Yoko Kurama

A pretty lackluster and uneventful month. There's nothing on this list that I will be eagerly anticipating.

Well, guys, it looks like as if I was completely wrong with how they'd treat PoP and Nex. They totally didn't trash PoP, to my great surprise. Teams for Nex and KK on the forums, which prior to the update (when Nex was still superior with set effects) would still take PoP'ers, are totally not refusing to take PoP'ers for roles other than the 1 tanker. Jagex didn't totally ignore 4 months of feedback resulting in predictable consequences that everyone foresaw. I guess I'd better get ready to apologize. Oh, wait ... I must have been dreaming or intoxicated when I wrote the above, because of course the opposite of that just happened.

You can already kill Nex with t70 Gear. Even when Nex was at her hardest (pre-EoC) you could kill her with T70 gear. It's just that T80 gear is a lot better, as it should be. That's how things currently and already are. So why make her any easier? That teams don't take people without t80/90 gear anymore is a matter of supply, rather than Nex herself.

We're saying that she should be balanced with level 70/75 gear in mind. The fact that people use higher leveled gear on her is because there aren't any high-leveled bosses except for the kalphite king. She shouldn't be made harder because of that. It just creates more problems. No. An emphatic no. Nex was intended to be end-game (in terms of difficulty if not the level of her gear) when she was released, and she was. Post-EoC she has been a complete joke. She should not be watered down any further under any circumstances. High-level players have what? 2 real bosses? KK and Nex? There is no reason why Nex should be snatched from them to be given to lower level players who already have various bosses -- including all of God Wars. No. As for making her harder, they aren't actually making her harder. They are merely restoring her to what she was. I see no problem with this. High level players need stuff and bosses to do too, you know.

You can fight Nex with level 70 armour. That's how Nex was first fought when it was released, and it stayed that way for quite a bit. It's not as efficient as t90 weapons, t80 armour. It's just that there are so many Nex armours in the game that teams can be exclusive and elitist and choose to reject people with T70 armour. Just like how you can still use a Chaotic Maul at Nex, it's just that most teams (unless they are your friends) will refuse to let you join. There is no problem.

Several hours still, assuming it is today.

I lavish praise when it is due, and scorn when deserved. I have done both of those things on TIF (as evidenced by my defense of EoC through the whole affair). That Jagex has lately been handling its matters in a poor way for the past few months is on their shoulders, not mine. I refuse to cut corners and try to be appreciative when it is undeserved. If certain people who feel the incessant need to defend Jagex on every turn choose to call it a "diatribe" or "harangue" or whatever, I am not in the least bit worried. Well, I will be reserving final judgment for it after it has been released, but they have already eliminated the most creative ways to handle an armour rework (which was mentioned in various feedback sent to them). As Sly mentioned, what most people really wanted was being able to modify each individual armour set into either of the 3 versions (offensive, defensive, hybrid), or perhaps have different versions of each set: so for instance, upon making Tetsu you could choose to make it offensive/defensive/hybrid (and it'd stay that way forever), same for boss drops. There were a lot of creative things they could have done and that had been suggested to them. Instead they not only took the least creative way out, but they were set on taking the one option that EVERYONE told them not to take: don't make PoP defensive and make Nex offensive. Even if it somehow miraculously ends up working out, there isn't much that could sway me because the options that I and many others wanted (diversity in armour choice) have already been precluded as a possibility from this update. Whatever else happens, we do know that the option a lot of people wanted (modifications to each individual armour) will not be released today.

I find it interesting the discussion has become a semantical one about one particular word. Even if you didn't agree with the word of choice, you probably knew the meainig: I was voicing a certain kind of disapproval with Jagex. Anyways, as for my particular use of 'narcissist', it is a completely valid use of the term. The core of narcissism is about egocentrism, which is what I have accused Jagex of being. Hence why they keep doing whatever they feel like (and ignoring feedback in the process) while simultaneously being able to claim that they are firmly committed to feedback.

But Nex armour will have reduced defence too, so POP will be best for all the strong bosses. Most bosses are pathetically weak in EoC, as you no doubt know. That's why Void is so prevalent everywhere, including Nex (for attackers). And it has the defense of what? Level 30-40 armour? Torva will be Void on Roids, perhaps designated tanks might find PoP to be better, but for everyone else, Torva/Nex will be better. Tanks are such a small minority of boss hunters, that PoP will basically be niche armour. Again, it's horrendous.

I'm quite aware of the definition of the term. They're narcissists, they actually think they are giving players what they want while objectively ignoring feedback because they are self-obsessed with their greatnesss. Perhaps if they weren't actually in love with how great they think they are, maybe then they could try and listen to the actual feedback given by the players whom they purport to be listening to.

Mod Chris has confirmed that PoP will be defensive while Nex will be offensive. So here we go: [bleep] Jagex. I have never seen a more narcissistic herd of fools and liars. BTS Video: "This update is all about the feedback. We really care about your feedback. Your feedback is what has driven this update. Your feedback made these changes possible. Did I mention how important your feedback was to this update?" Yeah.... "Oh, and we will be ignoring all the feedback that high level players have made for the last several months and be doing what we feel like doing, even if it makes no sense at all."

