Tip.It Times: 12 April 2009

[jettrider]

jettrider wrote: "First, it was always very possible for your opponent to drop more than the game would recognize. Why did so many players use smite if not to drop the opponent's protect item prayer and get a godsword or abyssal whip that the player wasn't planning to use?"

 

 

 

How does that add to dropping more value than the total value of what that person has with him? I think you misunderstood it a little there...

 

 

 

I was talking about the game dropping more than the player was risking. If someone comes up and attacks you wearing nothing but an AGS, you will try to smite it because there is a chance of the player dropping 65m instead of nothing. The game doesn't recognize at that moment that the player could lose 65m. However, it only matters what happens when the player dies.

 

 

 

In the old wilderness, people would PK skulled in a whip and rune armor. They expect to lose the rune armor and keep the whip. However, sometimes they lose the whip. That's what I meant here. It was always possible to get lucky and get items that the other player wasn't expecting or willing to lose, and therefore gain a better profit margin than expected. Who would want to PK getting only rune legs and glories every kill? Not I :P

[acenator]

And acenator; I think that "fixing" the GE prices back to normal was kind of a given, so I didnt include that... Right now the only thing that is keeping inflation from surging is the fact that we actually have price manipulators who seem to end up with the GP in their pockets that the common man is willing to pay "too much" for a certain item... PvP has to become a money sink rather then a money maker...

 

I've argued with people who think junk trading needs to be removed without Jagex stepping in to fix prices, so I felt I needed to mention that. I'm happy to find that you are not among that group. :thumbsup:

 

 

 

As for the inflation bit, I, personally, don't really care about inflation in RS as, with the way things work, it doesn't really affect anyone so long as they don't leave for a year or two with nothing but a pile of cash just to come back to find it's worth half as much as it was when they left. The reason for this is that, no matter how much cash is out there, you can always know that people will spend it on the same things. Yes, prices will rise, but prices rising doesn't always mean that things will become unaffordable. In fact, with the way this economy works, 'wages' (for lack of a better term) are not likely to ever fall behind inflating prices.

[stormveritas]

It's pretty clear who the P2P trickers are here; flocking to the defense of a system that is at worst unfair, and at best unbalanced.

 

 

 

The game has survived for a long time on the balance that the game revolves around. Whether you went with the safe route of runecrafting/fishing, or the higher-risk boss hunting, money is valuable because it is really tough to come by.

 

 

 

If a method of making money becomes as fast as the tricking can be, it destroys the delicate balance of the game.

 

 

 

Trickers don't want to listen to this because they are profiting right now, but keeping the system as is would be a foolish decision. In the long run, tricking would become the -only- moneymaking scheme, because it doesn't rely on support skills (like herblore) and isn't locked into alchemy pricing (like fletching, woodcutting, mining and smithing, etc.).

[Merchant0125]

To be perfectly honest , I have never really have pvped. I find the people there rude and unmerciful (no offence to any pkers in the building :P )

 

However I have heard of and seen this trick being performed... I was even asked to take prt in it once or twice, which I refused. Despite this I have never seen any harsh implications this has had on the non pvp realms. Combined with the fact jagex has few objections (or hasn't displayed any) leads me to the conclusion this is aperfectly acceptable method of acquiring money.

 

 

 

 

 

And yes, I have just consumed a dictionary.

[Hawks]

The articles as a whole were some of the best I've read recently, although the Behind the Scenes one was lacking in the details and sort of seemed like filler, even though there were four articles. I'm not much for RS anymore so I didn't think the 26k trick (or whatever it is) was that big of a deal.

[Sir_Kurity]

2 birds and a stone, really dosent do it for me.

 

 

 

Sorry, i just don't like the idea of making PVP worlds even less profitable than they are already.

 

 

 

And no, i dont pvp trick, but i still think you should be able to get good drops in pvp.

