Behind the Scenes: May 2013

[Alg]

It's worth noting that the circumstances are different than they were in TWW. You've got eight choices instead of three.

[Platinum_Myr]

I think the bonus xp is mainly due to behind the scenes modifications. I hope it includes % bonuses, and finally just lets those work more places :c I hate how some bonuses can't stack, or can't be used in certain locations.

[Ammako]

Would be really awesome if that did allow us to get the bonus exp from our pendants added to our "Double xp" thing in our stats screen.

Although, what would be the point of having the pendants as... pendants in the first place, then? Or even as items?

 

I guess they could make up a story behind the pendants. Let's say that touching the pendant adds the bonus exp to your stats automatically, that could work.

We'd probably need a message in the chatbox saying "You touch the pendant and you feel you are better at learning [name of skill] for a short while." when used.

Examine text of the pendants could be changed to "When touched, this pendant will grant you slightly increased experience in [name of skill] for a short while."

Then the left-click option for charged pendants could be "Touch", and we could have a right-click "Wear" option for those who want to wear the pendants. (#fashionscape)

[Emaxganis]

Would be really awesome if that did allow us to get the bonus exp from our pendants added to our "Double xp" thing in our stats screen.

Although, what would be the point of having the pendants as... pendants in the first place, then? Or even as items?

 

I guess they could make up a story behind the pendants. Let's say that touching the pendant adds the bonus exp to your stats automatically, that could work.

We'd probably need a message in the chatbox saying "You touch the pendant and you feel you are better at learning [name of skill] for a short while." when used.

Examine text of the pendants could be changed to "When touched, this pendant will grant you slightly increased experience in [name of skill] for a short while."

Then the left-click option for charged pendants could be "Touch", and we could have a right-click "Wear" option for those who want to wear the pendants. (#fashionscape)

 

Or they could let us "add" pendants to bonus xp showing in the stat screen :P

[strilmus]

I don't really understand the bonus Xp thing...

 

My best guess is that it's going to allow you to combine numerous items that you already have (say, a clan ring and SOF necklace, for example) which currently generate separate bonus XP into one item that you can wear/use to give you their combined bonus XP result -- either in terms of a higher amount of bonus XP or a longer duration, therefrom ...

 

:unsure:

pretty sure it's gonna work like they've been experimenting from before, and they'll allow you to dump the exp into that "bonus exp" pool that sits in your stat screen, and therefore removes the physical object part of the equation

 

like they did with the prayer exp, and the hunter exp

 

i was hoping that they would adapt the hati and skoll gear for that so i don't have to rush to deplete those nigh bottomless pools by the 16th

[Kimberly]

I'm not too thrilled with May, but I'm hoping the patch notes will bring a tidy amount of smaller tweaks that are greatly appreciated.

 

A part of me is hoping that the upcoming 'under the hood' changes to how bonus exp is granted and doled out is being done in anticipation for a BXPW in the beginning of June. The idea of another bxpw to free and members with all that lag is terrifying.

 

As for the farming update, well, it will be very interesting to see. At the very least, it will be a nice thing to grow for extra exp instead of watermelons. I didn't realize though that flowers were considered an under-used allotment considering how handy they are for marigolds and limpwurt roots.

[Ammako]

So I've been thinking, what if instead of giving a BXPW to everyone, they gave everyone a set amount of bonus exp that they can use up at any time between starting date and a set end date?

Sure, some people would usually be able to get much more bonus exp if it was a x2 exp weekend, but this would probably help with the lag, since everyone would be able to go at their own pace (compared to everyone rushing to do as much skilling/combat as they can within that two-day period.)

 

Personally, I really don't use my flower patches since they just have fully-grown lilies in them to protect all my allotments.

[Tansuo]

So I've been thinking, what if instead of giving a BXPW to everyone, they gave everyone a set amount of bonus exp that they can use up at any time between starting date and a set end date?

Sure, some people would usually be able to get much more bonus exp if it was a x2 exp weekend, but this would probably help with the lag, since everyone would be able to go at their own pace (compared to everyone rushing to do as much skilling/combat as they can within that two-day period.)

 

I believe the majority of people will disagree with this. The players going for 200m will complain as I have no doubt they will meet this cap easily, and similarly I imagine even those going for max total will. The only people this will benefit are the very low level players, who may gain more exp during this period than they would during a weekend.

 

Also, what if you didn't want to use this bonus exp? Example, a player wants to go do some PVM, but any exp they get will be taken from this cap as double exp. But they want to go max out X skill. This leaves them with the choice of wasting bonus exp or forcing themselves to go do X skill.

 

Honestly, the lag wasn't really too much of a problem on the second day of DXPW (apologies if you didn't find this to be the case). Areas where it heavily lagged were predicted - summoning obelisks for example. The generic world lag could be avoided by entering an instance (clan cita for example). Obviously there was a problem then if you wanted to train something such as slayer, but it wasn't crippling - it was perfectly bearable.

 

Apologies for this jumbled post, I am tired but I think I made my point.

[Ammako]

Don't worry, I didn't expect the idea to be accepted without criticism.

 

What if they offered players the choice between double exp for all the weekend, or a set amount of bonus exp for a longer period of time?

They could allow players to temporarily turn off their bonus exp if the latter was chosen, or they could allow players to set which skills the bonus exp would be applied to.

[Kirschen]

Another month without a quest? This feels weird. Even though this month feels lacking, there are a few interesting updates at least to keep me busy.

[SwreeTak]

A Farming update?! What? Is this real life?

