This development blog has been a long time coming! It’s time to start talking about the Group Ironman update; What it will involve, how it will play and what we need to get right for it be a success and feel fair.
We recently put a poll out to get a general feeling about several topics in relation to the update, so the first part of this dev blog I’ll go over the results and breakdown my thoughts on them. From there we can start a discussion and ensure we’re moving the correct direction.
Before we jump straight into the poll questions, we need to address the ETA for Group Ironman.
When we announced it at RuneFest we said it was an active project that was being worked on and, with an ETA being within the 6 months after RuneFest, as we’re now in June this clearly didn’t hit the goalposts we wanted. Sadly we’ve run into some roadblocks with the engine work needed for this project to work. As it currently stands we do not know how long it will take to work around or through this issue but please understand we’re trying our best!
A pretty simple question that doesn’t need much air time! We asked this question to allow us to filter out results from players who plan to play the game mode and those who don’t.
Probably one of the most important questions when it comes to this update is; ‘How many players should we let people team up with?’
This isn't a simple task as there are pros and cons to each group size, I'll elaborate upon this below;
- 2 Players – Keeps the group small, allowing a pair of friends to play as they see fit at their own speed.
- 3 Players - One person is alone. Two people are a relationship pair. When it comes to three, there is a big leap in perception. Within the three, there is a greater sense of cohesion and collective power.
- 4 Players - Personally when we reach 4 players there is more of a chance that someone within the group will fall behind if they are unable to play as much as the other 3.
- 5 Players – Five players is a good clean group size but it also makes it hard for players who struggle to find that many people for a group.
Based on these results, your thoughts as well as internal discussions we realise it’s not needed to set a single hard group size. You, the players should have the freedom to group with however many people as you see fit or desirable.
Friends who want to duo together WILL have that option, they shouldn’t be locked out of content due to a minimum group size.
Once a group has been created they will be classified into their group size: 2, 3, 4 or 5.
Each group size will have their own chat badge, whilst still looking similar, it will be a way of differentiating their chosen group size. The Ironman armour set will also be available to Group Ironmen, displaying the relevant icon based on group size.
Regarding hiscores, if the current engine job allows us to split them then we can have highscores for each of the group sizes.
One of the biggest topics when it comes to Group Ironman mode is how will Group bossing work? Will Group Ironman be able to group with other Irons in order to gain gear?
Poll option 1 gauged if players were okay with Group ironmen teaming up with Ironmen or HCIM. Going by the general reaction from various platforms such as; the forums, Reddit and Twitter this is an absolute NO!
If we did allow GIM to team with seasoned Ironmen, this will allow them to boost quickly for better gear whilst skipping over a significant aspect of their chosen group; relying on members of your group for progression.
Poll option 2 comes in at 36% whilst this seems like a reasonable option, it still runs into the issue of boosting down the line.
Poll option 3 seems like the most ideal, however adding a cap to group sizes could cause issues with bosses that require higher group sizes such as Raids which is aimed at 10 players.
As gear progression and resource gain from bosses is such a key part of RuneScape and account progression this is the topic I’d like to generate the most discussion on.
If a group has progressed their accounts as a team but then one of them decides ‘Right, they’ve carried me this far, now I can make it on my own' and then decides to leave the group they would expect to just be downgraded to a solo Ironman account.
However! They would be wrong, this will not be happening, if a member of a GIM group leaves the group they will be downgraded to normal account with no ironman restrictions. Simple as that.
The reason for this decision is so we can retain the effort current Ironmen have put into their accounts as solo players. It would be very unfair for that to be devalued by a dodgy rule of GIM; they will have traded.
If a member of your ironman group leaves then it seems appropriate to allow the group to recruit a new member. The best way to do this would be to allow groups to recruit ONLY fresh group accounts from the recruitment room.
Whilst this does have the argument of ‘boosting’ it does still follow the ruleset as the other members of the group have progressed with their original chosen group size.
Nothing is simple! For this project we’ve had to request some significant engine changes and support to actually allow this project to work.
