Platinum_Myr

We can hope they just remove it for F2P, and just make members on F2P servers get reduced dg xp?

ITT: We Complain Because They're Making It Harder Even Though We've Been Complaining About Them Making It Too Easy What he means is that a level 200 without prayer will be expected to train on level 170 monsters just like totally maxed people. With the difference that prayer adds about 30-40% dps depending on the defence of what you're fighting (32% straight up dps from strength boost + 29% from attack, totalling 1.32*1.29 at most). But that's only in the current system. Prayer may not add that much dps in the new system. We just don't know yet.

I would have thought the penalty would just apply to pvp? Or does it reply to pvm too? if so, jagex have ballsed upp big time. Afaik the special moves are going to be very important in both PvP and PvM. And if they are going to make up most of your dps, dagannoth kings and tormented demons will become much more annoying. @Sxq: that's a good point... one might (slightly optimistically) conclude that Jagex has taken this into account and that hybriding will still exist, but limited to weapons only. Idk though. It really depends on the specifics of the change. But, how often are you going to be switching as it is? If you are up against a single style opponent, they are range, and you are maging so you swap to melee, and suffer a one time negative effect? But if they do swap, then the time wasted swapping is shared/negated. So I think it will work out, but be a bit balanced. It is currently not feasible to make real discussion about the changes because we have zero context. (But its fun to try anyways!)

Given what we know/assume about lifepoint boosts, defense abilities and so forth, i can't see lv1 defense pures being good anymore.

Combat formula is changing, so there's a good chance they will. As for the armor thing, Jagex wants to make the combat triangle matter more with this update. If you can constantly switch armor without penalty, well, there's significantly less of a combat triangle imo. People style switching is the ultimate proof that the combat triangle is powerful enough that another set of equipment is more useful than 4-5 brews (or even two sets with 10+ switches, tribrid in Clan Wars) which means a hybrid will beat a one-style opponent with 20% more health. Removing style switching is ultimately a really stupid move imo, it's one of the most interesting parts of the RS metagame due to the many different (combinations of) switches you can use, as well as the interaction with available healing, runes and other inventory space-taking things. I don't think this completely ruins style switching, it just makes it less valuable.

Yes, but only by 1 combat level. Hmm, not sure how I feel about this. Currently it's easy to tell in general how someones stats compares to yours combat wise (apart from pures), this will make it difficult though >.< True. However, without the ability to swap gears effectively (due to resetting and doubling all of your spec cooldowns) I see this being less relevant. I would make the assumption that a lv200 player has 99 def and either 99att and strength, 99 range, or 99 mage. (based on the gear they have equipped). From that you can base how powerful they are. Unless attack and strength are separated into two different classes of players (that is, not tied together..) you can assume attack/strength are the same (worst case), and then work out from there whether they are a match. It really isn't that much different besides losing prayer/summon from the totals.

Yes, but only by 1 combat level.

It should also balance out the gear so that equipping range gear means melee isn't as effective, and so on.

It was still overly complex and had a few broken loopholes due to the differences between melee and range/mage having different max combats. I would like prayer and summon to be included, though I can see why they removed summon (based on what we know I think summons will be less powerful for a while.. :( ) and prayer shouldn't be removed at all. At least now every time you level your highest offense or your defense skills it will clearly be a 1:1 increase in combat.

That seems like a nicer method to allow armor switching without making it really powerful. Some of us don't like high APM (though admittedly 25 apm isn't very high). There is more than 1 ability though, so I think you can activate things in sequence.

defence is separate, you either have 99 defence with no offensive skills and the summon/hp/prayer set, or 99 offensives with 1 defence and the summon/pray/hp set it doesn't really change, as pures will still be 99 combat levels lower than their opponents who are balanced. If anything this helps pures in some ways. That doesn't mean they'll be 99 combat levels lower than their opponents at all. Their opponents will be ~50 offenses and 50 defenses. Determining whether this is viable is a completely different issue. I think the defensive abilities will prevent offense pures, and I think the lack of offense damage will make summon pures not as great. It really depends on how the abilities work out. I'm sure someone will try to find the optimum levels based on gear/abilities/etc, but I don't believe it will be lv1 def or lv1 offensives. EDIT: Jonananananas said it better than me

I remember reading in one of mod rathe's posts that monster combat level will work exactly the same as player combat level.

