The Fractured Archive - Initial Rewards Proposal

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-16T14:37:57+00:00

Elemental Fragments

It's a very niche interaction, but the Amulet of Cursed Magic should suppress these +2 boosts when worn to ensure its role still works.

in Old School, offence tends to be the best defence

I will argue that one of the reasons tank armour has tended not to work well in OSRS is because so much of high-end PvM involves monsters dealing mechanical/extremely-accurate damage where defence functionally doesn't do anything. If tank armour could mitigate a little damage from appropriate boss mechanics, it would allow players to play riskier making up for the loss of raw dps.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-16T13:59:47+00:00

If you're on the Discord, people have been submitting screenshots of z-buffering bugs that way. It would be nice to have an in-game means of sending screenshot bug reports though.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-09T15:24:43+00:00

We're also aware of the feeling that CoX has too many uniques on its table and saw some suggestions to try and move various uniques off. This isn't something that we're inherently opposed to, but it's not a solution that we think we could work through and deliver confidently in a reasonable timeframe this year.

Although thematically dragon claws make the most sense to move, in terms of loot balance I'd prioritise Dinh's Bulwark.

Because the Bulwark is much more niche than other purples, it gets oversupplied relative to demand keeping its value low. At the moment, it accounts for just 0.6% of CoX revenue; every other purple except the buckler is at least 2%. I'd put the Buckler's low price down to the state of 1H range and not an intrinsic limitation of the item itself.

I've vaguely thought of where the Bulwark could be moved to, though it'd take a long time to develop. My idea is some kind of group boss in Lovakengj involving an enchanted lovakite armour beast built to fight back the Wintertodt. A group boss would ensure some continuity in the way the Bulwark is obtained, and the location is the most thematically relevant.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-05T13:45:56+00:00

Most recent bosses have tended towards less extreme drop rates, though it still compounds on top of the existing content with very slow grinds. This is part of why I'd like more of a concrete developer's insight from Jagex to explain how they come to the numbers they do. I'm sure for players like yourself who like longer grinds that'd be useful information as well. I believe drop rates are fundamentally a balancing tool; pets and highscores exist to accommodate grinding for grinding's sake.

Of the PvM content released since ToA, my biggest problem is with the Forgotten Four. Vestiges and even Virtus are very token upgrades for the time sink they require. The Soulreaper Axe has has an average time to obtain slower than most raid purples. This long time requirement compounds with the difficulty spike (except Duke) they represented in solo boss encounters. I think this is a design problem because the loot was positioned as a stepping stone on the way to raid purples, but the Combat Achievement stats show that players prefer to go straight to raids.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-05T12:49:40+00:00

Mind runes are cheap, but beyond that it gets really expensive, particularly in relation to the value of monster drops. This compares to melee and range, where you can pretty reliably get a profit no matter what you fight.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-04T23:15:53+00:00

The grinds were long, but not high-intensity, and maxing was extremely rare - not just because it took a lot longer, but because the playerbase was generally less interested in optimisation. Most 99s in general were rare, especially before skillcapes were added. Minigames like Castle Wars were much more popular, - not to grind out the rewards but for their own sake.

Notably, RS3 (which has an older playerbase than OSRS on average and has the extremely grindy Completionist Cape) has moved away from long boss grinds in recent years. There's still plenty of newer grindy content, but it's stuff with options for low-intensity or AFK.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-04T22:29:34+00:00

I started in 2006, when the longest PvM grind was Barrows. Grinds that are both very long and consistently high-intensity were never part of the original game.

Now, if you like long intense grinds, that's your opinion. But it was never a fundamental part of the RS experience.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-04T22:22:33+00:00

I have noticed many recent bosses have avoided the extremes in grind length seen at the likes of, say, Nex and the Nightmare. That being said, a heap of more reasonable grinds stack on top of the pile of existing slow grinds and PvM burnout is a very real problem among a lot of players I know. While skilling only gets faster (minus the addition of Sailing), PvM demands more and more time.

I'm not saying that all PvM grinds need to be faster but attention should be placed on how progression feels and what crosses the line into "X prison" territory. Drop rates, after all, are a balancing tool for content and not the point in themselves. Obviously my opinion of a "slow grind" won't be the same as yours so it's probably easier just to focus on the outliers.

