[MMO] Rift - Discussion

[CurseTheSky]

Trion's response to the hacking issues. Sounds like good changes to me. At least for everyone who isn't dumb enough to have the same password for their game and email accounts.

Wow, that seems like a brilliant solution. Rather than "we'll make your account super hard to hack into with some hardware based key generator!" and "we'll ban the hackers and restore your stuff as fast as we can, regardless of the fact that they'll just hack again!" ala Blizzard / WoW, they're taking an "we'll make your account virtually worthless to hack into in the first place" approach.

:thumbsup: Trion.

 

[Daverino]

So how was it that all of a sudden all these accounts got hacked? Was it a vulnerability in the game? Or is this just par for the course from MMORPGs?

 

[JoshGuru7]

The speculation here is that there was a keylogger on a third party dps parser that many people downloaded. My starting assumption regarding online games is that players are usually the ones at fault when they get "hacked." I see these main culprits:

- Password sharing. A lot of "hacking" I've seen is due to people/guildmates stealing from known associates when they had the passwords. I can't count how many times I've seen somebody complain that something was hacked, when they had given access to many people and it was far more likely that one of those people simply helped themselves to it.

- Phishing in game. There are a lot of naive people out there that will respond to a user that asks for usernames and passwords just because their name is "trionadmin" or some such. Ditto for e-mails.

- Keyloggers. Be careful when installing compiled third party software from people you don't actually know. Losing gold in Rift is actually a good outcome compared to some possibilities if you do online banking on your computer.

 

[Malladine]

I'd save the more interesting ones with stuff like +crit, +spell power, +phys crit, etc. or any greater essences for after you buy the top planar essence container. For Defiants this costs 7500 planarites and has 2 greater and 4 lesser slots.

I wouldn't worry too much about saving the more powerful essences. You'll see plenty imo. There are really nice ones available from lvl 29 from the vendor in Scarlet Gorge, +10 stats +11 crit for example, for like 2 of the cursed sourcestones. By that time there's no other use for those than to spend them on essences.

There are a few nice planar focuses before the 7500 planarite one: Amplified is 2 cursed sourcestones and like 500 planarite for 1 greater 3 lesser. can pick that up from the main towns eg Granite Falls in Stonefield and whatever the Guardian town is in Gloamwood. Then there's Expanded for ~2000 planarite which has 1 and 4 and the Augmented for around the same cost with 2 and 2.

There is one "class" I run into all the time in warfronts - I can't tell exactly because it doesn't show you the profession of the enemy, so you really have to just guess based on buffs and stuff. There's one that ends up absolutely LOADED with buffs (like 12 or so - 3 full rows of buff icons), one of them is a pretty monsterous speed buff. They seem to soak a lot of damage and/or have a lot of HP, and they hit fucking hard as hell. Basically, this class is not soloable, and you need about 3 or 4 guys to even make a dent. Pretty sure it's some sort of warrior soul, but can't be sure. Basically these guys own the warfront when they play. They're pretty much indestructible.

Yeah pretty sure you're talking about Riftblade/Reaver. It's the cheapass pvp build for warriors. Haven't tried it myself so not 100% sure why it's so powerful. I roll as Champion/Vindicator/Paragon in pvp.

Everyone has a ton of buffs in warfronts, or they should anyway.

 

[Genx87]

So I made a paladin\void knight\reaver

I am going to fill the paladin and void knight lines and try to make a true tank. So far this is a really fun class to play. I havent had this much fun on a sword and board tank since my warrior in DAOC. Never liked the paladin or warrior in WoW.

 

[pontifex]

The speculation here is that there was a keylogger on a third party dps parser that many people downloaded. My starting assumption regarding online games is that players are usually the ones at fault when they get "hacked." I see these main culprits:

- Password sharing. A lot of "hacking" I've seen is due to people/guildmates stealing from known associates when they had the passwords. I can't count how many times I've seen somebody complain that something was hacked, when they had given access to many people and it was far more likely that one of those people simply helped themselves to it.

- Phishing in game. There are a lot of naive people out there that will respond to a user that asks for usernames and passwords just because their name is "trionadmin" or some such. Ditto for e-mails.