[haggisoflife]

nice, especially interested in what Jagex will be giving to the site :-)

[jenthe2004]

awesome did you know ! :D =D> :thumbsup:

[waheera1]

Happy to report that after giving Necromagus such a hard time last week, he's clearly the most improved writer on this week's panel. Could still handle a few tweaks, but vastly improved on last week, so a big thumbs up Necromagus! =D> :thumbsup:

 

 

 

As for the rest... Oh dear. None of them really hit the mark as far as I could tell:

 

 

 

Interview with Das:

 

 

 

Forgive me for being disinterested in this, but I didn't really find anything that particularly fascinated me about the interview. Nothing wrong with the quality of writing etc really, just didn't interest me. Oh and a minor grievance - don't make it sound quite so sensational that he agreed to the interview - he does after all "work" on the tip.it team!!!

 

 

 

2 Birds 1 Stone:

 

 

 

Was ok I guess, again it appeals to a minority group, specifically pkers. I can however say that it is unwise to portray the current system as totally flawed. Having heard about the 26k trick I tried it this evening with a friend. Several times we were left with drops of a lower value than the 26k "spent" on the trick. I really miss the old wilderness even though I never pked back then, but the current system is not ALL bad and for those bothered by RWT, it has hugely curbed that side of pking.

 

 

 

Behind the Editorial Scenes:

 

 

 

Rubbish. Sorry to be so blunt, but I already know how the process of writing an article is achieved. It seemed like a jagex-inspired justification for the occasional (if increasingly more frequent) poor article. Thankfully the behind the scenes article didn't necessitate it for itself, but I'm almost surprised that reference to other such banal essentials as a quick click on the spell-check button were not also included in this frankly pointless article.

 

 

 

Again sorry that I'm leaving a trail of destructive bluntness in my wake, but after a solid start I'm beginning to wonder if the 4 articles a week idea is beginning to falter... Don't write for the sake of having something for people to read, write for the sake of making people care, even if it's in disagreement!!!!

[haz280]

Some really good points in there, good read

[snakeyes_GT]

Got to disagree with the 2 birds with one stone article (alongside everyone else who has actually logged onto a PvP world), the problem lies with Jagex's iron clad attempt to shut off all forms of RWT in the game.

 

 

 

The way I see it, the big earning items you might get are compensation for all the time you get rubbish drops from "good kills".

 

 

 

I think, there needs to be a more intrinsic PvP system, the one currently is too complicated and all too "behind the scenes", which is why I think it isn't as succesful as it should be. And intristic doesn't need to mean more complicated, it just means there should be more things the player knows about to get better drops, such as displays/counters/things to say your doing something right, whilst keeping the core elements of getting better drops on a need to know basis, locking out any attempts to try to take advantage of a system.

 

 

 

Which is where the current PvP system doesn't work, staying in a hotzone/outside of safezone should take a lesser role, which would mostly remove the trickers from PvP worlds, as they exist there because of the fact you raise potential by standing around doing nothing/doing no or little damage.

 

 

 

I don't know the limits or what Jagex could do, they've been saying for a while PvP drops should be improved. But the way I see it, you need to abuse the system to be able to get good drops, whilst not requiring the skill to kill someone.

 

 

 

What's easier, staying in combat with a friend for 30 mins, then killing him, and getting something worth millions, or;

 

 

 

Standing around in hotzone, risk of rushers, prot prayers on most of the time, trying to find someone decent to fight, often needing to run into banks to resupply (lowering potential) and when you get a fight, it's normally someone who can hold their own, takes actual skill to kill (or luck, both are normally the same) and afterwards, you've probably still got less chance of recieving a good drop.

 

 

 

So meh, I don't know what they did in december or whenever they updated the drop tables, but I got some good drops before I saw that newpost, and I have yet to recieve anything over 200k in value, and I PvP every other week for a few hours.

 

 

 

I think some things need to be removed from the drops you can get, because it just devalues the effort that you need to get them the more "organic" ways.

 

 

 

From experience though, PvP has gone down the toilet, and Jagex is flogging the dead horse here. You can't curtail wealth transfer in a feature of a game that thrives on wealth transfer.

[Romy]

Good read.

 

 

 

 

 

About the 'Two Birds and a Stone' article. It is true for some extent, but junk-trading will still be very common. you can't expect it to be affected much by the drop value oh PKing.

