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- The Prime Aura delayed to mid October, we will let you know when it is ready.
- Editor Note: This was a lie.
Hot Topics
Elite Dungeon 3 - Bot Problem
- A large amount of work has been done but it has been stalled due to a lack of analytics needed for balancing.
- Mod Orion will be putting some more work in the next 2 weeks to get the changes moving.
Duel Arena Removal
- We have been working in tandem with the OSRS guys and will be matching what they are doing.
- We listened to everyone's feedback and it's important for our on going commitment to stomp out RWT.
- There will be some changes made in the short term with a more permanent solution shortly after.
- A blog will be posted in a few weeks time.
Player Avatar Refresh Status
During the full production phase there were issues with assets (heads weren't made the same way) which meant there was not enough scope to complete the project. Since then we've been focused on Mobile and the Elder God Wars Dungeon
- We are currently discussing how to get it back into the schedule.
- A Beta server is being looked into to gather feedback.
- This would helps in addressing the concerns around new/old styles clashing.
- We can't give an exact timescale but we will provide more details by the end of the year.
Economy - Max Cash/Platinum Tokens
- The economy is important and addressing it will run well into next year such as with updates that come from the Ninja team.
- We will let you know once we come to a conclusion.
- We have brought in economists who are looking at cash flow, inflation, death rework, etc...
Bugs and Exploits and Tech (oh my)
Tech Infrastructure
- We are undertaking a lot of work in the background to make sure our tech infrastructure is resilient and protected for the future.
- Server responsiveness, save databases, the account system, game content support, beta servers and testing.
- There has been 99% game uptime since the log-in lockout.
Elder God Wars Dungeon - Bugs & Front Delay Concerns
- Each front was developed by different teams, and those teams are the best ones to fix the bugs.
- Some things take a little longer to fix but they are coming in due time.
Bug Testing
- We have thought about allowing players to beta test updates.
- We are looking at cool systems to bring in automated tested which has been worked on in the background.
- We may put time aside from dev plans to get together in bug bashes and deal with them in a big hit.
Buggy Clickboxes
- We had a recent NXT fix which addressed most of the global issues (bank chests, archaeology dig spots, etc...)
- Mod Orion on Arch Glacor hitboxes:
- The game decides what the mouse interacts with both or either model geometry or bounding box. The early NXT update improved picking for most things in the game but majorly scuppered a number of instances where it was more complex, rib cages/spiderwebs, a later one fixed it. The arch glacor has had the arms, the main NPC, the core, unstable core, and pillars of ice all updated and those changes are awaiting QA and upload for next Monday.
Text Fonts and Accessibility
- We have experts who know what needs to be done to improve accessibility.
- Visual/auditory impairments, colour blind modes, etc...
- We moved to a True Type font system to make it more accessible for players who struggle to read text.
- This change allows us display different levels of scales on different devices and fit better.
- I'm not sure on how feasible adding a toggle would be.
MTX
Store Bundles
- We wanted to try something different this year and experiment with different options, such as direct purchases.
- We've been exploring this with the skilling bundles (1 per player), and the charity event and we will continue to do that.
- See what works and what doesn't work.
- Overloads were added to the skilling pack to ensure it had value.
- It was an issue because it was there for a limited time.
Other
- Treasure Hunter Changes - Please continue to send us feedback.
- Portables - May look at making them unlockable with Invention, but it's not the current plan.
- Walk Animations - There are some things in the plans like with the Oddment store or Seasonal events fairly soon.
Combat
Combat Calculation Information
- Mod Pi could go on for an entire stream on this topic.
- It's clear we aren't giving enough information, but there's a line between just enough and too much.
- Currently, the Wiki/PvME do a great job of explaining the math.
Melee - Damage Concerns
- Special attacks, such as the new t95 melee weapons, are meant to be niche.
- We would look at Melee as a style to address meta damage increases.
Magic - 4TAA
Mod Pi comments
- I don't like it on the grounds that it isn't something we teach in the system.
- It is left in because I'm a fan of a high skill ceiling.
- I have designed a replacement, but it may not see the light of day since it awaiting a time for mage to receive a big buff.
Combat Style Balance
- All 3 Combat Styles will never be equal in damage.
- Perfect balance produces a boring combat system.
- You want each style to be really good at certain things.
- When something isn't meta we tend to focus on bring it up with future updates.
- Styles:
- Melee: Best burst in the game.
- Range: Consistent damage through the use of DOTs and on-hit effects.
- Magic: Best utility
- We aren't finished we mage, and melee as well.
Legacy
- It will never be balanced towards EOC, they are two different damage profiles.
- We used revolution as a baseline and when revolution++ was added we increased it.
- It's not balanced around the most optimal revolution++ bar to encourage players to experiment with rotations.
