Tip.it Times 18 October 2009

[Melencholy]

the price of the runes that they were making would also go down making them lose money even if they just keep making runes.

[Saganian]

Excellent articles, I have enjoyed reading them. I do disagree with some of Ts_Stormrage's proposals to fix inflation.

 

Proposal 3

More continuous money sinks!

Construction was an awesome money sink, but it only lasted as long as people were training it en masse. Now that a lot of homes have been finished, it's not much of a drain anymore. It got worse when Armoured Zombies started dropping all kinds of Planks.

Another good continuous money sink is the Kingdom of Miscellania minigame. Most of the Maple Logs go up in smoke anyways, and neither Tree nor Fruit Tree seeds produce anything that upsets the economy drastically. Even the fish just gets cooked and eaten.

Summoning is an awesome and continuous sink of money, as it demands that you get new pouches over and over. But this went all down the drain as you could get back 70% of your shards on all pouches you turned in at the Ogre. Lower this to 50% maybe?

Adding the new Rocktail fish to the Trawler minigame, or better yet, adding a reward to Shades of Mor'ton, which is preferably tradable and degradable like the Special PVP Drops, would result in millions more Swamp Paste being purchased from the local stores.

 

This will have a short-term effect on the economy: Like with Construction, people will train a new skill en masse, but after a while the effect of such a skill will decrease.

EP-farmers will, as I see it, not train such moneysinks: Why would they spend their millions on houses instead of a shiny AGS or D Claws?

 

I, for a large amount, agree with Racheya; although I think that the extreme magic potion was overpowered, and, in a lesser degree, the ranged potion. Those pots are actually all overpowered, it is, as brunokiller (6th post) said, "It's either get 95 herblore, or have no chance"

 

All in all an excellent Times. Great job.

[MyWorld77]

I pretty much agree with everything in these 2 articles.

[Sir_Squab]

Response to the first article (haven't read the second yet): Although I think drops should depend on what the person is wearing, and that someone wearing 76k worth of gear shouldn't drop something worth 5m, I think that it should be a little more then double. Triple maybe?

 

And adding to that system, something that increases your max drop depending on what you wear. Perhaps, 10% of the value of what your risking, up to 500k? Just throwing out ideas.

 

Also, as for the pure ess:

all this update now does is keep Runecrafting from being profitable and cutting F2P people off from a good source of money.

 

That section is not entirely correct. Rune essence is at 71gp for one thing. The normal stuff. That f2p CAN mine. And, last I checked, runecrafting still IS profitable. Just not AS profitable. Also, considering the price of normal ess now, I can safely say that although P2P'ers who make money mining pure ess would be hurt, normal ess would still (taking the average of the two essences) 176gp each. Still pretty damn profitable.

 

Other then that, I really like the articles.

 

Oh, wait. Familiar aggressiveness.

 

That aggressiveness, if used correctly (I've seen it at zammy gw) means that if the tank misses the boss, and some unlucky person ends up as the tank, the tanker could use his familiar to get the boss to target him instead. All this REALLY means is that you can't use combat familiars on the main boss; bring beast of burdens, or healers, and/or have your familiars attack a mini while you kill the boss.

[VedicScripts]

Allright.

 

To TS_Stormrage's article:

 

PvP players take the option of risk versus reward. If you don't like it, tough.

 

The ONLY plausible way I can see the inflation getting solved is the activity bars, if only to get rid of EP farmers.

 

To Racheya's article:

 

Herblore is not a combat skill, however the new potions created a massive impact on PvP combat. Herblore was only meant to support certain skills and provide limited buffs, but the extreme potions update turned it into a totally new entity, a powerful force that ultimately became the deciding factor in a Player versus Player battle.

 

A skilling stat should not directly affect combat to any extreme extent. Like, imagine if I could suddenly inflict insane damage with a rune hatchet because I'm 99 woodcutting. It wouldn't make any sense, and it would be rather unfair to players with lower woodcutting then me. PKers would be forced to level their woodcutting in order to compete: suddenly combat stats wouldn't make as much of a difference. This is what happened with herblore.