I am going to reserve judgment for now, despite the fact that Jagex is one entity who certainly doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, and hope that they didn't trash PoP armour again. IF they do end up doing that, then [bleep] Jagex. They spent the entire video boasting about "player feedback", they had better not ignore the dozens of threads over the forums for the past few months where people have repeatedly said that they don't think PoP should be inferior to Nex; particularly, PoP should not be made Tank armour while Nex is made offensive, since defense is useless post-EoC. Let's not forget the previous fiasco where they promised for PoP to be the best, then went ahead maxing Nex better while promising to make PoP better "later on", only for them to quietly renege their promise. And of course their whole nonsensical insistence in undermining the whole point of EoC where tiers matter and are supposed to reflect their levels (85 > 80). Again, I sincerely hope they don't end up pulling this shit. I was on a semi-break from RS anyways, perhaps they will incentivize me further.

From the 'Big Boys' article: No. Just no. I don't see what there is exactly to celebrate aside from Runescape having survived for so long. Runescape is most certainly not in one of its better phases at the moment. Despite being the largest free game online, F2P is dying. The number of active players is dismal. Roughly 40-50% of the active players are stuck playing an older version of the game. The company's primary obsession seems to be to make as much money from micro transactions as possible. Most of the places that used to be filled with community life are all but dead and barren, with everyone having moved onto the sole pursuit of XP at zombie-rates. XP rates and indeed high level content is a mess. I could go on and on. This isn't really a golden age for RS or even an optimistic one.

I guess they figured that they had driven everyone but bots from F2P anyways, so why bother giving them a voice? :wink:

I have all the PoP sets, and am only finishing up scrolls these days and getting 2nd sets. I have 4 Oxheads now and 2 Merchants. Should I bother getting a 3rd merchant? I am maxed with regards to buildings and ship upgrades. I also have plenty of resources.

Something about it looking too awkward. Realistically, how are you supposed to control this long tangly thing with just one hand? Especially if you have two of them? You're more likely to wrap yourself and end up looking like some kind of mummy.

Tetsu legs are 30M now? As for the Tetsu/Torva comparison. I wasn't denying that Torva is better. It is. However, currently, with how watered down most bosses are, Tetsu, along with Drygores, can get the job in a way that isn't substantially worse. (Solos being an exception). It isn't as if the Torva team is saving several minutes over the Tetsu team, or saving lots of food allowing them to get much faster kills and letting them stay longer. That was my point. It's nowhere near how it used to be pre-EoC where Nex was a thousand times better than the nearest alternative. It's still noticeably better, but not where it used to be.

because there's basically zero situations (baring an internet outage) where you can loose superior armor? That's quite a likely scenario, the internet outage, or perhaps a server goes down. Also, what about God Wars? Particularly during solos. Since the PoP death value is still messed up, during a solo if you die, it would be somewhat challenging to make it back in time.

anywhere you'd use void, you still use void. Anywhere you'd use nex (tanking nex/kk, dks?), pop armor is only slightly worse. This. Though it's completely unfair that Nex has a bonus while PoP does not, that bonus is quite small. Only the most dogmatic nitpickers would say that PoP is substantially worse. Also, that update next week, despite speculations that it will screw over PoP, has not yet happened. So there's still a chance or two.

I still don't understand why people are choosing 5M over what is one of the best armours in the game. At that level, surely you can make 5M easily? If my bank lost 5M, I probably wouldn't even notice it.

This, time a hundred million. That's what I have been doing. In my honest opinion, those who are making tradeable sets are digging a hole for themselves. They should get a spare set instead of some mostly minute profit.

Jagex wrote: Yeah, no thanks, Jagex.

Interesting that they are doing a NDA for this beta, which is mostly graphics and interface, while they did no such thing for the EoC beta, where people used the knowledge gained in the beta to make huge amounts of money and influence the live market.

Aside from the Storyline missions, their effect is so minute that it doesn't really make a significant difference. As mentioned above, they can only be used on 10 trade good missions, which are quite rare.

Statistically, the benefit of having a merchant, in the long run, will far outweigh the number of failures that you will encounter because of the reduced success percentage because of the addition of the merchant. The Merchant (Jade) provides a 30% boost in rewards. There is no mission for which the supplanting of a normal crew with a merchant will result in anywhere near a 30% deduction in the success rate. Ergo, the rate of increased rewards is greater than the increased chance of failure. On Morale missions this is even better, as the decrease in the success rate will be less because the Merchant has some Morale stats. Now I am no mathematician, but the above is a pretty accurate summary of their findings. They'd all agree with the above. You are free to look for the math yourself (it's somewhere lodged in this thread in some hidden chest or something), but that's (the above explanation) all you should need. The premises hold up and it's easy to test out yourself; just try arranging your crew for a bunch of different missions and you will find that in no scenario does the increased rate of failure due to the addition of a Merchant (Jade) supersede the increased rate of rewards.