hitting queue. Now you need to make sure that all your defensive fighters have their moves at all time (e.g. when you're doing PF or even during another rift), otherwise your already streak-buffed opponent will clean your base in no time.
If such a feature was only a QoL feature, it is now mandatory for new rifts to work properly.

2. Please make revenge meaningful - currently, the revenge mechanism is not worth it. Why should I spend a ticket and endanger my score even further just to gain back points I can earn more easily by attacking another base? Personally, I'd use revenge (i) as a lesson if I feel like the player that attacked me is way below me in terms of strength, (ii) to mitigate point loss in the last run for top3.
I see two potential solutions here: (i) make the ticket earned on 3 map completion a free revenge ticket (let's say a blue one), so that you gain tickets that can only be spent on revenge as the week progresses. (ii) Increase the points lost by the attacking opponent/gained by you, if the revenge is successfull. If you can get back the points you lost plus a small bonus (let's say 0.5 the points you lost first), you may consider revenge as a better option. In the same way, dealing a bigger punishment to your attacking opponent could be a way to maintain rank at the top.

3. Rifts are not as much competitive as it used to be - I was one of the few that enjoyed a lot rifts in 4.2 since a competitive mode is imo the ultimate purpose of a gatcha game. I love a lot of the new features implemented in 4.3 but I feel like rifts lost most of their original competitiveness. Most of the week is dedicated to clean bases that are easy to handle, knowing I won't get revenged before attacking some D1s. Even then, I don't have many incentives to attack those bases with similar/higher strength, since a slip could be deadly. In the end I face way fewer D1 than in 4.2 (where the matches I got were tensed but somewhat more fair). That fact could only change in a the week where I try to reach for top. I don't see here many possible incentives to face tougher bases other than a potential bonus if you try on tougher opponents (x1.5 points if the opponent is ranked higher than you but maintain the standard point loss for defender).

All in all, I like some parts of these new rifts (asynchroneous matching, smaller bases with more catalysts, rotating modifiers) but I'm still missing some of the competitiveness that was at the core of rift 4.2, as well as some QoL features required for it to go smoothly.

 

[Mornedil]

Two weeks have passed in rifts 4.3, we can start to suggest some changes. Thanks Mornedil to start this discussion.

Regarding the different points you raised:
1. Seasonal rift rating reset - I definitely agree on this point. As a D1, rifts are now pure and simple bullying up to late Saturday (if I spend only green tickets), while Monday and Tuesday may even look like dailies. It makes things boring for higher tiers, while probably somewhat frustrating for low tiers.The reset scores you propose seem a good start and could always be modified in the future.
2. Last minute end-of-season attacks - I also agree on your statement but not with the solution you offer since a timer on last possible offensive rift will always favor some time zones over others (e.g. if you're sleeping during the 24-to-12h before season reset). Dusty's proposal with a limit on how many red tickets one can use daily seems more fair. It will also make people climb a bit harder before and prevents the current Sunday cheese where you can climb from low gold to high dia within a day without facing any issue. It doesn't provide a direct answer to the last minute attacks for sure, but things could balance in the long run.
3. The 12 hour streak reset - the main challenge this 4.3 rifts have been giving me is to maintain streak will having a social life. Best way I could find is to do one rift and clear everything but one node in the next one to save streak efficiently. Still it makes me open the game when I don't want to and that's not what I'm looking for in a game that is already very grindy and time-consuming. Streak rewards are way too important at a competitive level (+30% atk and hp is basically more than you could get from leveling your offense moves from lvl.12 to 15) not to care about keeping it live. Extending it to 16h or 24 would still make things easier, while keeping enough incentive for people to play regularly at a competitive level.
4. Pay to win mechanics - I don't see this as a main issue right now, since it has always been the case since rifts were created. I see it more as an unfortunate consequence of the lack of both competitiveness and a good revenge mechanics in rifts 4.3.

