#Engaging Skilling Content

1 messages · Page 2 of 1

foggy anchor
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basically just give all time-locked content an extra 12-hour window, maybe? and overlap with the following day?

potent rose
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For dxp it's one of the reasons they are spread out over a week, instead of a weekend

foggy anchor
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Aaah cool. So is it you I pester to ask someone to unlock Emotes while skilling/maybe while doing pvm combat? It would be great to be able to use Emotes while chatting while AFK skilling, without it interrupting the exp/gains

ancient forum
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I think that'd be primarily dictated by game content, maybe because of an engine restriction, but both of those are out of my wheelhouse

foggy anchor
foggy anchor
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or gal. Shouldn't assume.

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works fine the second time. Doesn't work at all the first time. been that way for years >.> guess I should get on that 'bug report' button more often, eh?

ancient forum
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Something like the Grand Exchange is a good way to show the distinction, actually --

  • My team 'owns' the system that stores all the active buy/sell offers, and figures out how to match them up (which is why you can sell a rune helm from world 3 to a player on world 4).
  • The RS/OS engine teams have code in the game servers that will talk to this system when it wants to place/cancel an offer or check the status of one.
  • The RS/OS content teams use RuneScript to build the pretty interface - without this, you'd just be typing commands in like sell 43 38954 3429 and nobody wants that.
foggy anchor
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oooooh awesome. Okay, so you're the person I ask if it's possible to have NPC shop owners basically act as direct means of buying/selling to the GE, without touching the GE slots?

ancient forum
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That'd be mostly handled by the content team, unless they need new functionality from us to make it work

foggy anchor
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as right now, aside from shop runs, NPC shops are basically dead content... and having a reason to visit shops again (and more shop stock, based on GE supply) would be really cool

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fair enough. But technically, maybe, possible from a back end perspective?

ancient forum
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If either of the games needs something then we'll try and figure out a way to make it happen

foggy anchor
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fair enough. Is there a team or Jmod in particular that would usually deal with QoL updates, like this?

ancient forum
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I don't know off the top of my head, especially since it involves RS and I'm somewhat more involved in the OS side ^^;;

foggy anchor
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that's fair, guess ya did say that ^^;

Aight, I'll quit interrogating ya 😛

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Runescape players are just accustomed to mobbing the gold crowns when they show up ^^; bit of a bad habit.

ancient forum
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Haha yeah, I've been warned about that happening if I go in-game on my mod account

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But I feel I've derailed this thread from skilling content too much already :p

foggy anchor
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eh, this thread only exists because I derailed the PVM thread for 7+ hours with Mod Jack, griping about how we didn't have anywhere to talk about skilling content ^^;

ancient forum
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lmao fair

foggy anchor
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worst case scenario, we get another thread 😛

ancient forum
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I might get more involved in RS3 with a later project -- on the other hand, the OSRS engine team keeps on trying to steal me to work full-time for them

foggy anchor
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poor guy 😦 I gave him a bit of a rough go of it... very good conversation, I think... but perhaps with less... empathy than I should have extended

foggy anchor
ancient forum
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sometimes you just get passionate about something you like

ancient forum
foggy anchor
ancient forum
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my team might get involved in Leagues if they need more cross-world systems, but it's too early to know for sure

foggy anchor
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fair enough.

On the one hand, I currently haven't got any interest in Leagues. On the other hand, that could be changed, depending on what incentives there are to play them.

.... what are the odds of another DarkScape .... eh.... situation, is there, though?

ancient forum
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I have no idea either way, honestly

foggy anchor
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Hard to predict, I guess, or it would've been predicted... shrug I guess we live, we kill zombies, we learn, and we respawn, eh?

stray sonnet
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Thoughts on letting the combat devs test out combat reward ideas in leagues? Like new armors or weapons with unique effects, kinda like a combat beta

woeful parrot
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im sure leagues are gonna be used as a test bed for a lot of things

bronze summit
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I wouldn't really say that wintertodt is going to fit most people here's idea of a Skilling boss

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Wintertodt was pretty afk for the OSRS standards at the time

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It's much more lean backwards that BGH, croe or gate

clear dock
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the main takeaway from wintertodt would just be you have a bunch of people in 1 area all killing the boss

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i assume zolcano and w/e the fishing one is called is more along the lines of what would be better mechs wise. i cant say tho, ive never done them

near grove
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zalcano is kind of a mix between gate and croesus

cobalt vapor
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Well yeah lamps are an issue as they are more involved with mtx than silverhawks are in the sense that lamps are direct xp while with silverhawks at least require you to engage in game content. So i get where you're coming from. Idk if we'll ever get rid of lamps and such, so i don't even know if engaging in pushing for that is worth it, at least not now. However, jagex has made changes to protean planks and such and good thing they did, for they were op as well.

In a sense silverhawks are more in line with bonus xp in that you still have to engage in content to get the xp. The problem is that it does not have to be agility content. Rn people can and do anything but agility content like herb, cook, and constr while wearing silverhawks get 99, 120, 200m xp without ever engaging in agility content and overall that is hurting the game imo, as it makes current and new agility content basically worthless. It speaks to the issues with agility too in that it's grindy, lacks proper afk training methods, lack of utility, rewards, and even those grindy training methods don't seem to give their worth in xp

foggy anchor
# cobalt vapor Well yeah lamps are an issue as they are more involved with mtx than silverhawks...

Agreed, though I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference between any AFK training method, and silverhawks, in the sense that in either case, the player isn't meaningfully doing anything. Doesn't matter if it's The Hole at the beach, or AFKing hellhounds/bandits, or fishing , etc.... in any situation where I can be cleaning my house/watching a movie/working, and gaining exp without actually playing, the exp rate per hour is slightly moot....

foggy anchor
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No meaningful difference between one AFK skilling method and another, I guess is the other point

cobalt vapor
kind flicker
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The xp/h does matter. If the afk method X gives less xp but more resource than Y for example

cobalt vapor
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Why would a player engage in agility content when they can wear silverhawks do any other content and still get agility xp

kind flicker
cobalt vapor
kind flicker
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silverhawks are excessively afk imo

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But like afking gregorovic vs afking AG vs afking bandit camp all have different requirements and rewards, both in xp and in loot. Requirements do matter when determining xp/h

foggy anchor
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I don't disagree, I just think any exp reduction Jagex might be willing to consider would still not solve the problem. Short of radically changing how SHs work (earlier someone suggested they only function while doing agility content) there's not much improvement to be made. And really, in that context (s you said) they're basically just acting as a stacking form of bonus exp.

clear dock
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Sh should be removed from the game

cobalt vapor
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Yes, I don't think they should remove silverhawks, but they should certainly be made to only work when training agility, maybe when you're running around. Of course, followed with some new updates and training methods for agility, including something afk

clear dock
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i guess im fine with them if they only work when running laps, but they have effectively killed the skill in their current form, and if left the way they are now, theres almost 0 reason to make new agility stuff

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also i believe you can just "dance" with someone and you'll still get agi xp, so really you dont even have to interact with any actual content

cobalt vapor
clear dock
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thats fine

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if its for the health of the game, a sacrifice has to be made

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at the very least they can remove the feathers from th and anyone that has them can still use up the ones they have

cobalt vapor
foggy anchor
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Honestly, emotes giving Agility exp sounds 100x better than many of the other training methods in the game. Increase exp rates for diversity of emotes (not spamming the same one 100x per minute) and further exp boosts for moving around in between them. Include surge/escape to the equation... make sure there are some emotes that can be performed while running/walking (dance, jump/cheer maybe?) and you've got a new active way of training Agility, though I'd still not call it 'engaging'...

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Basically hefin stones, with more freedom...

cobalt vapor
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I think it may be difficult to make our characters jump, but it seems at least from what i've seen of BGH and such that our characters can crouch down ( at least visually) I suppose there could be way to adapt this to agility as well?

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I have also pondered about the possibility of katas or forms or patterns for agility, with possible rewards being mastering stretches or forms which when performed could give boosts to skilling or combat. Think about it, before some physical activity ppl tend to stretch, I could certainly see this be applied to agility in some way

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For example, you could perform different movements, which could basically be the steps of the kata or pattern, gain xp from those movements, the after practicing for a certain amount of time, you master the form and it becomes a new agility ability or stretch, which when performed gives you some sort of skilling or combat boost for a certain amount of time

cobalt vapor
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This might be a bit more out there but in regard to mountains, it's colder on top due to the altitude, given that there could be rare herbs or fruits that only grow up there, which could be valuable for potions or dishes. Furthermore, there could be an agility ability that helps regulate temperature, making your body warmer in these higher altitudes or even being helpful against ice bosses or creatures

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maybe there's an agility ability which cools off your body for a certain amount of time, helping in environments which are very hot

woeful parrot
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but what about firemaking

cobalt vapor
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Well i guess that could help too, lol

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agility ability and torch or something for extra warm boost, idk, lol

stoic forge
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Emote giving Agility XP, that sounds fun.

It would be engaging, The more advance methods would need you to Fill your Action Bar with emotes.

You won't be able to AFK it and the XP rate shouldn't be great. It's just an active method you can use when and wherever you want.

Going after different emotes, would bring some fun factor to those who currently don't care for emote rewards.

foggy anchor
# cobalt vapor I think it may be difficult to make our characters jump, but it seems at least f...

Realistically, it shouldn't be hard for Jagex to introduce agility abilities that move us 1-2 tiles in a given direction (keybindable) or assigning certain AoE damage effects a 'ground' damage class, which a jump ability could negate. Likewise, ducking to avoid AoE 'spin' attacks sounds fairly reasonable. But we'd have to make a very strong case for all of this, for Jagex to feel justified in retuning a lot of old content to incorporate these damage types, to give these abilities value.

cobalt vapor
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Just had another idea about a potential agility ability, just holding your breath. It could help in environments with toxic fumes or gases and such

foggy anchor
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I think that's more of a constitution style ability though

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and mountain climbing is probably more strength/constitution than agility, maaybe?

cobalt vapor
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Potentially yeah, but i mean usually ppl with great running ability have better breathing techniques and capability so thats where my thinking was going

foggy anchor
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kinda like how ranged should really be strength based damage, and skill(range) based accuracy

cobalt vapor
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It could certainly also encompass strength!

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Tbh i do believe strength should become a support skill and help out with other skills more too

foggy anchor
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I agree

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more hybrid requisites, or more 'elite' skills would be... more interesting, but not automatically make for better gameplay

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but I wanted 'Divine Arts' to be an elite skill... and include Necromancy/Paladin/Druid/Bard type roles and unlocks

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but too late for that now 😦

pale mural
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I think Silverhawks would be fine if you could only earn them as a rare reward or buyable reward from training at agility courses via some agility course currency. I think its a worthwhile currency where 1 course gives you 1 course ticket/token. That currency can buy silverhawk downs/feathers. I still would like an agility course HiScores since I feel like that would add another skill level which can be rewarded.

foggy anchor
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Rename Silverhawk Boots to Personal Trainers xD

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and re-skin as running shoes >.>

cobalt vapor
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I also want to bring a point about running energy in that our characters are full of it. Once you're 99 you will rarely get down to 0. My point is that agility stretches or abilities like the ability to help regulate body heat, or the ability to help with breathing could easily use some run energy. Depending on the content, it could actually give some use to resting and stamina potions

foggy anchor
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Used to be that way. Was a removed 'feature', years ago.

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Items like the Explorer's Ring were useful for regening run energy. Pretty sure there's some potions, too... been a while

stoic forge
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Sometimes you lose run energy. It's still important enough, that we shouldn't remove run energy

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On my GIM playthrough I did use EN Potions and the Exp Ring, a handful of times.

foggy anchor
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We'd be better off with having agility impact mobility ability cooldowns, in the modern era

cobalt vapor
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This way it makes specific agility content liek climbing a mountain more challenging and require stamina potions to do this content

foggy anchor
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Not a terrible idea, but if you're looking to create a resource, just to use and modify the resource... just use adrenaline

stoic forge
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Each Area of the map having a different Run Energy rate. Not a terrible idea. The Ice section of Desert Treasure, will be dangerous again.

foggy anchor
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Sadly, I sincerely doubt Jagex would ever be willing to make existing content/areas harder, in that sense.

cobalt vapor
foggy anchor
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They might apply content of this style to new areas... ... but with the design patterns we're seeing, it would likely be done as a minigame component, not as an overarching skill linked feature

foggy anchor
stoic forge
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Terrible Idea time. Why not combine adre and energy?

foggy anchor
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and moving around during combat would be burning a critical resource

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which, while perhaps more realistic, is... not something the current tuning of EoC would be particularly forgiving with

cobalt vapor
foggy anchor
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Trying to picture doing anything like Zuk's pizza phase or Ambassador's spinner phase... and just how screwed you'd be if you went into either with inadequate adren....

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I think moving about would feel like you're doing something wrong... and disincentivize running away to avoid mechanics... which would maybe be valid if any other abilities and their requisite timings were intuitive, but until they are... running away is about the most intuitive survival instinct RS3 allows.

cobalt vapor
foggy anchor
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But what I wouldn't give for 'Goblin Cower Shield' as an emote, while a shield is equipped, to nerf 50%+ incoming damge... that'd be great....

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Here's jagex doing abilities the hard way, making animations from scratch, when they've already a whole slew of them in the game, going unused 😛

cobalt vapor
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Here's another idea tho, auras become agility stretches

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aura problem solved, eh idk

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All aura boosts are now unlocked via agility

foggy anchor
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should just turn all/most emotes into abilities. Give em suitable effects:
Angry increases atk/str/range/mage/necro at the cost of defense for a short period.
Cheer buffs accuracy of other players in the area.
Raspberry taunts.
Panic increases adrenaline at the cost of an atk/def/etc debuff
Twirl increases chance to dodge/reduce next incoming hit
Glass box buffs defense
Glass wall does more defense, but only against the next hit
Idea gives a chance of a critical strike

Idk, starts to sound like I'm just copying existing ability text... some balancing/redundancy proofing might be necessary...

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Hmmm. Auras as agility... ... not really feeling it tbh. Some of em have some synergies, but Vampyrism? Aegis? Dwarvern instinct? Not very... agile feeling

cobalt vapor
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Just some suggestions after doing a bit of research
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Static Apnea: Hold your breath for 10 seconds to not inhale harmful dust, gases, or smoke
Deep breath: Reduce the cooldown of Static Apnea by 2 seconds.
Dynamic Stretch: Perform a full body stretch to increase your body temperature
Static Stretch: Perform a full body stretch to reduce your body temperature

pale mural
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I feel like the emotes to agility experience gains is a neat idea but the problem is why would you want to complicate something that already works. I personally prefer repurposing content that is 'dead' rather than mess with existing stuff thats in a decent/good state.

cobalt vapor
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There could just be woodcutters stretch which increases wcing by 2% for the next hr or something or gather's stretch

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it doesn't have to be anything crazy imo

pale mural
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I think making agility be competitive within itself is something they can capitalize on. Perfect surge/dives/escapes are something that have insane skill levels and rewarding players for benefits or execution of these at courses or other content has a lot of potential.

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It could be just like the Combat Achievements but called Agility Achievements and you're required insane feats of movement at a high level at various locations/bosses/skilling content and more.

cobalt vapor
cobalt vapor
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Ig there could be an agility ability which reduces the cooldown of escape/surge/dive to be in par with the mobile perk. This way players wouldnt have to wait for invention to go faster

foggy anchor
# pale mural I think making agility be competitive within itself is something they can capita...

@delicate wave

You could simply make 'time trial' routes on the overworld. Starting points and end points. Exponentially better exp or item-based rewards (Thaler?) on completion for better and better times, as shaving 1 second off 60 doesn't mean much, but shaving 1 second off 15 is pretty impressive, at the high end.

Keep a high-scores table for fastest times on different routes.

Have more complex routes that require multiple checkpoints.

Have different courses have different restrictions; ie: No teleports, or must carry a heavy object (parcel running/coal delivery, etc)

Bingo. Instant, engaging, challenging, semi-dynamic (more tools and obstacles would add to this, but stretch goals) ... and you've got yourself some low-dev time engaging skilling content.

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And jagex has made content like this before; terrorbird racing. So even the racing resources should already exist.

pale mural
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Ya thats exactly how I was envisioning it @foggy anchor . I thought RS3 movement is at a whole different level compared to RS2 and agility would be the skill that really elevates that this movement is core to the gameplay. This could also introduce other movement mechanics that synergize with summoning or even prayers

delicate wave
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I actually designed a whole system somewhat like that a few years ago

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it wasn't exact like you describe

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but similar objective and concept

pale mural
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Making agility competitive would also make it, its own thing. Sort of like how the dungeoneering community still has their own unofficial hiscores for clearing floors with various factors and several year old records are still being beat constantly since dungeoneering is such a high mechanical skill.

foggy anchor
pale mural
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You could even have weekly rotating agility courses that have unique mechanics with their own special title rewards for clears/first places too.