 

In order to compete with players possessing high herblore, other players would have no option but to level their herblore as well. Considering the fact that most of the people in need of leveling herby would be PKers, they would most likely 76K their way to the stat. This would lead to a rise in the general cost of herblore, making the skill even harder for normal players to train.

 

 

Having a skilling stat DIRECTLY affect your individual combat potential for the first time in Runescape's history makes no sense. But to those of you who insist that it does:

 

~I propose a new ZAROSIAN GODHATCHET, only availible to players with 96+ Woodcutting. It's special attack has an 80% chance of decapitating your opponent with a magical burst.

 

~I propose a new LIVING ROCK PICKAXE, which is only availible to players with 96+ Mining. It's special attack prevents the other player from healing for 30 seconds, and heals the wielder for 50% of his hp, instantly.

 

~I propose a new VENERATED SOULHAMMER, which is only availible to players with 96+ Smithing. The special attack drains your opponent's prayer by 100% and increases the wielder's prayer duration by double.

 

After all, players earned those levels, right?

[Kata_Phfract__the_slayer]

wat can i say? everything in them 2 articals was true.

btw i liked the did you know.

 

and that part about pure ess mineing, yes make it f2p. makeing it member only made jagex lose money faster.

 

so basicly 2 of the best articals ever!

if all rs updates was as high a quality as this, then say good bye to wow as the top game.

infineite :thumbup: here

[Sir_Kurity]

For the first article all the proposals are great ideas and i think that all or them could work, all of them except the pure essence one. With so much of it already in the economy how would Jagex possibly remove it? Or change it back to regular rune essence? The Update was made more then 3 years ago and though it might help the economy, the task of changing it back would be almost impossible and might cause an uproar of members who suddenly find that there extensively mined pure essence is worth next to nothing. The idea of it is grande but almost impossible in a real sense. The other proposals were magnificent and i think u should, if possible, present them to Jagex ASAP they could really benefit the slowly crumbling economy.

 

Merging pure and rune ess and fixing them at a price of, say, 120 each, and announcing that they will do it in two weeks time will have these effects;

- People massively dump their pure essence in the GE to rapidly buy rune essence, hoping to get a bit of extra cash, will result in both pure and rune essence creeping closer to the 120 GP per piece limit...

- Both rune and pure essence will be worth roughly the same (around 120) for a short period of time, and while Pure essence is not mined on P2P, rune essence is all of a sudden mined on F2P cuz it snow good profit...

- Runecrafters might buy the now cheaper Pure ess to make P2P only runes, which causes those to fall in price as well...

- The merge happens and the price is held steady at 120 GP for two days, after which it is allowed to fluctuate again...

- The Rune essence price will sink to the pre-merge levels of around 40 each...

 

The only people shafted in this is are the F2P RuneCrafters who will have to put their hobby on hold for two weeks, and those who still cling to large piles of Pure Essence (an item which has only a single purpose besides being held for merchanting)...

 

I fail to see the harm in doing this...

 

Because i have 85k gop tokens that i wan't to cash in when im member again, thats why.

[AlexRose]

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

 

Abridged version of his post, for who lack the time to read such well thought out arguments in this golden age of communication.

[Lord-kain1]

I definitly ahve to agree with the eval of the current econ.

 

my only other comment is that i still cant believe Jagex thinks a few pineapples gotten from a character not near a quick teleport per day is worth over 2.4m tokul... honestly.. can i have some of what thier smoking?

 

LK1

[Troacctid]

Herblore is not a combat skill, however the new potions created a massive impact on PvP combat. Herblore was only meant to support certain skills and provide limited buffs, but the extreme potions update turned it into a totally new entity, a powerful force that ultimately became the deciding factor in a Player versus Player battle.

Bull.

