[2018] Most Impactful Updates of the Week: 26th November, 2018

Originally posted by colect

In this and subsequent posts I'll be going over which updates from the week I think are the most impactful on the game from a usage standpoint. I'll break the categories into two sections: Most Impactful and Semi-impactful. If an update isn't on one of these, assume it falls into a category of not-as-impactful (even if it may still be an important or good update). If the update you thought was the most important isn't on the list, that doesn't mean it wasn't important or that I disliked it, it just means it didn't make it. I'd love to hear why you think it should've made the list below. Here is the link to the patch notes for this week, my list will be ordered as they're listed there.

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Most Impactful

Bleeds will no longer deal 1 damage on their first hit in PvP. - Although PvP is not particularly active in comparison to its historical popularity, this seems like an extremely important and necessary fix for the integrity of the PvP system.

Hidey holes can now be filled while the objects to store are still worn. - While not every player is fond of Treasure Trails, the amount of time saved from not having to unequip emote clue items every time you receive one during a Trail is a huge boon to all the players diligently chipping away at their 25 stack.

Ali Morrisane has a right-click Trade option, which bypasses a lot of dialogue and allows quicker access to the shops. - If you've ever done a rune run or you do Ali's daily rune caskets, you'll understand the frustration at his unnecessary dialogue chains that bar you from accessing what is just a simple rune shop. This change brings him in line with the norm for most other shop types in-game.

It is now possible to close the on screen Treasure Hunter button when you have other interfaces open. - Kinda goes without saying. If you've played RuneScape for any length of time, you'll understand why this was a desired change by all players.

Moved the ready and leave options on the Dungeoneering floor complete interface to larger more obvious buttons on the bottom. - A very interesting change, something I hadn't thought a lot about, but has certainly crossed my mind before as to why the 'ready' and 'leave' options were combined in the same small button on the dungeon completion screen when there was plenty of room to separate them and make the leave option more obvious.

Increased the pack yak's summoned timer from 58 to 64 minutes, to better account for instance length handling. - Honestly, in terms of Ninja updates, this is huge. Quite possibly the most impactful update of this weekly update. It never made sense to me why the Pack yak timer was less than the normal boss instance timer. As an example, if you had prepared to camp General Graardor for a couple of hours and brought several Pack yak pouches to cover the whole trip, you would have either had to bring an extra pouch to ensure that you could make it to a bank before the previous pouch ran out, or you'd have to cut the trip short by several minutes, effectively wasting part of the cost of the instance since the yak timer didn't cover the whole 60 minute duration. Extend this over several hours and the 2 minute difference in timers adds up and up until you're wasting a significant portion of the instance or dismissing a yak with 45 minutes left on its timer. The difference can get even more severe if you summon your yak while getting kill count to store some of the drops prior to entering the boss room. This change eliminates that problem and gives players ample extra time to get to a bank without having to worry about their yak timer running out and dropping all their items.

Aquarium building materials obtained from prawn balls may now be disassembled. & Araxxi's fangs, webs and eyes may now be disassembled. - I've combined these two because they're good for basically the same reason. Aquarium materials are so common and cheap that they are effectively useless after your aquarium has all possible upgrades, and it didn't make much sense that they couldn't at least be disassembled for some common parts when you obtained them while fishing. Good change. Similarly, it didn't make much sense that spare noxious hilts couldn't be disassembled for noxious components since they're the most significant part of a noxious weapon and are individually more common than a whole spider leg, leading to an unequal supply of hilts with not enough legs. This is especially useful for Ironmen who don't even have the option to liquidate some of their spare parts by building and selling the weapons on the G.E. and were left with useless spider pieces after obtaining all of the noxious weapons and enough components for Biting 3 gizmos.

Attempting to open the door behind a locked door glyph in Daemonheim now unlocks the door (provided your party has its key) instead of telling you that you can't reach the door. - This is a really solid change as the key doors in dungeoneering could be really finicky and annoying at times when your camera wasn't positioned optimally, especially if attempting to rush through floors as quickly as possible.

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Semi-impactful

Kal'gerion demons can now be damaged while charging their special move. - While fairly specific and niche, this change is gladly welcomed by slayers and PvM'ers alike.

The Tsunami ability now casts in the direction of your target rather than in the direction you are facing. - An interesting change, something I'm not particularly familiar with but could see being less cumbersome than having to ensure you are facing what you want Tsunami to hit.

Shortened challenge scroll lead up dialogue with Izzy No Beard after the first time you've done the clue. - Once again, something clue scroll fans are grateful for. The dialogue was previously unnecessarily long.

Mutated barge, fury and flurry codex drops will now broadcast to friends. - Not sure why this wasn't a thing before, but a nice change nonetheless.

Arcane, elysian and divine spirit shields now list their passive effect on the object tooltip. - A good change, as the unique effects of each shield were commonly either unknown to some players or were confusing as to the specific details of each effect.

Resource information in now shown on the each of the Wushanko regions on the Ports Management interface. - Although mentioned in the flavor text for each region, it was often needlessly cumbersome to have to scan through each paragraph to find the resource you're looking for if you didn't have each association memorized.

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Other updates listed were either not as impactful as the ones listed above or were too specific to be of widespread enough use to include in my opinion. Despite this, a massive thank you to all the devs who put their time and energy into improving the quality of the game and I deeply appreciate each and every update on the list.