Master Skillcapes & Combat Improvements

[Urza285]

I'm excited to go for 120 slayer and use the drops to diy other skills.

[Hedgehog]

The general consensus is that it killed profit for some skills, and it killed a lot of content that was deemed "fun" but "inefficient" at the same time. Those that were going to get 99 in a skill got 99 in it anyway, but it just made thousands of others train skills that they wouldn't normally train just so that they could have a cape.

The thing about blaming the lack of profitability of skills on skill capes is that it's kinda misguided. If you look at how the skills were designed, it's pretty clear that they wouldn't be profitable if the playerbase valued xp. At most, skill capes were a catalyst of the change, but they certainly didn't cause it.

 

I guess a better way to say it is that there wouldn't have been a problem if skills were balanced correctly.

[Alg]

It's worth noting that players didn't really start to value experience (at least in the way they do today) until some time after skillcapes came out. It's not so much that they were balanced incorrectly as it is that they were balanced around an entirely different metagame and then never updated.

[strilmus]

So predictably, they didn't redesign the capes that really needed it most: 99 skillcapes...and these current capes can't even be added to your player owned house cape rack.

 

Why wasn't the team assigned this task alloted enough time and resources for them to make these important things work? Just a tad bit ridiculous honestly.

ninja team's budget is an actual potato (bonus is cabbage)

 

they get most of the stuff they need from other departments by threatening to ruin their work with minor patch note alterations and hiding their lunches

[Yoko Kurama]

 

Lame patch notes as has become the norm in recent weeks.

 

As for the Master Skillcapes, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like the last time skill capes and comp capes were released that the gaming culture was completely ruined, is it? Oh wait...

I don't really understand why you say this.

I never played before Skillcapes were released, so i'm not asking just to be difficult, but i'm asking because i genuinely don't understand. 

The way i see it, it makes for a more goal oriented player. I don't think you can blame an item for a rotten community.

 

 

 

The general consensus is that it killed profit for some skills, and it killed a lot of content that was deemed "fun" but "inefficient" at the same time. Those that were going to get 99 in a skill got 99 in it anyway, but it just made thousands of others train skills that they wouldn't normally train just so that they could have a cape.

 

That's a pretty succint and accurate answer, Noxx. Not much to add here. Basically, the addition of skill capes completely changed the face of the metagame and started the experience craze. It's no so much so that it made the game more goal-oriented (people have always had goals in RS, long before skill capes), but it did make chasing experience mindlessly the standard goal. Whereas before people did a number of things based on what appealed to them (whether that be skilling, Pking, PVM), afterward, skilling became the official mark of achievement in the game. There's a reason why you don't really see PVM/Pure/specialized accounts anymore, we're all skillers/comp capers/max capers or max-capers/comp-capers-to-be in 2k14. 

 

 

 

So predictably, they didn't redesign the capes that really needed it most: 99 skillcapes...and these current capes can't even be added to your player owned house cape rack.

 

Why wasn't the team assigned this task alloted enough time and resources for them to make these important things work? Just a tad bit ridiculous honestly.

ninja team's budget is an actual potato (bonus is cabbage)

 

they get most of the stuff they need from other departments by threatening to ruin their work with minor patch note alterations and hiding their lunches

 

 

 

I have personally dealt with the much-vaunted Ninja team. I can't say that I am impressed. They have been incredibly lazy as of late, doing next to nothing, not even fairly simple fixes, and they are often very stubborn. Just earlier this morning, I was talking to Mod Ryan on a particular issue that is very easy to fix that has been brought up to him repeatedly by various players, and he gave the same reasoning as he always has, against it, and it was very poor, and unconvincing reasoning. It's as if he refuses to acknowledge that he is wrong.

[Fallstar]

Nah I disagree there. At least in prayer and herblore, players were going for specific levels (95 & little < 96 or 96) in order to unlock pvm requirements, not for the capes. That's why those skills became so expensive. Players focusing on experience in gathering skills is negligible in the increase in quantity of those items (and resulting decrease in profitability) compared to the increase in quantity from botting.

 

Most of this stuff is myths spread by people with little idea what the actual negative impacts of skillcapes were who have already made their mind up and take the popular (and completely incorrect) opinions as reasons to justify their own.

[Golvellius]

Skill capes was one of the few updates that truly changed the way runescapers played.

There is no question that after skill capes more people went for 99s in things they wouldn't have otherwise gotten.

