RuneScape Forum Archive | Too much dead content

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

As the game has progressed over the years there has been a lot of good updates to the game, but with those updates it has made a lot of the old content pretty dead. Along with those updates, I think Jagex needs to find a better solution to keep old content relevant to keep the content alive in the game.

Dead content includes introductory bosses, 90% of the mini games, the previous versions of ED, construction skill in general, and the wilderness. Now there are tons more of content that even ironmen don't even utilize but those are just some. Down below I'll go into further details on the ones I mentioned, feel free to chime in with your own or suggestions on how to better the ones I mentioned. My hopes is to have Jagex see this and can provide a persuasive argument to change some things.

Most content now a days you seem to grind it out for a time being and then never come back to it. You get that item or ability from it and then cya later, never to think about it again. RS3 is advertised as a sandbox mmorpg but because of all the dead content it makes the games character progression very linear. You have to do certain quests and certain things to unlock gear/perks/areas, and then when you unlock all that stuff and get to endgame, you just boss all day every day. I think this is a big reason why new player retention is hard for RS3 compared to other games.

I'll go into further detail below.

29-Jan-2023 22:32:15

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

KBD/Giant Mole/Chaos Elemental: The problem with theses bosses is that their drop tables are so outdated that it's not even worth doing at low lvls. The time spent at these bosses for what you get would be better served doing something else to unlock "better" content. The obvious solution is to upgrade its drop table and upgrade the mechanics of the bosses. I understand that they're supposed to be "entry level" bossing but like I mentioned before, no one does them because time spent is better used else where. In GWD1 case, outside of getting the armour drops from the bosses you get like 50k per kill. Considering you can get a lot of kills from GWD1 in 1 hour and there are a hard modes, this would be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to entry level bossing.

29-Jan-2023 22:32:40

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Mini Games: These are a huge waste of space in RS3 now. There were times when majority of these mini games were very popular with clans and normal group of friends, and a lot of the time provided really good incentives to do it but they are really dead now. Most mini games offer rewards in terms of abilities, armour, weapons or achievements; but once those things are achieved, the player almost never goes back to them. Not to mention, some of the rewards you would grind the mini game for are no longer "best in slot" items for an activity, so there is no need to go there to begin with. If the only purpose that these activies serve is to get an achievement or a piece of gear then I think it would be better to just remove it all together. Other solutions is to find a way to incorporate these activities by hosting clan vs. clan events, or changing up the rewards in a way that would make people choose to do that activity over other stuff and to have them keep coming back to play it. Personally I just think a lot of the stuff should be removed/combined.

29-Jan-2023 22:32:59

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Construction skill: Seriously, whats the point? OSRS has a very good use for the skill but RS3 its just completely a dead skill. When first introduced it seemed like it had some good uses for it and could naturally incorporate with the current game, but as the game has changed over the years many of the things that potentially could of been good were now useless. There are a couple useful features to it, biggest being maybe personal slayer dungeon? But outside of that it's a skill you get to 99 to max out and then never touch it again. It has very little uses in the current state of the game. This whole skill is based on having your own Player Owned Houses but the uses of the House are very little and don't really make that huge of a difference. It's just a huge money sink now.

29-Jan-2023 22:33:23

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Previous versions of EDG: EDG's are only popular until the next one comes out; and now it's getting to the point where players don't even want to run the current dungeon and just want to fast track to the bosses. What's the point of doing ED1 when ED 4 is out? The money isn't better, the xp isn't better, the mobs aren't easier (still need a pretty decent set up to farm tokens), so what is the point? Obvious solutions is to change drop tables to drop stuff more useful a day to day basis that will make people coming back to farm it; but maybe having clan tournaments or individual tournaments with rotating bosses would be a better solution. Have a month long ED tournament where Orders or Individuals (in the case of solo bosses as this idea would work for that as well) can sign up for and compete. Tournament would last 1 month with each week you can only score on a specific ED, so week 1 is ED1, week 2 ED2 etc. This concept is very similar to Jagex hosting the Clan Cup in Clan Wars when that was a big thing. We would actually do this in private between clans; challenge a clan to a God Wars Dungeon war. It would be a month long and each clan would record all their big drops from GWD and keep track of the value of each item. At the end of the month, the Order with the most GP created from big drops won the event. It was a good way to incentivize people to go to GWD1 for money for PKRI's and it made the Orders so much more active as you always had people looking to form a group and go. Something official from Jagex on both a clan and an individual level could spark interest in old content again.

29-Jan-2023 22:33:54

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The Wilderness: Now I see this is a topic of discussion right now and I think it's a good idea to get rid of the threat mechanic but that won't help revitalize the wilderness. I personally think making PvP optional in the wildnerness was one of the biggest mistakes Jagex has made. An update that was intended to spark more interest in the wilderness ended up killing it even more. It's not a mistake that more times Jagex has tried to "help" the wilderness that they have indeed killed it more and more. That isn't the only problem with the wilderness; the biggest problem is that the content in the wilderness is bad. Everything you can do in the wilderness you can do somewhere else in the game; there a very few activities that make it "worth" going out there. I've posted about this before in previous forum topics, made topics myself, YT comments, and many more; but I'll break it down one more time in hopes Jagex finally sees this and can maybe "see the light" when it comes to the wilderness"
First let me explain why you HAVE to have PvP in the wilderness. I know, as annoying as it is to be farming green dragons or doing a clue scroll and getting attacked/killed, it's that interaction that should make the wilderness standout as one of the best places to train/skill in the game, but it's not. Not to mention some people actually like hopping worlds and finding people to kill, it breaks up the grind or the repetative nature of the game. I personally would spend a couple days pking to take a break from everything else, now I just stop playing the game for a couple months to a year and then come back. On top of all of this, having PKers in the wilderness is vital component in the wilderness structure.
I think Jagex needs to make a drastic shift in how they think of the wilderness; this is a risk vs. reward area of the game.