- Keyloggers. Be careful when installing compiled third party software from people you don't actually know. Losing gold in Rift is actually a good outcome compared to some possibilities if you do online banking on your computer.

my account was hacked and it was none of those things. at least 3 of my guildmates have been hacked as well.

took them 5 days to give me my money back after it was stolen.

whats weird is that only money on 1 character was stolen. Everything else was left alone.

 

[akugami]

I wouldn't worry too much about saving the more powerful essences. You'll see plenty imo. There are really nice ones available from lvl 29 from the vendor in Scarlet Gorge, +10 stats +11 crit for example, for like 2 of the cursed sourcestones. By that time there's no other use for those than to spend them on essences.

There are a few nice planar focuses before the 7500 planarite one: Amplified is 2 cursed sourcestones and like 500 planarite for 1 greater 3 lesser. can pick that up from the main towns eg Granite Falls in Stonefield and whatever the Guardian town is in Gloamwood. Then there's Expanded for ~2000 planarite which has 1 and 4 and the Augmented for around the same cost with 2 and 2.

Well, it's so easy to get 7500 planarites. Once you hit Scarlet Gorge (or similar level) and do some of the invasions it should net you 300+ planarites easy from beginning to end of the invasion.

One bad thing about raid/invasion rewards is some of the planar essences are given out completely randomly with no regard for class. I get dex/str/resist essences which are completely useless for a mage no matter what build you create. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't soulbound but the ones that your class can't use always seem to be.


I'm assuming weak passwords for some of the accounts that got "hacked." One problem is, there has to be a 3rd website where they're getting some of the emails from. That's basically your account login userid after all. I'd wager that a lot of the people also have the same email used to register game accounts listed on social networking sites like Facebook. With how weak many passwords are, it shouldn't be too hard to guess a lot of people's passwords. I'd use a junk email for logging into sites like ZAM or any other game website and keep your "public" email separate from a private one used for gaming sites or stuff like logging into your bank account as a general precaution. I only sign into gaming websites with my junk email account. Good luck trying to guess my userid or password from that.

 

[SunnyD]

Alright, so I've rolled one of each class so far, and I can definitely say though at first I thought Warrior was really sucktastic (I parked mine at level 3 for a couple days because it was that bad imho), after playing a bit more I'm officially saying Mages suck. Bad. I have a Warlock/Necro/Chloromancer and I am very, VERY disapponted.

- First off, Chloromancers are supposed to be off-healers. Not seeing it, at least not till about level 20.
- Second off, the Necro pet simply sucks for agro management. In fact, he can't hold agro at all. Period. One nuke is all it takes and the mob is running toward me. Hell, one DoT is all it takes most of the time. And the HoT's the chloromancer has are laughable. They barely do any healing at all, and don't scale well. (I'm convinced I'm not doing it right)
- Third, not sure if it's the build, but this setup sucks for both PvE & PvP. Particularly sucky for PvP.

On the warrior side of things however, I built a Riftblade/Warlord/Champion. Took a little while to get him rolling, but man... he's insane. He can pretty much wade through anything in PvE (can get overwhelmed quickly though, which is odd for a warrior), but in PvP I find it funny. I just spam flame lance particularly with the fire proc finisher on it, occasionally using fork as well. And of course, freeze armor. It's really bad (in a good way). He doesn't soak damage well, but he can hold his own pretty good.

Over all, I'd still say my cleric is good. My rogue is definitely the best though. Great agro management and high end damage. These two are pretty much indestructible.

 

[blurredvision]

I just hit level 23 last night, almost exclusively through questing. I've only ran IT once and probably haven't done as many rifts/invasions as Trion would expect a person to be involved in. The problem I'm scared of running into is "over-questing" my level, which I'm already showing signs of. Since I'm Defiant, I've started in Freemarch and moved on to Stonefield. I've done every single quest I can find, save for the two group quests that are located in the far west of the zone (I even have my Freemarch quest achievement). I'm up to Granite Falls in Stonefield at the moment and noticed that while I was level 22 yesterday, I was fighting mobs that are level 24 for quests that I have. I can take them down, but if I pull any more than 2, I'm dead. With some of the tighter questing areas, the density of mobs is pretty damn insane, so this is a real possibility, especially with my druid pet.

I guess I might have to start running more dungeons or participating in more invasions (which I've started doing now that I understand them better). Anybody else running into this problem?

