Troacctid

The Game Guide says quite plainly: No assumptions, just the official source. Unless you include the assumption that the official source is not lying. *shrug*

I'm back from my hiatus to talk about the newest skill! Dungeoneering is a skill where you crawl through a themed dungeon filled with puzzles, monsters, and locked doors while searching for new equipment to use to defeat the unique boss monster at the end. For example, you might defeat some Moblins in a Fire Dungeon to find a Small Key and unlock the door to a room with Bombs that help you defeat the King Dodongo boss. Dungeoneering has a lot of problems, but before I talk about them, let's be fair--for all its flaws, there are definitely some things that Dungeoneering does right. Examples: Creative, interesting, well-designed boss fights True team gameplay, on the level of Barbarian Assault (Stealing Creation wishes it could be Daemonheim) A rare instance of the combat triangle being balanced, rather than dominated by melee Appealing audio and visuals Some of the rewards, despite being nigh-impossible to obtain, are pretty good. (I like the bonecrusher and the new Void Spinner prayer, and I'll give them credit for remembering to let you repair your equipment with cash.) And at least they didn't forget to put a teleport to Daemonheim on the ring--I was scared before I figured that out. (This is also a great unlimited bank teleport for free players.) So it's obvious our good folks at Jagex put plenty of effort into it in some places. The trouble, of course, is that it needs to be this good in all places, because being a skill, it's not the sort of thing you want to be only mostly done. Were it a minigame, it could get away with appealing to only a subset of players the way Shattered Heart or Familiarization or The Blood Pact are, but as a skill, it needs to have something for all players. Skills don't have the liberty of saying, "Well, if you don't like me, don't train me." Well, I mean, yeah, they can say that, but it's bad for the game when they do because they're such an intrinsic part of the experience. Summoning was pretty lame at its first go too, but after a big patch a few weeks later, it's now widely considered a great skill. I'm fairly optimistic that given a sufficient patch a la Summoning Batch 2, Dungeoneering will end up being a perfectly good skill too. Now, in no particular order, here's what I think it needs after looking over some of the issues players have raised and some analysis of my own. Fix the price of the rewards and possibly scrap the token system altogether. There are all kinds of reasons why it doesn't make sense. I want to say it's like Mobilizing Armies because of how slow it is without much return in between, but the truth is, MA actually has a better rewards system--with MA, once you reach the requirement to buy a reward, you generally have more than enough points to buy the item you want. Sure, you might not be able to buy all the rewards, but at least you can imbue your archer ring once you make it to 300 rank. It's good that we can bet more to get greater point rewards and then spend those points with our limited budgets. But with Dungeoneering, that whole dynamic is upside-down. When I get to level 21, I'm not excited that I can now use a bonecrusher. I'm angry/sad/annoyed/disappointed because I should be able to, but I can't. Make the rewards tradable. There's no reason for them not to be. Really, there isn't--they all have Dungeoneering requirements anyway. Why aren't they tradable? Tied to the previous point. This is part of why people are saying it feels so much more like a minigame than a skill. You don't need to make a skill product untradable if it has a level requirement to use. Content that lets you utilize the skill outside of Daemonheim. I was about to say "other dungeons," but then I realized we kind of have those already, don't we? (This might be something to release as separate future updates rather than as part of a Dungeoneering 2.0 patch.) This is another big part of why people are saying it feels more like a minigame than a skill. I'm sure there are plenty of ideas out there amongst the player base. A few off the top of my head: maybe alternate entrances to Daemonheim, maybe the ability to use special underground passages as portals for transportation (like the mine cart in the GE--which, while I have your attention, could really use a right-click option), maybe additional lower levels to existing dungeons that are too dangerous for inexperienced spelunkers, etc. There just needs to be something to keep it from being so self-contained. Having every item be new is way more confusing than it needs to be. It's an unnecessary barrier to entry to have to learn whether Fractite is better than Argonite or which items you need to make a Prayer Potion or how much HP you heal by eating a Blue Crab or whether you have a high enough summoning level to make a pouch from the Stegomastyx bag you just