You can scale OD, but cannot scale The Rift?

[PKCrichton]

"Doing it twice" referes to maintaining two versions of the instance a "Classic" level 50 instance left whole and a "Scaled" instance that is treated like all the rest.
Maintaining two versions of the same instance also creates some issues.
- Is a player submitting a bug talking about the "Scaled" or the "Classic" version?
- Does a bug encountered in the "Scaled" or "Classic" instance also occur in the other?
- Does a change being made to the "Scaled" version also need to be made to the "Classic" version and vice versa?
- Which version should the open world entrance to the Rift lead to?
- Should the "Scaled" version drop the "Classic" versions armour gems?
- Making sure the loot from one version does not cross into the loot table from other version if it shouldn't.
- Making sure the Raid Locks for the "Classic" version don't affect the "Scaled" version.
- Should the exterior Rift quests work for both "Classic" and "Scaled" versions of the instance?
- Should the interior Rift quests work for both "Classic" and "Scaled" versions of the instance?
- Is the scaled wing to hard or to easy? Is it exploitable for over farming? Is it to short?


Then there is the question of should the "Scaled" Rift be left whole like BG or broken up like Helegrod and OD?
- From our BG experience we all know that many groups don't get past the Twins to complete the full instance because it can be a very long raid just to get to the Twins.
- From our Helegrod/OD experience we know that breaking up the space is a little annoying since we have to leave the instance then launch the next set and we have to be sure we select the correct level and Tier. We also have to make sure when forming up that every member in the group has all the previous 'Wings' of the instance done in order to do the wing we want to do.

The method most likely to be used is the Helegrod/OD break the instance up method. In order to do this the most likely group of Wings would be as follows.
Wing 1: Barz/Zurm
Wing 2: Fruz, Zogtark and Narnulubat
Wing 3: Thrang and Thaurlach

Lastly there is the issue of what aspects of the Rift don't meet current game standards? What mechanics need to be removed and what new mechanics would work well in these space?
Barz/Zurm were tank and spank with drama and reinforcement moments.
Fruz was tank and spank with waves of healing adds coming from the steps.
Zogtark was split the group to deal with adds and drakes then the boss coming in
Narnulubat was split the group to deal with the darklings to prevent them making Worldeaters and with the boss.
Thrang was deal with waves of adds then Thrang then waves of adds then Thrang.
Thaurlach was a lot more complicated since you split in 3. 2 for the wheels, 1 for tanking/healing on Thaurlach. Then the wheel groups taking on the Everseer and his Worldeater spawning Darklings before everyone finally amasses for Thaurlach. Thaurlach himself had a number of special skills. Hope wipes, protect aura, damage aura, restoration aura, reflections, etc...

So there is a lot of work to be done to even think about making a "Scaled" version of the rift let alone thinking about what it would take to have a "Classic" and "Scaled" version.

Like many I would miss the original version and would wish to be able to have the two versions which sadly isn't an option.

[Schinderhannes]

...

But another question (and I hope Sapience can help with that one):

I can see and agree that scaling the Rift is sisyphean task but why did you not scale the three Angmar battles and the battle of Lothlorien? You redesigned the three Moria battles and turned them into skirmishes which greatly improved them imho. As I have still access to their original implementation via reflecting pool they pretty much use the same engine as the three Angmar battles. Addionally, the Battle of Lothlorien was added after the three battles of Moria. Save for its specialised feature (Quest "Goals") it is kinda a cross between a skirmish and our current big battles.

I ask this question because nobody on my server runs them anymore and why should they? There is nothing to get in them anyway save for a deed in Lorien should you run it 10 times. This is shame because I remember many people doing them back in the day as they offered unique cosmetic items and interesting jewelry (+2 [Virtue]. /shrug

It think most of the instances you mentioned don't match the current standards of new skirmishes from their point of view.
On one side you have content that was repeated multiple times already by a lot of players, on the other side you have technical hurdes to overcome, that are not easily done in an appropiate amount of time.

They always say it is probably better to focus on new content before necroing some old stuff, especially with mini content that has a not so appealing trade-off.

Not that the instances you mentioned don't have cool and important storys to tell... It is just in this case a compromise between two desirable but incompatible features.

[Leixy]

there's innumerable reasons why Rift wouldn't scale to be a fun raid for lvl 95s.

A few I can think of:

1. the mobs/bosses weren't designed for LI / class tree advanced skill enhanced 95s.
2. Rift wasn't designed with warden/RKs/Beornings in mind because those classes didn't exist.
3. There's probably a reason turbine hasn't build a true multi-boss layer raid since Dar Narbugud. OD was wings, ToO was wings, Erebor was separate instance raids, and only 1 raid with helms deep.

[J_Howell]

I assume not only with lvl 50 characters?

