High Tier Item Access

[MotherBrainII]

Nah. They're the reason I feel comfortable using high level gear to play high level content, rather than plinking at Nex with royal dragonhide and Zanik's crossbow in case my internet plays up for five seconds. (EDIT: Although this is admittedly a less elegant solution than either lessening the penalty for death or making boss encounters like the Kalphite King proper safe areas.)

 

I do think the game needs an item sink, though, and to some extent wish PVP still acted as one.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Does anybody wish gravestones no longer existed? They're kind of a PvM buzzkill.

I'm not comfortable with the idea that someone can get lucky and loot someone else's stuff if they happen to be at the right place at the right time. It's not a fair means of wealth distribution at all. The one thing we're all agreed on is that effort ∝ reward; we mainly disagree on how proportional. There's no effort in watching someone else die; why should it bring you any reward?

 

On the other hand, it has made PvM far too "safe".

[Krampell]

Does anybody wish gravestones no longer existed? They're kind of a PvM buzzkill.

I feel there's both pros and cons with it.

As of now, there's no risk at all when dying.

I want the gravestones back to the original timer atleast. That way you still have to rush back to get your items.

Like at Corporeal Beast. You don't get a gravestone but you still get a shot at getting your items back if you're quick enough.

 

And as said earlier. Someone lucky enough to be at the right spot at the right time, and having their net worth increasing a lot because someone died somehow doesn't sit right with me.

[V O R K]

I always thought that was the most awesome part about this MMO. You lose your items when you die, all these safety nets nowadays take away much of its former intensity. I agree with the time though, I like the gravestone idea but there is no more risk.

 

Well this is a medieval setting, I wouldve looted you too 500 years ago if I see you laying at the side of the road. ;)

[Alg]

Bear in mind that the cost (and chance) of an unlucky lag-death has also increased. :razz:

[muggiwhplar]

If you don't want to lose your valuables, just bring inexpensive gear + 4 valuables and/or have a trusted friend accompany you to grab your stuff if you die.

 

It'd also change the way bosses were designed if Jagex knew that death was a real consequence rather than a mild inconvenience.

 

 

[jayc3399]

If you don't want to lose your valuables, just bring inexpensive gear + 4 valuables and/or have a trusted friend accompany you to grab your stuff if you die.

 

It'd also change the way bosses were designed if Jagex knew that death was a real consequence rather than a mild inconvenience.

 

Exactly, I wouldn't mind going back to the 2 minute system, it means death means something, as it is right now I have time to saunter over to the bank, grab a piece of food, find the right tele walk on back and still have 10 minutes on my grave timer, only one that gets a little more iffy is GWD and thats because of KC, but even then most can be done in <10minutes if you have replacement gear in the bank.

 

EDIT:

 

Actually that, or a system like wow with a grown repair cost system, where the more you die with a given piece of armor the more it costs to repair it.

[MotherBrainII]

It'd also change the way bosses were designed if Jagex knew that death was a real consequence rather than a mild inconvenience.

 

There's a flip side to this: having death be a less severe penalty has also changed the way bosses were designed, allowing them to be made more challenging. If the Kalphite King were put in place as-is with no gravestones, how many people do you think would bother fighting it?

 

I agree with the armour degradation thing though. Dying with Nex or Barrows armour should IMO cause it to fully degrade, whether it is kept on death or not. The fact that nex gear no longer breaks on death even if dropped, which I assume is a bug, doesn't help matters at all.

[jayc3399]

It'd also change the way bosses were designed if Jagex knew that death was a real consequence rather than a mild inconvenience.

 

There's a flip side to this: having death be a less severe penalty has also changed the way bosses were designed, allowing them to be made more challenging. If the Kalphite King were put in place as-is with no gravestones, how many people do you think would bother fighting it?

 

I agree with the armour degradation thing though. Dying with Nex or Barrows armour should IMO cause it to fully degrade, whether it is kept on death or not. The fact that nex gear no longer breaks on death even if dropped, which I assume is a bug, doesn't help matters at all.

 

It doesn't have to be 100% degration each time, in wow you do a %age every time you die, the difference is if the first time you repair it from 0% it costs 100k, by the 10th time it costs 1m, by the 30th its 4mil, and caps off there. They also have in the system the better, in terms of rs, higher leveled, the more it costs to repair. IE dying in rune costs 100k to fix, dying in torva costs 10mil.

