RuneScape Forum Archive | (F2P) QoL Improvements v2

Seasons Past

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Regarding yew trees, I think Rikornak was making the point that being able to gather a core resource without the ability to make it into something usable would be a pretty janky fit for the F2P level progression. This is assuming that a) yew and magic bows will eventually be raised to T70 and T80 Ranged to match the wood they're made from, and b) F2P will not be given access to T70 equipment. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

27-Jun-2023 18:10:02 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2023 18:39:44 by Seasons Past

Seasons Past

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Here is a bold proposal:

1) Raise Ranged weapon requirements to match Woodcutting resource requirements.
-Yew trees and bows would stay F2P, while magic bows would be made P2P.
-The strongest equipment in F2P would now be the yew shortbow at T70.
2) Make teak, acadia, and mahogany trees F2P, adding these trees to F2P areas.
-New bows carved from the wood of these trees would be introduced.
-Magic weapons would similarly be added (as in Rikornak's original suggestions).
-F2P magic weapons would now match ranged weapons in strength, both peaking at T70.
3) Make orichalcite, necrite, and their associated secondaries and smithed items F2P. Introduce orikalkum and necronium hatchets at the appropriate levels.
-All trees up to yew (T70) would now be reasonable to chop on F2P worlds.
-For balance, further adjustments could be made to the dragon and crystal hatchets if necessary.
-F2P melee weapons would now be on par with their ranged and magic counterparts, peaking at T70.
4) Make red, black, and royal dragon hide/leather F2P. If necessary, adjust Defence level requirements.
-F2P ranged and melee armour would now be evenly matched, peaking at T70.
5) Add craftable magic tank armour at T60 and T70.
-This equipment could be made from the remains of creatures (a catablepon would be cool for T60, while ankous could drop T70 materials).
-Alternatively, basic cloth could be woven into robes and imbued using Runecrafting.
-For all three combat styles, F2P weapons and armour would now be equally matched, peaking at T70.
6) Make the Queen Black Dragon F2P (I think she has a Summoning requirement? That throws a wrench in the plan, but I doubt it would be hard to find a workaround).
-This would give F2P an endgame boss to accompany T60 and T70 equipment.
-It would also smooth the transition to P2P bossing, should players decide to take the leap.
-Alongside the QBD, the draconic visage (dropped by the KBD), dragonfire shield, and mole variants of the shield would also be made F2P. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

27-Jun-2023 18:37:37

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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

Seasons Past said :
Regarding yew trees, I think Rikornak was making the point that being able to gather a core resource without the ability to make it into something usable would be a pretty janky fit for the F2P level progression. This is assuming that a) yew and magic bows will eventually be raised to T70 and T80 Ranged to match the wood they're made from, and b) F2P will not be given access to T70 equipment.

Basically this. That this is supposed to happen can be seen on the non-f2p partner skill of woodcutting - construction. Every log now has an according plank, which can be made to refined planks and eventually a frame, which is used for building your fort. And since every 5 construction level either unlock a new building or an higher tier of an existing one each piece of wood is used for 2 buildings and or upgrades. Exception being elder, which is used for a building at 90, 95 and 99.

I totally would assume fletching and firemaking will get the same treatment eventually. Of course - whenever this will be. But to be fair - fixing woodcutting also came extremely out of nowhere - some teaser for some kind of woodcutting update in may and those changes in detail only a few days before they actually were released. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

27-Jun-2023 19:20:44

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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Seasons Past said :
...

Wow - that an extremely elaborate concept, albeit we right now will need some more adjustments and additions for it to work.

