Riftology 101 - Rift Tips, Tricks and Hints

Rift is a rare specimen in the MMOG world, instead of shedding subscriptions like fleas from a sinking dog it is actually picking up steam as it heads into its second month. Whether you are a vet of the genre or a total noob, each new game brings with it its own new wrinkles and idiosyncrasies. To help you get the most out of your Rift experience, we threw together a quick primer of tips, tricks and hints to help get you acclimated.

General

• Devil in the Details – The little things matter in Rift, add runes when available and don’t forget to keep your Source Core updated and upgraded. These seemingly small statistical gains offer huge benefit.

• Rift it Up – They didn’t name the game Rift for nothing. Do as many rift events as you can: besides being tons of fun and a great way to meet people – their rewards are tangible and often the fastest path to improving your character.

• Shard It – Currency rewards earned during rift events are divided into three categories – Purple, Blue and Planarite (Green). Purple and Blue shards are useable only in the zone they were earned in, while Planarite is universal (and the most common)

• In the Bag – Upgrade your bags as soon as you can afford it, you will need the extra space. When you replace the bags simply drag and drop the new one onto the hotbar slot of the bag you wish to replace and all the items will magically swap to the new container.

• Spells Queue Too – Similar to EQ2, you can queue up the next spell/ability you want to use by pressing it while the current one is casting. The queue length can be modified in the setting menu, it can even be removed if you like to mash buttons and clip spells.

• Tweet Tweet – If you have a twitter account you can instantly share accomplishments and screenshots will all your followers by using the /twitter or /twitterpic commands in game.  

• Riddle Me This – Each zone has a unique puzzle that grants a reward and an achievement when solved. Be on the lookout for a guide to these puzzles here soon.

UI

• Super Size Me  - You can change the default UI scale in the settings menu, from microscopic to geriatric.

• Stock Options - Rift has a robust set of interface options that directly effect gameplay, but most are disabled by default. Access Settings and then Interface to enable the features you want.

• Imported – From the main menu you can access this handy feature which allows you to clone virtually any aspect of the interface from one character to another (provided they are on the same shard)

Use the slash command /exportui or /exportkeybindings and /importui and importkeybindings to share settings with characters on different shards 

• Color by Role – Since there are so many different class combinations in Rift, UI bars are color coded to reflect role instead. Healers are blue, Ranged DPS are yellow, Melee DPS are brown, Tanks are red and Support classes are purple.

• Control-F – This key combination allows you to search your bags.

• Key Binds – No need to scroll through a long list of keys to bind an action in Rift, simply hover the mouse over the corresponding button on your UI and activate the key you want to bind.

• On a Role – The icons in your character window that show your roles also double as hotkeys to quick swap them. Just drag them over to your hotbar for one touch action.

• Quick Sell – Tucked into the bottom right corner of a vendor’s inventory window is a small circular button that allows you to instantly sell all grey quality trash items.

• That’s a Plus – Clicking on another player should display a small circle at the top of their character portrait with a + sign on it. Click that symbol to be added to that players group – this is super helpful when engaging a named quest mob.

• Where’s the Loot – After completing a rift or world event the loot will be available in a pop up window resembling the objective window, click the circular button that looks like a bag to collect your loot.

• Boom Goes the Dynamite – Healers and DPS will both love the handy Cast on Target of Target feature. By enabling this feature in the settings menu, you can simply keep the tank targeted and do damage to their target to maintain healing focus or to prevent attacking the wrong mob.

While this list is far from complete, it should be a good head start to get you going on the way to Rift supremacy. Have some great tips and tricks of your own? Reply with them below and we will update our list with the best of them.