Feedback Rift (Fisura) Difficulty – Is it properly balanced?

Ahoy everyone.

I’m opening this thread to discuss the recent difficulty changes in the Rift map, because at the moment it feels clearly unbalanced for a large part of the player base.

The Rift has always been recommended content to complete at least once per day or once per week to maintain pirate rank and progress. Previously it already took around 15 minutes of continuous gameplay, which for me felt quite heavy, and some weeks I ended up skipping it.

On top of that, the Season requires completing waves to obtain Effort Coins. Before, finishing all required waves was already tedious… but now, with the new difficulty, it has become impossible for me to complete both the Rift and the Season requirements.

I have tested multiple ship configurations to adapt to the new NPCs, reduce incoming damage and attack from distance, but I cannot get past wave 27. After around 25 minutes of continuous attempts, using repair amulets, repair books and constantly retreating to repair, it simply does not work.

My current stats:

• Thunderbolt Cannons:
  • Level 5: 44
  • Level 4: 371
  • Level 3: 380
• Damage prevention: 125.7%
• Hitpoints: 2,000,000
• 17 Ablative Platings level 6
• 30 Bulkheads level 6
• I have also tested with 31 Eyes level 6

I have tried different configurations and playstyles, including long-range combat with books, but none allow me to complete the Rift.

So I would like to ask:

• Is there a specific configuration with which this new Rift is supposed to be beatable?
• Or has the difficulty been adjusted only for extremely high-end accounts?

Additionally, I believe the issue is not only the Rift. Currently the game demands a lot of time in mandatory PvE content:
Rift, Ragnarok, Submarine, daily trials, Season… it easily adds up to one or two hours per day of “tasks”, leaving little time for what many of us consider the most fun part of the game: PvP and real piracy between players.

It increasingly feels like a collection of mandatory mini-games inside the main game.

Bug in the Rift map:

In the lower area of the map there is a full strip of coordinates that is not navigable. If you click there, the ship simply stops and does not move.

In summary, I would appreciate if the team could review:

• The current Rift difficulty
• The time required for daily/weekly mandatory content
• The navigation bug in the lower part of the Rift map

And if I am mistaken, I would appreciate if any player or moderator could share the configuration that is intended to complete this new Rift.

Thank you for reading, and fair winds to all.

 

Ahoy Sr.Brington!

Firstly could you please adjust your forum signature size (maximum of 500 pixels wide by 200 pixels tall)?

You need to be aware that RIFT was not supposed to be done by every player, this should be a challenge.

For years within Seafight we didn't bring any changes to RIFT - which only made the NPCs weaker and weaker as we, pirates, were constantly moving forward in all available fields. I understand many players are now struggling with the new rift, however with the information I provide below you may find it a little easier - as for example it takes about 23-25 minutes for me to do it, and maximum of 30 minutes if I do not pay to much attention to it

Thank you for bringing the coordinate bugged area within rift to my attention, I have forwarded this to be looked into.

Is there a specific configuration with which this new Rift is supposed to be beatable?

Yes, there are several presets that players use, so let me share with you the one that I personally do RIFT with - it is one of the slowest presets but I rather do something slower and safer than faster with a risk. I am not a "ranking player".

Okay so, starting from the scratch... which is the best ammo for RIFT? RIFT AMMUNITION! This is the only kind of ammunition that you should use when dealing with RIFT.

When it comes to GEMS you should use something like this (apart from Special Gem which should be Penumbral / Aventurine):

​

These are my pet gems used within the RIFT:

​

When it comes to pet trainers I go with the standard: Agility + Aggression

Other crew members: Sellsword L4 - 6 (note: L4 can be obtained from HRMS Triumph or hired for BigPoints within the market).

My RIFT castles looks like this:

​

Trophies... if you have some then focus on anything towards NPC, hit prob., dodge, damage. If you do not own any that's okay too. Trophies makes the rift just a bit more enjoyable.

Ship Extensions, when it comes to these I am a fan of Ablative Platings as with my preset I can place up to 23 Ablative Platings on level 6 which gives me more damage prevention than full set of level 6 ribs. However if you can't put that many at once or you simply don't own them then use ribs L5/L6 as the damage prevention difference won't be that big.

Figureheads / Cores - everything into Critical Damage. If you own Figureheads that's good if not then just craft yourself a full set of Critical Core from GOLD this will nicely increase your Critical Damage hits.

Cannons... the higher base damage the better! Obviously Thunderbolts L3+

Within your post you've stated that you use "30 Bulkheads level 6" could you please tell me which extension item is it?

Regarding buffs there are plenty of important ones but in my opnion Smokescreen and Polished Muzzles plays a major role within RIFT. So owning both of them would be beneficial.

Action Items used: Dragon Powder, Lion's Bulwarks, Super Armor Plates (on higher waves), Hailstorms, Regular Shields, Blood of Inya, Unstoppable.

Gameplay:

Waves 1 - 19: Up to wave 20 you don't need anything major, simply sink all NPCs one by one.

Wave 20 (wolves): Here my suggestion would be to defeat WHITE SMALL WOLF as first, then the ORANGE ONE and leave the biggest wolf as last

Wave 21 - 23: Quite easy and simple waves, just keep defeating NPCs and leave Great Bombers to be defeated as last.