Then, I would add some points that have not been raised here:
1. Moves, moves, moves! - I cannot agree more with Dusty (in some other posts) when he states the dire need for QoL features above new content. One feature that the community has been asking for +1y is some auto-equip/group-equip feature for moves. Re-equipping all your fighters before starting a rift was already a tedious work in 4.2, but you could check everything before hitting queue. Now you need to make sure that all your defensive fighters have their moves at all time (e.g. when you're doing PF or even during another rift), otherwise your already streak-buffed opponent will clean your base in no time.
If such a feature was only a QoL feature, it is now mandatory for new rifts to work properly.

2. Please make revenge meaningful - currently, the revenge mechanism is not worth it. Why should I spend a ticket and endanger my score even further just to gain back points I can earn more easily by attacking another base? Personally, I'd use revenge (i) as a lesson if I feel like the player that attacked me is way below me in terms of strength, (ii) to mitigate point loss in the last run for top3.
I see two potential solutions here: (i) make the ticket earned on 3 map completion a free revenge ticket (let's say a blue one), so that you gain tickets that can only be spent on revenge as the week progresses. (ii) Increase the points lost by the attacking opponent/gained by you, if the revenge is successfull. If you can get back the points you lost plus a small bonus (let's say 0.5 the points you lost first), you may consider revenge as a better option. In the same way, dealing a bigger punishment to your attacking opponent could be a way to maintain rank at the top.

3. Rifts are no more competitive - I was one of the few that enjoyed a lot rifts in 4.2 since a competitive mode is to me the ultimate purpose of a gatcha game. I love a lot of the new features implemented in rifts 4.3 but I feel like rifts lost most of their competitiveness. Most of the week is dedicated to clean bases that are easy to handle, and I know I won't get revenged before attacking some D1s. Even then, I don't have many incentives to attack those bases with similar/higher strength, since a slip could be deadly. In the end I face way less D1 than in 4.2 (where the matches I got where more tensed but somewhat more fair), and that could only change during the week where I try to reach for top. I don't see here many possible incentives other than a potential bonus if you go on tougher opponents (x1.5 points if the opponent is ranked higher than you but maintain the standard point loss for defender).

All in all, I like some parts of these new rifts (asynchroneous matching, smaller bases with more catalysts, rotating modifiers) but I'm still missing some of the competitiveness that was at the core of rift 4.2, as well as some QoL features required for it to go smoothly.

A lot of good points in there.
I'm also one of the people who really enjoyed old rifts and the competitive nature of it. Hopefully there's something more competitive planned down the road.

Although I'm not sure why it would be "unfair" with having 12 hours of only revenges before the seasonal end, due to different time zones.
We have the whole week before that to challenge rift opponents.
On top of that, no matter which time zone we're in and when we sleep, we should be awake at least partially during both halfs of a 24 hour period, unless we sleep for more than 12 hours at at time. Most people should have an opportunity to both challenge opponents and perform revenges on the last day of the season.
I honestly don't know how they could make the final day of the season less stressful and more fair than that.
Limiting people to a certain amount red tickets per day is unrelated to this issue, but not a bad idea either.



I didn't explain it in the original post, but the reason i consider ticket purchases pay-to-win in rift 2.0 but not in rift 1.0, is because you can keep spamming rifts as fast as you can in rift 2.0.
But in rift 1.0, even if you purchased a ticket to do more rifts, you were limited to 1 rift every 2 hours. It didn't have the same potential to be spammed.
(On a side note, i asked the first week's legend if he spent theo on tickets, to which he answered "of course". This is something that mostly affects the very top players, and the battle for high diamond ranks and above)

I might as well mention this too:
We can spend theo to get new opponents in prize fights as well, but i don't consider that pay-to-win either. We can grind them how much we want, so losing doesn't have as big of an impact on our final placement.
But in rifts, being able to use currency to refresh opponents as much as you want can guarantee you get an opponent you can beat, thus whales can pay to get easier opponents, and reach a higher rank.