Currently we’ve had engine jobs come back that makes some changes to the backend systems of Clans to allow us to create a second ‘hidden clan’ which we will use to track and keep GIM players grouped. The other job will allow us to select a lower maximum size of a clan.
This does mean we need to give players a way of chatting without giving you the ///// or /GIM chat commands… with Ninja recently releasing some tweaks and QoL changes to the friends chat system it seems sensible to push players back towards that system.
As of writing the answer is no as the engine support required for this would push the ETA for this project well into 2019.
This question has been thrown around quite a bit, understandably too as it’s quite cool change in gameplay if we allowed untradeables to be traded between members of a group.
Technically, as it stands this can’t be done, but that does not mean we will not attempt to explore other routes or methods of doing so.
This is where you’ll help, if there is a certain set of items YOU think should be traded tell us! Otherwise allowing all would be gamebreaking (like trading away quest items early, trading XP lamps from quests, etc), knowing what you want to trade may help us decide if it’s feasible or not.
To create an account eligible for the mode, you will need to create a new account and select the ‘Group Ironman mode’ drop down on the character creation screen when you first log in.
Upon creating your character with the drop down selected you’ll be sent to the Ironman guild!
From here you’ll find yourself in the group creation room, you won’t be able to leave this room until you have got your group and are ready to venture into the wider world as a team.
From here you’ll have the option of being thrown straight into the world or to go through the tutorial. Though if you’re playing Group Ironman I expect you’ve done the tutorial before!
We’ll be moving Mr Ex and the Ironman highscores to a themed location, a central place for all things Ironman related.
We do not currently have a location in mind so if you’ve got any ideas for where you’d like the Ironman guild to end up and any ideas for what content you’d like to see inside the guild please do let us know!
This project needs your feedback and input, so please take the time to let us know your thoughts!
Much love!
Kyle
We recently put a poll out to get a general feeling about several topics in relation to the update, so the first part of this dev blog I’ll go over the results and breakdown my thoughts on them. From there we can start a discussion and ensure we’re moving the correct direction.
Before we jump straight into the poll questions, we need to address the ETA for Group Ironman.
When we announced it at RuneFest we said it was an active project that was being worked on and, with an ETA being within the 6 months after RuneFest, as we’re now in June this clearly didn’t hit the goalposts we wanted. Sadly we’ve run into some roadblocks with the engine work needed for this project to work. As it currently stands we do not know how long it will take to work around or through this issue but please understand we’re trying our best!
Do you plan on playing Group Ironman when the new mode releases?
A pretty simple question that doesn’t need much air time! We asked this question to allow us to filter out results from players who plan to play the game mode and those who don’t.
What is your desired group size?
Probably one of the most important questions when it comes to this update is; ‘How many players should we let people team up with?’
This isn't a simple task as there are pros and cons to each group size, I'll elaborate upon this below;
- 2 Players – Keeps the group small, allowing a pair of friends to play as they see fit at their own speed.
- 3 Players - One person is alone. Two people are a relationship pair. When it comes to three, there is a big leap in perception. Within the three, there is a greater sense of cohesion and collective power.
- 4 Players - Personally when we reach 4 players there is more of a chance that someone within the group will fall behind if they are unable to play as much as the other 3.
- 5 Players – Five players is a good clean group size but it also makes it hard for players who struggle to find that many people for a group.
Based on these results, your thoughts as well as internal discussions we realise it’s not needed to set a single hard group size. You, the players should have the freedom to group with however many people as you see fit or desirable.
Friends who want to duo together WILL have that option, they shouldn’t be locked out of content due to a minimum group size.
Once a group has been created they will be classified into their group size: 2, 3, 4 or 5.
Each group size will have their own chat badge, whilst still looking similar, it will be a way of differentiating their chosen group size. The Ironman armour set will also be available to Group Ironmen, displaying the relevant icon based on group size.
Regarding hiscores, if the current engine job allows us to split them then we can have highscores for each of the group sizes.
Should a Group Ironman be able to group up with other Ironmen for bossing purposes?