Who can remember all the old, "Whats the rarest, hardest cape? (Because I need to achieve something to show off)" threads.

Personally, after seeing the agility cape emote, I knew I had to have it.

Being number #115 there made it all the more special.

 

However, I look at these new capes and don't feel much.

Do they have particle effects like the dungeoneering one?

I think if they made them have new emotes, then I might feel motivated, but I'm not sure.

9 years of this game will turn you into a casual gamer that can't be assed to grind much.

[Ammako]

By the way, OP shows a picture of the DG Master cape instead of Runecrafting Master cape. Might want to fix that.

 

However, I look at these new capes and don't feel much.

Do they have particle effects like the dungeoneering one?

Did you look at first post though?

Or are you browsing on something that doesn't allow you to view pictures

[Wkw]

So what about the divination thingy on Freneaske?

[Alg]

Nah I disagree there. At least in prayer and herblore, players were going for specific levels (95 & little < 96 or 96) in order to unlock pvm requirements, not for the capes. That's why those skills became so expensive. Players focusing on experience in gathering skills is negligible in the increase in quantity of those items (and resulting decrease in profitability) compared to the increase in quantity from botting.

 

Most of this stuff is myths spread by people with little idea what the actual negative impacts of skillcapes were who have already made their mind up and take the popular (and completely incorrect) opinions as reasons to justify their own.

Would I be wrong in invoking this trope, then? Where skill capes were a good update at the time, but some of the trends that came with them wouldn't become problematic until they were exacerbated by other updates and metagame shifts years later?

 

There's also the matter of skills that were trained exclusively for the cape. People only really stopped outright harassing players with Fletching, Cooking, and Firemaking capes after skillcapes as a whole fell out of fashion. Prayer and Herblore were basically the defining example of pointless grinding skills before their updates, but even then they were too expensive for the average scaper to get. After they got updates, everyone rushed to train them because you simply couldn't compete without curses/OVLs, and even then most of the community couldn't afford to do so... In that sense, you could invoke the same trope there, since those were the first overpowered as hell 'exclusive but necessary' endgame updates.

[V O R K]

Y u no buff rev drop rate, aww it was only XP item left from wilderness & you've buffed them to make them even more annoying? Llllll le lame

 

How do the new prayers works out?

 

yay combat xp :)

 

w00T 110K PK

[Wkw]

So it appears that Nex isn't effected by turmoil and the other lvl 95 prayers anymore..

[Urza285]

So it appears that Nex isn't effected by turmoil and the other lvl 95 prayers anymore..

Trollolol... yeah that sucks.

[Yoko Kurama]

Nah I disagree there. At least in prayer and herblore, players were going for specific levels (95 & little < 96 or 96) in order to unlock pvm requirements, not for the capes. That's why those skills became so expensive. Players focusing on experience in gathering skills is negligible in the increase in quantity of those items (and resulting decrease in profitability) compared to the increase in quantity from botting.

 

Most of this stuff is myths spread by people with little idea what the actual negative impacts of skillcapes were who have already made their mind up and take the popular (and completely incorrect) opinions as reasons to justify their own.

 

Your two counterexamples don't bear too heavily on the 20 some other skills which behaved the way I mentioned. Furthmore, skill capes were released in 2006, where as overloads and curses weren't released until 3 years or so later (in 2009, iirc). 

 

I get the feeling that you're trying to rationalize the experience craze or trivialize it as many in the HLF community do (because they are part of the experience craze, and wish to protect themselves); I don't find anything too compelling in your argument, and I think the general consensus (which I happen to share) on skill capes and their effect on the game is accurate.

[strilmus]

yeah, for the most part skillcapes were introduced before the higher level additions, because jagex didn't feel comfortable with releasing that kind of thing until there were enough players to actually enjoy them (besides smithing, and even then it wasn't the exclusive source of gear)

 

one might propose that the skillcape environment made the higher level stuff more likely to be released, however there's the counterproposal that all it really did was rush all of the other levels and left them without actually useful content, such as everything in herblore below extremes being considered inferior for bossing except for two potions, up until stat boosters were made less important

[Wkw]

I personally dislike how the game turned into a "game" to an experience craze.

 

Back in 2005-7 I enjoyed playing the game because it was fun, and all of my friends around that time agreed.

 

It was only with overloads, turmoil, and dungeoneering did people start screaming at you over skype that you missed three ticks and wasted their time in a dungeon.