Definitely not as big of a problem as the other points, but I don't want to watch this game go down a p2w path.

 

[BallotBoxer]

Opinions of a Gold Rifter:

Reset to 1000 every week
Love it! The old Rift was stale because people became installed to their level. It was easier to hover where you were than it was to climb. The reset gives an exciting "anything can happen" appeal

Last minute end-of-season attacks
Even I got gnawed on by sharks after spending the whole week building a comfortable streak. I foolishly let my streak cool Saturday so I wasn't powered-up to take on the swarm on Sunday.

Maybe there can be some kind of turtle mechanic. Pay 9 rift tickets to enter lockdown mode. Other than Revenge battles, no one can attack you and you can't attack others for 12 hours.

12 hours streak reset
I don't mind it. Compromise: make it a longer window or let people pay rift tickets for countdown extensions (like one ticket will buy you 8 hours)

Pay to win?
Hard to see it that way. They are spending precious theonite after all.

Move loadouts
Nice feature, but you could do what I do: don't swap moves, equip everyone with moves meant just for them. Yes, it is more expensive this way, but I never worry about characters having moves or not.

Revenge with extra vengeance
Hmm, what if you win a Revenge, you get an extra ticket or boosted rift coins for that victory?

Not as competitive as it used to be

I don't have many incentives to attack those bases with similar/higher strength, since a slip could be deadly

There's yer problem. If you want more competition, you have to take chances and pick those dangerous fights.

 

[evilgordo]

Opinions of a Gold Rifter:

Revenge with extra vengeance
Hmm, what if you win a Revenge, you get an extra ticket or boosted rift coins for that victory?
.

Well, I guess getting your rating back is the reward (at the cost of a ticket)? More incentive would be nice, since that rating can be just recouped with a normal challenge and it adds to your streak and Rift Coin rewards.
But I've been thinking about the revenge system as whole...
Not a very 'fair' revenge if your base/map is defeated while your opponent has a streak modifier. Sure, I guess it balances out over the course of a Rift season between a variety of opponents, but not with a 1-to-1 re-match. Obviously, if I'm stronger and my opp is weaker + using the modifier to win, my revenge should be swift. But if we're equal strength-wise and my opponent wins using a streak mod, I'll be at a disadvantage should I seek revenge... personally, I see no benefit to Revenge system other than personal satisfaction.

 

[Lililira]

I'm liking the new rift a lot more than the old once, since it removes almost all of the stressful waiting, but it definitely has some bugbears of it's own to tame. I like pretty much all the suggestions here, but over these two weeks I've had a few ideas of my own, so I hope you don't mind if I drop them in here.

1. Weekly Reset
I definitely like the idea of a tiered reset to reduce the newbie bullying, but it does make it a little harder to earn rift coins if you're starting out with very difficult opponents. Especially since I'm not sure whether battle earnings are based on your previous week's rank anymore, and seem to only be affected by your win streak, meaning Bronzes earn just as much as Diamonds per battle even though Diamonds would have the much harder grind. This could obviously be fixed separately, but it's something to consider.

One idea I tossed out in the update thread was to lower the Rookie cutoff to 900 - 850, so that even though the newer players will lose rank to the veterans, they won't be as negatively affected by it, and can still earn rank rewards by playing their battles and making their way up the ranks safely, rather than being pushed so far under the cutoff that there's no point in trying.

It would also help separate out the Bronze and Silver ranks from each other, since the current cutoff being the starting point seems to mean they all end up clustered right at the bottom.


2. Last Minute Dog-Piling
This is definitely an issue, and makes it harder to take Rift at your own pace, since it almost feels like you don't have a chance unless you can stay up to defend yourself and get some last minute battles in to maintain your score. It also makes it impossible for folks to have a chance to Revenge even against very poor wins. However, what if we took away this last-minute incentive?

