RIFT MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

Every time Ten Ton Hammer had a chance to see Rift: Planes of Telera, the more excited we became. After getting our grubby mitts on the game at E3 2010, we tracked down Scott Hartsman, Chief Creative Officer and General Manager of Trion Redwood Shores Studio, in order to have him more fully explain classes and characters having multiple souls in the game. After some “persuasion,” he agreed to talk.

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Ten Ton Hammer: The response to the E3 2010 class system seems split between those that think that Rift is simply co-opting talent trees with the soul tree system, and those that are a little overwhelmed with the possibilities. What would you say to the former crowd? Would you say it's your own take on talent trees?

Scott Hartsman: I actually kind of wouldn't. For those who say that it's just talent trees, the only thing I have to say is that once you play it you will totally understand. Just to give you an example from the character I most recently rolled, I chose a warrior. I still had choices with just the one soul up through the first fifteen levels, and it's cool and it's fun. It gets drastically different when you're faced with the choice of what your second soul is going to be - it's reinforced through the fiction and you're this awesome ascended being, therefore you have the ability to control multiple souls. You're making an active choice as to what the next path is that you're going to choose.

It's so different than staring at the same three panes that don't really involve a whole lot of choice at all. With our system, you can customize it down to which individual abilities out of these classes you're going to take. We err on the side of being a little bit too generous, intentionally, in giving you choices also. For example, say my first soul has a melee finisher that's okay, but my second soul has a melee finisher that's actually quite an upgrade, so when I get that second soul I can use one of my attack point builders from my first soul, add a finisher from my second soul, and it really drastically changes the results. By being smart, you can determine which abilities work together to give you the best damage. It's choices at the micro level like that, as well as at the macro level - which 2 or 3 of these choices do I want to have at any given time?

Letting people get a hands-on with it is about the best thing that we can do. All through E3, it was really cool to watch people's eyes light up as they play when they realized, 'Whoa, I was a healer up until five seconds ago, then I slotted this other thing and now my cleric also has this mage-like DPS ability too? This is actually fun! I totally get it now.' We're just looking forward to more people being able to try it out.

Ten Ton Hammer: So for the 'just a talent tree' crowd, the core message is that these abilities and enhancements interact with each other across souls? And that applies to all souls?

Scott Hartsman: Absolutely; lots of different interactions at different levels.

Ten Ton Hammer: I was going to ask if players can 'double up' on souls, but from your illustration it doesn't sound like that would make much sense.

Scott Hartsman: Doubling up in the literal sense - absolutely not. But what you can definitely do is effectively double up by just investing in one soul all the way to the end. That's a perfectly valid way to play also.

Ten Ton Hammer: So if players envision a very limited role for their character but want to be very good at what they do, they don't have to explore the myriad possibilities you're offering them?

Scott Hartsman: Yeah. If I have a tank soul, I can go all in. I mean, I can go all in on that sucker the entire way. That's going to give me root abilities that are only available to people who do just that.

Ten Ton Hammer: So with all of these choices at hand, let's talk a little bit about the inevitable - revising your choices with a respec. Could you describe the respec options you're planning to make available to players?

Scott Hartsman: What we're going for is, I think, pretty ambitious for a launch feature set, but this is one area that there was no way in hell that we were going to skimp on. What we are doing from the outset is, yes, you absolutely can from the outset go to a trainer and pay (with in-game currency) to reset your souls. You can then re-invest those points any way you choose.

Characters will also have multiple attunements - multiple specs - from the get-go, so you do have the ability to buy multiple specs immediately in the game. All of those have hotbars saved with all of your loadouts, and once you have those multiple loadouts, you can switch between them in the field.

For example, my current character has a high-end DPSing plate-wearer. He's got his 'I am übertank' spec, which is mostly invested in a single tank soul. He also has a hybrid soul where he's 50-50 with a DPS soul to really plow through soloing, questing, that kind of stuff. I can switch back and forth between those two anytime I want, and later on I'll go buy a third spec. And maybe later on when I find a different role for myself - PvP perhaps - I'll buy a fourth spec. The idea is to give players the ability to come up with loadouts that they like and be able to switch them at will.

Ten Ton Hammer: And you can pick up multiple attunements at any level?

Scott Hartsman: This is an open question for us - should we tie multiple specs to different level ranges - i.e. I can buy a second one at 15, a third one at 30, and so on. But the more I play the more I think we don't want to do that - just open them up all at once instead of trickling them out over time.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are players' ability points divided between these multiple attunements? Are you picking and choosing between abilities you've already bought, or is there a separate point pool for each of your attunements?

Scott Hartsman: You have one pool of points for your character. At level one you have 1 point, at level 2 you have two, and so on. It's which places you choose to invest those points is where it goes.