That makes a lot more sense. So the xp is only limited based on opponent's defense vs skills gaining xp. That balances out a lot better. That was ill-clarified in the blog post, and it will be difficult to assess xp gains based on combat level, because we don't have the creature's actual stats at the moment..

Unless there are a few interesting combat abilities for constitution maybe? And there are constitution requirements on some gears.

Even if you can switch combat styles in the middle of a fight, it requires a bit more work. (item swaps, plus move the bar to the new combat setup). While this is doable, it can be more difficult. Being unable to change gear in combat is bad for some pvm situations (fight kiln mainly..) but would probably be better in pvp.. @Den: That is probably what will be the best pure. Even so, you lack all the offensive abilities of attack/strength/mage/range. Steel titan is good in the *current* system, but I have a feeling that (with lifepoint increase) it will be less effective than it is now. And if steel titan is your only way of dealing massive damage...

There is so much changing that I don't think we should judge anything until at least the beta. What is "worth" killing could easily change. XP per monster might increase drastically. If we can do a lot more damage, and the monsters have more health, that means more combat xp. It's too easy to compare this one change out of context of everything else. I agree that the combat formula should include all the combat skills, but I do see the logic to simplifying the formula. I just don't like it that a player with 99 in the "damage" skills is the same as someone who is 99 in only one of those skills. As for reducing/removing xp.. I would hope the range is larger, and/or the combat levels of the monsters are rebalanced a lot. But I feel like the optimal slayer task list, and stats of monsters will change anyways. (They've been willing to cheat combat levels of monsters in the past... so just having low defense doesn't mean low combat level). Also monsters can go higher than 99 in a skill.

That makes some sense.. but I feel like they don't understand their own game (yet again)

Strong monsters should give more xp, that would be awesome. Looks like I better get to maxing combat right away though... I'm going to end up being combat level 198, so only creatures from 148 and down... Ofcourse if all the creatures get a similar increase in combat as well... It might not be so bad.

I feel like there have to be drastic changes to the combat system for that combat level to make sense... a) prayer has a huge impact on dps b) summoning (though this is less relevant due to single combat areas) c) constitution, but also less relevant as defense = armours that increase base life. I feel like they are planning on making multi-combat everywhere.. (that would be nice...) As for the 30lvls lower etc.. that is just horrible. Absolutely dumb. At minimum you should gain combat xp for slayer tasks regardless of level. I find it interesting that attack and strength have been separated as well in the new system. It does mean for a "pure" the best levels is either 99def/summon/pray/constitution but lv1 attack/strength/range/mage or 99 attack/strength/range/mage/pray/const/summon and 1 defense. I feel like defense will add enough to be not worth making a pure, and attack/strength also. The only real problem is that players with sub-par prayer or summoning will be compared to players without 99 prayer/summon in combat level. (I am not counting constitution here because that goes up naturally with combat training in general)

Combat level should include all the combat skills... Or at least make it easier to look people up?

I think the combat level thing is.. odd. At least it's simpler? I hope that we can see more data in the PVP systems? As for pures... I think the abilities and possibly the basic combat formulas will be changed so much that it will be a different system entirely.

Maybe his stats were a lot lower than yours? That's odd..

These bonuses seem to me to show that there may be a huge change in the formulas. Rather than calling it +Slash or +Strength it says Damage and Bonus, and Armour Could get very interesting!

I would be surprised if it didn't matter in PvP.

This is true. I hate when people fail to understand this. But some people will never grasp this logic.