[2020] Hallowed Sepulchre Feedback - Mod Husky

Originally posted by [deleted]

[deleted]

Originally posted by madpigeons

What are your thoughts on interactive Agility content in general? Do you feel like it has a place in the game?

I like how you showed how the obstacles are tied together to feel like one long challenge. I think it could be fun if the reward for the difficulty was balanced.

Did you like the mechanics of the three different traps we showed off? (Moving Flame Patterns, Dodging Projectiles and the Rolling Boulder)

I think they are kind of basic but that can be a good thing. It would be cool to see something like the sotetseg maze as a puzzle to give players a way to practice it outside of ToB. Another idea is having a ghost that follows you extremely slowly and insta kills you when it finally reaches you, like the ghost in Spelunky where if you take too long exploring it forces you to move faster, giving you the looming threat feeling so you're less inclined to stand still for long periods of time.

What do you think of the idea of combination traps to make the later floors more difficult?

Yes I really like that idea, it makes it more interesting and you have to learn which combinations of traps are harder than others, makes you consider which are worth doing, and teaches you how to do the individual traps better.

What are your thoughts on the penalty system where you will lose time from your clock instead of taking large amounts of damage?

I like the penalty system because I feel there's not enough skilling content in the game where players learn by making mistakes, which is something I really enjoy because rougelikes use this to the extreme, which have become increasingly popular over the years.

What do you think about the balance between going for high XP/hr and choosing to sacrifice that XP for loot?

Yep I like this cause people can choose if they want gp/hr or xp/hr, if someone is 99 agi (or even 200m) they can still play it and choose loot rewards, making it more flexible reward wise.

What do you think of the Risk vs Reward aspect where you have to choose at the end of the floor if you continue with your remaining time (risking losing your rewards if you can't complete the next floor) or leaving now with the rewards you have earned?

I like this because it encourages decision making where players have to gauge their own skill level. If they want to play risky it could pay off if they are comfortable with tick-perfect gameplay.

What do you think of the concept where you invest your Hallowed marks earned from the mini-game to buy rewards which help you in the mini-game itself?

Yep I like this because it's like a rouge-lite, where the more you play, the more items you're given which encourage you to take risks. As long as the rewards aren't OP.

What do you think of the visuals of the concept art and the direction we are heading in.? Do you like the thematics of a "Holy crypt built into/from stone.

I like the theme and I know it's in the design stage still, but some things I would like to see are details like skeletons on the ground and blood stains showing that it's dangerous.

One idea is having a "trap" that isnt actually a trap, but an extremely rare chance of being an NPC that has gotten stuck in the dungeon that gives you some kind of reward or a buff, like a RDT for the mini-game, 1/5000+ chance that would be like an easter egg event, maybe some cool dialogue of how he got stuck or why he is there, to give the minigame feel more like there are NPC characters participating (similar to the point about skeletons and bloodstains)

Originally posted by Sc2_PuGGy

1. I think interactive agility has a place in the game, but similar to other methods that require more attention (3-ticking, volcanic mine, etc.), I think the xp/hr needs to mirror that. If I have to pay mass attention for little to no benefit, most people will likely rather just run the same course over and over because it's very easy.

2. Yes, they look good.

3. As someone who would be able to hit the last floor, I think it the difficulty is most likely fine as long as I can consistently make it to the end once I learn the process.

4. Nice to not have to carry mass healing items and being ultimately limited by that.

5. Makes sense as long as the max xp/hr definitely reflects that. If the max xp/hr is only a couple thousand more than ardy (I am speaking about 92+ floors), then I am afraid it would be dead content besides grabbing dark graceful... personally, Id rather it be the meta.

6. Great idea, as long as I can still hit a good xp/rate.

7. Items making it easier seems like a nice addition ONLY if this becomes a viable training method. As mentioned earlier, if it becomes dead content in terms of training late game agility, the items become just as worthless.

