[2022] TLDW: Design Vision Livestream

Originally posted by 79215185-1feb-44c6

Once again asking if we can get a Youtube playlist for all of these videos (because they are very, very good).

Originally posted by TheLostCanvas

We do not need to imitate competitors.

What was EoC then?

Originally posted by TheDrunkSemaphore

I feel like I just read a sprint planning overview.

Lets do more of this. I like it.

Originally posted by zenyl

I really appreciate the transparency of these streams, it's super interesting to hear about the thought process that goes into the making of RS, and what the arguments for and against various things are.

Looking forward to, hopefully, many more streams like this in the future. It's proper sit-under-a-blanket-with-a-cup-of-coffee content. :)

Originally posted by Kilsaa

My worry is that your design vison is not good for helping the game grow going forward, but rather aims solely at retaining current players.

Runescape at its core is phenomenal, but things like poor UI & confusing in game systems are huge barriers to new players and often serve as deterrents.

Your vision for the future should absolutely include addressing these huge problems.

Originally posted by xBHx

My biggest gripe with the exp scaling currently (as an Ironmeme having to engage with all sorts of odd content from release)

Theres just simply no reason for everything to be better. Rewards get people to go there, the exp rates should be a reason to stay there for a while longer.

There would absolutely be no difference in ed3 engagement (full clears) if you literally x0.1 the exp rates. By having newer content offer insane exp rewards (we're talking 1 kill = 1 hour over in osrs) it just nukes any other content with some cool rewards.

Hunter got an integrity change for being too busted when it was a high input method that made those rates achievable, now we have full AFK methods that blow that out of the water.

Why did you guys go from 100k exp/hour to 200k to 500k to 1m+/hr instead of just going with 100k -> 120k -> 150k etc etc. This also frees up plenty of reward space in TH as it doesnt have to compete with absurd exp rates to warrant the purchase of them.

I understand retro-actively changing this is difficult but I really feel this is needed. Yet, if you keep this trend up, where do we end up? 1-99 in 10 hours? 15 hours? For nearly all skills.

¯\_ (ツ) _/¯

Originally posted by Snapish

PR department got some new hires huh?

Originally posted by JustASunbro

I'm not sure if "RS3 should be RS2 like you remember it" is all that true or realistic. When I remember RS2 back in 2007/2008, I remember the game being fairly basic, yet fun. RS3 is still fun, but it's far from basic. Embracing the change and progression whilst still respecting the original source material seems like a more accurate statement

Originally posted by Borgmestersnegl

"We prefer to fix underlying issues.."

Then can we fix aurascape please? :) A rebalance to relic style buffs you choose to activate, for free or with vis wax for example, until you change would be ideal. Then rebalance bosses to fit, although something tells me an accuracy rework is coming at the end of FSW.

Originally posted by Californ1a

Definitely interesting seeing internal slides - the level of transparency is nice, being able to see what the devs are going off of.

Are there any plans to be able to do longer livestreams? It almost always feels like there's still a lot more to cover once the 1hr "hard limit" is reached but Spear is leaving the stream room. It feels as if someone else is needing to use the stream room or everything there has to be shut down very soon for some reason and he's getting rushed out. Idk what all goes into planning the streams, but maybe start an hour earlier so the stream room can be used longer?

(side-note, I'd love for Spear to picture-in-picture his gameplay in a small window on these streams, just so there's a little something extra to watch when you're just answering questions, possibly with the world # so we can come hang out during; bringing more in-game interaction into the streams would be really nice)

Originally posted by Zeryth

Hey Jack, loved to watch the stream. I have a few thoughts myself which have to do with the core design identity of the game, the infamous tick system; The general consensus in the community currently is that it's not in a good place, some people want to get rid of it altogether, others love it.

It's a relic from the past, from runescapes origins and has been with us since then. The game has clearly evolved to function in a more interactive way with EOC etc. and the tick system has not been able to keep up.

I personally think that this problem is too big to solve and too many systems rely on it in such a fundamental way that getting rid of it is just wishful thinking. Instead I think we should as a community embrace it, and the development to play into that. Make the tick system not something to be fought and be puzzled about but something to rely on.

This can be done via many ways, but to me the 2 most important ones are:

• Improving clarity of information
• eliminating delay between inputs and the game actually responding.

We need a clearer way to see when ticks happen. When abilities are over, when you're done with what you're doing, when your barricade has run out. This information is currently hidden behind cooldowns that are very non-descriptive, do no give strong enough feedback and are not actually in sync with the ticks(cooldowns go by seconds while ticks go by 0.6s). abilities actually have a longer animation than the ticks that you're performing them, movement is extrapolated and run on a double tickrate(?, this still confuses me).

Instead we now have a game that tries its best effort to hide the fact that there is a tick system, it does not want you to know if a tick just occured or if it's about to occur. movement extrapolation causes you to interact with objects while still moving etc. This leads to a game feeling way more clunky compared to what you see on screen. we need clearer separation between ticks, things that happened in last tick should not overflow into the next one visually.

Another one is the input delay. this may be due to the tick system itself(missing a tick means 600ms of delay on your input) or due to buffering issues or server issues. these things need to be eliminated as much as possible. It's extremely frustrating to do an input and it taking whole seconds to be registered and actually visually showing the impact of this input.

This combined with the lack of information is causing players to be confused, to dislike the gameplay. To feel like the game is extremely clunky (which it is btw). this causes frustration and anger. It plagues the game for decades now and it's an issue now more than it has ever been.

And personally, I think this is issue nr. 1 that keeps players from returning to the game, or even trying it. Just imagine a new player jut makes their first account and clicks to walk, The character stand still, stands still, a whole second elapses and then the character starts moving finally. if I didn't have nostalgia I'd have uninstalled the game right there. I hope this can be looked at more, because it feels like a neglected issue that will probably spell the death for this game if kept unaddressed. The world is moving forward and this game is ageing worse than text based rpgs at this rate. And that would be a very sad thing to see.