Old School Runescape

Old School Runescape Dev Tracker




13 Mar

Comment

Originally posted by astronut321

Why does agility need such low xp rates? It doesn’t hurt the economy having higher agility or faster training methods.

This is gatekeeping. It should be in line with thieving rates

I also don’t want to hear any argument about devaluing 99 agility for current players because you guys are already devaluing everyone who grinded levels and diaries for agility, which is way more players than those who actually have 99

The discussion about whether or not Agility should be a fast or slow skill was not really something we were planning to address with this project. We just wanted to create a more healthy meta and to make receiving unlocks while training it feel more exciting and meaningful.

Comment

Originally posted by Nezukoh

What makes a problem skill is a combination of low exp, high focus, constant clicking and no real reward.

Agility is a mix of all of that.

Construction is good because it stands on its own with tons of rewards and its exp rates are insanely bloated while having a choice to take lower exp to save on cost

Slayer is good because there's tons of reward, variety and you get to make a ton of choices in how you handle it

Making a boring skill faster alleviates the burnout and fixes a few of the issues i outlined in the first sentence.

High clicking with more focus for higher exp is fine, higher clicking higher focus with low exp isn't.

Agility can't be afk'd so it'll stay higher focus regardless and most agility rewards aren't worth the squeeze, some shortcuts are great, but if you're leveling agility primarily for that, that's hardly a goal worth 250 hours of mind numbing.

For how much effort agility takes compared to most other ski...

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Hopefully my response to another player above provides my thoughts to some of what you raised.

I think the reward aspect of agility is still something we should address and is completely separate from the xp rates of the skill. It simultaneously feels mandatory and underwhelming at the same time and shortcuts don't do enough.

Comment

Originally posted by bugfixplis

Is Construction a good skill because it's fast?

No, but at least it's not both slow and boring. Agility is both.
I agree that making a boring skill fast is a band-aid solution, but it's at least something, instead of going, "Ah, it's too hard to solve the underlying issue, so I guess we'll put it off for a few years."
Also agility is only boring insofar that you're forced to do non-Sepulcher content. Sepulcher is amazing(plis add amylase to it).

Yeah, the slow and boring part is where Agility definitely sits. I still wouldn't want the change to just be "Make it fast and boring"

My hope is that the introduction of new content can resolve this issue. Sepulchre is only really meta from level 72 onwards (at the very least, it's not as fun to run floors 52 and 62 repeatedly) and I also don't think Sepulchre should be the be-all and end-all from 52-99 either, that was a very intentional design choice.

The proposal mentions a Brimhaven agility rework which I hope can scratch the itch of being fun while also providing more XP/hr at the relevant levels for those who want to pay more attention.

Comment

Hey, I'm going to try and explain the methodology for the process of reaching the numbers we did for the agility rework just for full transparency so that the full context is out there to be reviewed as to whether or not it is "good" or "bad". From this, I'd hope that the full context can aid in the discussion and help us get relevant feedback to review.

First up, the design goals were not to directly buff agility or nerf agility, we instead were looking at how content was positioned throughout the skill and to see if we could reach a healthier meta for agility as a whole and several things stood out to us.

  1. Rooftops dominate the meta for the entire skill for most players, this is largely due to marks of grace.
  2. Getting to your first course is very unintuitive.
  3. The level 60 rooftop course (Seers) occupies a large place in the meta, basically taking most players from 60 to 90 unless they wish to do more pro-active methods of training. This is en...
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Comment

Originally posted by Joe___Mama-

I would say if you sign up for group slayer. Both players need to be off task and add a party system for it. Then “get group slayer task.” Would something like that work?

Edit: I would add brackets of sorts so low levels can’t group with high levels.

It could do, but then build on it and run into other questions like:
- Do we both have to spend points to skip?
- Can we even skip in the first place?
- Does it respect both of our block lists, or neither?
- If it doesn't respect our block lists, is that fun?
- What's to stop me from getting a juiced-up task and just doing it solo?
- If Player A doesn't have Dragon Slayer completed, do we both get to avoid Dragons tasks?

Just a lot of considerations in terms of the way everything ties in together and balances that make it a little tricky for the team.

Comment

Originally posted by Mors_Umbra

Just double number of monsters to kill assigned and have kills from either player subtract from the total assigned. Job done.

Then questions become:
- Do Player A and Player B need to be on the same task?
- If not, how does the game even track that you're specifically partnered up with this person? Slayer helmet can't apply if they're not on-task, is it worth it?
- If they do need to be on the same task, can Player A share tasks with Player B?
- How do we prevent somebody sharing a task and soloing it for double-duration barrage tasks?
- If they can't share tasks, is it fun for both players to need to align on the same task?
- If they can share tasks, what restrictions are in place to stop Player A sharing juiced tasks with Player B and giga-boosting B's Slayer gains?

The actual means of engaging with the system and preventing abuse, catching niche-cases like using alts to funnel into a main's Slayer grind in an unhealthy way, are complicated to solve in a really clean fashion!

Comment

Originally posted by WastingEXP

Other courses are getting diary-based XP buffs to compensate, namely Pollnivneach & Rellekka.