 

[smackababy]

I just hit level 23 last night, almost exclusively through questing. I've only ran IT once and probably haven't done as many rifts/invasions as Trion would expect a person to be involved in. The problem I'm scared of running into is "over-questing" my level, which I'm already showing signs of. Since I'm Defiant, I've started in Freemarch and moved on to Stonefield. I've done every single quest I can find, save for the two group quests that are located in the far west of the zone (I even have my Freemarch quest achievement). I'm up to Granite Falls in Stonefield at the moment and noticed that while I was level 22 yesterday, I was fighting mobs that are level 24 for quests that I have. I can take them down, but if I pull any more than 2, I'm dead. With some of the tighter questing areas, the density of mobs is pretty damn insane, so this is a real possibility, especially with my druid pet.

I guess I might have to start running more dungeons or participating in more invasions (which I've started doing now that I understand them better). Anybody else running into this problem?

Yes and I found once things get 3 levels above you, it becomes really hard to hit them. I was 23 fighting level 26 mobs and I couldn't take more than one at a time, and then I'd have to stop and eat. This was on a warrior who isn't squishy. Once I did DSM and hit 24, I had no problems. I might try doing more dungeons and BGs to augment the just questing I've been doing.

 

[HumblePie]

Alright, so I've rolled one of each class so far, and I can definitely say though at first I thought Warrior was really sucktastic (I parked mine at level 3 for a couple days because it was that bad imho), after playing a bit more I'm officially saying Mages suck. Bad. I have a Warlock/Necro/Chloromancer and I am very, VERY disapponted.

- First off, Chloromancers are supposed to be off-healers. Not seeing it, at least not till about level 20.
- Second off, the Necro pet simply sucks for agro management. In fact, he can't hold agro at all. Period. One nuke is all it takes and the mob is running toward me. Hell, one DoT is all it takes most of the time. And the HoT's the chloromancer has are laughable. They barely do any healing at all, and don't scale well. (I'm convinced I'm not doing it right)
- Third, not sure if it's the build, but this setup sucks for both PvE & PvP. Particularly sucky for PvP.

On the warrior side of things however, I built a Riftblade/Warlord/Champion. Took a little while to get him rolling, but man... he's insane. He can pretty much wade through anything in PvE (can get overwhelmed quickly though, which is odd for a warrior), but in PvP I find it funny. I just spam flame lance particularly with the fire proc finisher on it, occasionally using fork as well. And of course, freeze armor. It's really bad (in a good way). He doesn't soak damage well, but he can hold his own pretty good.

Over all, I'd still say my cleric is good. My rogue is definitely the best though. Great agro management and high end damage. These two are pretty much indestructible.

As for your mage class, you have to remember that there are archtypes with roles within to help you do something that is less archetypal. What I mean to say is mages aren't designed to be the main healer. Which means as a Chloro you won't be good at healing until you get a bunch of points in it. Actually most class builds really are not that good until level 20 in this game.

The necro does get a tanking pet, but not until later. If you want a tanking pet early on you need to be elementalist.

Each archtype has an "easy" pve build to use in the beginning. I would seriously always pick the easy way until you reach level 13 at least. Then switch over to something else you wanted to be when you can put more points into it and make that build work for pve. Ideally I would wait for level 20, but that's just me. All the easy pve builds are all using the pet souls. So for example.

Warrior: Reaver or Paladin, Beastmaster, Champion or Warlord (This is easy mode leveling for the warrior at low levels.) You can stick with this as a solo pve build all the way to 50 if you want. But a pure reaver build starts to shine early 20s for solo PVE more so than this build.

Mage: Elementalist, Chloromancers, + whatever else.

Rogue: Bard, Ranger, + whatever

Cleric: Warden, Justicar, Druid (keep pet on passive to just let it heal only).



The above builds use the pet souls at first mainly for the low level pet. You do not need to put points into the pet souls at all. Usually you put points into the main "healing" or "Defensive" soul at first. Then you can branch out with the extra points anywhere, but usually into DPS. The reason this works very well is the pet is doing all the work while you keep it going. This makes early levels REAL easy. If you don't like the idea of using a pet class, later just change it out.

 

[Merad]

As far as the hacking - it's been claimed on the Rift forums that there's a vulnerability in the game launcher where someone can essentially do a login into a legit account, then somehow save or copy the security token that Trion sends back to the client and inject that token later to allow them to access to any account without knowing the password.

