These are interesting notes, but it almost sounds like he's a robot. He doesn't react to jokes or sarcasm, he doesn't praise or ridicule, and he speaks in the simplest sentences to get the point across - and in monotone no less! I'll be interesting in seeing how he's characterized in the quest tomorrow.
Yeah it's an interesting issue. The way I tried to deal with it was to have the Raptor be the straight man to the player.
Heard you wrote guidelines for raptor's dialogue. Very simple job. Not impressed.
FWIW this is "Rorschach speak".
This isn't a full character guide for the Raptor (because the basics like "always wears armour" and "stoic badass" are pretty obvious) but it goes into a bit more nuance about how to write him consistently. We wrote these during Unwelcome Guests to try to explore what does and doesn't make sense for the character and why, since even within "stoic badass" there can be a lot of interpretations.
The Raptor (he/him)
Is this true? /u/JagexJack
It is, but not because of stone spirits.
Mod Jack the Unprepared
I'm sure you're salaried, not hourly. You have standards to keep up with.
I'm kinda fascinated by the world view you're outlining here. What do you think my job is?
Imagine getting paid to do your job half assed
Imagine someone putting more time in for free and complaining they didn't spend more.
You're not wrong, but fundamentally that's just an hour I don't have. Besides, an hour isn't long enough to structure a coherent presentation that asks a question and goes through an argument to reach a conclusion - that's more like a day, maybe two.
I'm keen on more communication, and this is the time I have for it. More time would definitely produce better results, but it's always a balance. I could spent the hour I have on something else, like say talking to a dev in detail about some specific level 4 implementation issue.
Read moreSome of your comments in recent videos did come off as having a stance on the mode, with things like "[for Irons] Dinarrows aren't worth making; they're designed that way on purpose". In the same breath you also mention dark onyx cores along with this pvm supply, though core droprate is now buffed. Many would argue pvm supply availability that combat is balanced around shouldn't have the same logic applied as a chase drop with very small, fringe benefits.
There's definitely a way to make this work for everyone, though the balance isn't easy to strike. When things are low output, very afk stuff with huge time costs (golden roses, most consumable arrow steps) this is content designed for afk skillers. It's okay for this to exist, but when entire combat style is balanced around huge time sinks as a recurring cost, it becomes untenable for self-sustaining players and alts/bots fill in for the mainscape economy. Golden Roses are a great example of this where this is doing very l...
Well that's what I mean about not deciding the policy - I talked about ironmen because I was asked about them, but within the context of the updates in question they were designed with that policy in mind.
Your point about active skilling is an interesting one, but I think you're writing off passive content too readily - a huge number of players engage with the game in this way, and while you're right that content like that is vulnerable to mass alts and similar, that doesn't mean we can just abandon that play type.
hates ironmen (xd)
I've talked to over a dozen irons who genuinely think this of mod Jack and I don't blame them. His blasé take of "f**k iron concerns, from wanting to shoot bows all the way to wanting to own a dark onyx core" just comes across as really short sighted and a bit mean-spirited, just like the average /r/runescape take on irons. We're paying customers as well. We're here to have fun playing the video game, just the same as others. Making content that favors rampant alt-scaping/bots and updates that hurt self-sufficiency like Garden of Kharid does not impress irons.
Being the most charitable possible he comes off as indifferent about the mode. And reading between the lines a little, looking at the last two years of updates, maybe tainting that perception with all the upvoted "f**k ironmen" posting from the community and its tribalism, it's easy to make the jump to assuming he's very negative towards ...
I didn't set our current ironman policy and to my knowledge I've never made a consciously pro- or anti-ironman decision. The policy, as I understand it as agreed when the mode was implemented is "we do not account for the existence of ironmen when making design decisions, they play the game as is". In principle I'm open to changing that policy, I'm just being honest about what it currently is, and it does exist for a practical reason.
The issue for me comes, and this applies to any subcommunity of the game, certainly not just ironmen, when the demands of one subcommunity come at the expense of another, or even the game as a whole. A lot of ironman concerns in particular conflict with any desire to improve the health of skilling, trading and the player economy beyond "higher level PVMers sell items to lower level PVMers".
It may be that there's a way to make this work for everyone, and if there is then I'm completely open to it. I'm also not completely convinced that...
Read moreRead moreA personal note from me:
This is a huge step in my crusade to finally give due respect to Completionist Capes. I spent the last few years nagging Jagex to add missing requirements to give the capes the extra shine they deserve.