 

 

 

As for the drop value, I agree that the drops should no exceed your opponent's total worth of items in Inventory/equipment screens, BUT, the fact is that you can't just put that in there. There is a very good reason as to why drops do not match your opponents' pack values and that is- If the price matched people could easily gift each other with Santa hats, H'ween masks, Easter eggs and, obviously, Partyhats. Now you may say that there should be a limit to the drops' values, but then you simply bore out PKing- Who wants to go out and PK when you know there is a maximum amount you can get from your opponents? What about the new equipment JaGeX introduced along with PVP worlds? It will become very rare (and thus affect the economy). What if people would then decide not to take anything worth over 25/75K? PKing as it is now needs a change, but it requires more thinking put into.

[zevlupus]

In regards to the 2 birds and a stone article:

 

 

 

The players using the "PvP trick" are cheaters. PERIOD.

 

 

 

It makes me sick to see the people defending this as a legitimate money making method or emergent gameplay. Emergent gameplay is fine when it doesn't include using glitches and loopholes to gain an advantage. That sort of emergent gameplay doesn't belong in a competitive multiplayer environment. Anyone who claims it's "not a big deal" or "it doesn't hurt anyone" should explain that to the player who finally gets a dragon full helm from mithril dragons or spends hours upon hours at the mage training arena to get a mage book or master wand. It hurts the integrity of the game just as much as any other CHEATING does.

 

 

 

Now the "Easter PvP glitch" has brought this issue to the forefront. Now that players have exploited this problem to the extreme, maybe Jagex will stop looking the other way and finally do something about it. Whether it is the methods suggested in this week's times article or some other way, this has to be addressed now.

[waheera1]

In regards to the 2 birds and a stone article:

 

 

 

The players using the "PvP trick" are cheaters. PERIOD.

 

 

 

It makes me sick to see the people defending this as a legitimate money making method or emergent gameplay. Emergent gameplay is fine when it doesn't include using glitches and loopholes to gain an advantage. That sort of emergent gameplay doesn't belong in a competitive multiplayer environment. Anyone who claims it's "not a big deal" or "it doesn't hurt anyone" should explain that to the player who finally gets a dragon full helm from mithril dragons or spends hours upon hours at the mage training arena to get a mage book or master wand. It hurts the integrity of the game just as much as any other CHEATING does.

 

 

 

Now the "Easter PvP glitch" has brought this issue to the forefront. Now that players have exploited this problem to the extreme, maybe Jagex will stop looking the other way and finally do something about it. Whether it is the methods suggested in this week's times article or some other way, this has to be addressed now.

 

 

 

Sorry but I have to disagree with your opening statement.

 

 

 

Perhaps the people doing the trick ARE completely missing the point of pking as it once was, but at the same time, pking isn't the same as it used to be. The fact is that whilst yes, I hate that I've never had a dfh from the countless mithril dragons I've slain, whilst other pkers have become rich risking a tiny fraction of what I have to when slaying, it says more about the PVP system than the players that such a thing can happen at all.

 

 

 

As I'm keen to point out to Jagex - if you create a flaw in your programming, people WILL exploit it. Now, whilst that may be technically against the rules (in some cases, although I do not think the PVP trick sits in that category), Jagex must accept accountability for the problem existing at all. There most definitely is an absurd imbalance in the current system, but perhaps it is up to jagex to rectify that problem more than their players to stop exploiting it. With Jagex seemingly creating glitches for fun at the moment - first penguins, now the easter PVP glitch, it is up to them to work hard to make things right again.

 

 

 

If this really is to be a year of improvements, let's see it happen. Thus far I'm still waiting for an update that really makes me think "Good work Jagex"...

[OldJoe]

Nice to see an interview, i enjoy them.

 

Hello Das :mrgreen:

[Silver_Corner]

In regards to the 2 birds and a stone article:

 

 

 

The "potential" drop system, is by far one of the easiest ways to remove RWT from PK'ing, but I think there are to many factors which determine the "potential" which should not be there..

 

 

 

1) Time in a PvP world should have no factor in your drops. In all honesty, time skilling/standing in an area should not have any effect on what you get PK'ing. They are two separate events and should not be linked. Killing players should effect your "potential", not standing around.

