over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

So over the weekend I've been hopping around a number of streams and reddit threads and have seen a lot of the same question coming up regarding the design of the Forthos Dungeon. As such, I thought it would be interesting if I made a reddit post to address some of these questions.

What is the droprate of the Cudgel/Pet/Jar/Mask of Ranul?

  • I'll make that public within the next couple of weeks, keep an eye on my twitter!

Why did you change Sarachnis to be a non-instanced boss, it said that it was going to be instanced in the poll blog?

  • The poll blog was amended before the poll went live that we will make Sarachnis non-instanced and I apologise if anyone voted for it without seeing that. The reason it was changed is that of all the feedback we received from the initial poll blog, the fact that we had another instanced boss was the biggest one.

  • When I reviewed this feedback, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would very much like for low-levels to fight this boss with their friends so, as I was on holiday, Maz re-worked the mechanics to scale up to handle a group.

I can't do the boss as high-levels are camping it with a scythe to get the pet! If the boss didn't have a pet then the high levels would go away

  • Without making the boss an instance or having multiple Sarachnis' rooms per world (which didn't make sense given she is the mother of the temple spiders), day 1 release was always going to be a problem, even more so considering that it was the 4th of July, a day that a lot of our American players will take off work.

  • The reason the boss has a pet is because it just honestly felt like she should have one, given the scale of the boss and that there are easier bosses to kill with a pet. Also, getting a pet is a genuinely enjoyable experience that I didn't want to deprive any mid-level player killing the boss of.

  • I also believe that the boss not having a pet would not fix the problem because the Collection Log exists. With the collection logs, players will still be farming this boss for the Jar/Cudgel in order to fill up the Sarachnis section.

  • Worlds are already quieter than they were last week, I was even able to get over 100 kills on my own Ironman over the weekend, despite me having to hop worlds to find a quiet room so give it a shot yourselves!

I'm a high level player and honestly the boss isn't even worth to do The drop-table is fairly underwhelming and I lose money using a scythe

  • Quite honestly, this update is going to feel underwhelming to players who are used to farming at Zulrah, Vorkath, Cox and Tob for money and Sarachnis was never meant to compete with gold/hr rates for these bosses. If you're a high level player looking for exciting content, Song of the Elves is being released on the 25th!

Why can I use the altar next to Olbertus before interacting with him and then lose it if I try to kill him?

  • One of the themes I wanted to run with in this dungeon is the idea of consequence, that the player's choices mattered, by allowing the player to use the altar before trying to kill Olbertus then they will have truly lost something they once had and will have to walk the harder road to get it back. On the bright side, those who chose to kill him got to see a cool cutscene and unique NPC!

  • Another theme was to reward players for deciding to be helpful. For example, Aimeri will only warn a player not to pray at the cursed altar if the player has healed him!

I escaped the fight with the Shaeded Beast and gave Olbertus the dragonstones. Why is the altar still cursed?

  • I decided to make it so that once a decision was made then the player could not go back on it to further cement the idea that the dialogue options you choose have meaning to them.

I am a pure, I used to be able to use the altar until I tried to kill Olbertus. Now I can't un-curse it without gaining prayer xp and ruining my account

  • We will be fixing this on Thursday so that no prayer experience is gained from the bone burner while the altar is cursed.

Why does the Grubby Chest give me so many items? It makes it annoying to use

  • The idea behind the grubby chest was that it would re-stock player who were killing any creature within the dungeon including Sarachnis, if they were lucky enough to receive it.

  • However, after playing with the content myself over the weekend I have made a change so that the red dragonhide/dragon bones will come un-noted as this drop is annoying to receive unless the player is currently training crafting/prayer at red dragons.

Why is the Sun tome blue and the Moon tome red? Surely it would make sense for those colours to be switched?

  • Those of you who have read the tomes will understand that the religion which follows the sun is all about being a strong/virtuous person whereas following the moon is about preparing a person for the inevitability of death. When designing the dungeon Mod West and I decided that of the existing runes in the game, the soul rune fit the sun followers and the blood rune fit the (now corrupted) moon followers. Hence, the colours for these runes have been used to depict the symbology for these followers.