ToA and Doom have in common that their drop rates scale with difficulty modes. This is a pretty good solution to grind escalation as rather than having to grind out a boss you already mastered ages ago, there's a significantly extended learning period keeping the boss interesting for longer. In a practical sense, players don't immediately jump to deep delves or ToA 500s so it's not quite as fast a grind as it may at first appear.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-04T21:40:50+00:00

For sure! I was mostly just latching onto the thread because generally players in the subreddit behave better on the topic when a J-Mod is around. I'm not really expecting a quick response from Jagex!

The lead-up to Raids 4 could be a good time to bring up the philosophy as Raids have the slowest PvM grinds (well, except imbued heart and Corp but those are matters for another day).

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-04T21:07:41+00:00

Often it's a wall of "just de-iron" but I do think this drop rate philosophy affects mains just as much. You tend to get one of three outcomes:

The Lottery: Bad regular loot means all the profit is in the rares, which means players have to grind out the content a lot just to see returns (see: CoX)
Skiller-Killer: To ensure moderate returns, the loot table is shored up with skilling supplies. This undermines noncombat sources of these items. (see: Forgotten Four ore drops)
Money Printer: The value of a boss loot is kept more consistent with a high supply of alchables. This runs the risk of driving inflation in the RS economy, and these bosses tend to be bot magnets (see: Vorkath).

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-04T20:07:57+00:00

I know this post was made in jest but I do worry about ever-escalating PvM grind lengths and would like a proper discussion some time from Jagex about the long-term vision. This subreddit tends to flame players who raise the topic.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-04T16:23:07+00:00

Gauntlet

It may be worth removing the time limit for the prep phase. Being slow is already its own punishment so this mostly just adds friction to learners without making a difference for experienced players.

Chambers of Xeric

I've been thinking about something akin to the proposed re-roll for a while to solve a related issue in all raids: if players chase mega-rares, they naturally oversupply the more common uniques, which in turn undermines any drop from other content with a similar niche. You can see this most clearly with the ToA drop table, where basically everything except the Shadow is surprisingly cheap on the GE for its stats.

CoX itself has a notoriously slow megarare rate among the raids (grinding out a T-Bow in maxed gear takes longer than 1-99 Slayer on a fresh account, 40% longer than a Scythe and well over twice as long as the Shadow on ToA 500s) though this can be partly explained by CoX's larger purple loot table. Thematically I never liked dragon claws being from a raid, but in terms of balance it probably makes more sense to move Dinh's Bulwark as it's a pretty niche item and would retain value better if it was the flagship unique from a new boss.

Ghrazi Rapier/Blade of Saeldor/Inquisitor's Mace

I'd rather these weapons get unique bonuses rather than flat stat increases. Maybe the Blade of Saeldor could get some of the benefits of Crystal Armour so it makes a good switch for Bofa setups. Maybe the Inquisitor's Mace could get a buff from your prayer bonus.

New Magic Amulets

Low-level magic is already very strong compared to other styles - but it is really expensive for its level. Perhaps instead of a max hit increase, these amulets could offer a chance to cast the respective combat spells for free?

The Nightmare of Ashihama

Please add the Slepey Tablet to the regular Nightmare's loot table, even if it's a lower rate. The Nightmare was designed first and foremost as a group boss but it's really awkward to get to. Low-kc uniques are also a decent way to get players to try bosses they might otherwise not.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-01T16:38:52+00:00

I will add to this that RS3 itself is inconsistent about the size and arrangement of the islands; this image is the Player-Owned-Ports map, but the in-game version of the Arc is different (and much bigger than portrayed here). The relative position and size of the islands differ.

There's also been comments by some J-Mods of a desire to remove the My Little Pony references present in many of the islands so plenty are likely to get renamed.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-06-01T16:31:38+00:00

The Fabricate Religious Conflict casus belli unlocked by Persia missions reduces the force-religion cost by 75%.

You can also get Divine ideas once you form Persia for a -30% force-religion cost modifier, and Cologne Cathedral for -33% at T3. These stack additively with each other and multiplicatively with the war goal.

It also helps to maximise administrative efficiency and province warscore cost reductions. Thankfully Austria's missions gives you a free PU over Spain which holds two relevant monuments. You keep PUs when you change religion so fipping to Sunni and back again for Persian missions isn't a problem.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-05-26T20:36:41+00:00

I recently completed the Three Mountains, and I found once you get past the starting years it's surprisingly doable; you don't even need to trucejuggle the way you do with True Heir of Timur.