picked up. Look, flavor is nice, but function has to come first--just put the level in the name like with Stealing Creation. Gathering locations can be hard to pick out of the scenery. This is made worse by the fact that most rooms have lots of inactive versions of hotspots that might be used for a skill--ponds that have no fish, obelisks you can't click on, etc. This should be easy to fix by adding icons to the minimap and dungeon map just as they would be in the overworld. We need to be able to bind more items. I get a level 11 pair of boots from the boss. Okay, great...except they disappear as soon as I leave the dungeon that I just completed. When we need to remake everything from scratch besides one or two weapons, it just isn't worth the trouble to make much of anything. Why not give us an extra bound item every 20 levels? That lets players gradually work their way up to eventually being able to bind a full set of weapon, shield, helm, plate, legs, boots, and gloves. Seems fair, right? Remember, the more items you can bind, the greater flexibility you have in customization--with only one, you'll take a weapon every time, but when you get more, you need to choose how to distribute your choices between the combat classes. So you get more depth, see? It's an improvement all-around. Spread rewards more evenly through the levels. It is quite literally impossible to get any reward from the skill before level 53. Impossible. There is no reward available. What the hell? What's going on with that? And the reward you can get at that level is a gem bag, which, unless you love killing Goraks for some reason, is more or less completely useless. Add to this the way that experience scales with levels (xp comes at a snail's pace at low levels), and for the vast majority of casual players who don't get past 50 in Cooking let alone Dungeoneering, the skill offers literally nothing to the rest of the game. This is clearly not okay. Solo players need to be able to get back into a dungeon if they log out or lose connection. This is probably the way it is now because of game engine issues, so the difficulty of fixing it may seem disproportionate compared to the benefit, but trust me--it's incredibly important. This is not a little thing. If I lose connection at the end of a long dungeon and I can't go back in and come back to where I left off, I'm not going to want to log in at all. I'm going to want to shut off my computer in frustration. And if I know that I won't be able to leave a long and complex dungeon without losing my progress until I finish it completely, there's a good chance I just won't do it. The ability to pick up where you left off is vital to the solo gameplay. The bosses need drops. As I mentioned, these are awesome bosses even only having seen the lowest-level ones. The designs are creative, the tactics are interesting, the dynamics change with a team, etc. But there needs to be something to attract teams here in the first place. Can we get some boss drops that we can take out of Daemonheim or something? Because right now, the bosses pretty much drop nothing...maybe some backstory, maybe an item you maybe want to bind, but otherwise nothing. Why create these awesome bosses and then go and make them irrelevant to the rest of the game? Give us a reason to kill them. Maybe give them each a unique drop that we can use in Runescape proper, even if it's just cosmetic--a little ice spider egg that can hatch into a pet at the pet shop's incubator from the lady who summons ice spiders, for example, could be one of the lesser rewards, while a higher-level boss might drop things like the bonecrusher. (And if you already had one, it would presumably be tradable so you could sell it, and thus preserve the incentive to come back again later.) Resources deplete too quickly. If skilling is supposed to play a relevant role in the team gameplay, the skiller needs to be able to cook enough fish and smith enough armor for the whole team. When the resources run out the way they do, it becomes very difficult. I realize that this feature probably exists to keep the xp balanced, so I imagine it could be easily replaced with a decrease in xp the more you use the resource, or something like that. Sound fair? Most importantly, when in doubt, pump up the power level. Guys, it's okay. It's a new skill--it's supposed to be a big part of the game. You don't need to worry about breaking anything. Make the rewards plentiful, make them powerful, and make them useful at all points in the level spectrum. It worked for Summoning, didn't it? You were too conservative with the power level at first, and it was poorly-received. When you made training easier and made everything stronger (except fishing familiars), the skill only got better. Be conservative with minigames; don't be conservative with skills. If you can do for Dungeoneering what you did for Summoning, and I know you can, it could easily become one of my favorite skills in the game.

