RIFT Online (Part Three) ~ All You Need to Know About Games

Macros

While the combat is pretty simple and straightforward enough that your pretty much just running around casting away spells via your hotkeys, I do find it appropriate to advise you upon the subject of macroing in RIFT Online. (Due to the plethora of active skills that you might acquire just from one soul tree, if not the three of them.)

But if your thinking of those that allow you to do multiple things, within 1 second, all at the touch of one button kind of macro, then I'm sorry to disappoint you...it doesn't work that way.

The "macroing" that you CAN do here, instead, just allows you to more reasonably manage the skills, that you have acquired, via "compacting" and "condensing".

With it, you can group together a variety of different abilities, based upon some purpose or simply for easy access, all into one single hotkey. Think of it as an alternate solution to the "battlemode" that you have in Ragnarok Online.

For instance, in the above screenshot, I have grouped together a couple of abilities that my character can use, based upon their supposed "functionality".

In this single macro hotkey, there are several skills that builds "charges" for my character. (These charges can then be used by my other abilities which consumes them.)

Additionally, I have also grouped them together due to the fact that they are "Air-based". (The reason being that I have a passive ability that circumvents the cast time of Ice Shear, making it instant-cast, whenever I use an "Air-based" attack prior to it.)

And so the logic or purpose behind this macro is that while I'm spamming my "Air-based" charge builders, I can occasionally slip in an instant-cast Ice Shear whenever the passive triggers.

But before you go on building your own macros, there are certain guidelines that you'll need to know, respect and follow.

Each macro comprises of three basic things, the Icon, the Name and the Script.
- The Icon allows you to click, drag and drop the macro onto the hotkey bar just like a regular skill. You may then activate the macro by hitting the corresponding hotkey.
- The Name is just something for you to identify the purpose of the macro with. It can be any name, but preferably something short, simple and easy-to-remember will do.
- The Script forms the heart or core of the macro. Any blunders in here and your entire macro might fall apart or fail to perform as planned.
Each macro's script can hold a maximum of 25 lines and each line can be made to perform a single command.

As far as skills or abilities are concerned, if the script holds more than one of them, then each activation of the macro will cause it to perform one of the intended skills, starting from the topmost one.
If it cannot be performed, the macro will then move on to the very next ability in line and so on and so forth. Also known as the "fall through".
If there are "modifiers" involved (shift, alt or ctrl), they should be placed at the top of the script. Or else they will never be triggered as the script might never fall-through enough to reach it.

When planning your skills for the macro, positioning of the skill in the script and cooldown matters.
- If you wish for the macro to trigger Skill A first before Skill B, then Skill A's command line must be placed higher than Skill B's in the script.
- Always put a skill with zero cooldown at the very bottom / last line in the script. If you accidentally placed one with zero cooldown higher than all the rest, then no matter what keys you press or how fast you button-mash it, that ability will be the only one that you'll ever be able to activate.

And so, back to the macro example I gave, if I hit "1" multiple times, the macro will first cast "Raging Storm" (20 seconds cooldown), then "Lightning Strike" (10 seconds cooldown) before finally settling upon casting "Thunderbolt" (zero cooldown) continuously. At least until either of the previous two's cooldown is complete, that is.

But if at any point in time, like when my said passive triggers, I can hit "Ctrl + 1" to order the macro to cast Ice Shear instead. Likewise, if any of my enemies become too close to my character, I can also opt to mouse over that target and press "Shift + 1" to knock back the target with "Electrocute", without having to lose focus upon my current target.

And that forms the entire purpose behind this macro that I've built.

Handy? But that's only just the tip of the iceberg. For more commands and ideas for creating your own macros, please visit and read...

Zam Rift - Macros (Rift)
RiftScene - Understanding Rift’s Macro System

(* Before you can use the "Ctrl", "Alt" and "Shift" modifiers in your macros, you will need to clear away its respective key bindings within your game settings. Else, pressing those buttons will not trigger your intended skills but whatever that you've placed in those corresponding slots on your hotkey bars.)

Gameplay
Gameplay in Rift Online can be effectively summarized into the following three categories of activity.

Player versus Environment (PvE)

Instant Adventure

In Instant Adventure, what you basically do is participate in other players' regular questing events. Stuff you may or may not have done before, while you were out there exploring by your own self.

