RuneScape Forum Archive | ~Ultimate Efficiency Guide~

Sports441995

Posts: 7,998 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

What about grand exchange fluctuations? Let’s say someone can make 10m a week off merchanting. If they play only 1 hour a week, couldn’t they effectively value their time at 10m an hour?

The short answer would be “yes,” though I don’t see the practicality of such logic. Once again, this is something you will have to fit around your real-life schedule. Depending upon how much you play, merchanting and other fixed real-time events could have an impact on your value of time. If you have any questions, simply post them =).

Let us not forget about the human tendency to get bored and grow tired of repetition. Though it looks good in the math books, perhaps the repetition of the “best way” leads you to actually slow down, not play as much, and subconsciously not try as hard as you would if you were doing something more exciting. As such, you may have to look beyond the math in certain cases if you find yourself suffering from severe boredom, causing you to perform worse, rather than better, while doing the “best option.”

These are just a couple reasons why the pure mathematics of the theory may not directly apply to each and every case… though they usually do.

15-May-2010 03:36:42 - Last edited on 15-May-2010 03:51:04 by Sports441995

Sports441995

Posts: 7,998 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

List of Common Trade-offs:

-Stealing Creation items.

It takes about 15 minutes to earn a SC hatchet, which gives about 22k extra woodcutting experience. It does so at the speed of a Rune Hatchet, and is therefore slower than the maximum possible method. I’ll estimate that with this setback, it provides you with about 20k extra experience.

Is giving up 15 minutes for around 20k woodcutting experience worth it? Only if you cannot obtain 80k woodcutting experience per hour… and that’s not even including the potential money you may gain.

This is the case with most Stealing Creation Items that are used for these non-money skills. You are making the trade-off of gaining more enjoyment, but losing overall efficiency. I’m not saying this choice is bad; I made it during my time getting 76 mining because I couldn’t stand the drudgery of it. However, calling it the “best way,” as I’ve seen many players do, is completely false; it is often better to not use these SC items.

Obviously, the SC hammer is another story, as it could save you tons of money on Construction or Smithing. Calculations would have to be done with market prices, etc. to determine if it was worth it; I think it actually is in most cases. However, the other Stealing Creation items, based on pure math, almost never are.

-Fishing

Monkfish are 200k profit and 45k Xp an hour. Barbarian fishing is 0k Profit and 65k Xp an hour.

Is giving up 20k fishing experience worth 200k? 200k, with a time value of 1m/hour, is worth 12 minutes, while 20k fishing experience is worth about 18 minutes (if you assume a maximum of 65k fish Xp/ hour). I believe barbarian fishing is better efficiency… yet so many monkfishers say “but this gives you money!” Just another common misconception =p.

15-May-2010 03:38:13 - Last edited on 15-May-2010 03:52:07 by Sports441995

Sports441995

Posts: 7,998 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

-Slayer vs. “Other training”

Ahh. The age-old debate: “To slay or not to slay?” It seems like it may require a bit of thinking, with trade-offs both ways, but the reality is that this can be figured out as an extreme example on Principle 2.

Suppose you were do train at Bandits until you had all 99 melee skills, and your slayer is level 55. Then what? Remember, we must keep the ultimate goal in mind. You’ll effectively have to maximize your melee all over again when you finally get 99 slayer, causing you to waste tons of time. Yes; you would end up with a hefty amount of experience over 99 in melee skills, which would be beneficial, but the argument could be extended to 200m in each skill if you wish to extend the value of experience past 99. When all is said and done, non-slaying training methods are giving you experience that you will, in time, earn anyways from slaying.

The misconceptions occurs only due to people who do not play efficiently. This includes “Pures,” who simply wish to get combat skills up as fast as they can to PK, and perhaps people who are overly obsessed with PvM, where their slayer level is of little to no value. I respect the choices these people make, and they are free to play any way they want to, but it’s clear that to be efficient, slayer is the way to go in nearly all cases. The only possible exception would be at very low levels, when more simplistic methods of training may give you a head start.

The list goes on and on; I just wanted to name these three to give people a better understanding of what to think of when making decisions. Have any more misconceptions you’ve heard? Post them!

15-May-2010 03:38:13 - Last edited on 15-May-2010 03:52:29 by Sports441995

Sports441995

Posts: 7,998 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I’ll leave it at this for now. This is just the preliminary version of this guide, and I plan on adding more later. Please post any and all feedback; it is much appreciated and needed to make this guide the best it can be!

____

Other threads by me: EDIT: These are currently dead. I want to re-create them when possible but that hasn't happened yet.

(Note: I have made many more threads than this, but these are the major ones. All listed threads are more than 6 posts in length.)

1. Sports441995’s epic thread. (8 posts)
Category: In-Game (everyone)
QFC: 48-49-570-60663779

Simply my home thread. Look for all major information about myself here!

2. The Flaws of Runescape (21 posts)
Category: General (Everyone)
QFC: 14-15-895-60570269

An extensive, interesting thread regarding my views on some recent changes to Runescape. It is not a “rant,” however; it is a well thought-out and explained list of some things that could be done to make Runescape a better place: Both by Jagex and the player community.

3. ~Ultimate Efficiency Guide~ (You just read it =p)
Category: Guides
QFC: 98-99-450-60978145

A quick glance at some of the theories behind Runescape efficiency, and a useful tool to guide some of the decisions you make in the game if you're after what is truly best for your charachter's stats!

15-May-2010 03:38:13 - Last edited on 30-Oct-2011 20:46:42 by Sports441995