8. Thematically, I think its looking great so far. Especially the bot projectiles ;)

EDIT: Spelling: Bot Projectiles shown on stream

Originally posted by nostealyplease

Here's an abstract suggestion for good agility content:

Use agility training to teach the player how to play better with the tile/tick mechanics in OSRS

Walking/running around in OSRS is weird, and that makes it fun. In any other game, the Sotetseg puzzle would be an absolute joke, but in OSRS it's an interesting challenge. One mechanic you could use to implement something like that would be floor that shows where you're currently standing and where you just left. Something like wet shoes that show footprints that quickly fade after you leave the tile. Because animations are almost a tick behind, it's confusing to a lot of players when they see their dude running towards a tile, and it turns out they've actually been standing on that tile the whole time.

Edit: Speaking of which, you mentioned on the stream how running actually teleports you two tiles, skipping the middle tile, but that's not something a lot of players realize. A lot of them don't even know that it's 1 tile per tick walking and 2 tiles per tick running. Instead of pretending that's not how it works, it would be cool to have an obstacle that utilizes that. If you used the footprint mechanism, you could visually communicate to players how running makes them skip every other tile so that they can easily see how to skip over the obstacles.

Originally posted by Thermald

What are your thoughts on interactive Agility content in general? Do you feel like it has a place in the game?

Yes. Anything to mix it up.

What do you think about the balance between going for high XP/hr and choosing to sacrifice that XP for loot?

I think the trade off could be larger

Originally posted by dreadwraith8d

Risk vs Reward is fine, but if it's like PP where you can fail looting Urns 5+ times in a row I won't bother doing this.

edit: I worded this poorly, more so I meant that if it's possible to fail obstacles and be punished by getting no xp because you get unlucky, I think this will be dead content.

Originally posted by the1general

Hello Husky! Jebrim here. Loving what I’m seeing!

I like the traps, although I do think I might miss the fact that there are no actual obstacles to click to interact with. A big thing you did right here was design new types of traps/obstacles that we haven’t had to encounter yet in Agility. Existing courses have just reused the same old obstacles.

You made it so the fires couldn’t be run through by skipping a tile, but did you also do the same for the projectiles? There’s certainly two different philosophies behind this. You could block these so that it’s more realistic or you could allow people to try to time it properly to run through them. A problem I see with the latter is that it’s basically a 50% chance even if someone were to just click to run to the end and hope they get it. It’d be way too easy.

I hope the fires aren’t just going to be easy traps that just require a bunch of sitting still waiting for the next one ahead of you to disappear. Continual movement is preferred over having to stop and wait a bunch. A skilled player should be able to apply extra techniques to get through more quickly.

I like having combination traps later on for increased difficulty. I imagine the floor trap could be a bunch of spikes or similar that continually pop up at random that need to be dodged, although there should be a brief warning in case you’re standing on a spot. Is that what you were planning for that trap?

SUGGESTION: If you don’t mind, an additional floor “trap” you could have on level 4 and/or 5 in the place of the existing planned floor trap is to have a large number of stepping stone obstacles in a grid that are 1 tick each (identical in function to those at the Werewolf course). Complete these stepping stones while dodging the arrows. This would bring back in obstacles, as opposed to just all traps, while also having click accuracy and timing involved. Don’t make the click boxes too huge either if you do this.

You can certainly keep the existing planned floor trap; just add this as an extra possibility. There’s just way too much running and I feel the place needs at least some kind of Agility obstacle beyond just an optional grapple. These are ones that also happen to require good skill.

DEFINITELY KEEP THE TIME PENALTY. Fail and you lose time, which in turn makes you lose XP. That’s perfect! A flawless run through this should definitely give way more XP/hr than a run with even a couple mistakes. The time lost would then prevent you from finishing the final floor and losing out on that XP. Rewarding player skill with significantly better XP rates than a noobier player is something I’ve been asking Jagex to do in Agility for a long time. OSRS hasn’t really had anything added to it like that in any of the post-launch Agility content.

Balancing XP for loot is fine, as well as having unlocked items that help you in the minigame. Do you have to loot the chests to get the Hallowed Marks though or do they spawn on the ground or after completion? I’m also not sure how I feel about the Hallowed Token. It sounds like it has the potential OP with regards to XP rates. After you get the other items, you’ll essentially just be spending all your marks stacking up on these and using them as needed. It’d have to be balanced right to not be too easy to acquire. Obviously you’d want marks to be useful long-term. Perhaps it’d only come with a short-term burst in XP rate after you bank a bunch over time.

I have no opinion on losing items for failure or the concept art.

All in all, I am very happy with what I’m seeing. Please consider adding in the stepping stones idea I mentioned above.

Question: At one point in the video you showed a chest with a grapple coming from two directions and said the other path was for the other player to get there. Could you clarify more on this? Are we racing other players or were you just referring to how the routes are randomized? Does the random order have anything to do with whether or not other players enter the minigame like Pyramid Plunder does?

Originally posted by 5150-5150

Just wanted to say:

Mod Husky, MVP

Originally posted by Just-My-Opinion-Dude

Hi Mod Husky, thanks for showcasing the WIP Hallowed Sepulchre today. To answer your questions:

1. I love the idea of interactive agility, agility is a pretty bland skill in it's current form so it's great to see some different styles of agility content being worked on. It absolutely has a place in game.

2. Sure, they seemed pretty cool.

3. Combining the traps is a cool idea. I think they will have to be synced together well though, I don't like the idea of having to wait for 30 seconds to get three traps to sync up in a certain way before I can even attempt to get across them.

4. I like the penalty system, I think losing time rather than health thematically fits agility.

5. I like having to choose between going for max xp and going for loot, although I think the xp gained from choosing not to go for the loot will have to be substantially higher to make it a worthwhile option. I assume the xp/h will increase depending on what floors you can access? Accessing all floors and going only for xp should probably be the best xp/h in the game to make it worth doing.

6. Risk vs Reward is good. There are a few concerns with it though. Will the timer pause at the end of each floor? If I found treasure and then the timer ran out before getting to the end of the floor, would I lose what I had just found? Cause that would suck if it was a big reward like the Ring of Endurance. Would there be an option to leave in the treasure rooms to mitigate some of that risk? Or is that part of the experience?

7. The hallowed marks concept is good I think. I don't have many opinions on them. How are they found? Are they from treasure rooms, or just on the floor every now and again like marks of grace? I dont like the idea of losing them if I fail to complete a floor and didn't come from treasure rooms.

8. The design and theme is really cool. I love the justiciar statues. I wasnt sure about the large Zilyana statue though, I feel like a large alter or saradomin symbol would be more appropriate to represent the idea of Saradomin. Not to say there shouldn't be a statue of Zilyana, I just dont think she should be centred in the way she was. Small thing I guess. I love the concept art and the direction it's going in.

Overall it's looking like it's going to be very fun content!

Originally posted by acoolguy93

My thoughts:

• What are your thoughts on interactive Agility content in general? Do you feel like it has a place in the game?
  • This would be a welcome addition.
• Did you like the mechanics of the three different traps we showed off? (Moving Flame Patterns, Dodging Projectiles and the Rolling Boulder)
  • I like them and the combination traps
• What do you think of the idea of combination traps to make the later floors more difficult?
  • Its great
• What are your thoughts on the penalty system where you will lose time from your clock instead of taking large amounts of damage?
  • I think this is good idea.
• What do you think about the balance between going for high XP/hr and choosing to sacrifice that XP for loot?
  • Not a big fan of this change simply because the rewards won't really be worth the loss in XP/hr and I do think it should offer both. My worry is if there is a choice between the two, people will only choose the high XP/hr as pvm will be a better money maker anyway. It may make more sense to make this high XP/hr and low profit content.
• What do you think of the Risk vs Reward aspect where you have to choose at the end of the floor if you continue with your remaining time (risking losing your rewards if you can't complete the next floor) or leaving now with the rewards you have earned?
  • I like this quite a bit.
• What do you think of the concept where you invest your Hallowed marks earned from the mini-game to buy rewards which help you in the mini-game itself?
  • I have mixed feelings about this simply because content unlocks are much harder to balance effectively. We don't want to run into a scenario where it takes a very long time to unlock the minigame upgrades and before that hallowed sepulchre isn't worth the extra effort over rooftops or we run into a scenario where the upgrades make the hallowed sepulchre so much better then existing methods after upgrades.
• What do you think of the visuals of the concept art and the direction we are heading in.? Do you like the thematics of a "Holy crypt built into/from stone."?
  • I like it.

Originally posted by sloth-says-what

The concept of using marks to help make future runs easier, is fantastic, and I think future (Skilling) content should try to develop this. The best parallel currently in game is using MLM nuggets to help expand the paysack or getting access to the upper level.

Building efficiency early for future tasks is peak OSRS imo (Like unlocking proper teleports to do farm runs quicker, or completing diaries for the minor QoL buffs).

One thing I might've missed, are these efficiency items tradable? Non-tradable feels more osrs, but I know devs prefer making things tradable for the sake of selling them.

P.S. It'd be pretty interesting to take this concept and apply it to gauntlet to make it more appealing. Just minor QoL updates based on completions (or a point system developed, doesn't matter). Like having more consistency with T3 upgrades, additional time, faster resource gathering by a tick etc.

Originally posted by Retributw

The initial work shown was awesome, but I have some questions/suggestions:

1. Do these subsidiary challenges grant xp in their respective skill i.e. prayer

2. Can the items used in the sepulchre be used outside for functions like the hammer for con/Smith and light for FM/lightsource similar to the bruma torcha and dwh at bandos. Additionally, the grapple should be allowed to be used outside as well, maybe even being a requirement to use a possible barrows shortcut from Darkmeyer

3. (SUGGESTION) Tomb guardians/icylene for the sepulchre maybe on the higher tiers you can combine these mechanics to defeat a small npc that's guarding that treasure room

4. obviously the art isn't flushed out enough, but since the lower tiers have been raised I'd like to see those parts more ran down, I don't recall if you mentioned that would be the case, you may have.

5. Pet, while the chance to get a squirrel is higher than other courses, what about adding a pet bat similar to herbiboar for Hunter. I feel like this is a perfect opportunity.

6. Are there any regular drops like herbs, ores, etc or just the rewards offered through the minigame?

Like the work so far, and I'm excited to see the progress.

Originally posted by superfire444

What are your thoughts on interactive Agility content in general? Do you feel like it has a place in the game?

Yes as long as it doesn't make other agility content obsolete.

Did you like the mechanics of the three different traps we showed off? (Moving Flame Patterns, Dodging Projectiles and the Rolling Boulder)

They looked fantastic.

What do you think of the idea of combination traps to make the later floors more difficult?

Good idea! It should still be do-able though.

What are your thoughts on the penalty system where you will lose time from your clock instead of taking large amounts of damage?

Depends how the reward system is set up. You obviously need to be punished for failing an obstacle. I think you guys know best wether that's time or damage. If it's damage it should definitely be balanced for every HP-level and not a chore to get enough food.

What do you think about the balance between going for high XP/hr and choosing to sacrifice that XP for loot?

Good idea as long as the balance is right. What is "High xp/h"?

What do you think of the Risk vs Reward aspect where you have to choose at the end of the floor if you continue with your remaining time (risking losing your rewards if you can't complete the next floor) or leaving now with the rewards you have earned?

This sounds fantastic if done properly and you actually have to make a decision. If it's always one of the two options it's not a good mechanic. I'm sure you can figure out how to balance this.

What do you think of the concept where you invest your Hallowed marks earned from the mini-game to buy rewards which help you in the mini-game itself?

