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(F2P) QoL Improvements v2

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Tupi1970

Tupi1970

Posts: 4,809 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Hey! I took my time to read almost all of this thread - awesome job, btw. ;)

I am a pure F2P since 2006, and played regularly since then.

Some of my thoughts on this issue are:

1. F2P content must not be lure content to membership.

2. F2P is the game. P2P is a huge and excellent bonus pack.

3. To feel our game whole, we need it to give a sense and a sensation af acomplishment. Not new content or improvements.

4. I like F2P content, and I like it to be hard, slow and grindy.

5. I think there is a high value to max a skill in a pure F2P gaming experience.

6. Normally, players who start playing RS and enjoy the game move to members because they want more, or they want it easier or faster, or both. So, samples of P2P content are ok to exist in this sense.

7. Membership overwhelms me. One of the reasons I never thought of becoming a member was because of the feeling that I woud never master such a giant amount of content and information. Keep F2P simpe, pl0x. :P

That said, the only thing I really, really think that is missing as F2P content are Skillcapes.
;)
I know that's an old discussion, and we all know all arguments for both sides.

Nevertheless, I think that since 2006 such a HUGE amount of content has been created ingame that skillcapes are not an exclusivity anymore. By 2007 people bought membership in order to buy skillcapes and perform their emotes. Not anymore - let's be honest.

To feel the RS F2P game whole - which I understand that is the true spirit of all that has been stated and proposed in this thread - such a strive needs a prize, a recognition, a rite of passage, a tangible goal. Every game since before Pac-Man gives you some completion reward... isn't it?

Hence, it's about time to allow F2Pers to get their skillcapes. That's the part of the game that is missing, and that don't create a full and whole experience, in my sincere, honest and humble opinion.


Cheers, have fun, see you around Gielinor (or the Forums) :)

17-Sep-2020 23:12:30 - Last edited on 17-Sep-2020 23:14:57 by Tupi1970

Rikornak
Oct Member 2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Hey - thanks a lot for your input. I am going for your points one-by-one

1. That depends - and it usually can barely be avoided - except when a certain piece of content is fully f2p, players will reach a point at which you'll have to become a member to get some specific reward or pursue it further. Pure membership hooks can also sometimes be good, sometimes really not - the (long discontinued) gnomecoper tours were a nice thing to show, what the game world would have to offer, the vorago caves mercenaries on the other hand were extremely blunt. The dwarven army axe was fairly useless for p2p, but they restricted it to f2p in order to have a membership hook, the wicked hood in contrary is a great item also for members.

2. Totally agreed and that's why the transition should be as smooth as possible.

3. New content is what keeps the game fresh and interesting - but I do think it should provide new methods, without entirely killing off older ones (that can be just stuff that eventually relieves other skilling methods, but it also could be other approaches, such as profitable or afkable training at the expense of xp rates) - OSRS really does a great job in that aspect for instance.

4./5. It sorta can be compared to 120s in non 120 skills or 200m even in some of the 120 skills. The prestige sorta is born by having to use significantly underlevelled methods in order to reach a much higher level milestone - but of course such a kind of challenge could be nice thing to pursue, which will remain fairly static for f2p, since it's unlikely to have content past that level 50 point being introduced - which made smithing for f2p even harder, since the broken runite smithing was brought down to more reasonable levels.

7. Totally agreed - that literally happened as well to me back in the day when I became member the first time. That's why I think free players should at least be able to try out certain p2p features in a limited (but not too limited - see skills) scope. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

18-Sep-2020 06:07:15 - Last edited on 18-Sep-2020 06:19:17 by Rikornak

Rikornak
Oct Member 2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
As for the skillcapes - it sorta leads us to a balancing problem - they would become the best combat capes, as items, that are extremely unreasonable to obtain as free players and should rather be cosmetic, prestige objects in that instance. But now our current best four capes are in descending order a MTX (even one that was discontinued for many years for a pure free player) items and capes, that require your account to be 15, 10 or 5 years old (with a potential new rank 2 cape on the horizon needing 20 years). This fact would make them certainly a better candidate, but we certainly should have something better than those drapes (or a team cape for hybridding) available to the average joe who doesn't want to spend a lot of cash to MTX, doesn't want to wait at least 5 years of real time or doesn't want to spend unreasonable amounts of times grinding towards a milestone he isn't really intended to reach.