[Alg]

I just think that no "difficult to get" gear should be rendered completely worthless at higher levels.

Minor addition: Chaotic claws. The precedent is there, if Jagex is willing to look past their 'pet' items.

[Estoc]

I just think that no "difficult to get" gear should be rendered completely worthless at higher levels.

Minor addition: Chaotic claws. The precedent is there, if Jagex is willing to look past their 'pet' items.

 

Having it so high level players buy the base (lvl60) item to upgrade it into a high level (lvl80) item just drags the base item's price up to a point where it might as well not exist as a separate level 60 item. Chaotic Claws avoided this by being generally unsatisfactory, but if anything really worthwhile such as drygores were released which required say, a godsword, their prices would shoot through the roof.

 

 

Does anybody wish gravestones no longer existed? They're kind of a PvM buzzkill.

 

When my deaths are caused by merit and not my isp I'll think about it.

[Alg]

Having it so high level players buy the base (lvl60) item to upgrade it into a high level (lvl80) item just drags the base item's price up to a point where it might as well not exist as a separate level 60 item. Chaotic Claws avoided this by being generally unsatisfactory, but if anything really worthwhile such as drygores were released which required say, a godsword, their prices would shoot through the roof.

True. They could limit that system to items like chaotics or quest rewards to avoid it, though, like they've done with Balmung. Keeps them from being obsolete, or just plain useless out of the box.

 

The idea being that you could get something like your rapier, use it until level 90 or whatever, then upgrade it. If you don't want to get a rapier or go through the process of upgrading it, you can get drygores. It could go along with their plan to make armor have different effects as well - One 90 set could have a crit bonus, the other could have an accuracy boost, and so on.

[Birdd]

Having it so high level players buy the base (lvl60) item to upgrade it into a high level (lvl80) item just drags the base item's price up to a point where it might as well not exist as a separate level 60 item. Chaotic Claws avoided this by being generally unsatisfactory, but if anything really worthwhile such as drygores were released which required say, a godsword, their prices would shoot through the roof.

True. They could limit that system to items like chaotics or quest rewards to avoid it, though, like they've done with Balmung. Keeps them from being obsolete, or just plain useless out of the box.

 

The idea being that you could get something like your rapier, use it until level 90 or whatever, then upgrade it. If you don't want to get a rapier or go through the process of upgrading it, you can get drygores. It could go along with their plan to make armor have different effects as well - One 90 set could have a crit bonus, the other could have an accuracy boost, and so on.

 

Or in the given example of Drygore vs. Chaotic, KK would drop an item that could upgrade the Chaotic into an equivalent Drygore-tier weapon. Not in substitution of Drygore drops, as an additional. It would be a little less expensive, but not much because chaotics aren't hard to get, but still makes chaotics non obselete. Or the item dropped could be untradeable.

[Estoc]

Having it so high level players buy the base (lvl60) item to upgrade it into a high level (lvl80) item just drags the base item's price up to a point where it might as well not exist as a separate level 60 item. Chaotic Claws avoided this by being generally unsatisfactory, but if anything really worthwhile such as drygores were released which required say, a godsword, their prices would shoot through the roof.

True. They could limit that system to items like chaotics or quest rewards to avoid it, though, like they've done with Balmung. Keeps them from being obsolete, or just plain useless out of the box.

 

The idea being that you could get something like your rapier, use it until level 90 or whatever, then upgrade it. If you don't want to get a rapier or go through the process of upgrading it, you can get drygores. It could go along with their plan to make armor have different effects as well - One 90 set could have a crit bonus, the other could have an accuracy boost, and so on.

 

I'd rather them just leave dg as it is, a method to get level 80 weapons. Being surpassed by drygores does not make chaotics obsolete, it makes them level 80 weapons instead of endgame weapons.

[Platinum_Myr]

Every MMO with constant releases continues to suffer from the problem of dead content due to new content outclassing it. There is not a lot they can do without simply never outdating content, (which is boring because people want new shiny)

[wotmania505]

Every MMO with constant releases continues to suffer from the problem of dead content due to new content outclassing it. There is not a lot they can do without simply never outdating content, (which is boring because people want new shiny)

 

Completely agree with this. If you've ever listened to an MMO dev talk about power-creep, you know that this is a constant problem. On the one hand, you have all this awesome content you made over the last few years, and you don't want it to become dead. On the other, you want to release new stuff, to keep people interested and give everyone more options of things to do. There's just no good solution. If you just balanced everything with everything else, the game would get boring quickly - people like to have something to strive for, and people especially like getting and having awesome swords/bows/spells. Possibly you could keep updating old content with new stuff, but that gets boring really quick. I like the approach some games have taken, where you 'ascend' and get a new-game+, but I don't think that would work for Runescape... Thoughts?

