RuneScape Forum Archive | An Old Timer's Passing Thought

Oct

2023

Sylvanheart

Posts: 222 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hey there.

I come back to RuneScape every now and then, as I do with all sorts of games. I've played off and on for over 20 years now, I think. RuneScape holds a special place in my heart due to its prominence in my childhood, however.

Anyways, the game's gone through many ups and downs and I'm not here to bemoan the state of the modern game. Or at least, I wouldn't put it quite so starkly. At its core, RuneScape is what RuneScape has always been. I would say it has long since been set on a new, more... popular track. I say that with a certain hiss under my breath, because I hold popularity, fads, and consumerism among my most loathed aspects of modern society. However, popularity brings revenue, and revenue brings content. I'm not sure, however, that more content is necessarily what RuneScape needs to be a good game. Content is merely needed to appease the consumerism that pays for the game.

I'll use that note to segue into my main point, which is that the game is trending towards a level of linearity that, in my opinion, doesn't suit it. Particularly with regards to quests.

11-Nov-2023 09:03:27

Oct

2023

Sylvanheart

Posts: 222 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

These days, there is a lot of focus on these big, linear endgame quest lines. It's kind of been this way since the whole entry into the Sixth Age thing. That change, along with the introduction of Divination, created a situation where the world no longer makes sense to new players. Especially not to new players who are not well-travelled MMO veterans with an eye for lore. There are now four skills in the game that require varying degrees of knowledge of major events to properly appreciate. When it was just Divination and Invention, it wasn't too bad. One did have suffer a single major spoiler re: Guthix to get the gist of it, but that was about it.

Then, Archaeology released, and suddenly we're digging through the history of a whole bunch of quest lines that new players and many other players like me simply don't have the knowledge of. And now we have Necromancy, which adds yet another skill with major quest spoilers as a prerequisite. Along with constant events and locations being added that are all based on these major, endgame, and crucially linear quest lines, the game is very quickly creating the kind of chasm that many other MMORPGs suffer from but which for a long time RuneScape did not.

As someone who likes to progress through linear stories in a sensible, chronological order, this is somewhat anathema to me. And I think it's a real put-off for newer players who may also want to understand the story in a logical order. The previous non-linear quest style, where there were many ambiguous quests plus a plethora of series that players could progress as they leveled up, fit the game better, in my opinion. The linear endgame stuff is cool too, I just wish it didn't have such a confusing and spoiling impact on new and returning players.

11-Nov-2023 09:03:34 - Last edited on 11-Nov-2023 09:15:23 by Sylvanheart

Oct

2023

Sylvanheart

Posts: 222 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Finally, I feel I should throw in some words about my recent hands-on experience with new players.

These days, I don't really play my old main character(s) so much as I am into introducing the game to brand new players and playing new characters cooperatively along with them (I really wish RS3 GIM mode was a thing...). As an English teacher in a foreign country, many of the people I've introduced to the game have been non-native English speakers. But I've also introduced the game to several English-speaking casual gaming friends I've met, who aren't MMO vets. I play along with them in voice chat and try to explain things.

Frankly, they find the game confusing as hell. The excessive tutorial and extreme customization options are particularly problematic. And so is combat. Especially RS3 combat. I usually explain that RuneScape is a very big game but that it's very easy to play at its core. Click. Wait. Level up. However, the tutorial tries to cover everything way too fast, and the Activity Tracker spam on arrival in Burthope is really confusing, especially for people unaccustomed to MMOs. I think it would be better to slow the pace down a little.

And especially for the non-native English speakers, Tutorial Island actually acts as a major barrier to play, because in order to actually get to the "simple" gameplay of leveling up, they effectively have to complete a quest with a bunch of text that many of them can barely read. Given the overload of information and lack of familiarity with MMOs, the dotted lines are almost more hindrance than help. I usually tell them that they may be better off skipping the tutorial. However, even that is unintuitive. There is no "skip" button. The options are instead, "I have played very recently," "I have played, but not in a while," and "I have never played before."

11-Nov-2023 09:03:39 - Last edited on 11-Nov-2023 09:38:41 by Sylvanheart

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,311 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I don't know where you see the endgame quest lines as a returning player.

Look at all those recent Necromancy, Archaeology, EGW, Fort Forinthry questlines. None of them are endgame content. They all start with almost no or very low requirements, most with no boss fight at all or just symbolic story mode patchwork "bosses".

