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Skills Pointless?


Swing Doom

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Perhaps some of you can help me with a dilemma I am having. As I was playing today, I thought about how skills seem to be useless. For example: runecrafting. Let's say I want to craft some air runes. If I were to purchase rune essence and craft it into air runes, I would spend more money than I would have just purchasing the air runes. While this may not be the case for more expensive runes such as law runes, I could make more money in another method and then probably purchase more law runes than I could make in the time it took me to make that money.

 

So can someone tell me: Is RuneScape really just all about the skill cape? Is there really a point to having high stats other than being on the high scores? If there's something I'm missing here please point it out to me. This really stunts my motivation and I am thinking of leaving the game for good.

 

Many thanks.

-Ethan

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This is unfortunately true for too many skills. :/

They could make Runecrafting useful by moving all the craftable Magic gear from Crafting to Runecrafting; Requiring Runecrafting levels to make magic gear.

 

Ranged = Crafting

Magic = Runecrafting

Melee = Smithing

 

I hope that gets implemented someday.

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Personally I'm a bit angry that Jagex is releasing all of this brand new content when so much of their existing content sucks. While I of course don't think they should completely halt the development of new content, they need to seriously fix a very large portion of what they already have.

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-Ethan

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Yeah a lot of skills are are mostly useless, but jagex is moving in the right direction. Untradable pots, skill reqs for ports gear etc

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The skill experience itself is considered the commodity. Thats why often raw materials are higher in price than finished goods. Its not pointless to those who value it, perhaps (almost definitely) the many variations of achievement capes contributed to this, but it would have happened anyways.

 

High untradable rewards like overloads or something similar, just adds incentive to train herblore high, makes it more expensive, and more 'pointless' in the eyes of the op. I liked rewards like this by the way, but overloads didn't fix herblore.

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On this forums many people have claimed that skillcapes broke the game. What you bring forward here is simply why they claim so. People want xp, not the items themself that are a result of the xp. At least for many of the skills this is true. Xp therefore gets more valuable. This change really started with the introduction of skill capes, even though I believe that it had already started a bit. Without skill capes we would still be in the same situation today though, I believe. The competition for xp would certainly have grown stronger over time anyway.

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If that purpose involved money, big quantities especially then maybe no, skillcapes wouldn't of had such a big effect on players mentality's & motivation.

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The way I feel is that getting the XP should unlock more things for me in game that I can actually use to make my own equipment or make equipment to sell. Otherwise the XP is meaningless to me.

 

I'm starting to see that RuneScape is probably the wrong game for me. It's a shame, really. I would like the game pre-RWT if the finishing skills were more useful. Oh well, thanks for your opinions.

-Ethan

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Skills used to be more useful back when runecrafting made tons of money, before pvm, gambling, ect.

 

Overtime thiers become much less use for skills such as smithing = less use for mining too.

 

You don't eally need much food for combat cya fishing and cooking.

 

SUmmoning was more useful preeoc.

 

Slayer was more useful before eoc and before dungeoneering.

 

dungeoneering is useful but then you get the weapons and then not as useful, but dungeoneering was more useful before eoc.

 

fletching was useful when it was profitable.

 

thieving was useful when it was profitable.

 

combat skills are useful....but rs has become more gear based than level based with eoc...

 

herb more useful pre eoc.

 

pray more useful pre eoc

 

agil more useful back before all the run updates

 

What am I missing? farming? I guess u can make money at higher levels planting herbs but the best way to train is making trees

 

construction useful for training prayer which is less useful in eoc.

 

 

Haha explains why I play other games :D.

 

The gameplay style of rs and skill training is more suited for people of habit that enjoy training skills/multitasking maxing and beating rs will take you longer than most other games. However thier are many other games that also take awhile to learn and beat that will give you the same achievment and timespan for awhile.

 

However skilling isnt as focus intensive as say raiding in other games so if u like talking to friends in pm alot its fun :D.

 

I have no idea what its like to start today but besides quest which have low skill requirements most skills arent really "useful". OK I remember more skills that I forgot

 

mage: pretty awesome for killing stuff, however back in oldschool you had to train mage for teleports or have fun walking and high alcemy was a big part of scape.

 

range:Its ok

 

hunter:just a skill to train chins used to be an awesome range weapon also can get spikes for range pots extreme.

 

Besides skills being useless especcially to train all the way to 99 , I enjoyed getting all 99s but 200m's are totally lame for me.

There are a couple reasons to play rs.

 

-friends, socializing

-always being updated- although not always the updates you want lol....thats still a bonus.

-great for the multitasker/achiever type.

-quest are sometimes funny

 

Haha this post was originally gonna say "HOW dare you call skills useless, N00b"

 

cya and have fun whether you choose to scape or play fun steam games or rl it up.

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I don't think EoC has made many of the skills less used than it already once was, with exception of Herblore. Slayer was heading towards the realm of money sink anyway, just unfortunate EoC didn't actually rescue it.

 

What you could do with magic before, none of it has changed (all updates regarding usefulness of teleport has nothing to do with EoC itself). What you could do with magic now, some of which you never even dream of Pre-EoC. Bossing in Magic was practically unheard of beyond DKs.

 

I enjoy RS post eoc more than immediately pre-eoc, at least it is no longer a meleescape

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Skillcapes are in a unique position, in that, if it didn't start the Skilling-is-pointless phenomenon, it certainly catalysed it. But if everything else in the game progressed in exactly the same way as it does now, sans 99 or comp capes, then I don't think much would have changed beyond wardrobe and bragging rights.

