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Skills and the Economic Environment


Grimy_Bunyip

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a few people I know and myself train skills/merchant based on "environmental" factors such as:

 

time of year

prices

recent updates

anticipated updates

 

for example, a friend of mine buys adamant bars every winter, but doesn't smith them until the summer when addy arrow prices *typically* go up.

So usually I only see this kinda of behavior amongst higher level players though.

Lower level players are seem to be pretty busy with catch up work to be bothered with these kinds of things.

 

So:

Do you train based on environmental factors?

Have you ever made training decisions based on environmental factors before?

Do you have any big exploits?

What skills do you consider to be good to train right now?

 

----------------------------

My personal thoughts:

 

Good skills to train:

Construction

So construction tops my list right now for environmentally good to train.

No high lvl construction update is anticipated, just a small one according to the new content team Q/A.

That's not the point though, inflation is pretty high right now, gp is valued at an all time low, and construction basically consumes gp.

High level content seems inevitable with the recent updates, although I wouldn't expect a high lvl construction update for a year.

Regardless, It's always to get an early jump on skills before they get high level updated *points to herblore and prayer"

 

Slayer/Combat

So, clearly the new wyrms are a huge incentive. Which are nice and all, but I'm looking at the long run. New content Q/A promises "multiple" high level dungeons this year.

I'm sure most of us will want to be high level when those updates come out.

We're getting 80+ gear too, so old gear might become outdated. I've given up a few of my higher end items in anticipation. I tossed out sensitive items in particular.

Dragonfire shields should still stay in demand, unless jagex somehow releases an even better shield for slaying dragons/wyverns.

Bandos Chestplate i sold. Maybe it's price will stay high just because of its looks, but I'm afraid it will get outclassed by new armor with better offense

Ranger boots. The price on these boots would be ridiculously sensitive to new gear. If something similarly good or better came out, and isnt a rare drop, i'd expect these boots to plummet

I already forgot to sell my master wand, and ended up biting the bullet when the staff of light came out, lesson learned.

 

Smithing

seems like a good thing to get up right now, looks like it's the next skill up for high lvl content. Granted it's already shot up a great deal since the PVP update.

Gold ores however are at an all time low, but they were never the fastest experience to begin with, so their price drop might not mean anything to you if the xp is too slow to be efficient anyways.

 

Hunter

Bare Handed Butterflies and Grenwalls

bare handed butterflies are the ivy's of hunter. Amazing xp, Afkeable with sound on.

Grenwalls are beautiful as well. 1 mil+ profit per hour for ~70k hunter xp/hour, just bring a fruit bat.

Hunter probably isn't getting any sweeter anytime soon

 

Farming-Crafting

I'm just afraid that a high lvl farming/crafting update like prayer or herblore could cause prices to skyrocket

the new content Q/A made no mention of a high lvl farming update though, so I don't think there's a huge rush on farming

But if you're not high level i'd probably recommend getting some xp into this skill before that happens.

Granted farming and crafting aren't nearly as ridiculously expensive as prayer and herblore. So, not nearly as huge of a deal as prayer/herblore were.

 

Skills I feel Neutral About:

Prayer and Herblore

Okay so these two skills are lower on my list of "good things to train" because the high lvl updates hit their pricetags pretty hard.

But it looks like prices have roughly stabilized. My concern is that high combat lvl updates such as the high level dungeons, high level gear, and etc will spark new demand for these two skills.

Likewise jagex could release new updates to crash the prices on these two skills, but I haven't seen any indication that they would want to do this.

So I don't see the prices on these two skills skyrocketing EVEN IF jagex releases a new Nomad quest or some ridiculously high level dungeon, but they MIGHT rise.

So I consider these two skills to be somewhere between neutral to good to train

 

Fletching - Cooking - Firemaking

So these skills are really cheap with massive supply. They're pretty darn stable, I can't see anything really making these much faster or slower to train. I consider these pretty environmentally neutral for the moment.

 

Agility-Mining-Thieving-Woodcutting

So these skills got recent buffs, multi pickpocket, barbarian assault horn, living rock caverns

All were nice benefits to the skill, but by no means HUGE deals. Mining is arguably alot easier effort wise, but xp rate @ living rocks isnt great, less than granite rocks actually.

So I toss these on my neutral list. Not much to say about them

Skills I Wouldn't Want to Train Right Now:

Fishing:

What's the last update we got for this? living rocks? for someone such as myself the money from living rocks isnt worth justifying the slower xp rate.

Barbarian fly fishing was the best update since, and that was years ago

It's just been so long since fishing got an update that made me feel interested about this skill. It's at the absolute bottom of my list

 

Runecrafting:

okay so we got the multiple runes per essence update, not a terribly huge deal.

