Twinking in Rift

My last post covered the topic across the MMO genre and this one will focus on the state of twinking in Rift since it’s the game I’m playing now and I sort off twink there as well. As usual the pvp forum is flooded with discussions about twinking. But to be honest I don’t see it as a problem in Rift. 

As written in my last post the term twinking is rather broad covering everything between extremely well geared people who 2 shots everything as well as an excuse for getting one’s ass kicked by better players. Even though Rift gives you the possibility to lock your XP it still doesn’t allow people to 2 shot people like twinks did in wow. Trion has prevented players from using max lvl enchants on low lvl gear and made it easier to obtain good low lvl gear (compared to wow, at least before blizzard made it easier as well). So even though twinks exist in Rift they are nowhere near as unfair as twinks were in wow.

Sure, twinks will still have an advantage which seems unfair, but since gear is a vital part of this game as well as plenty other MMOs, there’s nothing wrong with it. Only when it gets to the extremes! People who are against twinking are often calling us for lamers who can’t fight without a gear advantage and I have heard someone say something like “Twinks should get to lvl 50 so I can show them how it is to fight overgeared players”. This argument (if we can even call it that) is simply just the words of a hypocrite, the worst of them. So it’s ok for r40 people to faceroll fresh 50’s but when a lvl X0 gets beaten by a X9 it’s suddenly unfair, pathetic. And too be honest the gap seems to be bigger at lvl 50.

Twinky winkie

The everlasting discussion for and against twinks have caught my attention at the Rift forums, so I figured out it would be time to bring my blog back in business and cover this subject. I will make a miniseries of posts about it covering both my opinion and how to deal with it in Rift. In the long run you will notice that I’m both for and against Twinking and it can vary a lot from game to game. But first let’s have a look at the definition.

What is twinking?

The term “twink” has a loose definition. It is used for everything from heavily overgeared characters that has massive amount of HP and can 1-2 shot everyone else to a bad excuse when getting outplayed by someone who happens to be higher lvl or better geared. The term itself is covering 2 different things, and that’s where we got the problem. Let’s not forget that gearing is a vital part of MMOs like Rift, WOW and SWTOR so in most scenarios one side will always have that as advantage unless the game itself has mechanics to balance it out.

Slow and steady

For the next few months my blog is going to be like a ship drifting around in known seas while awaiting orders from the admiral. Where the known seas are mmos I have played, the orders being GW2 beta access (crossing fingers) and the admiral being ArenaNet. So until I get to play GW2 I will post about general mmo related topics. Hopefully I’ll get into the beta, but might have to wait for release if I’m unlucky.

Happy gaming folks and see ya in GW2.

I wish SWTOR was better. I'm quitting.

So this turned out be longer than I intended. Adding a TL;DR

• I’m quitting SWTOR to play Rift
• I might be posting about Rift
• I’ll certainly be blogging about GW2
• SWTOR left be disappointed, which is a shame
• Too many flaws in the game/ gamedesign
• SWTOR got infected by the EA syndrome, being pushed out far too soon

I have come to the conclusion that SWTOR isn’t the right place for me. I am simply not enjoying the multiplayer content as much as I preferred. So I am ending my subscription. But what does that mean for the blog? Well to be honest I am a bit unsure. But one thing is certain. I will stop posting SWTOR stuff. At the moment a friend and I have returned to Rift. And I must admit that Trion did a great job making the game enjoyable. Bioware could learn much from them. As for the blog I might start posting a little bit about Rift, but first I gotta spend much time learning everything there again. My next real blog project is going to be GW2. I am hoping I will get beta access and if I get I will start posting as soon as the NDA gets lifted. I am looking forward to GW2 since it’s going to be a great and innovative game. Arenanet are really breaking many parts of the classic MMO mold which is hopefully making it a great game with a new touch.

Well back to SWTOR. The leveling and story content is fantastic and definitely something I have enjoyed. The problem is, however, that behind this part of the game is a weak MMO. Sure, people might say that MMOs have their problems at launch and SWTOR has much more than WOW had at launch. But let’s get honest. That’s several years ago. Rift had a much better launch than SWTOR so BW kinda left me disappointed. So what’s actually wrong with SWTOR? First of all, the client runs poorly on my computer. It’s not one of the high end machines but it runs Rift, EVE and plenty of MMOs without bigger problems. The ability delay and low framerate makes it hard to enjoy the game, especially when pvping. The huge loading time doesn’t make it any better. Really BW, is that the best you could do? In a game with everything sharded into oblivion it takes more time to load a zone in SWTOR than it does to load the entire world in Rift or one of the continents in WOW.

Common Scoundrel PVP specs

I have made a small collection of PVP specs I have seen at the Scoundrel forum (and Operative forum) plus the one I am going to try myself. Going to post the Scoundrel versions but of course they are also available for operatives. The specs are often found in many variations so feel free to tailor them towards your needs.

Scrapper

The Scrapper spec is the heavy burst spec that makes everyone cry at the forum. The burst was insane (at least before the nerf) and are perfect specs for those who want to take out a vulnerable enemy fast. Full scrapper is also the most common PVP spec for scoundrels. There are 2 common ways to go:

Scrapper with heals - 07/31/03

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701McbZMIRRdkrbfzZh.1

The first one is the spec Envii often uses. It is a fairly normal Scrapper spec that offers extra healing powers for situation where it’s needed.

You can see it in action by one of the most skilled Scoundrel players here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kutsmuffin

Offensive Scrapper - 03/31/07

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#7010cZMIRRdkrbfzZhr.1

Much like the first scrapper spec, but it got slightly more dmg and lower cooldown on Dirty Kick. With the nerf to K.O. this spec really shines since you can almost always open up with the Shoot First -> Dirty Kick stunlock. For even more damage you can move the points from Survivor’s Scars to Browbeater.

Click "read more" for the rest of the specs.

How to fix Scoundrels / Ops – The one trick pony doesn’t belong here

The nerf to Scoundrels (Operatives) caused a lot of discussions at the official forums. Not only was it a heavy blow against an already underplayed class, but it was the first real PVP nerf since launch. The truth is people really have it hard dealing with frontloaded burst classes in PVP situations when they are the target. It is not fun getting knocked out relative fast while feeling completely out of control. What people fails to notice is the fact that these bursts classes often gets killed just as fast if things goes wrong for them. So we get to a situation where the outcome of the fight is decided before it begins. And each time a scoundrel/operative/rogue/thief/whatever successfully executes one of these stealth attack, there’s a high chance of spawning another forum warrior. Which results in a nerf and often the burst class gets left behind the rest.

The game designers have to make an important choice. Either accept that such class doesn’t belong to the game or step up and tell the community that that’s the terms for that class. If they choose the former option they have to give their stealthy class some other tools so they are still viable without the burst and if they choose the latter it requires some delicate balancing and create a pvp environment that allows such a strong 1v1 class. The problem is, however, that most game designers get stuck between those 2 options and it’s easy to see the results. The 2^nd option is rarely the solution for an MMO game. It’s only in EVE online where I have seen it viable. However in SWTOR, and WOW and RIFT for that matter, we have to face it that a stealthclass with frontloaded burst doesn’t belong to these games, which means that the Scoundrel/Operative class and especially the Scrapper(Concealment) tree have to find a new role. This doesn’t mean that our class shouldn’t be able to pop out of stealth and take out a vulnerable target. It just means that we should do it in a slightly longer fight rather than a few seconds of burst.

New Blog under construction

So this is where it all begins. Currently I have no idea about what to write, but I suppose that’s gonna change. This is my first blog so it is a new area for me. I will blog about the MMO I am gaming and for now that’s going to be SWTOR.

There’s lots of stuff to blog about in SWTOR, but I will primarily focus on PVP and the classes I play (which for now is smuggler). I’ll be discussing mechanics and tactics, both for general PVP and class specific. Once in a while I might be ranting about the game design and telling stories as well. However this blog is more an informative one and hopefully be helpful for my readers (all 3 of you).

But first let’s have some story time. I was introduced to the MMO genre when a friend of mine told me about wow and I even got beta access. Being about 12 years old back then I was just another wow kid running around not understanding anything, but everything was just huge and amazing, and I had some great time in wow. Now I consider myself as an experienced MMO gamer where I have been through WOW, RIFT, EVE and a countless of smaller MMOs. Well that’s the short version of my MMO story maybe I’ll write the long version later.

Hmm, still, my very first Blog post. I’m looking forward getting into the blogging community. Wish me good luck. I need it!