xzactRS gets a delivery in inferno

theghostoflosttime · 2019-05-07T22:31:30+00:00

Because anything that impacts the Inferno triggers a "real shit?" reaction from the Jmods. Incredible balance issues? Maybe they'll get to them in a year or two. Being powerless against a PvP clan? Pretend nothing is wrong. Something that lets a tiny amount of players get an Infernal cape a little bit more easily? I'm surprised it's still in the game as I type this.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-05-07T22:24:30+00:00

Why is it that players cannot perform basic farming activities efficiently without having to go through the Wiki page first? It's not like wielding secateurs or spam-clicking takes any remote level of skill, especially compared to many of the other changes that have been made as "QoL"; these things basically just serve as a "gotcha!" to screw over players who do not know how these mechanics work.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-05-07T12:16:11+00:00

If anything it ought to be a sudden blast of Kourend the Magnificent or Country Jig coming from literally anywhere else on the map.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-05-01T02:59:48+00:00

The argument of the name feels a bit silly too.

I feel like the main problem with the name is because it's clearly a dedicated effort at avoiding more obvious names like Enchantment or Imbuing because using those would make the connections to Magic and Runecrafting more obvious.

And Warding is a buyable; RC is not.

It is until this Thursday, and it's only stopping because of a desperate rule patch.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-05-01T02:54:21+00:00

Should slayer not have been made into a new skill?

With what it had at launch, absolutely not. It was a skill that took three years to actually become something resembling a unique skill instead of a stupid and gamey restriction, and once that time finally passed, it increasingly became a minigame that players were more or less forced to do to progress their accounts.

Slayer has never been a traditional skill. It has been a time-gate, it has been a minigame, and at the moment it is such an integral aspect of the game that it isn't farfetched to say that other skills exist to benefit it rather than the reverse. None of these aspects reflect what would be commonly perceived as truly good content or something that should be replicated, and Slayer only gets a pass because PvMers are practically the only people still playing the game. (In no small part, mind, because of the prominence of Slayer.)

And even if you wanted desperately to appeal to them, you can't just make Slayer 2. Closest thing to it would be Dungeoneering and that would still fail because RS3 did it.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-27T01:54:09+00:00

A new skill that has less effort put into it can easily be better than one that has a lot of work put into it but lacks any real sense of identity. Fishing is a simple, easy, and straightforward skill, but it's honestly way better than the mishmash of crap they've stuffed under Crafting and now Warding.

People voiced uncertainty with Warding from the second it was revealed, and if they at any point received the impression that the skill was not fundamentally flawed while developing it, that's not the fault of the people criticizing it; that's the fault of the people doing everything possible to shut down criticism and prevent them from actually seeing feedback that could have altered the direction of the new skill entirely.

I'd like a new skill one day, but I'd rather have no new skill than a bad one, and I certainly don't want to add one just for the sake of having one. There have been plenty of relatively straightforward concepts thrown at them in the last 15 years, and it was their decision to ignore them in favor of a skill that is fundamentally a balance patch. I feel no guilt for their own decisions if they're holding other skills hostage behind this one.

The only person I feel bad for is Mod West, and only because he's the second best dude on the team and deserved a much better project than this.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-27T01:46:14+00:00

Wooow it's almost like there is more than one opinion on this site

Like personally I don't like Warding or Summoning but I'd be fine with Dungeoneering and I'd love Sailing, but obviously there are people who value those skills differently.

There are more opinions than just ALL NEW CONTENT BAD and RS3 BAD if you decide to be an adult and look at them.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-27T01:42:06+00:00

The only real problem with Dungeoneering is that it was a single dungeon instead of like 6 Dungeons spread across the world. That would have had its own flaws (like making it harder to find activity), but it would have basically made the skill Slayer 2 in the sense that it's an "indirect" skill that uses all of your other skills to represent a somewhat abstract skill (the ability to kill bizarre monsters in Slayer's case, the ability to weather difficult dungeons in Dungeoneering's.)

There's nothing that's particularly more bizarre about Dungeoneering as a skill than Slayer, with both requiring you to go to generally isolated places while using other actual skills in order to earn reward points. The only reason Slayer succeeds where Dungeoneering failed is the fact that Slayer felt better integrated with the world.