I'm not sure how much I believe it. If that were really the case I tend to think that a LOT more people would have been hit by now, and that Trion would have put out some kind of update to counter it.

 

[Genx87]

As far as the hacking - it's been claimed on the Rift forums that there's a vulnerability in the game launcher where someone can essentially do a login into a legit account, then somehow save or copy the security token that Trion sends back to the client and inject that token later to allow them to access to any account without knowing the password.

I'm not sure how much I believe it. If that were really the case I tend to think that a LOT more people would have been hit by now, and that Trion would have put out some kind of update to counter it.

Without knowing the details. It sounds like a man in the middle attack. I would wonder if the passwords were being sent with weak encryption or no encryption at all. And before you laugh, I think at launch DAOC was sending password in clear text.

 

[KaOTiK]

Wow, I did so many warfronts/rifts/invasions when I was lvl'n up that I was way ahead of the area I was in questing. Some quests were turning gray I lvl'd up so much higher then them.

The quests didn't catch up and even out till I got into my mid/lower 40s where mobs were may lvl again lol

 

[Genx87]

Wow, I did so many warfronts/rifts/invasions when I was lvl'n up that I was way ahead of the area I was in questing. Some quests were turning gray I lvl'd up so much higher then them.

The quests didn't catch up and even out till I got into my mid/lower 40s where mobs were may lvl again lol

Not a bad way to level imo. RIFTS are actually pretty enjoyable. Much more enjoyable than public quests in Warhammer Online. And they seem to spawn randomly. Also invasions are pretty fun to repel.

 

[coloumb]

So how was it that all of a sudden all these accounts got hacked? Was it a vulnerability in the game? Or is this just par for the course from MMORPGs?

Something seems really strange - I've never seen this amount of "I was hacked, they stole my credit card information and bought $2000 worth of goods, all my stuff is gone" posts in any MMO.

Is vBulletin™ Version 4.1.1 easy to hack or see people's email accounts? The game does use the same username/password for the forums, TRION account, and to log into the game [which is stupid IMHO].

I've clicked on user names and can see nothing that would give away someone's email address. I've looked at the page source and there isn't much info there either. Is it possible to run a script to extract the username email address and then just use a program to brute force find the password?

Of every MMO I've ever played - only WoW was hacked because I accidentally used the same password on a gaming forum website [these were other people who I gamed with].

I dunno - I suspect most of them are false:

- people trying to spread panic/fear [some suspect it's other MMO companies/players posting false information]
- People trying to get free epics/gold/etc [a guild members son did this in WoW - he claimed his account was hacked so he could get epics/gold/items which he didn't have]

While a few may be legitimate due to people accidentally using the same username/password from other sites.

 

[Rhezuss]

Clerics are fun. I started a Shaman/Druid/Justicar this last weekend and played a bit with him. Only level 7 for now so I can't say I really tried the class but so far it's a little more active than my Warrior and with more versatility.

I'll try to give a shot tonight and level a bit more...Freemarsh look more fun than Silverwood.

 

[SunnyD]

Wow, I did so many warfronts/rifts/invasions when I was lvl'n up that I was way ahead of the area I was in questing. Some quests were turning gray I lvl'd up so much higher then them.

The quests didn't catch up and even out till I got into my mid/lower 40s where mobs were may lvl again lol

Yeah, I've been "augmenting" my low level characters with warfronts. You can get in the mid-teens real quick that way.

 

[Irish_Legend]

Yes and I found once things get 3 levels above you, it becomes really hard to hit them. I was 23 fighting level 26 mobs and I couldn't take more than one at a time, and then I'd have to stop and eat. This was on a warrior who isn't squishy. Once I did DSM and hit 24, I had no problems. I might try doing more dungeons and BGs to augment the just questing I've been doing.

I am not quite as far into the game as you two, but at level 15 I havent "overquested" as was stated before. I jump into the Rifts fairly often and do warfronts whenever I remember to que for them.

To me I see both of those as major parts of the game, and I personally am not concerned with racing to end-game, so I do not have a problem with "having" to grind through some rifts and warfronts. The rifts in particular are just like the public quests of WAR that I really enjoyed, and like them as a feature of the game. It is to early to say too much about the game, but this early on, I am enjoying what I have seen.