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I would love cosmetics at certain themed courses too.

foggy anchor
pale mural
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so werewolf course would get you new cosmogs

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Skilling doesnt really have rotating content tbh

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Maybe hourly is fine?

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I love prif hours tbh

worn vessel
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I think the balance that's currently in place is a perfect fit - you get slightly higher benefits for interacting with the game than not clicking for minutes; i.e. Mining without Perfect Jujus and Spirits 😛

foggy anchor
woeful parrot
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I stress that every agility course should have alternate paths with mechanics similar to the pillars in gate of elidinis before doing anything like rotations with them

pale mural
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Honestly i think rotations are the last thing agility courses need.

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id rather have an agility hiscores

foggy anchor
pale mural
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or even unique reward systems for courses

woeful parrot
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how are races fun

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you just click and watch your character move

foggy anchor
# pale mural or even unique reward systems for courses

Unique rewards per courses sounds more appealing than any of the other stuff... but it still basically only creates temporarily engaged with content, in the sense that, if it's a cosmetic, players will play until unlock. If it's a tradeable resource, players will play until it's no longer valuable.

foggy anchor
# woeful parrot how are races fun

Surging/etc at the right time, angle/path is a skillset that many players have not yet truly developed. This gives an opportunity to become good at it, which is important for other content (bossing, running runes, etc)

woeful parrot
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that is one of the least interesting aspects of runescape

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and could just be incorporated into agility courses too

pale mural
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I think having perfect surge/dives/escapes can be intergrated into existing courses.

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just like anachronia

foggy anchor
woeful parrot
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more importantly agility courses need reaction based mechanics

pale mural
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Reward fast completions with maybe a course token completion or something with its own reward shops.

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The faster you complete the higher the earned tokens or whatever from the course.

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I think you can add a lot more of the reaction based agility stuff later but current courses just need to have a reward pool that makes them viable to do the content.

woeful parrot
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that's all wrong, the gameplay needs to be changed first

near grove
woeful parrot
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instead of giving people extra rewards for doing the same crappy boring agility

foggy anchor
pale mural
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I love Surge/Dive just because the skill level to use em us so high

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i dont want thalers for agility course tbh

foggy anchor
# woeful parrot instead of giving people extra rewards for doing the same crappy boring agility

We ain't in disagreement about the quality of existing content, but there's been some rather strong implications from Mod Jack that dev time will basically never be assigned to large rework projects... So we're trying to A. express our interest in even HAVING good, engaging, fun skilling content, and B. come up with examples of what we'd like to see, that wouldn't be super heavy on dev time.

woeful parrot
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whats fun about doing the same thing as before but getting extra rewards for it because you're just such an extra special boy

foggy anchor
woeful parrot
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besides, doesn't need to be a rework, can just be a new course, point is to make agility more interesting

foggy anchor
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I also suggested reworking Varrock / Darkmeyer into an agility/theiving maze

woeful parrot
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could add a race mode to said course and getting a good time means rolling for something like double dive, and the only way to do that would be to take the high intensity path

foggy anchor
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I had suggested making it semi competetive/collaborative, in that the first two players to the 'prize' get double/bonus rewards

woeful parrot
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I would put forward incorporating surge and dive gameplay if only to allow the player to do something other than click

foggy anchor
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Which encourages, but does not require, multi-player gameplay

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Well, a maze (particularly a maze where the route changes periodically) creates a lot more interesting interaction than just clicking your way through a pre-determined path

woeful parrot
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in such a scenario, movement abilities just shouldn't have cooldowns probably

foggy anchor
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using planks or grapples to cross gaps between balconies...

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picking locks, jamming open windows so they don't lock on the next rotation...

woeful parrot
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not fully pre-determined if the fast paced sections include jumping from random platform to random platform, with them popping in and out

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your proposal is basically a minigame, which is fine but there's a bias against minigames

foggy anchor
woeful parrot
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along with expectations of rewards that have nothing to do with the skills involved, or bonus exp, and an expectation that it isn't good exp because it's not a "core method" for either skill

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I meant not having a cooldown within the course

cobalt vapor
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Might be just me, but I like the dodge mechanic from rax's darkness path

foggy anchor
cobalt vapor
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i think it be cool implement stuff liek that for agility

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you have 4 options and pick something to dodge

foggy anchor
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So long as you build something that is 'minigame-LIKE' but isn't a closed off minigame, it can be more readily classified as skilling content.

cobalt vapor
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makes it exciting and it adds variety

foggy anchor
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ie: Daemonheim is a minigame because of points A and B I made, above...
Whereas imp catching is a skill, as it's on the overworld, and interacts with overworld items

foggy anchor
cobalt vapor
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city races and stuff is fine imo

foggy anchor
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In any case, introducing new mechanics stipulates needing new locations to use those mechanics... which requires either a large new area (vampyrium, if we're stupidly lucky....), or a massive rework of an existing area/areas....

cobalt vapor
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you could race npc or friends

foggy anchor
cobalt vapor
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I see stretches and doing forms/ katas as possible afk and active training method

foggy anchor
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time trials are very much a thing for many retro gamers... I would be shocked if there wasn't a category of player who wants to try everything possible to get to (and keep) rank one on a track...

cobalt vapor
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what im suggesting basically already happens in the prif stone place

foggy anchor
cobalt vapor
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just add more movements and maybe a mechanic where u have to do the right movements at the right time for more xp or something

foggy anchor
cobalt vapor
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Yeah, def isn't as exciting as racing or going up a mountain

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but i do think agility needs something afk too

foggy anchor
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Well, it has silverhawks, for all their problems.... And it has Heffin stones, though that's late game... And even Prif Agility course is basically AFK; set the correct camera angle and just click periodically

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but yes, earlier game is absent most AFK strategies, for many skills....

cobalt vapor
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Nothing proper

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But ig in line of engaging agility content the only other thing I can think of atm is the circus

foggy anchor
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And even circus is hardly engaging....

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It's only 'less repetitive' beause it's not repeatable in bulk

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not because the tasks really matter

cobalt vapor
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I mean it be cool if we could do hand stands

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and when we walk while doing a hand stand (while doing a performance) maybe there is some sort of balancing mechanic or something

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I mean when doing the agility circus act do you get a choice of doing different performances

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but maybe the circus is too out there

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I mean know havenhythe is coming out and they said that some of the environments could be engaging

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I could see a swamp as also being possible agility content

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using agility abilities reduce the harms of gases

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dodging vines or or falling logs, trees

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could even do content where our characters have to crawl

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roll away as we crawl

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do dodge insects or something

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I like the thought of survival playing a role in content

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Doesn't always have to be combat, environments themselves can be very dangerous

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extreme temperatures, pollutants, and falling debris

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There could be bogs we have to go through

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Tzharr or tokharr agility course

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that be interesting

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or just an extreme enviroment or something

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I guess i could also see escape scenarios being part of agility training

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I'm thinking escaping from the area after the Rise of the six fight

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Could be anything from a boulder chasing us to idk, maybe Jas herself, lol

cobalt vapor
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The opposite could also apply, maybe we're trying to catch something

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I think one of the main problems with agility courses and why I honestly don't like them is that they seem to have no point, other than just training agility

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Maybe in a forest there's a rare rabbit which is very fast and we have to use our agility abilities wisely to catch it

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Could be a great way to mix agility and hunter

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Here's another thing I just thought of, making an agility version of barge called charge. You can use charge to charge toward objects or trees for example or just let us barge onto certain objects ig, it could even be necessary to break or move these objects and clear paths and such

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could be something else to spice up agility

cobalt vapor
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I guess another thing that agility could use is some sort consumable that is used when training agility. The best thing I could think of is possibly the introduction of running boots there could be on various tiers and be made of specific materials

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This makes more sense to me in regard to specific terrains like the desert and snow, where you may need proper footwear to traverse the areas. The boots could be worn down after use and could maybe be repaired with kebbit claws or something

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They could reduce weight too and such, as that seems to be a thing with agility, higher the tier, the more weight reduction

quiet surge
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could the active aspect of agility be "more active", whereby instead of lapping, we are engaged with it (of course, this means more exp/reward)?

i can imagine active and engaging agility training be like dodging floor bombs similar to nakatra. and we similarly utilise surge/escape/dive abilities.

supple rampart
#

I struggle to find things I'd want to do with an enjoyable pacing, it does feel like rs3 actively went out of it's way to delete most optionality from the product. I do think there's probably an array of enagaging. So like I enjoyed the old div pacing it was fun I did it for it's own sake, then you deleted it. Or I enjoy shifting tombs pacing it's fun but slayer which I also used to enjoy the pacing of with monsters that have no mechanics and aren't complicated is now for me a complete mess because of the mixture of play styles in the slayer master lists, and I don't think I've killed anything in game for 2 years. So the reason to do sporadic shifting tombs has disappeared.

#

What I used to enjoy was castle wars but that changed post EOC and I felt I'd done it to death, was 300 on the highscores when they launched and I'd already pretty much stopped, although you then made it compulsory for everyone else to get even more tickets than I had even when they didn't enjoy it for some other piece of content. Now I do penguin herding with world60pengs which is effectively a player made minigame as other minigames have no players. Barb assault was also fun and I'd have played that for it's own sake.

#

I do quite like the pacing of herb runs now they don't die and of elder trees with the seeing the map and moving around I find it very odd the newest tree is only in one place. Also mining is fun and I do it whenever I have a bunch of stone spirits to use them up. (The act of reducing the pile of spirits is incentive to play the content for me).

#

I haven't cared about exp for years, I despise pinickity and convoluted content, so challenges and comp cape and flask are all a complete no from me on what enagaging content should look like . I find boss content to be extremely boring, having the enemy do the same things , so I have to do the same things is how I see it.

#

But yea I struggle to find any reason to log in, the people I know who use the product suggest they've lost interest and could be pushed off the product very easily. I would highly suggest not doing the same as what you'v been doing.

#

There's also the problem with the design philosophy of tying everything together, I didn't like the last fate of the gods quest nor the 4 quests that replaced 2 gods with identical gods, nor the 4 quests of fort that came before the murder mystery one (actually good 1). At which point I stopped engaging with the quests, so I never saw the 2nd skilling boss and completely forgot that was even a think until just now.

#

Also hating boss content means the "fake" skilling updates to 110 that result in nothing but a weapon are extremely disinteresting.

#

Which leaves me with the only reason to log in being skilling, so when you actively delete the pacing of the skills that's enjoyable that exacerbates the problem

#

We have copious amounts of passive skilling but some of the comments on what enagaging skilling would look like aren't necessarily for me what I would want it to look like, it's not about complication, it's bout being enjoyable to do.

#

But I would argue that you don't have a product, nothing about the game to me makes any sense. There is for me nothing to want, I couldn't care less about exp rates, there is not a single reward I would care to work towards, assuming we ever had content that didn't just complete itself instantly.

#

The way that arch unravelled was fun, you could theoretically count that as engaging due to the story elements and wanting to see the next bit even if the gameplay was mildly tedious.

#

I should probably also say that I struggle immensely with consumables, if something isn't infinite I'll horde it and never use it, so for me they don't act as a good incentive and they tend not to feature in how I interact with products.

#

I would also prefer optionality with how I engaged with content, I've never used a scythe and aggro pots, and was pretty grumpy that necro expects that by making it an ability. But I was fully turned off necro at level 70 wen I saw what you needed to do for the armour. But the main point is not to assume every1 will play the content in the same way. Not using consumables and not using best methods can make content more fun, and seeing devs talk as though they expect you to do those things is extremely annoying.

#

For me I think you would need to make combat enjoyable for everyone which may mean giving more options of ways to play it which would then make people want the skilling, which would have to be made in a way that it was relevant. When you tie it together and people don't like one of the 3 pillars the entire game ceases to exist.

cobalt vapor
#

It be neat if every skill had some sort of story line behind it which unraveled as you lvl up the skill

cobalt vapor
#

I certainly think that even tho combat encompasses for the most part, 4 combat skills, melee, range, magic and necro. There does seems to be more options as to how players can go about doing combat. There are tons of monsters and bosses to kill. You can easily afk or be active in combat through a variety of different mechanics and ways, while Skilling doesn't have as many options. Notably in regard to the same skill.

Part of enjoying something, I suppose is knowing you have relevant options and not restricted to one method. It gives players agency. One of the things I know I'd enjoy is being able to have plenty of options about how to train a skill or make money with that skill, with some methods being super afk, semi afk, engaging, and very engaging or active. With all of them giving their specific worth in rewards. I suppose this is more difficult as there are just so many more non-combat skills.

cobalt vapor
river cairn
#

The best-designed skilling methods are those which allow the player to switch seamlessly between active and passive.

Example: archaeology spot - you can actively follow the time sprite around for extra skilling bonuses. However, when you suddenly go AFK for 10 minutes your character keeps gathering, albeit at a slower pace (you lose the active bonuses). It's very important that is a seamless transition, so you don't have to go to a different area to switch to the AFK method and then come back to the lean-forward spot. Same node, two speeds. Rockertunities and the new WC bonus are other examples of the same thing.

Purely lean-forward skilling won't be successful unless the player is handsomely rewarded. Example: fishing frenzy - it was a failure because it offers insufficient benefits for being hyper focused. Fishing frenzy shows that increased XP and absence of profit (when compared to other fishing spots) is not enough for players to pay attention. It's hard to say what it would take for a purely "5 second AFK" method to attract significant engagement.

This isn't to say that content similar to fishing frenzy shouldn't exist. The mistake was not to include a fallback for when a player lets go of the mouse for 5 seconds. A piece of content with both an active and passive method "2-in-1" also serves to introduce the AFK-type player to gameplay they otherwise might have not tried out.

pale mural
#

I still think most of the best skilling engaging content is a good chunk of minigame content. They were great active skilling content but right now they don't really have a purpose. Rewards have been powercrept like crazy. From TH removing the need for training a majority of skills with the excess of lamps/stars to things like Porters making unique unlocks from Flingers irrelevant and you can apply this for nearly all the minigame rewards in some manner or form. I think if minigames can have an intentional long format design vision of their existence, I think it would probably create a lot of great active group content again that we haven't really seen since 2014ish imo.

If Minigames (not the PvP ones) had some reason to engage with them like collection logs, or money making via large skilling item rewards or unique rewards locked from certain minigames that aren't going to be powercrept or even maybe the best experience methods. These could give a lot of existing content a new design vision which creates a lot more content for casual players to just do.

#

Like I would do Blast Furnace if I could get 1k - 4k cannonballs from playing a 5-10min burst of Blast Furnace. Content that has long term value that is going to have staying power. Or maybe All Fired Up being the best Firemaking training experience with some new rewards. Or Sorceress Garden being a viable way to get unique Herbs without having to PvM/High Farm. But the need is a large design vision like how 110 skilling content has a vision.

clear dock
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i would say something like blast furnace isnt good active gameplay and something like chars training room would be more interesting compared to all fired up for FM, but i get your point

#

i was gonna say ceremonial swords is a better active smithing method, but that doesnt really have anything to do with an increased output of cannonballs

cobalt vapor
pale mural
#

I mean Blast Furnace isnt the greatest minigame/dnd for sure but it exists and a lot of old minigames need just solid touch ups. With how they did Shooting Stars, I definitely think the current Jmod Team can make a lot of the older minigames have a long term vision for the current/future game.

#

Some need a lot more work while others need way less.

clear dock
#

i would scale PP, Fish flingers, Gnome resturant, Chars training to 110 and call it a day. Can give blast furnace an increased cball rate and a reward of a 8 cball mould for afk if you want

#

oh i would expand gnome to be all foods and be delivered to way more NPCs tho

#

i dont think ive ever done flash powder when it wasnt just afk, but im sure you could scale the xp for that too

pale mural
#

Ya I would be down for all of that. My only worry is they need a long term design vision. Just fixing minigames isnt going to make them these places we want to go. They need to have a long term vision of how Jagex wants to utilize them and stick to it. They cant just keep adding new content and then make things irrelevant over the next few years again.

