Redesigning the Wilderness

[swampjedi]

I think most will agree that the wilderness is flawed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's play a little mind game, shall we? Assume that you're given free hand to redesign the rules of the wilderness. How would you change it, and why? Try to tell us your assumptions on how things ought to be. Detail is good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd rather this not become a prayer and teleport flamefest only. I know those are significant pieces of the issue, but they're far from the only ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want to hear all voices - not just the hardcore pker, but also the casual pker, the skiller, and any others that I've missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will be watching this very closely, and will report any personal attacks I see. Also, replies that contribute nothing will be reported.

[Lunar_Drifter]

Ahh.. let's think. I believe that the wilderness should be given a little bit more spice. Its horridly gray and depressing out there; very well suited for such a place of death and destruction. But there could be more little doodads here and there... a few more trees, maybe some more, tougher monsters to deter the lower leveled or timid players from venturing too far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I think the introduction of PK-only worlds should be implemented. We all know that there are "official" worlds for PKing, as well as other things. But methinks they should open up a server That only includes the wilderness and maybe a bank here and there... Like include a few at the veeery edge of the wilderness (similar to Edgeville).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another thing would be to include more natural weapons. We already have the lava that can spurt up and damage you if you walk too close to it (near the Chaos Altar). Methinks there should be some "haunted trees" as there are at Draynor Maynor. Mebbe if you walk over a grave, a zombie could pop out that you can fight... Ahh the possibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All these would be just to liven up the wilderness a bit and get rid of that overall gray and dull theme it's got going on.

[The_Bacon_Man]

I agree with PK only worlds, [great idea], and I think there should be some degree of a clan fighting arena. A castle wars like arena, but you have some charge to get in [$], and whoever kills you gets that price. Something small like 1-5k, but enough to keep people coming. Perhaps a type of scoreboard as well? They have one in the Duel Arena for the last 50 fights, and the wilderness should have something like that. Even seperate sections for diff levels or combat groups. Just a lot more organized. And of course some spots of good 'ol wilderness for those who love how it is already.

[Jake_Corsair]

Being a non-pker, my ideas will probably make a few people mad, Although it's all specualation. I have no idea if these ideas would be possible (programming or Java limtations). Also, it would seriously unbalance the game (in favor of skillers)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each time you are entering the wilderness (by walking, teleporting, or whatever means), you would be asked if you wish to be a pker or not. If you choose no, then you can't attack or be attacked by any other player while in the wild. Furthur to that, you cannot interact with any other players (tradeing). This would make it some pkers couldn't have a "safe" friend to give them more food, items, etc. and not get attacked. This would also mean that teleing (except for things like the lever from Ardy and the tele portals in wildy) would not work. As all players have made their choice, and should be suitably prepared for whatever happens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for the pker side of the changes, one of the biggest problems I hear about is pjers and tag teams in single combat wild. To counter this problem, when you've both stopped attacking each other, there will be a 30 second time limit that you are safe from attacks from anyone else (except the original attacker). What this would mean, is that if someone attacks you and you auto retaliate and they stop attacking you so that another player can attack instead (to get you to skull or whatever), then the 2nd player won't be able to for 30 seconds. If fighting and one of the parties runs, then they can still be chased and attacked by the original attacker. And if you kill someone, then you will have a small bit of time to eat/prepare for anyone waiting to jump you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clan support would be added. Anyone that is part of your clan cannot be attacked by another member of that clan. As well as support for friend clans. Any member of a clan that is friendly to yours (as would be added to the list by clan leader) would also be safe from attacks from your clan and vice versa (so that 2+ different clans could team up without fear of anyone turning on another).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And last but not least, your health bar would pop up over any and all on screen chats. To keep people from blocking it so you don't know how low your health is, without having to change to skill screen.

[mchainmail]

I think there should be skill items, such as yew/ magic trees available in the wilderness. It would increase desire to go out into it. Maybe they could be placed at a rediculously high level (like 30) and have a bank deposit box nearby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm surprised nobody said this yet, but redesigning the combat level formula, so pures don't dominate as much.

[Lunar_Drifter]

I think there should be skill items, such as yew/ magic trees available in the wilderness. It would increase desire to go out into it. Maybe they could be placed at a rediculously high level (like 30) and have a bank deposit box nearby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, here are the flaws in that. Just because there are trees out there, doesn't mean that people would want to go out there. They'd see it as too dangerous and time consuming (getting there, getting PKed, walking back).

 

 

 

Level 30 is not that high of a level of wilderness... and you spelled "ridiculous" wrong.

