Understanding the Leaderboards in Rifts!?

I'm so confused! I've been doing rift after rift after rift trying to figure out how to understand the leaderboard system in rifts! So as I make this guide I want you all to know that it is indeed a work in progress and I will be working on it over the next while as I figure out and get more information on the rift leaderboard system. In the meantime I will post a guide of the information that I DO know.

Lets start with the basics, what is a leaderboard? When you close a rift, you get rewards. The rewards are based off of the leaderboard system. How well you do against the other people in the rift is how good of rewards you will get. To open up the leaderboard click this button during a rift, 

It will open a box that looks like this,

Whenever you complete a stage of a rift the leaderboard will be updated and all of the people that helped during that stage will get medals,

The higher your score, the better your rewards. I'll get more into that in a bit though, for now I want to talk about how to get the medals. You get medals by helping during the rift, you have a bar that shows how well you are doing on the side of your screen. The higher you get the bar the better of a medal you will get.

Gold medals are worth about 4000 points

Silver medals are worth about 2000 points

Bronze medals are worth about 1000 points

Sometimes these medals are worth more then these amounts (I'm looking into why) but they are usually worth these amounts.

How does that help though? How many points do I need to get good rewards? This is what confused me for a really long time. You have another bar on the leader board system which we will call the rewards bar and it is what determines your rewards.

When you first join a rift and you have 0 points the bar will look like this,

When you get 2000 points your bar will be updated, in the picture I ended up getting 4000 points though so my bar went from 0/2000 to 2000/4000, if I only got 2000 points by getting a silver medal my bar would have said 0/4000 because the number will reset every time you fill the bar.

If you noticed the picture beside the bar also changed,

This is how you know how well of rewards you will get. It looks just like a bronze medal but I don't want to get to confusing so lets say at the end I will get a bronze reward, which is not very good. We want to keep filling the bar until the picture changes so that at the end of the rift we will get gold rewards. The rewards bar is harder to fill up during major rifts but you can get better prizes in major rifts and there are usually more rounds to fill it up.

Bonus part of the guide: Bonus stages!

Eventually after defeating enough stages of a rift a timer will appear. (Usually around stage three)

If you defeat the stage within that amount of time when you get to stage four there will be another timer. The faster you beat stage three the more time you will have to do stage four.

If you can beat that stage within the amount of time given you will be taken to a bonus stage. The bonus stage is just like a regular stage but it is one last chance to raise your rewards bar for better rewards!

Good luck rifiting! Hope this helped!

Here is a checklist of what I still need to figure out:

-Why people sometimes have purple names, most of the time people have white names and our own names are blue, but why are some people names purple?

- If you can get the bar past gold.

If you have any questions, would like me to add anything to my guide, would like to tell me why people have purple names!, leave a comment in the comment section below. :)

Hopefully this helped, and I'll be adding more to the guide as I figure out more information on the leader board system.

Miku~

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I've been playing like crazy since release, almost level 20 already! I've been playing my defiant character (Miku) on the RP-PVP shard Sunrest, which has been a lot of fun. I really enjoy the guild I have been playing with (Immortal Council) they are great and a lot of fun just to talk to and group with. I plan to make my guardian character on the PvE shard Belmont to play with soon, I've been busy leveling my rogue, trying to get enough information to do this guide, and a few other things so I haven't gotten a chance to yet. Anyways it's time for me to get back to playing Rift! I'm loving this game and I hope all of you guys are also. :)

Head start!

Head start is finally here and for most of us, probably anyone reading this blog at this point, that means launch. So I would like to say, good luck, have fun, and enjoy the game.


Miku~

Server Lists

Rift finally released the official server list! We can finally pick which servers we will be playing on! Here is the list~



US Servers
Belmont PvE
Briarcliff PvP
Byriel PvE
Deepstrike PvP
Faeblight RP
Gnarlwood PvE
Greybriar PvE
Keenblade PvE
Lotham PvP
Reclaimer PvP
Seastone PvP
Shadefallen RP
Shatterbone PvE
Snarebrush PvP
Spitescar PvP
Sunrest PVP-RP
Wolfsbane PvE



EU Servers
Akala DE RP
Brutwacht DE PvE
Trübkopf DE PvP
Argent EN RP
Blightweald EN PvE
Cloudborne EN PvP
Firesand EN PVP-RP
Icewatch EN PvE
Steampike EN PvE
Whitefall EN PvP
Brisesol FR PvE
Rubicon FR PvP

Poll Results

This past week on the website there has been a poll on the site to see what you guys thought was the calling that you found most interesting. The results are in and after 433 votes here are the results to the poll.