What if ranking was based on your weekly high score rather than your ending score? That would take away most of the reasons for people to do this, and would also help to further separate the lower rank cutoffs by raising the scores everyone gets (since few people will finish with their weekly high), and help newbs make it out of Rookie and into Bronze since they'd only need to make it above the current 1000 cutoff *once* for it to count. People could work toward their high score whenever in the week they have time to do so too, sort of the way the old Rift did things, and wouldn't have to worry about losing score when they can't be online if they manage to reach a high score they're satisfied with.

However, doing it this way would conflict with a lot of other suggestions in this thread, mainly tiered resets and lowering the Rookie cutoff, since no one would be able to fall below their starting point, so meh. (I still like this idea though, since I *have* stayed up till reset both weeks and I've seen myself lose 65+ points in the last three hours both times, which is aggravating to say the least.)

3. 12 hour reset
I don't like it. I get that it's partially there to try and keep the streak benefits from being overpowered, but as someone who often sleeps late it bothers me. I feel like I also use a lot more Red Tickets trying to keep it going too, and end up doing Rifts when I'm not in the mood or the right headspace (like before my morning coffee kicks in, or way past midnight so I don't lose it before I wake up). 24 hours would be a lot more lenient, but I'd also be fine with getting rid of it entirely (even if that means getting rid of the stat bonuses that come with it and just leaving the bonus Rift Coins, since it seems that those stat bonuses might be causing balance issues from what other folks have said in this thread).

4. Theonite for more opponents
I get what you mean about pay to win, since this is the first time Theo has been directly linked to rift, and certainly makes things easier for folks with a lot of spare theo to find an easy opponent. I also wonder how much it has to do with last-minute dog-piling and such, after folks use their last free refresh of the week. I also was burned the 1st week when I did it once out of desperation after I started getting piled on during the last hour, and regretted it since I didn't get anyone I could beat. Maybe switch it to a Red Ticket instead? Or maybe remove the pay-to-refresh option entirely and folks have to get by on the free ones? Or you need to beat at least one opponent in your current list to reset it again if you don't have your 2hr free reset ready? Idk.

5. Moves
All my fighters have their own set of moves customized to them, however I use some on both offense and defense, and I'm not sure how changing their moves during the pf grind affects my rift base. If I switch one of my Neuro's specials for a Burst so she's better geared for rift defense while building my base, does she stay that way to my rift opponents if I later change her moves back while grinding the pf? This is more of a question than a suggestion, but if anyone has the exact answer I'd love to know.

6. Revenge
I haven't done very many revenge battles, since they seem like regular battles with extra difficulty at the moment what with the score-to-beat being tacked on to the regular requirements. I don't have much to offer here, honestly, other than reiterating what I've said in other threads about the Revenge system making it easier for hackers to succeed on offense alone.

 

[Corence]

Tiers for resets are an improvement on what we have today, but I'd like to go further and suggest a longer reset window than every week. Rewards can be given out on a weekly basis, but don't reset each and every week. This gives time for the ranks to spread out and lower ranked players can actually find their own skill bracket. If you take some time off, you'll drop in ranks a bit as people beat your base, but eventually you'll end up at a ranking where your defense is quite strong for your level so people will skip over you. Unlike the old rifts, you can lose ranking even if you don't participate so I don't think reseting is needed at all.

I think a longer reset time would also help the problem with sniping at the end of the season. On the first week's Rift results, just five matches can take you from Rookie to Gold. Combine this with the fact that you'll get stomped by Diamonds if you try to climb early, you have three tiers worth of players incentivized to save all their rifting until as late as possible to get their rank. If ranks were more spread out, it'd be harder to jump so many ranks in the last few hours so this would be less of an issue (though it wouldn't go away).