 

 

 

2) The only Hotzone should be the wilderness. Period. If players want to be in a Hotzone, this puts more people in the wilderness adding more danger to this area, which it should be a risk and reward area. Adding Hotzones to areas like Falador and spawn areas simply dosen't make sense.

 

 

 

3) The world is a big place. Not all of it needs to be PvP. Not just banks should be safe areas, but entire Cities. They designed people to PK across the entire world, but at the moment about 95% of the battles occur less than 10 steps away from a bank. Things need to be spread out.

 

 

 

4) The drop system needs to change and BH needs to be incorporated into PvP worlds. Players get a target when they log into PvP worlds. The bounty hunter spell teleports them to their target. If you kill your target you get the full drop, otherwise you kill someone and get the PvP random generated drops. Its really a win-win for everyone which RWT can't abuse. This also spreads people out and provides REAL risk to the PvP worlds. Do you teleport to your opponent knowing you could be walking into a trap? Its a risk you would have to chose taking.

 

 

 

All in all, They need to simplify/change many of the "potential" rules. Make it so they are all geared towards combat, not other things which have no relation to killing someone.

[waheera1]

In regards to the 2 birds and a stone article:

 

 

 

The "potential" drop system, is by far one of the easiest ways to remove RWT from PK'ing, but I think there are to many factors which determine the "potential" which should not be there..

 

 

 

1) Time in a PvP world should have no factor in your drops. In all honesty, time skilling/standing in an area should not have any effect on what you get PK'ing. They are two separate events and should not be linked. Killing players should effect your "potential", not standing around.

 

 

 

2) The only Hotzone should be the wilderness. Period. If players want to be in a Hotzone, this puts more people in the wilderness adding more danger to this area, which it should be a risk and reward area. Adding Hotzones to areas like Falador and spawn areas simply dosen't make sense.

 

 

 

3) The world is a big place. Not all of it needs to be PvP. Not just banks should be safe areas, but entire Cities. They designed people to PK across the entire world, but at the moment about 95% of the battles occur less than 10 steps away from a bank. Things need to be spread out.

 

 

 

4) The drop system needs to change and BH needs to be incorporated into PvP worlds. Players get a target when they log into PvP worlds. The bounty hunter spell teleports them to their target. If you kill your target you get the full drop, otherwise you kill someone and get the PvP random generated drops. Its really a win-win for everyone which RWT can't abuse. This also spreads people out and provides REAL risk to the PvP worlds. Do you teleport to your opponent knowing you could be walking into a trap? Its a risk you would have to chose taking.

 

 

 

All in all, They need to simplify/change many of the "potential" rules. Make it so they are all geared towards combat, not other things which have no relation to killing someone.

 

 

 

Nice work, good to see a rational response to the huge problem that is PVP. At a guess I'd say Brianite is or was a serious pker and really understands the problem. :-) Nice to see.

[SirTommy2005]

Lava Eels eh?

 

Good read on Das, and Stormrage.

[Gpguy]

If only you could feed bunyips X Lava eels at a time...

[Opieous]

Regarding the Pvp thing:

 

 

 

You've got it wrong... I've been doing this for a while now and have had drops like Guthan's helm, Verac's Helm, Master Wand, Dragon Weapons, Torag's and the likes.

 

 

 

You don't have to die with 75k on the member world.... the person who is dying needs to lose 25k... the one who is killing needs to risk 75k.

[Tritous]

For the record, in the reporting academy it was confirmed that 26k trick is bug abuse. I advise you don't do it.

 

 

 

I think the suggestion needs some moderation perhaps. Have the amount you risk have a bigger impact on the likelihood of a good drop, and the amount your opponent risks. tiers at 200k, 1m and 5m? Would you risk 5m if there was a better chance of a good drop? would you stick to 1m?

 

 

 

I do agree that sort of concept would become a great use for junk, but it still doesnt solve what I consider the heart of the problem: abuse.