This is one of the issues of why I haven't suggested it by myself so far, another one would be shifting NPCs around in the game world solely for the sake of having them available for free players - otherwise of course it could be limited to former members being able to wear all eligible capes, but pure free players could only buy those, that actually are in the free world. But yeah - some NPCs just are in random location - both in the free and the full world, but the ranged cape seller certainly should stay in the ranged guild - but other than that, there really shouldn't be an issue for that - 99s skill capes just are no prestige objects for members anymore.

It was super fun to read through all your thoughts and I want to thank you again for those :) Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

18-Sep-2020 06:17:11 - Last edited on 18-Sep-2020 06:25:16 by Rikornak

Anroy

Anroy

Posts: 970 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
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Minigame Rewards Improvements for F2P

Currently there are only a handful of rewards on the Thaler shop that are F2P: Magic notepaper, Runecrafting staff (useless on F2P), Runecrafter Robes (cosmetic), swordfish gloves, Runecrafting gloves, and large fallen stars.

I don't think there should be any changes to fallen stars or Magic notepaper. Those rewards aren't meant to be the meta for obtaining them. Swordfish gloves actually have some use if the player prefers more afk training. Runecrafting gloves are virtually useless since they have to be used while running to altars, which is really only use to make money, and giving the highest level rune (fire) ony a extra 7k exp per glove.

Balancing this should be pretty easy. Simply make the runecrafting gloves able to be used at runespan. Hybrid nodes should count only towards the type of rune the glove represents for bonus exp.

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21-Oct-2020 23:41:11 - Last edited on 22-Oct-2020 12:33:07 by Anroy

gloomy apple
Jun Member 2022

gloomy apple

Posts: 435 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
I agree that F2P should get some love. No argument there.

My issue with some of the suggestions (not going to run down the whole list) is that unfortunately with the addition of more things to make, do, etc. the more likely and easier it will be for bots to develop a way to make money/profit off of purely F2P accounts.

We have to balance content for free to play versus content that will be abused to be a money racket for botters, gold farmers, etc.

I think creating a lot of untradeable content for F2P would be a great way to accomplish this, that way people will work their way up to an achievable goal and have BIS gear without worrying about trading it off for some quick cash.

When it comes to increasing/decreasing the tiers of certain weapons/armour/etc., we have to be careful how this effects the dynamics of the rest of the weapon/armour set. If we increase the weapon/level requirements by 10, then we are potentially leaving a gap for 10 whole levels. What are we going to replace that with? What about players that depend on that set of equipment that do not want to exceed a certain amount of attack/defense due to their pure build?

Giving F2P access to some originally member-only areas would be a good idea, but we need to make sure they have a reason for entering those areas, not a "just because". It'd be silly to let them into an area with nothing to do. That may require some dev work and/or unlocking more than just a few items in a specific category to make it a meaningful reason to allow them there (such as unlocking quests in that area). Check out my suggestion for a Tears of Guthix Sequel

06-Nov-2020 12:59:31

Rikornak
Oct Member 2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Thanks for your input and sorry for my late reply.

Gold farming / botting is certainly a fair point, but that pure potential should never be the reason to restrict f2p more than it would be necessary (that is why I am proposing that players have to earn the removal of trade limit restrictions, rather than just buying their way out of it). Membership per se isn't a good protection either - take a look at the heavily rigged raffle, that usually ran in September. But rather than fixing it, by putting a limitation on it, that would be more than just 'Get Membership', they just abolished the (actually interesting) concept entirely.

As for armour/weapon rebalancing. The issue is - if some of those items are the sole thing available at a certain tier - they would be poorly implemented since they're extremely hard to come by (for what they are): A battlestaff is a horrible choice for a tier 30 weapon, because it is extremely expensive for what it is, a mystic staff at tier 40 is even worse (actually similiar to how runite was for tier 50 before the m&s rework - in every case to be compared to what other styles have available). That is why I am proposing that fletchable staves from tier 1 to 60 and buffing existing staves into niche tiers so they wouldn't become entirely redundant. Basically all other buff proposals are literally that - buffing them into niche tiers, so they would viable for min-maxing, rather be entirely useless due to be way too expensive. I certainly have the full equipment table in my view - if that thing was entirely implemented nobody would have a worse standing than now. Worst thing that could happen would be somebody has to get a new weapon and/or set of armour - or do those few levels to be able to re-equip their old thing. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

18-Nov-2020 08:39:55 - Last edited on 18-Nov-2020 08:45:56 by Rikornak

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