 

I mean there are only a million different species of plant in the real world and we have about 12 useful seeds. It should be a skill with new content at every level. Its potential is so so so high and still not utlized.

 

Still waiting for your own farm patches in your POH and ability to rear livestock, I mean come on who doesnt want to breed their own baby dragons in thier house!

 

I couldn't agree more. We really need a massive update to farming by now. And to be able to have your own dragon farm...Hehe. Now that is just awesome.

[Tansuo]

What if they offered players the choice between double exp for all the weekend, or a set amount of bonus exp for a longer period of time?

They could allow players to temporarily turn off their bonus exp if the latter was chosen, or they could allow players to set which skills the bonus exp would be applied to.

 

Yeah it then offers the player the choice: grind the two days for maximum exp or take the set amount of exp over X days, with the prior offering a greater exp reward but with the price that you would need to pull a stereotypical no life dxp weekend.

Would require calculations before hand, but I imagine the dxpw total would dwarf that of the "set amount over X period".

[Sy_Accursed]

A Farming update?! What? Is this real life?

 

I mean there are only a million different species of plant in the real world and we have about 12 useful seeds. It should be a skill with new content at every level. Its potential is so so so high and still not utlized.

 

Still waiting for your own farm patches in your POH and ability to rear livestock, I mean come on who doesnt want to breed their own baby dragons in thier house!

 

I couldn't agree more. We really need a massive update to farming by now. And to be able to have your own dragon farm...Hehe. Now that is just awesome.

 

The trouble is whilst farming may have much you could include they need some purpose beyond farming. I mean all the vegetables are next to useless already other than a couple of stat booster things since cooking is dominated by fish due to them being simple easy food to process.

 

If anything the case we have so few useful seed is an argument against adding stuff to every single level for the sake of it: 80 odd useless farming things won;t improve the skill.

[Kimberly]

This impending farming update will have a use outside of farming. In fact, it seems specifically designed to address the lackluster effects of the god potions in our post-eoc environment. By doing this, they kill two birds with one stone, or so they think. I think most players would agree that the update's success depends on whether or not it makes brews as good as they were in pre-eoc.

 

There's always the chance they didn't tell us everything about the update, though. Maybe they'll augment other potions and farming things, too.

[strilmus]

what i take issue with is that instead of making the potions actually say, useful in their current state, they're just adding another step onto it instead

[Blutters]

probably gonna charge a key for each hand in the case of dual weapons

 

still doesn't stop me from thinking about shark fists

I'm really hoping we can keepsake more than one weapon, and that maybe they expand the armor keepsaking to more than 1 item per slot too.

In any case I've just remembered how awesome looking and relatively rare the Dominion Staff is. :) Dominion Crossbow is pretty neat too but there's no off-hand.

Going to wait to get any though, just in case they decide to pull a JaGEx and make a new kind of key.

[Ammako]

what i take issue with is that instead of making the potions actually say, useful in their current state, they're just adding another step onto it instead

Sounds like Chaotic claws all over again for me!

[Aiel]

what i take issue with is that instead of making the potions actually say, useful in their current state, they're just adding another step onto it instead

Sounds like Chaotic claws all over again for me!

except that dragon claws shouldn't have been useful, they were T60 weapons (admittedly hard to get ones). Brews are tier 78/81 herblore and should be useful in their current state (not that zbrews have been useful since the release of extremes..)

[Yoko Kurama]

Brews were always a weird case. On hand you need relatively decent skills to make them, yet they were so useful that they completely eclipsed (particularly since OVLs came into the picture) every other kind of food and sort of made them useless. So you had a potion that overshadowed foods/cooking (which are explicitly and directly supposed to be used for healing, unlike potions). They are a hard piece of content to balance. Ideally, they should have some uses, but should be nowhere near as useful as they once were. I like the fact that rocktails and sharks are useful.

[muggiwhplar]

Good thing I bought 1k brews while they were cheap as [bleep] for just such an occasion :D

 

Edit: Accidentally sold my entire stash of noted brews instead of just 1 to see the current prices. Lost a lot of money.

 

WHY AM I SO BAD AT MERCHANTING

[Aiel]

the problem is that one will always be better. They need some way to incentivize tanks to use brews and DPSers rocktails so they each have their own niche uses. Zamorak brews should also increase prayer (a little less then a prayer pot) and provide like a 10% adrenaline boost (12 second cooldown or something on the adren. boost)

[Alg]

The whole premise of Saradomin brews is that you sacrifice offense for defense. Maybe they could make it so that you get a ton of healing/defense (Including damage reduction?) out of them but take a penalty to attack/damage that you can't just restore/overload out of? Sort of like buff/debuff abilities, rather than just stat drains.

 

The problem then is that, like defense armor, there aren't too many places where that would be a good trade.

[Kimberly]

the problem is that one will always be better. They need some way to incentivize tanks to use brews and DPSers rocktails so they each have their own niche uses. Zamorak brews should also increase prayer (a little less then a prayer pot) and provide like a 10% adrenaline boost (12 second cooldown or something on the adren. boost)

 

That's a really good point. The amount of prayer they restore now is so terribly low.

[Lap]

 

The weak deserve to die,

So that the strong may flourish

This is the creed of Zamorak.

 

This update is going to be awesome :> also farming stuff! yay!

 

Why do you have an armadyl helm on? Seems odd considering the whole zammy stuff

[Kimberly]

Why do you have an armadyl helm on? Seems odd considering the whole zammy stuff

 

That's not an Armadyl helm, though I'm not entirely sure what the name of it is, actually.