Why do the tattered sun/moon/temple pages drop even after the miniquest has been completed? They aren't worth keeping since they are only worth 1k each

  • Going back to themes of the dungeon, the biggest one was the idea that the player could self-sustain themselves from drops within the dungeon and stay there for a long period of time. As such, I decided to keep the pages once the miniquest was complete as while it may not be a lot of money, stacking pages worth 1k gold each will add up over a long period of time!

Egg potatoes?

  • Egg Potatoes! I wanted the Grubby Chest to drop a 16 food healing item that made sense to come from the Hosidius area and I found this item as it makes more sense than monkfish.

Edit: Thanks to the person who gave me the gold! :o

External link →
over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by jesse1412

Is there any reason the boss doesn't inflict poison? I was very surpised when I did my first task and didn't get poisoned.

I felt like the poisonous spider trope had already been done by Venenatis. I wanted to focus on a spider boss which had a "swarming the player" kind of feel

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by qSolar

Will the theme behind the dungeon expand in the future? The undead druids must've been alive at some point and what powers does the mask they're wearing have? The moon god seems to have a lot going and I wonder what we'll uncover next.

I would certainly like to explore this story more in the future although I can't make any promises to what is being worked on next!

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Corpsecaravan

Why does the Grubby Chest give me so many items? It makes it annoying to use

• However, after playing with the content myself over the weekend I have made a change so that the red dragonhide/dragon bones will come un-noted as this drop is annoying to receive unless the player is currently training crafting/prayer at red dragons.

Did you mean "will come noted"? Otherwise the wording is a bit confusing. It sounds like they currently come un-noted which makes it annoying because it fills up your inventory.

Yes, that is correct. Currently every drop is noted from the Grubby Chest except red dragonhides/dragon bones.

I've updated it so that as of thursday, red dragonhides/dragon bones will be noted when receiving them from the chest.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by wikings2

/u/JagexHusky can you give some insight on why cannons are not allowed in the dungeon? I was genuinely looking forward to beat the boss with my 10hp cannon only ironman, or just do other contents in there like red dragons which i can already do in brimhaven dungeon and now i could do it in zeah too.

I feared that allowing cannons in the dungeon would make the prayer training possible from red dragons to be too powerful.

Also a lot of the areas within the dungeon are very small so a cannon would take up a lot of space.

And lastly, I wasn't comfortable with players setting up cannons in Sarachnis' room and letting them solo her as the player avoids all of the mechanics of the fight.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by rRMTmjrppnj78hFH

as I was on holiday, Maz re-worked the mechanics to scale up to handle a group.

Re-reading your post before submitting this comment answered my questions but im gonna post it anyway incase it sparks anything else to touch on.

How do you feel the boss is doing scale wise for the players its designed for?

Seems to have a ton hp (400 hp, in comparison to godwars bosses at 255 hp for instance but they have way more def/hit harder and are group content) and a longer fight for players in the 70-80 combat stat range to solo.

I guess that leads to a 2nd question, was the fight/stats changed from when it was instance and definite solo only to accommodate noninstance/potential group fighting? Is it meant to be soloed by lv 100s anymore?

As you mentioned, god wars bosses have significantly more defense than Sarachnis does, her 400hp doesn't feel too severe from what i've seen.

I personally feel like a lower defence higher hp boss is more fun for players to fight because nothing is more frustrating than hitting nothing but 0s. Also she's a spider, spiders aren't known for having a high defense

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Yeshua-Hamashiach

This type of content is exactly what I would have expected from Runescape back in 2007 and earlier. Absolutely amazing job with the update.

Don't let players talk you into making things easier/removing consequence such as instanced bossing and the Olbertus decisions. That kind of design makes OSRS feel alive and immersive. If everyone fights a boss in their own instance then the openess of the world dies just a little bit. And the meaning of choice with Olbertus is fantastic and feels like an RPG.

I hope to see more content designed by you in the future. You and Mod West clearly have the talent for it.

Thanks for the kind words!

