Hey all!
Small update from us and providing a little extra context. We'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill out the survey, we'll be using what we've heard from you so far alongside survey results to update this blog again tomorrow (Tuesday, March 7th) with any final changes before initial polling. Please keep in mind the sections of the update that reiterate we'll still be on the lookout for feedback and making further changes - we just wanted to touch base a little and hopefully make it clear that we're paying attention and have been reading so far.
Cheers everybody, hope you're having a fab day so far!
Edit: it's technically after hours for me so I might not be super active in the replies, but I'll likely be glued to my screen all evening regardless. In any case, please share away, anything you share will be useful for us ahead of further changes tomorrow!
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Edit 2: Corrected a mistake where I'd copied over an older version of the HTML
In the list at the start, the line that read 'Some players felt that the prayer book as a whole had too much 'overlap' with the standard prayer book.' has been changed to what it was supposed to be (but I used a WIP version of the HTML and forgot to come back and adjust):'Some players felt that the prayer book as a whole had too much 'overlap' with the standard prayer book, saying that the Ruinous Powers weren't innovative enough and weren't offering enough new concepts to excite players.'
Figured I'd edit my comment to point the change out as well, since this is obviously a super important point that we've tried to touch on in the survey and 'next steps' section but was intended to be clearer from the start.
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Edit 3: Coming up on 8pm so I'll be jumping out for now to catch up on The Last Of Us and get some gains in. Please keep sharing and responding and we'll see you tomorrow with another blog update!
Have a nice day/evening everybody!
Hey all!
Small update from us and providing a little extra context. We'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to fill out the survey, we'll be using what we've heard from you so far alongside survey results to update this blog again tomorrow (Tuesday, March 7th) with any final changes before initial polling. Please keep in mind the sections of the update that reiterate we'll still be on the lookout for feedback and making further changes - we just wanted to touch base a little and hopefully make it clear that we're paying attention and have been reading so far.
Cheers everybody, hope you're having a fab day so far!
Edit: it's technically after hours for me so I might not be super active in the replies, but I'll likely be glued to my screen all evening regardless. In any case, please share away, anything you share will be useful for us ahead of further changes tomorrow!
Y-you too
What's exactly new in the blog? I read the opening section but then the rest looks to be the same?
E: oh it's the survey
Nothing yet - we want to see survey responses first before making further blog tweaks tomorrow. The only 'new' section is the opening section, tomorrow's changes will likely be where you'll see changes to the actual content proposed.
What's exactly new in the blog? I read the opening section but then the rest looks to be the same?
E: oh it's the survey
The opening section is what's new. TLDR of it:
Hello there Mod Goblin! I'm not sure what the general consensus is, but I have seen a lot of sentiment about moving skilling prayers into line with one of the more skill based spell books such as lunars.
Is there any plan to capitalize on the skilling aspect by introducing one of these later? I'm all for variety in all forms, and not really a min/max player, but I love the idea of keeping the uniqueness behind the different types of "lore" of the different entities in OSRS.
Thanks!
There's a question about something similar in the survey. I think there's a lot of sentiment (and even on our side that we shared in this mini blog update) that these are sort of trying to be the 'Ancients' of Prayer.
I think there's absolutely no ruling out the idea of doing the 'Lunars' of Prayer if it looks like that's something players would rather see, but let's focus on one prayer book at a time for now...
Going to put this out there, but choosing between “the standard prayer books having a use” (implied meaning have them about on par with different niches) and “having ruinous powers completely supersede the standard prayer book” is a bit of a false dichotomy. I for one would like to see choosing which prayer book to use being more of a choice at the lower levels when the ruinous powers are first unlocked, and more of a replacement at the higher levels. For example, you could have protection prayers that don’t unlock until the 80s.
Also, one thing I feel like the survey didn’t fully address is it would be cool to see ruinous powers have prayers that actually feel different, as opposed to just being twists on what we already know. Ancient Magicks added spells that attack multiple opponents and have additional affects. Things like group protection (maybe only 50%? Would certainly need balancing) or the ability to ignore armor debuffs would be interesting and fun ways to switch up some metas without being totally overpowering.
I think with the kind of Prayer levels we mentioned targeting in the initial blog, this would still be the case no matter what, but would argue that you'd still be 'superseding' them since if you're able to use all of the Ruinous Powers - you'd still have no reason to go back.
We tried to address it a little with the question about 'more unique prayers', but appreciate this feedback (it's also something we tried to make clear we'd heard in the opening paragraphs of the section).
I'm a bit confused here.
The new polling system is so ideas can be reiterated before work is commited to them so there's more freedom to change content if it doesnt stick...
From people claiming it was too weak and others it being too op, it shows that the iteration did not stick as no player group was satisfied with the proposal.
But yet it's being polled to be developed regardless? Why even have this first poll in the first place?
Mostly for us to quantify how much or how little promise some elements of the book show. We've not spent any time developing any of them, but having that number to show consensus among the playerbase beyond common threads on Reddit or Twitter or across Twitch etc. still has value for us!