29-Jan-2023 22:34:29

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Nothing should be mandatory in the wilderness, as you shouldnt force anyone in the wilderness that doesnt want to be exposed to PvP, but for the people that do elect to utilize the area, they should be rewarded for the risk they decide to take. The fact that people get mad when they get Pk'd means that the rewards they were getting before the updates weren't worth the risk they were taking.
So let me explain how the wilderness worked when there was peak interest in the game.
- You have resources or activities that attract people to the wilderness because the resources farmed in the wilderness were not only some of the best resources in terms of money making, but you could only find them in the wilderness (Think of Rune Rocks waaay back in the day, Cursed energy, or Lava Strykewyrms for aggro potions/money making)
- Then you have ragger pkers come to kill the skillers/pvmers
- Then the medium lvl/gear pkers come to kill raggers and skillers
- Then high lvl/gear pkers come to kill everyone (most of the time they leave the skillers as "bait" unless they're super bored)

29-Jan-2023 22:35:00

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

That is how the wilderness works and it all works as one big system; if any of the parts of the system are messed with then the whole thing falls apart. That is exactly what we are seeing with all these updates over the years that have killed the wilderness. The resources that are in the wilderness are no longer good. Why kill abby demons in the wildy when you can go to slayer tower? Why mine rune ore in the wilderness when you can do it outside of it? Who is killing green dragons in the wilderness when you can do it outside of it? Almost all the content that you can do in the wilderness you can do safely outside of the wilderness; and the resources/activities worth doing were always populated before they took away PvP. So that is the first problem, as the years have gone on, Jagex has done a poor job incentivizing players to go into the wilderness. The solution? It's twofold, you have to make content in the wilderness that is exclusively in the wilderness, if it can be done somewhere else, it will be done somewhere else. The other aspect is players have to be properly rewarded for possibly being killed and losing that time in game. It's gotta be some of the best XP in the game for that activity, the best material in the game to farm for gold, or something else that will make people want to risk going into the wilderness instead of doing a safe method outside of the wilderness.
This is where Pkers play an important role in it all; if you're going to have some of the best methods in the game be in the wilderness then you need an anti farm system to make sure prices do not crash a couple months after the game (thus no longer making it the best method for money making, creating more dead content). This is a delicate balance that will need long consideration before changes just get made, because as we've seen even the slightest change can negatively impact the whole area.

29-Jan-2023 22:35:18

xIsleGuardx

Posts: 9 Bronze Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

My Solution? Bring PvP back, no opting out, but make the content in the wilderness better than most options on the map and exclusively in the wilderness. Better rewards from using the farming patch in the wilderness, slayer monsters specific to the wilderness that have drops that can only be done by that monster (lava strykewyrms), skilling nodes like cursed energy that speeds up gathering times, increased xp rates in the wilderness (constant demonic skull basically), increased drop rates from monsters in the wildy, better item spawns (like changing nature spawn to soul spawn), create some non instanced bosses, increase clue rates for wilderness clues, etc. There are tons of ideas to create this end goal but the premises have to follow that PvP is back, the activities have to be exclusive to the wilderness and players have to be properly rewarded for the risk they take one way or the other.

Feel free to chime in with your own ideas as there is so much dead content in this game that can be fixed. I'm hoping this thread turns into something that Jagex can draw ideas off of for future updates. So post below!

Thanks for reading!

29-Jan-2023 22:35:31

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

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

Do your really not realize most of the new and very live content aren't locked by anything? Old quests have been reworked into new ones in RS3 too.

All those EDs and such are very meaningful. Where do you get enough Ancient Scales and Draconic Energies to create, augmented and repair Elite T90 gear?

All those "dead" content like Chaos Elemental you mentioned are low level legacy content. They aren't dead content at all either, as they are Reaper Assignements as well as mandated requirement for Reaper and Warden.

Perhaps you need to distinguish what is dead content and legacy and out-of-favor content first. For instance, we have far superior Player Owned content than just POH. Essentially we have far superior Constrution in RS3, and with even more and bigger Communal Construction coming out with Fort Forinthry. Giant Mole in OSRS may be dead content but Giant Mole in RS3 has been remastered into a Hard Mode boss for challenge seeking low level players. Ditto to GWD bosses getting HM versions and Barrows getting new brother and sister as well as the HM Rise of the Six in RS3 comparing to the dead old content in OSRS. Just look closer to what you think "dead content" in RS3 and it is extremely hard for anybody not to see the a lot of legacy content being remastered in the dawn of RS3's new horizon.

New and more useful items will inevitably make legacy content less useful. Why don't players complain about willow logs, attack potions, copper ores etc beging dead content?

30-Jan-2023 01:23:15 - Last edited on 30-Jan-2023 04:15:05 by Dilbert2001

Forums

Too much dead content