[Estoc]

Just make gear with niche uses. I really have no idea why after years we only have Keris and Balmung. They're fun to use, and as of now Balmung is actually the best thing to use when meleeing dagannoths. They can even apply this retroactively as seen with Corp which gave an obsolete weapon a purpose.

[Fallstar]

Goes back to what Alg asked... just what is considered a "reasonable" grind time for something? I guess it depends on how you're grinding for it too, qbd is slightly more varied than say, mining a resource. A combo of QBD + Farming seems pretty "lax" compared to any alternative for a non-maxed player, so it's not TOO bad. ~50 hours of grinding (farming runs as well as QBD) seems reasonable for the strongest weapons in game.

I have to wonder if they'll make chaotics easier to get if it ever comes to that point. Especially when drygores get dethroned as the best weapons in the game, we may get to the point where it takes considerably longer to get level 80 equipment than 90 or higher if you're starting completely from scratch.

 

Chaotics barely cost any time though. As in, you're leveling dg anyway - chaotics are a side bonus from that. The only time cost is using the 200k tokens on an item rather than xp, which means they cost 20 minutes to an hour's worth of xp.

[Ginger_Warrior]

They take considerably longer when you're level 80 dungeoneering than when you're level 118 dungeoneering, but the fundamental point remains that relative to other weapons in its tier, chaotics hardly take any time at all. Compare how much time you'd have to spend earning enough wealth for a Virtus Wand, and then how much time dungeoneering for a Chaotic Staff.

 

Not even on the same level.

[Yoko Kurama]

If you don't want to lose your valuables, just bring inexpensive gear + 4 valuables and/or have a trusted friend accompany you to grab your stuff if you die.

 

It'd also change the way bosses were designed if Jagex knew that death was a real consequence rather than a mild inconvenience.

 

I disagree with your proposal. To be more precise, I oppose your proposal in RS's current form, but if RS were to be changed then your proposal would be a great addition. It would only exacerbate all the current problems with the wealth disparity that exist, and it wouldn't really attack the root of the problem. If we did as you said, because of the unreasonable amount of time it takes to get top tier gear (pre-EoC it was hundreds of hours, but I guess now it's like a 100 or something) most people would simply stop getting top tier gear or simply get it and stash it in their banks and never use it. Why? Because no one wants to lose their hard earned armour and spend another 50-100 hours replacing it. So you'd end up with a situation where wealthy billionares would flaunt their top tier armour everywhere while everyone else welfared. Where's the fun in welfaring? You would either have to welfare or get several sets of top tier armour so that losing one wouldn't you set back. Why get top tier armour if you can't use it anywhere?

 

In the old days when the game wasn't as messed, death was a good risk, you lost your stuff, but because most practical gear was expensive but not supremely so, people could just replace it and it served as a sink of items and provided risk. In today's RS, it's unreasonable to ask people to make that kind of risk. If the core issue (moneymaking) was fixed, then you could have risky death again. So really you just have to attack the root issue.

[Sylpheed]

It's worth noting that RuneScape is one of the only MMO's where death can potentially result in complete loss of your items.

 

I'm not against a revamp of the gravestone system, but I AM completely against a system that results in players being able to take the items of someone who dies.

[Alg]

Chaotics barely cost any time though. As in, you're leveling dg anyway - chaotics are a side bonus from that. The only time cost is using the 200k tokens on an item rather than xp, which means they cost 20 minutes to an hour's worth of xp.

That example works quite well if you're planning on maxing or if you enjoy DG, but it sort of falls apart if you're the sort of player that can't stand DG. Your priorities will be different; you have to drop everything to learn how to grind another skill (one that's largely self-contained) solely for a chaotic, after which you'll only come back if you have to.