 

There were only two days. Hardly any PKers had the levels to make extreme potions, let alone overloads. This herblore dominance was purely hypothetical. And how many players were already using super sets to begin with? This stuff costs hella money.

 

You know what else can be the deciding factor in PVP combat? Food. You brought lobsters? Guess what, I brought rocktails. Good fight. Ban rocktails from PVP!

 

Yeah, yeah, herblore requires a level. Big flippin' deal. My point is people don't even fully abuse the advantages they don't need levels for. And it would be cheaper to PK with rocktails than to get the herblore level.

[strilmus]

Folks do know that you still need a good combat level in order to take advantage of the potion's full potential? To me, the herblore is just like a godsword that I can't afford but I deal with it because people accept it. But apparently the potions go too far. :P What about the Dark Bow and claws and barrage that combo with the potions to create these "unwinnable" scenarios? Why don't we irrationally punish them instead? Or people with training and tactics? They will BURRRRN FOR THEIR IMPUDENCE.

 

To me, PvP just seems like too much trouble to be worth keeping in the game anymore. Frankly, the bully-ish culture attracts a lot of jerks who ruin it for the people who actually conduct themselves in a mature manner (which include a lot of PvPers, for you people who think "I Think All PvPers Are Jerks"), and although games are a place where we can tear around without being constrained by most of the rules of reality, at some point it's not really fun anymore.

 

The concept of equivalent exchange has to be maintained to make PvP's nature "make sense" because otherwise it would unbalance everything (as seen in the recent months), yet the spectre of goldselling looms over Jagex so large that they are forced to make the rules irrational to throw them off. Having to wreck the entire game just to keep a portion of it preserved is silly and I'm sure there's some sort of witty metaphor I could use right now to make my point.

 

It was fun while it lasted, but I consider it to be dead beyond saving. All the "solutions" we have so far end up causing something else to go entirely wrong. There isn't any point to this anymore.

[Deathmath]

Good lord... Those pots are overpowered. I don't have a solution, but I for one can testify they are like that one drug where i can't remember it's name. The one where you pound your fists through walls and odn't feel it... Yeah that one.

 

P ess argument is hard to see. You'd have to try :/

[Lord-kain1]

Good lord... Those pots are overpowered. I don't have a solution, but I for one can testify they are like that one drug where i can't remember it's name. The one where you pound your fists through walls and odn't feel it... Yeah that one.

 

P ess argument is hard to see. You'd have to try :/

 

theres a lotta drugs that do that, name cocain and acid but yeah. think about mario, guy eats a mushroom and doubles in size? thats his overload pot lol

 

LK1

[strilmus]

But apparently when they release a weapon that makes all the other weapons look stupid, it's okay?

[firashma]

For the first article all the proposals are great ideas and i think that all or them could work, all of them except the pure essence one. With so much of it already in the economy how would Jagex possibly remove it? Or change it back to regular rune essence? The Update was made more then 3 years ago and though it might help the economy, the task of changing it back would be almost impossible and might cause an uproar of members who suddenly find that there extensively mined pure essence is worth next to nothing. The idea of it is grande but almost impossible in a real sense. The other proposals were magnificent and i think u should, if possible, present them to Jagex ASAP they could really benefit the slowly crumbling economy.

 

Merging pure and rune ess and fixing them at a price of, say, 120 each, and announcing that they will do it in two weeks time will have these effects;

- People massively dump their pure essence in the GE to rapidly buy rune essence, hoping to get a bit of extra cash, will result in both pure and rune essence creeping closer to the 120 GP per piece limit...

- Both rune and pure essence will be worth roughly the same (around 120) for a short period of time, and while Pure essence is not mined on P2P, rune essence is all of a sudden mined on F2P cuz it snow good profit...

- Runecrafters might buy the now cheaper Pure ess to make P2P only runes, which causes those to fall in price as well...

- The merge happens and the price is held steady at 120 GP for two days, after which it is allowed to fluctuate again...

