Tip.It Times Tip.It Times - 30th March 2014

[tripsis]

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[Yoko Kurama]

I enjoyed reading ALG's article and rather agreed with it. Extremely minor quibble, but he uses Zamorak (along with Zaros) as an example of a god whom Jagex are trying to forcefully get us to like while he uses Saradomin (along with Bandos) as a god that they are trying to forcefully get us to dislike. I think the examples of Zaros and Bandos are fine, though Saradomin and Zamorak could be switched around. Zamorak is supposed to in theory be a noble demon (Jagex's word), but they have shown him to have little to no redeeming qualities. When he comes for the BoL, he just blazes his way through. Saradomin, despite having a dark past, seems to care once in a while. Zamorak seems to be completely trivialized as of late anyways.

 

As for the article by Arceus, I disagree with the proposal. Anytime you try, however noble your intentions might be, to make the three combat styles super unique, they end up so different that one of them is clearly better than the other two. I am not saying combat should be exactly the same (each style doing the exact same things), but the 3 styles should have access to similar abilities. For instance they should all a one-hit-KO-style move that deals large damage, but currently only mages and meleers do (Omnipower and Overpower), while rangers don't. They should also have some sort of damage boosting effect like Sunshine/Death's Swiftness, but only rangers and mages do at this point, while the one for Meleers, despite being very powerful has heavy penalties that restricts it in solo situations and it lasts for a smaller amount of time(Berserker). They should all have some sort of healing ability, but only Meleers have that (Balanced Strike), while rangers and mages don't. Only mage and melee have the ability to move around with the DPS increasing ultimate (Berserker and Metamorphosis), while rangers don't. They should all have a damage-over-time bleed attack, but only Melee and Ranger have a decent one at the moment (Frag Shot and Massacre), while the one for Mage sucks. And so on.

 

In theory being able to do different things with different combat styles sounds nice, but it never works out in practice in the context of RS. 

[Alg]

I enjoyed reading ALG's article and rather agreed with it. Extremely minor quibble, but he uses Zamorak (along with Zaros) as an example of a god whom Jagex are trying to forcefully get us to like while he uses Saradomin (along with Bandos) as a god that they are trying to forcefully get us to dislike. I think the examples of Zaros and Bandos are fine, though Saradomin and Zamorak could be switched around. Zamorak is supposed to in theory be a noble demon (Jagex's word), but they have shown him to have little to no redeeming qualities. When he comes for the BoL, he just blazes his way through. Saradomin, despite having a dark past, seems to care once in a while. Zamorak seems to be completely trivialized as of late anyways.

Most likely true. I used them as examples of those because Zamorak seems to be the god that they're trying to whitewash the most (from unambiguously chaotic evil to Darwinian-but-caring). Saradomin... Well, they said Death of Chivalry was supposed to give players a reason to support him, but you'll only get his "good guy" responses if you support him anyway.

[helring]

 

I enjoyed reading ALG's article and rather agreed with it. Extremely minor quibble, but he uses Zamorak (along with Zaros) as an example of a god whom Jagex are trying to forcefully get us to like while he uses Saradomin (along with Bandos) as a god that they are trying to forcefully get us to dislike. I think the examples of Zaros and Bandos are fine, though Saradomin and Zamorak could be switched around. Zamorak is supposed to in theory be a noble demon (Jagex's word), but they have shown him to have little to no redeeming qualities. When he comes for the BoL, he just blazes his way through. Saradomin, despite having a dark past, seems to care once in a while. Zamorak seems to be completely trivialized as of late anyways.

Most likely true. I used them as examples of those because Zamorak seems to be the god that they're trying to whitewash the most (from unambiguously chaotic evil to Darwinian-but-caring). Saradomin... Well, they said Death of Chivalry was supposed to give players a reason to support him, but you'll only get his "good guy" responses if you support him anyway.

 

 

I think they're trying to bring all Gods towards the middle, which for Zamorak requires making him seem better than before and for Saradomin requires giving him flaws. They haven't gotten a chance to do this much for Zamorak, but they seemed to start with his book where he outlines a philosophy to Moia, not to mention making Moia feel better after she was treated terribly by her Father. Although, Is Zamorak a noble demon? Its kind of left ambiguous in MahMem, he could just be powerhungry and using whatever methodology he can to amass followers. In one of the memories it seemed to allude to him telling different things to different followers based upon what they wanted to hear. 