Depends how meta-defining it is and how long you have to grind to get these marks. If players are discouraged to play the minigame because of this feedbackloop then it's bad. If you have to play for a bit but then become selfsufficient (like volcanic mine teleports) then it's a good addition imo.

What do you think of the visuals of the concept art and the direction we are heading in.? Do you like the thematics of a "Holy crypt built into/from stone."?

I like it! I do wonder what Saradomin has to do with Darkmeyer though. Maybe I'm missing something :P

Originally posted by Klonoa123

1. Yes I think it does, interactive content is more engaging, but overall it's the best because it gives a range of options for you to choose from. Currently we have very afk agility training but none that you need to pay attention for, so the choice is nice and will appeal to more players.
2. All great, would love a couple more, maybe such as a swinging pendulum system (Maybe both along and across the path at higher levels?)
3. I like this, makes it harder further down, and increases the chances of messing up so you need to concentrate rather than at a place like pyramid plunder where all floors are the same despite level differences.
4. Good.
5. Very tough, I think there should be a base level of loot for reaching a certain number of floors but the option of looting increases this drastically. Perhaps the base could be 5-10% of what you would get from the maximum looting potential.
6. Incredible, don't change this.
7. Good. Don't think these should be necessary to complete the entire dungeon though if this is the case. (Dungeon should be doable with no bonuses).
8. Very good, would honestly love the chamber that is at the beginning when you enter the crypt to have a mix of vampire and holy section. As if the vampirism has tried to infect the chamber as the chamber has been surrounded by vampirism for the last few thousand years (as far as I am aware). For example, say the entrance from the crypt was 10 spaces long, the first 2 spaces could be vampiric, then spaces 3 and 4 being a blend of holy/vampire and the remaining areas being holy as such. It would show the efforts of the vampires to get into the sepulchre and give a small glimpse as to why they need you to enter instead of them.

Originally posted by kastevekk163

on interactive agility

Good idea. Agility has effectively been reduced to a "remember where to click on the screen while watching netflix" skill so this really needs to reflect the amount of effort you put in. This type of content should be the meta.

on trap mechanics

Looks good. Maybe a couple more overall?

combination traps

makes sense for the later floors, but I don't think these should be too tight. If you have to get it tick perfect to get it right while dodging multiple traps, that might be too much.

penalty being time loss

Good. This'll encourage learning it properly while weighing risk vs reward. If you have a couple mistakes early on, you'll end at floor 3 instead of potentially 4.

on sacrificing loot for high xp/hour

Sounds good. It should be higher xp/h than agility courses without sacrificing loot as well, and a lot more if you choose to get no loot at all (compared to marks of grace and higher pet chance). I'm thinking like 40-50% more xp/h than the corresponding agility course when sacrificing loot, and 20-30% if you don't.

on risk vs reward at end of floor

Cool. You gotta know when to bow out if you've f**ked up a lot on a run.

investing marks earned in the minigame back into the game to make it easier

Gives a sense of progression within the minigame itself which imo is a good thing. I'd rather it just be a small bonus than something that changes it completely though.

on theme and visuals

The lobby area looked stunning and it's not even done yet. But the overall theme looks very promising and I'd love to see more of it teased when it gets closer to being finished

Originally posted by LoyalServantOfBRD

I think interactive agility would be great. As for difficulty and style, I think two things would make the content repeatable and fun:

Randomness - design obstacles that give some prompt that require different responses. Such as: flame wall telegraphs and you have x ticks to jump forward, vs boulder telegraphs and you have x ticks to jump to the side. The obstacles need to always change so you don’t just do the same thing over and over. Using this to push players through different layouts could also affect the speed of a lap, giving an RNG based variability that would encourage repeat attempts. If on a timer, these should not be able to push a player over the threshold if they don’t make too many mistakes.

