RuneScape Forum Archive | (F2P) QoL Improvements v2

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Nope haven't seen that post, but when it comes to those 'special' weapons pre EoC spawned left and right and probably already were useless at that time I just try to think of a niche, in which they could sit comfortably, while being at least decently enough to be obtained a min-max weapon and not cannibalizing something else. Overall it's more important to me players are able to reasonably come by some level adequate equipment at all times, while still allowing them to progress to better stuff for a while. Issue just is that min-max stuff needs to be obtainable in some reasonable fashion, which is the reason why lots of those items either always were broken or actually got broken with the EoC - especially when they're untradeable. And yeah - the mining & smithing rework basically is the template of how basic equipment should look like.

As a mage you basically could go from maple to yew to magic staves. Or if you min-max you could include lesser runic and battlestaves in between. That said I like the idea of the staff being upgradeable, rather than being stuck with something you solely used for min-maxing.

Honestly - I like the idea of free players to be able to do the mage arena, but I don't think those god staves would be appealing equipment at tier 50 - since in my system a plain staff made from magic logs would exist, as reasonably to come by level adequate equipment. 55 could work better, but that's obviously a bit unfair compared to the effort melee fighters would have to go through to use gud raider. A downgrade probably wouldn't be that much of an issue for members, since they just could pick up an obsidian (or elder as per my proposal) staff to be fair - but that's why the initial plan was to move it up from t60 in the first place. It's difficult. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

18-Mar-2023 07:20:10 - Last edited on 18-Mar-2023 07:41:27 by Rikornak

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Returning to teleports, I like the idea of changing Taverley to air. Fire was probably chosen because Falador (water) was too close and because Lumbridge and House Teleport already both use earth. More than the others, Taverley is almost exclusively a novice area, which also fits the idea of air being the first and “easiest” element.

With the three main F2P settlements, I could be persuaded. I like the idea of the runes corresponding to the respective altars closest to the spells’ destinations, as I think this offers the strongest canonical justification. For that matter, Falador could also be changed to air to reflect that altar’s historical location. As it so happens, the air altar I believe is still the closest elemental altar to Falador and Taverley. If they ever remove the Clan Camp, the air altar could even be moved back to its old spot, but I admit that this is a wishful fantasy.

As stated earlier, I’m totally down with changing the level requirements regardless. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

20-Mar-2023 00:07:45

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

At this point since we’re making Magic more consistent, we may as well throw in Runecrafting. If the newbliest of novice runecrafters can craft air runes with no prior experience, they should also be able to make water, earth, and fire.

As for the other runes, I’m getting way ahead of myself here, but the level progression is awkward. I get that it’s the level difference between the two previous rune types +1. However, given RuneScape’s tiering system in general, the Runecrafting skill would make more sense as follows:

Air/Water/Earth/Fire: 1
Mind: 10
Body: 20
Cosmic: 30
Chaos/Astral: 40
Nature: 50
Law: 60
Death: 70
Blood: 80
Soul: 90

In this proposed progression, the largest difference from the current one is fire runes, with a change of 13 levels. The second largest difference is mind, with a change of 9. The third largest is earth with 8, followed by nature and law with a change of 6 levels each. Among these, only nature runes are particularly popular for Runecrafting, and typically only at level 91 - far higher than the proposed requirement. For all other rune types, the difference is 5 levels or fewer. Four of the rune types - namely Air, Body, Astral, and Soul - would stay at their current levels. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

20-Mar-2023 00:44:25

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I'll try to make some new concept for those teleports sometimes soon.

The air altar wasn't moved in order to make room for the clan camp, since that one was only released 2 years later. It was moved to make it feasible to use without having to use the abyss - especially considering the run energy system at that time was way worse than it is today (albeit no longer as bad as it historically was) - crafting air runes in OS sucks - albeit the skill as a whole does there, but that's basically just one stone in the mosaic. RS2 back in the day did a couple of things to make this skill more endurable, moving the altar was one of them. It might make sense to move it to taverley or burthope (as the lowest levelled altar lying within the tutorial area) if the area as a whole wasn't so overcluttered, but the old location basically would only to manage to enforce the runespan even more, which admittingly also wasn't a thing for quite some time after moving the altar. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