#

That 2006-2014 era of minigames were really great and I think a lot of casual players and even ex-players just have fond memories of just playing it for fun with good rewards. Now it has no good rewards so only a few folks play or they just afk thaler it.

clear dock
#

a very easy reward is outfit reskins and/or pet reskins

#

things like an 8cball mould idk what the others could get

pale mural
#

Theres a lot of easy solutions. 😛

#

You can even add proteans into these minigames if TH ever goes away.

clear dock
#

i assume you mean rewards that everyone actually needs

#

idk what that would be, cause idk what skills are even missing nowadays

pale mural
#

Ya theres a lot of small stuff for a lot of different minigames I think that could get great minigame rewards.

cobalt vapor
#

I mean add auras, aura refreshes, bonus xp stars, silverhawk downs, tight springs, pulse cores as rewards

pale mural
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Fishing Trawler actually giving a large chunk of raw fishes/experience and maybe even some other hidden stuff from the seas?

clear dock
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idk if i want th stuff as rewards, i think its just better to move past that stuff and pretend it was never in the game

#

auras im fine with

pale mural
#

Great Orb Project giving magical thread via playing the minigame and maybe some other fun stuff?

cobalt vapor
pale mural
#

Stealing Creation actually having a use for their sacred clay items (when th is gone)

cobalt vapor
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even if it's like 1/10000 chance to get a magical thread via runespan that help

pale mural
#

RuneSpan is alright but I would rather have active gameplay get threads and GoP is that.

cobalt vapor
#

Yeah, GoP is actually fun

pale mural
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For sure, if the rewards werent so bad I would play it as often as I use to.

#

But yea cosmetics are an easy thing to integrate into minigames along with auras imo.

clear dock
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what lvl can you do gate? they should scale the xp so its the best mining xp/hr

#

at least it has rewards people actually want

#

i guess that would mean they end up dirt cheap since anyone wanting xp would go there

pale mural
#

Skilling Bosses I think dont need the best exp methods tbh but I think of them having the unique reward loot that you can grind for is what makes them special. They don't really create active group gameplay like a good chunk of minigames did.

cobalt vapor
#

I think someone from the design chat made the suggestion of time esswraiths as some sort of expansion in runespan too

clear dock
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make public croesus better for drops and then its a much better group gameplay experience

#

i also think the skilling bosses drops should focus on 1 skill, but its w/e

rose grove
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tbh I think most active skilling should reward the same stuff as passive skilling just a lot more of it

cobalt vapor
#

I agree with m_with_z about mini games. They have tons of potential, notably in regard to engaging skilling methods and being an avenue for rewards like auras.

rose grove
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fishing frenzy should give me shitloads of fish

cobalt vapor
#

or xp, for what it is, yeah

rose grove
#

probably at a 1:5 or 1:10 ratio for passive:active skilling rewards

#

I think I'd also draw a line at rockertunities/time sprite/the new wc mechanic being called 'active'

cobalt vapor
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I think at most u get 300k xp from frenzy? while afking u can get like 250k-280k xp or somethin

clear dock
#

any active skilling methods they do now need to focus on everything but xp

#

the xp should still be great ofc

rose grove
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if you can do it consistently while alt-tabbed, 'active' doesn't work imo

clear dock
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but its not a selling point anymore

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rockertuniteis/time spite etc to me is along the lines of the worst type of active gameplay

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cause you're having to watch your character afk to be able to react to something

#

which is very boring

rose grove
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it's kind of ok because it's predictable so you don't have to watch

#

as opposed to blubber spots which get the effect randomly but not frequently enough to watch

clear dock
#

they hear you say that they're gonna keep doing it

#

yh or like how div used to be

rose grove
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oh yeah it's super-disappointing that the rockertunity thing has basically been copied and pasted for two more skills as well now

#

is the eternal magic gimmick also consistently every 30s?

clear dock
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no idea, havent done enough of it

#

i know people will disagree with me, but i think the line of good active starts with like rc altar running, its active to where you're always focused on what you're doing, but you arent clicking every 2 ticks

rose grove
#

as a one-off I like it because it enables the design of horizontal progression reward space which manipulates the lever of how frequently these effects arise and how important it is to hit them

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like, imagine a pickaxe which increased the frequency of rockertunities at the cost of reducing damage for non-rockertunity hits

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or a perk

#

super-cool

clear dock
#

yh

rose grove
#

you could even diversify the best mining spots by having how strong that effect was scale by the number of rocks for the ore you're mining within XX tiles

#

and in one fell swoop mining is no longer 'drink your juju pot and change location every 10 levels'

clear dock
#

when are we getting blast mining

#

what we need, is Big Rock Mining

rose grove
#

yeah

#

I was having a think btw about gathering skill diversification

#

and I think what RS struggles with that I think other mining games do really well is that, especially post-M/S rework, getting an ore is something which is really predictable

#

and while for economic balance reasons you probably can't pump in excitement like finding a vein of diamond in minecraft or w/e, it feels like it might feel better with a lot bigger a damage range; and that might also help better balance perfect plus by enabling the player to actually run out of stamina with it up

clear dock
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You could do the finding a diamond vein thing with a minigame method at least

cobalt vapor
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Make evil trees more like fallen stars? and make a new Eternal Magic evil tree skilling boss?

#

What if the Eternal Magic tree was like in another dimension and it was HUGE! Like it overtakes the entire environment (like the spirit tree from avatar). Players have to scale through vines, chop through branches, burn bushes to make it to the center

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and then attack the tree directly to take it down, penetrating through layers of bark

hollow herald
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That's just hostilius but vegan

cobalt vapor
#

I mean i do think it be interesting if there was a boss, which you could take down through either combat or skilling methods

hollow herald
#

U mean the troll d&d?

cobalt vapor
#

I guess something along those lines yeah

#

But a boss instead

#

and better rewards too

hollow herald
#

The reward was good enough until dailies started giving more

pale mural
#

^

cobalt vapor
#

I don't mind dailyscape to an extend of course. But yeah, i get what you mean. I suppose in comparison to the xp reward from a monthly like troll invasion dailies do offer a lot more.

#

I wouldn't necessarily go about reducing or nerfing daily rewards, but ig just making monthly rewards better

hollow herald
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The monthly was consider brokenly op for years

#

With the xp it gave

#

If anything, other content should be tuned with it as an upper cap

rose grove
#

now it's the worst monthly

#

oh premier vault I guess (though idk if that's strong for mains?)

hollow herald
#

I don't do that one most months because u need an empty inventory

#

And that includes key tokens...

rose grove
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idk man I feel like whenever I log into my main I just spam click my keys

#

and it gives me an insane amount of xp regardless

#

planning their use feels like effort

hollow herald
#

Well yea basically daily 200k free xp depending on the th event

#

Imagine getting excited about that monthly 25k

woeful parrot
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i dont even use mine anymore

#

i havent used keys since the promo with the saradomin and zamorak ability overrides

stray sonnet
# river cairn The best-designed skilling methods are those which allow the player to switch se...

Seamlessly transitioning between active and afk skilling seems ideal but I feel like these are terrible examples.

These same node 2 speeds methods are designed in a way that sacrifices the vision of the active content for the sake of having these 2 activities in the same spot and the active method doesn't fill any type of fun fantasy that you could imagine. Big game hunter fills that fantasy of hunting a dinosaur while being afk on the side

foggy anchor
foggy anchor
foggy anchor
foggy anchor
# pale mural Ya I would be down for all of that. My only worry is they need a long term desig...

That's, theoretically, the main goal of this thread; seeking to draw Jagex's attention to a playerwide interest in more fun and engaging skilling content / retuning their design vision, and committing dev time to relevant, lasting core gameplay, rather than content that gets just played until it's 'done' and thereafter left to collect dust, making it barely better than seasonal content.

fossil leaf
#

well

#

there isn't really a goal, but more of an open discussion and in depth conversation about skilling

pale mural
#

I definitely think Skilling Minigames are the perfect thing for active skilling content along with finally addressing the lack of group content that has disappeared socially over the last 10 years.

fossil leaf
#

fellers in here might have objectives they want to take away from this conversation and that is completely fair

foggy anchor
# clear dock a very easy reward is outfit reskins and/or pet reskins

I'm not against cosmetic unlocks; certainly they're popular, but I think there are several points I should contribute on the subject:

A. if we want MTX to move away from pay-to-win strategies, we have to leave MTX a wider market for cosmetics than we have been. Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind.
B. cosmetic/costume rewards without a Fear of Missing Out mechanic are much less likely to be pursued by players who are not interested in that item's colour or design.
C. cosmetic rewards tend to fall under the 'play it until we unlock it' category of content; they are not recurrently consumable
D. cosmetic rewards do not add to complexity/interesting gameplay. Minecraft is a great example of how releasing a new 'tool' to players often results in countless new possibilities for gameplay. Runescape is unlikely to reach that level, but the core concept of introducing more diverse mechanics and more diverse tools/equipment is fundamentally a good one. Right now we have exp outfits, and not much else.

clear dock
#

if we had a ucl people would go for those cosmetics, can just look at 07 for that

#

i would really hate if the game cant get cosmetics because of mtx

#

theres quite a bit of people that dont really like the look of the elite skilling outfits, so this can be a way to get something that looks more realistic for them

#

im not saying everyone will do it, but if the activity is the bis xp/hr the cosmetic rewards at least give an extra reason to do it, and they should be easy enough to add as a start

#

https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/Aerial_fishing heres a hunter/fishing training method on 07 and all it gives rewards wise is cosmetics

Old School RuneScape Wiki
Aerial fishing

Aerial fishing is a Hunter technique requiring 35 Hunter and 43 Fishing. The aerial fishing technique is used to catch several fish species at Lake Molch.
Hunters can get a cormorant's glove and a cormorant, free of charge, from the fishing expert Alry the Angler at Lake Molch. Both hands must be free for aerial fishing, which means no items m...

near grove
#

I'm holding out hope that a lot of the work that's going into leagues will be repurposed into collection log stuff

clear dock
#

i sure hope so

#

my main point is stuff like this should be easy to add to pad out rewards and longevity of the content, if you put something on say PP that you 100% need for your account, and it takes like 30 hours to get, youd get a lot more backlash

#

cause now you're forcing people to do a long grind of a training method they might not even like

foggy anchor
# clear dock idk what that would be, cause idk what skills are even missing nowadays

@delicate wave

Reward ideas:

scrolls of surge/escape for bypassing cooldown times (a non-stackable consumable). Valuable for skilling, clue scrolls, and PvM.
vial of ensouled, powdered time runes, for extending potion durations. Valuable for skilling and PvM.
Portable incense burners. Load with incense, and toggle on/off to pause use of the effect.
GOP giving magical thread (credit to M_with_z)

clear dock
#

personally if it was me, id be nerfing the xp rates of all these afk training methods. Lets say 20% and then these active/minigame methods would be the 25%+ better than the new afk method xp

boreal parcel
foggy anchor
foggy anchor
clear dock
#

the bigger picture is people dont care about xp anymore, when you can afk 500K xp/hr does it really matter if the effort one is 800k, does the effort method matter to people when they get free xp handouts all the time and 4 dxp weekends a year, idk

foggy anchor
clear dock
#

but theres a lot that needs to be done with skilling as a whole to unfuck whats been fucked

#

if you can find said rewards for every skill then go ahead

foggy anchor
clear dock
#

all the gameplay before 99 doesnt have to be afk, theres a lot of minigame like skilling methods that could just be scaled better and start early on

#

PP starts at lvl 21 for example, that could be the bis xp for active thieving from 21-110 if they wanted

#

obv it would be better if there was something else there to do also, but you get the point

foggy anchor
# clear dock all the gameplay before 99 doesnt have to be afk, theres a lot of minigame like ...

Agreed, but certainly that's not the case presently. A. most players start as F2P, which has relatively few minigames, or areas unlocked to access more that could be changed to F2P. B. Most new players aren't actively reading wikis/looking for best exp rates; they're playing the game to play the game. But eventually, they stop levelling up quickly/learn that the unlocks they're getting are worthless, and become bored/demoralized at the idea that even lvl 70 in every skill is... basically doing nothing for them.

#

It would be rather rare for a new player to wander into a minigame and stick with it for 100 hours for level 99...

#

and most players in general, as we've both stated, care more about item progression than exp progression...

clear dock
#

i wouldnt expect a new player to play the game that long without looking at the wiki

foggy anchor
foggy anchor
#

and the wiki is an overwhelmingly large and thoroughly information-dense place...

#

reading wiki pages on a subject can take longer than participating in the gameplay, itself, in many cases... (and where EoC stuff is concerned, still leaves the reader lost and frustrated...)

clear dock
#

i feel like a new player when leveling up a skill when they level up and click the skill icon and shows them the new thing theyve unlocked, they probably go there and test it out

#

if not the game can do a better job at that

rose grove
#

idk normally I only look at wikis when I've finished a game

clear dock
#

its unrealistic to make 1-110 training fun the whole time i feel

rose grove
#

depends what fun means

clear dock
#

thats just the type of game rs is

#

something new and exciting all the time

rose grove
#

it should feel fulfilling in some way at every point

cobalt vapor
rose grove
#

but I don't think it needs 'fun' in the hedonist sense

clear dock
rose grove
#

ideally more than that

#

but like

#

I think 99% of current skilling is not 'fun' in the hedonist sense and I don't think that's controversial

clear dock
#

yh

cobalt vapor
clear dock
foggy anchor
# clear dock i feel like a new player when leveling up a skill when they level up and click t...

Definitely a trend, yes; the in-game skill guide is useful for that. The original game design factored player agency, a sense of rewarding progression, and an ability to 'choose' an identity and run with it. Sadly, more recent (past 10+ years) game design has completely obliterated any meaning that original core-game experience has, and eventually new players run into that soft-wall.

That our current game starts players off with such an open-ended, choose your path experience, and then shoehorns everyone into a 'grind everything until you're maxed' and 'sorry, that role isn't profitable/efficient, do something else instead' is... the very example of skilling neglect I'm so worried about and would like to fix.

clear dock
#

what do you mean by "sorry, that role isnt profitable/efficient"

foggy anchor
clear dock
#

like someone grinds out 99 cooking and then cooking at 99 isnt profitable?

#

well thats gonna take a whole skilling rebalance that would take years upon years to do

foggy anchor
# clear dock like someone grinds out 99 cooking and then cooking at 99 isnt profitable?

Pretty much; or that someone wants to play as a smith... starts at the same time as a friend of theirs. Works on nothing but smithing, without using a wiki. Mines their own ores, smelts their own bars, makes their own armour, etc, etc...

Meanwhile their friend used the wiki... and by the time 'the smith' reaches lvl 70 smithing, and is very proud of this, the friend is probably level 70+ in all skills, and doesn't care one iota about smithing; they just needed it for a quest, and found the most efficient way of doing it, and makes 10x+ the gp per hour that the smith does, and so can basically just buy skills.