1st place - Rogue: 33% of the votes (143/433)
2nd place - Cleric: 31% of the votes (138/433)
3rd place - Mage: 20% of the votes (88/433)
Last place - Warrior: 14% of the votes (64/433)

While the rogue calling being in first wasn't suprising what was suprising to me was warrior coming in last place with only 14% of the votes. The numbers are fairly even though which is good. It means every second person we see shouldn't all be the same calling and we shouldn't have to much trouble rolling against each other for equipment.

The next poll will be a crafting poll, I would love to see the numbers on which crafting professions people plan on playing so don't forget to vote when coming to the site!

Miku~

Headstart Info

We can now download the Rift client! Headstart starts on Thursday, Feb. 24th at 10:00 AM PST, so make sure you have it downloaded and ready to go! For more information and the link to download the client click here. Make sure to uninstall the beta before installing Rift,


Miku~

Official Fansite!

I would like to thank Trion for adding "This is not a Rift" as an Official Fansite! I never would have thought when starting up this blog a few weeks ago that it would ever have been as popular as it has been, because of that I would also like to thank all of the people who have been viewing the blog and also the people who have been leaving comments. Thank you!

With that all being said I had planned to do one guide during the downtime before headstart but unfortunately I didn't get all the screenshots I needed in time. :( I have a few ideas for a few guides I might start working on soon but if you would like to see a specific guide just ask in the comments section below and I might add it to my list of projects for the site. 

The guide I'm planning on working on next is a guide about the leaderboards during rifts. If you don't know what those are, well I'll be explaining it when I make the guide. So far I've taken a few screenshots of what I need and I still need to test a few things out, luckily you can do rifts as soon as you get out of the starting area at level 6ish so I should get the guide out quickly after headstart.

Miku~

Crafting 101

There isn't much new that can be said about crafting that hasn't been said somewhere else, I wanted to make a guide that would explain everything though. If I am missing anything about crafting in this guide please leave a comment and I will add it.

In Rift you can have a total of three professions, there are three gathering professions and six crafting professions. You can unlearn a profession at any time by going to any crafting trainer and selecting I'd like unlearn a skill...

You can get the professions at either your main city, Meridian or Sanctuary, or at these locations.

For the Guardians you can get them at the Argent Glade,

For the Defiants it is a little bit more confusing you can get some of them at the King's Retreat, and some at the Kelari Refuge

You can get the gathering professions a bit earlier but if you want all of the professions you would have to go to these locations.

Gathering Professions: Butchering, Foraging and Mining.

Butchering: With the butchering profession you will be getting leathers/hides off of beasts that have been killed.

Foraging: With the foraging profession you will be getting herbs/wood from nodes. If you use the skill Track Wood and Track Plants you will be able to see where they are on your mini map.

Mining: With the mining profession you will be gathering metals from nodes. If you use the skills Track Ore you will be able to see where they are on your mini map.

Crafting Professions: Apothecary, Artificer, Armorsmith, Runecrafter, Outfitter, Weaponsmith.

Apothecary: With the apothecary profession you will be making different potions using plants gained from the foraging profession and sometimes items gained from the butchering profession. The apothecary profession requires a Laboratory to make items.

Artificier: With the artificer profession you will be making different wands, totems, rings and necklaces with ores, and items gained from mining and wood gained from the foraging profession. The artificer profession requires a Workbench to make items.

Sometimes when mining you will get containers that when opened will give you different stones which are used in the artificer profession. 

With the artificer profession you will also get a skill called Salvage Accessories that will allow you to break your rings and necklaces into matierials that you can use to make more accessories.

Armorsmith: With the armorsmith profession you will be making different armors using ores gained from the mining profession, leather gained from the butchering profession and cloths gained from killing enemies. The armorsmith profession requires a Forge to make armor.

With the armorsmith profession you will also get a skill called Salvage Armor that will allow you to break your armor into materials that you can use to make more armor.

Runecrafter: With the runecrafter profession you will be making different runes that you can use to increase the stats on your armors and weapons. You get the materials by using the runebreak skill that allows you to break your equipment into magical materials used to make runes. The runecrafter profession requires a Workbench to make runes.