 

 

 

And with a bank deposit, PKers would just put in their stuff before they died if they could make it in time... not very good.

[Psycho_Robot]

I agree with a lot of what Jake said, except the choosing pk or no pk. The widly is dangerous. Its supposed to be dangerous. For everyone. Have you any idea what would happen if people could mosey on into the wildy with no fear? The wildy is full of treats, the KBD, rune rocks, the chaos elemental, all of that is at a risk, however. Take away the risk, and the wildy loses its meaning. It becomes just another area in runescape. If you can make yourself unattackable in the wildy, there might as well not be a wildy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for what I would suggest, you shouldn't be allowed to teleport. Anywhere, anytime, anyhow. I personally feel that teleporting out of a fight is just about the lamest thing you can do. If you aren't prepared to lose items, come prepared to win, come with only items you don't care about, or don't come at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I think there should be a F2P bank there, but can only be accessed 5 minutes after combat. It should also be deep wildy, around 40+ to prevent people from using it as a bank when mining in hobgoblin or skeleton mines. It should also probably be far away from the rune rocks for the same reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feel free to flame me to a crispy crunch for suggesting such stupid things. I won't mind, I promise. :P

[Jake_Corsair]

Only meant unattackable by other players, in the wildy. Still can be attacked by monsters/randoms. Skillers won't be completely safe, just safe from pvp combat.

[Nadril]

Oh, a fun topic I see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I had the chance to redsign the wilderness I'd deffinitly start with making it more dangerous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Get rid of teleportation, period in the wilderness.

 

 

 

- Get rid of protection prayers in the wilderness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that I have the obvious out of the way, I could see a huge revamp to the wilderness being benificial. For one, I would put better PvE rewards than there currently is in the wilderness. This would acompany the incresing difficulty of the wilderness by incresing the reward given in there. As an off-shot too I would perhaps make it so that there are some spawns that are "currently" in the wilderness outside of it. The wilderness would be the better spawns of that, aka. better loot, more of it, ect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revamping PvP is a hard one in the wilderness. The thing we need to keep in mind is that the games PvP is largly "luck" and level based. The only real way a lower level can beat a high level is through getting lucky hits. There really isn't any way to adress this issue, but we have to keep in mind it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fights in the wilderness are a big thing I want to talk about. Although I would love to see this implemention everywhere in the game a large part of it is PvP. Bassicly, give food a cooldown to use. Too many times in the wilderness people get the jump on someone, hit some amazing numbers in a row only to have the person spam their food and heal right through it. I'm not saying the cooldown has to be very long, but I think that a 3-5 second (not sure exactly) cooldown would be great. It would be very simular to runescape classic's "3 hit system" except that players would still be granted free movement. They also would have a choice of when to eat. What it would stop players from doing is spaming their food (because really, shoving 5 sharks down your throat in a matter of seconds? I know, horrible argument, but yeah).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would also give the wilderness a bit more "life" and spice it up a bit. Perhaps even varrying factions in the wilderness a player could help out. Say that for every player of the opposing faction you kill (with diminishing returns, aka after you kill that same player say.. 3 times you don't get a reward) you get a reward from your faction. This could be anything from xp to an item reward, depending on the level of the enemy player.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, the biggest thing that is "wrong" with the wilderness is just due to the games combat system. Like I said its very random and very much based off of numbers instead of player skill. A lone player (unless high level or very lucky) has no chance of beating two other players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now to PvP only servers. The fact is I would love to see them implemented, but they need to be made right:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Make it so that the PvP only servers are their own "server cluster". Bassicly make it so that if you make a character on the PvP servers it can only visit PvP servers. This would make it so that you can't just hop on a PvE server when you want to be safe. A large part that makes world PvP "work" is the spontanious nature of it, knowning that you could get attacked at any moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Create a level limit for attacking, possibly depending on the area. For example in the 'newbie' lands (around lumbridge for example) they could be safe areas. However, other more dangerous areas would have a higher level range for fighting players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Towns would be safe havens. This would be to insure that players can't get ganked while at the bank.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personaly I'd love to see that.

[starsteller]

Maybe a necklace that, when activated, gives you 30sec-1min time where no one can pk you? It has five activations before it "falls apart" and you have to replace it. As of the gem, maybe onyx or ruby? And..it can't be activated durning a fight, and while it is activated you can't attack anyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I do agree the wilderness is a bit dreary. A bit of spice would be nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And about the no tele...what if a clue scroll tells you to take a rune warhammer and legs to go blow raspberries in the middle of the wilderness? Same point with protection prayers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And about PK only worlds...what's the point? The wilderness is big enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clan Arena...throw in a clan system as well and that'll be great. But instead of not being able to attack someone in your clan, it appears as a right click option.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And changing the combat system would be sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the furnace up there, only if the nearest bank is not in that city.