20-Mar-2023 07:47:53 - Last edited on 20-Mar-2023 07:55:24 by Rikornak

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

In general I am not super sure if it's a good a idea to force runes into a classical tiering system, since truth to be told - they just never were intended to. You may have some tiering for certain kinds of runes (i.e. mind -> chaos -> death -> blood or body -> chaos -> soul) at times, but not for all of them - and usually you need most of them at all times, depending on what you want to cast. It isn't an issue for most runes, since you just could buy them in a shop - but especially blood runes will be made way worse compared to status quo. Of course that also remain to when to introduce the guaranteed creation of multiple runes at once.

What certainly should be changed is the divergence some runes have between their crafting requirements and the first time they're used in the magic system - you basically propose a level 60 law rune vs. a level 5 teleport spell for instance. But yet again - this must especially considered for the runes you just can't buy at a shop.

It's certainly not that easy, since OS basically did a couple of adjustments as well - for instance they artificially introduced a chance to create multiple runes for law and death runes, despite it being mathematically impossible to reach a sufficient level to do so. They also introduced a rune exclusive to them at RC 95, which might be a good idea for RS3 as well eventually, since you just shouldn't clutter more and more of the same runes into more newer spells. It just could help to have something fresh eventually - the senntisten spells certainly haven't helped to economically use other spells using the same runes for instance - water, blood and soul probably being the worst offenders.

I generally would be open to rebalance runes, but players certainly shouldn't end up worse than status quo both compared to experience and crafting rates for any given rune or at any given time. But that's certainly too big for that thread. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

20-Mar-2023 07:50:09 - Last edited on 20-Mar-2023 07:53:11 by Rikornak

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Law runes seem to be the most discrepant by far. Bridging a 44-level gap between the first teleport spell and the Runecrafting requirement would require a substantial change. A few options would be:

a) Lower the Runecrafting requirement for law runes.
b) Raise the Magic requirement for teleport spells.
c) Separate law runes from teleport spells of a lower level than the Runecrafting requirement.

Of these options, the only one I would consider potentially beneficial is option c. This would simply require replacing law runes with a different rune for teleports below level 54, as otherwise players would be able to infinitely cast teleport spells if the spells only required one elemental rune type. I would propose replacing law runes with mind and body runes at lower levels. Examples would be:

Taverley:

Mind

+ Air
Lumbridge:

Mind

+ Water

Varrock:

Mind

+ Earth

Falador:

Mind

+ Air
Camelot/Seers’ Village:

Body

+ Air
Ardougne:

Body

+ Water

South Feldip Hills:

Body

+ Fire

House:

Body

+ Earth

Yanille/Watchtower:

Body

+ Earth

Paterdomus:

Body

+ Fire

Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

21-Mar-2023 17:03:25

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The thing specifically is - the law rune is the rune associated with teleport spells, just like nature would be for alchemy (or any kind of transmutation), cosmic for enchantments or astral for lunar spells.

In general right now runes already are a bit off, compared to the first spells they're used for, but it only would get worse if they're 'properly' tiered

- Soul runes can be created at 90, it's first used at 60 - albeit the soul rune really is something special, since those runes always were hard to come by per design.
- Blood runes can be created at 77 (or 80 with your proposal), it's first used at 49
- Death runes can be created at 65 (70), it's first used at 50
- Nature runes can be created at 44 (50), it's first used at 15 (albeit I would say realistically rather 43 for superheating)
- Astral can be created at 45 (40) - and this one is curious - it's not even used at all before 65

If anything the requirements to create runes need to be toned down further - certainly not to parity or something like that, but I would think a soul rune should be able to be created at 75. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

22-Mar-2023 07:08:19

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I think something like this could work:

- Elemental + Mind: 1
- Combination: 6 (additional mechanical improvements: runes are no longer lost, binding necklace increase runes created, instead of being forced to worn, runes can benefit from level multipliers - see below)
- Body: 12
- Cosmic: 20
- Chaos: 28
- Nature: 35
- Law: 42
- Death: 50
- Blood: 58
- Astral: 65 (yeah, that one should be increased to parity)
- Armadyl: 72 (I mean... it exists)
- Soul: 75

Unlocking a new rune roughly every 6-8 levels won't guarantee feature parity (especially for that law rune again), but it will ensure things aren't too off in either direction. Issue is - with the exception of astral runes - the spell system wasn't designed with runecrafting in mind - you were supposed to get your runes in a shop (I mean - good luck trying this with the other two combat styles beyond some point), as drops or by trading with other players. It would have to be heavily reworked all over the place, which to be fair isn't worth the effort, when the same result can be achieved by re-toning the RC skill for a bit - it's not that much of an issue if players have to rely on stores for a while.