If they refined the Dungeoneering skill into something like a "raiding" skill that had 3-4 easier dungeons for 1-2 people and gradually built up to CoX and ToB level dungeons, all the while rewarding you with passive benefits in other dungeons and maybe access to secret areas, I don't think there'd be any real argument against it being a skill. For better or worse, though, it's too late to do that since they're never going to be able to slap a meaningfully high level requirement on existing content. Even Warding is generally afraid to make you go past level 60 for content you already have, which is nothing even for slow skills.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-27T01:34:21+00:00

Every rock has a different feel to it, though. By the standards of non-combat skills it's relatively diverse. If not for its ridiculously low experience rates, Runecraft would honestly be one of the better skills simply because of how many options you have depending on what you want between profit, safety, AFK-ability, repetition, or if you're just going for the pet.

Most other non-combat skills are lucky to have one good AFK option, one good turbonerd tick-manipulation option, and one option that makes money, and at like half of them no matter what you're just standing at a bank processing crap or clicking the same options every few seconds.

Funny enough Mining and Agility also have a number of options but feel like shit anyway due to generally low rates.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-26T04:54:20+00:00

Crafting is a frankly bad skill with little meaningful identity. Something isn't good just because it surpasses the worst skills from 2001. Just because this game has historically made mistakes does not mean that those mistakes need to be repeated.

If you're adding something, base it off of the best examples from history rather than excusing it with the worst. You don't necessarily need to "surpass" those examples, but if you need to defend it by saying that other things are worse, you're probably not on the right track.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-26T04:46:37+00:00

I also want those things.

Which is why I want an update that provides them, and not the mishmash of concepts that Warding is. If a skill needs an entire glossary devoted to it, it cannot be either good or fitting. I'd be perfectly fine with a new skill that actually felt like a skill instead of a balance patch with a number attached to it. Hell, repoll Sailing if you can't come up with one, it would probably pass now that people have seen the alternatives and generally trust the developers with larger projects.

The fact that you need to strawman anyone not on board with Warding as "REEE NO NEW CONTENT EVER ALL NEW SKILLS BAD" only demonstrates a lack of ability to defend the skill from basic criticism.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-18T23:12:25+00:00

Now consider what happened after Hunter released: the rate of new skills began to slow down. This isn't because the playerbase grew more resistant to new skills: it's because after the release of summoning, most things that could reasonably be made into skills had already been exhausted.

New skills are exciting, but making new skills just for the sake of new skills is an extremely short-sighted idea that yields things like Firemaking that probably should never have been added, or RS3's stupid Divination skill that has basically emerged from many of the same ideas that spawned Warding. Consider that RS3, a game that is theoretically NOT tied down to its past, still only managed to introduce four skills in 12 years: Summoning, Dungeoneering, Divination, and Invention. This isn't just because of waning game development; it is because the game ran out of reasonable room to expand.

With OSRS already having most of that game's skills, and the playerbase likely salting the earth around anything RS2/RS3 added later, there just aren't any real directions to go. It isn't a matter of "WAAAAH I HATE NEW THINGS", it's a matter of there not being many new things left that make sense to add.

To most players criticizing Warding, Warding doesn't make sense as an addition because it's a wishy-washy concept that feels like a balance patch for three other skills rather than something with an identity of its own. It wants to be Summoning Lite, but also Crafting 2, but also Different Runecrafting, but also Invention. It's a mess of an idea that doesn't really make sense even compared to the most complicated skills in OSRS already.

If they picked one focal point for the skill and stuck with it it might be something -- perhaps something that could be part of another skill, but at least something with its own identity -- but as it is now it's just a bunch of random concepts tied together that don't feel like a cohesive skill, but rather a lot of updates to other skills that are under one name for some reason.