#

ie: using the wiki to learn to do shop guides to make your first few million in an hour or two, vs grinding your first mil through weeks or months of inefficient gameplay

clear dock
#

i dont think rs is every gonna be a game where you can pick a skill and thats like your main job

#

without some serious shift in skilling, which i dont see being possible

foggy anchor
clear dock
#

i guess if every skill was like runecrafting you could do that, but idk, gl

foggy anchor
#

focus on the shop runs vs grinding skills. As a new player, it is much more efficient to do shop runs, get your first 10+ mil, and then buy materials for skilling

#

prayer is a great example, though most skills have some equivalent. burrying bones for 4.5 exp each, early game... vs burying top-tier bones for hundreds of exp per bone...

rose grove
#

yeah shop runs kind of suck - they attract a player interested in a very mercantilist style of gameplay which to my mind isn't very well-served in RS - the GE doesn't give much data and players generally hold merchants in disdain

foggy anchor
#

get prayer to 43, and combat is suddenly 100x easier to train.

clear dock
#

arguably you shouldnt be able to bury high tier bones at lvl 1

foggy anchor
#

don't have to be a merchant; my point is that wiki vs no wiki use is completely unbalanced on most fronts

rose grove
#

oh yeah sure

foggy anchor
rose grove
#

and tbh I think basic cleanups of most old content in the game via light-touch rebalances to xp rates and drop tables are sorely needed

foggy anchor
#

And that the average 'new player experience' doesn't, and shouldn't, rely on wiki information to play the game

#

agreed

rose grove
#

on prayer - tbh I would start by increasing the 'buried from inventory' xp for bones and ashes (and not provide corresponding increases for auto-buried versions)

foggy anchor
#

don't think bonecrusher is easy to get early game

rose grove
#

no but I don't want to create a situation where we're inadvertently massively buffing it

cobalt vapor
#

Well the tome from necro helps on that now ig

#

when u do the tasks or wtever

foggy anchor
#

ah yes, I had forgotten about that perk

cobalt vapor
#

Yeah, so at least there is that

#

i think a big issue is that yeah, i agree, a lot this info is hard to come by in game

rose grove
#

tbh I think melvor idle does prayer a lot better - burying bones charges your prayer points and you gain xp by using prayers in combat

foggy anchor
#

still requires some area task completions that a brand new player would unlikely be able to complete at a higher level without using a wiki or grinding the hard way for a whiiile

rose grove
#

but this is part of the original approach to designing RS

cobalt vapor
#

I think Mod Lykos said something along those lines

rose grove
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far too late to change

cobalt vapor
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just too much stuff in the game hard to know everything

clear dock
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how are you gonna make it clear to the player that the buyables are more efficient to do by buying the resource vs gathering it yourself

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and do you even need to do that

rose grove
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yeah I was going to say why on earth would you do that

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lol

foggy anchor
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agreed; we're not likely to have any degree of meaningful success retuning old content at that level

clear dock
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is a new player going to care if they're having fun gathering the stuff themselves, even if its less efficient than following w/e the wiki says

rose grove
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it dpeends on the kind of new player they are

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if they are looking for a 'rush to endgame' mmo, probably not

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but imo RS isn't that game and shouldn't try to appeal to those people

cobalt vapor
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I think an important part of the new player experience is interacting with other players in content

clear dock
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the wiki thing to me, i dont feel like you're looking at it until you want to take the game more seriously and i dont really have a huge issue with that i guess

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1-99 guides on youtube have always been popular

cobalt vapor
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mini games and competions could bring players together imo

clear dock
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if its not the wiki people are looking at its gonna be that

rose grove
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I assume tbh natural gathering is a lot closer to meta buyable rates outside of maybe crafting and herblore now

foggy anchor
rose grove
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just b/c we have these items which expand gathering inventories to absurd sizes

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so no drop-methods

cobalt vapor
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The problem with a lot of the content now

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is that because it is afk, ppl are well aking

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afking

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and when a new player comes around talks

clear dock
cobalt vapor
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they may just get ignored

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cause other players may not see the message

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So i think it is important to engage early players in active content

rose grove
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back when I started afking was against the rules

cobalt vapor
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thats fun of course

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and in a way they can win

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and have their own agency

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even tho they are low lvl

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a good way do to them is have it out against othe rlow lvls

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who may not know the content as much or have the same lvl limitations they do

foggy anchor
# clear dock give me an example, if you can

Agility training method that's basically terrorbird racing (minus the dumb terrorbird costume) across the overworld map. Rewards increase exponentially, the faster you make your 'deliveries'. Multiple 'courses' available. Encourages players to learn how to use surge/escape/etc effectively. Encourages players to train agility in a way that isn't just 'do loser laps at agility courses' or 'buy silverhawks'.

clear dock
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whats the difference between this and wandering into a minigame

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like why is this better than being able to do PP from a low level

foggy anchor
#

Smithing interfaces akin to Ceremonial Sword Smithing that allow you to make swords faster than the AFK methods, with the manufactured sword scaling to a tier (ie: elder rune IV) based on how close to 'perfect' your sword is.

foggy anchor
#

ie: Dung is a minigame.

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Minigames take players away from the MMO experience, and say 'why are you playing RS when you could be playing a better version of this minigame?'

clear dock
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what you described with agi sounds like a minigame

foggy anchor
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if it's on the overworld? where you're racing past other players?

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exploring the main game world?

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how is that a minigame, if runecrafting isnt?

cobalt vapor
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i mean rc seems pretty seperate

clear dock
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are you just suggesting contracts but you're just running from 1 person to the next over and over?

cobalt vapor
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and isolated

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and could be viewed as a mini game too

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Whether it's runespan or u keep going to the same altar to make runes

clear dock
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i guess i dont see the issue with PP as a training method where you see people going into various Pyramids/tombs/castles etc to steal loot

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just because its in a more instanced area i dont see that as a bad thing

cobalt vapor
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I agree

clear dock
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BGH is isolated away from everyone, and you arent gonna convince me that thats a bad training method

cobalt vapor
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if anything place mini games more in the overworld ig

foggy anchor
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It's not inherently bad. I'm simply saying that funelling all new players to minigames as a means of playing the game at a non-shite exp rate is negligent to the overworld and main game experience

cobalt vapor
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Some used to be

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like stealign creation ig

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but they got moved to that grotto thing

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System wide instance liek cabbage punch bononza i say

clear dock
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the overworld method for thieving can just be Pickpocketing its ok if the overworld method is afk

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you can make that varlamore thieving and overworld thieving method i guess if you care to see people running past you etc

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but if theres a ton of people doing a skilling method in an instanced area, i think thats just as fine

foggy anchor
#

an overworld version of thieving would be more fun/engaging if you had to actively avoid being spotted by guards, break into NPC homes via windows or balconies, got 'tip-offs' for better loot elsewhere that you should investigate... standing in one place, pickpocketting farmers for hours on end is pretty pathetic gameplay. It's not fun. It's not immersive. It's not engaging. It's not rewarding. Yet if its the main theiving method you come across in your early, wiki-free journey... it's what you do, and Pyramid Plunder doesn't exactly fix the immersive gameplay experience, or make thieving feel like a fun/interesting skill later on.

#

Whereas overworld engaging gameplay? Easy to add 'random events' that are worth engaging with, that piggyback on engaging gameplay structures. ie: A shady Character standing near the lodestine in Varrock knows where some tasty loot is. Similar to a penguin Agent in loot value, and first-come, first-served, to the player who finds the loot chest in time.

Same for package deliveries. Same for sword smithing.

Similar strategies could be made for various skills.

clear dock
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if they can get the time to do all that then sure yh

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i still want untradeable/cosmetic rewards so that i personally have a reason to actually do skilling again

cobalt vapor
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I mean I get the whole overworld thing

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but mini games are already there, what's wrong with working on both mini games and overworld content or making both relevant to each other?

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If anything it would just give players more options and agency about how they go about the game

clear dock
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i will say the whole first-come first-served thing you mention if that was real, im not a fan

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competing for skilling resources has always been dogshit

cobalt vapor
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^ I agree, unless it's a legitimate competition which all parties agree to.

clear dock
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its also just annoying if youre more of an efficiency player

cobalt vapor
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I guess you could make great orb project an overworld thing

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and other mini games too and such

clear dock
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if you're looting a house and when you're done someone spawns and tells you about another house with more loot/xp thats ok

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but if its like wildy flash events

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id rather drink hotdog water

cobalt vapor
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I like wildy flash events, except they only happen every hr. It's liek you gotta drop everything you're doing if you wana do them

clear dock
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thats the worst part, which makes the whole content suck to me

cobalt vapor
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The special ones do a great job in bringing players together tho, the rest not so much. Speaks to the incentive one great reward has in content

cobalt vapor
# foggy anchor Minigames take players away from the MMO experience, and say 'why are you playin...

I mean couldn't an elite dungeon or Zuk be viewed as a mini game? You go through mobs and then fight a boss at the end. And you're confined to a specific area on your own or with 2 other people max. Seems like a lot of content could be viewed as a mini game.

If anything, mini games can bring players together more, if they're fun and have valuable rewards, just like raiding or a kbd flash event (flash events could be seen as a mini game too). In mini games players usually have to team up and/or strategize to reach a common goal. Mini games like Castle wars and soul wars use potions and familiars and such, so overworld resources are used in some mini games. If this is such an issue, I guess just make it so mini games use more overworld items. Like players own tools and gear.

#

.
.
I'm not saying mini games are perfect or that they should be meta for everything or that they should all be there, perhaps some mini games should be deleted, after some careful examination and thought, but throwing them all under the bus, seems to be a mistake, when people express joy for these mini games and in spite of their struggling circumstances, many still survive like Stealing creation for example

#

Mini games have so much potential as avenues for competitions, e-sports, and even bringing back the rs3 pvp scene. They can also serve as avenues for Lore. When I first started playing, Castle Wars was how I learned of Saradomin, Guthix, and Zamorak, and it was an awesome way to role play wars and battles. With this being said, Mini games can also be great avenues for role playing.

foggy anchor
# cobalt vapor I mean couldn't an elite dungeon or Zuk be viewed as a mini game? You go through...

Yes and no; combat, at least, allows for basically any item in the game to be brought to the area and used as you please. If raw fish were stackable or if a fishing spot was present, you could create fires and cook fish in boss areas.

But boss instancing kinda proves my point; you look at Wildy Wyrm and KBD wildy events... it's not as though their drops are disproportionately valuable, yet they are very, very social events on the overworld. Meanwhile, it doesn't matter how many players are fighting zammy/araxxor/etc, they may as well be playing a single player/two player game at the time. It's only really an MMO if you're interacting with other players in ways other than trading at the GE.

Massive Multiplayer Online...
Role Playing...
Game...

RS3 is one of the oldest examples of an MMORPG that's still running today, and yet current content rarely touches the roles of 'massive multiplayer' or 'role playing' or 'game'.

foggy anchor
# cobalt vapor Mini games have so much potential as avenues for competitions, e-sports, and eve...

Mini games have a ton of potential. The catch is that most competitive minigames are very, very difficult to host at a fair level.

Picture Fist of Guthix, for example: It quickly devolved into a game where the social etiquette was simply to let your opponent gain max charge, and then they'd let you gain max charge. It stopped being a game, as players found ways to exploit/maximize the no-investment-necessary aspect that defines most minigames.

The same carries over in some fashion to most PVP or competitive minigames, making any reward process very difficult to balance. Key strategy: pick an empty world/empty minigame lobby, bring a friend (or second account), abuse the system, repeat.

Overworld content in high population areas is comparatively resistant to that. If you come across a Penguin Agent at wars retreat and manage to click it before anyone else does; congratulations! you did a thing. If we applied that to engaging skilling DnDs in the overworld, similarly fair, positive mini-competitions could occur, with various forms of balancing applied (ie: first two 'winners' get 2x rewards, or similar). By breaking it out of an instance/minigame lobby, you dramatically reduce the reliability of any game-rigging efforts players might make.

Running that sort of content in a minigame requires either A. every half interested party to bank-stand at the minigame, or B. every minigame to broadcast into the massive spamfest that already is server broadcasts, game notifications, public chat, clan chat, etc.

Further, every minigame has so many restrictions against items/pets/etc that you basically have to bank your current loadout in order to engage (made 100x more difficult if there are unbankable objects in your inventory @delicate wave, please, please prioritize fixing this.) and, unless you've somehow saved a preset for every minigame, hand-pick appropriate items that are allowed to be brought in.

#

--
re: fixing unbankable items: just load the preset around them. Reject loading any item slot with an unbankable item in it, and load the rest. This is suuuch a frustration if you've an item you don't want to immediately discard/cannot immediately use, and you still want to play the game.

pale mural
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I think its important to focus on a certain scope of minigames. Just like the focus has been 110 skilling updates, I think if minigames do become something Jagex invests in, then they should focus on Skilling Minigames that have no combat. There might be a few exceptions to that but thats still a lot of minigames to focus on.

supple rampart
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If they want more engaging content and for that to be the enjoyable player experience they do need to stop locking them behind so much content. For penguin agents you need back to the freezer quest which is the last in a series for instance or the skilling bosses are behind long lines of quests.

#

To see the ghost penguin you need both penguin quests and some desert treasure

#

On taking over world tools into minigames, destiny did a thing where the single player guns were rebalanced for pvp, so you I think used the rate of fire and behavior but damage was rebalanced.

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So you could maybe do something like perks keep their affect but pickaxes are the same.

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I don't know if it makes sense for this game but dragons dogma 1 has mining rocks, and they're the same but give different materials, so like RS has gem rocks. Currently most of the content in game is a specific resource comes from the thing, you go to the thing and do the thing until you unlock the next thing. Maybe you can at least make a single skill be more random in what it produces and come across the "skill nodes" in a less predictable manner. Rather than having a level locked skilling path, it could be a resource locked skilling path. So with that game you upgrade things using things that come from lots of different places, if the RS skill had a big list of things to make and you got them in a more random and sporadic manner it would be more engaging. You couldn't just grind or meta to max. I wouldn't suggest locking other content behind this.

cobalt vapor
# foggy anchor Yes and no; combat, at least, allows for basically any item in the game to be br...

Yes and no? Yes, you're right, so there is a gray area, between mini games and combat. I think the possibility also exists with Skilling. I believe you can make fires in elite dungeons and cook there. At the very least the have bank chests and you can bank within the instance before or after a boss.

In Ed's you take in your gear and you take out drops, alchables, resources, and the big drop. Why can't the same happen with Skilling? I take my hatchet and leave the area with resources and a big drop. What's wrong with placing resources on mini games that players can take? It happens all the time with combat and Ed's.

It is an MMORPG and I argue that Mini games make for better role playing. I get your point about wildy events and instance bossing, and yet look at all the bosses in rs that are instanced and soloable, I don't understand why the same can't happen with Skilling, it already does with croesus and gate of elidinis. Elidinis is soloable content, so that argument about massive content doesn't make sense

cobalt vapor
# foggy anchor Mini games have a ton of potential. The catch is that most competitive minigames...

You're right about fairness in mini games and that's okay, that's why there should be options for players to go about the play style they desire. For competitive players there should be specific competitions and to make it more fair, players could be placed in tiers based on level to make it more fair since players would only face players around their lvl and similar gear.

And yes, mini games need improvements, no one will argue against that.

#

I could see the argument about Skilling not being able to be put into a bossing format, but the Jagex team is amazing and now we have 2 or 3(if u count bgh) Skilling bosses. I'm sure they can make it work

cobalt vapor
#

Stealing creation is an amazing example of how players come together to beat that specific mini game. Meant to be a team v team game, players from both teams work together to deplete the resources and everybody wins.

This actually happens in Castle Wars as well. The Castle Wars United friend's chat has developed a way in which just about everyone from both teams can get 2 gold tickets per game. These developments have happened because people came together to achieve a common goal in mini games. Now that's in spite of a lot of obstacles.

Now think of the possibilities if more effort was put to do content better than that, that facilitated working together for a common goal for awesome rewards.

pale mural
#

I honestly think its fine to have stuff locked behind quests. Penguin hunting is a massively rewarding system especially for Ironmans so it makes sense that it takes quite a bit of effort to unlock one of the best DnDs possible.

rose grove
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also only one penguin is locked behind it I think

kind flicker
#

6 penguin points per week are locked behind varying quests, like desert treasure for the ring of visibility, the bear, and the 11th penguin iirc

cobalt vapor
#

An awesome clannie of mine suggested using the Wingsuit to train agility

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I find the suggestion appealing

kind flicker
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Mod blkwitch said she never wants that to be reused, on the runefest panel hahah

pale mural
#

Ya im not as invested as using special items like wing suit or the diving gear and then having terrain that is built around it where it seems like you're training agility. We haven't really seen it be utilized as a core component of movement across RuneScape so I think it would be quite niche in its purpose.

rustic needle
#

My two gps worth are: active and engaging skilling content would be a welcome increase to make skilling feel like I am actually playing the game over I set my character to do something for several hours while not really paying attention to the game.

If someone wants to second monitor afk skill, the option would still be there for them. But if someone wants to play the game as a main monitor game there should be more active and attention requiring options with suitably more rewards and value for doing em. Skilling many times currently feels way too sluggish and a bit boring to really have a reason to sit there and look at a character chop wood, catch fish, mine ore, or etc.

When I play, I want to feel like I am playing the game. Not mostly afk idling while my character is catching fish.

heavy coral
#

So I missed the release of EOC but as a kid who was there for the start of runescape, back when men were men and you literally couldn't run or eat during combat for 3 attacks. The issue that crept in during runescape 2, and now runescape 3 is the game has continually taken away the multi-player aspects of what was once the best MMORPG.

You mention some of the big blunders like taking away free trade and taking away the wild. I see you understand these were popular for the player base but I don't know if Jagex fully understands why.

Back in the real classic days the wild had a lot in common with MOBA games like league of legends. You needed and wanted rangers, you needed and wanted mage. Pure accounts were very different and were new characters that were so much fun. I had a level 40 defense pure. Wearing rune armor (back when almost Noone could Smith it) a small army of random kids would chase me into the black knight castle where all my friends would log in and the blood bath would begin. You had tanks.. you had support.. you had a need to communicate and play together.

So while I was not there for EOC release. I'm willing to bet that chipped away at the soul of what this game used to be about. Playing with friends.

Old school runescape clearly understands this and it's THRIVING. No offense to the rs3 developers but old school is objectively the better game.

It's unfortunate as I feel like with some very simple updates both versions of runescape would be in top 5 MMORPGS right now.

Anyways I rambled. Interactive gameplay = playing with friends. Playing with friends = more fun. More fun = more people playing the game.

foggy anchor
heavy coral
#

A year and some change ago I think Azzandra answered a question on clan updates. It was the typical "well see" answer, but can you state if there is anything in work? Like I know you can't go into details and promises, but just are the systems being touched at all?

stray sonnet
#

Looking forward to Amascut though

#

Need more social encounters and ideally more group mechanics in the game

heavy coral
# stray sonnet Also a big supporter of group content but not sure if pking with friends is the ...

