RuneScape Forum Archive | Skill Training Methods

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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

I am not fully sure how familiar you are with agility courses - but burthope certainly is the shortest one with a lap time of around half a minute (bandos is even shorter, but it always was dead meat like the vast majority of RS2 courses). Most other courses are more around a full minute and partially even longer. It certainly wasn't an understatement from my side "to click once and go afk for a minute". You also do not take into account that some courses offer multiple routes for different levels - which one shout be auto afk'ed then?

As I said - I propose for drastical experience increases - they need to be level adequate and be able to replace any of the viable courses at the time they become relevant. It certainly makes a difference if you take 5k laps on a course before you can go on or let's say 1.5k - and even less, since you'll much more often able to switch something higher levelled - and working. But of course - the mechanical fixes are needed - repetetitve failures suck and make you hate the course and stick to something modern, dead inputs suck likewise, idiotically drawn click boxes idem,... - and distractions while skilling certainly are the way to go - they are part of quite a few modern skilling activities after all. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

28-Aug-2023 08:40:53 - Last edited on 28-Aug-2023 09:33:50 by Rikornak

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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

As for hunter I think we have written about that in my f2p thread - what you are proposing are basically the bird houses in OS - which they used as a bandaid-fix to hunter in general, basically making the entire skill unused, since it's just not worth bothering with that at all (yeah obviously it more than brutally unrevealed that - but does it need to stay clunky, unrewarding and useless?) - except for building your houses once every hour and then a few high levelled activities to round it up. I won't make a secret - 98 % and more of my entire hunter experience in that game stems from those - the remainder are implings and one-off rewards - and the occasional I bothered using any of the other methods. I mean in there those mechanics certainly ended up being more popular than in the skill it invented them.

But - in OS it's an addition, not a replacement - and as something entirely new I could see it as enriching - or if it was to replace something entirely irrelevant - but it feels to me like you're taking that level 1 bird and extrapolating it to the skill as an entity. I really can see replacements of certain things (yes you are vague, so I assumed it as you said) as highly detrimental. And that's why I think those activities can be made more relevant. That said - what would you expect from some level 1 thing anyway? For those birds I see feathers for fletching or fishing as actually an adequate reward. Of course that can't be said anymore for a lot of higher levelled things. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

28-Aug-2023 08:40:58 - Last edited on 28-Aug-2023 09:43:05 by Rikornak

Seasons Past

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Rikornak said :
In general I am not super sure what actually was the intent of the nexus in the first place.

It was released as a p2p only activity initially - but it basically always just was a quick xp grab for the first few levels. They only rolled it out later to be available for f2p. If you have a team you can get the experience rather quickly - but it being an one-off activity (since yeah - you do it once and never again that's why), you just won't have an influx of players eventually. This leads to two potential fixes - either you can scrape off that one-off experience significantly faster - which would make it into a training method roughly as much as a quest is. Or this thing is changed to some kind of d&d, which would allow you to get the experience more often (and since this game has lots of dailies already, I certainly would opt for weekly). But even then it needs more fixes - like a level based scaling - since static experience rewards never age well...
[...] Now that you’ve explained, I think the Nexus can work as long as it’s left as a completable activity. It’s unfortunate that the deeper issue of Prayer training was ignored, but I realize that only getting rid of the Nexus wouldn’t solve that. I didn’t even know that it used to be P2P. That kind of illustrates how shortsighted the activity was as a Prayer addition. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

29-Aug-2023 10:02:44

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Rikornak said :
[...]
The runespan fits in a line with activities, that do not offer any rewards, but are either more afk and/or grant better experience rates. At the time it was released it offered better experience rates than the abyss, so it wasn't just more convenient, it also was faster to level. It should be taken as a fact, that Jagex is extremely ungenerous to free players when it comes to runecrafting for reasons to protect the economy. The abyss certainly one of the things more understandable if they never are released to f2p. But as it stands you certainly have the choice if you rather want profit or experience - making water runes is highly profitable even without access to the abyss for instance - of course experience rates aren't too insane - but that's more than viable as a tradeoff. The better xp rates afforded by the Runespan were why it was initially unbalanced. It made the traditional method of creating runes - and thus the core identity of Runecrafting - no longer viable for gaining experience. The Runespan essentially replaced the original high-activity training method with a low one.

