World of Warcraft put its last nail in the coffin for me with MoP.  Things looked good until I seen what they did with gearing up with Dailies and some of the instances I had to run 15+ times just to get the piece of gear I needed to drop.  Blizzard is trying to force people to go out in the world more than run instances and raids which is the type of game play my friend and I enjoy.  So now we are looking to move on, in the past I have played AION, LOTRO, SWTOR, RIFT, UO, SWG, WOW, EQ2, DDO and played in beta of many others. 

The type of game I am looking to play is one where Raiding is fun with somewhat of a challenge however not to the point where if the raid has a few Average Joes takes 2 or 3 ticks of fire damage the healer will not be able to cover for a the mistakes.  That’s what I liked about Vanilla WoW and BC, I could push bars when people made mistakes without major concern about mana.  I also did a lot of down ranked healing and the few mistakes a player made during boss fights (Not Citrical Mistakes) could be dealt with.  Now yes there is some forgiveness however it’s not the same.

I also want a Raiding game where its more on the casual schedule end like SWTOR had where in 1 or 2 hours you are done.  I been a hardcore raider before, been in BWL and QA40 back in the day, I don’t have the same time to play games like I use to.  I also want a game where I am not forced to run dailies to get better gear or rep so I can buy my crafting professions.  I want to be able to play 3 days a week 2 to 4 hours at a pop and feel like I got somewhere not that I am on a treadmill going faster than I can keep up.    If anyone has any ideas I am looking to read them.

Question about Rift.  A few friends were looking into it again.  Is it true that a guild can have players from both factions?  Can Raids have players from both factions?  Are they changing the raid size from 10 and 20 man to just 1 raid size?  Last I heard Rifts population was having an issue having enough people for more than a handful of 20 man raiding guilds.  Are all the specs the same cookie cutter builds for each class or can people now do what they choose for their play style and have it be just as effective? 

Thank you for all your answers

You said you were finished with WoW, but WoW's LFR raid difficulty sounds like it would be a great fit for your playstyle.  It's much more forgiving than normal mode raids (many mechanics are tuned for lightly-organized groups), and each raid is split into parts so you can have hour-long sessions and still kill a few bosses.  Nothing does WoW-style gameplay better than WoW, so it's something to keep in mind if you really like the game but you can't do normal modes yet.

RIFT is also a good choice.  On PVE servers, Guardians and Defiants can group up / raid with each other, join each other's guilds, send tells to each other, etc - as if there were no faction separation to begin with. I'm not exactly sure about the raid sizes, but I believe that there is still a distinction between 10 man and 20 man progression.  RIFT certainly has enough people playing to field the 20 mans; you just have to join a guild that can support 20 mans, make your own guild and recruit, or start finding other guilds for yours to collaborate with.

There's always going to be specs that are more optimized than others.  I think that the (current) content is difficult enough to warrant use of optimal builds.  I'm sure you can find cookie cutter builds, but they're cookie cutter for a reason - because they are proven to be effective.

Originally posted by danwest58

Question about Rift.  A few friends were looking into it again.  Is it true that a guild can have players from both factions?  Can Raids have players from both factions?  Are they changing the raid size from 10 and 20 man to just 1 raid size?  Last I heard Rifts population was having an issue having enough people for more than a handful of 20 man raiding guilds.  Are all the specs the same cookie cutter builds for each class or can people now do what they choose for their play style and have it be just as effective? 

both faction guilds and raids in SL: yes

raid size: still have 10 and 20 mans. the 1 man raids aren't raids. they're low challenge content for new 50s (soon to be 60s). the point of the chronicles is to allow casuals to see the raid zones. they do not give BiS gear.

Rift Pop: even with the server merges the pop is just fine. with storm legion coming out it will be a lot better, but in general it'll have it's hardcore player base for a long time to come. get into an established raiding guild and you wont have an issue.

specs: you said you did hardcore raiding, so you know the deal. you shouldn't have to ask this. spec B will always be better then spec C, etc. if you want to run whatever you want, find a guild that will let you do so in raids. that kind of guild will be hitting the brick wall a lot longer then guilds that are serious about raiding.

more: raiding in Rift generally requires players to not suck. it's not like normal (non heroic) WoW raiding where if you lose a couple people it's still cakes and cookies. you will die on progression bosses. you will need 20 players that don't stand in fire, are aware, know the class, and that show up each week. a lil bit of gear goes a long ways in game. dps checks can suck, and guilds are going to fight if people blow. when you kill a new boss, you're going to go to sleep with that old school feeling like you did something cool.

more: Rift has a crap ton of things to do at level cap. it's well worth the money for the sub imho. really it's the only game that IS worth the sub imho. the game is great for hardcore raiders, and casual players alike.

more: i love Rift, but am having trouble playing it lately. i played GW2 and it has ruined all other games for me (mana, stationary casting, QoL improvements, etc). tbh i wish i had never tried GW2. the issue is GW2 doesn't have enough to keep me busy either. i'm somewhat burnt out on it having done most of content the game has to offer :(     BUT, if you like the WoW style combat/gameplay, and most of the features Rift has then Rift is the game for you. it takes everything that is cool in most themeparks and either makes it better, or just flat out uses a copy. kind of like "if it aint broke, don't fix it".

storm legion is coming out in a couple weeks and is going to blow minds. i've been doing beta and it's pretty impressive.