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6,924th to 30 hunting, 13,394th to 30 summoning, 52,993rd to 30 Divination

Kiln Record (Post-EoC): W 25 - L 0, 14 Uncut Onyx, 8 Jad hits received (Best record: Two in the same kiln)
Obby set renewed post update #2: 0

QBD drops: 21 crossbow parts, 3 Visages, 1 Kites, 2 Kits

Max Port Score [2205] Achieved: 27th April 2013 (World 2nd)

 

Farmyard Rampage ranking: 12th, 50,000 Kills.

 

Dragon Pickaxe Drops: 1 (Times after I first entered Battlefield: 2h)

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Muggiwhplar hitted the nail on its head though. Skill capes certainly contributed to the effect: however even back when skillcapes were around for a year, you saw that only the fastest skills were greatly influenced by skillcapes. Slower skills still kept being 'profitable' and a means on its own - herblore, runecrafting, slayer are prime examples. People would indeed go for a skillcape, but why three? You couldn't show off 3 at once.

 

With GWD & constantly new features & better rewards to the combat skils it only is natural that combat became the manner to gain profit. Compare the amount of additional new content/items to combat related skills compared to skills like smithing.... Sure skills got things like being able to repair shields, however what is the most consuming job to gather those: right combat.

First they came to fishing

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't fishing

 

Then they came to the yews

and I didn't speak out because I didn't cut yews

 

Then they came for the ores

and I didn't speak out because I didn't collect ores

 

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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Muggiwhplar hitted the nail on its head though. Skill capes certainly contributed to the effect: however even back when skillcapes were around for a year, you saw that only the fastest skills were greatly influenced by skillcapes. Slower skills still kept being 'profitable' and a means on its own - herblore, runecrafting, slayer are prime examples. People would indeed go for a skillcape, but why three? You couldn't show off 3 at once.

 

With GWD & constantly new features & better rewards to the combat skils it only is natural that combat became the manner to gain profit. Compare the amount of additional new content/items to combat related skills compared to skills like smithing.... Sure skills got things like being able to repair shields, however what is the most consuming job to gather those: right combat.

Yes, combat certainly is much more rewarding, but not just in terms of pure cash, but in terms of the very resources the other skills are meant to gather as well.

 

I noticed while doing QBD that I am probably gathering, for example, much more rune ores and yew logs than I ever would chopping yew trees or mining rune rocks. And that's not even counting the plethora of other rewards that boss gives... why would I ever bother to use those skills anymore?

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I believe plenty of skills were 'useless' even before skillcapes, so I wouldn't blame the capes. It's just a convenient 'marker' for useless skilling, but some skills were never useful (certainly not all the way to 99). Firemaking for example, or herblore pre-overloads.

 

@Above: I think that's a major problem with skills. Most skilling rewards, rune items and resources are drops or store-buyable.

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@quyneax: people made some pretty penny by selling supersets..

First they came to fishing

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't fishing

 

Then they came to the yews

and I didn't speak out because I didn't cut yews

 

Then they came for the ores

and I didn't speak out because I didn't collect ores

 

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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I don't agree with the notion that all skilling skills are useless.

 

Some certainly have always been rather pointless, others have simply become slightly redundant due to lack of profitability through game changes and need to be re-addressed.

 

To give some examples:

Firemaking - always been rather pointless

Mining & Smithing - serve a very finite purpose, their core issue lies in the fact that their level spread renders the produce they give obsolete to most users well before they get there. A few simple adjustments and additions of new high end things could fairly easily fix things.

Fishing & Cooking - May seem redundant to some who just buy all their food, but where do you think it all comes from? There aren't a huge amount of food droppers out there.

Runecrafting - Had quite a large use but EoC has rendered it mostly useless, could be fixed by, as others have suggested, making it the 'magic armouring' skill much like craft > range and smith > melee.

 

Jagex just really needs to get off their butts and do some more overhauls, most of the skills aren't too far off of being useful they just need that fresh breath of life a rethink can offer

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Firemaking - always been rather pointless

Not untill ranges were implement and they stopped giving different chance to burn.

 

Mining & Smithing

Runite should've stayed the highest.. Simple as that, and new bosses should give niche armour that is good for a specific purpose - but rune should've stayed the highest general purpose items.

 

 

Anyways, monster hunting should simply be not the way to gather end game items, whoever thought that was quite simple minded with runescape. Bossing should bring items that serve as fuel for other skills, but then the skilling itself (conversion of raw products to items) should take the same efford as monster hunting (efford can quite easily in runescape be modelled by the formula "time * risk", with risk being "chancetofail * severity"). So when looking at the theoretical game design flow we can see already that skills should A) require more time. Or B) become more risky, by increasing the chance to fail & the severity of a failed operation.

First they came to fishing

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't fishing

 

Then they came to the yews

and I didn't speak out because I didn't cut yews

 

Then they came for the ores

and I didn't speak out because I didn't collect ores

 

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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Rune staying the highest doesn't scale in the long term.

 

EDIT: I would be interested in an MMO where the smithable gear actually scales over time, so that at first rune takes 99, but then later on that goes down as more people master the technique and teach it to other smithers, and then a new type of armor is invented and becomes the top tier smithable armor. That could work fairly well.

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Why does there have to be a power inflation in mmos? Why does constantly everyone wish that new armour is "better" in all senses? Instead a much more healthy and sustainable growth would be to the sides: new updates enable more ways, but not per se better ways to handle something.

First they came to fishing

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't fishing

 

Then they came to the yews

and I didn't speak out because I didn't cut yews

 

Then they came for the ores

and I didn't speak out because I didn't collect ores

 

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

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