- We'd rather put effort into improving EOC rather than improving Legacy, but we may look at its viability.
- Adding EoF to legacy is an incredibly complicated beast. We could try to but don't hold out on it.
- Legacy is also the least used combat mode in our system by a long margin.
Ring Slots
- Never going to rule out multiple ring slots.
- At what point in the skill curve should we incorporate a 2nd slot.
- The balance design between "this or that" and "this and that" is completely different.
- We like where switching currently is.
- We are aware of the current slot being held hostage by the ring of death.
| Topic | Details |
|---|---|
| Death Cost Rework | There are definitely discussions, can't saying anything definite at this stage, but we are pushing for it. |
| Free Death Weeks | In November, the Ninja team have mentioned something similar to scheduled DXP events but with Free Death Weeks. |
| Vorago | No current plans in the near future for Vorago, but we are looking at changing the amount of clicks needed dependent on group size. As for titles such as for duo hard mode, it isn't high on the list. |
| Global Cooldown (GCD) | There's a case for Freedom to be pulled off GCD, but we do not want to get to a place to pull all defensives (Anticipation, Resonance) off GCD, because they don't need to be. |
Future Updates
Update Model Roadmap - Mod Mic recipe
Each year should have a mix of Combat, Skilling, and Questing to serve all player types.
- It worked well in 2021, as did the episodic model, so 2022 will be 2021 but better.
- Runescape is at its best when it surprises you week to week and month to month updates.
- If you look at this year for boss frequency it will give a good idea what we want each year (it may not be the same frequency).
Environment Reworks
- Story narratives/quests can let us justify doing graphical reworks to existing areas.
- The theme of an areas typical depicts what updates go into it, but may not be what the game needs most.
Story Narrative
Next Story Hint: "Chaos"
- The Elder God wars narrative will run into next year, there's something very exciting coming up for that.
- The Elders Gods have been so big in scope there's not enough character story telling.
- If you're bored of this big scope, we agree.
- We will segue into the next story and make sure it is more varied and not just one note.
- We want a narrative that allows us to deliver updates the game needs which we pushed with a skilling boss in EGWD.
Drop Rates
- We don't hide them as much anymore, and most people sample it and get it anyway.
- There's a general agreement of revealing them, but we don't like to on launch since it removes some of the mystery around it.
- EGWD drop rates will probably be revealed before the end of the year.
Ironman Dungeoneering
THIS IS NOT A PROMISE
- We agree we want to allow Ironmans to DG in groups, but there's the step of developing the change.
- We've asked Ninja and we will see if/when it gets made.
Skilling Bosses
- We've learned a lot from Croesus and BGH.
- There is competition in skilling and players want the same intricacies of PvM (maybe not to the same degree).
- The reaction to wanting more solo skilling boss intricacies
Woodcutting
- Adding a new tier of hatchet is not easy with how it's coded.
- We could do something similar to construction contracts/divination changes by adding in something relatively lean to bolster the skill a bit. But there are no current plans.
| Topic | Details |
|---|---|
| Elite Skills | It is not a popular concept compared to regular skills. Archaeology had things available on launch where everyone lower levels were trading high level players. |
| Holiday Quests | There will be updates around Halloween and something at the end of the year that's really really cool. |
| In-game Runefest | The idea of inhouse and in-game is an awesome idea. |
| Survey | Probably not this year, but they are the most effective way in determining what players want. Normally Mod Osborne makes it but he's not a professional at creating surveys, and we want to do it right. |
Communication
Community Management
- Welcome Mod Miva our new Senior Community Manager.
- More similar to Mod Shauny and then Mod Poerkie's role of more 1 to 1 communication.
- Mod Hooli's role is more akin to Mod JD of focusing on the bigger communication network.
Roadmap Communication
- We want to be more open and transparent.
- There was some hesitancy to talk about things too far down the road, which caused us to communicate less about those immediate plans. Our desire to talk about things is still there.
- Being away from the studio and having a small community team has caused us to lose the human touch. We will be bringing more things into the studio with streams, videos, and discord talk shows.
Issues/Communication in General.
- Known Issues - We found a solution to get it on the website that works with localization.
- The Croesus Survival Guide post (a similar future posts) contain a Known Issue section.
- Communication on platforms take places since work with editorial/localization, two teams we work with, limit where we can put information.
- Traditionally Jagex has used social media as a promotion platform and we've recently reshuffle.
- Social is more of a broader way to communicate with the community.
- We want to enable passionate Jmods to communicate.
Internal
- The more we communicate internally the more confident we are to talk about things with players.
- It would be much easier when we are more around each other in-person.
In Person Events
- We miss doing 24 Hour Gameblast for Special Effect and Runefests.
- No plans to do some in the immediate future since we are just returning normality but we'd love to.