Originally posted by danwest58

Blizzard is trying to force people to go out in the world more than run instances and raids which is the type of game play my friend and I enjoy. 

As much as I respect your opinion, I have to say I feel sorry about this perticular mindset.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Rift is wow

+ more outdoor endgame pve content
+ ability to swap around several builds at will for easier grouping
+ better community

- animation quality (although its good enough)
- size (although they pump out content fast)
- lore, just not as good

Other than that its wow

      Alot of Rift feels like it was pasted and copied from WoW and WAR......While I did not like that approach, alot of former WoW players seemed to like it alot.

Trion has essentially taken up Blizzards ball and has run with it. They have taken what has worked in a lot of other games (not just WoW) and have improved upon it. They have also added a lot of their own ideas. Instant adventures, Onslaughts, Chronicles.

If you want something completely different from WoW, go with GW2. If you liked WoW but simply want something new then go with Rift.

Rift has a stable population of serious endgame raiders because it has every bit as good of an endgame as WoW. 4 20 mans and 4 10man split over 3 tiers. 11 leveling dungeons that are all also available as Experts. (heroics) There are also a few master mode dungeons for those who want raid difficulty in a 5 man. There are also Expert and Raid rifts that can be opened. There is a lot to do.

Also the difficulty ramps up nicely. There are several guilds that have completed ID, the T3 20man, but there are also a lot still progressing though it. These are not gimmies.  Yet on the other hand you don't need to be in a freakishly hardcore raiding guild to be Raiding. My guild, The Platinum Order on Faeblight is a few bosses into ID and when they raid it, it is well organized but we are also farming HK to gear up alts and new raiders and they are nicely casual respect to how raids run. If you have the people, great, if not we give it a try and not worry about it. real life comes first. For me it is a great balance. Will we complete ID before the expac? probably not. But that is fine.

Rift is a good alternative if you enjoyed WoW but don't want to keep playing it.

Rift's main strength is offering a wide variety of end game group content. It also has good non combat and rp features. Its weaknesses are leveling, alts, pvp balance and esport.
If you love group pve and casual pvp rift is a great choice. If you like social tools, cooking, fishing, camping, player housing,guild housing, decent crafting pets, mounts, titles, clothing wardrobe etc then rift is also a great choice.
If you want deep story and personal questlines, alt friendly content, esport style competitive pvp, then rift is probably not for you

Originally posted by Khaeros

You said you were finished with WoW, but WoW's LFR raid difficulty sounds like it would be a great fit for your playstyle.  It's much more forgiving than normal mode raids (many mechanics are tuned for lightly-organized groups), and each raid is split into parts so you can have hour-long sessions and still kill a few bosses.  Nothing does WoW-style gameplay better than WoW, so it's something to keep in mind if you really like the game but you can't do normal modes yet.

 

I can’t stand the drama from LFR.  I personally am not looking for easy, however I am looking for old school type raiding like was in BC.  I have some friends that normally take a bit of avoidable damage in the way of “O SHIT FIRE” Move, so they will normally take 2 or 3 ticks where stronger raiders will take no ticks or 1 tick.  In BC as a healer I could heal through that and not have to worry about it.  I single healed Nightbane from 75% til he was dead because I had players that would move out of that shit even if they took 2 ticks.  Now you take 2 ticks of avoidable damage it’s a lot hard as a healer unless majorly geared to heal through it. 

Don’t get me started on gear.  It should be either rep, or Valor not both.  I don’t have time to play 7 days a week and do dailies.  WoW is no longer fun because I need to run dailies daily. 

Originally posted by ayronamic

Originally posted by danwest58

Blizzard is trying to force people to go out in the world more than run instances and raids which is the type of game play my friend and I enjoy. 

As much as I respect your opinion, I have to say I feel sorry about this perticular mindset.

I will say this, You must have Rep and Valor to buy Epic gear.  How do you get rep?  Run Dailies, can you get rep doing something else no.  An Ghost Crawler had enough balls to say basically people are not playing the game we want it played so we will force people to play it the way we want them to play it now.  So Yes you are forced to play their way.  If I could buy valor gear without rep, and I could by Rep gear without Valor like it has been for how long I would be fine.  So would my friends who are all quitting for the same reason.