I agree that revenge is pretty much pointless right now -- revenge opponents are just more likely to be stronger than your normal opponents and it's strictly harder to win vs a normal attack. I think they were trying to figure out how to keep the Rift point system, but that point system only makes sense as a tiebreaker when both players attack each other's bases. As everyone is mentioning, revenge just doesn't work, so IMO Rift points need a rework for Rift 2.0 or scrap them entirely. Scrapping it has the side-benefit that characters who rely on being at low HP for their SAs are no longer punished by the Rift scoring and those strategies might become more viable.

Let Prize Fights be the time sink, Rifts should be competitive. Reducing the reset frequency does the best job at making sure people can find fights appropriate to their skill and reduces the amount of auto-battle grinding needed.

 

[Galiyuka]

I agree with most of what op is saying. I would add one thing : cancel that revenge system.

I know, sounds weird but hear me out.

Basically, this system just encourages to gang on much weaker opponents who have no chance to beat you, whatever their actual skill at the game is (and I plead guilty for this myself). It means unless you're level 70, you'll probably never get to engage in a balanced fight, which is quite a bummer.
Or maybe readjust the score you get based on the power of the base you're defeating, not only on the rift rank? I think that would make this a much more fun experience for everyone.

 

[Dusty00]

@MightyZug @Cellsai Seeing some angry players with the two consecutive weeks of ranking calculations problems, have you guys considered the possibility of taking Rift 2.0 offline until you’ve had plenty of time to work things out? While we wait, you can always give us some additional PFs to keep players engaged and earning similar rewards. Heck, even if there are no additional things to do I’d personally love to just take a break from rift and focus on lvling.

Either way, there are plenty of feedback already in this thread for your internal discussion. If you guys ever want to do a live focus group via twitch or discord I’d be happy to contribute. Keep up the good work and don’t forget to take care of yourselves while trying your best to maintain a high quality game.

 

[qlimax]

Ok so I was gonna do a video on this but since there is this nice post and I'm awful at recording my own voice, I'll list my things here. :>

Before I start I wanna say that this version of rift has a lot of potential and is way more fun than the previous one.
Timelessness and seasonal changes are just that great.
Anyway here is my list of issues with rift 2.0:

Defender Moves:

So this has been an issue to me any man other players for a long time. Now however more than
ever before. If I leave one of my fighters in my rift base with a defensive moveset, but then use them in something like
another riftbattle or a prizefight I will want to use an offensive moveset. Makes complete sense right? Well if someone
decides to fight my base just as I'm using the character, he or she will have the wrong moveset on as they fight them.
This alone can can make a character useless really quickly. In the previous version of rift you at least had the option
to put all your moves on the way you like them before you hit the button to find an opponent. And if you forgot it was
your own fault.​

How to fix:
The quickest way to fix this problem would be to just let the fighters keep the exact moves they have
when you hit confirm in your riftbase setup. In the longrun there should be a moveset system that let you equip an
entire moveset within a couple seconds and not take as long as it does now. Krazete made a great concept for how this
could look like. ( https://krazete.github.io/blah/loadout-mockup/ )​

Complete SR reset:

I think its a good that everyone got set back to square zero coming over from rift 1.0 to 2.0.
However, to keep resetting it every week isn't a good idea. It makes the first half of the season really unbalanced and
boring. The matches I face now are a lot unfairer than anything I've ever had to fight in 1.0.

How to fix:
So I suggest finding some cutoff-point where people from different skillgroups get reset to. Like all gold players get reset to
1100 and all diamond players and above get reset to 1200. That way the matches will be a lot fairer and therefore also
more interesting.​

Revenge mechanic:

I think the revenge mechanic is the key to keeping rift a competitive place where the most skilled players are on top and
not those that have had the most free time in the past week. So you want people to use this mechanic as often as possible.
However the way it stands I'd rather do a fight that I can certainly finish and therefore gain score than a fight I where
I'd have to get a perfect score to just get back my lost points.

How to fix:
My suggestion to incentivize the revenge mechanic would be to give something extra to people accepting the challenge
to go for the revenge. It couple be something along the line of less points lost when failing the revenge (maybe only half)
or win more points than you lost, or it could also not use a rift ticket so it a free fight to get back the lost SR.​

Defender Diversity:

It's already showing a little bit in the top ranks right now but I'm afraid it's only going to get worse.
People running multiple for example Plot Twisted or Immoral Fibers. Give them time and their entire base will be just 1 or
2 different characters.

How to fix:
A small point-loss like there was previously would be great. You could implement a message in the
riftsetup saying 'Hey, you are using 2 of the same fighter in your defense. Your no-loss bonus will therefore only be 2400
instead of 2500.' or something like that. Something that doesn't delete the funny meme bases (looking at you Nef) but
doesn't allow them to be the meta.
​

Streak Timer:

So in my honest opinion the 12 hour streak timer is first of all too short and very arbitrary. It forces you to rift not only
once a day but at least twice and I dont see the purpose for it. It restricts the way people play rift a lot because if you
don't have the streakbonus and your opponent does he has a sizable advantage so fighting without it is very risky.
It really only punishes people that play rift one day and the next day they focus on prizefights or something like that.

How to fix:
So I beg you to widen the streaktimer length to like 24h so we have a little bit more control over when we actually want
to rift and not when we have to rift. I can to a degree see why it exists even when there is no streak timer on prizefights
but it's just way to short and demanding.​

Last minute attacker advantage:

Right now its completely possible to farm your way through the ranks within the last couple hours before the season ends
because with timezones and worktimes, its highly unlikely that your opponent has the time to revenge after he gets the
the message that someone fought his base. Therefore if you just don't loose to your opponents base, its fairly easy to gain
a lot of points quickly.

How to fix:
'On Sundays you cannot start new rifts, you can only revenge people that have fought your base'.
I think this could be a nice addition making the rift a bit fairer and giving everyone a change to revenge if they want to.
Since there's already a lot to do on Sundays with the elemental and a medici prizefight I'm sure people wont mind not having
to do too much rifting.
​

Ok that's all the issues I really have with rift at the moment. I think its imperative that pretty much all those issues are in some way
addressed and dealt with otherwise I wouldn't list them.
As I'm posting this I've read most of posts above and I see that there's a good amount of overlap but...
I wrote this post last week but couldn't get myself to record it and I'll be damned if I wasted my time writing it.

/qlimax

 

[Brother Null]

Well, there is a lot going on in this thread. I will keep things brief.

I have a modest proposal for the "last minute gunfight" feel to the Rift battles. I don't think a case needs to be made regarding its general unpopularity, but I will call attention to an aspect that lies at the heart of the issue. The Rift season does indeed end all at once, across the world. But this does not mean that it happens at the same *time*.

See, I live in the United States, on the eastern side. EDT, right now, is 4 hours ahead of UTC. Rift seasons end on Sunday at midnight, PDT. That, to me, is three in the morning on Monday. In Germany, it is 9 AM. In Japan, it is 4 PM. My ability to defend my Rift, or to take revenge, is hampered by the existence of my job and my duties to my family. If I were to live in Germany, I could spend an hour or two over breakfast. In Japan, I could make an afternoon of things. But I cannot, because I am asleep.

Here is my suggestion:
* Disable the generation of new matchups on Saturday at midnight (PST).

Hear me out. The battles that have been found already will remain active, and the opportunities for revenge will remain active as well. Your Sunday activities can involve Rifting at a high level, but it will be limited to (at most) three final teams, plus any and all revenge candidates. This still allows for plenty of interesting contact in the highest echelons, but prevents the gut-wrenching decapitations that are a regular feature of 1200+ scores in the current model. It will also remove the need for 2 AM raids to maximize your score (as there will be no ability to gorge on fights for the final day).
One can still gorge on a Saturday, or any other viable Rift day in the season. I am interested in any opinions regarding this idea.

 

[Tsukiakari]

As a player that hover between G1 and D4 (an average player with a decent collection) I entirely agreed with you.