P.S.
I found you smack.

 

[Mennovh]

Alright, so I've rolled one of each class so far, and I can definitely say though at first I thought Warrior was really sucktastic (I parked mine at level 3 for a couple days because it was that bad imho), after playing a bit more I'm officially saying Mages suck. Bad. I have a Warlock/Necro/Chloromancer and I am very, VERY disapponted.

- First off, Chloromancers are supposed to be off-healers. Not seeing it, at least not till about level 20.
- Second off, the Necro pet simply sucks for agro management. In fact, he can't hold agro at all. Period. One nuke is all it takes and the mob is running toward me. Hell, one DoT is all it takes most of the time. And the HoT's the chloromancer has are laughable. They barely do any healing at all, and don't scale well. (I'm convinced I'm not doing it right)
- Third, not sure if it's the build, but this setup sucks for both PvE & PvP. Particularly sucky for PvP.

On the warrior side of things however, I built a Riftblade/Warlord/Champion. Took a little while to get him rolling, but man... he's insane. He can pretty much wade through anything in PvE (can get overwhelmed quickly though, which is odd for a warrior), but in PvP I find it funny. I just spam flame lance particularly with the fire proc finisher on it, occasionally using fork as well. And of course, freeze armor. It's really bad (in a good way). He doesn't soak damage well, but he can hold his own pretty good.

Over all, I'd still say my cleric is good. My rogue is definitely the best though. Great agro management and high end damage. These two are pretty much indestructible.

Honestly Mages are underpowered at lower levels. If you stick with the mage class till you get in the 30s you will notice you become much more powerful. With my Chloro/warlock build at 50 i easily main heal all the dungeons i have done and have main healed since about level 28. Stormcaller is really good for aoe dps, i have been running warlock as my secondary, but going to experiment more with it.

Pyro/warlock/archmage build is super powerful. This build i can destroy opponents before they can even hit me. BUT this build is very much a glass cannon. If they get the jump on you, you are dead.

Necro/chloro/warlock build is awsome for soloing and single pvp. The one skill in necro you get makes it possible to kite enemys in pvp.

Mages are really great at the end game and i am glad i stuck with it. I was very frustrated the first 25 levels and then all of a sudden i was topping warfronts in damage and healing.

I would not discount a mage. Most of the people who bitch about them on the forums dont know how to play in my opinion. Yes mages can die quick, but with the proper strat and team makeup a mage is very much needed.

 

[smackababy]

If mages weren't squishy it would be retarded. They are cloth wearers...

 

[KMFJD]

In regards to mages and pet's, if you where a elementalist/necro/whatever , would you be able to have two pets up or only one at a time?

 

[Mennovh]

In regards to mages and pet's, if you where a elementalist/necro/whatever , would you be able to have two pets up or only one at a time?

One pet at a time.

 

[akugami]

Alright, so I've rolled one of each class so far, and I can definitely say though at first I thought Warrior was really sucktastic (I parked mine at level 3 for a couple days because it was that bad imho), after playing a bit more I'm officially saying Mages suck. Bad. I have a Warlock/Necro/Chloromancer and I am very, VERY disapponted.

- First off, Chloromancers are supposed to be off-healers. Not seeing it, at least not till about level 20.
- Second off, the Necro pet simply sucks for agro management. In fact, he can't hold agro at all. Period. One nuke is all it takes and the mob is running toward me. Hell, one DoT is all it takes most of the time. And the HoT's the chloromancer has are laughable. They barely do any healing at all, and don't scale well. (I'm convinced I'm not doing it right)
- Third, not sure if it's the build, but this setup sucks for both PvE & PvP. Particularly sucky for PvP.

You can tank just as well as the pet early on. Once you hit roughly the mid-teens is when you'll get your true warrior pet. He tanks (Skeletal Stawart, more hp, holds better agro) better than the previous pet and you'll also get a rogue pet later who does better dps. The mage pet is useless. While the warrior pet isn't going to hold a candle to a real warrior, he does noticeably better than the regular or rogue pet. The rogue pet will also slice through enemies faster so you do notice the extra dps but he will not hold agro at all.

