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    Old School RuneScape: Have a question about the game or the subreddit? Ask away!

    December 17, 2020

    Old School RuneScape: Have a question about the game or the subreddit? Ask away!

    Have a question about the game or the subreddit? Ask away!

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 04:07 PM PST

    Daily /r/2007scape question thread for Thursday, December 17 2020 (posted on 00:07:02 UTC - RuneScape server time)

    Ask anything about Old School RuneScape here! They are designated for you to ask anything you like that is relevant to the game or this subreddit. Remain respectful to your fellow 'scapers when answering questions; there are stupid questions, but it does not mean you should not be respectful whilst answering them.

    Click here to view the archive of /r/2007scape "ask anything" threads.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    Player V Zulrah - Old School RuneScape Fan Art

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 08:00 AM PST

    Feels good to have the bois back

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 04:52 AM PST

    Loot tab 83-99 slayer

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 08:02 AM PST

    Ragebathex if you're out there I will never fucking forgive you

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 09:10 AM PST

    In your time of need I gave you my only fucking rake and you just tped and later on my run I needed one and I didn't have it and this will get brought up in therapy in 20 years when we talk about trust issues and you can go fuck yourself Ragebathex.

    submitted by /u/alexanaxstacks
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    Someone’s been naughty..

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 05:04 PM PST

    When the sack already has 182 pay-dirt but you mine a full inventory anyway.

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 07:49 AM PST

    Today's update has effectively killed Barbarian Assault speedrunning

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 08:19 AM PST

    While we thought we had escaped the first round of interface patches last week, it turns out that today, an update rolled out that effectively nerfed the two types of interface mechanics we used to improve our BA gameplay.

    To be brief, inside the BA instance, the game works in 6 second intervals - everything is tied to this timer. Mobs spawn every 6 seconds, the hammer/logs respawn every 6 seconds, the wave checks every 6 seconds if everything is dead and decides to end it or not, and every fifth 6 second interval, the call changes.

    However, this 6 second timer is (through spaghetti code) attached to the person that holds the scroll. This means that if the scroller is somehow stalled, then the game pauses the 6 second timer until the scroller is unstalled, then continues. This stall, however also pauses other things; notably, eggs shot from the cannon do not deplete during the stall duration.

    Now, there are two types of stall, interface (or "soft") stalls and animation (or "hard") stalls, as well as two different priorities inside the wave. For example, the wave-end check has low priority, and as such, it can be interrupted, or rather, pushed back, using only an interface stall. On the other hand, a call change has high priority, and an interface stall cannot stop a call from changing. However, a cooking cape emote is a long animation stall that will prevent the call from changing for as long as the scroller character is performing the animation.

    As an example of how these are used, this is how we do wave 2: on the west side, there are 4 ranger spawns and 5 fighter spawns. The first four of each spawn during the first call, while the last fighter spawns 30 seconds in, and 1 tick later, the call changes, making it "normally" impossible to kill it during the first call. However, during that 1 tick, the scroller can do a small 2 second animation stall that stops the first call from changing, allowing a second attacker to finish it off during that period. On the east side, there are 3 runner spawns. The last runner, no matter how well you perform your defender role, will always die as early as 37.8 seconds. The problem with this is that the wave checks if all mobs have died at 36 seconds and again at 42. So under normal conditions, we would have to twiddle our thumbs for 4 seconds until the wave decides to end naturally. We can solve this by instead using an interface stall from 36 seconds to 37.8 seconds, pushing the wave-end check to happen once everything is dead, effectively speeding up the round by 4.2 seconds.

    We use these sort of mechanics to speed up every wave consistently. We can appreciate some people consider these things to be bug abuse, but I'd like to point out that actually, you can produce a lot of these interface AND animation stalls just by playing ba normally. For example, trying to put up a prayer will give you an interface stall saying "barbarians do not allow you to use prayer here", or shooting the cannon as scroller will dupe eggs, as well as stop the call from changing (an action that certainly could be considered normal). There are other actions like opening your settings menu, repairing a trap, or equipping an elemental shield that also produce these sort of stalls.

    However, today, both of these mechanics were nerfed considerably, and honestly, I think the entire speeding community are burnt out. Through my small description, it's hard to communicate the amount of skill that takes to manage a tick-perfect control of these stalls, not just from the scroller performing them, but from the metas in the other roles surrounding them. BA speedrunning is easily one of the hardest and most unique pieces of gameplay in the entire game and it has been obliterated in one update. We understand that something had to be done with regards to the item dupes happening, but we all do hope that our mechanics will one day come back to us.

    Here's an example run of one of the fastest BA runs to ever happen, and will probably never happen again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dODPAWI2gXE

    submitted by /u/mathPrettyhugeDick
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    Got my new thermos

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 05:53 AM PST

    Finally got around to making the among us / runescape crossover

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 08:15 PM PST

    10 years since this vote and almost 10 years since it happened can’t believe it :’(

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 02:11 AM PST

    Last time I swear

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 04:47 PM PST

    Zezima looking like an absolute chad slaying in sleeveless Void

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 09:15 PM PST

    [Suggestion] Let us Net-trap Dagganoth Kings

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 04:36 PM PST

    Why are these questions UIM only?

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 08:44 AM PST

    Can't wait to change the size of my Saradomin staff in Cyberpunk 2007

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 09:43 AM PST

    Chatting bots at the GE seem to be completely gone, and it's the best update for me this year.

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 08:51 AM PST

    Just noticed when I had to hop worlds and hopped to a normal world. 0 chatting bots to be found, just a ton of people chatting and people bulk selling stuff at GE, the way it's supposed to be.

    I hope Jagex can keep it this way, very nice update.

    submitted by /u/Longboii
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    Beers of Guthix

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 10:19 AM PST

    But really, try to change my mind

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 09:30 AM PST

    Why the Wilderness Should Have Well-Designed Skilling and PvM Content

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 05:12 PM PST

    Hello and welcome. This TED talk will be divided into two main parts: why well designed skilling and PvM content is necessary for the long term health of PvP, and what "well-designed" means and looks like.

    A brief introduction

    Before people make assumptions, I want to make it clear that adding this sort of content to the Wilderness is not about luring defenseless players into the Wilderness to die in front of PKer firing squads. As will be discussed in the "what well-designed means" section, a key part of well-designed Wilderness content is making sure that players are not helpless prey. They should have a way to escape, or to fight back if they choose to. This is about making PvP healthier by incentivizing players to engage with PvP content by improving the "high risk, high reward" dynamic that the Wilderness was designed to revolve around.

    I have heard many people criticize the PvP community for constantly shouting "Fix PVP!" without offering concrete suggestions. Although this post won't delve much into specific content suggestions other then as proofs of concept, I hope it can serve as a guide in creating well-designed suggestions and updates in the future.

    Why a healthy Wilderness and PvP system should have skilling and PvM content

    The skill floor for PvP content is incredibly high

    If you go back and watch some of the "original" Runescape PK videos from the 2006 era, you might be surprised at just how bad people are at PvP, at least as compared to the modern era. Skills like one-ticking special attack weapons or combo eating food were unheard of, and anyone able to pull them off was a God-tier PKer. Now, those are entry-level skills that are essentially required to participate in PKing in any meaningful way. The single greatest PKer from 2006 would be battered pillar to post by any random player plucked from a PvP world in 2020.

    If you're new to PvP, and you go to Edgeville, you're going to be smashed around and killed dozens of times by even mediocre PKers. Deep wilderness content like black chinchompas, for example, serves as a training ground for people who are new to or inexperienced with PvP. It's much easier to tank and escape from a PKer than it is to fight them and take them down, and it familiarizes people with skills that can be applied to PvP in the future, like gearing properly, switching prayers, combo eating, and reading your opponent's gear and moves. By familiarizing people with PvP in the shallow end of the pool, they'll be more likely to jump into the deep end later on.

    Efficiencyscape is the new normal

    The way that people play has shifted heavily in the last 20 years. Many players, if not most, play the game for progression, advancing levels and building up wealth. Any content that doesn't offer competitive rate of XP or GP, or any other benefit, will be dead content. People will flock to it when it's first released, and give it up once they realize they can get much better rates of progression somewhere else. The death is even more total if it's content that requires multiple players – the minority of players that play the content for fun, not for progression, will eventually become frustrated and leave as the player base dwindles and the content becomes more and more difficult to engage with. It's not fun sitting at the GE on a PvP world or hopping worlds for 30 minutes looking for a single fight.

    This ties into the next section, which is…

    Edgeville-style PvP is a zero sum game

    Edgeville-style PvP is never going to be sustainable in the long run, in an efficiencyscape world. Edgeville-style PvP isn't just zero sum, it's less than zero sum once you factor in the supplies that are used up in fights, and the wealth that is destroyed on death (like the 3M+ tentacle whip that reverts to a 500K kraken tentacle) – you could have a 60% win, 40% loss rate and still be losing money. Edgeville PKers are only making a profit if other PKers are making a loss, and the PKers that are constantly making a loss will eventually either run out of money or quit in frustration.
    If you add an outside source of wealth, like, for instance, Revenants, then the system is no longer zero sum. PvMers sometimes die and lose money, but the profit from the times they survive more than covers the loss. PKers sometimes die to better PKers, better PKers sometimes die to clans, and clans sometimes die to larger clans, but almost all will be making a profit over the long run. Skilling and PvM content is like the sun in an ecosystem – it's what makes the system sustainable, and if you remove it the entire food chain collapses.

    Design and tradition

    This is less of an argument, per se, and more to point out that the Wilderness, by design, was always meant to be a high risk, high reward environment, where you could receive better GP, better XP, and unique drops. You can go all the way back to the August 2001 newspost – "The new wilderness area of runescape is online…The further you go into the wilderness the more dangerous it becomes, but the more treasure you could find!" When runite rocks were released, rune was top tier equipment, and the only way to get rune ore was by mining it in the Wilderness. When the KBD was released, it was an end game boss that required top tier gear and dropped the best equipment in the game, and the only way to get to it was thorough the Wilderness. Content like the ancient obelisks, Edgeville level, and ancient magicks wasn't even released yet – you had to trek to the KBD lair from the ditch.

    I believe it was one of the Gower brothers that said that Edgeville-style PKing was unintended – the Wilderness was introduced with the intention that it would revolve around a PKer ganking a rune miner, or a PKer jumping another PKer in worse gear, not around pre-arranged honor fights.

    But what does well-designed mean?

    Skillers and PvMers should be empowered to defend from and fight PKers

    A key part of well-designed content is to make sure that skillers and PvMers are participants, not victims. Lots of existing content has an issue with handicapping the players that engage with it. Perhaps the most severe example is abyssal runecrafting which, for optimal rates, requires players to sacrifice all of their inventory and gear slots. They're no longer a participant in the PvP content, they're a target dummy for PKers. This sort of dynamic will obviously create frustration, anger, and hostility – players will either quit engaging with this sort of content, or will grit their teeth and endure it for the rewards despite hating it. It doesn't create a healthy environment for PvP content. Compare this, on the other hand, to content like black chinchompas. Although it's not ideal – you still need to sacrifice at least 7 inventory slots for optimal rates – players can bring armour, weapons, food, and potions, and have ways to escape, like by running into the hobgoblin mines, revenants, or graveyard.

    Don't force participation

    Rewards from PvP should, in general, be tradable, so that players don't feel "forced" to engage with it. Similarly, although XP and GP rates should be higher than in the rest of the game to compensate for risk, they shouldn't be so insanely high that not engaging with them is a massive handicap. When players feel that they're engaging by choice, not by force, the content will be more enjoyable. They can also leave when they've had enough, instead of gritting their teeth and continuing as their hatred for PvP grows.

    Move no and low risk content out of the wilderness

    Putting content into the Wilderness that doesn't require any risk to engage with only leads to frustration. When a PKer kills a clue hunter for a spade and 1K in runes, it's a pointless interaction on both sides, and only encourages griefing, flaming, and other toxic behavior. Clue scrolls specifically are particularly bad, since they straddle PvP and non-PvP zones; players suffer the additional frustration of having to bank all of their gear and take out a new set-up, just for one step of a clue.

    PKers should require as much risk as PvMers

    The PvMer is already the one juggling the threat of PvM content and PKers, and the PKers have the element of surprise. Well-designed Wilderness content would require, or at least strongly encourage, the PKer to at least match the risk of the PvMer. Look at the old revenants, for example. A revenant killer would often be risking 250K just in ether, 100K+ in gear and supplies, and 100K-500K+ in revenant loot. Then a clan of ballista PKers shows up, each risking 50K-150K in rags, and kills them. Even if the PvMer manages to take one of the PKers down, they receive only a fraction of what they themselves are risking. The playing field should be more level. For example, skulled players in the revenant cave could receive a message, "Your skull brings back memories of the God Wars, enraging the revenants!" The revenants would then all become aggressive despite the effect of the bracelet of ethereum, and would hit for increased damage – the revenants would only become unaggressive if the skulled player wore an overcharged bracelet of ethereum, which would require the bracelet to be holding at least 1000 charges.

    Content should be sufficiently rewarding

    As touched on in the previous section, players engaging with Wilderness content have to deal with PKers on top of whatever challenges the content itself poses. Content should be balanced reasonably, both because of the issues with "forcing" mentioned earlier and the issue of players potentially using protection clans to boost it. At the same time, it needs to be sufficiently rewarding to justify doing it despite the time and resources it takes to escape from or fight PKers. Let's say a new mining method in the Wilderness offers 110K XP/Hr at level 99, which is 15K more than the Volcanic Mine. That might sound great at first…until you realize that, once you account for all the time you spend evading, escaping, and fighting PKers you'll probably be lucky to break 80K.

    Most risk should come from players, not content

    To minimize the issues discussed in the last section, the majority of the challenge from Wilderness content should come from PKers, not from the content itself. If you have to contend with a complicated, high-hitting boss and burn through half your food, you have to choose between banking constantly and being unprepared for a PKer if and when they show up. Wilderness content should be balanced so that players can do trips of a reasonable length without depleting most of their supplies and having to leave.

    Example of well and poorly designed content

    Abyssal Runecrafting – Poorly designed, 0/10

    Abyssal Runecrafting is probably one of the worst designed pieces of Wilderness content. It's the perfect example of skillers being targets in a shooting gallery, rather than participants. It's essentially impossible for runecrafters to fight back against PKers, since optimal rune crafting requires sacrificing all of your inventory spots to essence and pounces, and the abyss drains your prayer to 0. The skiller is also risking essentially nothing, since they'll usually have a glory, a low-tier pickaxe, and an inventory of essence, which adds up to under 20K. Escape is almost impossible once you're TBed and bound – even a bad PKer in rag gear can easily do 99 damage in the time it takes an entangle to wear off.

    Clue scrolls - Poorly designed, 4/10

    Almost every clue scroller you bump into will be risking under 10K. In theory, they can gear to defend themselves, but there is no point as the content requires no risk. It's also irritating to have to degear halfway though a clue for a Wilderness step. Wilderness steps add nothing to clue scrolls except annoyance, and clue scrolls add little to the Wilderness except frustration and toxicity.

    Black chinchompas – Well designed, 7/10

    Black chinchompas are docked some points, as they do require players to sacrifice 6 inventory spots for traps. Otherwise, they're a great example of well-designed Wilderness content. They offer rates of XP and GP that are high enough to attract players to hunt them, but low enough that people don't feel coerced into hunting them. Players are free to wear whatever gear they want – they can stack themselves up in tank gear for escaping, or in combat gear for dueling anyone that attacks them. It also requires risk from both parties. The skillers are risking the chincompas they caught and any gear they bring. Since it's a single combat area close to the 30 line, PKers only have a short window to TB or KO the hunters, which means their heavily pushed to bring valuable gear.

    KBD – Well designed, 9/10

    The good thing about KBD is that the fight itself is not in the Wilderness, but requires a trek through the Wilderness to access. This means that players going to the KBD will still be on full supplies, and that they don't have to worry about conserving or banking for supplies during the fight with the boss. Since you're bringing combat gear, you're equipped to tank, and possibly even fight back. There are multiple avenues of escape – running south to teleport, the hobgoblins, the spider pit, the ancient obelisk, ice warriors, the agility course, and more. Similar to black chinchompas, having a limited widow to get the kill pushes PKers to risk more. KBD does only add a limited amount of activity, since players will be in the Wilderness 60 seconds for every 60 minutes of PvM, but it's healthy and sustainable activity.

    The End

    Thank you for attending my TED talk.

    TL;DR - Wilderness skilling and PvM contents isn't bad. Badly made Wilderness skilling and PvM content is bad.

    submitted by /u/Plz_mod_pi
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    Tough Question Thursday (TQT)

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 02:33 AM PST

    First fire cape, first pet

    Posted: 16 Dec 2020 05:15 PM PST

    Good mail day :)

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 11:21 AM PST

    Christmastime in an alternate reality

    Posted: 17 Dec 2020 08:54 AM PST
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