- The Rune essence price will sink to the pre-merge levels of around 40 each...

 

The only people shafted in this is are the F2P RuneCrafters who will have to put their hobby on hold for two weeks, and those who still cling to large piles of Pure Essence (an item which has only a single purpose besides being held for merchanting)...

 

I fail to see the harm in doing this...

It would however hurt the players that bought huge quantity's of pure essence to raise Runecrafting.

They would have spent millions on that pure essence, then they would see that they would have to sell it, but they could not. The markets would be flooded with pure essence, and no one would be buying it. This would (as you have said) cause pure essence to diminish in value soon making there investment a huge loss for them.

 

 

If they bought it to train up runecrafting, why would they sell it? They would just keep on using it up to train runecrafting.

 

Really this would only hurt P2P who mine essence for cash.

 

If u look at my reply i said that it might help the economy my big thing was that a lot of members who had mined the essence for money would now find their hard work wasted and now would rant and rant to Jagex about the fact that they spent a large amount of time mining it now it worth nothing more then xp. How would you feel it all of a sudden all skill produced items in the game were worth nothing more then 120 or less gp? In the article he also said that these solutions would help to stop ranting on the forums but that not how I see it with this solution. Dont forget also the amount of time it would take to organize the size of this reversal update would take up out of Jagex's time which is already filled to the brim.

[Sir_Kurity]

Folks do know that you still need a good combat level in order to take advantage of the potion's full potential? To me, the herblore is just like a godsword that I can't afford but I deal with it because people accept it. But apparently the potions go too far. :P What about the Dark Bow and claws and barrage that combo with the potions to create these "unwinnable" scenarios? Why don't we irrationally punish them instead? Or people with training and tactics? They will BURRRRN FOR THEIR IMPUDENCE.

 

To me, PvP just seems like too much trouble to be worth keeping in the game anymore. Frankly, the bully-ish culture attracts a lot of jerks who ruin it for the people who actually conduct themselves in a mature manner (which include a lot of PvPers, for you people who think "I Think All PvPers Are Jerks"), and although games are a place where we can tear around without being constrained by most of the rules of reality, at some point it's not really fun anymore.

 

The concept of equivalent exchange has to be maintained to make PvP's nature "make sense" because otherwise it would unbalance everything (as seen in the recent months), yet the spectre of goldselling looms over Jagex so large that they are forced to make the rules irrational to throw them off. Having to wreck the entire game just to keep a portion of it preserved is silly and I'm sure there's some sort of witty metaphor I could use right now to make my point.

 

It was fun while it lasted, but I consider it to be dead beyond saving. All the "solutions" we have so far end up causing something else to go entirely wrong. There isn't any point to this anymore.

 

Because, not only is it a non combat skill. But people don't want to grind for 10 hours and spend like. 50 million to not get owned by everyone who does grind for 10 hours and spend like 50 million.

 

Claws arent as oh my godly as everyone thinks they are, and at least its not a skill.

[mathwiz]

I could not agree any more to the first article. Great suggestions to solving the current inflation crisis!

[Kalafai]

I'd like to call fail on the Did You Know.

 

What are you doing with that many lightbulbs on in the first place?

 

At most you should have perhaps 2 on in the room you are in, if any.

 

Defensively not saving money here though, those energy effecient things drop like flies from a lantern here.

[brunokiller]

To the author of the herblore article:

 

Those pots ARE overpowered(especially the mage and a bit the range potion as well). It's either get 95 herblore, or have no chance.

Then the solution is for Jagex to maybe reduce their power slightly in PvP only, and then for people to get 95 herblore. Of course it might be unfair that these people have an advantage, but if people didn't have advantages over other people... then what is the point of the game at all?

 

 

 

I'm glad people are liking the article :) :^_^:

Not trying to jump on the 'you're a low level so you don't know it' wagon, but have you ever done high level Pvp? I have onehitted many people, which gets even easier with these pots.