It's like we wrote in the blog, it's totally fine for things to fail, that's a whole lot of the point of the new greenlighting system. But for things to fail, they need to be polled first. Similarly, the Heka was mentioned because it's something that passed initially but people still didn't seem satisfied with and it became something else - and that's without the whole aspect of 'this poll is for things to go into a beta, as opposed to being added to the live game'.
Not sure if this answers your concerns or not but I'm hoping it's at least somewhat useful!
Power level aside, my biggest disappointment was just how uninspired the proposed new prayers feel. Lots of "prayer from base book" but slightly different. There have been so many community suggestions that actually feel different/new/unique. Right now I'd only vote for 5 or 6 of the proposed ones.
Yeah we're very aware of this feedback!
And it's totally fine if there are only a couple of the proposed ones that appeal, because it gives us a really clear indicator of what we could cut and replace with some of the more 'out there' and creative ideas. As well as the survey question about the more 'unique' prayers giving us good grounds to be able to add some in that just make sense anyway.
Have seen people talking about how this would make the scrolls obtained in CoX useless so maybe tying the new offensive prayers to those scrolls similar to how Torva is tied to Bandos armor would help offset the issue.
We've for sure seen those concerns. I think it's definitely a possibility that we could have the big-ticket prayers make use of CoX Prayer Scrolls if it's something players want. CoX could use some love as-is, if players feel like they'd like to see scrolls stay up in value then I think the team could for sure explore it.
Disappointed that the takeaway from community feedback is "prayers not powerful enough". Adios to all the GP i spent on rigour and augury ig
Shamelessly copy + pasting from another reply:
'We've for sure seen those concerns. I think it's definitely a possibility that we could have the big-ticket prayers make use of CoX Prayer Scrolls if it's something players want. CoX could use some love as-is, if players feel like they'd like to see scrolls stay up in value then I think the team could for sure explore it.'
Please revisit/rework the eating prayer (Metabolize)! As described, it would break skilling, allowing users to start a tick cycle simply by flicking the prayer on/off while holding darts. It’s intended use seems fine, but please make sure it won’t work in unintended ways such as this.
Also, please consider reworking Ancient Offering from 75% chance to destroy a resource upon receiving -> 75% higher xp but 75% lower success chance, and the prayer turns off automatically when moving.
This would give the same intended benefit (more AFK, xp neutral) without being abuseable during 1.5t teaks/3t granite to be a virtually free smoldering stone and make the methods much easier in exchange for prayer potions. If you guys explicitly want to shake up the WC/mining metas, please address that separately!
For what it's worth I think Metabolise is something we'll likely touch on in the blog update tomorrow - agree that the intended use of being able to attack 1t sooner after eating good, making 2t skilling just easy-mode inferno blobs probably less good. So hopefully expect to see some clarification/adjustments tomorrow!
Is the team planning to launch the prayer book filled, or will there be space to add prayers later on if need be?
I feel like there's always space to add prayers! I'd argue there's even space to add other prayers to the standard prayer book if something made sense, we've done it before after all!
hope you get to go in late tomorrow. Thanks for the time Goblin
I'm sure big lad Ayiza will let me finish up a little earlier on Friday. Just snagged bowfa + crystal on my GIM and wouldn't wind a 2.5 day weekend to send some proper videogaming!
If the new prayers become a direct upgrade over the previous ones I'm kinda worried cox prayers will just be utter useless stuff, like literally noone would be buying them or going for them except for niche accounts that can't do the new quest.
You talk about power creep and making content irrelevant, and while people would still do cox for the other drops, the prayers would become just that.
I much prefer the approach you set your minds to, and would like to see that "chip damage" in action on the beta
See this comment I left, in case it helps at all: https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/11k7nri/comment/jb65600/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Serious and perhaps triggering (to some) question here -
Our reason for not offering 100% protection overheads initially was that if we'd included these, there's no reason to ever switch back to standard prayers after having unlocked the Ruinous Powers, and this is something we'd been trying to avoid.
Why?
Hear me out...but what is wrong with the rs3 approach where one is just strictly better than the other, but takes considerable investment? Obviously Soul Split is broken. So let's leave it out, entirely.
Why couldn't we have Ruinous (ancients) be better in practically every way, still remove 1t functionality with it, do not include Soul Split, and require Piety, Augury and Rigour unlocks to unlock the new (better) versions in this prayer book? And for good measure make the prayer level requirements higher (like in RS3, if not perhaps quite as high as RS3). And of course higher drain rate.
End result? Stronger prayers with no weirdness / perceived niche-use for them, with higher drain rate and no 1t capabilities. I really do not see the big downside here. Some metas or combat tasks will still want to rely on the OG prayer book for 1t cheese and lower drain rates, and those that adapt to the new book? Great, imo. Prayer is more expensive, loadouts will change, metas will shift - and this is all fine, imo.
I don't think there is anything inherently 'wrong' with that approach - but think there's an element of 'it depends on the setting'.
Power creep comes up time and time again when we talk about OSRS, and players are generally pretty protective over making older content redundant. Whether you're looking as far back as Nex and Torva (before my time, but even observing as a player at the time) or as recently as the new BiS rings from the DT2 post-quest bosses (with loads of people not wanting to wholly devalue Fremennik rings), it's not a decision the team can make lightly.