There is absolutely no overload of information as each of these recent storylines require no previous information of the isolated Gnome quests that don't mean a thing now or didn't mean a things for over 15 years to even existing players have forgotten.

11-Nov-2023 18:06:51

Aug

2010

Qwis7

Posts: 1,446 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

It is true that many quests are getting spoiled if you are a returning or new payer.

Necromancer Archaeology, both spoil a hell lot things for those players.
That's why many players did want lot things behind quests locked, but the reqs were getting also pretty steep for those skills.

I still do think some things should return to quest locks because of this issue.

Aside form the quest things, the game is pretty difficult to get into.
You do get a hell lot information at once!
I do fear there is no easy fix for this

12-Nov-2023 13:23:48

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,311 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Necromancy quests are perfect illustrations of the episodic story telling instead of high barrier, endgame especially hard bossing focused approach of RS3 quests in the recent years.

Even before recent quest line and lore based content, RS3 has already given us tools like Deathtouched Darts and easier ways to tune down harder puzzles and such after a few failures in many key achievements. RS3 content, although inherited, and can't completely shake loose, from the antiquated and out of favor high barrier counterpart from the mid 2000, has been remastered with new quests/content and ways to mitigate the damages greatly.

12-Nov-2023 17:41:37

Oct

2023

Sylvanheart

Posts: 222 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I was playing with another beginner friend yesterday and we ran into a very strange and infuriating problem. I had already closed all my "paths" stuff and disabled it to the best of my ability (there really needs to be a clear, easy way to disable it all, though), but when I tried to talk to Tureal, I got a pop-up telling me I had to enable Revolution in order to continue. "Okay, fine. I'll just not talk to Tureal. As long as my friend does, it's no problem," I thought. So that's what I did... and then we tried to enter the troll cave. Same problem. It said to continue with the path, I had to make this change. So I finally relented and clicked "OK,"... and it completely changed my settings. It changed my layout to New Player, rejigged all my hotbars, set up the crappy beginner Revolution setup automatically, and also changed a number of other settings, such as turning ability queuing back on and screwing up my hotbars bindings (which are needlessly complicated to set up, by the way).

This is not beginner-friendly. At all. You don't force-change settings like this on the assumption that your default New Player setup is ideal. It took me 10-20 minutes to fix everything. If I had been a new player, I probably would have just given up on the game, since it would have taken far longer to fix.

It's true the game is kind of complicated and players these days aren't used to learning how to figure things out themselves. But frankly, I think the game would be easier to pick up with literally no tutorial at all at this point. There are too many settings. Too many dotted lines pointing everywhere. Too many prompts new players don't understand. And they can't even be properly disabled, if new players can even find the option to do so in the first place. You need to let them just figure things out at their own pace, with some light guides or something. You've got the Wiki, but that's a wall of text and new players won't notice the Wiki search button.

24-Nov-2023 09:45:08

Oct

2023

Sylvanheart

Posts: 222 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Maybe try, like, adding a right-click option on each skill panel that opens a beginner guide menu, with simple instructions and pictures. Something to get people started on each skill's basic training cycles and so on.

The combat system is a particularly tough thing for players to wrap their heads around. Especially with Revolution being the default, but no particular introduction to abilities. There should probably be a clearer tutorial fight that teaches players how to set up a hot bar and how to activate abilities. MMO veterans know to look for these things intuitively, but people new to the genre do not. It's foreign to them, so it's really really hard for them to understand, actually. Letting combat be automatic is just avoiding the problem. They learn that they can click stuff to kill it, but they see all these effects and have no idea what is going on. In legacy, it makes more sense. Revolution is convoluted, though.

Anyways, you really need to start from the basics of the basics. Show them how to set up a hot bar. Show them how to press a button to activate a skill. Show them that each skill has a different effect and show them where they can read about those effects. There needs to be a real, simple, combat tutorial zone. Something like Final Fantasy XIV's, where each role gets a super simple run down of what their job is. It's the same for RuneScape. Not so much for roles, but for how every combat style works. What weapons to use. What armor. Ranged needs ammo. Magic needs RUNES. And needs to have a spell set.

24-Nov-2023 09:46:38 - Last edited on 24-Nov-2023 09:56:58 by Sylvanheart

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,311 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

How is it not beginner friendly when beginners have to go through the new tutorials that learn the Revolution mode to get to Tureal?

You can skip the new tutorials by telling the game you are a returning players and hence learning Revolution Mode, however, you told the game you are not a beginner.

24-Nov-2023 16:35:08

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An Old Timer's Passing Thought