Adding Dim Deft Rune to my armor will add 2 dexterity to my armor which when applied will look like this.

If I want to add another rune to the same item, it will ask me to replace my old one.

Outfitter: With the outfitter profession you will be making different armors using leather gained from the butchering profession and cloths gained from killing enemies. The outfitter profession requires a Loom to make items.

Weaponsmith: With the weaponsmith profession you will be making different weapons using ores gained from the mining profession, and wood gained from the foraging progession. The weaponsmith profession requires a Forge to make some items and a Work Bench to make others.

With the weaponsmith profession you will also get a skill called Salvage Weapons that will allow you to break your weapons into materials that you can use to make more weapons.

Crafting areas: Loom, Forge, Workbench, Laboratory

There are four places where you can craft items and each profession needs you to be at one of the four places. To craft you need to be at either a Loom, a Forge, a Workbench or a Laboratory.

Loom: Butchering, Outfitter

Forge: Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Mining

Workbench: Runecrafter, Artificer, Foraging, Weaponsmithing

Laboratory: Apothecary

How to craft:

Once you have your crafting profession, your gathering professions, some materials what do you do next?

This is what the crafting window looks like, you can select the recipe that you want to make and it will show the ingredients needed, how many that you can make with the materials you have, what skill level you are (as you can see my character is a Novice apothecary, skill level 2 out of 75.) It will show you that what area you need to be crafting in and what you will make. At the bottom you can choose to craft all which will craft as many as you have the materials for, or you can click the over arrows to select how many you would like to make and then hit craft. As you can see there is a blank window with the words augmentation above it. If it is grey like it is in the picture then you cannot augment the item you are trying to make.

Some recipes can be augmented though by adding a planar augment into the augmentation box. Each planar augment has it's own effects that will be added to the item when crafted.

You can get planar augments a few ways, the easiest ways would be from doing rifts or invasions. They can either be obtained randomly during rifts and invasions or you can spend your planarite obtained from them on boxes with random planar augments in them.

When opening the novice augment box I bought to test it I got this in it.

Crafting Dailies:

To get certain recipes you have to buy them from special vendors that will only sell the patterns for special marks gained from doing crafting dailies that can be done once per day, per profession. That means if you have three crafting professions you could do three crafting dailies per day. If you only have one crafting profession and two gathering professions you can only do one per day. You can find your daily crafting quest giver in either of your main towns. (Sanctuary or Meridian)

In this picture I have three crafting professions which means I can do three work orders.

The work orders will tell you to go make a few of whatever your profession normally makes and give you a few tokens and a little supply bag with a few materials in it.

After you make the items that you are requested to make they will tell you to deliver them to either the college or the kings retreat to get your marks and your supply bag. Because of this I recommend trying to get a mount before doing too many of these, it is a decently far walk to each of these places. As you level up your crafting you will get newer daily quests with better rewards which will ask you to go to different areas other then the college of the kings retreat.

Once you get enough artisans tokens you can spend them on recipes from the special merchants which you can use to make new items that couldn't be made without buying these recipes.

Last of all eventually you will hit skill level 75 and you will need to train your profession so that you can get it up any higher. To get it higher you will need to go to your profession trainer in your main city. You will need to train every 75 skill levels so don't forget to pay attention to your skill level.

Finishing Comments: Phew my longest guide yet is finally over. It took a few days and four hours just to write all of it up and edit the screenshots and thats not including taking all of the screenshots and gathering all of the materials, figuring out where to get everything and test everything so that is why I took so long getting this guide out. Over the next little while I will be doing just a few mini helpful guides before doing another huge long project guide like this one. I only used 26 screenshots in this guide but that doesn't mean I only took 26 screenshots. I had to choose which were helpful etc and edit them and it took awhile so I'm going to do a few mini guides as a bit of a break for a couple of days. If you want to know what I am up to, or what I am thinking of creating next, or just to say hi add me on twitter, my twitter name is MikuRift. Thank you all for reading and if you have any comments dont be afraid to leave some in the comment section below!

Miku~

Twitter!