[Nadril]

And about PK only worlds...what's the point?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To have worlds wherethe entire area is pvp enabled (except for towns) where as on normal worlds only the wilderness allows pvp.

[attackyomom]

i love the idea of a whole world devoted to pking where only the towns are safe and the cool down time on food would be interesting would certainly make pking a little bit more dangerous :twisted:

[jaskkes]

I rarely enter the wilderness. But when im F2P I like to train combat in it because of the lack of players + good monsters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think there should be more things out in the wilderness for people who are daring to get out there. Like the chaos elemental and such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Higher level things to train (hunting black salamanders is a good one if you take the risk, also the agilit course). I would like to see a high level mining spot that has fast xp with the risk of getting PKed, but not as easy as just casting a spell and finishing with a DDS spec.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Less open areas also. There are open areas all around the wilderness with no purpose but to get from A to B. Maybe setting up a WHOLE wilderness city very deep which can be a safe zone (or not) with rewards for people training there (free non failable iron furnance, less amounts of coal used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things to make the wilderness alive with not just players looking for a quick money making KO.

[dargonhuman]

Ok, here are the flaws in that. Just because there are trees out there, doesn't mean that people would want to go out there. They'd see it as too dangerous and time consuming (getting there, getting PKed, walking back).

 

 

 

If they made it sweet enough of a deal, people would go. Look at the Hobgoblin Mine; yes, there are other safer sources of addy and mith but the hob mine is the most abundant source for these materials, thus making the mine very attractive. There are days when there's at least one person in the mine on almost every world, and often more than that.

 

 

 

If something similar were done for other resources like trees, and the potential rewards were as sweet, I'm sure there'd be plenty of players willing to take the risk.

 

 

 

Also, level 30 would be a fairly reasonable place to put a smallish grove of Yews; it might not be far to run and tele, but if you put it in or above a multi-way combat area, that would be offset. After all, if you're being chased by a bunch of rangers and mages who are backup for a couple pure meleers, there's no guarantee you're going to get out of the multi-way zone alive.

[jemathonical]

I agree with Nadril, just take away all prayers and teleports.

 

 

 

That would make the wild more scary.

 

 

 

And fights would be fair

[LGBR]

1. get rid of protection prayers

 

 

 

2.no teleing

 

 

 

3.anyone who has gotten more than 3mil xp in any combat skills in pc gets 15% taken out AUTOMATICALLY UPON ENTERING THE WILD in that skill. also I think it should continue-20% is 4 mil,25% is 5mil etc and 2mil is 10%, 1 mil is 5%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reasons for these are what has killed the wild, specifically pray and pc. Pray was always a problem all over the wild but now in high leveled wild people have been able to get stats up so easily with pc and now EVERYONE pretty much prays. I dont know very many people who used to be huge pkers about a year ago that havent quit now, myself included

[Striker6]

Each time you are entering the wilderness (by walking, teleporting, or whatever means), you would be asked if you wish to be a pker or not. If you choose no, then you can't attack or be attacked by any other player while in the wild.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If any changes should be made to the wilderness this is something that will never happen. The wilderness is the only place in all of Runescape where you can be attacked freely by pretty much anyone. It used to be/still is to some, a place of fear and danger, if you went there you would most likely die. I would hate to see your idea implemented, it wouldn't be a place to fear anymore there would be noobs everywhere, drop parties and looters. The only area on the map where you can actually die from another player would be taken away. The best training spots (well used to be still in f2p) would be taken up by basically noobs and idiots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a non-pker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is pretty apparent. Don't get me wrong I like the diversity of the game, I like occassionally being able to do some mining as you can't do that in many other games. But to implement your idea would completely ruin the game for me. The wilderness is the only area where you can kick some n00b butt, where those rs2 products that irritate you to end can actually be killed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That said I agree with what you said about the health bar, not sure about the clan support thing you mentioned, i'd have to think about that some more, sounds to me like it could be easily abused. I'd love for the whole of the Runescape world to be wilderness but as that will never happen i'm going to say I pretty much agree with what Nadril said about fixing it.