You will not have a lot of tokens lying around. It's built into the skill that you can only get 1 token per 10 xp. Tokens are directly tied to your level. You use up your tokens, you don't get more until you gain more levels. In fact, because they trade on a 1:1 ratio, the tokens are xp for all intents and purposes. They're just a bit more...shall we say...liquid. The only way to spend tokens is to directly reduce your xp. Sure, it isn't framed that way. It's set up as a positive choice. You get some xp, then you get some tokens, and you then have the option to trade in the tokens for xp. But you could just as easily get a 10% bonus to your xp, then be asked whether you want to trade the bonus for tokens. Objectively, it's exactly the same. It's like if I give you a dollar then flip a coin to see if you get another dollar, or if I give you two dollars then flip a coin to see if I take one of them away. Exactly the same. You spend 400k tokens, you lose 400k xp, period. And even if you're getting an average of 200k xp/hr, it's still going to take you 20 hours to earn a Chaotic anything.

Short answer: it isn't and it doesn't. Unfortunately.

Tokens don't cost anything? The only fee you pay for is to recharge it, which is very miniscule. Tokens cost quite a lot. The concept of opportunity cost is, quite literally, the first thing they teach you in a basic economics course. (At least, in my state's textbooks it is.) The cost of a Chaotic Shield is, at a minimum, 400k Dungeoneering xp. Would you reduce your level by nearly half a million xp for this shield? Would you trade a Chaotic Rapier for it? Would you trade a bonecrusher, scroll of augury, and arcane stream necklace for it? Because that's what you have to do--you need to choose between the shield and all of those things and more. If you take the shield, you lose out on everything else you could have bought with that 400k--or you do until you make it another third of the way to lv99, anyway. The fact that you don't come out with less cash than you started is irrelevant, as nothing you can possibly do will ever make you come out behind in cash--you start out the game with 0 gp. I can spend 120m on 99 prayer and still come out with no net loss.

10% =/= 30% reduction. But it's good in terms of no prayer drainage and can be used without any prayer points sounds godly for Dk's. I think the 'high end' spirit shields might crash street wise and reach a equillibrium roughly 3/4 of it's ge price... or something. I wouldn't know, so easy to manipulate. Take into account, the very high base defense stats, and that it does 10% damage absorption for melee but 20% for range. Plus it's technically free. Except for Recharge Fees It is nothing near free at all, actually. :mellow:

spear will have better stab, longsword is best slash out of all weapon types i think. with spear you also lose shield slot of course, so it's a trade-off. i still think it's probably the best melee weapon to be carrying around Can't you poison a spear too? That seems like a relevant advantage.

We don't know. Considering this skill goes up to a new level cap, I think the experience per an hour and tokens per an hour will be insanely high in the higher levels. (I'm talking 900k exp an hour which means 90k tokens an hour) in the 80-90's. I can't see the skill having low exp per an hour when you get past 80. However all that you and I've said are assumptions. We do know. The Knowledge Base explicitly stated that you get 1 token for every 10 xp, not including any bonus xp for completing a level the first time. That means you need a bare minimum of 4m xp without buying any other rewards. And you only get one. And keep in mind you're not just getting level 90, you're getting level 90 in a skill that literally has no other rewards at all, because if you buy bonecrushers and arcane stream necklaces and renewal prayers and tomes of frost and all the other cool stuff you should get, you can't even get the chaotic weapon at level 90--you'll have to go all the way to 93-94ish.

So...you need about level 90 (with literally no other rewards on the way) to get one of these new items, and you can't reobtain it if you lose it? Yeah, sounds great. :rolleyes:

No, that would be if you spend the points on poison ivy seeds, which cost 30 points and are worth ~900 gp.

Do we even have enough bloggers on Tip.It who write actual articles or posts about RS rather than just recounting levels to make a regular thing out of it? I doubt it tbh. http://forum.tip.it/blog/39-troacctids-runescape-blog/ Actually, I had most of a whole thing written up about all the reasons why the changes to the HP skill are important to the continued health of the game, but I accidentally closed my browser and lost it all. #-o

You can definitely get away with just 1 black knight. He only dies to traps, really, so if you're only sending him to attack monsters, then the second one is redundant. Go with a spy instead.

