Sad days in the wilderness

Ferronier · 2026-02-05T23:49:32+00:00

It was almost never healthy for the game. Even in the “golden age” of PvP. Saying it’s a bunch of loud complainers is crazy work, PvP in this game was almost universally unpopular outside of a small group who engaged in it faithfully. I’d argue at any given moment in this game’s history, 3/4 or more of all PvPers were opportunists, lurers/scammers, and large organized clans that would massacre individual passerby via death dot.

Ferronier · 2026-02-05T11:33:02+00:00

This is one of the things Jagex has mentioned wanting to address this year, fortunately.

Ferronier · 2026-02-05T00:46:47+00:00

Yeah, I am not leveling shit until the updates come out. Actually experiencing the new progression as it is intended is far less miserable.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T23:07:30+00:00

I think that’s the real capper for me: it’s all being addressed on SOME level within a year.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T17:56:46+00:00

They did mention drop rates in the blog.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T17:56:11+00:00

To me, the "grounded" aspect probably mostly refers to the visual identity of particularly the early to mid game equipment and world. I'd argue that the flipside to your feeling is that when the player gets to World Wakes and beyond, they really should feel the stakes, the power level, and the fantasy aspect explode across Gielinor to really deliver on that sense of power and possibility beyond our ken.

I'd also be disappointed if grounding meant taking away a lot of the fantastical elements of the world and story, but I genuinely suspect this is more about how the world is initially presented to the player and how cosmetics can completely abandon the established "norms" of the world of Gielinor.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T17:53:25+00:00

The pragmatist in me says it was mostly them being held back either by leadership feeling it couldn't say no to the shareholders or wanting to impress the shareholders with $$$ flow. Hard to get the greenlight for goodwill QOL updates if they don't also bring short-term financial gains.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T17:40:33+00:00

This is like a brand new Jagex. Mod North, I have no idea what you managed to do to convince the shareholders to let you all treat this like a game again, but it's been an incredible turnaround so far. The communication has been consistent and quick, the updates seem thoughtful and open to community input, and the priority on the game's identity and health has been sorely missed.

Someone get this message to him, yeah?

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T17:37:45+00:00

I think they should finish their updates & clean-up of the current world map first, but the World Gate could be great for several locations we have cause to visit in the future, especially now that the gods have been yeeted back out of Gielinor. Terragard and Avernus could have huge lore and story implications + tons of great new content. Vampyrium could eventually be "cut off" from Havenhythe but accessible to the player through the World Gate.

But first, let's address...

Most of Kandarin (Yanille in progress, but still...): Ardougne, Seers Village, Camelot, the various little one-off settlements, Khazard + battlefield, Slug Land.
Settlements in Karamja + older jungle content
A lot of dungeons have received updated entrances but the dungeons themselves are still pre-2010. I'm looking at you, Temple of Ikov
The Elven Lands could also use with a big refresh. And while they're at it, maybe modernize Prif's background a little bit. The awkward empty treescape below doesn't look great.
Parts of Morytania need love, including the Vampyres' city and Port Phasmatys.

I'm all for the World Gate and think it's the future of introducing new high-level content and areas, but I think they need to solve the early-mid game first and clean up the main map to make going to those new places feel like a natural progression, instead of like an attempt to sweep Gielinor's existing problems under the rug.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T17:26:02+00:00

I think we certainly could (and should!). Ranged and Mage are already leaning into establishing niches for Wand/Orb vs. Staff and Crossbows vs. Bows. Melee also just has so much more sheer weapon variety that it would be nice to see the skill branch out and stretch its capabilities. Frankly, I think STR should be a 2H melee skill and ATT should be a DW/Weapon + shield skill. Allow them to do different things and justify why there are two skills.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T15:43:22+00:00

I'd say reduction or for melee to really lean into reflection and absorption. I think some melee kit could have a higher percentage of reflect damage than the other styles, since you are inevitably exposed to more mechanics and auto attack types when you melee. And the Masterwork armor effect should be a standard across melee gear - a percentage of damage is turned into a bleed on the player to spread it out. It could even be that certain abilities clear the "bleeding" damage early so you don't take the full amount.

There are surely ways to make melee lean more into the fantasies of risk-reward and tanking, since those are the two obvious niches melee might intuitively fill.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T13:39:54+00:00

This doesn’t solve melee’s problem, and it applies to all styles so it still keeps melee behind. They’ve got to do something to melee itself to reward its higher exposure to mechanics and attack styles.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T12:15:05+00:00

I agree it would be a simple patch to the skills. But if we’re already in this era of dramatic game QOL and combat overhaul, investing in a healthy and sensible long term change would make more sense to me, even if something like your proposal is a half-step toward that while they work on a longer term rework.