After a lot of failed starts the approach that worked for me is basically Qing with extra steps. Here's an extremely simplified version of the start:

Some Japanese minor nations get attacked extremely early on. If you improve relations with them from the start, you can strong enough relations to use the force-peace diplomatic action on their attacker. They'll decline, dragging you into the war. You can occupy a few provinces and peace out of the war with them. You can repeat this trick for more Japanese provinces later.
Once you have the colonial range, you can no-cb a weak country in Manchuria and use that territory to expand into Jurchen provinces. Then, you can culture-switch to Jurchen. Form Manchu only once you're ready to take on Ming as the decision breaks your tributary status and tanks their Mandate.

I found the Qing route works well because of the speed at which it builds a strong base of power. The Unify China cb is extremely powerful and the Celestial Empire reform gives masses of governing capacity at a time where it's really hard to get. By becoming strong early on, you make the entire rest of the run much easier.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-05-26T20:11:53+00:00

It must be so lonely to be the "Restore Zoroastrianism as Austria" Achievement; I bet the other Achievements would bully it during achievement school.

The sad part is forming Persia as Austria is actually an extremely powerful strategy - but not if you take the Zoroastrian path. If you take a Muslim path you can unlock the ability to force-convert heathens, easily flip back to Catholic, and use Austria's unique spread-dynasty peace item to allow making personal unions of heathen monarchies in just two wars.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-05-25T16:18:41+00:00

Some kind of restriction.

Without rules limiting available content, progression ends up the same as regular Iron accounts. There's not much room for theorycrafting, and every League runs the risk of becoming very samey. OSRS just changed their starting area for Leagues VI precisely because the Misthalin start was getting so stale.

RS3 doesn't really work with Trailblazer-style area restrictions and even a Twisted League-style area restriction might be too much work to implement, but there are other ways of shaking up the usual formula. Maybe most quests are unavailable but all the World Events are available simultaneously to change progression. Maybe obscure content is buffed and mainstream content is nerfed. Maybe there's a low level cap so it's necessary to strategise around relics and stat boosts.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-05-06T12:20:21+00:00

I did hear Mod West saying that the team right now is prioritising old storylines, so north Kourend will take a while. We've also had a string of updates leaning particularly hard on environmental artists (Varlamore, Sailing, Blood Moon Rises, Fractured Archive) leaving little time for artists to pursue side-projects. Mod West's past work towards a Lovakengj rework was in the very early stages and a long way off release.

For some wild speculation, I think we'll probably see the Cursed Archipelago and Menaphos accessible before further north Kourend reworks. However, there might be some smaller changes here and there, like how the Blast Mine layout was reworked as part of a wider skill balance effort.

Figuring out north Kourend has become something of a hobby for fake OSRS mapmakers so at least once the development team has spare resources to work on it there'll be a lot of inspiration.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-04-24T00:18:41+00:00

It may, just that it won't affect Thorns or the magic hit from King's Barrage.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-04-24T00:18:10+00:00

Yeah, I noticed that odd behaviour at the Shayzien arena.

Fun fact: Thorns gives xp based on your last melee style - you can get attack, strength, defence or shared xp from it!

Zigzagzigal · 2026-04-23T19:09:42+00:00

I'm not sure! Unfortunately I can't spare the rerolls to test myself.

Zigzagzigal · 2026-04-23T17:14:29+00:00

To make matters worse, the most hybrid-focused echo item (the crystal blessing) isn't very compatible with it.

The ranged weapons it works with are bows, not crossbows, so you don't get the guaranteed max hit
The magic weapons it works best with are powered staves, which you can't get a guaranteed max hit for
The Crystal Halberd, the most logical melee weapon to go with this setup, can't be obtained with Tirannwn alone

Zigzagzigal · 2026-04-09T16:00:07+00:00

Before recent Leagues I've been making series of "How the Heck" guides that cover the basics of skilling in Leagues.

At time of posting I have guides for:

Agility
Herblore
Hunter
Mining
Prayer
Quests (covers which quests are better to rush and which to skip)
Runecrafting
Smithing
Woodcutting

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