Surge Spells- What About f2p?

[ghost4sale1]

With the new magic update introducing four new spells, it had widened the gap in the f2p spell book and the p2p one. In f2p melee has always been the dominant combat style in pvp. Isn't about time f2p magic got wave spells? Blast spells are decent at best and adding blood runes to non-members could help deflate the economy. As a former f2per for six years it was a bit frustrating not being able to use magic(my favorite combat style) in pvp. I know this would be a huge deal with most members and they would think they should get updates first and... they should. Also people would complain about range being to weak and Jagex would have to add an update to compensate for that. But Runescape f2p is more then a demo, it has its own style of play. Shouldn't the combat triangle at least be balanced? To the soon-to-be-annoying/flaming members, I am a member. Wave spells should be added to f2p and maybe snare. Also, maybe replacing the lower level curse spells with something more useful.

 

I was originally going to put this in general discussion, but then I realized this was a HUGE update for many players and it should be tossed around a little bit first.

 

By the way if someone could tell me how to change the title that would be great :)

[quelmotz]

First off, I'd like to remind you of the massive flaming you're going to get by some of the not-so-nice members in the TIF. Brace yourself for some serious debating. I made an old thread in the rants forum about how bad F2P magic is and the rant grew into a massive 24 page or so thread.

 

The title is fine I think. Or perhaps change it to "Surge spells - widening the gap between P2P and F2P?" or something like that, just to be more specific.

 

I believe adding stronger spells to F2P isn't going to help much. Members still have all their nice ancient spells that are far more powerful than the F2P versions, even if wave spells were given to F2P for example. I think snare should definitely be given to F2P, along with better armor. (I mean they don't even have non-degrading bottom robes, whereas melee has a level 40 armor with far better stats than mages' pathetic crap)

[3hitm4g3u]

I personally think Jagex should release some of the member magic items to f2p. The items that nobody uses, like splitbark armour. Maybe the wave spells as well. Also snare.

[armybuilder]

I agree that they need a better binding spell like snare for example.

Putting split bark on f2p is an idea but i thought you can only get the items needed for it on p2p?

[armourdilo]

I agree, ftp mages have it hard. A higher maximum hit isn't going to hurt anyone (except the warriors). The wave spells aren't much of an incentive to go members anymore now anyway, thanks to the new surge spells. In fact, if anyone were going members for those spells, I'd say there's something wrong with them, what with the many other BETTER spells available to members, ones that will never become free.

[JoeDaStudd]

Easy solution would allow access to the wizards mind bomb and wizard mind bomb (m) and maybe 1 10% staff (have to have completed dragon slayer or similar). Instant improvement in the power without overkilling ftp with need spells or too many new items.

[Drags8696]

With the new magic update introducing four new spells, it had widened the gap in the f2p spell book and the p2p one. In f2p melee has always been the dominant combat style in pvp. Isn't about time f2p magic got wave spells? Blast spells are decent at best and adding blood runes to non-members could help deflate the economy. As a former f2per for six years it was a bit frustrating not being able to use magic(my favorite combat style) in pvp. I know this would be a huge deal with most members and they would think they should get updates first and... they should. Also people would complain about range being to weak and Jagex would have to add an update to compensate for that. But Runescape f2p is more then a demo, it has its own style of play. Shouldn't the combat triangle at least be balanced? To the soon-to-be-annoying/flaming members, I am a member.

 

I was originally going to put this in general discussion, but then I realized this was a HUGE update for many players and it should be tossed around a little bit first.

 

By the way if someone could tell me how to change the title that would be great :)

 

Well I don't belive that adding the wave spells would help f2p mage much and I also think that it would do nothing, and certainly nothing positive, to the market. This is because it will only continue to inflate the value of some items and there by deflate the value of gp.

 

First off, I'd like to remind you of the massive flaming you're going to get by some of the not-so-nice members in the TIF. Brace yourself for some serious debating. I made an old thread in the rants forum about how bad F2P magic is and the rant grew into a massive 24 page or so thread.

 

The title is fine I think. Or perhaps change it to "Surge spells - widening the gap between P2P and F2P?" or something like that, just to be more specific.

 

I believe adding stronger spells to F2P isn't going to help much. Members still have all their nice ancient spells that are far more powerful than the F2P versions, even if wave spells were given to F2P for example. I think snare should definitely be given to F2P, along with better armor. (I mean they don't even have non-degrading bottom robes, whereas melee has a level 40 armor with far better stats than mages' pathetic crap)

 

First RC'ing robes don't degrade and do offer def but the def they offer is weak at best. I do belive that better armor should be added.