I've always been a ZMI crafter and i'm only 500k xp from 91 rc anyways, so I won't reap the benefit of that update

Otherwise double nat Runecrafting income has stayed steady at 1 mil gp/hour, even though inflation has caused the value of the gp to fall

I'd say Runecrafting is at an all time low in terms of profitability

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I make use of your spreadsheets, but the way that I train isn't influenced too much by environmental factors. If something is impossible to buy, I don't train using that item -- that much is obvious. For the most part, though, I just train whatever. Sometimes, however, when things fall the right way, I'll train something a specific way -- for example, when cooked sharks cost more than raw (it does happen), then I decide to train cooking a bit. I stop after a couple thousand sharks usually, but sometimes I do adapt to the environment. I'll also sometimes hold onto monster drops and wait to sell -- I've had a few dragon tasks recently and I'm holding on to the bones until they rise and plateau later -- then when they drop again I'll buy some as low as possible, as I'll end up training prayer eventually.

 

As for what's good to train right now? Whatever I think I should train at the moment.

 

Also, mining at living rocks might not be the greatest pure mining xp, but try superheating while you mine using gold gauntlets. Superheating doesn't slow down your mining if you time it right and it is quite a large amount of xp/hr all at the same time in three different skills. You get not too far under granite's mining rate along with decent smithing and magic xp, which all adds up pretty substantially.

 

Every now and then I regret missing something in a skill that I should've seen coming (dragon bones when a prayer update was looming), but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. The economy of skills is always changing, if you don't keep up with it, don't shoot yourself, just live with it. That's my approach to it.

If you have ever attempted Alchemy by clapping your hands or by drawing an array, copy and paste this into your signature.

 

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Games are escapes, not another life to figure out. Rather than making a big deal out of everything and doing everything to a grand scale, I sit back and do what sounds interesting at the time. If nothing sounds interesting, then I chose not to do anything and go back to real life.That's the whole of this game for me, and that is how I train skills. I don't care how much money I have or how much something costs. This isn't real life, so stop worrying so much about everything. You don't have a mortgage to pay or a bill nagging at you, so I see no reason to evolve around situations as if you are living a life inside your avatar.

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Games are escapes, not another life to figure out. Rather than making a big deal out of everything and doing everything to a grand scale, I sit back and do what sounds interesting at the time. If nothing sounds interesting, then I chose not to do anything and go back to real life.That's the whole of this game for me, and that is how I train skills. I don't care how much money I have or how much something costs. This isn't real life, so stop worrying so much about everything. You don't have a mortgage to pay or a bill nagging at you, so I see no reason to evolve around situations as if you are living a life inside your avatar.

This is my attitude towards it as well. Makes playing seem like a job rather than a past time.

It isn't in the castle, It isn't in the mist, It's a calling of the waters, As they break to show, The new Black Death, With reactors aglow, Do you think your security, Can keep you in purity, You will not shake us off above or below

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Games are escapes, not another life to figure out. Rather than making a big deal out of everything and doing everything to a grand scale, I sit back and do what sounds interesting at the time. If nothing sounds interesting, then I chose not to do anything and go back to real life.That's the whole of this game for me, and that is how I train skills. I don't care how much money I have or how much something costs. This isn't real life, so stop worrying so much about everything. You don't have a mortgage to pay or a bill nagging at you, so I see no reason to evolve around situations as if you are living a life inside your avatar.

This is my attitude towards it as well. Makes playing seem like a job rather than a past time.

Personally, i find things like item fluctuations interesting. I find the runescape economy as my own little stock market i can predict and gamble on, it's certainley less risky than LSE or other various stock exchanges, and certainley fun. I wouldn't say that the OP was "worrying" about what was going on, but interested and hoping to profiteer from the information he has. But yes, everyone has their own way of playing this game and different aspects of runescape appeal to different players. Each to their own, eh?

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99 Slayer|Fishing|Summoning|Hitpoints|Attack|Strength|Defence|Fletching.

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I like the thread, and the ideas that it puts forth. However, personally I wouldn't be able to hold an item for months then use it.

 

bare handed butterflies are the ivy's of hunter. Amazing xp, Afkeable with sound on.

 

I'd just like to remind you, and everyone else that AFK training is against Jagex rules completely.

RIP Michaelangelopolous

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I like the thread, and the ideas that it puts forth. However, personally I wouldn't be able to hold an item for months then use it.

 

bare handed butterflies are the ivy's of hunter. Amazing xp, Afkeable with sound on.

