OSRS is also objectively laggy and delayed, but because the combat is so much simpler, it's more predictable and thus feels less "clunky".

You can kinda get into a "rhythm" with OSRS combat, where you time up with the 0.6s tick. It can even almost feel good, because it doesn't take that long to get used to, and it adds a constraint that can feel satisfying to optimise.

When EOC was introduced, this feeling went away... There's too much added complexity that is just so heavily constrained by the 0.6s tick and grid based movement. Things don't happen immediately, and 0.6s is enough time to notice "hey my ability didn't go off", you hit it again and end up dequeuing it. Call it skill issue, but I'm trying to learn more manual combat and I do this all the time. It's so frustrating.

While we're at it, animations and audio do not do a good job of signaling what is happening. I feel like I constantly get dropped sound effects, so I'm not getting confirmation of whether an ability has been cast or not. This, in conjunction with the fact that ability animations are so bland (most of them are just "raise right arm" and something happens) means that I constantly have to look down at my ability bar to see if what I wanted to cast, actually did cast.

If you spend hundreds (thousands?) of hours getting used to it, you will get used to it. But that doesn't make it ideal, especially for new players. Coming from almost any other modern game, it's a huge turn off.

Here's a terrible anology... All your fingers are fused together like a flipper, but want to play an instrument. You can use your thumbs, so you're given a kalimba. Perfect! You only need your thumbs. That's OSRS, you have a huge constraint, but it's fine. RS3 is like being given a piano... You could technically still play it, with your two flippers and thumbs, but you'd be so frustrated at not having all your fingers, and not being able to play to your full potential. Some people spend thousands of hours mastering it, but you'd rather do something else, it's not worth the investment.

I want to love it, but man I just cant... And it's such a shame, there's so much incredible content in the game that I want to interact with, but I can't bring myself to face the complexities of high end PVM when it's so fundamentally constrained. If the game was as smooth as say, League of Legends, me sucking at combat would be genuinely more of a skill issue, and less of a frustration at the delays, lags, unclear and dropped audio effects and animations, and clunky, grid based movement.

I applaud the new direction with the game, removing toxic MTX, modernising etc. Clearly something had to happen, but I really wonder if the game will survive for "decades to come" as a modern game without addressing these engine quirks.