 

I personally think Jagex should release some of the member magic items to f2p. The items that nobody uses, like splitbark armour. Maybe the wave spells as well. Also snare.

 

I like this idea of splitbark and snare because they have green d'hide and rune in f2p with is technically it's equivilant. Snare would be good because bind is such a weak spell you have to wait for it to wear off normally before you can attack again sometimes. But the waves won't do as i will explain soon.

 

I agree that they need a better binding spell like snare for example.

Putting split bark on f2p is an idea but i thought you can only get the items needed for it on p2p?

 

What jagex could do is make it so that it can be purchased from stores like green d'hide and rune armor and also green d'hide is made from members gear so this sould be a solution

 

I agree, ftp mages have it hard. A higher maximum hit isn't going to hurt anyone (except the warriors). The wave spells aren't much of an incentive to go members anymore now anyway, thanks to the new surge spells. In fact, if anyone were going members for those spells, I'd say there's something wrong with them, what with the many other BETTER spells available to members, ones that will never become free.

 

The higher max would cause issues with people if they released higher level spells but other methods should be more accaptable due to reasoning, ill explain more soon.

 

Easy solution would allow access to the wizards mind bomb and wizard mind bomb (m) and maybe 1 10% staff (have to have completed dragon slayer or similar). Instant improvement in the power without overkilling ftp with need spells or too many new items.

 

The staff might do but the wizard mind bomb wont because then range will want a potion item in f2p as well.

 

Now then the reason why we shouldn't give these higher level spells to f2p is primarilly, and i cant belive i am about to say this, because it is "theoretically" balanced with range. This is to say that the max hit of some1 with 99 range using adamant arrows without prayer is 16 which is the same as the 16 for fire blast. Now it is important to consisder that range hits much faster than mage and melee but still in general mage hits quite well. Now one issue to consider is that the prayers for range and str in f2p can both raise the max damage of an attack by 2 for their respective styles but magic's prayer cannot do this. So i belive this should be added in to with the other new updates to magic. Also Splinter bark armor would be great for magic because it would give them some def against melee while still giving a decent offence to where they can hit well enough.

 

These are just my personal views but if we made the changes with the staff giving a bonus and the prayer then mage could hit a max of 20 in f2p which i belive is fair because of range's speed.

[Erewhon2]

Please note the discussions on "should F2P get skill capes", there are 54 pages of that discussion, which argues all of the pinciples raised here, so this is my previous post on that thread, talk about repeating yourself!!!!!

 

Jagex are a business first and foremost and that means cash to survive - They want players to become members, not incentives to stick around in F2P.

That quote from Jr probably explains why skill capes are not F2P. It is a business decision and has nothing to do with F2P not deserving them from an effort point of view, they don't deserve them from a financial point of view.

 

In a hypothetical world were F2P did have skill capes, how many do you think will say "I don't want to be a member cos I already have what I would have become a member for"?

 

I'd say less than 1,000 but to make it easier lets say exactly 1,000 people don't become a member cos they have the cape, thats only £3,500 there missing out on ... they won't even notice that.

That is an irrelevant point in the final analysis, after all. The F2P is exactly that, its a free game, those who use it (including myself at times) should be grateful for what they get. No one 'deserves' anything more than what they have, as what is offered is at no financial cost to gamers, nicely quoted here by Langer and Jrhairychest;

 

Jagex are a business first and foremost and that means cash to survive - They want players to become members, not incentives to stick around in F2P.

 

That quote from Jr probably explains why skill capes are not F2P. It is a business decision and has nothing to do with F2P not deserving them from an effort point of view, they don't deserve them from a financial point of view.

Completely ridiculous to make demands on a 'free sample' from a business out to make profit from memberships. The fact that Jagex have not made F2P time limited or limited the the levels in the skills you can do is a huge concession! Where is the gratitude for that?

[AlexRose]

Oh boy. We had a 54 page discussion on whether F2p should get an (more-or-less) immaterial goal. This is going to head in interesting directions.

 

But actually, I think introducing the Surge spells would actually balance the F2p combat triangle. There's no modifiers in F2p, so the max hit would remain at 28. That sounds reasonable enough for magic; slow, but high, and high throughout the levels, and hitting through rune armour. And the introduction of blood runes to F2p, plus the extra demand the death runes would bring, may counter-balance any price reductions from any possible runecrafting surge (pun intended) that may continue in the coming months.

 

 

Jagex are a business first and foremost and that means cash to survive - They want players to become members, not incentives to stick around in F2P.