I think a big problem with scaling is the old gear restriction. It was a very important part of the game mechanics and difficulty of the rift. Removing it would make it way easier and less fun. If the high shadow dmg output remains, we will be pulverized with our low tactical mits atm.

Have you tried it since U13? Unfortunately the level 50 kin I'm in (Raiders of the Lost Content, Elendilmir) hasn't been able to muster enough people lately so I don't have any direct observations myself. The U13 mit nerf was a major concern to me when it was being discussed on Bullroarer (sadly I couldn't participate in testing since there's no BR installer right now). But looking at my level 50 champ, he seems to have lost only ~5% tac mit from before U13, and we were able to beat Thaurlach then. Tough fight, but doable. And if that ~5% turns out to be the difference between life and death, there's the option of seriously gimping my dps by spending 10 points over in blue line for the tac mit trait there - would suck, but it is possible. Or we could equip our Gem-Encrusted Scales instead of xp disablers for Thaurlach fights only, I suppose.

However I don't know how the U13 changes affected medium/light armor tac mits. Light especially already had problems with being one-shot by a crit on a Baleful Roar, so there's definitely room for worry there... Might need a very captain-heavy group to ensure as many characters as possible are in heavy armor, with lots of in combat rezzes for the lighter classes.

Re: the OP, I think Turbine made the right call. Rift is fine as it is. What else would xp disabler groups do - Helegrod?? No loot and barely any marks in there at level 50; we did it for the deeds, but there's no replayability. For at least four of us in RotLC, Rift would keep us happy for many months. Not sure how much of the attrition among the rest of the group is related to the content, vs. real life constraints of various kinds.

[anthonyx]

I have been looking for a cap level 50 group to run Rift. My Captain is 49 and I ran the rift but with mostly 60 and above with 3 95s. It is hard to find 12 on level people to run the rift. I have shelved my cappy for the time being. If there is a group that runs on arkenstone let me know. I would love to jump back on and relearn my captain!

[Orodbril]

New idea! Wouldn't it be cool to be scaled down to 50 and be able to jump in the old rift armor?

From the "Ask the LotRO-Team - Answers to your questions" from February 6th. You can find it here.

Q15: With the advent of the player up scaling for Epic Battles is it possible and being looked into to allow us to downscale and run other classic instance spaces without requiring the old instances to be redesigned and broken up thus allowing for the continued use of locks on the instances like Tower of Orthanc, Carn Dum, The Rift, Draigoch, Moria, DN etc?
A: [JWbarry] – Not currently. Downscaling presents a lot of different challenges than upscaling does. Upscaling we’re adding statistics to the character, downscaling we have to figure out how to not just add statistics, but what to do about additional skills that have been unlocked. Upscaling can tend to produce underpowered characters, while downscaling more often produces overpowered characters. Additionally, our instance scaling works by moving the instance level up and down. Expectation of how a certain type of space behaves and consistency in its ruleset is a very valuable thing.

So, short answer is "no".

I'm not sure what exactly is ment by this because it probably doesn't mean "do something".
My suggestion was more the use of strg+c instead of strg+x. Just to please people who want to preserve the old rift, and maybe for those that do not have access to Moria+ content.

I mean Thaurlach was used to get spanked in his chains every night, now this poor guy rarely get's visited. Btw, kudus for Frisco and Shades of Angmar for changing that at least on one server. Ok, I have to stop here...


EDIT7: Ok, one last thing. Thaurlach is one of the best Encounters this game has to offer. Stunning atmosphere, thrilling sound and great animations. I really liked this fight. Draigoch is good, too.

To that matters:

I wouldn't think it's copy+paste, et least you can't just multiply all the stats by a certain number, so first you have to balance all this and secondly you probably would have to create all the mobs new because they're only created for the Level 50-rift... so you would have to create the data or the new kinds of mobs which could be scaled in case that there are two kinds of mobs, one which is easily scalable and is used in scaled instances but needs more data because of scaling and one with less data which could be only applied for one level, but I don't know if it works that way, so it's only speculation.

And also, why should they do the work for a 95-version. It would be much more efficient of efforts and outcome to have a scaled one besides the disadvantage of wings and so on, but yeah I would think they would prefer a scaled version to a 50 and 95-only version when looking at the invested work and time between only 95-version and scaled version, but again only my speculation.

And rift is still good visited - at least on my server, I regularly see (successful) searches for rift up to level 95 players. And also there is a group/kin on Maiar[DE] which uses the turtle stone that all the members stop at level 50 and then we do together the rift (and right now also other instances like CD, Urugarth, Barad Gularan and some of the scaled...). When we are done with the rift and level 50 it goes up to level 60 to do the moria instances and then Mirkwood, Enedwaith and Isengard on 65 and 75. So you just need to find enough people on your server who want to participate. We have 41 characters (not players) in this kin and some others stay outside the kin, my participating character wasn't in a kin before, so I put him in, others were already in a kin and mostly stayed there I think. So with the turtle stone you have the possibilities to do all the not scaled instances on level on a regular basis for a long time without haste..