That's a good thing, of course. And nobody would argue that firemaking should be removed. But from a game design perspective, you need to look at what a skill adds to the game. And with firemaking, you can see that it adds very little, at least in its current state. If we were allowed to light some more interesting things on fire besides logs--say, weapons, ranged ammo, that sort of thing--then firemaking gets interesting. That is just a matter of opinion which depends on the degree of integration of firemaking into the game, because you cannot deny it is integrated into other aspects of the game. 1. it is connected to cooking. However with ranges giving benefits and being available at many locations this function has become secondary. 2. Quest requirements. Firemaking skill is required for certain quest story lines. And sometimes this even makes sense. 3. Woodcutting: the inferno adze. 4. minigames: pyre logs. 5. travel: balloons. 6. monster hunting: torches, lanterns The only question is only whether this integration of this skill is good enough for you personally. Apparently it isn't, but you cannot deny there isn't any integration into other aspects of the game. Could the skill be more integrated? Probably. But there has to be a skill that is least integrated. But why stop here. Why not complain that attack isn't integrated with all the other skills available. The only skill you could argue attack is even remotely good for is slayer. You misunderstand me. It's not that making fires adds nothing to the game; it's that having a skill for making fires adds little to the game. What few functions it does have as a skill could either be absorbed by woodcutting or eliminated entirely and nobody would blink. Lighting lanterns? They'd just come already-lit or removed entirely. Pyre logs? They'd be done with just prayer and crafting levels and function exactly the same. Quest requirements? The quests would drop the requirements and suffer no changes. Cooking? Just use a tinderbox on logs without gaining xp, and use woodcutting level to determine the types of logs you can burn. There just isn't anything to justify "firemaking" as a skill of its own.

Rocktails are not the super XP some would like to think they are, I am 99 fishing and at my level over several hours testing I make the average a load (26) every fiften minutes which works out at 39,520k an hour. I have had 44k XP in hour most, and as little as 29k XP in an hour. Good for cash though I have made millions off of them : ) So there are other fishing methods for better more consistant XP per hour..... So I would say if you want quite decent XP and great cash go for Rocktails, if you only want XP look elswhere. That's still only barely slower than fly fishing, which is almost no profit and probably won't get you over 45k xp/hr.

I would say try with and without a terrorbird, to see how much difference it makes.

Jagex said a smithing update was coming in one of the Q&A sessions. We know nothing about it other than that.

That's a good thing, of course. And nobody would argue that firemaking should be removed. But from a game design perspective, you need to look at what a skill adds to the game. And with firemaking, you can see that it adds very little, at least in its current state. If we were allowed to light some more interesting things on fire besides logs--say, weapons, ranged ammo, that sort of thing--then firemaking gets interesting.

My intuition is that smithing is going to get an update sooner than thieving. When that update comes, prices will probably spike. You should train smithing now and beat the spike.

The man is the voice of sanity. I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not. I'm leaning towards yes. :mellow:

Use tinderbox -> logs Ta-dah, fire. No xp needed, right? How about lighting light sources, burning evil trees, making pyre fires, lighting beacons in an cold places, an adze that makes the logs you chop burn? In what skill would you put these? If player doesnt know how to cut a tree, then how does he know how to set it on fire, as different types of wood are harder to set on fire than others? It is simply easier to make a skill for it. Even if players would question it, it makes more sense. Light sources can also be done without a skill, just like you don't need a farming level to crack coconuts or an herblore level to fill vials with water. Evil trees can be part of woodcutting--nobody complains that crafting leather and crafting jewelry are part of the same skill, and that's a lot more of a stretch than cutting down trees vs. burning down trees. The other ones were contrived to make use of firemaking, so if firemaking wasn't a skill, they wouldn't exist anyway.

This game is so much cooler now. I remember playing it a long time ago before the update and not liking it. But now it's awesome! I don't even know what's different, actually, but I like it. There's something really satisfying about making those aliens go SPLAT! Haha whoo! :thumbsup:

Use tinderbox -> logs Ta-dah, fire. No xp needed, right?

If you're only taking an average net loss of 1 hp/minute, then food shouldn't be a problem--you can stay for 3 hours on an inventory of trout, which is dirt-cheap already. Plus, they drop meat. You're fine already. :wink:

The whip is dominant enough that unless a monster is just really strong against slash, you aren't going to see people downgrading to a lesser weapon. It's like, lv22 skeletons have less defense against crush...but when you're hitting on them so often no matter what style you use, does it really matter? It starts to come into play against monsters with very high defense, such as waterfiends, mithril dragons, aquanites, corporeal beast, that sort of thing.

I'm told they don't even patrol there. Even if they did, it's so close to a teleport that there's practically zero risk of losing equipment. I ranged my last Greater task in the Wildy Volcano, and there's a plethora of safespots you can use. The whole crater is full of skeletons and rocks and little lava pools to block them on. They're pretty spread out anyway, so ranging is a natural fit for the area, and it's quick to get to. So it should work nicely for your purposes.