I've finally done it! It took me a while, I kept putting it off, but I finally made myself a twitter account for this website so if you guys follow me you can know when I am doing new guides and also just to ask me any questions or see what I am doing in game! My Twitter account name is MikuRift.
Tweet

The crafting guide is on it's way to being made, it's taking longer then I previously thought because I have been a bit busy this past week and also there is a lot I want to add to it which takes a lot of time and a lot of screenshots. So I'm sorry but you may have to wait another day or two before I can finish it.

If anyone wants to add me in game I'm playing as -

Miku (Defiant) on Lotham

Bella (Guardian) on Spitescar

Bluais (Guardian) on Spitescar


Thanks for reading,

Miku~

The UI, how to change it, what you can change, and what it looks like.

I did a poll recently to see what you guide you guys wanted me to do next, and the votes are in! In last place with a merely 10% of votes, Rifts and Invasions. In second place with 34% of the votes, Crafting and in first place with 55% of the votes, Changing the UI! So here it is, my changing the UI guide. (I will probably be doing a Crafting guide next because 34% is no small number, but I probably wont be doing a Rifts and Invasions guide for a while.) 


First off lets check out the options menu.

The main ones I will be looking at for this guide will be, Settings, Edit Layout and Import. Key Bindings and Macros don't really fit in with changing your UI and are pretty self explanatory. Though if you do want me to make a short guide about those two just tell me in the comments section below.

First off lets look at Edit Layout. Once you click Edit Layout your screen looks like this.

At first this may be intimidating but most of it is very easy to figure out. You can drag whatever boxes you want around to change where you want them to be on your screen.

See how I dragged my Player Portrait down near my abilities? If you hit the save button on edit layout it will then save it there for when you exit out of the options. You can then move anything else around to make your layout look the way you want.

Do you see the orange bar with arrows on each of the boxes? That means that it is attached to whatever the arrow is pointing to. If Ability Bar 3 is attached to Ability Bar 2 that means when you turn on Ability bar 3 it will go right above Ability Bar 2, pushing up anything above it, like the pet or the cast bar. This helps so that you do not get overlapping boxes when your pet is summoned. See how the Player Portrait's bar is green? That is because I am dragging it at the moment and I am about to attach it above Ability Bar 2. You don't have to attach stuff though, If you always want your Player Portrait in the same spot you can make it so that it is not attached to anything by moving it away from everything else so that there is no green bar when dragging it.

Since there is no arrows and it is not attached to anything even if you are turning on and off different Ability Bars, Pet Bar, etc., the Player Portrait will never move.

You can also change the Scale or the Alpha of each box. The Alpha setting will make each box more see-through the farther you drag it, and the Scale setting will make the box bigger or smaller. 

You can also enable or disable each box if you don't want them to show up.

I moved around, scaled, enabled all of the stuff that I wanted and eventually my screen looked like this.

Which looked like this once I hit save.

It takes some time to get everything where you want it, at the right sizes etc. This would be very annoying to have to do it on each character. Thankfully thats what we have the Import button for.

Once you click import a box looking like this will open up.

If you wanted to load your other character's UI, you would select UI Layout and hit Import. If you wanted to load your UI on your other character's you would first have to log on that character and select your character that you changed the UI on and select UI Layout and hit Import. 

Last of all we have settings. Most of the settings are pretty obvious and explain what they do by mousing over them so I won't explain each setting. I will explain some settings that are frequently asked about though.


In settings, click the interface tab. From there hit misc and you can set up AoE looting or Auto looting. 

Under the Combat Tab you can set up, Auto Self-Casting, Cast on target's target, Show Target of target, which looks like this.

Unfortunately I had myself targeted so I was the target of my target. Which is just confusing so I'm sorry about that.
Under the Action Bar tab you can set up multiple cast bars to hold your spells, items and other things. You can also lock your abilities so they wont move when you drag them by accident.

This is what it looks like with two bars.

Under the mouse tab you can change how fast your cursor will move.

And last of all, the Twitter tab. I haven't used it yet, but you can sign into your twitter so that it will automatically tweet your achievements.

Hopefully that helps with any questions you might have about the UI and how to change it. Seeing the Twitter setting has got me thinking of making a Twitter for This is not a rift. So stay watch out for that in the future. I will also be adding a link bar with links to a few useful sites or a few sites that I am a part of. Make sure to come back and check out for the crafting guide in the near future if that interests you. If you have any comments or have anything you would like to see added to any of my guides or if you have an idea for a future guide leave your comments in the comments section below. Thank you for reading and I hope this helped. 


Miku~