Pking was the first group activity in RuneScape. wait no i lied. the first group activity is that shield quest. Literally i remember the good ol days of helping people kill the vampire, or the big black demon haha. Back in the day everything was designed with the idea that you could or would do it with a friend.

Don't even get me started on the old school clan wars or Castle Wars release. 500+ people battling it out in the wild or the madness that was castle wars. haha good times! It's one the awesome draws of old school where that content is still alive.

foggy anchor
#

If OSRS offered any form of not starting completely from scratch for those of us who have played since well before 2007, I'd probably be playing it now... ... but sunk cost fallacy has me clinging to some corpse of hope that I still hold for RS3 to fix its core problems and get back to being a good game. I'm just not mentally prepared for starting from scratch in OSRS, while RS3 is maxed... but I've been having that thought for 12 years, so maybe it's past time I sucked it up and gave it a go...

near grove
#

You should do it, the early game is the best part

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especially if you haven't done it in nearly 20 years

#

and they're such different games, starting with progress would be like buying a new game and using someone else's save file that's halfway through the story
And it's worse than that because Runescape's a game very much about the journey than the destination

Even if you only carried over progress from 2007, you'd still be missing out on all the new stuff that's aimed at those lower levels

stray sonnet
#

I think castle wars is still active in RS3

rose grove
#

the early game is definitely better than the late game in osrs imo

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(tbh it probably is in rs3 too but it suffers from a serious lack of attention)

#

as for the playing with friends aspect, it's kind of chicken and egg

#

fwiw osrs 100% doesn't have loads of people just running around for mindless fun; its pvp has a major skill gap which is essentially the same reason pvp died post-EOC. actual group content is either super-casual masses or based around high-skill players carefully refining strats with little in between. there's def a greater chance of it happening due to the larger playerbase but it absolutely hasn't retained that magic any more than rs3 has imo

#

(though I agree it's the better game)

cobalt vapor
#

Just had another idea that expanded on my idea of agility katas and stretches. Perhaps practicing agility katas or stretches reduces a players run energy and energy boosting consumables like energy potions and stamina potions are required to afk them. Actively doing high level agility katas could have a lot of steps a player must perform correctly, at the right time to unlock the buff giving stretch, requiring energy consumables to complete them too.

foggy anchor
#

Nothin against that idea Zarudon, just think it's a far cry from what RS3 needs in order to make skilling interesting/fun again. I think I preferred (your?) suggestion of dodging things in a manner similar to the Araxxor fight, as at least that is thematically agile, whereas 'tai-chi' is doesn't train reaction time or speed in any way....

#

@delicate wave

In other news, this thread took off with much gusto, was met with quite a bit of positive involvement from the community on all fronts, with great discussion all around... but seems to have lost the attention of the founding JMod... is there another JMod we should be tagging/engaging with in this chat?

I'm honestly a little bit depressed that the thread had so much interest until a bunch of people basically agreed that OSRS is the better game, and that without any JMod support for this direction of RS3 development, it's long past time to jump to OSRS or another game entirely....

delicate wave
#

it's not a political campaign

#

My position at the start was "we're definitely aware that a lot of players are interested in this content, and we'll almost certainly add more content of this sort to the game in the future"

#

There are stronger positions like "passive content should never be added, all content should be active content" or "every skill needs active content" or "every tier of every skill needs (different) active content"

#

and those are fine opinions to hold, but largely fairly unrealistic

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I see my job as largely to do my best to explain why

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lots of people expressing excitement doesn't change the facts of the situation

#

discord is a place to discuss things, the largest discord thread doesn't even register in terms of stats

foggy anchor
#

I think you and I agreed previously it was engaging content that was lacking/missing the mark, and there was insufficient data/recorded community interest to support committing dev time to intricate/complex/resource-heavy engaging skilling content... While I can agree that 'campaigning' is not the correct turn of phrase, has this thread had an impact/expanded upon the available data pertaining to community interest?

delicate wave
#

hm

#

in the sense that it might allow me to better phrase a future survey question on the subject, yes

foggy anchor
#

It's certainly looked more engaged with by the community than the Havenhythe or PVM threads, though I recognize it is not a competition... but it has felt (perhaps incorrectly) as though much of our chatter in here has not been remarked on/observed by any JMods, and that therefore all the interest is, we would worry, going up in smoke for lack of JMod engagement

winged shale
delicate wave
#

the busiest this section (when it was design) has ever been was when we were talking about clues and when we were talking about skill pures

foggy anchor
#

Not that you all don't have plenty of more pressing responsibilities than responding to my constant nattering ^^;

delicate wave
#

I don't understand what statistical signififance you think the buzz on a discord thread has, I'm kinda confused by the whole question

foggy anchor
winged shale
#

if a dozen people inflating a discord post count was enough to dictate content policy then the lore community would have successfully campaigned for 15 quests a year

foggy anchor
# delicate wave I don't understand what statistical signififance you think the buzz on a discord...

That's fair. I guess we originally discussed that you had no data on interest for engaging skilling content from the community... and this thread is, presumably, your (short-term) answer to that. Having a thread that is not engaged with vs one that is heavily engaged with is... really all this short-term answer is capeable of providing, outside of the specific thoughts/language involved. We might be trying to measure the ocean with a teaspoon, but the fact that the teaspoon is relatively busy would infer that the ocean is bigger than a thimble....

delicate wave
#

no, the thread has nothing to do with data

foggy anchor
delicate wave
#

A place to argue the case that we should spend more time making active, engaging skilling content rather than passive or unengaging skilling content.

#

I'm interested in arguments that's what discord is good for

#

it's not a good place to gauge interest at all

#

it's super super misleading for that as dor min implies

#

only the most hardcore of the hardcore would ever speak here

#

so it's the most ludicrously slanted version of reality

#

arguments in the logic sense

#

not in the social yelling at each other sense

foggy anchor
#

That's fair, I guess the question then is, if players are making good arguments, in the relative mess that is discord, are they catching your/another JMod's attention? Or are we just talking amongst ourselves? You and I had an extensive conversation wherein you recurrently pointed out that what I thought were good arguments were not compatible with Jagex's needs, and so having JMod interaction is constructive if we're looking to help make utilizeable arguments for your end... rather than just tooting our own horns in the wind and calling it music

delicate wave
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from my POV you're thinking about it wrong

#

you're starting with a goal

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how do i get more of the type of content I want

#

and trying to figure out what to say to make that happen

#

but for me that's not the objective of the process at all

#

I want to know

#

what should we do for RS, what is best for the game / community as a whole

rose grove
#

15 quests a year sounds pretty swell

foggy anchor
#

Is it socially reasonable to assume that individual players without access to community data are able to argue for a majority we can only pretend to speak to, only to be met with the argument that we don't know what we're talking about?

delicate wave
#

if I thought that a higher proportion of engaging skilling content were best for the game as a whole I would be making arguments for it, because those arguments are what would have convinced me in the first place

foggy anchor
#

I think the only reasonable arguments we can expect players to make is for what they want as individuals, short of us taking it upon ourselves to conduct surveys/manufacture campaigns (project combat) and petition Jagex's support after we've done the work

delicate wave
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our job is to work together to make the game the best it can be

#

well

#

it's my job, it's not your job obviously, in that you don't have to participate if you don't want to

#

(technically I don't have to participate in this way either but I think it's a good idea)

delicate wave
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I don't think of it as adversarial

#

but in a sense it is, in that I have what I believe are coherent arguments for positions

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if someone can demonstrate to me that my reasoning is wrong, I will change my mind because I don't want to be wrong

#

short of that, the best I think a player can do is describe as compellingly as possible what they want

foggy anchor
#

Historically there have been many players who have chosen to participate/volunteer their time, and have done (from a community perspective) great jobs at what they've attempted to contribute to the community and to the game... With the full understanding that Jagex can never make promises to create content sought by these approaches, is there any approach that would be more constructive for players who did want to 'campaign' / 'suggest' / 'pitch' content, and seek community support, in a constructive manner?

delicate wave
#

what i object to are arguments which sound like arguments from data or from a business plan but which don't actually include those elements

#

I did a whole stream on this a couple of years ago but it seems to not have been uploaded

#

the analogy I used was of meeting james gunn in an elevator

#

what are you going to say to him? how are you going to convince him that what DC really ought to do is make a whole movie series about martian manhunter?

#

(it's also worth emphasising that just because I believe something doesn't mean it will happen anyway, so it's not just about convincing me, it's about convincing me I need to convince others, which is an even higher bar)

#

"is there another jmod we could speak to instead" feels to me like a bit of a misunderstanding of the relationship

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I'm here in the evening in my own free time because I think that direct community engagement is a good way to be better informed about the game

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in terms of being here specifically to listen to what players have to say and report it back, that's CM's job, which they do

foggy anchor
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Basically I would have to suggest to James Gunn that he drop into a facebook/discord group of fans of Martian Manhunter (perhaps on an alt account) and gauge interest from that community. Then he could drop into a bigger DC group and do the same. He could collect data on MM comic sales. He could poll data on other, similar franchises/stories and reflect on their successes/struggles. But at no point could I, as a single fan, compel JG to do an MM movie, if he weren't already looking for that input

delicate wave
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But at no point could I, as a single fan, compel JG to do an MM movie, if he weren't already looking for that input

foggy anchor
delicate wave
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right

delicate wave
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if I'm focusing on a specific question I will ask about it but otherwise I just join in when I happen to notice something that catches my attentio

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(usually either an explicit question or implicit statement that contradicts somethign I know which I think people will be interested to know)

foggy anchor
# delicate wave right

So hopefully now we've got you looking for that input. And hopefully the input you're looking for isn't limited to discord/etc. And hopefully that input isn't limited to questions that are basically confirmation-bias in the sense that the game has little or no good engaging skilling content, so using RS3 or its players as a measuring stick is going to result in false negatives.

delicate wave
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like consider an alternative hypothesis to yours

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I get told a lot that RS would easily be much more successful if it focused on PVP

foggy anchor
delicate wave
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the arguments are essentially identical to the arguments you're making, emphasising the logic of engaging content, comparison to very successful games that have that emphasis, examples from RS history which show the potential, etc

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and my response is also largely the same

foggy anchor
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Apologies, I gotta run in a moment here; got an appointment of sorts to get to; but will happily return to this conversation later on

delicate wave
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to the best of my ability to determine, focusing on PVP would not be a good strategy

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my "objective" in the conversation, if you want to label it so formally, is simply to explain why I believe something different

foggy anchor
delicate wave
#

this is valuable for a few reasons - it might educate them, it might expose a flaw in my thinking which can be corrected, it might simply be of interest to onlookers

foggy anchor
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building a good foundation, in any game, leads to emergent gameplay. RS3 has lost that foundation.... and so we've lost the gameplay

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aight, Wife's dragging me away, will catch up more later, sorry for 'nagging n running' 😛

wooden dock
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Are there any particular learnings about recent active skilling you can share?

Like Gate of Elidinis

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Or the scripture of elidinis, necromancy ritual disturbances

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Eternal magics

cobalt vapor
# foggy anchor Nothin against that idea Zarudon, just think it's a far cry from what RS3 needs ...

Well Agility encompasses many things, it's not just about having quick reflexes or speed, it's also about being flexible, having proper breathing techniques, just practicing a various number of movements, and more. All of these things are important for agile activities, whether it's running, dodging, or traversing through difficult obstacles. Flexibility and proper breathing is just as important as reaction time. All of these things imo encompass being agile or agility.

I think that the best way to approach gameplay is to offer options as to how players go about content. Therefore every piece of content, whether it's bossing, combat, or every skill, should have afk, active, and very active options for gameplay. Agility should be no exception.

Of course those that demand more out of a player should reward more.

So while you say that stretches or Katas don't have to do with reaction time or speed, they still encompass things that have to do with agility. This being flexibility and body movements, these are important for being agile, and I would say that that they are important for speed and reaction time, just as much as having proper breathing technique is.

#

Agility needs proper afk activity methods, just as much as it needs active methods. All skills do.

The caveat is that those that demand more give their fair share in gp or XP. People use the abomination of silverhawks because agility training is grindy as heck and rewards like 200k XP an hr at best. That is atrocious. Of course active content should be engaging too

stray sonnet
#

Personally I don't see the potential in the game if a large portion of it isn't entertaining to play by itself

stray sonnet
foggy anchor
# delicate wave what should we do for RS, what is best for the game / community as a whole

@delicate wave Agreed. Good, fun, engaging, entertaining, balanced gameplay = Good Game Health. Good game health begets good community health. Ergo, fun/engaging/rewarding/balancing skilling content is good for the community as a whole, and its lack is what I see as missing from RS3, and the negative impact on the community as a whole is exactly why I'm talking to you about it. You've inferred multiple times that I'm going about this backwards; 'This is the content I want, how can I get it?' But I would articulate the contrary: This is the content the game needs. This is the content the game was built on. This is the content that has been oppressed into oblivion by over a decade of PVP-centric updates.

If it were just about what I wanted to play, I'd just go play another game. Probably mod Skyrim for the 17th time, or something. But for some dumb reason, I would like to see RS3 survive, nay, thrive again, and this is the only way that makes a spec of sense to me.

Runescape/our conversation in its current form feels a bit like feeding children. You might only ever hear that your kids want Chips (crisps) or Cake or Ice Cream, so you force them to eat their veggies in the form of recooked peas and carrots before they can have desert, and call that nutrition. If, instead, you provided fresh vegetables or alternatives that actually taste good, your kids are more likely to eat vegetables willingly and lead healthier lives, while craving less junk food (short-term content).

In this scenario, it keeps feeling, rather strangely, as though we're expressing an interest in fresh carrots and broccoli, and being told that most kids don't like carrots or broccoli; most kids like chips (crisps) and cheese puffs, which are cheaper/easier to produce... while many of the remaining kids are showing signs of scurvy.

foggy anchor
#

We've talked circles around the subject multiple times, and while we've spoken at length about short term popular content vs long term successful content, or what becomes essentially single-use content... I'm not sure I've gotten your opinion on what constitutes good game health, aside from general agreements with my assumptions/theories...

I would suggest breaking this down into these categories (perhaps to be expanded upon). You discussed intrinsic/extrinsic reasons to play; these topics cover the mixture/balance of both:

-Category Engagement (Skilling/PVM/Social/Questing/Minigames/PVP)
-Economy (Balance, accessibility, stability, value)
-Player Loyalty (Attraction, identity, retainment)
-Player Skill (Aproachability, Competitiveness, Skill-sharing, Goal-setting, Exceptionalism)

I would suggest that Category Engagement not be defined by hours logged in at an activity, so much as number of clicks, decisions, or eyes-on-screen time. AFK content receiving a high score in this category would be indicative of poor data collection strategies.

Economically speaking, RS3 suffers from poor balance, poor accessibility, meh stability, but maybe decent value. What I mean by this is that a newish player will see the costs of most high-level gear as unattainable. Early game profit rates (through conventional gameplay methods) result in abysmally poor gp rates, compared to wiki-bound tasks such as shop-runs, or other hard-to-discover niche tasks. Moreover, but the time a player reaches their economic goal, the goalposts will have shifted, often considerably, in one direction or the other. But at least the wealth that can be attained towards end game can't be easily won by throwing $5 at a loot crate.

#

--

Player attraction and retention seems to be a longstanding weakspot of RS3. A new entry-level update might get a player into the game for a few hours, and your metrics might demonstrate that retention is easier than attraction.... but once they stumble into the wasteland of old, unbalanced, or AFK content, there's little incentive to continue engaging with the game. A meaningful sense of identity is often a core retention strategy for other games, but while RS3 has the infrastructure to allow choice, it leans heavily into the idea that all players should engage with all content (if in a different order), and functionally penalizes anyone who wants to walk their own path by restricting content behind quest walls and unbalanced economical gains. It is very hard to identify with the role of 'the one and only world guardian' in a GE full of hundreds of other 'world guardians'. Jagex invented the 'signature heroes' to inspire players, demonstrating other adventurers on a choose-your-journey path, while simultaneously forcing us to choose all journeys, make all things, kill all manner of sentient creatures, steal all seeds, breadstuffs, and bling.

Meanwhile it's nigh impossible for new players to become properly 'good' at anything. Skills, and other activities require zero player skill to engage with, have little to no meaningful downside in a lack of skill, and reward very little for any improvement. Combat meanwhile has a nearly inaccessible barrier to entry in the form of equipment and ability costs (not to mention 120 Herblore), and combat proficiency (ability use/management) has no meaningful benefit before end-game bosses. Every YouTube video about RS3 exceptionalism is about end-game PVM. Almost every 'training' video is about PVM. Competitiveness in skilling Exp is no longer a thing, so we're left to take pride in about wealth acquired from merching or PVM.