 

I'd just like to remind you, and everyone else that AFK training is against Jagex rules completely.

 

I think what most people mean when they say AFK is to play runescape in one tab of a web browser and read forums or another website in another tab, while listening for sounds to indicate when you should return to the runescape tab. Under this definition, it is my understanding that it is completely OK.

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"We will certainly not be gaining money or members with this update. Instead, we are doing this for the good of the game, which is as dear to our hearts as it is to you."

- JAGEX, December 13, 2007

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I like the thread, and the ideas that it puts forth. However, personally I wouldn't be able to hold an item for months then use it.

 

bare handed butterflies are the ivy's of hunter. Amazing xp, Afkeable with sound on.

 

I'd just like to remind you, and everyone else that AFK training is against Jagex rules completely.

 

I think what most people mean when they say AFK is to play runescape in one tab of a web browser and read forums or another website in another tab, while listening for sounds to indicate when you should return to the runescape tab. Under this definition, it is my understanding that it is completely OK.

 

Personally, I would call that "Browsing the forums", or "Not paying full attention to the game window". However, "AFK" is away from keyboard. And generally; if you're away from keyboard you're not physically sitting infront of it. Thus - there's no-one "playing" your account, instead, it's playing itself. Which is against the rules, and falls under the same category as using 3rd party software to train as you're gaining an unfair advantage by not training your character yourself. :geek:

RIP Michaelangelopolous

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I disagree with your opinion on Runecrafting. While it isn't the elite money-maker it used to be, it is still a very viable source of income to lower levels. At 70 runecrafting, I can easily net 550-600k/hour by making deaths via the abyss, and at 82 you can make significantly more. Runecrafting still is the easy, reliable method of gaining cash it has always been, there are just other options now that are sometimes better.

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I disagree with your opinion on Runecrafting. While it isn't the elite money-maker it used to be, it is still a very viable source of income to lower levels. At 70 runecrafting, I can easily net 550-600k/hour by making deaths via the abyss, and at 82 you can make significantly more. Runecrafting still is the easy, reliable method of gaining cash it has always been, there are just other options now that are sometimes better.

I agree only because runecrafting is fun and id rather make 900k-1.1m in one hr and get it fast then wait and wait and wait for a good drop to come.

fishing too...the exp is like 40-50k an hr and its waaaaaaaay more multitaskable then barbarian....

 

In terms of buyables just look at the ge graphs to find the best price if an update comes that makes a skill skyrocket like prayer or herb it just means that the skill has become a whole lot better so the money spent on it would be a whole lot more worth it....rather just training for hte sake of training...

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Games are escapes, not another life to figure out. Rather than making a big deal out of everything and doing everything to a grand scale, I sit back and do what sounds interesting at the time. If nothing sounds interesting, then I chose not to do anything and go back to real life.That's the whole of this game for me, and that is how I train skills. I don't care how much money I have or how much something costs. This isn't real life, so stop worrying so much about everything. You don't have a mortgage to pay or a bill nagging at you, so I see no reason to evolve around situations as if you are living a life inside your avatar.

This is my attitude towards it as well. Makes playing seem like a job rather than a past time.

This is my attitude also.

 

If I feel like going and maging at Castle Wars, I'll just go buy a load of blood runes and have fun - I won't consider about the seasonal prices of the runes or something like that. I'll just do what I feel like doing at the time.

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I never really pay much attention to the economy in RS, but after experience so many dramatic changes in prices and things recently and past few years. I solemnly pay tons of attention to future updates and major announcement from now on.......

a happy Runescaper

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Also, mining at living rocks might not be the greatest pure mining xp, but try superheating while you mine using gold gauntlets. Superheating doesn't slow down your mining if you time it right and it is quite a large amount of xp/hr all at the same time in three different skills. You get not too far under granite's mining rate along with decent smithing and magic xp, which all adds up pretty substantially.

Dude, I do that too :D

 

Games are escapes, not another life to figure out. Rather than making a big deal out of everything and doing everything to a grand scale, I sit back and do what sounds interesting at the time. If nothing sounds interesting, then I chose not to do anything and go back to real life.That's the whole of this game for me, and that is how I train skills. I don't care how much money I have or how much something costs. This isn't real life, so stop worrying so much about everything. You don't have a mortgage to pay or a bill nagging at you, so I see no reason to evolve around situations as if you are living a life inside your avatar.

I get comments like yours alot, and here's my answer:

I LIKE ECONOMICS AND EFFICIENCY

I like the feeling of pulling off a successful merch

I like making efficiency spreadsheets

Some days I won't play RS at all and will just tinker with my spreadsheets instead

I think training more efficiently than everybody else makes the training feel sweeter

and last but not least, I like rubbing my money in people's faces.