1. Every week point reset
This honestly just not reasonable at all with higher rank players as their first 6 or 9 opponents usually don't have the equal collection strength. The competitive system of almost all games is to divide people into their perspective strength bracket over a long time for it to be stable. Overtime, usually in the middle of a season, people with similar strength will only meet people with the same power level till the end of the season, that's how competitive should work.

So my proposal is to have a longer "season" like a month or so but still reward people at the end of each week. The rift rating now is just a nice badge and a bragging right at this point.

2. Last minute end of season attack
This also a problematic point that I don't really know the solution for. People start to figure out that if you play a match or two per day to keep 12h streak then go all out in the last day it will be more advantageous. They appear less on the snipe scope of higher player (due to low rating) thus reduce the chance of people attacking them, if their real strength is around Gold, no one at 1000 rating can be their opponent, and with how wonky the Revenge system is (which I will touch on later), they will be in a relatively safe space for the season.

I have a Facebook group consist of people playing and have two case studies. Both have similar collection power, same skill level, both spent around 49 rift tickets on this season, the only different is how they spent them. Note that both is around Gold 4 or Silver 1 level in Rift 1.0.
- Person A play consistently throughout the week, spend all 3 green tickets and some red a day, get attacked 4~5 times per day, get 1140 rating at the end of the season - in which I guess is at Gold 2 or 1 if the system is not bugged.
- Person B play one or two matches per day (as mentioned above) and go all out, playing as much as he can on the last 10 hours or so of the season and sit comfortably at 1249- in which landing him (my estimate again) Diamond 4~3.

You can clearly see which way is better, and it explain why so many people get attacked in the last moment of the season. I got attacked once in the last minute, at 15:58 in my time zone, the new season start at 16:00.

2.5. Revenge system
For me, the revenge system is not at all benefit the player. In the end, it just: spend a ticket to get ~15 points, with a score ceiling to add up. It just too risky to do it, if you lose, not only you'll lose points, but you will also lose your streak., and you also waste a ticket instead of using it on a opponent that you have better chance of winning.

Suggestion? Maybe just cut it out? You get attack and that's it, you lose your points to someone.

3. 12 hours streak reset
I can see no point in this at all, 12 hours is not a reasonable time frame. Imagine a person with a day job. They have to go to sleep early to get to work, play a rift match before going to sleep at around 12p.m (which I don't recommend because it make you more difficult to fall asleep due to how stressful it is). The morning come, going to work at 8 a.m, have a 8 hours work day, go home, take a bath, eat dinner, sit comfortably to play your favorite game, just to see your streak reset to 0 and you only get a measly 25 rift coins per winning match (compare to 70 rift coins per winning match with 10 streaks multiplier, which is a huge gap might I add). 30% bonus in HP and ATK, x3 rift coins multiplier are too good to pass up, too good to the point of mandatory if you want to get a huge stream of rift coins or get a huge advantage over someone with the same collection power. Have a nice incentive to keep your players pay attention to the game is nice and all but this is just encourage the above behavior, and disappoint people that can't keep the streak.

My suggestion is to dumb the 12 hours restriction or just scrap it all together, increase rift coins reward per match and everybody will be happy.

4. Pay to win system
I honestly don't see this as much as pay to win system, rather it would be pay to get more and/or better chance of getting more points. You can't guarantee to have easier opponents on your next reset or guarantee to beat them. I one time got 3 famous Diamond (and Legend, Hero) players on my list, wait 2 hours to reset just to get a set of three others famous Diamond players (which I can confidently say that I can't beat), end up spending 4 hours just to get a reasonable set of opponents. But with that said, spending theos to reset and to buy red tickets is kind of necessary if you want to get a higher ranking.