I'd like to thank the following people who helped with this vision along the way:
Mod Jack /u/JagexJack for taking interest in this topic and listening to my incessant whining. This update wouldn't have been kicked off without his involvement.
Mod Abe /u/JagexAbe who was assigned as the dev to this project, and who I hope will do it justice. (Please leave our Chompies alone.)
Waswere /u/WasV3 who created a very useful overview video about the missing Trimmed Comp requirements.
Kobra /u/KobraTheKing who compiled a help...
<3
AFAIK there's no technical limitation, but at some point during the RS3 era all the black edges of unexplored map were turned into coastlines. Prior to this, when we needed more space we just added more land. Now, that continent shape has been around for so long it would feel odd to change it (not impossible, just odd).
This is an issue I'm conscious of. The core areas of the game are hugely overcrowded and sending people to instanced planets or islands isn't a great solution. I do have some plans to try to address it but because of the nature of the problem, it has to be carefully balanced against a hundred other considerations.
A minor version of at least doing slightly better was removing the sawmill (thanks to Mod Ramen) which meant that the fort area feels a lot less crowded, but I think we can do better.
I’m not hating on the Devs but Game Jam and the general update just gives me the impression it’s time spent fixing stuff they ballsed up before (the company, not blaming them in particular). I couldn’t imagine my boss letting me f**k off my entire primary role for a few weeks to fix something I f**ked up before. No hate, just saying - he’d expect me to do that in my own time.
Do you work in software?
Lets wait to see what all the fort's additional buildings are before we add to much more to it, but if it's not too much by the end then I would absolutely appreciate being able to build these portals.
We do have more buildings planned, but suggestions for things that would be wanted are always welcome.
How exactly is it a separate topic, when it's been clearly observed to have an absolutely massive impact on the ingame economy and inflation? If you don't believe me, look at how the ingame economy reacted every time there's been some ridiculously overpowered MTX promotion.
If it wasn't for MTX, the issue you're trying to solve here wouldn't be nearly as massive and damaging. It would still exist, sure, but I think you get my point.
I understand that from your position you can't openly and publicly admit this, but to tell the community that something so obviously connected is a separate issue and that they're wrong about what they can clearly see happening just comes across as condescending to me. I know it's not intended that way, otherwise I wouldn't even bother to write this, but it does very much come across that way.
It's a separate topic for two reasons:
The first is that two factors can independently affect the same thing. For example, gold comes in to the game from multiple sources. (You can see from the data we shared the relative impact of each.) It's definitely good to look at each of those factors, but that doesn't mean you just ignore all of them because you can't fix all of them at once. You have to start somewhere.
The second is that I believe that open communication with players is the best way to improve the game, which benefits players and Jagex alike. However, I am not free to discuss all topics equally openly - monetisation is obviously a sensitive subject, but there are other topics as well like upcoming updates, negative takes I might have on recent content, and so on. My ability to speak freely is limited, as it is for any professional in a work capacity. If players take the attitude that I shouldn't talk about the things I can talk about without talking about ...
Read moreIt’s a little appalling to me that you don’t (seem to) realize content being speedfarmable makes it worth less, and therefore makes it less speedfarmable. You could say you want to make sure those drops maintain value, but that’s addressed by supply and demand - if something becomes overfarmed it becomes not farmable anymore. This whole thing with vindicta, for example, if it was killable at rates that made it worthwhile to do over Zamorak, it would quite quickly become not that way, purely because there would not be a proportional increase in demand to sustain the value of its drops
That's definitely an important factor, and important to an overall discussion of drop tables as a whole rather than splitting it into separate discussions of rares and commons, and I agree it's especially true of Vindicta. I didn't really have time to go into it in detail, although I did mention in passing that bosses with limited drop tables are self balancing.
Read moreI really dislike seeing comparisons be made to mining ores and how players with access to higher tier resources shouldn't be farming lower tier resources.
So many factors are ignored with that analogy. PvM is not just stats/gear but also skill, knowledge and effort based. Why should someone who's putting in almost zero effort in tank gear fully afking a boss be rewarded equally to someone who's making efforts to optimise something and using supplies (familiar scrolls, more runes in the case of mage special attacks etc)? That makes no sense to me, regardless of what tier content it is.
Balancing this economically while trying to hold onto some kind of effort to reward ratio sounds impossible. The skill ceiling in this game is already crashing down, while the floor is at an all time low for increased accessibility. Even 'end game' pvm these days starts off with an incredibly low barier to entry.