- Ranged armour needs to be fitted out up to 90. For that I would propose restoring the original pre-eoc tiering of red, black and royal dragonleather - 60, 70 and 80. Yeah that stands a bit in direct contrast to your own suggestion, but I think it could be stretched out more instead, than those half tier jumps they did, since the sets devalued a lot of other things back then.
- I don't think dinosaur would be a good core armour as it stands, so we'd need something new for 90. It could be changed to power armour though I think - it doesn't feel good as tank.
- Core equipment for magic is a mess. A brutal one for that. Staves do not exist at all (albeit I literally propose them to be added to fletching), armour and wands basically only up to 50. Everything above that are exclusively rewards from slayer, bosses or minigames - or some rather alternative things like crystal. But all in all - we would need for sets of materials, as well as the sets of equipment made out of them. Overall the stuff should be fitting, but choosing the right things when it's supposed to be f2p available can be harsh. But in here I'd continue the mystic route - the cloth drops would be rather generic. But in here it's obvious f2p lacks adequate non-boss enemies from some point onwards - it's all rather low levelled things. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

27-Jun-2023 19:21:58 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2023 20:13:33 by Rikornak

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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- Generally I think the skill for creating magic equipment (minus fletching staves) should be runecrafting - not crafting. High levelled magic robes usually are after all already. OS has a cool concept with their splitbark armour - while the base armour is crafted (yep - they did that crafting suggestion - albeit p2p only), you can imbue it at the nature/blood altar with a lot of the respective runes to swamp/bloodbark with increased stats and special effects. But boy - this would be work.
- When it comes to hatchets - simply add smithable ones. Like with mining or archaeology they just would be worse than their special counterparts - yet viable enough to use them.
- As for the QBD - I am not sure if it's really explained ingame - for instance GWD1 has clear explanations why the skills are required you use to enter the boss areas. In GWD2 it's outright artificial. If it's artificial it just could be cut. Extremely interesting choice though, if I eventually would have added another boss to f2p it would have been the kalphite queen first.

Honestly it sounds cool. Of course it would be better if the currently standing issues would be fixed first and the things would just be tagged as f2p as needed later on. I mean - certainly too much for a QoL thread, but honestly the ideas are there and should some JMod ever ask for ideas for f2p stuff (Stu certainly did in the past) - it could be shown to them. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

27-Jun-2023 19:35:29 - Last edited on 27-Jun-2023 20:13:42 by Rikornak

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Rikornak said :
[...]
- Ranged armour needs to be fitted out up to 90. For that I would propose restoring the original pre-eoc tiering of red, black and royal dragonleather - 60, 70 and 80. Yeah that stands a bit in direct contrast to your own suggestion, but I think it could be stretched out more instead, than those half tier jumps they did, since the sets devalued a lot of other things back then.
- I don't think dinosaur would be a good core armour as it stands, so we'd need something new for 90. It could be changed to power armour though I think - it doesn't feel good as tank.[...]
For dragon leather, I was actually thinking the same thing. I don't know why the levels for d-hide sets were lowered in the first place. I'm not able to weigh in on dino hide, as I'm not very familiar with most high-level equipment nowadays. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

28-Jun-2023 18:24:22

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Rikornak said :
- Generally I think the skill for creating magic equipment (minus fletching staves) should be runecrafting - not crafting. High levelled magic robes usually are after all already. OS has a cool concept with their splitbark armour - while the base armour is crafted (yep - they did that crafting suggestion - albeit p2p only), you can imbue it at the nature/blood altar with a lot of the respective runes to swamp/bloodbark with increased stats and special effects. But boy - this would be work.
- When it comes to hatchets - simply add smithable ones. Like with mining or archaeology they just would be worse than their special counterparts - yet viable enough to use them.[...]
I would agree that Runecrafting should be the artisan skill for magic armour. Crafting has always had way too much stuff, making its purpose kind of loosely defined. Moving mage armour would help balance the amount of content in each of those skills.

Also, it's odd that magic armour traditionally hasn't required enchantment. In terms of realism, technically you'd need a needle and thread to sew cloth together. Without some kind of magical warding, though, you'd essentially be going into battle naked. This used to work as a logical concept in RS2, when pieces from different styles could be mixed and matched. The old system granted all combatants - but especially mages - much more choice over how much to prioritize offensive capability vs. defence. Post-EOC it doesn't work anymore, due to penalization of custom hybrid setups.