I don't think this is really stated. or at least how much you'd like to buff them

They're in the table, but can understand that they might feel a little buried:

https://preview.redd.it/7bocjlk9f3oc1.png?width=669&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a06faea6ff15d5c8b648c33336400f8b7b56937

Comment

Group Slayer isn't off the cards for the team, just that it's beyond the scope of Project Rebalance and probably wants to be a project all of its own. It's something we talk about a fair bit, but there's a lot that goes into it to try and deliver on the fantasy of you and your pals squadding up to dish death out, versus making it abuseable in a bunch of unintended ways.

Not off the table, just beyond what Project Rebalance is supposed to be!

Comment

Originally posted by Hey_Ily

I’m a bit confused by this. The blog has a lot of “in the future” verbiage for some of the changes regarding more substantial changes, but not everything. Are these proposed changes, or implemented changes?

Proposed changes, the team are not attached to any of them and are happy to chop and change! Not looking to implement anything until we've seen what people have to say about them all, and we've still got two more blogs after this one!

Comment

Originally posted by modmailtest1

Does it work against KQ, Vespula, Verzik?

Depends on what people indicate they'd like to see in the survey - I'd be surprised for something like Verzik to be included (though lore-wise I get where you're coming from)

Comment

Originally posted by Iqode

Sepulchre instances please?

Will ask the team about this one again and see if their stance has changed, I know it'd be super popular with a lot of the really skilled Sepulchre-enjoyers!

Comment

Originally posted by [deleted]

[deleted]

Totally appreciate people feeling underwhelmed by Agility and expecting higher XP rates. Aim of these changes at this point is primarily to smooth out existing progression and make more courses worth engaging with so that players aren't parking up at one course for 20 levels at a time (unless they particularly like that course), but these changes don't rule out more significant work on Agility specifically in the future.

That being said, nothing in the works on Agility-specific overhauls or adjustments for the time being, these are just the suite of changes that came from the initial Game Jam proposal - and we'll be taking note of everything that comes in feedback-wise for any future projects that might focus solely on Agility rather than a whole bunch of skills and combat/NPC tweaks.

Comment

Originally posted by wheresmyspacebar2

Still a tad confused.

Is it similar to Temp/WT where you'd get "Zalcano Shards" and basically trade them in for a roll on the table from an NPC or trade in for XP?

Pretty much yeah, moving the existing loot into that interaction (i.e. not increasing the output of Zalcano) and giving players some flexibility in terms of whether they value GP or XP more.

Comment

Originally posted by KingPolitoed

Thieving gnomes is pretty lackluster considering the best odds for success cap at 57% with cape and diary and their loot is pretty poor, the best reward being a fire orb. Could it be possible to add a rare clue drop to their thieving table to make them a more interesting? Maybe a 1/100 for hard or elite?

Part of the way the increase is achieved is by increasing that success rate, but I'm sure the team would be open to adding more Clues from Thieving if people want to see it happen!

Comment

Originally posted by Puddinglax

New chance to drop the Bug Basher, a new degradable weapon that breaks after 1,000 uses. Has a 3-tick attack rate and a minimum hit of 5 against bugs.

Will the bug basher roll between 5 and the max, or will it round low hits up to 5?

Assuming you actually hit and pass accuracy check, the former - damage rolls from 5-max

Comment

Originally posted by Jukkii

What in the world is that tzhaar thieving xp rate, surely that has to be a mistake.

Think /u/alpersena gets it mostly right, but the team aren't beholden to anything on here and if it's felt to be the wrong direction then it's easy for us to adjust the proposal and take parts out or add other parts in!

Comment

Originally posted by AfroDizzyYak

Appreciate the quick response. But pardon my confusion:

“When handing over the currency you’ll get to choose between xp or cold hard cash”. Sure makes it seem like the bots will also get this currency, and they’ll likely choose “cold hard cash” instead of xp right? Don’t think there’s many bots doing zalc for hiscores and cold hard cash certainly makes me think raw gp.

Have updated the blog, think something got lost in translation with some of the edits - my comment is effectively a TLDR, choice becomes 'loot I'm already getting' or 'more XP', uniques unaffected!

Comment

Originally posted by Fleschlight36

Why not buff other content xp instead of nerfing the xp/hr though?

Other courses are getting diary-based XP buffs to compensate, namely Pollnivneach & Rellekka.

That being said, team's not beholden to any of the changes proposed and could absoltuely dial back if it's common feedback!

Comment

Originally posted by Kresbot

Slayer - Can we have jellies added back to higher level slayer monsters too please?

Mining - if you’re improving motherlode it seems redundant to nerf the outfit pieces required for the task, it was hardly an outrageous grind to begin with. - amethyst change will be nice, thanks!

~Zalcano - any plans on tackling the bots there before dumping pure cash to them as a new reward?~ Seems the blog was adjusted for this comment

Can raise the Jellies stuff as a feedback point with the team!

Think the Diary task change is more that the number of hours you have to invest into a specific piece of content is a little out-of-line with other Hard tasks where it's usually 'get a requirement, do one reasonably quick thing'.

Comment

Originally posted by AfroDizzyYak

Love zalcano changes except offering cash. It’s one of the most disgustingly botted pieces of content in the game, surely you’ve got a plan to combat bots before pumping in loads of pure gp?

The regular loot is totally unchanged, the proposal effectively means 'get shards, trade in for the same loot you would currently get or for Mining XP - your choice'.