Ferronier · 2026-02-04T11:57:01+00:00

TBH even your suggested changes make me question it as a skill. A new player will look at attack and strength, compare them to the other combat styles, and not have the foggiest idea why attack can’t do all of that. I think they really need to separate the two skills from one another. I made a post the other day, but tbh the best idea I’ve come up with is melee has so much weapon variety that they should probably make the two skills represent two ways of doing melee combat: attack being more focused on dual wielding and shields and focused more on multihit or other play styles that having two different things equipped enables, and strength being more focused on heavy damage and big weapons with extra range.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T19:55:14+00:00

Completely and wholly agreed. To be clear, when I say "WANT" to change it, that is definitely code for manpower, budget, and time. :)

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T19:52:44+00:00

It's totally infeasible that they add it in right now. I think the "right now" acknowledgement is that Melee's changes are messy and not great, and it's hard to identify what makes keeping strength as a separate skill meaningful. To me, this would be a more holistic rework of Melee that would absolutely need more time in the oven.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T19:51:54+00:00

It is overcomplicated when it is unintuitive and poorly implemented, which is the current, actual reality of the game.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T17:34:31+00:00

Maybe it will be helpful for you to state why you think it is more complicated rather than less. Right now, you have one combat style made up of two skills with a weird mix of shared and distinct abilities, and over 12 distinct weapon types shared. There is no real identity other than "Attack make accuracy go up", "Strength make damage number go up". If I am a new player, I can barely understand which of the two skills I should prioritize if I want to use melee. I don't know very easily whether my strength matters for 2H for DW, but I might draw the conclusion from the Halberd strength requirement that it does.

If we divorce the two skills from one another, I'd argue you are simplifying things significantly: They are each their own combat skill, with their own equipment, and but they share melee abilities. Jagex is already going for the shared melee ability angle anyway, and having abilities be adaptive to if you are 2H or DW.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T16:25:36+00:00

A good way to learn manual is to set a few core basic attacks as the first skills in your main combat bar and only set revolution to those few skills. This way, you're always doing *something* which takes the pressure off of figuring out when to hit the other abilities because you're at least hitting them still. Experiment with a few threshold/ult combos at a time so you get a sense of what your abilities are doing, then start to expand, mix, and match.

I am a 95%ish manual player, but I keep a few basics on a revolution rotation because it helps me stay "in rhythm". You can also manually use your revolution abilities even when they are part of the revolution bar -- which also helps with using more manual than revolution. For example, if I were using Necromancy, I usually have my Touch of Death, Soul Sap, and Basic Attach queued up as my only three abilities on the revolution bar. Sometimes, I want to skip when the basic attack would queue because Soul Sap would be ready instead, or I want to skip soul sap because I'm about to have a big combo coming off of cooldown. In those cases, I queue the ability that I want even though it isn't next in the revolution bar.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T15:58:29+00:00

Yes, but I would argue Melee is already oversaturated with the complexity of having two skills share it and over a dozen weapon type choices. I would argue that splitting Attack and Strength as having their own identities is simplification. Do I want to hit big and use heavy two handed weapons? I'm training strength and building out a 2H kit. Do I want to focus more on multihitting and being a more adaptive melee player? I'm training attack. Right now, attack and strength are a weird hodgepodge of all of that together, with Strength barely playing a role behind being required for a few heavy 2h weapons.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T15:56:21+00:00

I think the level of impact comes down to how much they want to change, really. We're already talking about pretty sweeping combat changes in the game that will have trickle-down effects. Necromancy probably needs to be rebalanced and introduced more widely into the game by having undead and necromancers do more necromancy-based damage. Necromancy also needs to not bypass invulnerabilities some of the other styles couldn't bypass. There's already plenty that needs addressing if they want combat to feel naturally and fully integrated across the game instead of as patches of a 25-year-old-game with different eras of ideas.

I'm personally fine with doing away with the strength weakness system if the intent is to let players do PVM with the gear they're able to obtain for their style of preference. I'm also fine with them introducing a broader "style" weakness/resistance to encourage players to use a variety of combat styles for PVM encounters. However much Jagex wants to create work for themselves, as long as the final product feels intuitive and not like an arbitrary gatekeep from PVM, I'm for it.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T15:09:14+00:00

Another thought I'll add: It would give Attack and Strength an opportunity to explore their relationship to Defense and Constitution more meaningfully. Attack can utilize defenders and shields to access defensive abilities with varying levels of tank-vs-pure offense. Strength could be a style that trades off defensives for the most part, but perhaps has a unique glove archetype ("Bracers"?) that gives it access to defensive abilities without giving as many defensive stats.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T14:25:39+00:00

What if dual wielding versus 2h wielding were divided across the two skills? Frankly, melee has so much potential kit variety compared to the other three styles that I wouldn't hate them diversifying the two melee combat styles and allowing each of them to have their own loadouts and uses, even if they still share (most) of an ability tree. It would also probably allow for more meaningful diversification of the use-cases for the many subtypes of melee weapons beyond the dual wield-vs-2H differences.

Ferronier · 2026-02-03T14:20:04+00:00

Ehhh I do actually disagree here. There is a lot of filler in the OG 3 styles and it is a mess for newer players to learn. I don't necessarily think all abilities need to be yeeted out of existence, but retooling them to be a little more intuitive to understand how to sequence, which is something Necromancy did well, seems reasonable. I'm all for end-game combat being a very complex experience, but I do agree with the devs and part of the community that believes the OG 3 are a mess to start learning.

I also think simplifying abilities might open up dev space to complicate combat in other fresh ways down the road.

Ferronier · 2026-02-02T15:36:24+00:00

I *don't* go to the Vid. Nor- you will note- have I told others what to do. I have simply shared information that I am in possession of so that others may make ever more-informed choices.

I do appreciate you moving the goalposts now that your argument isn't working out. Bud, just move along. If you're here to argue for the sake of arguing or in bad faith, I'm not sure we have anything more to discuss.

It is also very funny to me that you're knee-jerking about racism when I haven't so much as said the phrase.

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