Hey all, Mod Blossom's unfortunately out sick so you're stuck with me! Tried to make this blog update as comprehensive as possible and will aim to answer what I can, but bear with me because I've not been working on this project actively!
Demon Spade gone for no reason. Good job reddit.
Not a result of feedback from any specific platform or person, we're just not happy with the impact of the original proposal and don't believe that updated proposals really befit content that's this challenging. I've no doubt that the Spade will return and strike a better balance of power + suitable source
Exactly how overpowered would the gloves be with shadow? Would it really be that bad to just let them work with it?
Pretty powerful, if you fancy digging around on the subreddit there were a bunch of folks running all sorts of numbers!
any fix coming for hmt nylo boss flickering
Not something I'm aware of thus far, have you got any more info?
Unrelated, but do you have a date for when Yama is coming out? Want to book time off work for its release
Not yet, we'll give you a date as soon as we're set on one we can absolutely meet!
More versions than* forestry holy moly
This should be the last one!
digging around
Too soon
Noticed the unintended use of 'crops up' in the blog as well, can't get farming off my mind it would seem
Pretty sad seeing a unique being removed from the table and not supplemented with anything else, if i'm honest. Must once again refer back to Nex having almost double the BiS uniques (and double the uniques in general) for what is surely a much more janky, weird, and memey encounter than this will be.
This is less uniques than Zulrah has (if we account for Magic Fang's multiple uses).
When developing content with separate difficulty levels and replayability, I feel as though it's crucial to similarly develop enough scope in the rewards. The depth/scope of this project, I feel, demanded a larger output of unique rewards as opposed to certain other projects.
For reference, Yama currently has more and more interesting uniques than the first ever Delve boss. Yama has a new potion, a spell upgrade, a new rune, a new armor set, diabolic worms (lol), and the Horn. I genuinely hope we're not gearing up for another Phosani's moment where a potentially amazing boss fight is forgotten due to the reward space it represents. Although admittedly, at least the rewards being offered, as few as there may be, are immediately more interesting than Phosani.
Another fear I have is that the main bulk of new BiS will stem from Raids 4 and I just don't know if that's the best direction to go in. CoX has TWELVE uniques, and while Raids should undeniably have more, the disparity seems a little disheartening.
Huge fan of your content!
Appreciate the Nex/CoX comparisons, but would say that as a team I think we look back on those tables as pretty significant errors (hindsight etc. etc.) and don't want to let them be used to set precedents for future. I'm confident that the team working on the delve boss should pull through with a solid reward offering that makes for good profitable/repeatable content, but there's always a chance I'm commenting in future talking about hindsight again!
Appreciate you sharing your thoughts, while Raids 4 is some time away, I'm certain we'll be taking learnings from all three prior raids when it comes to designing its unique table.
Have any mods seen the TravagGames suggestion on how to fix magic for the future? It seemed like a very well thought out idea that could be a nice starting point for the mods to start brainstorming and calcing off of.
Big fan of Travag's stuff and think he deserves a much bigger following! I've seen his video on Magic stuff and have some notes kicking around in my DMs to myself to refer back to!
Thanks for the blog! Do you agree that the Shadow's issues are more to do with magic in general? Iirc the shadow was released as a band-aid 'fix' to create a magic weapon that was actually accurate and worth using at places magic was deemed unviable before. I personally think non-elemental magic needs a general revamp and look at instead of just the Shadow...
I think to some extent yeah, Shadow sort of forces you to confront how poor Magic accuracy is across the board and how much more 'niche' it feels than Melee/Ranged, though Elemental Weaknesses are going some way to helping out on this it's definitely still an area of concern. Equally it's tricky because so much of the value of Ancients is tied up in the utility of the spells themselves (namely freezes/heals)
Maybe I'm being naive, but I feel like balancing the shadow really shouldn't be that difficult... Just balance the base stats to be better and lower the modifiers so that it is as good as it currently is.
It's not like it's out of line with the current megas, so it doesn't need a nerf from its current strength
I think from a numbers POV it's not necessarily difficult to calc and implement, the difficulty comes from navigating making fundamental changes to an extremely expensive/important item for people - adjusting the Blowpipe was one thing, adjusting a megarare is a whole other can of worms!
/u/JagexGoblin Hello!
For the one handed restriction - is it only for magic weapons with autocast and powered staves, or does it apply to manual cast as well?
Namely, I'm wondering if wielding a scobow/tbow/Bowfa and freezing/blood healing will benefit from the accuracy increase.
I think this should apply to manual cast as well, and if it doesn't then I'll make sure to relay that to the team working on it!
This applies only when using a one-handed weapon, and applies to attacks using the same weapon or spell directly against the same enemy.
What exactly does this mean? Am I allowed to crossbow barrage you twice to gain the effect because crossbows are one-handed? Does it not work if I equip {nothing} plus a crystal shield because {nothing} is not a one handed weapon?
I'd have to ask the team on the specifics and whether or not it applies to manual casting, though I imagine that we could check that the mainhand weapon is a 'Mage-strongest' weapon for the purposes of manual casting
Do you guys plan on changing the oathbreaker visuals based on feedback it had?
We've got some updated concept art ready for Oathplate, just a case of figuring out when we'd like to share it - will likely leave some space for people to focus in on Delve boss stuff for next week!
This is irrelevant to the Delve Boss but still Varlamore related. Is there any chance we see a new Varlamore slayer master added with the new slayer cave in The Final Dawn?
I just think Varlamore is neat and would love a Varlamore themed master
I don't think that's something we'll be adding with The Final Dawn, but think the team agree that a Slayer Master would be a cool thing to explore in a future Varlamore update - it's important to remember that we're not just going to drop The Final Dawn and then leave it alone, Varlamore's a part of the game like anything else and will see updates for years to come!
Can we expect yama to be some kind of a slayer task? Since he does kinda look like big red greater demon, within big area with all the other demon types.
I'm not certain on this one. Generally think we'd rather avoid this with tough content because it sometimes feels a little like 'this boss is only worth killing on task' (particularly for high-volume tasks like Greater/Black Demons) but I'm not sure we've made a decision on that front yet!
I think it just feels bad to have new mage gloves come into the game with a fancy effect, and that effect doesn’t work at all with the bis mage weapon.
The +1 minimum hit was a better passive - it did the same thing (reduce gap between shadow and 4t powered staves) without having to arbitrarily exclude shadow.
Think this is why we were keen to make clear in the blog that whenever we actually sort the Shadow out, we can consider the Confliction Gauntlets too and make sure that they feel impactful for all weapons once we've addressed the root problem!
Bit of a niche question, but does this mean the gloves still won’t affect blue moon spear or manually cast spells while holding a shadow?
For the time being it would be the case that Blue Moon Spear isn't impacted, though whenever we adjust the Shadow and re-assess the Gauntlet bandaid, we'd be able to have them benefit the Blue Moon Spear I imagine!
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