 

And yet introducing long term goals that could be made potentially much easier by switching to P2p, not to mention giving the impression of a balanced combat system, may convince many more to join members. I believe that any update that will convince F2pers of a complete game will pay for itself by the additional members that would sign up.

 

Cue jr arguing that this should not occur because Jagex didn't introduce it from the start in 5... 4..... 3..... 2..... 1....

[Zachneap]

yeah but then members have wave spells? and not f2p? Plus f2p has wizard mind bombs. their max hit with a surge would be 30.

[quelmotz]

First RC'ing robes don't degrade and do offer def but the def they offer is weak at best. I do belive that better armor should be added.

 

Can you please look at the requirements for RC robes? They require 50 runecrafting and quite a bit more time invested into playing the GoP. Compare it to melee's equilavent armors, which clearly require FAR FAR less effort, and are effectively the same.

 

------

 

My rationale for an update to F2P magic is that since Jagex can give melee and range such powerful armor and weapons, why are mages left behind with their crappy stuff or equipment that are not practical (i.e. degrade too fast to be efficient)/require too much effort for similar rewards?

[AnneFrank]

p2p should get entangle and waves

 

and some better gear tbh

[ghost4sale1]

p2p should get entangle and waves

 

and some better gear tbh

Members already have entangle and wave spells... do you mean f2p?

 

Jagex are a business first and foremost and that means cash to survive - They want players to become members, not incentives to stick around in F2P.

 

Yes Jagex is a business, but they stated that f2p is NOT demo, shouldn't they live up to that statement? If they were lying, Jagex should delete RS and start over from classic and rebuild the combat system correctly.

[langer]

Rebalancing the triangle and overpowering magic are two completely separate possibilities. In this thread I've seen both suggested even though some people argued that giving F2Pers surge spell is "balancing" the triangle...

 

Waves spells or better armor would probably make the F2P combat triangle a little more balanced. I thik if Jagex were to add new things for magic users in F2P, it would be equipment with about 40 magic requirement to raise magic accuracy. Their strategy lately for F2P has been to keep the game at mid level and not give too much end game skill requirements or equipments.

 

Sugestions of surge spells in F2P can be added to the kids wishlist.

[langer]

lag double point sorry

Edited November 19, 2009 by langer

[John Halo Chief]

F2P should get it, their spells are crap. Why not just let them have blood runes? If they can afford it, why can' they use it?

[qeltar]

There's really no flaming required.

 

Non-members do not pay for the design, programming, implementation, testing and management work required for new features. It is therefore illogical to say they "should" get anything.

[hable]

non members get ads

[qeltar]

Those ads pay squat. I know from personal experience. :)

[AlexRose]

Non-members do not pay for the design, programming, implementation, testing and management work required for new features. It is therefore illogical to say they "should" get anything.

 

I remember you qeltar. Back when I was twelve and wrote at approximately the same level. :P

 

Ah, and how will F2pers be covinced to purchase the much broader member's game with an insufficent combat system? Obviously, people continue to do so, but a balanced combat system might convince, or at least influence, willing F2pers to revert to the members game. So perhaps a better question is would it be to Jagex's benefit if they implemented new magical updates for F2p.

 

 

 

Rebalancing the triangle and overpowering magic are two completely separate possibilities. In this thread I've seen both suggested even though some people argued that giving F2Pers surge spell is "balancing" the triangle...

 

Waves spells or better armor would probably make the F2P combat triangle a little more balanced. I thik if Jagex were to add new things for magic users in F2P, it would be equipment with about 40 magic requirement to raise magic accuracy. Their strategy lately for F2P has been to keep the game at mid level and not give too much end game skill requirements or equipments.

 

Agreed, actually. I would perfer this more moderate approch over Surge Spells. It's debatable, however, whether the Surge spells would be overpowering. Keep in mind, however, that a mage's main firepower comes from introduction of spells, not simply raising your magic level. F2p Melee does not require level 80 equipment to hit into the 30s, whereas magic is dependent on the level of their "equipment": spells.

[sees_all1]

Jagex knows that the combat triangle is inherently broken. Its broken because a ranger's accuracy and strength are only determined by one stat, whereas someone with melee has two stats to train and raise their combat level.

 

Its broken because defense to magic is determined primarily by your magic level, so someone meleeing with 1 def and 99 mage are not particuarly vulnerable to mages, even though magic is supposedly better than melee.

 

Its broken because magic has a well defined max hit with each spell, where melee and range's max hits are determined by strength statistics.

 

Its broken because melee and range hit faster, and typically harder.

 

 

 

There are many more things I could post, but it would be beating a dead horse. Its all been said before, and I'm glad to see that Jagex at least acknowledges it.