Orodbril

[Yuffie67]

Never said it was overrated. I said players have a nostalgic, rose colored glasses view of it it. Which they do. So much so that many players swear that it was a launch raid and was pefect out of the box. Neither of which is true(It was the second raid added, many months after launch and it was quite buggy at the time).

We have said many times we have no plans to scale the Rift because it would require changes that we know players would not like (breaking it up similar to the Helegrod wings for example).

I understand this position, and very glad you guys and gals have been avoiding Rift Scaling.
However, many players suggested a few things that many of us would except if Rift got Scaled.

If you ever did Scale Rift..

#1, DO NOT split it up. This is, and foremost the biggest concern to many of us who love The Rift. Keep 5-7day locks old school style, and keep it 1 large area.

#2, it does not need true scaling.. Lv50 and Lv95 (or current max) are only settings it needs. (or simply.. Lv50 Tier I, and lv95(max level) is Tier III.

#3, do not change mechanics. They work. =3 (ok ..maybe Elf Girl at end could use a quest ring.... instead of people walking up to her..)

Many of us would be happy, long as you do not split it up and baby it out.
Rift is one of those MMO raids as a whole across games. That is Challenging. (was) and is on level) and is still rewarding to see and go thru.
Its one of those moments in gaming, that will live with us for time to come.

[Orodbril]

I understand this position, and very glad you guys and gals have been avoiding Rift Scaling.
However, many players suggested a few things that many of us would except if Rift got Scaled.

If you ever did Scale Rift..

#1, DO NOT split it up. This is, and foremost the biggest concern to many of us who love The Rift. Keep 5-7day locks old school style, and keep it 1 large area.

#2, it does not need true scaling.. Lv50 and Lv95 (or current max) are only settings it needs. (or simply.. Lv50 Tier I, and lv95(max level) is Tier III.

#3, do not change mechanics. They work. =3 (ok ..maybe Elf Girl at end could use a quest ring.... instead of people walking up to her..)

Many of us would be happy, long as you do not split it up and baby it out.
Rift is one of those MMO raids as a whole across games. That is Challenging. (was) and is on level) and is still rewarding to see and go thru.
Its one of those moments in gaming, that will live with us for time to come.

To #1:

We have said many times we have no plans to scale the Rift because it would require changes that we know players would not like (breaking it up similar to the Helegrod wings for example).

I think these are technical reasons, and yeah it very unlikely that can just turn of these reasons for splitting them up so that the only possibility isto split them up. I think the same was stated before referring to the locks...

To #2: Is probably still (nearly) the same work like scaling them... and the second part: how should that be possible, tiers and levels are two different categories and you suggest to simply mix them up? That doesn't sound very simple at all for me...

To #3: I think that there are also technical reasons or at least something like this was mentioned before why they had to change some mechanics. I think Sapience gave also an example of Dargnakh Unleashed as being complicated because the mechanics are a little bit messed up when they adjusted the difficulties and that these "messy"/"sloppy" (that's what I think was said) make it difficult to scale them. So what might work for an instance on one level might bring hidden obstacles like these "messed up" mechanics as well as other changes of mechanics...


Orodbril

[PKCrichton]

I understand this position, and very glad you guys and gals have been avoiding Rift Scaling.
However, many players suggested a few things that many of us would except if Rift got Scaled.

If you ever did Scale Rift..

#1, DO NOT split it up. This is, and foremost the biggest concern to many of us who love The Rift. Keep 5-7day locks old school style, and keep it 1 large area.

#2, it does not need true scaling.. Lv50 and Lv95 (or current max) are only settings it needs. (or simply.. Lv50 Tier I, and lv95(max level) is Tier III.

#3, do not change mechanics. They work. =3 (ok ..maybe Elf Girl at end could use a quest ring.... instead of people walking up to her..)

Many of us would be happy, long as you do not split it up and baby it out.
Rift is one of those MMO raids as a whole across games. That is Challenging. (was) and is on level) and is still rewarding to see and go thru.
Its one of those moments in gaming, that will live with us for time to come.

To Number 1. Then this will be like BG where it is run and people get to the 3rd or 4th boss and quit. We have been told repeatedly that the Scaling technology does not play well with raid locks. This means there are no raid locks possible for this. So now if most groups stop at boss 3 or 4 how many are going to sit for the full 6 hours on level to get to the Rog? Very few.... So it is better to have it split up into wings if it is going to be scaled than to hardly ever get run in full.

Number 2. Tiers obviously is a mechanic added with Mirkwood on. There currently is no such thing as a Tier 3 class instance you only get Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 2 Challenge. So since this all never existed before SoM what would the difference be between T1 and T2 and T2C for the rift? For each boss, for each wing? There is no point in making an instance only work for levels 50 and 95. Players are going to want to play this instance whenever they want.