 

Saradomin though, at least before the 6th age could do no wrong. Now his major flaw seems to be his temper. He's essentially a guy trying to do good, but his terrible temper gets the best of him. He usually seems to try to do right afterwards but still fails and regrets his actions, but his temper won't allow him to not make future mistakes. He still seems to have a decent following in game so it doesn't seem too bad. Also, even with all the negatives, its been shown that Saradominists can have relatively peaceful and prosperous kingdoms.

 

Can't argue with Bandos, I really think they killed him off way too soon. His redeeming trait seemed to supposedly be his honesty where he could call out hypocrites, but all that really had a chance to manifest as was "look, you claim to want peace but here you are at war". If any God was supposed to be Darwinian it was Bandos, the strong shall lead and you will get stronger following him or you will die. The fit will survive and the weak, well you weren't good enought to be worth caring about anyway  

 

Did they maybe go too far in making Zaros seem like a hero, maybe. We still don't know what his plans are or how he intends to ascend to Elder Godhood. It may be that his plans are so horrific that his motives needed to be this good to balance him out as a character. Perhaps he needs to kill Seren. Plus, there are still flaws there, maybe not enough were shining through on this one. He's definitely got Hubris, maybe more than Saradomin, although some might justify that because he is divine. He's also never been mortal, yet believes he is the right one to speak for mortals...he may not even know what the mortals truly desire or need. He's also got a line in his dialogue "If we give in to weakness, then we do not deserve the gift of life." Which could explain why his empire had so many things going on that should have been stopped, like Sliske's cruel plays and such. If you are weak and do not strive to overcome it, he does not care whether you live or die. Why did he excommunicate Sliske? For his attacks on the weak and poor? No, because Sliske decided to harm those who could be seen as useful people within Zaros' philosophy (Guthix, the Younger Gods if they would learn to use their power better, Sliske advising you to possibly not aid Zaros). So, while yes, this quest was leaning towards Zaros, there's still a lot of grey in him currently, and possibly a lot more to come in his methods of attaining elder godhood later. 

 

The God I'd argue is completely unbalanced by any major negatives at the moment is Armadyl. Yes, he took a cheap shot at Bandos' head after WE2, but overall he now has very few weaknesses if any. During the third age it seemed he was kind of naive, seeking peace and having a harder time bringing his full power to bear, that was a good weakness where he was unable to actually do what was necessary but that's gone now. All we have now is a God that is basically very similar to what Saradomin used to be within the lore. 

[HunterDexter]

Why does everybody always forgets the Chaos Elemental hint from the Card Game? Zaros will use the Catalyst to become a T1 god.

[helring]

Why does everybody always forgets the Chaos Elemental hint from the Card Game? Zaros will use the Catalyst to become a T1 god.

 

That doesn't mean its the only thing involved.

[cardsfanbj]

One thing I will say about Zaros is that all information we "knew" prior to Fate of the Gods was secondhand knowledge, at best (see: Azzanadra), which would have his own personal bias thrown into the situation. He's supposed to have been gone for around 4 ages, which means that the only people who had firsthand knowledge would have been corrupted over time.The rest was either speculation or just plain fiction. Anything from Jagex's mouth would have been artistic musings, not necessarily promises.

[Sorator]

Regarding DPS: I've always thought it was odd that we tried to balance DPS completely equally, given that mages have access to debuff spells and both mages and rangers have, well, range. I think it may have been a somewhat minor overcorrection from the massively unbalanced prior system, and I definitely think the current state of combat is far improved, but I agree that equal DPS =/= equally balanced combat styles; to say they are equivalent is to ignore a decent bit of utility. However, I probably wouldn't have been nearly so aware of that had I not started playing League of Legends, which values utlity quite highly and gives a great deal of thought into utility vs damage in terms of balance and playstyle, and as I said, I do think the current state of combat is much improved from what it used to be.

 

Edit: Yoko Kurama makes the excellent point, though, that it's exceptionally difficult to balance differing utility. This playerbase constantly seeks maximum efficiency and the "best" of the available options, and giving significant differences to the combat styles runs the risk of developing a true best option. I'm not sure of a great way to handle that; League takes the approach of periodically nerfing the current "best" and buffing the worst and letting players cycle in replacements, while Runescape takes the approach of largely ignoring utility and equalizing DPS across the board, both with limited success.

 

Regarding "Age of What?": I've seen a lot of folks complaining about FotG, either for the lack of meaningful choice, or for the idea that Zaros is good and pure and objectively better than the other gods, if not both - and I disagree.

 

Zaros's flaws are hardly minor or hand-waved away - they may be portrayed as minor or hand-waved by Zaros, but of course he's going to downplay his own flaws when he's trying to convince you to help him come to your world. His arrogance and ignorance of mortal behaviors and motivations is painfully obvious - in fact, that's why he needs your help in the first place: he didn't understand the concept of "betrayal" until Zamorak pushed him from this world. And Zaros has never been cast in a positive light by the other gods; Jagex wanted to provide an alternative view, with more information than Azzanadra was willing to provide. To some extent they also wanted to appease their playerbase, many (if not most) of whom hold Zaros in high esteem and want him to be, well, cool. That Jagex coudl do this while still clearly portraying Zaros's flaws was actually kind of impressive to me.

 

The same is true of the other gods - talk to them or their followers, and you'll be told their strengths; speak to their opponents, and you'll find their weaknesses and flaws. Saradomin and his worshipers will talk at length about his benevolence, wisdom, and guidance, to the extent that he was once thought of as the embodiment of good, justice, and law among the "main three" gods. But he clearly isn't quite so perfect, as you likely found in The Death of Chivalry. I think that's largely because the overriding narrative of the 6th Age is that the gods are just people like us, only with more power. Even Zaros (and what little we know of Seren, too), while not strictly "mortal", still has glaring strengths and flaws. The gods aren't perfect; they can be obsessive, selfish, or blind to what is happening around them. They can also be kind, merciful, and provide wise guidance. You, as a player, must decide whether it's worth putting up with the bad to get the good, and if one god is particularly better than the others, or if it is better to be free of them entirely.

 

As for choice... I think Jagex is over-reaching. There are some pretty hefty technical & time constraints upon just how much impact a player's choice can have on the storyline. I agree that what they're doing right now isn't really what promised or what they seem to be aiming for, but I'm willing to give them a fair amount of patience while they try and work it out. I have enjoyed what choices they've managed to work in, even if they haven't been nearly as impactful as the choices in, say, Dragon Age. I don't think we'll ever reach that point of player choice impact, because it's simply too difficult to work into an MMO, but I do think people are somewhat discounting how much impact we're having. I think the choices made during Zaros's return will significantly impact the story that we've yet to see, and I'm not going to start complaining until I see a significant missed opportunity for that to happen.

 

Of course Zaros is going to return regardless, though. He makes it clear that, at the very least, something major is happening that only he knows much about - he insists that he has a way to deal with it, and if you agree with his course of action, you can help him return in full; if not, you still need to get him to so-operate with you at least some so that you can extract more information from him and find an alternative solution. And from a more technical standpoint... they don't want to pull another Hazeel, and effectively kill off a character for half the players. If they did, they wouldn't be able to devote sufficient time to developing content that meaningfully includes that character for those players who didn't kill him off, because the other half of players will never experience it, and it's difficult for a studio the size of Jagex to invest that much time and manpower into something they know no more than half of players will even see. Someone in another thread mentioned Hazeel and reminded me that he is the perfect example of what they're trying to avoid with Zaros; they want to give players choices, and want them to be meaningful, but they don't want to develop a hundred different storylines for the different combinations of choices. So, we have the current setup of majority unaffected quest dialogue, with a few bits where you get to make a choice or see the impact of them, and then return to what everyone sees.

 

However, I do agree that the plot twists in FotG seemed a bit manufactured; they could've done a somewhat better job of leading up to it and releasing information more slowly, instead of us getting to the quest and finding out, rapid-fire, that there are Elder Gods, there are five of them, they were born, Zaros is pseudo-divine whilst the other gods are mere ascended mortals, Seren and Zaros are effectively siblings and/or lovers as well as being the caretaker children of Mah, the Mahjarrat are sort of related to Zaros & Seren, the Elder Gods want to destroy Gielinor, and Zaros wants to become an Elder God as well as wake the other four who are currently "sleeping" on Gielinor. That... was a lot to take in. While I'm sure some of that got 'leaked' through Twitter and podcasts and such, those aren't really a dependable way of getting information to the players - I certainly wasn't aware of any of it. There was some explanation in the Mahjarrat Memories miniquest, but that was released so quickly prior to FotG that it all blurs together. I think they would've done better to take more time and trickle at least some of this information down in various ways before hitting us with the major bits (Elder Gods are on Gielinor prepping for the Great Rivision, Zaros & Seren are children of an Elder God).

[darthaddict]

Regarding DPS: I've always thought it was odd that we tried to balance DPS completely equally, given that mages have access to debuff spells and both mages and rangers have, well, range. I think it may have been a somewhat minor overcorrection from the massively unbalanced prior system, and I definitely think the current state of combat is far improved, but I agree that equal DPS =/= equally balanced combat styles; to say they are equivalent is to ignore a decent bit of utility. However, I probably wouldn't have been nearly so aware of that had I not started playing League of Legends, which values utlity quite highly and gives a great deal of thought into utility vs damage in terms of balance and playstyle, and as I said, I do think the current state of combat is much improved from what it used to be.

 

Edit: Yoko Kurama makes the excellent point, though, that it's exceptionally difficult to balance differing utility. This playerbase constantly seeks maximum efficiency and the "best" of the available options, and giving significant differences to the combat styles runs the risk of developing a true best option. I'm not sure of a great way to handle that; League takes the approach of periodically nerfing the current "best" and buffing the worst and letting players cycle in replacements, while Runescape takes the approach of largely ignoring utility and equalizing DPS across the board, both with limited success.

 

Regarding "Age of What?": I've seen a lot of folks complaining about FotG, either for the lack of meaningful choice, or for the idea that Zaros is good and pure and objectively better than the other gods, if not both - and I disagree.

 

Zaros's flaws are hardly minor or hand-waved away - they may be portrayed as minor or hand-waved by Zaros, but of course he's going to downplay his own flaws when he's trying to convince you to help him come to your world. His arrogance and ignorance of mortal behaviors and motivations is painfully obvious - in fact, that's why he needs your help in the first place: he didn't understand the concept of "betrayal" until Zamorak pushed him from this world. And Zaros has never been cast in a positive light by the other gods; Jagex wanted to provide an alternative view, with more information than Azzanadra was willing to provide. To some extent they also wanted to appease their playerbase, many (if not most) of whom hold Zaros in high esteem and want him to be, well, cool. That Jagex coudl do this while still clearly portraying Zaros's flaws was actually kind of impressive to me.

 

The same is true of the other gods - talk to them or their followers, and you'll be told their strengths; speak to their opponents, and you'll find their weaknesses and flaws. Saradomin and his worshipers will talk at length about his benevolence, wisdom, and guidance, to the extent that he was once thought of as the embodiment of good, justice, and law among the "main three" gods. But he clearly isn't quite so perfect, as you likely found in The Death of Chivalry. I think that's largely because the overriding narrative of the 6th Age is that the gods are just people like us, only with more power. Even Zaros (and what little we know of Seren, too), while not strictly "mortal", still has glaring strengths and flaws. The gods aren't perfect; they can be obsessive, selfish, or blind to what is happening around them. They can also be kind, merciful, and provide wise guidance. You, as a player, must decide whether it's worth putting up with the bad to get the good, and if one god is particularly better than the others, or if it is better to be free of them entirely.

 

As for choice... I think Jagex is over-reaching. There are some pretty hefty technical & time constraints upon just how much impact a player's choice can have on the storyline. I agree that what they're doing right now isn't really what promised or what they seem to be aiming for, but I'm willing to give them a fair amount of patience while they try and work it out. I have enjoyed what choices they've managed to work in, even if they haven't been nearly as impactful as the choices in, say, Dragon Age. I don't think we'll ever reach that point of player choice impact, because it's simply too difficult to work into an MMO, but I do think people are somewhat discounting how much impact we're having. I think the choices made during Zaros's return will significantly impact the story that we've yet to see, and I'm not going to start complaining until I see a significant missed opportunity for that to happen.

 

Of course Zaros is going to return regardless, though. He makes it clear that, at the very least, something major is happening that only he knows much about - he insists that he has a way to deal with it, and if you agree with his course of action, you can help him return in full; if not, you still need to get him to so-operate with you at least some so that you can extract more information from him and find an alternative solution. And from a more technical standpoint... they don't want to pull another Hazeel, and effectively kill off a character for half the players. If they did, they wouldn't be able to devote sufficient time to developing content that meaningfully includes that character for those players who didn't kill him off, because the other half of players will never experience it, and it's difficult for a studio the size of Jagex to invest that much time and manpower into something they know no more than half of players will even see. Someone in another thread mentioned Hazeel and reminded me that he is the perfect example of what they're trying to avoid with Zaros; they want to give players choices, and want them to be meaningful, but they don't want to develop a hundred different storylines for the different combinations of choices. So, we have the current setup of majority unaffected quest dialogue, with a few bits where you get to make a choice or see the impact of them, and then return to what everyone sees.

 

However, I do agree that the plot twists in FotG seemed a bit manufactured; they could've done a somewhat better job of leading up to it and releasing information more slowly, instead of us getting to the quest and finding out, rapid-fire, that there are Elder Gods, there are five of them, they were born, Zaros is pseudo-divine whilst the other gods are mere ascended mortals, Seren and Zaros are effectively siblings and/or lovers as well as being the caretaker children of Mah, the Mahjarrat are sort of related to Zaros & Seren, the Elder Gods want to destroy Gielinor, and Zaros wants to become an Elder God as well as wake the other four who are currently "sleeping" on Gielinor. That... was a lot to take in. While I'm sure some of that got 'leaked' through Twitter and podcasts and such, those aren't really a dependable way of getting information to the players - I certainly wasn't aware of any of it. There was some explanation in the Mahjarrat Memories miniquest, but that was released so quickly prior to FotG that it all blurs together. I think they would've done better to take more time and trickle at least some of this information down in various ways before hitting us with the major bits (Elder Gods are on Gielinor prepping for the Great Rivision, Zaros & Seren are children of an Elder God).

They released a few videos about the back story of Gielinor about a year or so, but it only mentioned 3 Elder Gods. Also other quests have been hinting at Elder Gods for a while now, but we didn't know the exact number.

is about the Elder gods. This one is a cartoon about the creation of Gielinor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB88piitm9o.

[Fallstar]

I was going to support Zaros anyway, but I agree with Alg that they've kind of gone too far into making him really likeable (or so it seems to me). He did the most for PC and I was going to return the favour, but turns out he's basically the best option anyway.

[HunterDexter]

 

Regarding DPS: I've always thought it was odd that we tried to balance DPS completely equally, given that mages have access to debuff spells and both mages and rangers have, well, range. I think it may have been a somewhat minor overcorrection from the massively unbalanced prior system, and I definitely think the current state of combat is far improved, but I agree that equal DPS =/= equally balanced combat styles; to say they are equivalent is to ignore a decent bit of utility. However, I probably wouldn't have been nearly so aware of that had I not started playing League of Legends, which values utlity quite highly and gives a great deal of thought into utility vs damage in terms of balance and playstyle, and as I said, I do think the current state of combat is much improved from what it used to be.

 

Edit: Yoko Kurama makes the excellent point, though, that it's exceptionally difficult to balance differing utility. This playerbase constantly seeks maximum efficiency and the "best" of the available options, and giving significant differences to the combat styles runs the risk of developing a true best option. I'm not sure of a great way to handle that; League takes the approach of periodically nerfing the current "best" and buffing the worst and letting players cycle in replacements, while Runescape takes the approach of largely ignoring utility and equalizing DPS across the board, both with limited success.

 

Regarding "Age of What?": I've seen a lot of folks complaining about FotG, either for the lack of meaningful choice, or for the idea that Zaros is good and pure and objectively better than the other gods, if not both - and I disagree.

 

Zaros's flaws are hardly minor or hand-waved away - they may be portrayed as minor or hand-waved by Zaros, but of course he's going to downplay his own flaws when he's trying to convince you to help him come to your world. His arrogance and ignorance of mortal behaviors and motivations is painfully obvious - in fact, that's why he needs your help in the first place: he didn't understand the concept of "betrayal" until Zamorak pushed him from this world. And Zaros has never been cast in a positive light by the other gods; Jagex wanted to provide an alternative view, with more information than Azzanadra was willing to provide. To some extent they also wanted to appease their playerbase, many (if not most) of whom hold Zaros in high esteem and want him to be, well, cool. That Jagex coudl do this while still clearly portraying Zaros's flaws was actually kind of impressive to me.