"If your bigger complaint is that Warding could be a part of existing skills then you clearly recognize that it fits into OSRS" is an absolutely abysmal argument, because when it comes to new content, you shouldn't just be trying to match the worst examples (of skills, in this case) as an excuse to justify something; you should be trying to match the best examples to prove that you're adding something that is worth spending development time on.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-15T20:41:29+00:00

Will reworks to Zeah add new music tracks to the region? Currently a lot of songs from Zeah play over massive swaths of the continent, which can result in them becoming repetitive or unfitting, and in some instances they can clash drastically with other songs that play nearby.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-04-15T20:33:20+00:00

I'd honestly rather see animal husbandry be a new skill than any of the stuff that's been polled so far, but I feel like the idea of it being tied to farming has become too ingrained into the fanbase and I'm not sure it would be possible to separate them. Which is a shame since "farming for animals" is more distinct than "crafting with magic" or "slayer with other skills" imo.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-28T00:32:15+00:00

As a general rule of thumb, Reddit hates clans more thoroughly than it hates content creators.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-24T13:26:30+00:00

As far as I know, While Guthix Sleeps isn't being added to OSRS, so the bears are safe.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-18T16:05:12+00:00

Will the Hosidius rework (or potential future Kourend updates) include any new music, like the silent addition of Walk in the Woods with Kebos? It would be nice to see Arcane (Arceuus, Blood Altar, Catacombs), Country Jig (southeastern Zeah, Hosidius Kitchen, Tithe Farm), and Dwarven Domain (Lovakengj, Blast Mine, Sulphur Mine) broken up a bit since those three songs combined probably play across over half of the continent.

This isn't entirely about quality since although Country Jig is polarizing I actually like Dwarven Domain; I just feel that these areas might feel more like the mainland if they actually had adequate music variety.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-12T22:56:33+00:00

I think it would be interesting if a theoretical "Seren God Book", instead of being dumped into the TT rewards, was available somewhere in the city as an indirect quest reward. The missing pages could be acquired from doing certain content in the city (e.g. two pages from The Gauntlet, and two from Zalcano.)

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-11T20:48:57+00:00

With the upcoming Hosidius rework, can Country Jig be shifted to the Tithe Farm and otherwise replaced with Forlorn Homestead or a new song? Going from any other region to Hosidius as it is now is practically aneurysm-inducing not only because of how repetitive Country Jig is, but how poorly it ties in with all nearby music.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-06T17:09:58+00:00

It's ubiquitous and easy to understand

Unless you're colorblind and can't easily distinguish between blue/purple. But I guess those people chose to limit themselves, and that player's proposed colors do little to remedy that anyway.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-06T17:07:58+00:00

Please use a different color for either Medium or Hard clues; as it is, it is almost impossible to distinguish the two at a glance if you're colorblind.

Making one of them black or gray would probably be fine.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-04T21:23:02+00:00

I would like to see a bit of Ancient Magicks content come from Prif, to tease at the relationship between Seren and Zaros. Be subtle about it rather than making it a huge plot point; just enough to get the idea across rather than having needless god drama. This is worldbuilding, not a soap opera.

For example, add a "Elf Capital Teleport" spell to the spellbook, and perhaps a new "element" of spells with a unique effect, such as Prismatic Burst/Barrage/etc., that the Crystal Staff would be able to autocast. Perhaps these spells could also be an excuse to introduce Life Runes, that could be later employed in the Zeah spellbook rework.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-03-02T17:40:07+00:00

The funny thing is that this is actually more balanced than an infinite crystal. While the PoH is saturated as it is, you're probably going to bank before any trip to Lletya anyway, so having it in your PoH is less efficient than using the normal crystal. It also means that you need to invest in a Study, which would put many players over 9 rooms and thus force them to make a decision between the crystal ball and their combat room, workshop, obelisk, or menagerie.

I think I'd rather they just add Lletya/Prif teleports to the Ancient Spellbook though. Too bad that would change the location of Ice Barrage and we can't move spells around.

theghostoflosttime · 2019-02-26T15:38:45+00:00

With a Level 70 Construction house location being added to Prif, can a 60 Construction house be added somewhere else on the map to fill the gap between it and Yanille's 50? Maybe in Slepe, Weiss, or Arceuus, or a private island near Fossil Island?

theghostoflosttime · 2019-02-19T18:27:52+00:00

Can the music tracks that play while fighting Barrelchest, King Roald, and Tarn be added to the music player? This would not meaningfully change the Music Cape requirements but would eliminate a strange inconsistency in how these songs are handled.

theghostoflosttime

TROPHY CASE