RuneScape Forum Archive

Nov

2003

A Cole

Posts: 14,682 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

It's disappointing to see how out-of-touch Mod Hooli and Mod Mic are regarding the minigame community.

Jack Flac has hit the nail on the head. We don't play minigames because they're not accessible. If they became more accessible, I'd be there a lot more often than I am now. The best thing for all minigames would to add a single-player option that would drive traffic to the game. Once players are there, they are more likely to form teams for the competitive multi-player games.

I remember watching a livestream a few years ago. I can't remember the two mods on it, although I think one was Mod Hooli. They were playing the Great Orb Project, and it seemed to be a first for both of them.

AND THEY LOVED IT!

We play RuneScape for many reasons. Rewards are just one small part of that. Don't go killing off fun and exciting playstyles because a few loud players want an easier time getting out-of-date rewards.

~A~

29-Dec-2022 10:10:46

Mar

2007

XSlay4DeathX

Posts: 2,634 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Jagex's failure to update minigames just makes them look bad in fixing things lol.

From A-B-C-D this game is broken tbh.

Plus jagex shows no reason to fix these issues, runescape is now a MTX fest milking machine.

^as long as that works, who cares if some people quit/no new members.

30-Dec-2022 10:44:32

Deltaslug

Posts: 32,671 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A Cole,
Keep in mind that there are 3 types of accessibility
1) The first would be pre-programmed requirements
- Trouble Brewing is locked behind several quests
- Great Orb Project requires 50 Runecrafting
Devs can get rid of those (ie:Runecrafting Guild now only needs Level 1 RC to access, and thus GOP only needs Level 1 to Play, Mos Le Harmless no longer needs quests to access or TB gets moved to the gamers grotto)

2) The second is the level of player understanding to access
Boss mechanics for example can reach a point that a player wouldn't be able to do it.
This can be mitigated with "story mode" and allowing groups of players to participate.
The more common suggestions are to get better gear or study the wiki guides or youtube videos on it.
This one doesn't help if more and more players are unable to understand the mechanics or don't want to.

3) The third is going to be number of players required to access
I would say activities like Great Orb Project, Trouble Brewing, Stealing Creation, and even Soul Wars don't have to be team vs team or player vs player.
I would have no issue (personally) if they were set to where you have to have 1 player to start. If you want a versus mode or a group of 2-10 of you all on the same team (no Team 2, just Team 1) ... then by all means ... add it in ...
Cabbage Face Punch for example required more players to start, they eventually dropped it down to 1.
But mechanics of certain minigames ... Castle Wars, TzHaar Fight Pit, formerly Duel Arena, Fist of Guthix ... aren't exactly designed for optional single player.

30-Dec-2022 15:31:48

Deltaslug

Posts: 32,671 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

You could have it redone where Castle Wars is a single player race to see how many Flags you can capture and return to the home base in the 20 minutes. And I'm sure there are a few players that would go for it.
But would you?

You could have Fist of Guthix as a "go to center of cave with the Magic Stone for full time period and see how many charges you can collect".
For players that want to AFK for Thaler ... again .. it would have some interest.
But would you want to go for such a mechanic?

I know people are pushing for AI/bots in minigames.
Given how game AI's tend to actually work vs the player expectations in video games ... I'd think we'd be better off without that sort of mechanic and I personally feel dev time is better spent giving the minigames a single player mode with opt in for groups.
Granted, this is
my
opinion. I know there are many others that don't share it.

30-Dec-2022 15:35:23 - Last edited on 30-Dec-2022 15:55:55 by Deltaslug

Deltaslug

Posts: 32,671 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

One of the other aspects of minigame rewards is that they haven't kept up with normal training methods and boss drops. Heck even the stuff we can craft now.

Barbarian Assualt?
BXP aside.
Primary rewards are a couple of cosmetics, some resources, the Fighter Torso which is about T60, the Penance Armor set which is mid tier, and a T70 Staff.
Really? Today, we have mobs that drop equivalent tier. Heck the Reforged Sunspear is T78 AND augmentable. And it is a quest reward.

Stealing Creation?
I'm not going to knock the retro look of the Sacred Clay stuff.
But the armor is T50, shields T60, and the Tools actually hamper gameplay today since we have the stuff on the toolbelt.
The SC armor would be arguable for F2P ... but even then ... that wouldn't be enough.
Sure you could argue the devs revamp the rewards so it is BXP only and the SC stuff becomes cosmetic.

Fist of Guthix?
The magic armor caps at T50 as Power Armor and the Shields at T55. That's fine for F2P, but not P2P.
The various RC, Herb, and Drago nslayer gloves are "useful" but they really should be available in their respective skilling activities as well, not just FoG.

Pest control?
The armor has also fallen behind. EoC nerfed it. And then you've had bigger and better gear get released since then. The upgraded Void Knight gear is still what, T70 at best? And that tier is already pretty saturated.

Fishing Trawler's "rewards" were made available at the Deep Sea fishing Hub.

Would you even notice if the TzHaar Fight Pit or Heist were removed from the game?

30-Dec-2022 16:07:24

Deltaslug

Posts: 32,671 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The devs are not going to make minigames "best in slot" training methods.

If you make it a training method, then you actually make it a "training method". Ditch the timers. Ditch the lobbies. Ditch the currencies. Ditch artificial barriers.