Agreed on hatchets. As long as the dragon hatchet remains preferable to a future orikalkum hatchet, there's no reason not to add the latter. Same for crystal and necronium. While the crystal hatchet is augmentable, I'd argue it also will need to be significantly superior to necronium in raw chopping power in order to justify the much larger investment (likewise for dragon vs. orikalkum). Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

28-Jun-2023 18:32:20

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Rikornak said :
[...]As for the QBD - I am not sure if it's really explained ingame - for instance GWD1 has clear explanations why the skills are required you use to enter the boss areas. In GWD2 it's outright artificial. If it's artificial it just could be cut. Extremely interesting choice though, if I eventually would have added another boss to f2p it would have been the kalphite queen first.

Honestly it sounds cool. Of course it would be better if the currently standing issues would be fixed first and the things would just be tagged as f2p as needed later on. I mean - certainly too much for a QoL thread, but honestly the ideas are there and should some JMod ever ask for ideas for f2p stuff (Stu certainly did in the past) - it could be shown to them.
I'd be fine with getting rid of the Summoning req for QBD unless it's mechanically relevant to the fight. If it's relevant to the story but not the battle, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to add an alternative Prayer or similar requirement. As well as logical justification for the boss areas, GWD1 also allows either Agility or Strength for the main entrance, so there is an established precedent for alternative requirements.

The QBD came to mind because of ranged armour (grotworms drop royal dragonhide, although that won't be relevant for F2P). I figured her cave is accessed from a F2P dungeon, and the quest that awards damage reduction is already F2P. (I found it somewhat frustrating that a F2P quest was released without giving access to the boss in 2011.)

I hadn't thought of the KQ. I think that's a viable option. The back entrance through the Lumbridge Swamp caves would mean that the desert south of Shantay Pass could stay P2P, provided the caves are opened to F2P.

I don't want to hijack your thread more than usual, so I'll leave it at that for now. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

28-Jun-2023 19:10:30

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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Dragonleather historically was way too good - it basically was only slightly worse compared to armadyl - a guaranteed drop from a medium levelled creature vs. a fairly rare drop from a boss.

OS significantly (I think all dragonleather (except for the TT exclusive blessed one) armours lost something like 1/3 of their defensive stats or so) nerfed their stats (but not their requirements) last year or so for the very same reasons. RS2 gave them a tier nerf alongside the EoC, since black dragonleather would have been identical to armadyl, royal dragonleather to pernix, since power armour wasn't a thing at first.

Now 10 years later it shouldn't be that much of an issue, albeit I would give black/royal/t90 dragonleather the same treatment as smithed melee armours at that tier. They're just worse than comparable armours tierwise.

I can't imagine, that we would get magic equipment fully rolled over to runecrafting - there are just too many existing sets by now. But I could imagine, that we could imbue some of the existing sets to have them being relevant at a higher tier again. And I am honest, since the magic sets up t50 (with the exception of splitbark, which should be craftable as it is in OS) are well implemented within crafting I wouldn't want to change that now. But since t60+ aren't really a thing it could be done there. I'll post an example of a micro expansion I worked out earlier later on to show an example how this could be done. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

28-Jun-2023 19:16:24 - Last edited on 28-Jun-2023 19:18:24 by Rikornak

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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In general I see both the Pickaxe and the Mattock system as a viable reference.

Special pickaxes always are equal to +5 pickaxes of the same tier, on top of being augmentable.
Special mattocks always are equal to the regular mattock one tier higher, on top of being augmentable. Albeit in here we have to say - the difference between an elder rune mattock and the mattock of time & space is gigantic - the latter being a t99 item, which has no regular counterpart anymore - you're certainly do not feel as punished for using an elder rune pickaxe for mining. And then there's the hero item...

I am personally not really a fan of the +x system (and they certainly haven't taken it over for the mattocks after all), but they would both work just fine.

Obviously hatchets currently don't show how good they are, but if they scale in some linear fashion as the mattocks do, it could work. Question would be if you would just buff the special one compared to status quo or gimp down the new metal ones. For the mattocks the metal ones seem to be the basis (due to linear scale), the special ones just are buffed Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

28-Jun-2023 19:16:44 - Last edited on 28-Jun-2023 19:21:22 by Rikornak

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(F2P) QoL Improvements v2