Poll 83

[dapper vessel]

🗳️ Poll 83 is here!

⚔️ This jumbo QoL poll has it all! We've got Castle Wars proposals for veterans and novices alike, improvements for new players, miscellaneous changes for Forestry, Hunter and even the Explorer's Ring!

🔗 http://osrs.game/Poll-83

[boreal heron]

Wow what a stacked poll!

[honest trellis]

I take some of the credit for question 14

[neon void]

I can't see the "make leagues permanent option" .. hmm must be bugged

[weak patrol]

I'm a big fan of things coming from inside the game instead of the wiki for new players

[boreal heron]

Loses its charm if it's always on 😦

[honest trellis]

been patiently waiting for this poll to see if Mod Roc was able to make it happen since I suggested it to him 4 months ago

[neon void]

Very very true! ;P

[slim phoenix]

explorers ring change is big for bursting tasks, always a pain taking minute out to alch an invent of rune item at nechs

[chrome badger]

okei crab slayer tasks lets go

[boreal heron]

yeah it's a complete nuissance

[honest trellis]

it's only ever been an issue for me when i need to do the occasional blood barrage at nechs and need to close the alch interface so i can cast

a much bigger improvement to the explorer's ring would be to let us recharge it

[worldly eagle]

This means that the Dragon Sword, the Ancient Mace, and the complete Verac’s set can finally actually do what they claim. You can find a full list of affected NPCs here.

I don't think there's a link here for the list of NPCs

[boreal heron]

getting out of the realms of QoL and into 'significant buff' here

[boreal heron]

ah good shout, will get that plugged in but in the meantime you can use this: https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/Prayer#Monsters_that_use_Prayer

[silent tree]

I feel like crabs are already hotly contested for combat training as is. Wouldn't this exacerbate things if they became a task?

[boreal heron]

Perhaps sand/ammonite crabs but even still for a small task it's easy to find a spot, Rock Crabs are always quiet these days

[honest trellis]

sure, but i'd still pay 10x the regular cost of alching (or more) for the convenience

[chrome badger]

the single crab spots are almost always free

[south rivet]

sand crabs on Varla are also always dead, wish more people knew about them

[chrome badger]

and isle of soul

single combat though 😦

[boreal heron]

Think this is better suited to new reward space (alch tabs) than just whacking onto existing stuff. Reward space is always such a struggle that we're always a little wary of eating into it for free

[honest trellis]

fair enough

it's just frustrating to have to bank at nechryaels and risk losing your spot because you used up your charges already that day

[slim phoenix]

agreed

[south rivet]

Has the team considered reworking/ buffing the forestry eligibility timer? It's frustrating when you've been woodcutting in the area for like an hour, then go afk for ~3 mins and come back to an event you aren't eligible for

[boreal heron]

For sure but that's part of what's offered by the unlock in the first place right? Keeping your spot for longer

[half marlin]

@boreal heron Hey Goblin, I was expecting the bone dagger special currently bugged at baba and kepri in toa to be fixed. It still does not work at all.

Is that not being fixed or ? It broke after the new league update launched

[boreal heron]

Think I've raised this before but can raise again

[half marlin]

I love you goblin. Thank you

[slim phoenix]

if prayer pen and NPC prayers are becoming a bigger thing is there a plan to change KQs fake prayers, or are they too iconic at this point?

[boreal heron]

Scratch this, it's being fixed next week!

[half marlin]

I genuinely could kiss you

[boreal heron]

I did not make the change, please don't!

[half marlin]

😂😂😂😂

[boreal heron]

@honest trellis you're making me nervous, you've been typing forever

[honest trellis]

sorry i'm doing hunter rumors in the middle of this and i've been trying to figure out how to best word what i wanted to say

[boreal heron]

gl on Quetzin

[honest trellis]

I think ideally we shouldn't have any limited resources that are also time gated; falador shield prayer, explorer's ring alching, magic cape spellbook swapping, etc.