[Tim]

Unff. That Farming cape. <3

 

Sadly it'll be years before I don one of those. still 5.4m exp off 99.

 

 

 

Lame patch notes as has become the norm in recent weeks.

 

As for the Master Skillcapes, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like the last time skill capes and comp capes were released that the gaming culture was completely ruined, is it? Oh wait...

I don't really understand why you say this.

I never played before Skillcapes were released, so i'm not asking just to be difficult, but i'm asking because i genuinely don't understand. 

The way i see it, it makes for a more goal oriented player. I don't think you can blame an item for a rotten community.

 

He keeps thinking the 120 capes will skyrocket resource prices like the 99 capes did when they first released, ignoring the fact that barely anyone is going to go on a manhunt to get the 120 capes because unlike Dungeoneering, there's no incentive past 99 > 120. 

[Wkw]

The capes are the incentive.

[Nobody]

The capes are the incentive.

[Paragon]

Next is the 200m cape. Called True True True Skill Mastery. With the logo on your character's bum.

[Pinata]

Skill capes was one of the few updates that truly changed the way runescapers played.

There is no question that after skill capes more people went for 99s in things they wouldn't have otherwise gotten.

Who can remember all the old, "Whats the rarest, hardest cape? (Because I need to achieve something to show off)" threads.

Personally, after seeing the agility cape emote, I knew I had to have it.

Being number #115 there made it all the more special.

 

However, I look at these new capes and don't feel much.

Do they have particle effects like the dungeoneering one?

I think if they made them have new emotes, then I might feel motivated, but I'm not sure.

9 years of this game will turn you into a casual gamer that can't be assed to grind much.

Also, since there are max capes. I feel the general RS population would rather strive for a max cape than a 120 cape (besides dg). So until the majority of players are max, I feel that 120s will be off putting to most. I bet there are more people with 120 skill+ max, than 120 skill + not max. Maybe even if you include dg into that.

[muggiwhplar]

Unff. That Farming cape. <3

 

Sadly it'll be years before I don one of those. still 5.4m exp off 99.

 

 

 

Lame patch notes as has become the norm in recent weeks.

 

As for the Master Skillcapes, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like the last time skill capes and comp capes were released that the gaming culture was completely ruined, is it? Oh wait...

I don't really understand why you say this.

I never played before Skillcapes were released, so i'm not asking just to be difficult, but i'm asking because i genuinely don't understand. 

The way i see it, it makes for a more goal oriented player. I don't think you can blame an item for a rotten community.

 

He keeps thinking the 120 capes will skyrocket resource prices like the 99 capes did when they first released, ignoring the fact that barely anyone is going to go on a manhunt to get the 120 capes because unlike Dungeoneering, there's no incentive past 99 > 120. 

 

There was no incentive for most skills beyond level 85 when the original 99 capes were released, but that didn't stop people from going nuts lol. How many people do you think would have gotten 99 fletching had it not been for the capes?

[Rena]

 

Unff. That Farming cape. <3

 

Sadly it'll be years before I don one of those. still 5.4m exp off 99.

 

 

 

Lame patch notes as has become the norm in recent weeks.

 

As for the Master Skillcapes, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like the last time skill capes and comp capes were released that the gaming culture was completely ruined, is it? Oh wait...

I don't really understand why you say this.

I never played before Skillcapes were released, so i'm not asking just to be difficult, but i'm asking because i genuinely don't understand. 

The way i see it, it makes for a more goal oriented player. I don't think you can blame an item for a rotten community.

 

He keeps thinking the 120 capes will skyrocket resource prices like the 99 capes did when they first released, ignoring the fact that barely anyone is going to go on a manhunt to get the 120 capes because unlike Dungeoneering, there's no incentive past 99 > 120. 

 

There was no incentive for most skills beyond level 85 when the original 99 capes were released, but that didn't stop people from going nuts lol. How many people do you think would have gotten 99 fletching had it not been for the capes?

 

Better example is Firemaking - that has historically been 100% useless. Yet people would buy the logs for 99... for a cape.

[Fallstar]

Why is that a bad thing again?

[Alg]

...Because forcing players to spend hundreds of hours on useless, unfinished, and poorly balanced content for a cosmetic reward isn't a good thing? Especially when they use a minority of players' obsession with experience as an excuse to completely change the focus of the game in a way that ensures none of these lingering problems will ever be addressed?

 

Most of the skill chart is Cookie Clicker. Not everyone is okay with that.