Though repetitive, the redeeming part about this feature is that it allows you to teleport around the massive world of Telara, pending on which part of the world that quest may be in, in the split of a second.

One moment, I may be in Silverwood, a beginner's paradise (Level 6 to 20), and the next, I may get teleported to Scarwood Reach (Level 30 to 35)...if my character's level suffice, that is. (Don't worry, you won't get thrown into quests beyond your level.)

And upon finishing the quest, you may either choose to stick with it and let the system queue you up for another...or...you may opt to drop out of it and return back to your original location, where you first signed up for the Instant Adventure.

What's even better is that this feature isn't only restricted to players within your own server (shard). It extends beyond that and can match you up with questing players from other shards as well (so there won't be a lack of players for you to party and play with).

If when partying with players from other shards, you can easily identify which shard they're from by observing the name of that character. They will have an @something appended to the end of their names (eg. Name@Shard).

Not only that, but if your looking for a quick and decent way to level up your character, I would most definitely recommend that you partake in these. A few sessions of them and your character would almost be guaranteed to get to the next level. However, this feature will only be unlocked at Level 10...so until then, I'm afraid that you'll have to settle with playing by yourself.

(A decent suggestion I've found is to sit your character permanently within the capital cities of your affiliation, like Sanctum for Guardians and Meridian for Defiants, leverage upon the "Rest Bonus" that you will accumulate when you log out there and then just do these Instant Adventure thingys without having to leave those cities or needing to run back when you wish to log out.)
Dungeons

These allow the player to group with others to clear instanced dungeons of varying sizes, ranging from small ones which requires perhaps a group of five to large ones that need 10 or 20 men to conquer.

And similar to Instant Adventures, the teleport function is available to instantly warp you to your group's location so you don't have to run there, as well as being able to group up with others from different shards.

However, do note that these dungeons will take up some of your time to complete and won't be as efficient (in terms of EXP gained per time spent). But for the fun factor as well as possibility of looting decent equipment? I'ld say its well worth the time and effort to give these a try.
Rift Invasions
Now this third form of PvE that I'm gonna be talking about is perhaps THE most important one of them all. In fact, I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that they form the heart and soul of the RIFT Online experience.

So what exactly is a rift? How does it form? And what will it do if left alone?

Well...without going into the game's lore, let's just say that throughout the world of Telara, there are these so-called "Tears" opening up randomly and all over the place. Some of these tears are minor and some of them can be major ones. If left alone, minor tears will always evolve into minor rifts while major tears can turn into minor OR major rifts.

When a tear turns into a rift, six resulting types of rifts can occur, Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Life and Death. Depending on the type, the kinds of monsters that you get, coming out of these rifts, will be different.

And though the level of the rift formed would determine the level of the monsters spewing out, it will most certainly be around that of those who would be found leveling in that area or zone.

However, you must note that whether it being a minor or a major one actually has a direct effect upon the "difficulty" of the rift. If its a minor rift, it can usually be handled by a single person. If its a major one, then it might take a group of people to close it. If assuming players are around the level of the rift, that is.

To close a rift, all you need to do is to hunt it down (or rather, get to the scene of the crime), perform the set of tasks required (will be automatically added, as some kind of quest, to the right-hand side of your HUD) and keep doing it until the rift closes. Its as simple as that.

Upon closing the rift, you will be rewarded with some form of loot, certain currencies and some notoriety (but I'ld rather call them "fame"). The notoriety that you get allows you access to purchase certain "special" goods while the currencies are what you might need to actually "buy" those goods.

Well...just pay the NPCs a visit, like those I've shown above, and you would get what I mean.

Apart from these regular rift incursions, from time to time, there will also be invasions on a massive scale. During these "invasions", multiple rifts will simultaneously sprout up all over the zone.

You would need quite a handful of players to successfully fend off all the invading monsters, protect wardstones found lying around the zone, as well as shut down those rifts that popped up (not all of them...just enough to thwart the invasion will do).

If successful, players will be rewarded with an unusually huge "boss" monster spawning somewhere within the zone. This boss monster will have a massive amount of health, powerful attacks and would require many players to take down. But naturally, the rewards for participating in these would of course be better too.

For more info:
Zam Rift - Rifts and Invasions