There was a dev video about this, which I think was called “The Future of RuneScape Skilling” from RuneFest 2017. In the presentation, Mod Timbo explained that part of the reason the Abyss was updated to greatly bolster Runecrafting xp was so that players would once again be rewarded with higher experience for high intensity training, which had not been the case since before the Runespan was introduced. The Runespan had succeeded in offering an easy method with no financial gain; but until the Abyss update, it had achieved this at the cost of making previous training methods redundant.

The current issue is that F2P don’t have a high-activity training method with rewards proportional to activity level. While F2P can financially benefit from making water runes, this should not be considered a training method, as xp is mostly forfeit. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

29-Aug-2023 10:38:04

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Rikornak said :
I am not fully sure how familiar you are with agility courses - but burthope certainly is the shortest one with a lap time of around half a minute (bandos is even shorter, but it always was dead meat like the vast majority of RS2 courses). Most other courses are more around a full minute and partially even longer. It certainly wasn't an understatement from my side "to click once and go afk for a minute". You also do not take into account that some courses offer multiple routes for different levels - which one shout be auto afk'ed then?

As I said - I propose for drastical experience increases - they need to be level adequate and be able to replace any of the viable courses at the time they become relevant. It certainly makes a difference if you take 5k laps on a course before you can go on or let's say 1.5k - and even less, since you'll much more often able to switch something higher levelled - and working. But of course - the mechanical fixes are needed - repetetitve failures suck and make you hate the course and stick to something modern, dead inputs suck likewise, idiotically drawn click boxes idem,... - and distractions while skilling certainly are the way to go - they are part of quite a few modern skilling activities after all. I’ve done the Hefin course and older courses but not Anachronia or Het’s Oasis. I was alluding to the fact that the window shortcut and light creature on the Hefin course, for example, are simply a more pleasant way to incentivize active engagement. In that sense, they serve the same purpose as failing obstacles, though obviously from a different angle. They’re two ways to reach the same end.

If a full lap takes a minute or less, then I don’t see a problem with making the old courses mostly afk. For the advanced gnome and barbarian courses, a toggle could be added as a right-click option on the gnome and barbarian trainers, respectively. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

29-Aug-2023 11:05:49

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Rikornak said :
[...]in OS it's an addition, not a replacement - and as something entirely new I could see it as enriching - or if it was to replace something entirely irrelevant - but it feels to me like you're taking that level 1 bird and extrapolating it to the skill as an entity. I really can see replacements of certain things (yes you are vague, so I assumed it as you said) as highly detrimental. And that's why I think those activities can be made more relevant. That said - what would you expect from some level 1 thing anyway? For those birds I see feathers for fletching or fishing as actually an adequate reward. Of course that can't be said anymore for a lot of higher levelled things. While I recognize that I can be overzealous in removing things, I think there is a difference between a replacement and a loss. There don’t need to be several slight variations if they serve the same function. However, in a broader scheme I think it is worth maintaining some quantity of similar options in order to preserve selection between them.

I agree with your argument that variety is generally preferable to scarcity and that adding new things does not depend on removing old ones. The point of having some, but not all, Hunter training work like Farming crops would be to diversify the available options rather than taking away from them. I think you’re right that I might have gotten ahead of myself in proposing removing some of the older content.

For additional rewards (in general, not just at level 1), here are a few ideas:
-Farming seeds
-Wood spirits
-Summoning charms
-Clue scrolls (rare)

I remember you weren’t a fan of adding Summoning charms as a reward, probably because of how I justified it before. In this case, it would just be about making Hunter creatures more rewarding. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

29-Aug-2023 12:24:48 - Last edited on 29-Aug-2023 12:30:58 by Seasons Past

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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

Their update post for the nexus isn't too yielding either: https://runescape.wiki/w/Update:The_Nexus

If it wasn't released in 2013, I would have seen it as some typical RS2 update, which just came to be for the sake of it - being more often than not dead on arrival or just a bit later. But in here... dunno...

More modern design philosophy is - faster methods are significantly less profitable - or partially even expensive to use in the first place.

If you were to take smithing you got four distinct primary methods (for simplicity I do exclude overly complex things like creating DFSs). I try to lay the methods out as passively as it would be possible - so at least for smithing you could increase attention for even more xp (and dunno how the interaction of profit/costs is to be fair) by superheating that thing with every swing with a skill cape. Otherwise they're low to high attention depending on your level, the degree of heat you would want to keep them on, the use of other passive mechanics... for terms of profitability I'll assume bought supplies and sold creations.

