There should have been a poll for whether the bow would be a charges weapon or not. It's one of the main complaints and wasn't addressed here. Especially because the justification for the charges is that "it's only fair to maintain its charges in order to have access to its super powerful effect", but not only is this bad for game integrity in the long run, but also the bow is not looking to be nearly as hot as the blog is setting it to be.
I didn't address the charges aspect because it was already covered in the update we made on November 15th and the opinion within the team hasn't changed in that it’s only fair to have to maintain its charges to access its super-powerful weapon effect.
We do believe the balance will be much better than we've seen with other charged items, and with the potential of this new reward no longer being a bow, we felt it made sense to keep this aspect of the design open for now.
It's something we're certainly open to changing in the future should it be needed though.
This makes it a direct upgrade from the Ancient staff and the new best-in-slot Magic weapon for autocasting Ancient Magicks before obtaining a Kodai wand.
cries in Nightmare staff
Has Jagex forgotten about NM altogether?
Wipe up those tears, I made a swift edit :)
BOOMERANG GANG WE ARE BACK
"we'd like to touch back on the "why bow though?" point many of you raised. Whilst we feel like a bow is better suited to this specific content, we understand how it doesn't feel overly community centric for us to be dictating that. As a result, we're going to be offering a variety of alternative Ranged options for you to choose from in the form of a few poll question. Let us know what you'd prefer to see!"
shoutout 'rang gang
BOOMERANG GANG WE ARE BACK
"we'd like to touch back on the "why bow though?" point many of you raised. Whilst we feel like a bow is better suited to this specific content, we understand how it doesn't feel overly community centric for us to be dictating that. As a result, we're going to be offering a variety of alternative Ranged options for you to choose from in the form of a few poll question. Let us know what you'd prefer to see!"
I am totally stoked to see a potential boomerang I won't lie
So you cant get the divine effect with the brews, only the heart? Sad!
Yes it'll just be the heart we're offering it for
Doesn't look like Shadow and Smoke spells are getting useful anytime soon. I know the goal of the Soulblight sceptre was first and foremost to provide a midgame option for Ancient autocasting, but it's still slightly disappointing especially since you could literally quadruple bonuses for Smoke & Shadow and they'd still be completely dead, showcasing how completely useless the change is. Some good information otherwise.
I hate saying this but its all I have to give you right now... this isn't the last you'll see of the sceptre and there may well be further improvements you can expect in the future...
Stay tuned on December 10th for more info.
You ask us to give you a chance to develop a fair charging system, and say
We do believe the balance will be much better than we've seen with other charged items,
Why not propose the charging system and have players vote on it? If you’re that confident in it, show us, don’t tell us.
My understanding is that the charges are a matter of balancing the weapon, more than trying to introduce a mechanic players will not find enjoyable.
The reason its not open to voting at the moment is because the design is very much based around the element of charges, and if that was to be removed, we'd need to look at adjusting the weapon or replacing it entirely.
That's not something we're against, but we'd like to at least see if there is appetite for us to get it right. We are confident that we'll be able to create a fair and balanced system. If we get it wrong then we will look to make necessary adjustments.
I’m not really sure I see the use case for the scepter actually. There’s already the nightmare staff thats like 37m and staff of the dead for like 7m, both would be better than the scepter. If there’s going to be a future content upgrade for the scepter you need to delay the poll until after the summit so I know what I’m voting on considering future upgrades. I just think it needs buffed a little more for it to be a suitable middle ground before Kodai, unless this is intended to be like sarachnis cudgel tier or something easily farmable) maybe so considering 95 combat is recommended).
Glad to see a divine heart option being polled.
I do appreciate the step back to reconsider feedback though.
The Staff of the dead is unable to autocast Ancient Magicks, so the sceptre's main benefit outside of the 10% increased effect is that it slots nicely between the Ancient staff and Kodai wand/Nightmare staff.
Currently there are no other viable alternatives other than Ahrim's staff, which the sceptre is arguable better than in every way for Ancient Magicks.
Maybe you can't answer this, but does the team genuinely think some things will fail the polls?
Maybe I'm bias in this and there is a real possibility but it seems like anything, no matter what - barring pking/pures/new skill - will pass and that was at 75% yes.
There are some questions that we feel are a given to pass, mostly based on community reception to the initial blogs going out, and a fair chunk of those are now considered things we don't poll as per the Polling Charter.
That aside, we certainly do think some things will fail and we'll be checking in on the results daily to see how things are going!
just curious, will the attack rate stay the same if not a bow? Or will it change? ex: thrown 3, bow 4, ballistae 5
It will just be a cosmetic change in theme/appearance. The stats will remain as they are now.
We'll have to make adjustments for arrows if they're no longer used, but that should be easy enough to handle in a second poll question after the fact.
Adding context to new content and why you guys chose it to be the way it will be polled is very much necessary and avoid lots of reddit backlash, great update to the poll blog! Looking forward to new announcements on the winter summit 👀
Glad you're a fan of the updated blog. It's definitely been a learning point for us but going forward I imagine the additional context we provided today will become more of a norm, even when we are being most secretive!
The Winter Summit is most certainly going to be hype :D
u/JagexAyiza salamander update when?
I mean it could fit under a thrown weapon if we really wanted it to lol
Whilst bringing the Polling System back online, data we had stored for the recent Mysterious quest boss rewards & Revenant weapons poll was corrupt.
Unfortunately, this means we've lost all of your votes & we'll need to start the poll again.
The new poll is now live and will close on Tuesday, November 29th.
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