[Adamfostas]

Being a skiller, I'm not going to comment about the PVP aspects, as that's already been covered above. However, there are a couple of points I would like to make with regard to making the Wilderness more dangerous and yet more enticing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) The first, and most obvious change in my opinion, is to double the rate at which the level differential increases as you progress further into Wildy, i.e. instead of 1-60 it becomes 1-120 over the same area. This means that at the very top of Wildy anyone can fight anyone else, as should have always been the case. Keeping the teleport limit at level 20 would mean that lures such as all the green dragons would now be in an area which didn't permit easy escapes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) With reference to lures, the Wilderness needs lots more of them. However, it isn't enough to simply put some new skilling objects in (such as in the suggestion above about yew trees), to make the risk/reward calculation sufficient to lure people requires unique skilling objects. Think about the biggest lures at present, which are identifyable by the number of people complaining about people killing them while they're using them: green dragons and the Abyss. Both are unique to Wildy. With this in mind, I have a few suggestions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- In the forest north east of the Boneyard, place a single Witchwood tree. Witchwood already exists in the game (in one of the pirate quests, I forget which one), and would require level 85 woodcutting to chop, along with at least a rune axe (I was thinking of dragon, but that might increase the risk too far). Witchwood can be used to craft (lvl 85) a new set of armour, similar to splitbark, which as a set has a unique feature: it absorbs a quarter of the attacker's hit, and repels it back at the attacker like an uber ring of recoil. Stats similar to rune but provides some magic defence, level 60 def to wear. Very useful + effective. High demand. Reward v risk = lots of people around the tree = lots of people killing each other to be the sole chopper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- At the top of the Spider's Mound north of Red Dragon Isle, place a massive (lvl 200, in order that it's soloable) big momma spider (the name can and should be changed). The spider drops webs as a rare drop. These webs, when combined with the bazooka from ME Pt1, can be used as a range weapon to bind foes for 10s (lvl 60 range req), although it doesn't do any damage itself. A bind for rangers = massive demand. Again, lots of people out there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Many of the current features of Wildy were the best in the game at their inception, for example the Axe Hut was once the best combat training spot. Restoring these places to the top of the tree would increase the throughput of the Wilderness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my view, the most effective way to reform Wildy is incentives such as these. But will it actually happen? Certainly, Jagex have been taking suggestions for some time now (there was a sticky on the official boards). It's possible they have a revamp in mind, or alternatively a slow drip of feature change (like the canoes to the centre which were really useful, making the hobgoblin mine viable). I hope so.

[04arch3r]

Wilderness=no level barriers. Free for all.

[Psycho_Robot]

I agree with Adamfostas in that the best way to revamp the wildy is to give people more incentives. There are as of now very few Wildy-Only features, and thus not much incentive to go there unless you want to do some PKing. Much of the wildy is completely deserted most of the time, and its frankly a waste. I haven't been there in a while, but I think that there is a furnace in the abandoned town near the middle of the wildy. I think that the furnace should have some kind of special effect, like 100% successful iron, or less coal. There should also be a bank SOMEWHERE in the wildy, but would have a lot of restrictions to prevent it from being abused by PKers about to die, such as not being able to access it while skulled, or at least 5 minutes after pvp comat.

[04arch3r]

There is a bank.

[Bloodredsword]

I personally think PVP servers would be great...It would really change the way runescape is played.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There would be the rpgers, who like doing quests and making money; Then there would be the pkers, who just want to kill people :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also think it would be cool if they introduce new clan stuff...such as clan halls. So it would be like a POH for a clan :-k

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another nice thing would be different options for pking games:

 

 

 

FFA

 

 

 

team games

 

 

 

capture the flag(I guess thats castle wars)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and others. Barbarian assault has started to show promise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are just my thoughts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm the skiller :wink:

[Psycho_Robot]

There is a bank.

 

 

 

I assume (since you didn't elaborate at all :shame: ) that you are referring to the mage arena bank. Yes, there is one there, but I think there should be a F2P bank, like a chest in the poison woods or maybe the lake where the canoe comes out. The only reason I hesitate to suggest this is that it would potentially be abused by PKers constantly restocking on food and storing loot (This bank would be intended for rune miners and other players milking the non Pking aspects of the wildy).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. What the heck is a PJer?

[Freesia]

I would want this! "Anyone not having armor that provides above +20 stab,slash,crush,mage,range defence or anything that gives attack bonuses can't get attacked by another player" be it you are wearing that armor or having it in inventory. You are not allowed to attack any other player as well. However, to make it more risky, you take 200% damage from monsters, if skulled you take 300%. Only applicable to the above condition though

[victor1995]

I agree with yews and even some mages. There should be a bank in the strange castle near Demonic Ruins for F2P.

 

 

 

I think a desert in wildy would be very cool, and some cities, like bandit city but with more things than a food shop and a general store.