#

--
None of this represents a healthy, balanced game experience, and I cannot imagine how it can be perceived as anything but exclusively negative as it pertains to the onboarding experience.

Unless the current goal of RS3's Dev Team is to stop growing the community, and string out the existing player base a few more years while more and more swap to OSRS or quit, these things need to be fixed. They needed to be fixed 10 years ago.

cobalt vapor
#

Y'know I really like the lil April Fools agility event thing. It's very similar to what I'm suggesting for agility stretches and katas. Seems a lot of people are enjoying it too. Just add more movements, maybe be more clear with when to switch movements with more visuals, nice rewards, maybe have different timings as to when a player must do another movement, and I think an energy draining mechanic at least for higher lvl stretches would help give more use for stamina potions.

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I think it's awesome! and it makes for complete afk or fair engaging content. I could also see their being different tutors or masters to guide players in different cities and areas. I could certainly see someone from the death lotus being a master or something. Maybe even one of the tortles from the tortle mini quest

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If at least a city races or agility delivery system could be implemented too, I think that would be awesome for the skill

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I know the environment/mountain/volcano/forest and more agility ability stuff is more ambitious, but I really hope it's considered.

foggy anchor
# cobalt vapor Y'know I really like the lil April Fools agility event thing. It's very similar ...

Conversely, I find it passable as an AFK method with an active opt-in, but definitely not engaging in any way. No player agency. No skill identity. No endorphin rush on a drop or any kind of success. No possibility of failure.

This activity does not meet the definition of engaging, but I'm down for having a non-silver-hawks AFK option for training agility. My priority, however, remains good, engaging gameplay, for the health of the game.

#

Public in-game opinion of the event

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That one was unsolicited; just thrown at me when I showed up.

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Thissun I asked for:

cobalt vapor
#

Player agency comes in giving players choices as to how they go about gameplay

foggy anchor
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I'm totally in agreement that we should have both. I'm simply observing that we already have content like this, in basically every skill... we don't really need more of it, and it's not 'popular' in the sense that players enjoy it for prolonged periods. Or even for short periods, in many cases...

cobalt vapor
foggy anchor
cobalt vapor
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I suppose they could do that yeah

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Tbh I wouldnt be opposed to that

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tho, I would like for those methods to be expanded more than for the caps to just be removed

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ig make them more in line with the riding thing and more

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good rewards too

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like stretch boosting buffs or something else

foggy anchor
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I'm not against the idea, in principal, of more... just that Mod Jack was very vocal about dev time being hard to prioritize for skilling to begin with. I'd hate to see more dev time go towards creating more redundant/duplicate afk-ish content

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as the preferable alternative would be to create some great, engaging skilling content

cobalt vapor
#

I can see your point, Jagex only has only so many devs and they're already working on other projects. I think given the time tho, they can expand from the riding thing or prif thing. But yeah, I do thing that active agility content would be very rewarding for development

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agility itself is something that is very exciting and it easily lends itself to survivability and resource gathering

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as well as reaction time

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so the potential for making exciting and engaging content is def there

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Instead of working a on future boss, I would say making an agility skilling boss or something could be promising and something different

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perhaps there is a very dangerous area in the desert that is extremely hot and the boost u get fromt hat one quest doesnt work

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so u need to take water, there are also dangerous dust storms which damage you

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your energy drains quickly

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there are quick sand pits

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and at the end u reach an oasis

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this holds a rare plant which is used for anything

foggy anchor
cobalt vapor
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Well the problem with obstable courses is they seem to have no point than to just train agility

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yeah

foggy anchor
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It kinda just clicked in my mind that most engaging skilling activities would likely be best served by requiring/training two different skills.... ie: theiving and agility in a city works well, for immersion, etc. And agility courses lack that extra 'pull' of a reason for doing loser laps aside from the exp.

So you could combine basically any gathering skill and some sort of support skill to make for interesting, engaging gameplay?

cobalt vapor
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Yeah, I think that makes sense

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I think pyramid plunder kinda did that

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But i also think there's a lot to learn from the gate of elidinis and nakatra dung gameplay

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perhaps there arent waves of energy

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but maybe are there waves of sand

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and if u dont move at the right time

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u sink into the sand

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and this slows you down

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it also drains ur run energy

foggy anchor
#

mechanics of that nature are, effectively, routed less in the visuals and more in the sense of time/timing. You don't need a Sanctum of Rebirth style telegraphing in every engaging skilling activity... you can place explosives in a rock wall and have to surge away before it goes off and damages you. You can light a fuse and have to outrun it. You can have a loot at a destination for a certain timeframe, and require routefinding across multiple paths in a 'maze' to get the best reward.

cobalt vapor
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Maybe the sandstorms damage you

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and u gotta use an agiltiy ability to reduce the effects of the sandstorm

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I mean there are also possible effects to food

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was a while ago but the swamps of mort would rot food

foggy anchor
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but yes, in general, engaging content is encouraged towards remaining active by applying some form of urgency to the activity. Ideally, some sense of danger, where appropriate, makes sense as well.

Whereas BGH... I literally have taken a nap while hiding in the grass before. While gigantic carnivorous dinosaurs don't attack me or crush me, they just keep walking in circles.

cobalt vapor
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Tbh the environment rotting ur food wasnt a bad mechanic

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it could punish the player for being slow

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Maybe in top of mountains or really cold weathers

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ur good freezes

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and cant eat it

foggy anchor
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depends on the context; if you don't need food, the food doesn't matter. If you do need food, it's just an incentive to hurry up. Rotting food is one of hundreds of ways to do it, and doesn't automatically warrant repeating, without an immersive reason for it

cobalt vapor
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this would make it so u have to rely more

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on certain abilities

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that could apply more to agility

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making it more a survival thing

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Well yeah

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the point of food evntually freezing or rotting

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is that u do need it on some way

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when u do the content

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and yknow what happens to potions?

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they freeze

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or they evaporate

foggy anchor
#

Picturing mining/firemaking in a underground cave-maze...

cobalt vapor
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so u cant drink potions cause they evaporate or freeze

foggy anchor
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ack, gotta run, Wife needs me to drive her to a doctor's appointment

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will catch up again later

cobalt vapor
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maybe u can eat rotten food

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and mayeb u even have to

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but it will apply debuffs

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tend to your queen king

cobalt vapor
#

So yeah, environment killing ur food and potions

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so u better hurry up or its gonna kill u 2

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or i guess they could tele out

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but then no reward wuzzzup

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Maybe

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in the desert

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u can start hallucinating

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and it could possibly change how u see things or even give like a slow time view like in the qbd fight

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Or maybe there are gasses

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in the environment

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which players could inhale that do this too

cobalt vapor
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ooooo maybe some hallucinations could make you see double and trick you into seeing multime obtacles or traps

foggy anchor
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Hallucinations would be an interesting mechanic for the desert... Sounds more like Divination and Constitution training, than agility training though

potent rose
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[[Hallucinogenic]] perk BiS for the desert

slate coralBOT
foggy anchor
#

Amazing how the devs have historically found time to create 'easter eggs' like that... makes me worry that the present RS3 dev team is very, very small indeed...

stoic forge
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This new AF Agility method is more fun than laps.

strong patio
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If surge/escape and dive gave agi xp we'd all get 99 passively and it would make a lot of sense

hollow herald
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They do, when u wear silverhawks.
And it's true

cobalt vapor
#

Thought of a bit more of possible mechanics for like a desert environment boss or whatever besides sandstorms, quicksand, sandwaves that knock you down, rotting food, evaporating potions, hallucinations, and of course the damage of the heat itself and it possibly draining energy, there could also be whirlwinds that knock you down and these could also knock your weapons into your backpack or items out of your backpack such as food like the chaos elemental does

cobalt vapor
hollow herald
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Sandy whirlwinds can basically just be an overworld desert thing that are like hm kree's whirlwinds

cobalt vapor
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Yeah! I think that's a great idea. Hallucination could make you see extra whirlwinds. Had forgotten that whirlwinds already exist in game with kree'ara. That does sound like fun dnd. I do think we already have too many of those tho, notably if it's in the style of wildy events. I would prefer to see this as being part of a replayable area. Tbh, they could even divide this into 2 sections. First area is desert, the 2nd area is swamp, and then u reach an oasis. There's already an area like this east of Soph. They could make this new content there or maybe somewhere else in the desert area

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Tho sandstorms throughout the entire desert and such do make sense

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would make certain areas more lively

hollow herald
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Roaming packs of camels / wolves

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Sand pits that work like the puro puro grain circles, but u end up in like an antlion pit

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Which is lion sized ants

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Clearly

cobalt vapor
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Yeah, the desert is vast and it makes sense that it be dangerous. I do wonder how many people would react if some of these changes would happen throughout the desert notably once you cross the shantay pass. It makes sense right? It's supposed to be dangerous, but now there a lot of players who have gotten used to a safe desert notably when penguin hunting. I question this because I would honestly like to see some of this happen and it would make sense for it to be through the desert

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I mean i suppose an instance could be created at shantay pass?

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i suppose there could also be routes made that are safe that lead to other safe desert areas and cities and penguins are made not to roam the dangerous desert area

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I think an instance or a new area where all this happens in the desert might be the best solution, not sure

cobalt vapor
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y'know I was going through the ice path near trollheim today and this could really work as a fun agility training method. Going through it my stats were going down. Energy was going to 0. Walking on the ice path already gave agility xp. I think there is great opportunity to improve this area. It isn't used at all after the quest and an extra path could be added that leads to some rare plant that only grows there. There could hail, frozen food and potions mechanics, snow traps that sink the player, add whirlwinds, make an agility ability that you can use to charge and break ice or snow with to clear areas. There could be possibility of snow avalanches the player has to out run, maybe this activates a darkness path rax mechanic where the player has pick where to jump/dive to dodge it, jumping ledges, climbing to higher areas

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I really liked the flow and it made me feel liek there was danger.

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I think there's room to expand it

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The same could be said about the wilderness volcano

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or possibly even the volcano in karamja

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The whole area of Trollheim lends itself to the possibility of fun and engaging agility content really

cobalt vapor
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You can even expand the whole darkness rax dodge mechanic and make it so it's more than just once, maybe make it four times in a row or so, this could add some fluidity to the content. Another thing that would be neat is a concept of a "big jump" where the player has to tap the space bar or click a certain amount of times to charge a jump

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There could also be extra action button mechanics

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where certain actions a player does or obstacles succesfully completed charge the extra action button

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when fully charged the player can press it to do some crazy agility move that bypasses some obstacles quicky

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I also thing that barging or charging against weak ice walls or snow boulders to break or push them is something that could be really cool

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A frozen section that changes obstacles would be really cool too

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when i say frozen, i mean like a frozen body of water in which a player slides like in the frozen daemonhiem floors

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there could be weak spots in the ice and the player could fall

kind flicker
#

It's pretty clear that we are moving farther from pvp. Like trying to be good at too many things is thinning a product.
#1352428784325886013 message

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Like helldivers doesnt have a pvp mode, and it's all the better for it

cobalt vapor
kind flicker
#

Tbh i am not open to be convinced. Pvp bad, Pvp waste of dev time. If anything, remove the pvp entirely.

cobalt vapor
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I think devs will mostly focus on, I don't mean to be rude but on what is safe and that is what mostly seems to work atm, rn of couse working on pvp would pose a risk, personally i think it's a worth it

cobalt vapor
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I just want the game to be the best it can be

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and i can see some potential in growing pvp even if a bit

kind flicker
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Me too, and the best it can be excludes pvp, in my vision.

cobalt vapor
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Yeah, other people have visions too tho

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Tbh, im ignoring mine. I like pvp but not that much, but i know other ppl who are more dedicated than me love it

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in the current game and elsewhere

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and rn it sucks

kind flicker
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Well like, if mod Jack thinks doing PVP is misguided, and said so publicly last week, you're clearly going against the current of the river, yknow

cobalt vapor
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for the current ppl that love it and for those that could be brought in if it were better

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I dont mind going against the river

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that's fine

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As players we gotta advocate for what we believe is best for the game too for current players and for future ones too even if it doesnt seem to going in that way

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I just care about the game and want it to be the best it can be

pale mural
#

I think PvP has a place in the game but I don't think its a project the RS3 Jmod team can tackle atm. Theres little to no benefits for game health atm if it began redevelopment as a core piece of content development.

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I also think the problem with PvP was that people don't like the concept of the Wilderness as a normal player. PvP was extremely popular in late RS2 and early RS3 with all the minigame PvP content but eventually with minigames losing their design purposes due to various reasons, people stopped doing that healthy form of PvP.

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Either way thats why I still Skilling Minigames are what I think is best for engaging skilling content since they already have great mechanical gameplay. Its just that they dont have a reward space of why would you interact with most of this content present day

hollow herald
#

Bit of a weird question, but what is the benefit of divination potions once you have 99 / 120 div?

delicate wave
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I think there needs to be room for experimentation

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but there has to be a majority baseline which is safe and works

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that's what our players want

kind flicker
hollow herald
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Is it faster?

kind flicker
#

I think yeah, its similar to boosting woodcutting i'd say?

supple rampart
#

What is the core gameplay of the product supposed to be anywho?

surreal bolt
#

I'll briefly chime in on the pvp discussion.

I don't think Jagex should devote a massive amount of resources to work on PvP until enough interest within the community has been established. But this does not mean PvP should be neglected or ignored. Jagex should incoproate slight tweaks, balance changes, or creative system changes (safe PvP). This can be done over a long period of time.

Also for clarity, PvP is not Pking. Pking is just griefing, and whilst there can be content designed around that concept, I don't think it can be properly balanced until PvP issues are resolved. Confusing the two is partly why PvP died off in Runescape.

cobalt vapor
# delicate wave I think this is basically correct

Thank you for affirming this thought Mod Jack. I agree and understand that there are only so many devs, resources, and time for content and of course things will take priority over others. I thought you would agree, and it seems you do agree that there also needs to be constant experimentation on new types of content. Continuing to provide things that have proved successful for players and working on new things are both important for the game. I'm glad the Jagex team went on with creating skilling bosses, that in itself posed a risk as seeing both skilling and bossing together can seem confusing in the minds of many and many would view them as polar opposites. I do think the game is better now that there are skilling bosses as content.

Like Rubic states, I also think that part of the problem with pvp in the minds of many rs3 players is that whenever they think of pvp it is associated with pking, griefing, high risk, and unfortunately luring; thus other avenues for safe, consensual pvp may not be what they first think of. And that's understandable giving the history of pvp in rs3. Unfortunately luring can still happen and probably still does. I do think that the current opt in/opt off high risk wilderness pvp needs to end (as well as red portal), asap, as it's probably mostly used for luring. I do think that most rs3 players will consider that old era of high risk wilderness pvp to be over, and are probably glad it is.

With that being said, I would like to think that most players would be accepting of safe avenues for pvp such as in mini games. And I do think we should keep an open mind with these possibilities as the potential for safe and fun content is there. So I do hope that the Jagex team does look into this even at least in a small experimental way, I do think it could be very rewarding for the game.

kind flicker
#

scratch all of that wordsmithing. I was in voice and midway through typing my friend said
"pvp players are the least valuable crowd, they are the most toxic/bigotted/griefing type of gamers... Do you want all the slurs and toxicity you get called in <your choice of pvp game> in your RS3? i dont!"

~~I think you'd garner a lot more support in your approach if you dropped "make pvp better" and instead focused on pvp minigames. Because currently those minigames are not fun. Partly because a high % of players are literally afking for thaler or achievements and intentionally not playing the minigame at all.
Making pvp more fun/balanced/wtv would not make people play more castle wars, since castle wars is just afk city.
To revive a form of safe pvp, it either has to be fun/balanced enough to be its own attraction (now competing with shooters, RTS, MOBAs, fighting games, tabletops/boardgames, racing games)
or rewarding enough to be engaged with despite not being fun/balanced enough (matches will be rigged, or min-maxed to all hell)

Because if you have to have X item/upgrades/lvl/time spent/etc on your account to be competitive, then you are "playing a minigame within runescape" and if you don't need anything and it's just skill based, you are "not even playing runescape at all, and you can probably find more enjoyable experiences in games architected from the ground up to be a compelling/fun/rewarding/challenging PVP experience

I think the venn diagram of people that play MMOs and people that want PVP is just not a huge intersect.
And at the end of the day, if I want fun pvp, why don't i just boot up fall guys or mario kart? Or if i want challenging pvp, why dont i boot up LoL/Dota? Or Rivals/CSGO/Overwatch/Rainbow siege?
Those games are built on engines and by teams that specialize in this genre. Which allows for way better mechanical depth and deeper systems
~~

cobalt vapor
kind flicker
#

But you don't have to look at that toxicity. You can just solo pvm. When it's pvp, you're faced with the opponent constantly.

cobalt vapor
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yes and no. Group content for example can be very toxic, liek raids, aod, and such

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even sus and such

kind flicker
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Okay, so more of that is the goal? 🙂

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I'm being snarky now, I'll stop. But man, the idea of losing from full HP cuz buddy stalled his chaos roar meteor into double gmaul spec and being told "sit" does not inspire good feelings

cobalt vapor
kind flicker
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Too much toxic, too many better alternatives, not enough time in a day, not enough interest in the content. I don;t have anything else to add for now.

cobalt vapor
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I do see your point and I think it's a good one to bring up. Since you are going against other players it can be seen as to how this would bring griefing against other players. Rs3 is an mmo and mmos are played with other people, unfortunately in any scenario in which you encounter people, they will vary in temperaments, beliefs, and such, doesn't matter where, it could happen if you're in a boxing match, or even at the dinner table with your own family. Conflict may arise for whatever reason. I know there is a lot solo content, but there also many benefits of content that involves other people whether it's group activites or pvp. Pvp could be anything from a chess game with another person to fighting each other with characters, the basis is basically the same. Two things can be true at once and even tho intereactions and competitions with other people can be negative, i think there is overall more positive

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There are many ways to go about game content such as skilling and bossing, but unfortunately the ones for pvp aren't very good. I think one of the great things about mmos and even more so rs3 in that there are plenty of ways as to how you can go about gameplay, whether it's solo eds or group aod, or just skill and chill, but once again that pvp aspect is lacking for those who would like engage in pvp activities whether it's who can gather more wood per round or play a game cwars. That's something that can potentially bring more players if it is done in a safe and fair way. Players can still choose how they go about the game, just like how I mostly do clue scrolls, tho sometimes i do pvm. Just because there is something else, doesn't necessarily diminish everything else.

opal vapor
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The agility skill could get a navigation mode similar to how google maps tells you " you have reached your destination" but instead comes with a twist to assist players on clue scroll hunts or discovering lore related to old quests.

For example, head southwest to the home of Summer.

heavy coral
# delicate wave what should we do for RS, what is best for the game / community as a whole

You could start by improving clans.

Most long term clans have things like Bingos and other silly competitions. Something that would require very little effort on Jagexes part but would provide 1000s of hours of engaging content for the community by the community.

Make a simple bingo card. Individual can customize it to be 2x2 up to 10x10 with required drops.

All jagex would have to do is make it so that the bingo card could be assigned to a player and preferably multiple players. If it could only be assigned to 1 player. Make it so players on a team could use their bingo cards on each other to share drop progress.

The best part about this is you give the community the tools to make content and a the community will go wild.

heavy coral
# foggy anchor -- Player attraction and retention seems to be a longstanding weakspot of RS3. ...

So I love the saying the problem is not the problem. The problem is Jagexes attitude about the problem.

Old school runescape arguably has the same problem as RS3...and yet old school runescape is in the top 5 MMORPGS. The difference between old-school and rs3 is less about the content and more about the lack of players and social elements.

Think back when you were a low level. How many quests did your friend go Hey you need to go here to kill the vampire! Or there's this cool house with a ball that gives you tons of xp. I think literally every quest I had friends to do them with.

I joined an old-school group iron man last year. You know what we did together? Quests. Chopping trees, catching shrimp. There is so much content to do with friends in old school.

Winter daddy might not be the most engaging boss but it's fun because of who your with. On the flip side temeporos might be to engaging but it's hilarious to watch h your friends wash away.

Outside of croesus there is almost nothing you can do with a new player that doesn't feel bad on your main. Why is that? Osrs does not have this problem.

Raids, rat king, new islands, hopefully sailing. Everything in old-school is just ripe with the power of friendship.

heavy coral
# pale mural I think PvP has a place in the game but I don't think its a project the RS3 Jmod...

I would strongly disagree with the little to no benefits despite not having pked in over 6 years.

I will say I 100% agree that the wild as it existed in rs3 was terrible for the game. I remembered stepping into the wild and literally getting 1 shot. That scarred me haha.

However, castle wars, soul wars, clan wars.... when PVP is established as a baseline and both parties are engaged then PVP is great. When the wild was created in the OG runescape the entire game existed to get players into the wild. It literally contained the best drops in the game and the only place to fight things like lesser demons and green dragons. It was amazing!!! However if you wanted to fight the only dragons in the game you had to fight off other players who wanted the same thing. The wild existed as a place you go after smiting your Mikhail armor and fishing your trout. It was a battle ground for good xp and fast drops.

In rs3 this is just not the case. The threat system was honestly really amazing and it sucks that hourly events were seen as more valuable.

stoic forge
stray sonnet
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For sure, it's also nice that dung has a lot of floors in f2p

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Sum early group content

cobalt vapor
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I think it be interesting to see a take on Temple Trekking and the Mortyania swamp as a Skilling boss. The whole dynamic of guiding someone and protecting them while trying to survive the perils of the swamp sounds like it could be fun.

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I'd say a revamp on Temple Trekking and making that into a skilling boss could be interesting

hollow herald
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Fishing trawler is a skilling boss.

kind flicker
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Irons cant even play Trawler hahah

foggy anchor
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@cobalt vapor just a small thought that occurred to me the other day: Rather than simply removing the cap(s) from existing agility AFK, introduce an item (ie: a potion, where components are acquirable from another skill's content) that resets the cap. This introduces an economy around the skill, which is very much a lacking point in much of RS3 game balancing at present.

cobalt vapor
# foggy anchor <@477942756099227676> just a small thought that occurred to me the other day: Ra...

So you make a potion maybe made from a herb, maybe a rare mushroom, or sus ingredients and such and that resets the cap of Hefin serenity stones and/or the cycling from Sent? I think that would help and would certainly be welcomed by players. It would help stimulate some of rs economy like you said. I do still think that agility needs something that could help add to its identity that is better established and the best way to probably do that is with a new agility training method that reveals itself more and adds on more content (like buffs) as the player progresses through agility levels; that of course lends itself to the options of it being afk or active. Thus, I would see this more as an interim thing, in hopes that something better is added in the future.

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I think the function of components from other skills helping other skills is very good, and I really like your suggestion. Helps add synergy with all of runescape's skills and I think that's important too

heavy coral
# cobalt vapor So you make a potion maybe made from a herb, maybe a rare mushroom, or sus ingre...

So something that is very awesome is rooftop agility in old school.

It's fun to do, rewards are nice, and it makes the game feel more alive seeing people running around the city jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

I know this doesn't really touch much on your agility point but in RS3 agility suffers from the same problem as dungeoneering where it only exists in "this 1 spot" and is non existent in 99.99% of the game. Honestly it's a skill you forget even exists after awhile.

Like I honestly don't remember how many years it's been since I've seen an agility obstacle in rs3 or ran out of energy or interacted with agility in any way shape or form.

cobalt vapor
# heavy coral So something that is very awesome is rooftop agility in old school. It's fun t...

I haven't touched osrs in a long time, but I have heard good things about rooftop agility. You make a good point about things being stuck to one place. One of the problems I do see with agility courses is that they only seem to exist to train agility. I think there is benefit if content serves some purpose other than just training per se. This is why I would prefer if agility training was at least more in the lines of a delivery system, or a race, or some sort of escape, or journey to reach some valuable rare resource. I do think the delivery and racing scenarios lend themselves quite well to agility training in cities ( I guess even sneaking into a castle and stealing something does too). Another problem that I do think exists with current agility courses is that most seem to disrupt a flow or have a lack of flow. It seems that a lot of obstacles slow down our characters which changes any flow we may have had while zooming around with surge and dive for example. And it makes sense since many were created before surge and dive. I think if obstacles were to be added, they should be done so in a way that does not disrupt this flow or at the very least minimizes the disruption as much as possible, if possible.

cobalt vapor
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I think an agility activity which is afk, but drains ur energy, and thus requires stamina potions to afk could be a good option

heavy coral
# cobalt vapor I haven't touched osrs in a long time, but I have heard good things about roofto...

Yea if power creep wasn't already so rampant in RS3 I would love to see it tie into a double hit chance or dodge change, or some other thing where you did "x" fast. I think that might exist with fishing? maybe?

I mean i'm going to go full anime here, but I would love to see some take on attacks or skills being empowered with agility. I think of shows like Demon slayer where they rotate faster and faster to "deal more damage". If they had some system similar to the necromancy souls stacks (but based on agility energy) where certain moves would deal more damage, or gain more adrenaline, or buff your combat stats or next attack, blablabla. Lot's of cool ways to make it interactive but lord knows the game already has too much power creep so I don't see jagex applying agility to anything combat related.

cobalt vapor
# heavy coral Yea if power creep wasn't already so rampant in RS3 I would love to see it tie i...

I mean defence adds durability to our characters, so agility giving us some dodge chance, especially now that the dodge mechanic has been implemented in game with Necromancy, I honestly don't see anything wrong, and it would make sense if a agility would give a chance to dodge hits. It doesn't have to be a big chance, it could just be 5% chance at 99 or something, just noticeable for players to see their agile skills at work.

I love Demon slayer too and Ik it's all about breathing techniques. Being fast requires proper breathing techniques, so it would make sense imo if breathing abilities were also given to agility, could just be hold breath, you don't inhale toxins, and such

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You're right about combat tho, however, maybe agility could give more boosts to skilling

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I think that's still an avenue that can be expanded

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Breath abilities and stretch abilities to boost Skilling are worth look into imo

heavy coral
# cobalt vapor I think that's still an avenue that can be expanded

It would take a dramatic mental shift from jagex that I honestly don't think will happen. You look at games like final fantasy and they have implemented duty systems and other things to keep the bosses and encounters from 20 years still "fresh and tough". Runescape is the opposite, you get a reward for killing something in under 10 seconds ha-ha... so much for a boss fight lol.

cobalt vapor
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You do a stretch or you do a breathing technique, while active your energy drains

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But you get the boost

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5% to gathering skills or something

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This could even be important for Skilling bosses

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Could add an entire new dynamic for content that still has more room for growth, like Skilling bosses

heavy coral
# cobalt vapor You do a stretch or you do a breathing technique, while active your energy drain...

Dont get me wrong I think it would be amazing. I think of the "sunshine and swiftness weapon swap rotations of the past" having a breathing technique that would make "x" better for 30 seconds and then have you fatique making "y" worse for 30 seconds. Like there's a ton of possibilities. I mean to be honest I keep my expectations low when it comes to them updating anything they consider to be old.

One of the main PVM mods before he went to oldschool even suggested deleting some of the old boss encounters and it's from a gameplay perspective his argument was not bad... but the problem is they don't release content fast enough. So while 1 mod does not speak for all of Jagex, I know there is a general overall sentiment that old bosses (and skills) are old content, and only new and shiny things should take developer resources. The mining and smithing rework often gets brought into this conversation of how much time and money went into that. They could of made a brand new skill.

From a player perspective I think the rework was great, but unless jagex had some way to get someone with 200m.... ok lets be honest. 99 agility to do "go train and play agility content" the update will never see the light of day.

cobalt vapor
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I mean the entire skill doesn't have to be reworked. I think it's just adding new methods and things to existing skills. Like incense sticks and bonfires and firemaking. Boy did those really help firemaking feel more useful. And it's content that is gradual. Each firemaking lvl unlocks new incense sticks to make and such. So I think the possibility is there

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Especially now with Skilling going up to 120, I think new methods are very important rn

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I do agree tho, the mining and smithing rework was awesome c:

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And tbh, I think the game is and will be much better for it for years

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Okay, what if you used stone spirits, to make new potions which let you afk a new agility activity

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One that is similar to the mounting thing

heavy coral
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yea I think long term it was the right move, but i'm sure in the all the noise of all the wrong moves cough mtx cough the value of rework has been greatly diminished.

cobalt vapor
heavy coral
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I think stone spirits are dead content haha. I think if they made some "ultimate" potions, items, etc.... think blessed flask but for consumable items. You could maybe get some value out of stone spirits.... maybe for masterwork crafting? Otherwise stone spirits just exist to make you feel bad when you kill Nex haha.

cobalt vapor
cobalt vapor
heavy coral
# cobalt vapor I feel you. Well, they do at least let you afk mining.

I mean I feel like you can just afk mining without them? I dont think they give you xp, and for a pvm player like me "profit" from skilling is pointless. Combat achievements has been the only update in like a year or two that has made me even think about grinding out for some money. I'm usually playing multiplayer games with friends so unfortunately as awesome as the combat achievements are I haven't had much time to grind them out as RS3 is a very solo experience in its current state.

foggy anchor
foggy anchor
# heavy coral Dont get me wrong I think it would be amazing. I think of the "sunshine and swif...

@delicate wave

M&S rework had its merits and its faults. Realistically, for what it needed to be (An engaging, immersive means for players who identify as master smiths to make money doing what they love) ... it failed utterly, because of Jagex's unwillingness to give back (or even share) the role of top-end equipment creation to skillers. They took away the junk drops from mobs, but made no changes to the drops that mattered. All we needed was an archeology-style means of reforging looted equipment to make it useable again, and keep smiths relevant in the upkeep/repair/degredation cycle that has longsince become irrelevant in favour of divine charges.

From a design standpoint, it was flashy... probably unnecessarily so. So much dev time went into creating new armours, creating the orebank, designing a 'heat' system, and ensuring PVM still provided alchables... None of that was important to fixing what was wrong with M&S.

To this day, it would likely take less than a week of dev time to fix the core issues with almost any given skill, without needing to call it a massive overhaul. These fixes may not automatically make for engaging content, but a healthy game economy/properly integrated skill system is what made Runescape engaging overall, to begin with.

foggy anchor
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Thoughts on 'quick and simple' (I probably got a bit carried away on most of them tbh) fixes for all skills:

Agility - Delivery missions with experience/rewards scaling up exponentially depending on how quickly you complete the route, akin to terrorbird racing. Highscores. New routes added seasonally. Introduce potions/similar to reset cooldowns at Heffin Stones or Throne Room Cycles. Create hybrid clothing pieces that reduce cooldown of surge/escape/dive. Add the components of each to one or more monster drop tables.

Archeology - Allow more restored items to be used as cosmetic equipment (mostly just recoloured versions of previously released cosmetic equipment). Require crafting and smithing skill levels to restore certain items. Introduce Ancient Seeds for new farming plants, ancient bones for summoning familiars of extinct/nearly extinct species, and Metamorphised Essence, which runecrafts as if it were 2-3 rune essence condensed into one inventory space.

Construction - Allow players to construct barriers, to block the path of NPCs. Barriers become attacked by NPCs when they are not otherwise able to hit the player. Different tiers of wood provide different Durabilities (hp) to the obstacle. Create an item that lets you build/repair barriers faster, add it to a monster drop table.

Cooking - Introduce more complex recipes that do not consume adrenaline when eating. Perhaps the items heal less than normal. Add a cooldown for eating these items, or a temporary stacking debuff. Use jellyfish as an ingredient in these better recipes. Unlockable mechanic: eating untraded food has a chance to remove a debuff on your character. Create a stackable consumable that makes food heal more. Add it to a monster drop table.

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Crafting - Remove gems from loot tables. Divide all stockpiled gems by 10+. Require multiple gems for complex jewelry. Make gems, as small items, stackable. Have crafting processes take longer amounts of time, akin to smithing, but without needing a heat/progress bar. Remove leather armour from loot tables. Add 'Pockets!', a new pet/familiar that doesn't despawn, has a small BOB inventory (and allows you to use string/threat/nails therein without withdrawing them) to a monster drop table. Ideally can also be equipped and accessed from the pocket slot. New monster drops in the form of hides and scales should be encorporated into smithing/crafting recipes.

Divination - Create scrying pools, from whence a player may use divine energy and skill-centric resources for experience in the related skill. Expand upon transmutation. Remove divine charge as an upkeep mechanic for equipment; charge packs are currently replacing 5 skills (mining, smithing, fletching, crafting, and runecrafting) as the only item relevant to equipment upkeep, and it's a huge problem for game balancing. Allow for divine energy to be woven into runecrafting signs, and similar single-use items for other skills. Create an 'orebox' for energy, and add it to a monster drop table.

Dungeoneering - Is still a minigame, and therefore beyond the scope of this goal.

Farming - Remove all seeds and herbs from non-druid, non-plant, non-bird droptables. Include unused herbs/spices in enhanced cooking recipes. Create an item that yields increased crop harvests, and add it to a monster drop table.

Firemaking - Allow players to make fires in PVM situations, and allow fires to apply damage over time to NPCs. Create oil bombs, which increase the damage NPCs take from fire/certain fire-based abilities (combust, firebreath), and add their ingredients to monster drop tables.

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Fishing - Remove fish from most drop tables. Require bait again for most fishing. Better bait rewards faster catch rates. Bait can be dropped by monsters or created from monster drops. Require cooked food in the recipe for Sara brews/any potion that can restore HP. Create an item that allows you to use more bait per catch in exchange for somewhat increased catch rates, similar to the 'plant power' farming perks. Add it to a monster drop table.

Fletching - Remove feathers from shops. Increase feather drops for feathered loot tables. Make gems produce one bolt tip each, instead of multiple. Make all bow-flecthing take longer amounts of time, similar to smithing, without the heat/progress bar. Create an item that allows faster arrow/bolt fletching speeds, and add it to a monster drop table.

Herblore - Overpowered as it is. Make all potions tradeable, or include herblore in combat level formulas. Unlockable mechanic: untraded potions give the player extra buff duration. Add more teeth/eyes/claws/scales/etc to monster drop tables, and substitute them in for (or use them in addition to) existing potion components.

Hunter - Allow players to place traps, akin to firemaking, to damage or stun or debuff NPCs. Combine hunter/construction/firemaking/herblore to create higher tiered traps. Change basic hunter gameplay to be akin to Farming; place traps on a hunting hotspot, bait the trap, leave for a time, and come back to collect your loot and exp. Add 'tracking' events, spawning randomly across the world, where the player can follow animal tracks to an object, and search the object to catch a rare creature. Add various meats to monster drop tables, and use them as tier-based bait for traps.

Invention - Create different tiers of Augmentor. Each tier requires a different tier of divination energy to create. Require divine energy when crafting gizmos, the tier of divine energy used effectively caps your invention level for the sake of calculating perk chances.

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Mining - If you solve smithing, you mostly solve mining, as well. Create a single-use explosive that speeds up mining rates considerably but damages the player. Add it to a monster drop.

Runecrafting - Remove runes from all non-wizard/druid loot tables. Demons, dragons, etc, do not use runes to cast magic. Merge pure essence and rune essence back into one item; the F2P version is more valuable at the moment anyway. Add small degraded (single-use) pouches to humanoid drop tables.

Smithing - All monster-dropped equipment should drop in a damaged state. Restoring it requires an archeology-style means of reforging it to make it useable again. Degrades back to the same damaged state, repairable with player-made repair patches (of different tiers). Remove coin-based repairs from the game. Augmented items should degrade as well. Apply similar tactics to equipment creation for other skills. New monster drops in the form of hides and scales should be encorporated into smithing/crafting recipes.

Summoning - Create hybrid equipment pieces / weapons/offhands that allow for more summons simultaneously, and add their components to monster drops. It may be beyond the game engine's ability to allow additional summons to be interacted with directly, so recommend making the ability to cycle between which summon is viewed in your summoning interface, and ignore extra complexity of the rest.

Thieving - Remove auto-pickpocketting from the game. Make pickpocketting require the player to be behind the target, and undetected by other NPCs. Successfully pickpocketting should yield dramatically increased loot/exp upon success, but cannot be repeated on the same NPC for a cooldown period. Thieving loot tables should be one of the few instances whereby items otherwise removed from PVM drops may be included. Render safecracking/lockpicking as the AFK training methods. Remove gp from most non-humanoid, non-dragon loot tables, and increase gp looted by various thieving methods.

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Woodcutting - Add 'perfect' branches to tree loot tables, used to make bows. Logs should not be compatible with bow-making. Create an item that dramatically increases seeds gathered from nests, and add it to a monster drop table.

PVM - Multiply HP of 'epic' creatures, such as dragons, and multiply dropped loot proportionately. Add more hides/teeth/eyes/scales/etc to drop tables, and include in various potion/equipment/divination recipes. All equipment loot becomes unfinished/damaged versions of itself, and can be turned into the functional version using skills + other material resources.

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I excluded Necromancy because Necromancy as a 'skilling' activity does not create any resources nor provide any support to any other skill than, you guessed it, Necromancy itself... Sooo it's just a combat skill with options.

supple rampart
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I may be too far gone with this product but I see all of that as irrelevant.

Click and wait - cooking, woodcutting, fletching, fishing, crafting, smithing, herblore, thieving, runescrafting, divination, archaeology.
Click repeatedly- firemaking, mining, agility, slayer, dungeoneering, farming, summoning, construction.
Passive - Invent
Combat with no mechanics
Combat with mechanics

That's how I see the game

I hate combat with mechanics on the monster side, I like clicking the lil buttons on my side.

There's not a lot of options.

Other gameplay is stuff like quests and leave and wait, and minigames. I feel since leave and wait aka ports and pof is all I really do now maybe they should do more with that. Alternatively there's probably one off gameplay mechanics and lil games in quests that could be expanded to main game.

pale mural
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@foggy anchor Some interesting ideas. I think Agility is my favorite.

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I do think that there needs to be a healthy balance of afk/active activities and its definitely skewed towards the former the last decade. Even though there has been attempts to create a healthier balance of active methods like the new RC attuner and the WC mechanics from Eternals, its still missing that really active aspect. Skilling Bosses or Skilling Minigames could fit that. Though there are some pieces of content like BGH that can be considered like that already.

stray sonnet
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I really like something that progresses with levels like new big game hunter dinos

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Makes it feel like a natural part of the skill and makes the skill better

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What if there was like a portal to the active method right next to the afk method so that people have incentive to be active

cobalt vapor
# heavy coral I mean I feel like you can just afk mining without them? I dont think they give ...

I mean yeah, mining is already afk, stone spirits just make it more afk as it removes the need to click on the rock. I think that in itself is huge. I think mining has established a great baseline on passive and active content that should be followed as base for a lot of other gathering skills too.

I think Rs3 has good options for solo and group pvm content. I think you may refer to how there are issues with finding teams or groups to do pvm or group content in general? Cause, yeah that could certainly be improved. The grouping system is nice and all, but you never really know what you're going to get using it, could be someone with 0kc or 2k kc on a boss and obviously people don't like not knowing that. I also think having a setting which matches you with ppl who have a certain kc on a boss could improve this.

rose grove
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hard disagree that mining has a good baseline

cobalt vapor
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Why you thinking that

rose grove
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there is no credible engaging/active method

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rockertunities are essentially afk, they're predictable, have an audio cue, and you don't lose the opportunity if you don't get to them quickly

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moreover, the afk method is far far far too good

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you really struggle to have a reasonably rewarding active method because it falls to be compared to the afk method and if you make something active better enough than the afk method to be properly incentivised, it starts breaking progression

cobalt vapor
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I mean as a baseline for what the overall skill encompasses on it's gathering mechanics I think that's great though. It only means that the system can be made more challenging in terms of other mining content, that is perhaps more rewarding

rose grove
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I don't think it reasonably can be without imposing substantial nerfs on the afk method

cobalt vapor
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I mean, there could just be higher tier of ores or things that supplement current ores to make better bars or whatever that are acquired through a different more difficult mining method. This could only apply to this specific resource

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I don't think there's a mining method that gives great XP either, at least one that is easily available. I suppose mining could use a new method that is more active, gives little to no gp, but gives great returns in xp

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Or what if you could obtain an onyx or even a hydrix with mining, but it involved a new engaging and active mining method

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Kinda whack how hydrix gems are locked behind pvm

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They could add a new active mining method to obtain a hydrix and other gems like moonstones too

cobalt vapor
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It could even be an activity that involves explosives and thus firemaking. Seems like this could be dangerous too

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Tbh there could even be something that enhances current gemstones and perhaps it is these enhanced gemstones that are required to make plat jewelry

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Maybe we can mine crystalized anima or something and this involves a new active and engaging mining method. These can be used on 10 Rubys for example to make an enriched ruby, which can be used with plat to make the new jewelry

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It's deep beneath the earth so there are also deposits of other gems, including all gems, and having a rare chance to find moonstones, onyxes, and hydrix. There could be cave ins, you may need to run to escape, there could be earthquakes too, loss of air

rose grove
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I'd only slightly disagree with that

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in the sense that I think that where active play really needs to outperform afk stuff is gp/hr rather than xp/hr

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the reason being that other players gaining xp only affects a player in an abstract or indirect sense

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whereas other players gaining gp tends to affect demand curves for all items

cobalt vapor
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I think it could be either. The point overall is that the player is getting their efforts worth. Some ppl would just Wana power through some Skills through difficult methods if the XP is worth it, tho I do see your point, I think I agree that simply put gp/hr is just a better incentive as gp isn't as capped like XP, which is capped at 200m and also there's the whole mtx aspect to xp, which I'm sure does come into play a bit

And yeah you can obviously do more with gp

stray sonnet
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The mining bit isn't exactly what active skillers want, lets say.

cobalt vapor
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Well I think the reason most ppl like the mining/smith rework was because gathering ore was made afk.

But, I think I see your point in this just clicking on random rocks doesn't feel much like mining?

I brought this before, and I'm sure many have too. But idk what the limitations are on mouse control and Rs. I think one of the problems is that content relies a lot on clicking. And I get it, rs is a point and click game on roids or whatever but a mouse can do more too. I think having an option to even swing the pickaxe would be interesting, tho like I said idk the limitations of the technology

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But even if the player swings the pickaxe with their mouse that already emerges the player more as they are now engaging with the movement of the pickaxe for example

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It lets the player feel more like a miner for example, than just clicking a rock. And moving a mouse is just more relieving than constantly clicking

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I think most would agree that we do not Wana go back to when you had to constantly click on a rock to mine, lol

clear dock
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i think thats too much effort to try and add to the game, vs just some mining methods that require you to pay attention, like a blast mining, zalcano, 2-tick mining etc

cobalt vapor
clear dock
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i suppose so, im not fussed on the immersion aspect vs is the method fun/engaging to do

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swiping my mouse to mine a rock vs clicking doesnt really do much for me

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also, i know i mentioned blast mining earlier, but i wouldnt say thats a great active method because its pretty static in terms of how you go about it. If it was random spots that you had to blow up it would be a lot better to reduce burnout over doing the same mundane thing over and over

strong patio
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I just want to back up for a second and ask, why would anyone even want active skilling? Most skilling has an identity of the "chill" or "second monitor" activity. If someone wants active content then all of PvM exists which has as high APM as they could possibly want, and if they want skilling but active then there are skilling bosses that already exist.

Personally I would definitely not like to turn skills that I can afk into something where I'm forced to actively play (I've heard people mention afk xp is too high) because afk rates were made too low to be worth it. I think skilling bosses are a good balance without potentially compromising the "idle game" aspect of skilling that is well-loved by a lot of people.

clear dock
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becaue people want to actually play the game sometimes instead of just afking

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nobody is trying to take your afk away from you

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were trying to have alternative methods to do that are worth doing

strong patio
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Don't the people who want to play actively just pvm then?

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or do clues

clear dock
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that doesnt matter if you want to do skilling

strong patio
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then do a skilling boss?

clear dock
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brother...

strong patio
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I cant imagine there's a big % of players who want active skilling, but maybe im totally off

west lion
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Usually the case is that people are arguing for more variety in skilling method options especially so that you can choose your preferred reward/effort ratio and level of attention

cobalt vapor
# strong patio Don't the people who want to play actively just pvm then?

Like Delusion says, I don't think most of us are advocating for a restructuring or rework of skills (tho do could use some like agility and construction) but more of so just adding more options which are more active and engaging. For example, you can do combat or ranged for example, afk or through a high intensity activity like high lvl pvm or slayer, while there aren't as many options with Skilling. In effect skill and chill may only emphasize the lack of engaging and active Skilling methods present in game. No one says combat and chill, but you can very much do that

pale mural
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I think its more of the fact that I like playing the game with focus rather than afk'ing. Skilling use to be something I was very actively training but in the current design we treat it as a second monitor thing and thats unhealthy since it lets you become more and more detached to when you actively played the game in the past. PvM has active content (high end bossing) but it also has an AFK portion which is Slayer. Right now Skilling has just devolved to everything is AFK so I don't even have that adrenaline rush of leveling up anymore since I'm not paying attention to see the level up notifications. When Skilling became more afk, I transitioned to playing minigames to have that adrenaline rush but even that's gone. Luckily Treasure Trails still has that rush but I don't enjoy PvM enough to use that as my main motivation to play.

strong patio
pale mural
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Parts of Skilling need that active gameplay of adrenaline rush either through rewards or gameplay but I've become more and more detached with all the afk options and I would like to play the game through content like BGH/Skilling Bosses or Skilling Minigames to have that fun gameplay I remember from the past.

strong patio
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I'm all for more skilling bosses btw, I enjoy croesus and gate

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I just figured that's the solution for active skillers

pale mural
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I dont think skilling bosses are the only way but I think Skilling Minigames could also fill the void. They just need a good reward system that cant be powercrept anymore like they have been since they've been ignored for so long.

rose grove
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I think there's a few aspects to it

cobalt vapor
rose grove
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tbh I like classic knife-log active skilling (although whether this is 'engaging' is probably a different question

strong patio
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True, some people actually enjoy 3-tick mining in OS, and I don't think there's anything like that here

rose grove
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and while I'd love loads of skilling bosses, I think the lack of genuine active methods is one that I wouldn't want to wait for a lot of expensive large content projects to resolve

clear dock
rose grove
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(plus there's thematic differences - contrast a boss from something where you're still ostensibly hitting a wall with a pickaxe, but you might be making decisions - I've not actually done blast mining in old school but I love the concept of skilling rewards being based around deciding where to place explosives, hitting the explosive and then doing some fast, targeted mining)

strong patio
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I'm the type of player that will always opt for slower afk methods, only choosing active if the xp rates are far high enough to justify concentration. I did crashed stars to 85 mining in OS over months, never touched blast mine

rose grove
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but tbh I think you can fix a lot of this just by rejigging some of the balancing

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I think ideally the net reward value (i.e. accounting for the EHP or quasi-EHP of all xp and non-xp rewards) represented of a full 15-minute afk method should be targeted to be somewhere between 5% and 20% of a fully active method

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but it should scale up quickly as soon as it's not fully afk - if you're making an input a minute I think 50-75% would be fine

cobalt vapor
# rose grove (plus there's thematic differences - contrast a boss from something where you're...

This is a good point. I think having players make choices in specific content that's meant to be engaging is important. Which I guess something else that I would like to point out is that Skilling lacks some form of mastery. With combat you can master a certain boss because these offer different mechanics or the fight changes dependent on when you phase a boss and such. With skills there really isn't a sense of mastery that is gained in a lot of them or any of them really. Now I'm not saying that skills need to be reworked. But there should be Skilling activities that allow the player to gain some sort of mastery over the content.

rose grove
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yeah - even in the 'bad' active skilling content like gate of elidinis, I derive quite a lot of enjoyment by doing things tick-perfectly

strong patio
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I feel like being able to create Masterwork items is that final mastery. I do enjoy the long slow masterwork process

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Not sure what that would look like for gathering skills though

rose grove
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I think we mean different things by 'mastery'

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creating a masterwork item involves a form of RP mastery in that the player character is being very skilled

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but there's essentially no mechanical mastery involved

strong patio
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It's hard to imagine what individual player skill would look like without reworking the skill entirely, for something like fletching for example. The player isnt ever learning a personal skill by training it

rose grove
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so I'd say the single best piece of skilling content across either game is hallowed sepulchre

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and that perfectly encapsulates what skilling mastery can be

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with fletching

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I think really it needs some work at the ideation stage, but artisan skills can always have things like ceremonial swords, which don't require real-time reaction but require the player to make decisions to optimise xp, and making those decisions quickly improves xp/hr

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I am intrigued by what ends up being done with the osrs fletching minigame

strong patio
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It also feels sort of meaningless to talk about engaging skilling content when proteans are so easily accessible and pretty much let you skip the normal gameplay loop

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an active method would have to be far better than proteans

rose grove
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maybe it's ironman privilege but I always kept MTX methods off to one side when considering this stuff

strong patio
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That's ideal, but if devs are going to spend time making something that mains just skip with proteans it's not really worth the time

rose grove
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yeah - IIWII

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I strongly dislike the free stuff thrown at players from free keys, events, etc

clear dock
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they could just remove proteans

rose grove
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especially paper events were awful

strong patio
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Or at least limit their functionality, like you can’t make frames for Fort construction with them anymore

pale mural
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Ive just resorted to deleting proteans or just oddment everything. I realized its completely killed my enjoyment of leveling stuff on my main.

strong patio
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I wonder how the game economy would change if people had to actually buy skilling supplies again

pale mural
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been doing it for so long i dont even remember last time i used proteans