Wave 24: Once you are on wave 23 and you are about to deliver final hit to last NPC activate Swiftstome (Stone of Storms would be best) and dance! Move your ship in zig zags to avoid Rift Tormentor "dizzy zone". The best way to do it would be to imagine a square around it and follow the same patter until its defeated (as shown below - that works for me!):

​

Wave 25: When it comes to Rift Tormentor make sure to defeat them as first and use the same tactic described above. Regarding Colossus.. well that's a different storry! Leave all 3 of them as last and never defeat them 1 by 1! If you was on about to defeat 1 out of 3 then the 2 that are left within the wave would become much stronger! Simply hit them to 1m HP and switch to another one sinking all 3 "at the same time"

Wave 26: Just sink all NPCs one by one.

Wave 27 (the hardest one!!): Make sure your Blood of Inya and Unstoppable are ready to be used. As soon as you spawn focus on Rift Frost Bearer as he freezes you in place. Once you are "frozen" use Unstoppable and confinue with this NPC. As second Rift Slumbering Wraith should be defeated. Once both are gone focus on the Blazing Grace - use Winstorms to avoid the red circle.

Wave 28-30: These waves require the same "tactics" as mentioned above. Once you get a grasp of it your rift will become much easier.

Please note that these are my personal settings I guess plenty of you takes a completely different approach to RIFT, as I always say each and every players are different

Hope this helps!

If you have any further questions fire away!

Happy Sailing!

Rymar

 

what is 30 Bulkheads level 6 ?

 

Ahoy Rymar,

First of all, we sincerely thank you for the time and dedication you put into your response. Your detailed explanation and mini-tutorial are truly valuable for the community. Thank you for taking the time to share your setup and strategy.

Following your advice, we managed to complete the Rift. However, we still feel that the current difficulty increase is quite high. We fully understand that the Rift should represent a challenge, but with such a large difficulty increase, we believe rewards should be balanced accordingly.


REWARDS VS. DIFFICULTY


To craft a Thunderbolt Level 4, you currently need:

• 1 Rift Cannon Level 4
• 1 Level 4 → 3 Rift Cannons Level 3
• 3 Level 3 → 9 Rift Cannons Level 2
• 9 Level 2 → 27 Rift Cannons Level 1
• 27 Level 1 → 81 Rift Cannons Level 0

Result: 1 Thunderbolt L4 = 81 Rift Cannons Level 0

Examples:

• 10 Thunderbolt L4 → 810 Rift Cannons Level 0
• 100 Thunderbolt L4 → 8,100 Rift Cannons Level 0
• 680 Thunderbolt L4 → 55,080 Rift Cannons Level 0

If a player currently earns around 10–15 Rift Cannons Level 0 per week, this means years of running a 35–40 minute Rift every week to complete a full setup.


CONCLUSION


The idea of updating the Rift is excellent. We understand that pirates have become stronger over time, but the same applies to equipment progression. Back when Thunderbolt L1–L2 were standard, these rewards were very valuable. Today, with Thunderbolt L5–L6 as common equipment, current Rift rewards no longer match the time and effort required. Therefore, we kindly suggest considering a reward rebalance in line with the new difficulty.


OUR SETUP TO COMPLETE THE RIFT


Cannons:
• Thunderbolt L5: 50
• Thunderbolt L4: 371
• Thunderbolt L3: 243
Total: 664 cannons

Supplement slots: 405
• 12 Ablative Platings L6
• 11 Ribs L6
Total damage prevention: +126.17%

Gems:
• Ship: Special protective plate +5%
• Ship prevention: 35%
• Pet: 26.75% prevention +10 slots

Castles & trophies:
• Focused on critical damage
• Average critical hit: ~750,000

Health:
• HP: 1,378,747
• Voodoo HP: 500,000

Total time: ~40 minutes
Consumables used: repair amulets and repair books

Thanks to your guidance, the run was much smoother. Wave 30 was especially challenging: the Colossus dealt ~220,000 damage per shot each, even when leaving them for last as recommended.



Once again, thank you for your time and dedication. Would you allow us to share your mini-tutorial translated in the Spanish forum? We believe it would help many players.

Thank you and fair winds.

 

Ahoy Sr.Brington!

Feel free to share any advice with your fellow pirates.

Please note that RIFT is not supposed to be the main source of cannons.

Additionally, the post mentioned above (mine) is a simple way of doing the rift without breaking too much sweat.

You could also use the following to make it even easier:

- The Hourglass / The Sands of Time
- The Lamp action item buffs
- Captain Manouvre set for dmg. (Adrenaline Rush)
- Special ammo during Damage Days event (currently Burning Ice Ammunition)
- Improve your dmg. prev. and dodge chance by increasing your gem level / purchasing additional Ablative Platings L6 when available within events
​

I am glad to hear that you did the rift

Happy Sailing!

Rymar

 

@Rymar Could u plz tell us how to deal with NPC's hit getting much harder after every single rep? what is the point of making their shoot getting doubled at same wave?

 

Ahoy cʟαш!