 

The same is true of the other gods - talk to them or their followers, and you'll be told their strengths; speak to their opponents, and you'll find their weaknesses and flaws. Saradomin and his worshipers will talk at length about his benevolence, wisdom, and guidance, to the extent that he was once thought of as the embodiment of good, justice, and law among the "main three" gods. But he clearly isn't quite so perfect, as you likely found in The Death of Chivalry. I think that's largely because the overriding narrative of the 6th Age is that the gods are just people like us, only with more power. Even Zaros (and what little we know of Seren, too), while not strictly "mortal", still has glaring strengths and flaws. The gods aren't perfect; they can be obsessive, selfish, or blind to what is happening around them. They can also be kind, merciful, and provide wise guidance. You, as a player, must decide whether it's worth putting up with the bad to get the good, and if one god is particularly better than the others, or if it is better to be free of them entirely.

 

As for choice... I think Jagex is over-reaching. There are some pretty hefty technical & time constraints upon just how much impact a player's choice can have on the storyline. I agree that what they're doing right now isn't really what promised or what they seem to be aiming for, but I'm willing to give them a fair amount of patience while they try and work it out. I have enjoyed what choices they've managed to work in, even if they haven't been nearly as impactful as the choices in, say, Dragon Age. I don't think we'll ever reach that point of player choice impact, because it's simply too difficult to work into an MMO, but I do think people are somewhat discounting how much impact we're having. I think the choices made during Zaros's return will significantly impact the story that we've yet to see, and I'm not going to start complaining until I see a significant missed opportunity for that to happen.

 

Of course Zaros is going to return regardless, though. He makes it clear that, at the very least, something major is happening that only he knows much about - he insists that he has a way to deal with it, and if you agree with his course of action, you can help him return in full; if not, you still need to get him to so-operate with you at least some so that you can extract more information from him and find an alternative solution. And from a more technical standpoint... they don't want to pull another Hazeel, and effectively kill off a character for half the players. If they did, they wouldn't be able to devote sufficient time to developing content that meaningfully includes that character for those players who didn't kill him off, because the other half of players will never experience it, and it's difficult for a studio the size of Jagex to invest that much time and manpower into something they know no more than half of players will even see. Someone in another thread mentioned Hazeel and reminded me that he is the perfect example of what they're trying to avoid with Zaros; they want to give players choices, and want them to be meaningful, but they don't want to develop a hundred different storylines for the different combinations of choices. So, we have the current setup of majority unaffected quest dialogue, with a few bits where you get to make a choice or see the impact of them, and then return to what everyone sees.

 

However, I do agree that the plot twists in FotG seemed a bit manufactured; they could've done a somewhat better job of leading up to it and releasing information more slowly, instead of us getting to the quest and finding out, rapid-fire, that there are Elder Gods, there are five of them, they were born, Zaros is pseudo-divine whilst the other gods are mere ascended mortals, Seren and Zaros are effectively siblings and/or lovers as well as being the caretaker children of Mah, the Mahjarrat are sort of related to Zaros & Seren, the Elder Gods want to destroy Gielinor, and Zaros wants to become an Elder God as well as wake the other four who are currently "sleeping" on Gielinor. That... was a lot to take in. While I'm sure some of that got 'leaked' through Twitter and podcasts and such, those aren't really a dependable way of getting information to the players - I certainly wasn't aware of any of it. There was some explanation in the Mahjarrat Memories miniquest, but that was released so quickly prior to FotG that it all blurs together. I think they would've done better to take more time and trickle at least some of this information down in various ways before hitting us with the major bits (Elder Gods are on Gielinor prepping for the Great Rivision, Zaros & Seren are children of an Elder God).

They released a few videos about the back story of Gielinor about a year or so, but it only mentioned 3 Elder Gods. Also other quests have been hinting at Elder Gods for a while now, but we didn't know the exact number.

is about the Elder gods. This one is a cartoon about the creation of Gielinor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB88piitm9o.

 

 

There are only 5 Elder Gods, known for over a year, confirmed with FOTG.