I use Chloro as the off class and get enough for Bloom and healing. If you go full Chloro he can do an ok job healing but your group better have good dps or a good tank cause he won't hold a candle to a real cleric.

This build , which is what I'm using with most points in necro, definitely sucks for PvP because most times it's burst DPS that's needed in PvP. However, it does very well in PvE and does pretty good sustained DPS on bosses. I can take out 2-3 even level regular mobs with this build in PvE as well.

On the warrior side of things however, I built a Riftblade/Warlord/Champion. Took a little while to get him rolling, but man... he's insane. He can pretty much wade through anything in PvE (can get overwhelmed quickly though, which is odd for a warrior), but in PvP I find it funny. I just spam flame lance particularly with the fire proc finisher on it, occasionally using fork as well. And of course, freeze armor. It's really bad (in a good way). He doesn't soak damage well, but he can hold his own pretty good.

Over all, I'd still say my cleric is good. My rogue is definitely the best though. Great agro management and high end damage. These two are pretty much indestructible.

Rogues are definitely a good class to play. Great DPS depending on build and you also can't beat the utility with the ability to switch roles and go with a class that can heal.

 

[Mennovh]

I use Chloro as the off class and get enough for Bloom and healing. If you go full Chloro he can do an ok job healing but your group better have good dps or a good tank cause he won't hold a candle to a real cleric.

What level are you if i may ask? These three statements that i have quoted for you here are not correct.

The chloromancer is one of the best if not the best healer in Rift. I have never had a problem healing with a chloromancer unless the tank isnt keeping agro in large pulls. I have solo healed every dungeon up through AP/CC without any problems.

The trick with a chloro is the more damage you do the better healing you have. You should never have to use your direct healing spells unless the mob your casting on dies before your spell hits. You must always keep your direct healing spells unused for these moments. You should always have radiant spores up on your targets as it is aoe if you spec into it. Corrosion is your best friend. Using corrosion near a pack of mobs gives your team a HoT of about 80hp a tick per mob your pulling and 180ish per tick per mob to your tank.

Natures blessing is your big heal for your tank, healing him for about 3-5k which you can cast every 8 seconds i believe. Vile spores should be your go to cast for dps as this has no cool down and you alternate. If i was at home now i would give you my cast order exactly. You also have two channeling abilities which heal your party very good too. Entropic viel which gives you a 19% boost to damage should be used about halfway through your corosion so you can use both at the same time for your charge.

You should go Warlock as your secondary for the 10% chance your next spell is an instant cast and as well as the crit and damage boosts. I love my chloro as he is good for both pve and pvp because of his great heals and mana regen.

This build , which is what I'm using with most points in necro, definitely sucks for PvP because most times it's burst DPS that's needed in PvP. However, it does very well in PvE and does pretty good sustained DPS on bosses. I can take out 2-3 even level regular mobs with this build in PvE as well.

The necro in pvp is a game of attrition. If you can outlive your enemies mana you will prosper as a pvp necro. The only class you will have trouble against in solo pvp with your necro is a warrior, but they are still killable with the right strategy. I use the same build as you with most in the necro tree. The necro/chloro can keep himself alive for a very long time in 1v1 pvp solo combat and can take on up to 5 mobs at a time in PvE.

The trick to this is kiting melees and taking on ranged heads up. If i wasn't at work i would go through it step by step on what abilities to use and when. This is the basic strategy though. You have two spells which are essential to a necro. One of them is a 3 second stun that has a great slow on it. The slow works so when your pet hits the other guy it will slow him by 30% and also your pet can interrupt his casts if you spec for it. the other spell is a bane to healers. Its a dot that everytime they heal them selves it adds another stack of the dot up to ten stacks. So everytime they heal the dot is doing double damage. Its these two spells which makes your necro deadly along with his self healing with his channel, bloom, and radiant spores. Also do not forget your ground aoe spell adds stacks of deathly calling and this is essential to your pets damage and yours.

Rogues are definitely a good class to play. Great DPS depending on build and you also can't beat the utility with the ability to switch roles and go with a class that can heal.

Rouges are good up to level 50. Right now rouges are broken at level 50 and are kind of pitiful. Rouges are the easiest kill I have in PvP. A few of my friends went rouge and now are making alt characters because they are so bad right now in pvp. Hopefully they will fix this, but i would not recommend a rouge at this time.