Number 3. Asking for the mechanics not to change is like asking for someone to leave a 10 year old computer sitting there and not upgrading its hardware. Its going to get changed some no matter what. They are going to find some mechanics that don't work well anymore.

[Patrickwg]

Never said it was overrated. I said players have a nostalgic, rose colored glasses view of it it. Which they do. So much so that many players swear that it was a launch raid and was pefect out of the box. Neither of which is true(It was the second raid added, many months after launch and it was quite buggy at the time).

We have said many times we have no plans to scale the Rift because it would require changes that we know players would not like (breaking it up similar to the Helegrod wings for example).

Couldn't you just put a portal inside the front door of the instance for each boss that sends you to the beginning of that bosses wing of the instance? Want to run the raid the current way going from boss 1 to boss 2, and so on you can. Want to be able to choose what boss to do instead you can. Seems to be an easy ways to get both in 1 slightly modified package.

[Orodbril]

Couldn't you just put a portal inside the front door of the instance for each boss that sends you to the beginning of that bosses wing of the instance? Want to run the raid the current way going from boss 1 to boss 2, and so on you can. Want to be able to choose what boss to do instead you can. Seems to be an easy ways to get both in 1 slightly modified package.

I think there is the (technical) problem that you can't enter an instance out from another instance which would be the case with that suggestion. E.g. you can't enter an instance while you're in a housing instance or when you're in a dailies-quest instance like Hytbold instance or ressource instance... I think that would be the same case with your idea... it would be nice, but probably just impossible... :/

[Patrickwg]

I think there is the (technical) problem that you can't enter an instance out from another instance which would be the case with that suggestion. E.g. you can't enter an instance while you're in a housing instance or when you're in a dailies-quest instance like Hytbold instance or ressource instance... I think that would be the same case with your idea... it would be nice, but probably just impossible... :/

My suggestion was to keep it all 1 instance all the portal would due is move your location. There are portals inside instances currently like one of the old Bree rep instances has a portal to enter a level 50 section that is for a book quest. The old prescaled OD, and helegrod raids had portals inside the main instance to enter different sections of the instance. Sarnur has separate instances with in the main instance. Lots of different places throughout the game have multiple instances within an instance.

[Exion_Blade]

Helegrod (like the Barrow a Downs, Garth Agarwen, and Fornost) was rebuilt - turned from one unsealed instance to several smaller scaled instance. Doing the same to the Rift would mean taking each section and building it into a standalone instance. It would cease to be the same raid.

This gave me something of an idea.
Why not have Both?
Have both the instanced runs with their loot table and the larger unbroken run with it's own different, and preferably better, loot table.
Just an idea.

[Vulcwen]

New idea! Wouldn't it be cool to be scaled down to 50 and be able to jump in the old rift armor?

I'm all for downscaling, even if the initial round of it produces overpowered characters when downscaled, it's always still better than running it with a capped player. I think it's enough when just the stats down-scale with no effect on skills and traits, but the scaling does need to work correctly, and it doesn't even work correctly for plain gear-scaling as of now.

The best part of downscaling: a larger range of players that can play together. Scaling of instances doesn't achieve this.

[Schinderhannes]

And intead of scaling item level to 50 it could be scaled to lvl 45 or lower to conter the higher virtues, skillpoints and legendary items.

I think it is at least worth a try and positivly thinking, JWbarry's – "Not currently" means he is at least thinking in similar ways.

[Orodbril]

My suggestion was to keep it all 1 instance all the portal would due is move your location. There are portals inside instances currently like one of the old Bree rep instances has a portal to enter a level 50 section that is for a book quest. The old prescaled OD, and helegrod raids had portals inside the main instance to enter different sections of the instance. Sarnur has separate instances with in the main instance. Lots of different places throughout the game have multiple instances within an instance.

Okay, I understand, but I think that this wouldn't solve the issues which you have otherwise with scaling these instances which was solved with wings, it might be a solution and I can't say if it is or not as I can't look into the programming text/code, but I would think that the devs would have considered that when it would be possible as they probably know the possibilities and limitations of the game system best.

This gave me something of an idea.
Why not have Both?
Have both the instanced runs with their loot table and the larger unbroken run with it's own different, and preferably better, loot table.
Just an idea.

That would mean double maintenance and possibility of bugs while on the same time not really increasing the usage by players. So nearly double efforts for very less increase of improvement. Besides different loottables are already in the tier-system, to have better loot or at least better chances you have to choose the more difficult tier - doing the same with the length of the run would either double the tier-system or would contradict it in some parts IMO...

To Downscaling: As Schinderhannes already referred to JWbarry's post: There are a lot of difficulties which are different from upscaling or scaling. So just unlikely...

Orodbril