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Hello there.

In this thread, I will be discussing my thoughts on RuneScape’s combat past and present, and opening discussion on where it could possibly go in the future. I am not writing this as some sort of authority on combat matters. In fact, these days I am very much a casual player and I fully expect that the more combat savvy among you might view some of these ideas with contempt. Therefore, I’d just like to take a moment to point out that . And so even if you disagree, please do not obstruct the thread by explaining why you think everything I or someone else has said is ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’. There is no wrong or bad here; it’s just a collection of hypothetical combat systems. Do feel free to comment on how you might add to someone’s idea, though. Just don't put down others, please.

Though I mostly play off and on, I’ve been around since as early as Classic. Though at that point I was so young that I can’t really comment on Classic’s combat system so I’ll be leaving that out. Most of my experience was with pre-EoC (Evolution of Combat). Since then, I haven’t played as much. Not because I was one of the people who quit over the combat system changes, but it just happened to be around when I started burning out of the game, I guess. Anyways, my gaming history is mostly irrelevant so I will leave it there and get on with combat stuff!

To sum up my feelings on this game’s combat, I guess I would say that it just… doesn’t seem to fit the game. That’s not to say it's outright bad , but it feels like the game is pretending to be something that it is not. RuneScape has always had a grid-based world and a game tick system that delays all actions in such a way that the game feels intrinsically laggy insofar as it can be difficult to tell exactly when an action will be executed unless you are already ‘in sync’ with the rhythm of ticks. For example, when coming back to the game from AFK and clicking the ground to move, it will take anywhere from 0.0~0.6s to actually start moving, which is really jarring. On the other hand, if you are cutting an inventory of gems (as I have been doing recently) and are opening the bank to withdraw more, experienced players will run through their bank interface in rhythm with the ticks, executing one action per tick and, although it’s still a series of delayed actions, it feels a bit more natural.

Although it is something that long-time players of RuneScape have grown very accustomed to, the game’s current combat system is very much at odds with these integral parts of RuneScape’s game engine. Pre-EOC combat was bare bones basic at heart. The simplicity of the combat felt like it matched the grid-based movement and tick delay. The ticks felt much more apparent: the attack rate of weapons was rhythmic and naturally gave the player a sense of when the next action would take place. The grid, too, was more apparent. Not least because the graphics were not yet at a point where the grid was made invisible. The combat savvy players learned the quirks of the system and advanced combat techniques sprung up. And these techniques also very clearly relied on clever manipulation of the grid and the tick system.

Fast forward to today and, in some ways, not much has changed. The combat still revolves around the grid and the tick system. And savvy players have, once again, learned the quirks of the system and developed advanced techniques that generally rely on manipulation of the grid and the tick system. The difference is in how well the combat system complemented the grid and tick system in the past versus now.

The current system has effectively tried to erase the tick system by masking it as the ‘Global Cooldown’ that is standard for hotbars. And to a certain extent it works. Once combat has begun and a rhythm of executing ability after ability is established, it does start to feel like a typical hotbar system. However, since the ‘global cooldown’ is actually more than 1 tick in duration and the varied animations (and also the irregularity of some animations) are all out of sync with the ticks, it is much harder to get a feel for where each tick actually is. This results in a jarring sensation when dealing with any action that falls outside of the global cooldown rotation. Abilities with channel times, for example, feel very unnatural. It’s very difficult to properly queue a new ability without accidentally cancelling part of the channel. Movement also feels jarring, not just in the delay before movement begins, but also in how movement inputs can cancel abilities if input on the wrong tick. The grid, too, has been erased. Modern graphical reworks have completely hidden all traces of it and, even though everything from abilities to detection circles in Big Game Hunter use the grid, none of them actually show their strike zones as part of the grid, if at all.

I think a large part of the reason that so many players left after the introduction of the EoC was because of its unnatural interaction with the underlying grid and tick systems. Of course it was a brand new system so it wasn’t going to ‘feel like RuneScape’. But regardless of the reasons players gave for leaving, I think it ultimately boils down to the fact that the combat system just didn’t feel in sync with the way RuneScape functions at the engine level. Many years have passed since then and, although the underlying discord between the grid, ticks, and high-paced hotbar combat remains, Jagex has gradually built the combat system into something that works. And, having played with the new system for all this time and grown along with it, it probably now feels natural to the majority of the veteran player base.

But what about for new players, or players who aren’t so combat savvy? So much effort has gone into hiding the grid and ticks rather than embracing them, that not just the combat but the game as a whole can feel confusing or just downright sloppy. I recently introduced a friend to the game and they immediately struggled with movement. I had to explain that the game functions on a grid movement system but that they can’t actually see the grid. That threw them for a loop. They had no idea that it was a grid. To say nothing of explaining the tick system…

Overall, even though the current combat system is totally out of sync with the grid and tick systems, I think most of the issues could be resolved without actually changing how combat works. The most important thing is to embrace the system for what it is instead of trying to hide the most important parts of what makes it… *ahem* tick . Things like making a beautiful and clear, modern grid overlay so that we can actually see where we’re clicking. And adding highlights to that grid that indicate things like movement pathing, AoE strike zones, and NPC location (to help with knowing where large-sized monsters actually exist ), etc. Change the animations so that they actually line up with the hitsplats (which in turn line up with ticks) and are actually representative of where the strike zone is (why do I sometimes hit targets behind me when using Dragon Breath which is animated as a frontal AoE cone?). Still, even though the current combat system works, it is still not a great match for a game engine that runs on grids and ticks. Which brings us to the future.

As much as I would love to see RuneScape go grid-free and ditch the tick system, I’m not going to entertain that idea here because it has already been officially denied as a possibility, as far as I am aware. Instead, I’d like to open discussion on how we could reimagine combat to work more naturally with the grid and tick systems. It could be an overhaul of the magnitude that EoC was, or it could just be a few small but significant tweaks. Even if you believe that the current system already works, how could you improve the way in which it interacts with the grid and ticks to make it something even better? I want to hear it!

Anyways, that’s it from me for now. If I come up with some other ideas, I’ll post them here.