I don't know if 2 weeks is a good enough sample size, but took me as an example. I start rifting at around mid week, due to personal reason and of course to accumulate tickets to fight it in one go, to get more rift coins. Defense ratio is at 50-50 win loss, give or take 10% because I don't keep track of it, which is a healthy and reasonable ratio imho. Play 21 matches from green tickets, 2~3 matches from bonus red tickets, no revenge, just attacking, lose 1 or 2 matches. First week, I got 1239, which give me Gold 1 rewards (which i don't know if it true or not due to the bug). This week, I got 1225* (not entirely sure because of the bug again), check my profile before reading the mails, have a Diamond 4 badge under it before it change to Legend after I claimed my undeserved rewards, so I guess my true rank was Diamond 4 (?).

Conclusion: If you're like me, playing with only 21 given green tickets, and a few bonus red tickets (I have like 40 of them lying around just from accolade and stuffs, but I don't bother using them, for testing purpose and I don't have time or mental strength to go through them), with defense ratio of 50/50 (and that is with me avoided getting attacked at the first half of the week), the Rating that you will get is Gold 1, and at maximum Diamond 4. This is to me the same rating I got at Rift1.0 but I think it just a coincidence, just look back at person B I mentioned above, his old Rift rating is Silver 1, now he's Diamond with that kind of strategy. If you don't spend more, you stop there and in the mercy hand of the Whalelord happen to reset to you in their list.

5. Conclusion
In all and all, I think the new Rift system is a kind of improvement from the old one. It certainly give newer players more chances to participate and give them more rift coins as a rewards, in return, increase the players base for Rift. But as always, in all thing, the new system is not all butterflies and sunshine, the new Rift still have many flaws and in need of improvement and rework to mitigate exploitation and reduce the stress from the players. But in the end, I'm just a player, just like many of you are, and the one making decisions are the developers, but I just want them to take notice of our suggestions and continue to make a better game for everyone. I don't know if they read it or not ( my bet is they don't) but I will leave a thank you in here to the devs.

**Bonus round
This week boss node modifier is pure cancer, fighting Light node is already a pain in the a**, and now they revive, with an Infected Flesh to give you Doom at their half health as a cherry on top. A well invested Dreadlock or Dreamband will be impenetrable with all the modifiers and catalyst and support that go with them. I don't know what the devs smoking when they came up with this but I want some of it.

 

[Galiyuka]

I didn't dare to say a comment about this week's modifier but i thought exactly the same. This infected flesh thing on top of eventual catalysts is whack and it's even more giving an advantage not to skilled players, but players who got lucky with getting some specific characters. Not cool

 

[tiffany butterfly]

giving an advantage ...to... players who got lucky with getting some specific characters

i edited it a bit.
great posts and what not.
just to get ppls attention while we are a tiny side tracked.

uhmm thats like literly what the dev said they wanted the play style to be, with a BUNCH of veriants and a HUGE collection. OF COURSE they will reward that.

just to remind yall.
its clearly intended that way.

 

[ZeoW]

Defender Moves:

So this has been an issue to me any man other players for a long time. Now however more than
ever before. If I leave one of my fighters in my rift base with a defensive moveset, but then use them in something like
another riftbattle or a prizefight I will want to use an offensive moveset. Makes complete sense right? Well if someone
decides to fight my base just as I'm using the character, he or she will have the wrong moveset on as they fight them.
This alone can can make a character useless really quickly. In the previous version of rift you at least had the option
to put all your moves on the way you like them before you hit the button to find an opponent. And if you forgot it was
your own fault.​

Imo, the best way would be to completely reset the Rift base every single week and have players change their base with the right moves/fighters and then lock those in for the week (or give players once per day to change things up). Put up a notice like in Prize Fights where you have to setup your defenses first before playing.

But honestly, QoL moveset system is so much needed right now.

 

[Galiyuka]

uhmm thats like literly what the dev said they wanted the play style to be, with a BUNCH of veriants and a HUGE collection. OF COURSE they will reward that.

just to remind yall.
its clearly intended that way.

Please, let me live in my delusion about this game being actually somehow a fighting game and not a sugar coated gatcha thing lol.