 

It's just a bit of speculation: since most of the community only values DG as a way to get endgame weapons, what will happen to it when it's outclassed by monster drops? I see your point, it's just that most of the community hates the skill with a passion and it will only get easier to get the level 80 boss drops. DG isn't so lucky.

[thejollyroger]

I could also agree with this, but make the armours only being able to be crafted from the resources gathered by smithers and a few unique pieces gathered by monster hunting in combination.

 

I was actually discussing this with a friend, and she put some ideas out on the RSOF.

 

One idea was to make all armours degradable, but NOT repairable by money-- repairable by bars. Item sinks were mentioned, and that would be one. Extending that further-- make non-combat skilled stuff in demand, by having items require bars, or unstrung bow/stocks/bowstrings, or hides, etc. -- instead of straight money. It shouldn't be simply ammo being the depletable good, because high-tier weapons tend to skirt this anyways (Zartye bow, for example).

 

Speaking of ammo real quick, I'd like Jagex to separate gem tips from bolt metal type already. It's quite silly to have elemental weaknesses be a magic-only thing. Think about it. Even before EoC, players generally didn't touch anything below emerald, and sadly, I think poison is a joke now. I mean, more specifically--

• Enchanted opal bolts (Lucky lightning)
  
• Enchanted jade bolts (Earth's fury)
  
• Enchanted pearl bolts (Sea curse)
  

If they have air, earth, and water based damage respectively, and would be effective on monsters with those elemental weaknesses BUT the tips could be attached to any bolt metal type, wouldn't you use them more? I remember pearl bolts being reasonably effective on Fire Giants, pre-EOC but as they are currently attached to iron bolts, the damage output overall wasn't very worth it, much less for anything stronger.

 

Ruby, diamond, dragonstone, and onyx should probably stay more or less where they are. (Dragonstone is obviously fire-based, and according to Jagex's current elemental interpretation of Ancient Magicks, blood also equates to fire.)

 

[Quick gripe: I'm not terribly happy how fire-based spells is now the effective way to kill zogres instead of brutal arrows. Pot shot at Fletching, I tell ya.]

 

Back to the other idea my friend had- was to remove raw mats from monster drops, well, if I remember what she said right, ores, mostly. It's rather crazy now that ores are quicker to get by monster drops than actually mining them, and especially so for the higher level ores. I'd say mithril is especially miserable, and considering Dracae's last "Did You Know?" tip, why yes, I do recall buying a lot of mithril ores from Ordan to complete mithril ceremonial.

 

Of course the question always remains "How do you keep that from being skill botted?" Well, PoP, and perhaps to a lesser extent Manage Thy Kingdom might be the future of skilling, to keep things instanced to a certain extent. I wouldn't mind if BOTH of those were expanded further than they are now. With the bars idea... well, then there's a reason for skillers to keep playing PoP, if only for their own armor. The shark soup code should be re-implemented, maybe with tiger sharks or something... I dunno.

 

Okay, going to get out of the way now. Oh, and all y'all, before you judge my ideas, let's recount that churning was automated (server-side by Churn-X at first, people here said bah), Cooking Guild got a bank, and mages got craftable robes (I was told that was a stupid idea, now I say, gee, it happened, just not the way I'd thought). In other words, suggestions that people criticized... Jagex put it in.

[Blutters]

I'd like to see all tips/effects usable on any metal type, but you should also remember that they're made from different quality/value gems, so even if you can have opal-tipped rune bolts you shouldn't expect them to be as effective as dragon-tipped rune bolts. Although I'd certainly support a way of equalizing the effects as well.

I wouldn't mind another layer of complexity added to the combat system with Magic receiving different projectile types in place of elements, and elements becoming part of all 3 styles, but I really don't expect that J will change it like that.

 

As to receiving most ores through combat, that's just another legacy issue really. All mining spots should have been made like trees/fishing spots a while back, but as per usual JaGEx works in piecemeal (LRC).

[Quyneax]

A 3x3 weakness system where you have stab/slash/crush by melee/range/mage (arrow/thrown/bolt and err, ray/missile/burst?) would be nice imo, monsters would be weak to one on both axes and you could for example use arrows on a stab weak monster more successfully than you could use thrown (and arrow would be equal to slash, ray and crush). Elements would then perhaps describe special effects that can be added to hits, as in the ancient effects (blood/earth heals casteer, ice/water binds target, shadow/fire reduces target accuracy, air/smoke moves your target a square?).