 

Now if you use barrage(46) to ags(80), you have a chance of 10% to hit 99 hp ir higher. Considered my previous success rate was somewhere near 8%(chance to onehit somewhere near 1/320, that IS overpowered.

[Kill_Life]

Awesome articles! I really hope Jagex reads them!

[Racheya]

To the author of the herblore article:

 

Those pots ARE overpowered(especially the mage and a bit the range potion as well). It's either get 95 herblore, or have no chance.

Then the solution is for Jagex to maybe reduce their power slightly in PvP only, and then for people to get 95 herblore. Of course it might be unfair that these people have an advantage, but if people didn't have advantages over other people... then what is the point of the game at all?

 

 

 

I'm glad people are liking the article :) :^_^:

Not trying to jump on the 'you're a low level so you don't know it' wagon, but have you ever done high level Pvp? I have onehitted many people, which gets even easier with these pots.

 

Now if you use barrage(46) to ags(80), you have a chance of 10% to hit 99 hp ir higher. Considered my previous success rate was somewhere near 8%(chance to onehit somewhere near 1/320, that IS overpowered.

I don't know much about high level PvP, you're right. But from the figures there, it seems like there is a deeper problem than these potions. If anything other than what we have now will make PvP overpowered then we have real issues in introducing anything high level that might effect PvP, since if things get more powerful, it's going to just get silly. So I'd say there's a greater issue at hand with PvP balancing, rather than the potions themselves.

[Mordendravid]

Both good articles on relevant topics - good stuff.

 

Regarding the PvP proposals made by TS Stormrage, I'd agree totally with the drop being reduced to 0-200% of what your opponent is carrying. My initial reaction was it should actually only go up to 100%, but on reflection I think you need to make up for the occasions that the drop is 0 so 200% feels about right.

 

Personally I think I'd take gp out of the equation as well.. I don't recall any genuine pkers carrying around vast chunks of cash when pk'ing prior to all the updates!

 

Regarding the pure essence proposal I'm not sure it would work. As an active runecrafter, I'd love to see it happen, but can't see that it could be re-introduced in the manner you suggest. Announcing the intention to merge the two again would simply cause the crash to take place at the point the announcement is made, even if an arbitrary price is in place at the time of the introduction as you suggest. (If I expect the price to be 120gp in 2 weeks time, then I'll only buy at that price now, or wait for the 2 weeks, unless my desire/need increases in urgency at which point I may be prepared to pay above the stated 120 but still way below the current levels).

 

 

The only way I could see this working would be to offer an exchange whereby pure essence could be traded in for multiple regular essence based on current value (e.g. If today's values are 225gp Pure Essence and 75gp Regular Essence, for every pure essence I trade, I get 3 regular essence in return). At the same time as introducing this exchange the price is temporarily frozen on the GE and Pure Essence is totally removed from all trade bar the exchange point - the exchange could even be automated and take place in players bank accounts without the need to visit an exchange point.

 

Even introducing this measure, I see no way that the price will return to the pre-merge price of 25-40ea since this price was artificially low due to the number of bots that mined essence.

[swampjedi]

Based on what happened with vials and newts, it wouldn't surprise me if Jagex resets the prices on essence - which fixes nothing.

[Me_Hate_Libs]

Swamp, if anyone was experienced at fixing nothing, it would be Jagex. :thumbup:

[Obtaurian]

Does anyone edit the articles before they're released? I mean an official, subjective editor - not the writer of the article. I've noticed a few recent ones that had unacceptable grammatical errors, extra words, missing words, etc. Perhaps more bothersome than that is the WALL OF TEXT style of writing that some of them have.

 

I would highly recommend that Tip.it put time into finding someone to take on the task of full time editor.

 

As for the articles themselves, I enjoyed TS_Stormrage's solutions to the inflation problem. I also enjoyed the fact that his article didn't hurt my eyes.