- Masterwork smithing - token xp (it's not exactly 0, but certainly not much more than that), low to high attention, most profit you could make from this skill
- Smelting bars - low xp, low to medium attention, high profit
- Smithing and upgrading armour - decent xp, low to high attention, usually cost-efficient to mildly profitable
- Burial armour smithing - high xp, low to high attention, high costs - but this thing basically doesn't create anything either - it even destroys things

Regular runecrafting certainly is something between masterwork smithing and smelting bars. Runespan can't exactly be compared, but is in line with lots of similar activities from that time, that solely are for training purposes, most comparable it would be to smithing and upgrading armour - you'll see decent progression, but you won't go out with anything (in this case literally). Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

29-Aug-2023 13:01:07 - Last edited on 29-Aug-2023 13:34:42 by Rikornak

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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

As I said - I think runecrafting currently is so valuable, because it really sucks a bit too much. OS really managed to break the profitablity of that skill with an activity that offers worse experience rates on the end of the day. But yeah that is what I meant - you basically have the choice between profits and experience.

Abyssal runecrafting - especially after the wildy changes is both good xp and profit - which I can't see them giving out to free players to be fair... as I said, Jagex always was extremely ungenerous when it comes to free players with profitable methods in general and runecrafting specifically. Both games are suffering with that design relic with pure essence after all over 17 years later to be fair...

As said I do not openly oppose the thought of free players giving access to the abyss or so - but just from a look on the economy it's one of the most unlikely things to ever happen in this game. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

29-Aug-2023 13:01:12 - Last edited on 29-Aug-2023 13:15:00 by Rikornak

Oct

2013

Rikornak

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

As for the agility courses - In my eyes it's an extreme contrast if you're failing something due to the lack of attention (i.e. ignoring a shortcut, which by far isn't as detrimental as falling down the agility course) or something you do not have any influence over at all (especially with odds that feel extremely against you) - I mean that's only a thing anyway for the hefin and het courses. As for anachronia - the system you're proposing wouldn't even work at all, since that agility course is a quick travel system at the same time, intended to get along more easily around the island.

As said I just see it from the perspective I have on those things in OS - with birdhouse runs having outright replaced the entity of the hunter skill for a lot of players up to high levels - not that this is a bad thing. It's literally an illuminated sign showing how wrong a lot of hunter actually is on so many different levels. And I wish we could correct this wrong - they partially did a few months before anachronia was released with a lot of mechanical improvements, which elevate RS3 hunter from OS - but we're not really there yet..

I generally am more a fan if activities could award unique things - and maybe-ish being replaced by something in a vertical progression even. A few shared things are never wrong, but they never should outclass the 'intended' source (unless it's extremely bad - but even then they should rather fix that, instead of making it redundant) - so probably a few charms every once in a while are not wrong (to not devalue charm sprites and moths rather than combat), but I can't see you would even want them when you're hunting something, that isn't giving you stackables.

But yeah - if things are fubar - or just not worth the effort to be fixed... just kill them off. Improvements: Tooltip / (F2P) QoL v2
Quick Fixes: Invention

29-Aug-2023 13:01:16 - Last edited on 29-Aug-2023 13:27:37 by Rikornak

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

With smelting for comparison, standard altar running doesn't seem so out of proportion to me anymore. I think I was getting thrown off by how sequestered the Runespan is and how much better xp it offers than the original training method for Runecrafting.

On Agility, I am in favor of modern mechanics as I am in general. As long as the newer courses are kept as they are, I think they could implement your recommendations or mine for the older courses and the skill would be better off.

I had forgotten about charm sprites and charming moths. While I agree that unique rewards offer more incentive than generic ones, I think it's okay if not all Hunter creatures have exclusive materials. The ones with unique drops would balance out those with more common rewards and vice versa.

To address item stacking and inventory space, it would be more efficient to collect rewards in one big swoop rather than drop dozens of raw bird meat as you go. You would go to a Hunter area expecting to get a stack of feathers, a handful of charms, a few kinds of seeds and maybe a few bird nests. Ideally there would be a loot window so that you could leave the bones and raw bird meat if you didn't want them (or these could be toggled off in settings). Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

09-Sep-2023 15:49:31 - Last edited on 09-Sep-2023 16:00:44 by Seasons Past

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