Timing - to scale difficulty, it should be scaled similar to PVM content - you have fewer ticks to react on more difficult floors. The combo traps in succession would be super fun to learn, such as if you had a 12 tick variable obstacle and it required close to tick perfect movement to pass.

A time related penalty system is nice but I think later floors could add more risk but only if the reward is increased.

I think good performance should be rewarded with more points that could be redeemed for more xp or loot.

I don’t think you should add items that are obtained from the game that make the game easier. I think it should be the opposite way, where you can optionally bring in difficulty scaling items that INCREASE the risk/reward versus just decreasing the risk.

Originally posted by rRMTmjrppnj78hFH

Currently watching the youtube video of it.

Up to the point you said you wanted to play with verticality, I think it'd be cool to slide down a slant at least once. /u/JagexHusky

Originally posted by sophieinthecity

1) definitely. I hope moving forward skilling content in general will have an interactive alternative alongside the usual AFK method.

2) they seem great! I like the idea of timing based mechanics in osrs as they help become more used to the tick system.

3) seems great

4) I think a mix of both decent chunks of damage and time loss are best

5) great compromise, seems consistent with other content in the game

6) I like the idea of choosing before you start the next floor

7) this seems to be a great way to implement "BIS" gear that doesn't make other content irrelevant

8) I like the idea thematically however I think it will get boring after a while. maybe if there was a different theme for each floor while sticking to the holy crypt idea. for example one floor could have plants growing in the cracks of the crypt, while the other could have water, fountains and stuff like that, and to keep it thematic maybe the deeper you go into the dungeon the less life you see, you start seeing frozen rooms, and eventually barren rooms.

Originally posted by SlpWlkn

I like everything about this. Skill checks for loot should be non-combat though. It was mentioned that magic platforms or ranging grapples could be used to get to the loot. This would make the zone 100% not profitable for some accounts who want to keep their combat stats at a certain level or for those who don't want to train combat at all. And if you don't play on a main to supply your pure or skiller with gp, then this gp versus xp method would be really useful.

Possible alternatives:

Clear rubble for a mining skill check.

Burn down an obstacle using firemaking.

Puzzle or safe doors that require thieving levels.

Construct a bridge... using construction.

Harvest some kind of overgrown plant wall using farming.

Lay a trap for a large creature blocking your path using hunter.

Originally posted by DADtheMaggot

I’m really not a fan of investing the Hallowed Marks to increase your efficiency.

Since we haven’t seen any numbers (that I’m aware of) it’s hard to say when it would/wouldn’t be worth it, but it strikes me as an infuriating process (similar to getting the magic watering can for the sole purpose of making tithe farm easier on your way to the farming outfit).

I would love if we could somehow tie it into some other content, or maybe just make the efficiency upgrades something random or level-based (depending on other skills). I don’t have much solution to offer unfortunately, just my two cents :)

Originally posted by tnuggetlad

Is there somewhere I can watch this? Or a TLDR? Sounds super interesting

Originally posted by gorre_rex

Is this going to be a huge stamina sink? Can you consider putting amylase crystals in the shop in exchange for hallowed marks?

Originally posted by SilverLugia1992

Do any other skill levels effect your success? I know there's magic and construction challenges from the poll blog, so does having high magic and construction levels increase your success in passing through those?

Originally posted by Aurarus

Here's an album of some puzzle ideas

/u/JagexHusky

I'd like to know what you think of them :)

Will be adding more onto it. Timing puzzles are okay but they can be quite generic/ tedious, so I think puzzles that could also have high apm or logic would be neat. I'll try to come up with a few ideas for it but idk if having items in a player's inventory could be a limitation

Originally posted by FloppableCat

Would it be possible to implement the GPU rasteriser from the mobile release of OSRS in the default desktop client? I'm wondering if that would aid with some of the performance issues with some of the larger and more detailed areas being introduced to the game as of late.

Originally posted by Retributw

Could you ask Mod West whom is designing the Darkmeyer map make a similar thread to we can share map ideas/suggestions with him?