It's just a delicate line to walk, especially (in my opinion at least) without much content coming in that raises the 'ceiling', it's totally understandable why players are concerned about creeping too far, too quickly, and making older content obsolete. On the flip side, can totally understand your view and there are for sure loads of other people who agree with you!
you’re actually saying you only saw feedback saying the prayers aren’t powerful enough? lmao this is so f**ked
Not at all, but I think I made a mistake when adjusting the HTML for the page.
In the list at the start, the line that read 'Some players felt that the prayer book as a whole had too much 'overlap' with the standard prayer book.' has been changed to what it was supposed to be (but I used a WIP version of the HTML and forgot to come back and adjust):
'Some players felt that the prayer book as a whole had too much 'overlap' with the standard prayer book, saying that the Ruinous Powers weren't innovative enough and weren't offering enough new concepts to excite players.'
Will edit my comment to point the change out as well, since this is obviously a super important point that we've tried to touch on in the survey and 'next steps' section but was intended to be clearer from the start.
Please stop trying to boil the frog with these controversial additions.
You promised up and down before any polls that you weren’t going to bring back curses, especially not soul split, and that it would be an original prayer book balanced against the current one.
Now that vote has passed and you’re basically looking into doing a rerun of curses. Asking people if the new prayers should be outright better and if we should get a new version of soul split.
If you had polled that originally, you know it would have failed. Work on the content you actually polled
We're still not looking to bring back Ancient Curses.
We did however see a lot of people suggest that a neutered Soul Split might provide a means to circumvent chip damage when used well, and figured we'd at least ask to see what people think.
We outright state in this post that we think Curses fell short in a major way, and that the whole approach we took to this initial design was to try and steer clear of this shortcoming.
Appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, just wanted to try and clear things up because your comment doesn't align with out intent at all.
im talking about the fact that a huge amount of people think the prayers are way overpowered. maybe i missed that line but i don’t see anything in this post addressing those concerns. thank you for the response, anyway!
Ah that's fair. I think it's maybe a little bit of a semantics issue, because the prayers are objectively very strong. But it feels like for a lot of people to see that value, they either need to be spicier and make you feel strong beyond just number increases (i.e. via novel and innovative mechanics) or otherwise incentivise people to have a reason to jump over.
Will make sure we bear this in mind if there's any way for us to address or clear up tomorrow. Could also be that my read on things is way off-base tbf, there's a lot to read through and try to process/weigh up.
You mention Gambit being contentious, but don't talk about it all in your reply. Gambit is a horrible idea and adding it will be learning nothing from the mistakes of soul split. You not only have to make the risky play of flicking off an overhead just like soul split, but you also are incentivized to do it at low hp.
Any of the more 'specific' things (Gambit, as an example) are things we'll likely look to talk more about with any changes we make tomorrow. Currently the aim is to just let people know 'we see this feedback' and supplement what we've seen so far with the survey results to be able to tweak in one go, rather than making tweaks on subsequent days.
Thanks for the reply Goblin, sorry if I came off as brusk.
It’s just a little hard to not feel like the solid foundation built over the last 10 years is beginning to show some cracks, what with changes to the polling charter and the focus on updates that have the potential to really shake up or change (and if history has taught us anything, ruin) the game.
A lot of us don’t think a neutered version of SS is even possible, prayer based healing is just crazy powerful
It’s good to know the team is making avoiding RS2’s mistakes a priority though.
No need to apologise, for what it's worth I usually see your name and strap in for some degree of brusque critique. Not a bad thing at all, it's always clear to see that it comes from somewhere well-intentioned and empassioned.
For what it's worth purely personally I'm not a fan of Soul Split either, at least with my memories of it back in the day. That being said, we have a team now with the gift of hindsight and devs who breathe OSRS - if it's clear players want us to explore that space, I have faith that any end result of that exploration would steer clear of the same pitfalls that SS had.
Copying my comment from the original poll thread, it's disconcerting to see jmods begging on reddit and in the post for people to vote yes to this. The Polling Charter is designed to kill bad ideas early, and so it's very counterproductive to let bad ideas get implemented and added into a beta- where they will hopefully also fail a second poll later.
If this is the route you're planning on going forward, have you considered removing the polling charter altogether?
All I can really say is that I'm sorry you feel that way.
From the post itself: 'A reminder that it's fine for things to fail these initial greenlight polls - that's exactly what they're there for! So if after some tweaks you're still absolutely not a fan of what's on offer, make sure to use your 'No' vote and let us know exactly how you feel, so that we can come back with something better in the near future.'
We're completely fine with things failing, but still want to take the time to make adjustments if needed and lay out additional context so that feedback can challenge our rationale rather than specific proposals, since it allows us to make better proposals from a much more well-informed position. We're also obviously not keen to spend time developing prayers that we feel are destined to fail at the lock-in stage - it is literally in nobody's interest.
The poll for these should go live this week, some of these ideas might get killed early, some might not - but we won't know what to kill if we don't poll, and there's no use consulting with the community at all if we're not willing to respond to feedback and make changes as needed.
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