Please stop trying to kill off increased apm and efforts. This co...
I agree that skill, effort, gear, progression should be rewarded. The whole point I'm making is that they should be rewarded with harder content having better rewards and that the reason we're in the situation we're in is that players will farm trivial content faster if they're given the choice to.
Missed the livestream so am kind of confused as to what all might be affected if drop tables get altered.
Although not a common drop by any means, would drop rates of the 3 shard thingies from zamorak Egwd be affected? I’m hoping not as that’s my only hope of getting those enchantments atm since I suck at high lvl PvP lol
Already like 1/500 from the mini bosses so I doubt it? But wanted to see if I could get some clarification on this! Thanks for all the hard work!
Making rare drops rarer is definitely not something we're currently considering.
Ok, this seems not as bad as originally pitched, but I still don't like it because it barely solves the current problem since pvmers normally want to pvm at bosses that match their skill level, not bosses easier than they can do. This also does nothing with afk bossing methods. Common drop tables need to be nerfed to address all these issues. Merely adding more gold sinks will just be a band aid fix delay the problem when more and more of them need to be added every time a new bosses comes out. Nerfing the common drop tables directly fixes the issue completely and Jagex can just set it and forget it.
a crude option like allowing you to force a respawn by disabling commons.
This is a good additional solution if we can gamble common loot for a slightly higher drop rate at rares, but shouldn't be the only solution.
Yes absolutely - this is why in retrospect I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it, as this is a couple of steps down the line of assuming we nerf a lot of top end commons first, and still need to do more.
Read moreWhere do we even start with a subject like this when it feels like everyone involved is perpetually distracted by tangents and missing the core internal conflict of Runescape's loot mechanics?
Before we can even discuss the pros or cons of potential loot system changes, we first have to be clear on the scope of the design space that valid solutions can exist within. I think this is the reason you're seeing so much whiplash to the suggested solutions you've listed above. Players fundamentally feel that various solutions, for various reasons, exist outside the space of acceptable changes to what makes Runescape feel like Runescape. Rather than get caught mired in endless rehashing of feedback on any given solution, I think energy is better spent understanding the relationship between loot system design and player drive. I heard more than a few statements made during the stream that threw up red flags for conflict between design intent and player incentive. Without properly ad...
Yet the longer the stream went on, the further and further the discussion vortexed around "kill profitability" as the sole factor that player incentive was boiled down to.
That's because that was the explicit scope of the stream. Several of the factors you've covered were addressed in the previous stream, and there's definitely a potential third stream in addressing the two together holistically.
The purpose of these streams, though, isn't to identify a concrete solution and commit to it within the hour, it's largely to just explain the problem. In retrospect I think it was misleading to talk about solutions at all, but streams which only present problems with no possible solutions get complaints about that instead. The scope here was explain why common drops are in the state they are, with the explicit up front explanation of rare drops as the original root of the problem.
The questions you're asking are the exact questio...
Read moreRead moreVindicta was used as an example though, and it's an important boss for a BIS invention perk. If someone's throwing 10m/hr into supplies at vindicta to kill it as fast as possible, and someone else is throwing 2m/hr and killing it at a slower rate, but they both effectively come out at the same kills/hr, I dont know if I agree with the approach. I could be wrong, but I think you said one of the core things to keep in mind is that the amount of effort put into pvm should be rewarding. And in this example, ones putting significantly more effort/money into the kills and they're being handicapped by an arbitrary system to be brought down to the same level as someone putting way less effort into it
You can make the argument that this theoretical high level player should just do a new boss, but not everyone's going to like new bosses. Maybe there's someone who just likes vindicta a lot. And the fact is, eventually the highest level bosses will fall into this overpowered players fa...
If someone's throwing 10m/hr into supplies at vindicta to kill it as fast as possible, and someone else is throwing 2m/hr and killing it at a slower rate, but they both effectively come out at the same kills/hr, I dont know if I agree with the approach.
I think this is fundamentally wrong, and one of the other key aspects of the economy that I mentioned in more detail in the rare drop stream a month ago. It's already a problem that supplies have to be money positive, if you insist on top of that that supplies have to be money positive even if you're wasting them then the economy is nonsensical. If using 10m isn't profitable, don't use 10m.
You can make the argument that this theoretical high level player should just do a new boss, but not everyone's going to like new bosses.
Again I think this is fundamentally wrong. This is exactly analogous to "I like vinesweeper and not PVM, so you should buff...
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