One of the biggest topics when it comes to Group Ironman mode is how will Group bossing work? Will Group Ironman be able to group with other Irons in order to gain gear?
Poll option 1 gauged if players were okay with Group ironmen teaming up with Ironmen or HCIM. Going by the general reaction from various platforms such as; the forums, Reddit and Twitter this is an absolute NO!
If we did allow GIM to team with seasoned Ironmen, this will allow them to boost quickly for better gear whilst skipping over a significant aspect of their chosen group; relying on members of your group for progression.
Poll option 2 comes in at 36% whilst this seems like a reasonable option, it still runs into the issue of boosting down the line.
Poll option 3 seems like the most ideal, however adding a cap to group sizes could cause issues with bosses that require higher group sizes such as Raids which is aimed at 10 players.
As gear progression and resource gain from bosses is such a key part of RuneScape and account progression this is the topic I’d like to generate the most discussion on.
What should happen if a member of the group leaves?
If a group has progressed their accounts as a team but then one of them decides ‘Right, they’ve carried me this far, now I can make it on my own' and then decides to leave the group they would expect to just be downgraded to a solo Ironman account.
However! They would be wrong, this will not be happening, if a member of a GIM group leaves the group they will be downgraded to normal account with no ironman restrictions. Simple as that.
The reason for this decision is so we can retain the effort current Ironmen have put into their accounts as solo players. It would be very unfair for that to be devalued by a dodgy rule of GIM; they will have traded.
If a group member does leave, can we recruit a new one?
If a member of your ironman group leaves then it seems appropriate to allow the group to recruit a new member. The best way to do this would be to allow groups to recruit ONLY fresh group accounts from the recruitment room.
Whilst this does have the argument of ‘boosting’ it does still follow the ruleset as the other members of the group have progressed with their original chosen group size.
Behind the scenes
Nothing is simple! For this project we’ve had to request some significant engine changes and support to actually allow this project to work.
Currently we’ve had engine jobs come back that makes some changes to the backend systems of Clans to allow us to create a second ‘hidden clan’ which we will use to track and keep GIM players grouped. The other job will allow us to select a lower maximum size of a clan.
This does mean we need to give players a way of chatting without giving you the ///// or /GIM chat commands… with Ninja recently releasing some tweaks and QoL changes to the friends chat system it seems sensible to push players back towards that system.
Will group banking be available for groups to use and share resources easier?
As of writing the answer is no as the engine support required for this would push the ETA for this project well into 2019.
Will GIM be able to trade untradeables between each other?
This question has been thrown around quite a bit, understandably too as it’s quite cool change in gameplay if we allowed untradeables to be traded between members of a group.
Technically, as it stands this can’t be done, but that does not mean we will not attempt to explore other routes or methods of doing so.
This is where you’ll help, if there is a certain set of items YOU think should be traded tell us! Otherwise allowing all would be gamebreaking (like trading away quest items early, trading XP lamps from quests, etc), knowing what you want to trade may help us decide if it’s feasible or not.
Onboarding: How will I make a group?
To create an account eligible for the mode, you will need to create a new account and select the ‘Group Ironman mode’ drop down on the character creation screen when you first log in.
Upon creating your character with the drop down selected you’ll be sent to the Ironman guild!
From here you’ll find yourself in the group creation room, you won’t be able to leave this room until you have got your group and are ready to venture into the wider world as a team.
From here you’ll have the option of being thrown straight into the world or to go through the tutorial. Though if you’re playing Group Ironman I expect you’ve done the tutorial before!
The Ironman Guild!
We’ll be moving Mr Ex and the Ironman highscores to a themed location, a central place for all things Ironman related.
We do not currently have a location in mind so if you’ve got any ideas for where you’d like the Ironman guild to end up and any ideas for what content you’d like to see inside the guild please do let us know!
This project needs your feedback and input, so please take the time to let us know your thoughts!
Much love!
Kyle
15-Jun-2018 10:58:13 - Last edited on 15-Jun-2018 11:07:31 by Mod Ramen