I was definitely inspired by the choice with Olbertus from my own experience playing D&D. If you kill that NPC you can't go back on it and the DM usually introduces a consequence for it :)

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by kourilol

What made the decision to disallow cannons in the dungeon? I can understand the druids and spiders. I was more looking forward to red dragons

Copy and pasted from another comment:

I feared that allowing cannons in the dungeon would make the prayer training possible from red dragons to be too powerful.

Also a lot of the areas within the dungeon are very small so a cannon would take up a lot of space.

And lastly, I wasn't comfortable with players setting up cannons in Sarachnis' room and letting them solo her as the player avoids all of the mechanics of the fight.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Gamer1120

I gave the dragonstones straight out, with the correct dialogue options, but I had to offer 200 bones regardless. Any idea what could have gone wrong here? My in-game name is 'HiscoresOnly'.

I'll investigate and see if I can reproduce this. I've already had people confirm that they had to offer less bones to get the key so I know it should be working as intended.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you if it is a bug

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by rRMTmjrppnj78hFH

Helps put the focus more on pray switching, clearing adds etc. To ease them into higher level pvm, right?

That's the idea!

There are some important decisions the player has to make in the fight but that don't have any major consequences if they mess up (unlike Cerb)

They have to consider where they stand (to get to her quicker after she moves), whether or not they kill the creatures or finish her off and what they are praying based on their proximity to the boss.

If they ignore all mechanics they can still kill her, they'll just take more damage and get smaller trips/less kills/hr

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by ElliottM8

I am a pure, I used to be able to use the altar until I tried to kill Olbertus. Now I can't un-curse it without gaining prayer xp and ruining my account

We will be fixing this on Thursday so that no prayer experience is gained from the bone burner while the altar is cursed.

Nah f**k pures

I'm sorry you feel that way.

A bit more insight as to why i'm doing this. It was never my intention to give the players something then permanently take it away from them. If the altar was locked behind training prayer first by design then I wouldn't be going out of my way to do this, it just seems unfair that some accounts cannot get back what they once had because of the result of a decision they made unaware of the consequences.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by jossie9

Thanks /u/JagexHusky for this post! Really appreciate it. I made a post few hours ago about failing to slice the web with a wilderness sword. Is this a bug or intentional?

here is the post to explain what I mean

Ooh! Good spot.

That web has custom code because it has a peek option and I forgot to make it so that the wildy swords will slash it 100% of the time. I'll fix it for Thursday if I can.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Ragingg_CLV

Do you have a regular D&D group you go to? / any suggestions on finding one in Cambridge? :>

I do!

I used to live further north before getting a job here so I play with my friends back home over skype, I DM one week and another player DMs the next (2 separate campaigns)

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by InaudibleShout

Do the tattered pages drop in order—one for each book and then repeat? Or did I just get super weird RNG with that?

The pages currently have a bad-luck factor where they will try to give you the page which you currently have the least of, whether that is in your inventory, bank or in the book itself. It won't count for items you haven't picked up from the ground though

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by shlepky

How long did it take you to create this from the point where you got the go to start creating this till the finished product?

If the finished product includes dev time, going to QA, implementing QA feedback and then release then 3 months? ish?

This was my first major project so I had to design and implement all of the content myself (graphics by West). So it's definitely worth noting that I honestly feel like I could do it in substantially less time now that I have a better grasp of the tools available.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by B-O-double-S

What is the drop rate on killing temple spiders for the pages? I’ve been killing them to get pages for the miniquest but so far I’ve managed around 350 kills and got 7 pages in total

I won't reveal drop-rates for anything until a few weeks after release but that doesn't seem too far fetched to get 7 pages in 350 kills.

Luck varies a lot from person to person, the spiders are not meant to have the pages drop commonly because they are in multi-combat and are fairly low level

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Regenitor_

I was one of the people complaining about maxed mains with scythes camping the boss due to the pet drop, but now that you mention it, the collection log existing is going to draw maxed mains to any new content that comes out - regardless of what level it's aimed at.

Thanks for this breakdown. Very insightful. I watched a Q&A you were on recently and I can't tell you how refreshing it was to see a mod on the couch who A) demonstrated clear passion for the game and B) knew what they were talking about. I'm looking forward to seeing what you work on in the future, Husky!

Thanks for the kind words!

I hope you manage to get some time to tackle the boss yourself now that it is a bit quieter :)

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by MeteorKing

While i agree with you on this, Olbertus shouldn't be able to take 5 dragonstones from you if you've already locked yourself out of gaining the benefit from that.

It lets a player bypass the fight should they be in-capable of doing it so I decided to leave it in :)

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexMaz - Direct link

Yes... egg potatoes... no one specified what the eggs were from.... ;-)

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Tokesu

As a 97 combat main, I absolutely love this piece of content and I have had a blast killing the boss now that it's a bit quieter. Thank you so much for this!

Thanks!

It's hard to know if i've balanced it right in difficulty for the target player since I am not one. I'm curious, how did you find the difficulty of the boss personally?

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by cartesiancategory

Hi /u/JagexHusky,

I asked you on Twitter but I don't think you saw -- why does Sarachnis drop cosmic runes? These runes are intentionally made hard to get (every shop has a low stock of them, they are not available in the Magic Guild, and no low/mid-level monster drops them in any real quantity). However now Sarachnis offers a way to get them by the hundreds. I do not believe this fits thematically and it seems like you're just making it easier for ironmen to get cosmic runes. These runes were designed to be hard to get and I think you should have kept it this way. Can you please explain why the drop table was designed this way?

Many high-level players in the ironman community also believe that this update seems really catered towards ironmen players -- especially the undead druids' drop table, seeing as it contains things like wines of Zamorak, which were previously hard/tedious to obtain until one could kill KQ easily. Adding these wines also nullifies that deep Wildy spawn update to be honest. Might as well kill undead druids for a load of Herblore secondaries and net the wines passively. Centralizing all of the important drops onto a single monster's table is easyscape, especially seeing as there is literally an altar in the room north of the undead druids on the western corridor (in the library). Combine that with the noted drops and I can literally stay there forever.

I think it would be prudent to think more carefully about the consequences of these tables and the impact they have on ironman meta. We voted for Sarachnis to drop red spider eggs via the sac and for the cudgel -- I don't remember voting for a common drop of cosmic runes. Similarly the undead druids were mentioned to be like aberrant spectres and would drop grimy herbs in a quantity better than regular chaos druids but worse than spectres. I don't recall seeing anything about Herblore secondaries. Yes, regular chaos druids drop some, but certainly not at the level that the undead ones do. There is a lot of stuff here that -- had it been explained in the poll blog -- high-level ironmen would not have voted yes for it. I only voted yes because what was mentioned in the blog sounded reasonable. These drop tables are not.

Hi, i'm sorry I never saw this on twitter. I'll do my best to give as detailed of an answer as I can on this.

Runes

  • Personal feedback i've noticed is that runes as a whole were kind of sprinkled a bit heavy-handed in to some of the droptables personally. The biggest reason for that was that they hold value fairly well and they are pretty useful.

  • While this doesn't have a big impact on the economy, I can understand your concerns from an Ironman perspective. I'd like to explain why I don't think it's as big of an issue:

  • First of all, cosmics are not really in high-demand for Ironmen anymore because the crafting meta has almost entirely shifted from battlestaves to seaweed/sand. Any low level which would require to get a lot of cosmics will not be able to kill this boss until they are much higher level.

  • And secondly, the number of cosmic runes the player gets per hour of Sarachnis is substantially less than the amount they can runecraft per hour even without double cosmics. Assuming 30 Sarachnis kills per hour, the player would get roughly 200 cosmic runes per hour.

Undead Druid Droptable

  • It thematically makes sense for a druidic npc to have a herblore focused drop-table.

  • Looking at the secondary ingredients, most of them dropped by the undead druids are fairly easy to obtain. Eye of newt, potato cactus, white berries and Red Spider Eggs. Especially since the addition of the farming guild and the buff to white berry bushes.