[quelmotz]

Jagex knows that the combat triangle is inherently broken. Its broken because a ranger's accuracy and strength are only determined by one stat, whereas someone with melee has two stats to train and raise their combat level.

 

Its broken because defense to magic is determined primarily by your magic level, so someone meleeing with 1 def and 99 mage are not particuarly vulnerable to mages, even though magic is supposedly better than melee.

 

Its broken because magic has a well defined max hit with each spell, where melee and range's max hits are determined by strength statistics.

 

Its broken because melee and range hit faster, and typically harder.

 

 

 

There are many more things I could post, but it would be beating flogging a dead horse. Its all been said before, and I'm glad to see that Jagex at least acknowledges it.

 

Fixed your typo. Not trying to be a :ugeek: or anything.

 

Just to add on a very important point:

 

You've mentioned offense - what about defense? I know "the best defense is offense", but still...Mages' "defense" suck like [cabbage]. Notice how I quoted the word defense? Mages have so poor armor that if a warrior manages to get up close the mage is almost guaranteed to die provided he/she doesn't run. Give mages some decent, non-degradable, reasonably priced armor. FoG robes are either severely overpriced or degrade to fast to use efficiently. RC robes - 50 runecrafting? I'm not saying it's impossible to get for F2P, but the effort put in =/= result. Melee's armor is cheap and easy to get compared to mages, and FAR better. Yeah sure they have bind but 5 seconds including 2.4 seconds of casting time? Half the time of the bind is spent casting for god's sake. Give F2P mage snare and make the bind's effect only take place when it hits, i.e. after casting. And perhaps splitbark armor and MAYBE wave spells.

 

Note that everything mentioned above refers to F2P.

[sees_all1]

You've mentioned offense - what about defense?

 

Setup:

RC Robes (top, bottom, and hat)

Rune Gauntlets

Rune Kite or berzerker

Leather Boots

Amulet of Power

Staff of Air

Lumbridge Ring (3)

 

 

Has somewhere in the +70 defence stats, +15ish mage bonus. Should be more than enough for going up against someone in full rune (who, btw, has lousy mage defense bonus).

If they take their armor off, so much the better. Finish them with a rune scimitar or 2h. Its what I do, and it used to be very successful before jagex changed autocast. I haven't got the clicking down, but one of these days I will.

 

 

EDIT:Messed up the tag when I was removing stuffs... fix'd

[quelmotz]

[quote name='quelmotz' date='19 November 2009 - 10:33 PM' timestamp='1258684380'

You've mentioned offense - what about defense?

 

Setup:

RC Robes (top, bottom, and hat)

Rune Gauntlets

Rune Kite or berzerker

Leather Boots

Amulet of Power

Staff of Air

Lumbridge Ring (3)

 

 

Has somewhere in the +70 defence stats, +15ish mage bonus. Should be more than enough for going up against someone in full rune (who, btw, has lousy mage defense bonus).

If they take their armor off, so much the better. Finish them with a rune scimitar or 2h. Its what I do, and it used to be very successful before jagex changed autocast. I haven't got the clicking down, but one of these days I will.

 

I didn't mention that. I think you double posted accidentally and accidentally quoted my name.

[Youmu]

Now then the reason why we shouldn't give these higher level spells to f2p is primarilly, and i cant belive i am about to say this, because it is "theoretically" balanced with range. This is to say that the max hit of some1 with 99 range using adamant arrows without prayer is 16 which is the same as the 16 for fire blast. Now it is important to consisder that range hits much faster than mage and melee but still in general mage hits quite well. Now one issue to consider is that the prayers for range and str in f2p can both raise the max damage of an attack by 2 for their respective styles but magic's prayer cannot do this. So i belive this should be added in to with the other new updates to magic. Also Splinter bark armor would be great for magic because it would give them some def against melee while still giving a decent offence to where they can hit well enough.

 

These are just my personal views but if we made the changes with the staff giving a bonus and the prayer then mage could hit a max of 20 in f2p which i belive is fair because of range's speed.

Magic is by no means balanced with ranged.

Magic = 16 at max, speed 5, chance of failing

Ranged = 18 at max, speed 7, hits no matter what

 

About the debate itself...

Yes, F2P should get wave spells, and the high level curse spells (you know, the one with soul runes?). Also, maybe snare, but I'm not too sure about that.

Dunno about the equipment though.

 

To balance this, ranged should probably get yew bows and rune arrows, so ranged finally has a level 40 weapon. Also, because magic is updated, why not ranged as well?

 

And people that flame F2P, get out. You're idiots, and you're being off-topic. So there. :shame: