(Blog Updates) While Guthix Sleeps

Honest answers to these questions... Fever spiders - didn't get the oversight and feedback they needed. It was overly powerful and slipped through the cracks internally. In hindsight, yeah that was silly, it just didn't get the same attention naturally that a new boss/major pvm addition would.

Zombie pirates - mostly because the intention was for it to be as powerful as it was. In light of the PvP risk that was meant to keep it in check. It absolutely does appear absurd for a low level no req creature to drop high amounts but by being in the wilderness in the location it was we were hopeful that it'd be okay. Sadly we were wrong of course and we were too slow in addressing it.

I'm personally keen to talk about drop table design at some point on stream and talk about some of the guidelines and principles we stick to on em. Maybe on a stream at some point! It's not exactly a new problem, we've been tweaking drop tables post launch for a decade now - and I imagine that will continue but hopefully we can be closer to what they should be at launch in future.

I do want to go on stream at some point and talk about drop table design, the principles and guidelines that feed into it.

This is no ones individual agenda - this is something we agree on as a team and discuss. It is not factually accurate or fair to pin the blame on any individual. If you want to pin it on anyone, pin it on me, it is my job to ensure the design team get these things right.

Now I'm gonna braindump some thoughts on drop tables...

The grind lengths is a valid concern, something we've been talking about lately as a topic similar to "power creep"... "grind creep". That is that for something to be valuable enough for its power in comparison to alternatives, it needs to take longer to obtain. Now that is a statement that warrants discussion in of itself - but it is something we've been talking about as we recognize the feedback that's been stated repeatedly over a number of releases now.

The big challenge I think we have for drop table design is dealing with these two different perspectives:

• Ironmen and Cloggers - they have a far more vested interest in time to "complete" the content or obtain the specific drop themselves.
• Mains - generally focused more on GP/Hr. Getting a drop is helpful to that of course and what you're hoping for but isn't the be all and end all.

Taking that further, if we're introducing a new "niche" item like the Bone Claws - I say niche in that they're not the new best spec weapon. Economically we want that item to sit at a reasonable 'price progression' point. DDS is cheap, D claws are expensive, ideally this sits somewhere between the two. This is essentially the progression ladder for mains.

However - because it is niche, it doesn't have some universal level of demand. Tons of players already have dragon claws and may not want a pair of these. Long term if we wanted these to sit at for example 20m, we need to ensure the supply and demand levels of these is appropriate. With niche items that's going to mean supply ought to be smaller for this value and that is to say it should be rarer - or that TD's shouldn't be quite so desireable to kill for other reasons.

This is in direct conflict with the alternative perspective, that the item is niche and thus should be easier to attain than an item that is more powerful. This is naturally how an ironman progresses. The problem is now flipped on its head, if the item is fairly common because its not particularly powerful, on the GE it is likely to have a huge supply compared to demand and be relatively worthless.

Honestly, the game tormented demons are releasing into today is vastly different to the one they did in 2008. The comparison really does highlight the differences in grind lengths and so on OSRS has today.

I mean look at dragon claws themselves - they are a pretty rare item in Chambers of Xeric. The hours to obtain a pair are vastly more than 2008. I'm not necessarily going to defend and say that its right that that is the case, but we're not dealing with like for like situations.

Appreciate the optics of it though and it does paint a picture of the scale of difference. It's noted that many people have gripes with the 'grind creep' we've had.

To add to this, 99.9% of people are absolutely fantastic and give constructive feedback, maybe a tad emotional too at times but it's all well intentioned.

Sadly with this kind of thing all it takes is a couple of people to go too far targeting certain individuals and not only is it often factually incorrect but it's obviously totally over the line. If someone is keen to pin it on anyone, pin it on me, it's ultimately my responsibility to ensure the design team are putting out the very best work.