  • The exception being Wine of Zamorak as you pointed out. First of all, assuming 200 undead druids an hour which is assuming blowpipe, void and salve, I expect a player to get around 20-30 wines per hour at undead druids. This is substantially less than KQ (which is ~4.69 wines/kill) which higher levels will do and substantially less than telegrabbing them from any of the altars. A player killing undead druids will get enough wines of zamorak for some range pots but not enough to use all of the dwarf weed they will inevitably get.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by 2gogetas1stone

Sarachnis drops dragon bones and there are Red Dragons near her boss chamber... Is it safe to say that canonically, whenever Sarachnis is hungry she goes and preys on the Red Dragons? /u/JagexHusky

That was the idea, either that or her minions are going out and overwhelming the dragons with their numbers! :)

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Master_Willem

Forgive me if i am missing something here, but would it not be best to have the boss non-instanced like it currently is, as well as an option to make the fight instanced? That way both groups and solo players can fight the boss as much as they like.

It's really hard to balance a drop-table for both instanced and non-instanced versions. I also feel like making it an instance is not required after seeing how much it has quietened down since the initial release.

If it was instanced the cudgel would probably have been at least 2x the current drop-rate if not more in order to compensate for the number coming into the game.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by cartesiancategory

OK, thanks for the numbers and clarification. I just have a couple of counter points:

Runes

  • While the meta has shifted for Crafting, I think one meta for cosmics is still for Cure Me at Zulrah pre-antivenom+s and also pre-serp helm. This is what I was concerned about, because currently the efficient meta is to have several thousand cosmics on hand for this.

  • As for Runecrafting -- I think the hope amongst members of the higher-level community was that it would continue to be important for ironman players to craft their own cosmics, whether that be through ZMI or through actual double cosmics at the abyss/fairy rings (+QPC/66 Agility). This seems to devalue that a little.

  • I suppose if you can only get 200 cosmics per hour from Sarachnis, that is fairly balanced. Currently I get 82 cosmics per trip at the Abyss and I think I can do like 45-50 trips an hour, which is substantially more than 200. It only takes 3 trips of double cosmics to equal Sarachnis' drops so yeah I see your point -- Sarachnis is only like 5-10 minutes of Runecrafting double cosmics.

Undead Druids

  • From my testing, red spider eggs are way faster at Tower of Life (not to mention guaranteed drops -- so no RNG), so I don't think Sarachnis is even meta for ironman players. I think the update is balanced from even this drop's perspective.

  • Yes, I agree that berries, potato cacti, and eyes of newt are all obtained trivially these days (the former two on every herb run if you just attach it to that and the latter in bulk from shops). My principal concern was with the Wines of Zamorak.

  • The real reason that I was worried was because the Wiki claimed that 5-8 noted wines were a common drop, and when I tested it out I also got them very frequently. This could have just been good luck, but I was worried since I had racked up a lot more than 30 wines in one hour of testing. If you got 100+ wines/hr while netting other Herblore secondaries, it would make it too easy for mid-level ironmen since they wouldn't have to deal with KQ or competition with other iron players in the various telegrabbing locations. But if it's only 30 and I was just (un)lucky, then I don't mind.

Since it's a concern for quite a few people I don't mind saying. The wine of zamorak is a 1/50 drop for 5-8. (So average 6.5)

At 200 kills/hr thats 4 drops so 26 wines per hour. I saw a few "loot from X undead druids" where some people just got lucky. Hope that clarifies any concerns on that.

As for the cosmic runes, you're concerned about an efficient meta for Zulrah in which the efficient meta probably won't tell you to go kill Sarachnis before you do zulrah

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Lazypole

I think even for a mid level boss the drop table needs a bit if a buff. Nearly maxed combat and each drop is about 10k average, think mid levels will have a very hard time profiting

I mean... I'd rather be slightly on the lower side until efficient metas are figured out.

The boss is definitely profitable and the average drop is substantially higher than 10k on average.

over 5 years ago - /u/JagexHusky - Direct link

Originally posted by Zxv975

Oh good. That drop single handedly made me stop turning in grubby keys that I was getting while killing Sarachnis, as dealing with an inventory of hides and bones at the end of a trip was annoying. Great change.

That's the main reason i'm changing it. It made sense to be un-noted for those killing red dragons and using their key but it was nothing but an annoyance to those doing Sarachnis/Undead Druids