Turn Trouble Brewing into a multi-skill training method that incorporates farming, firemaking, hunting, etc and cooking to make 'rum'? Ok, sure.
The only reward you need is XP.

Activities like Pest Control and Barbarian Assualt? Ditch the minigame aspect.
You've already got enemy spawns, attack mechanics, and their own little dungeons. You've even got the bosses designed and in game.
Change the "minigame" to an actual mid tier "dungeon" and let players go in and hack the critters to bit without any restrictions.
Heck, add 'Pests' to Slayer Masters, the Penance are already classified as 'Demons' (though again, you could always add them as a unique class for mid tier slayer Masters like Kalphites).
Even add the Penance King and Queen as mechanics to fight normally and even add to Soul Reaper.

Soul Wars? Again, ditch the minigame aspect. Drop in a few more varied Slayer Creatures, keep the Soul Obelisk mechanic, and just make the 2 Avatars count as normal bosses with the Soul Wars points rewards being the creatures drop table. (It's mostly XP awards, charms, summoning/prayer materials, and the points for pets or ring imbues anyways)
Aren't the Avatars just GWD1 or GWD2 difficulty now?

30-Dec-2022 16:17:05 - Last edited on 30-Dec-2022 16:17:29 by Deltaslug

Nov

2003

A Cole

Posts: 14,682 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I agree that Minigames should not be become the best training methods. By making any piece of content "the best", you inherently make other content obsolete.

Minigames fulfil a niche where you can make gains whilst having a different sort of fun. It may not be as fast as standing mindlessly by a tree chopping away or rapidly filling potion vials at a bank, but it's made up for that by being engaging and interesting.

I'm a big proponent of giving these minigames a single-player mode, albeit only those that are feasible to do so. I don't think AI needs to be a thing at all.

Minigames such as GOP barely needs to change and is probably one of the easiest to make into single-player - despite the fact that the coding for it is so old that nobody now would want to touch it.

Minigames like Castle Wars, for example, could be strewn with friendly and enemy NPCs, much like the God Wars Dungeons.

Perhaps the timers for each game can be set by the player, where longer time limits allow for larger rewards. Sometimes not everyone has 20 minute spare per game of Castle Wars.

By making single-player modes, you are addressing the second and third accessibility criteria you outlined. Players can practice in single-player mode to learn the mechanics, and in doing so will drive more traffic to the games so multi-player games are more likely to happen.

As for your first point, this definitely needs addressing, but it wouldn't take much effort to sort out, in my opinion.

In short, minigames can be given a new lease of life, so long as Jagex allows the players to give them a chance. Yes, not all minigames will make the cut, but there are many that work perfectly well, and can fit in with the modern game.

~A~

30-Dec-2022 17:58:33

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,176 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

OP's post is really outdated. He quoted what Mod Hooli and such 3 months ago and they said they would do do something according to the survey they conducted.

Since then, they have released a new form of D&D called Flash Events. They said in the newer livestream on that topic about "minigames" that's what they learned from the Surveys they sent out as well as other successful companies.

Besides, most of the minigames items OP mentioned are already "redistributed" long ago. For instance, all the Trouble Brewing rewards have been obtainable without participating in that minigames long ago. The Stuff can now be bought with Thalers and Piece of Eight have been dropped by Pirate Implings a very long time ago.

30-Dec-2022 20:15:30

Mar

2020

Pulseironic

Posts: 361 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Deltaslug said :

2) The second is the level of player understanding to access
Boss mechanics for example can reach a point that a player wouldn't be able to do it.
This can be mitigated with "story mode" and allowing groups of players to participate.
The more common suggestions are to get better gear or study the wiki guides or youtube videos on it.
This one doesn't help if more and more players are unable to understand the mechanics or don't want to.

i see this with boss mechanics and laugh. ya ill go watch youtube videos for tips on how to get into bossing. whats the tips? get top of the line gear worth about 100 bonds and then learn how to juggle weapons and armor cause the thought of starting with a budget just isnt something people make videos for.

05-Jan-2023 04:29:37

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Part of the fun of minigames is the player interaction and competition. You can't fix them by just stripping them down to just being another training method. They're mini games . Games within a game. Losing that even if not outright removed entirely is just killing them in a different way. Additionally, judging which minigames are worth keeping based on spotlight activity is flawed because a lot of that is based around what's easier to cheese for thaler. For example, I've only seen people at flash powder factory on spotlights and most of them are AFK instead of actually playing. There's no appeal to sticking around once the outfits are gained besides easy thaler. GoP is dead because of Runespan, an afk rc training method that requires less effort.

Stars and lamps as activity rewards in places like minigames were a lot more appealing before TH and frequent events handed them out in the quantities we see now. We need non xp consumables to spend currency on after the one time purchases. Proteans are part of the problem here too, most glaringly unstable essence vs protean essence.

The main things to fix for minigames as a whole is methods for players to find eachother to play them and addressing issues like game changes breaking the game balance or problems with AFKing, spawn camping, etc. Improving stuff that helps players find other players for activities should be a priority since it would involve general improvement of the social functions of the game across all content. Even if minigames still need individual updates, players would likely have an easier time playing them just from that and could better give feedback on how to successfully update them. How to block a forum user

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21-Jan-2023 02:14:59

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