With the exception of combination, soul (those need some adjusted formula) and armadyl (yeah, again - they do exist...) runes due to their unique mechanics, the rune multiplier is consistently increased by 1 every 10 levels over the RC requirement to create them in the first place, with a 10 % chance for an additional rune per level between multiplier unlocks.

And yeah - you comfortably could introduce 2-3 more runes up to level 99 if needed (and they certainly should!). Albeit I only would start with one somewhere in the 80s if a couple more of spells would come to be.

/edit: Added examples for level 99:

Elemental/Mind: 10.8 (1 base + 98 additional levels/10) per essence
Blood: 5.1 (1 base + 41 additional levels/10) per essence Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

22-Mar-2023 07:09:32 - Last edited on 01-Apr-2023 11:06:40 by Rikornak

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

It’s true that law runes are the traditional rune used for teleporting. I don’t think that would need to change for higher level teleports.

For the F2P/early teleports, switching law runes with lower-level catalytic runes I think could be justified along the same lines as mind/chaos/death/blood runes being removed from combat spells. When the new Wizards’ Tower was released, lore was added explaining that modern magical research had improved the efficiency of those spells, causing them to require fewer (or in this case, less powerful) runes. I think a similar in-universe explanation could be used for lowering the Magic requirements for some of the teleports - especially in tandem with changing the rune costs for those and combat spells.

Enchant Crossbow Bolt is a particularly egregious example. As you mentioned, the spell uses blood/soul runes quite early (at 49/68 Magic vs. 77/90 Runecrafting, respectively). Each of these runes is used in the spell more than 20 levels before it would be unlocked with Runecrafting. To top it off, the spell does a backflip for its two highest enchantments at level 87 and 90 Magic, both of which use a level 65 rune. Strangely, diamond bolts stand out with a Magic level close to their unique rune’s Runecrafting level (57 Magic vs. 54 Runecrafting). I would say that the crossbow bolt enchantments strengthen the case for revising rune requirements for spells in general, with or without any changes to Runecrafting.

I know I suggested it, but if a Runecrafting re-tier is not on the horizon, I would argue that adjusting the runes required for spells could be just as effective. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

23-Mar-2023 00:34:25 - Last edited on 23-Mar-2023 00:53:22 by Seasons Past

Oct

2013

Rikornak

Posts: 9,169 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Probably yes, but the standard spell book combat spells rework was done for different reasons (the same reasons I want to see the air rune gone from non-air spells) - they were way too expensive for what they were, having made magic as a whole rather unfeasible to use - unless you were able to burst/barrage the shit out of something - sure that's even more expensive, but at least you've seen a certain result. You just need to take a look at how magic is actually skilled in OS - at most players splash strike spells on some rat, but otherwise it's all kinds of non-combat magic - unless you need that skill to kill something efficiently.

Of course now given the law rune can't just be bought at a f2p shop, that brings it to a new dimension. You would have to kill things for a rather rare drop to be able to use teleport spells as a f2p ironman. It's certainly feasible enough, I've recently watched a YT series of an OS UIM who had to do this, but I think from a purely game design perspective magic and runecrafting are horrible even nowadays - not just when it comes to teleporting.

In general I wouldn't see it as too insane if free players could be allowed access to entrana to be able to make their own law runes with an adjusted level - it still makes it a fairly meaningful unlock - more than it would be for members to be fair. But I certainly think players should be able to buy a couple of law runes daily as well until they reach that point. They can purchase death runes after all... Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

23-Mar-2023 06:30:52 - Last edited on 23-Mar-2023 06:58:59 by Rikornak

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(F2P) QoL Improvements v2