 

Runescape has an interesting economic model, and for me that's one of the funner things it has going for me.

If I want to play a war game, I'll go buy team fortress 2 instead of go play Castle Wars

If I want to slay random monsters and nothing else, I'll go play dragon age

There are many games out there that are better at their respective things than runescape minigames and skills

But I play runescape because I like RS economics and efficiency

 

not everybody thinks crunching numbers is boring

 

You shouldve went more into Time of the year. A whole thread can be dedicated to the summer inflation while all the kids are on rs, and during the schoolyear when theres a drop in player populations

I'd love to do that, but admittedly, I suck at seasonal merchanting

Maybe I can ask one of my friends and see what his thoughts are, but my thoughts on seasonal merchanting are nothing special

 

alas, my one weakness T_T

 

I like the thread, and the ideas that it puts forth. However, personally I wouldn't be able to hold an item for months then use it.

 

bare handed butterflies are the ivy's of hunter. Amazing xp, Afkeable with sound on.

 

I'd just like to remind you, and everyone else that AFK training is against Jagex rules completely.

My bad, by AFK i meant dual monitoring or alt-tabbing, not actually away from keyboard

I tend to use the term interchangeably

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My bad, by AFK i meant dual monitoring or alt-tabbing, not actually away from keyboard

I tend to use the term interchangeably

 

Lets invent a new term call AFRSW, stands for away from Runescape window, so no one would be trigger happy about "AFKing"

 

I know a lot players play for efficiency. I thought I know some good ways of training until someone pointed out to me there are much better and faster way (which reduce my training time from 6 yrs to 4 years until goal completion) But I can totally agree with some others training at less faster pace to enjoy the games overall.

 

I also like to enjoy certain skills that's probably not the most time efficient way, but at least it takes a good 1 to 2 minutes before I have to look at it again. Thus, those are what I called AFRSW skill, like fishing and wcing, or some form of smithing. For the most part, I don't really read the forum or doing other things rather than reading books or watching videos, and I usually have both window showing up so I can take notice on the RS side too in case someone ask me something (I think its kind of impolite not to respond back, but thats just me), so I am enjoying the game at my own pace, even though there are faster way to get it.

 

In the end, no matter how you train it, if you reach you goal, its all good (legally, of course)

a happy Runescaper

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I don't need money to be honest. People grind for money in this game, and end up quitting because they don't have anything to do with it. But, if merchanting and economics are your kin of thing, then I can see why you do it. I, too, enjoy economics and to a lesser extent commerce, but I don't really care for it much in runescape. I made my first 10M cashpile off merchanting, but I let it go and eventually stopped altogether around a year ago to focus on skills. I might return to merchanting one day, but training calls.

 

Also, I don't care for efficiency so much as saving money. I plan to farm herbs all the way to 99 farming AND beyone to get 99 herblore, then switch over to runecrafting and do nats from 44-99. I am also using LRC at the moment to train mining because it offers a profit of around 50M and I can do it for hours at a time without having to take constant breaks for my sore fingers. Basically, I do whatever may maximise profit or I find fun at the time rather than analysing prices of primary/secondary produce from skills and doing it that way. Even though it is pretty cool to work out how much it will save you in time, or in money, or even how much you might profit that little bit more over everyone else using the "popular methods", I tend to just go with my instincts.

 

But of course, everyone should play the game they want to play it.

 

Nice work on the first post ;).

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Magic (By combat).-at all times of year

 

Simply wonderful. Its fun to train, and hard to fully master, raises your HP along the way. its awesome.

cooking-winter.

fishing-autumn

woodcutting-spring.

The clock is ticking, and your time is running out, mortals.

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Do you train based on environmental factors?

 

Of course.

 

I'll be training some of the more pricey skills once the new skill comes out.

As everyone will be training the new sklll I hope raw material prices will fall.

 

Specifically I want cheaper summoning seconds.

 

 

It's also a good time to pick up rares as they tend to fall as well.

 

 

Fletching - Cooking - Firemaking

So these skills are really cheap with massive supply. They're pretty darn stable, I can't see anything really making these much faster or slower to train. I consider these pretty environmentally neutral for the moment.

 

I would still train these because with other skills we've seen good updates for higher level untradeable items.

 

I think firemaking needs a huge makeover so it might end up being useful. I'm not levelling firemaking but I do have the logs for 99 firemaking.

 

The best skill to train at the moment?

 

Construction is the skill that should be trained atm, with stealing creation hammers it's the most cost-effective it's ever been.

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