The main benefit of these rewards should be that you can do them for free daily, not that you have limited uses and then have to wait IRL time to be able to use them again

[boreal heron]

We've spoken about this a few times, but it sort of circles back to 'it's free power for nothing' unless it's tied to other rewards. Rechargeable shields make it a must-have everywhere you're going for Prayer endurance and add tedium in recharging between trips, Explorer's Ring alching becomes really strong if uncapped or just tedium between trips, Spellbook Swapping is probably the one we've chatted about the most and are keen to have a look at because of its place in WR runs (Phosani's Nightmare, for example) but going too far the other direction encourages a kind of 'un-fun' meta where you're just constantly cape-swapping between rooms or at content to keep up and it feels like an added layer that goes a little too far

[honest trellis]

I think there might be be a balance that could be found

like, I don't think you should be able to just dump a few prayer pots on the fally shield to recharge it for example

[slim carbon]

If I bring my own Tinderbox into Castle Wars, can we stop Castle Wars from stealing my much beloved Tinderbox's upon leaving or at the end of a round, this is a super duper important QOL request of utmost urgency, thanks

[honest trellis]

alternative options should exist, even if they're very expensive or less practical imo

[boreal heron]

Think we can probably just do that for free rather than polling it, will note it

[honest trellis]

I'll also say that I think the ring's limited alchs wouldnt even be an issue if not for the greater nechryael drop table having so any unstackable alchs on it, while the best way to kill them requires you to be on the ancient spellbook

that single monster is 90% of the reason people want to recharge the explorers ring

[boreal heron]

For sure but also like, is that not sort of part of the decision-making you do?

Quicker tasks for less profit or a slight loss vs. squeezing every bit of GP out of the task

Feels like 'make every barrageable NPC drop noted alchables so I never have to bank' is solving a problem that's actually just part of the design

[honest trellis]

yeah, but it's not a good or "fun" decision. It's making players choose between leaving a couple 100k of alchs on the ground, or between losing a variable amount of time, the length being dependent on whether or not someone takes your spot while you're gone and makes you need to hop to a new world

[sharp walrus]

So excited for these castlewar changes!

[boreal heron]

Think it being a 'good' decision or not is subjective! Some friction is good friction in game design! For example, for me personally, the point at which I realised it was no longer worth my time to pick the alchs up because I've got access to better methods or blast through tasks too quickly felt like a milestone moment and benchmark, felt cool to me to realise I was at that point and just start blasting. The alternative being 'never leave any Barrage spot until your task is finished' also doesn't sound particularly fun to just be given for free, but not opposed to it if it's being accomplished by a separate piece of reward space

[honest trellis]

I don't think everything you barrage needs to drop noted items, but there's just 1 specific monster that happens to shit out valuable unstackable items while by far the best way to kill them is on the spellbook that doesnt have the spell that takes care of the stackable items

[boreal heron]

Yeah I get you, think we have different personal perspectives but would agree that providing players some means by which to just keep alching is fine, would just rather see it come from reward space than be handed out

[honest trellis]

I'd be fine with it coming from a reward space

[boreal heron]

Looks like we're agreed!

[honest trellis]

I just think some option for these time limited things should exist

whether it's brand new items that do the same thing or an option to recharge the items that do it currently

anyways

thumbs up to the castle wars changes

I honestly didn't think you guys were ever gonna do anything that the niche castle wars community wanted

[boreal heron]

Totally agree with you!

[rain sonnet]

A sneaky little typo here btw 😄 (Supposed to say "in actuality" I presume)

[keen rapids]

imo if you want to barrage nechs for better xp, you pay the cost by having either shorter trips to bank alchables or you don't alch them at all

this is a suitable pay-off

[boreal heron]

Feel like OSRS is the sum of its parts, even if some parts are niche it's cool to give them new stuff to keep them excited or to try and grow those niches

[little quail]

Hey, probably too late to discuss it but RE: Castle Wars worlds and AFK Clogging, I feel like one of the biggest detractors is the length of games.

Would be interested to see what people think about making games on the Castle Wars world a first to three points or 20 mins length, whichever comes first.

Main bonus is incentivises people actually playing the minigame to speed up rewards. Only downside is with the inclusion of rewards crates this makes balancing the quantity of rewards more challenging, though this could be adjusted after a couple of weeks based on average game length.

[keen rapids]

lumby elite diary has fairly easy reqs as well so it's not even like "oh well its gm cas so its fair to have unlimited alchs" or whatever

[honest trellis]

they definitely need the changes, I know there's a single guy who's notorious in the community for spending literally all day every day griefing castle wars games and either wasnt getting banned or kept ban evading

so I wasn't sure if the cw community was ever gonna get acknowledged

[onyx flower]

Not keen on the proposed rewards from castle wars 😦 soul wars is botted / gold farmed for the crates.
Don't see the value of adding crates to castle wars

[honest trellis]

oh yeah

hopefully Soul Wars is next on the list after Castle Wars now

practically no one plays Soul Wars normally

you should only be able to earn Zeal on themed worlds

[onyx flower]

As for the crabs, maybe that could also be incorporated to the new player experience guy at lumby? Adventurer John or w.e his name is

[boreal heron]

It's a possibility but they're pretty far afield for Adventurer Jon

A lot of the Adventure Paths stuff kind of centres on the surrounding area, think it's a tall ask to say 'Okay great! Good job on getting 20 Attack, now journey to distant Relekka and hit these suspicious rocks'

Definitely valid feedback though

[honest trellis]

^ is there any plan to possibly prevent what's currently happening with soul wars from happening to castle wars too if the supply crate rewards are added?

if not I'm gonna have to vote no on them

[boreal heron]

Think short of longer games, rewards being worse than SW, and increased ACT attention there aren't specific 'content-side' changes planned, though we could look at more strict requirements to access and meaningfully compete

[honest trellis]

yeah I just realized, if the rewards are worse, they'll just stick to farming soul wars lol

hmm

I guess it's probably fine as is then if they're not better than soul wars supply crate

then here's my follow up: are they any plans to work on soul wars - encourage actually playing the game as intended and make it harder for bots/gold farmers to take advantage of?

[onyx flower]

So for the crabs, the goal is to have new players organically find them and realize these are a great afk training method.
Would the tip you get from the slayer master imply that you don't need much supplies to fight them?
Just trying to figure out how a new player would equate that these are great for low intensity exp. Like as a new player I don't know if I would figure that out unprompted.

[rare lava]

Verac's at Demonic Gorillas. This is my only comment

👍

[spare vessel]

Think it's absurdly ambitious to think new players can or should play this game learning things organically, this type of change will accomplish nothing.

[rich leaf]

yeah the length is to much. like the idea of first to 3 points win

[honest trellis]

it's not just organically, the way it's described in the blog implies that asking the slayer master for a tip when on the crabs task will have them tell you that crabs are good monsters to train your combats on

[rich leaf]

yep. this make more sense. when you start playing there is no direction to go to slayer. maybe have adventure jon point to going to a slayer master to get more specialized training after completing tasks

[worldly stratus]

@boreal heron would the cw brew and infinite rune pouch have the same effect in free to play?

[little quail]

Also idk if it's been said already but I setup a new player yesterday and I was very surprised that Skull Prevention wasn't enabled by default.

Left click attack where available also isn't on by default, which feels like more of a hindrance early game as there are many higher combat npcs that will attack you and new players will wonder why they can't fight back when trying to left click.

Shift click to drop items should be on by default, regularly referenced advice and it's just an extra step to have to tell someone to enable it when it doesn't work.

New-style skill guide interface should absolutely be a default option for new accounts.

"Hide Roofs" is a funny one and hopefully addressed in the HD client but there's a plugin called "Roof Removal" which makes roofs disappear when inside a building or when you mouse over a building. Not really an option for this poll I would hope that this becomes default in-game behaviour

[cloud totem]

Can we poll just 1 song playing while running Priff course, instead of multiple tracks on same course ? sounds broken

[rich leaf]

for castle war perhaps a player tracker can be added to see if the player is playing more activley? everything that is done gets you extra tickets. so rewarding more active player. example. an extra ticket if you kill X amount of player. if you afking you just get the basic amount.

[proper condor]

Bit late on the train here, but I would like to propose something like a rare chromium ore drop roll as part of the reward space for the dredging activity coming with sailing

I think adding an alternative skilling-based route for obtaining ingots via a mining activity is a much healthier route than the band-aid sort of approach given in the current proposal

[mint skiff]

All that QoL changes and even a Castle Wars rework on a dead minigame except for cloggers and a select few, yet no stackable clues

Thank you for your work on these QoLs

[violet pewter]

I think updating the skill guides was long overdue

It seems like kind of a shitty to just tell players to "Just Google it" or "Use Wiki" than having some type of in-game explanation to show them the ropes

[sudden iris]

Some of the CWs updates look great. Would be nice if the infinite rune pouch as an option so you can still get XP in the game if you like. The barricade idea is also not particularly great. It immediately shuts down a lot of 1v1 or 2v2 castle warring. Pretty niche thing, but CWs is pretty niche. It would make a lot more sense to have the cades have a timer outside of the castle walls, but inside it functions like it does now. Being limited to 3 would also make defending on the theme worlds way harder as currently you normally have 1 or 2 people setting up the defense correctly in my experience.

Also don't really see the point of adding more tickets to theme worlds. Adding an additional ticket isn't going to make people play more - it's just going to make the rewards easier to get. If you want that, poll it, but I don't think that's going to revitalize CWs. Having rotating double rewards weekends seems like it might be a way better way to drive engagement at least part of the time. Just have a CWs weekend once a month or something and see if you can drive up engagement consistently for that weekend every month if that's really the goal.

Forcing green portal Im not sure how I feel about. Seems nice for balance and stopping stacking but it also stops clan events from doing CWs on theme worlds. @boreal heron

[opaque rain]

Why are we not just deleting chromium ingots? They benefit neither mains nor irons and go directly against the purpose of the vestige drop mechanics.

I’ve gotten 13 ingots and all vestiges +SRA on my iron but I still don’t understand why they ever existed, nor why they continued to exist so long

Just replace all the ingot drops with 100k gp or whatever they’re worth now and be done with it forever

[keen valley]

Can we discuss how amazing the birdhouse changes are?

So many questions related to it though

Do you get the drops from birdhouses automatically?
Do you need clockworks in your inventory or can you use the ones already your inventory?

Can the auto-replace of birdhouses happen while you are anywhere?

[rich leaf]

add crabs to beginning area ( so new players don't have to go to relekka (new players wont even know about relekka anyway) and have adventure jon talk about them. lumbridge swamp or Al Kharid fishing spot

[keen valley]

Comments on Reddit say they are discussing stackable clues but weren't ready with a decision one way or the other yet

[opaque rain]

My biggest birdhouse question was whether there’s a delay on replacing birdhouses or if it does it the same tick as collection

If there’s a delay I’ll just do it the same way anyway

[keen valley]

what if the delay is just like a few ticks

[opaque rain]

If it’s more than 1 I will still do it manually

[keen valley]

Im confused?

why

[opaque rain]

Because I don’t want to take 10 extra seconds per run

[keen valley]

Maybe im not understanding how this works then

oh

is it just

when you collect them, they just rebuild the birdhouse there

I'm

fucking

dumb

still a good change

but not as goated as I thought

[opaque rain]

My assumption based on it following immediately after the salamander replacement discussion is that:
-You have a birdhouse in your inv
-You empty the birdhouse
-It delays a couple ticks
-It places the birdhouse
-(Possible second delay?) It fills birdhouse

[keen valley]

I was thinking like the farming relic in Leagues where you can just be chilling and as long as you have the birdhouse stuff in your inventory, you just replace it, just anywhere

I'm super leagues brained right now

[opaque rain]

Right now, I bring a clockwork, 4 logs, and build a birdhouse between stations. When I get there:
-I have a birdhouse in my inv
-I empty the birdhouse
-I place a new birdhouse by clicking the very next tick
-I fill the birdhouse

[keen valley]

it'll probably be same tick

empty and rebuild all in one tick

just with an animation

similar to box traps

[ebon tendon]

Finally- I have finally found a place where hopefully there can be some good interaction about what is going on with forestry, now that it’s back on the docket

[ebon tendon]

@boreal heron as one of the folks in a leadership role within the main forestry friends chat- there are a couple things I would be super appreciative if we could briefly discuss a bit, whenever your time permits. I can primarily boil it down to two topics.

1. The current Tree Health Timer’s bug that is being abused to worldhop and solo mass-spawn forestry events. I know ingame is the place to report bugs, and that’s been done for months- just really want to be sure the team is aware of it because it’s only going to be a worse problem if spawn rates get a direct buff and it’s still an ongoing issue.

2. Eligibility. Mentioned this a bit in a comment on the poll83 Reddit post earlier, but the core issue with eligibility isn’t really about the range it allows for- it’s about how it works. Increasing the range is not going to resolve the issue people are having where something they’ve done (for example, clicking more trees after something around them has spawned) is causing their ineligibility. Furthermore, the removal of the ability to teleport to events you were already in the gameworld for (thus not causing any other server harm, as star hopping was for a time) took away what thousands of players who have cycled through (and that’s just our friends chat, let alone others) enjoyed about the content. Having it removed “as it felt like a misstep to leave it” as opposed to there being a problem that actually needed resolving has been a kick to the teeth of a whole community. And if there is a problem with it (too much anima/xp/etc) then leaving the method but adjusting the reward would be such a better angle to take. Teleporting to forestry events and participating in them is still “doing forestry.”

Apologies for the long message dump, but having other social media be the only way I’ve known to have a chance at reaching someone for such a long time and not being successful in getting replies there has definitely caused some buildup hahah

[opaque rain]

So not in one tick

Box traps are significantly slower to reset with the "Reset" option

Not to mention tick manipulation exists

[lofty flax]

Prayers have been a hot topic following the release of the Royal Titans Reward Poll

Yea don't fucking slither 1 def pure buffs through and it'd be less of a hot topic.

[lofty flax]

Skill Interface Summaries
If you have any ideas about what we should include in these guides, feel free to let us know!

• Show beginner tooltips on mouseover for skills under 15, to explain the utility a new player has to gain from that skill. (Strength: Increase melee damage, Cooking: Prepare food to heal yourself)

"Show advanced guides" option in settings:

• Show catch chance and cooldown of every gathering skill
• Show an example accuracy roll calculation on combat
• Show standard xp drops for production skills

End the explanation with the rewards players see in 90s of the skill, and include the perks of the skillcape.
"Players who master the skill of construction have a home capable of sending them anywhere in gielnor, and a cape which can send them to any home portal."

[hot aspen]

may i ask what ACT is the acronym for?

i also posted in the game suggestions channel

[brittle pivot]

I feel more tickets need to be acquired per game then whats proposed because it still makes solo boosting the meta for greenlogging since getting a shut out on mass worlds will be unlikely so youll never get 4 tickets, making the 3 ticket solo shut out method the meta

[lofty flax]

If you think a particular option should be default for certain player groups, then let us know!

Both:

• Max Hitsplat 2
• Accept Aid Off
• Scroll wheel to zoom
• Disable show the store button

New player:

• PK Skull prevention on

Skip tutorial island:

• Hide roofs
• PK Skull prevention off

Question #7: Should we allow players to wear their own helmets inside Castle Wars on all worlds?

Why not visually override it? Just never display helmets in castle wars.
This is what people have asked for with skill-cape hoods as well, to hide the true helmet visually

[lofty flax]

anti-cheat team, mod simp's downfall.

[hot aspen]

i dont think ACT is anti cheat team

ACT also could mean action commitment therapy , a type of game style

idk what he meant by ACT tho lol curious

[ebon tendon]

In the context of “increased ACT attention” responding to how to not have the minigame loot botted/etc, anti cheat team seems right to me lol

[candid raven]

I’m not seeing the purpose in separating the two forestry questions in the priority survey. A minor point I know.
Very nice qol changes overall.

[lofty flax]

Because they got toasted for the last poll.

[opaque rain]

Forestry changes should go further

Increase events and eligibility more
Idk where those numbers come from but there are certainly not events every 100 ticks

[fervent spoke]

I really never understood why people boosted anyway my main sitting pretty with 20k tickets from years of actually playing and not faking my clicks got pretty clean too

[ebon tendon]

Eligibility needs to just go away. Increasing the range isn’t doing anything for people “missing events running to bank”

the fact that’s the blog proposed “solution” just shows the problem isn’t actually understood at all

[ember venture]

QoL suggestion:

Alry the Angler from Aerial Fishing does not have the new right-click option to instantly get a falcon that the Matthias NPC from the Hunter Falconry area has (was created post-Hunter Rumours update).

Could Alry also get this right-click option?

[safe linden]

lets remain civil on this thread and not attack other members

[low grotto]

qol suggestion we need to do something about increasing superior slayer monsters and imbued heart drop rate to make it where you should get it by 99 slayer. im over 99 and still didnt get it so i just bought it instead lol or also add a perk to the slayer cape that imbued heart/slayer superiors are 5x more common something like that?

[lofty flax]

Combat tasks increase chance of superiors

I think it's IV that increased it from 1/200 to 1/150

[honest trellis]

yep elite CA rewards increases the spawn chance

wilderness slayer also has a 10% increased chance to spawn superiors

[opaque rain]

I don’t think it should be expected by 99 but rate can definitely be helped, possibly by more high level superiors (like araxytes) that are desirable to kill (not like hydra superiors)

[half marlin]

The whole toa community waiting patiently for Wednesdays bone dagger fix - please don’t forget us!

Thank you
Mr 2600 toa kcer

[honest trellis]

manipulation to him is voting in a poll without reading the associated blog and getting upset when he was wrong about what he voted on