What do you mean by "Could u plz tell us how to deal with NPC's hit getting much harder after every single rep?" ??? Nothing change at all in my case.

Rymar

 

OK, lets say big Wolve/Golems when wave started it hit me about 130-150k (per shot for each golem and the big wolve ), every time i go rep and back shoot on it it get higher dmg till it reach 290k per shoot!

 

Ahoy cʟαш!

It seems like time spent within rift cause some of the NPCs to become stronger.

Doing a rift with some move in the background I find no difference in NPC damage at all - 30 min per rift.

Rymar

 

It would *also* help if things worked consistently in this game (including within "The Rift")! Like when I click on speed crystals (they often don't activate). Like when I click on my repair button, and have to pause and find the keyboard key I assigned to repair my boat, because clicking the repair button suddenly yields nothing! <--(Reported many, many months ago - by the way - and yet still not fixed). Amulets also sometimes don't activate when needed. These are just some that come to mind.

As a longtime player, I know the various tricks. I finished one event contest in the top 7, sailing both my main boat and my baby boat. The difference then was using "lost loves" in the event map, which often you cannot do. As we all know, you can toss a coin to try to figure out which action items are active (or inactive), for a particular challenge.

We have players on my server doing the full rift in under 13 minutes! Even knowing all the tricks, using everything available, having all the buffs, etc., it's hard to believe. And that's even with "Damage Days" effective. We often are left questioning how they do it, and often we wonder if it's done legitimately. Which is a shame, because if cheating wasn't allowed, we could simply admire the time, skill, (and money) spent to achieve these top-tier results.

P.S. I would like a moderator to explain how someone can legitimately achieve sub-13 minute times in this rift map. Since the mods have the use of boats that are "totally loaded", I would think they should know.

 

My two cents - I spent about an hour in the Rift this morning and made it to wave 30 - which was impossible to finish. The speed of the NPC's in this wave is absolutely ridiculous. Even using speed crystals I cannot get away from the NPC's to rep. And because I am trying to get away, which increases my time, the NPC's become stronger and killed me with basically one shot. I understand the thinking in making the Rift harder, but I used to be able to complete it in about 17 minutes. Now I am in there for an hour and CANNOT complete it. This means it is over 300% more difficult than it was before. Come on SF, you have to make this at least attainable. Despite what Rymar says, it cannot be done in 30 minutes with the gear described. I have a very similar boat but spent the greater part of my time running and repping because of how hard the NPC's hit. The way it is currently set up, it is totally unfair, undoable, and most importantly UN-FUN. This was a bad idea and needs to be adjusted. No way to complete a season now. There is so much more than the Rift involved in season completion, but you'd have to play the Rift every day - ALL DAY - to even come close. Really dumb - who has the time for that? Please fix this!!

 

Ahoy Tergrinder!

It can be done in much less than 30 minutes without damage days... all it takes is a correct setup and base "know-how" about the game (setup shared within this post).

Rymar

 

Rymar does tend to overstate the "ease" of things. It isn't easy. I used the sands of time, arsenal (genie's lamp), "Shield's UP!" maneuver, "Voodoo Hoodoo" master skill <--(which does help a bit), etc., and a similar castle setup to what Rymar stated (in fact, my normal castle set-up is virtually identical). I made it twice to wave 30, but was quickly annihilated both times. I think I might eventually make it, but jeepers! As you stated, the wave 30 npcs are fast. And I was using the hard-hitting burning ice ammo to boot, but got "smoked".

I'll give credit to the fact that the recent "Damage Days" offered the chance to buy a pack for $9.99 ("Destruction pack", I think it is called), that gives you all of the buffs, including speed. So maybe my server's current Rift "top finishers in overall time" had all paid for that. Nevertheless, the Rift seems extremely difficult. Granted, it may get easier the more we play it. But I stand by my challenge for a moderator to use his super-charged "mod boat" to finish this map in under 13 minutes. Since a number of players have posted times near 13 minutes or less, I will assume they are doing it legitimately, and just using everything available. I would just like a rough explanation as to how. It might be that you can throw out the "whirlpool" action item to slow the npcs down. I will be trying that - and other things - in the future. But since I only want the season coins, I'm not going to worry a lot about it. But it's a puzzling map to be sure.

 

Land Ho!

This has been an interesting post and a lot of very good information has been discussed and passed on by both players and moderators.

The results of the poll posted by the O.P. are also interesting.

As pointed out previously the Rift was long over due an overhaul and of course this caused some difficulty for many players expecting to just jump in and complete it like we all have been able to for quite some time, This of course was not possible.

It is clear that following some of the great advise given above from some players and of course our very own Rymar that the rift IS possible to complete given some time, effort and adjustments to set ups used.

I must point out that in answer to one of the comments within this thread, I can assure you that moderators definitely do NOT have access to fully loaded out accounts/ships, We are simply players just like the rest who volunteer to give some free time to help with questions in the forum and keep things in order.

I feel this discussion has come to its own natural conclusion now and to prevent further discussion on this subject I shall now close this thread.

Once again, Thankyou all for your input.
All of the feedback has been noted.

Mr-Amber

~Closed~