 

 

 

I'd say, limit the number of kills you can get off a single person in an hour. add a dead period, after you kill someone you cannot kill that same person for an hour and get a drop. Limit the dp you can get off a single person too, so sitting building up dp is meaningless, go skill (and pkers do like to annoy skillers) or fight like a real pker. Once this in there is no more chance of building up unfair cash by sloging your friend in turns for big drops. I'm no pker but I know that real pking is not abusing a bug, it's you vs an opponent, double or nothing, anything goes, gf!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and yes, one of the most interesting did you knows i've seen in a long time. I've long disliked shilo ever since the spawn points moved, and often shilo is slower than monkfish. normally i advise seers for fly fishing, but i'd forgotten about lava eels

[kamykazee]

The two birds article i found to be the most relevant to me because of me trying to get a partyhat at the moment. : Thus,i have enough to cover for the normal Grand Exchange price but because of the junk trades i am forced to come up with an extra 30 - 40 m gps.Bummer A! :shock:

[zevlupus]

 

Perhaps the people doing the trick ARE completely missing the point of pking as it once was, but at the same time, pking isn't the same as it used to be. The fact is that whilst yes, I hate that I've never had a dfh from the countless mithril dragons I've slain, whilst other pkers have become rich risking a tiny fraction of what I have to when slaying, it says more about the PVP system than the players that such a thing can happen at all.

 

 

 

I was not at all referring to players who are gaining potential and then actually fighting for a kill. I'm referring to those who are building potential and then taking turns killing each other as cheaters. I used the dragon full helm and mage training arena items as examples because they have been some of the hardest hit items. Sure, they may have come down as a result of legit PKing, but not anything like they have from this item farming garbage.

 

 

 

I don't argue your point that the system is broken. Players have a responsibility not to abuse such flaws. Jagex has the responsibility to fix them. I have seen a number of brilliant suggestions in this short thread. Here are my favorites.

 

 

 

limit the number of kills you can get off a single person in an hour. add a dead period, after you kill someone you cannot kill that same person for an hour and get a drop. Limit the dp you can get off a single person too, so sitting building up dp is meaningless, go skill (and pkers do like to annoy skillers) or fight like a real pker. Once this in there is no more chance of building up unfair cash by sloging your friend in turns for big drops.

 

 

 

This is the best way to start combating the problem. I'd suggest an even longer time limit.

 

 

 

the #1 way to fix the 26k problem is to make bh-like skulls so everyone can see if that guy with nothing on dies he will indeed drop items.

 

 

 

No doubt this fixes the PvP trick and helps PvP worlds as a whole.

 

 

 

The only Hotzone should be the wilderness. Period. If players want to be in a Hotzone, this puts more people in the wilderness adding more danger to this area, which it should be a risk and reward area. Adding Hotzones to areas like Falador and spawn areas simply dosen't make sense.

 

 

 

I just like this as a general fix for PvP worlds.

[waheera1]

 

Perhaps the people doing the trick ARE completely missing the point of pking as it once was, but at the same time, pking isn't the same as it used to be. The fact is that whilst yes, I hate that I've never had a dfh from the countless mithril dragons I've slain, whilst other pkers have become rich risking a tiny fraction of what I have to when slaying, it says more about the PVP system than the players that such a thing can happen at all.

 

 

 

I was not at all referring to players who are gaining potential and then actually fighting for a kill. I'm referring to those who are building potential and then taking turns killing each other as cheaters. I used the dragon full helm and mage training arena items as examples because they have been some of the hardest hit items. Sure, they may have come down as a result of legit PKing, but not anything like they have from this item farming garbage.

 

 

 

I don't argue your point that the system is broken. Players have a responsibility not to abuse such flaws. Jagex has the responsibility to fix them. quote]

 

 

 

Sorry Zev, perhaps I was unclear. I similarly have no issue with people who legitimitely pk, and I'm all too aware of the impact the 26k system has had on the price of items that were previously considered relatively rare. If anything, the runescape economy bothers me far less than the community, which by my reckoning has been hit much harder than the economy. Many a disgruntled pker has quit through jagex' incompetence in dealing with this problem, while the new system replaces those old pillars of the community with amateur gold farmers.

 

 

 

I never pked because I was never good enough where tactics were concerned, now all I have to do is call a friend, give them 26k and say: "let me kill you"... Seems a strange route to progress!!