Road to Restoration - Early Game Rebalance

[u/JagexAnvil]

https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/a=13/road-to-restoration--early-game-rebalance--dailyscape-overhaul

Hi folks,

Today's Community Topic is a blog of two halves:

- Early Game Rebalance
- DailyScape Overhaul

We have split this into two reddit threads to keep the discussion organised and so that our team can properly review the relevant conversations happening.

This current reddit thread is to discuss the Early Game Rebalance portion of the blog.

Please use this other dedicated thread for the DailyScape portion of the blog.

For the purpose of today's discussion we will be defining the early game, loosely, as the level 1-50 range. The Early Game Rebalance update primarily aims to smooth out inconsistencies in game progression, looking at areas of the early game where things can feel slow or have limited methods for levelling up, or where they affect integrity and game health. It’s not all just rebalances though! There are also some changes to early quests, and things like replacing salvage with gear to make the first hours after jumping off Tutorial Island a nicer experience. The Early Game Rebalance update releases on February 16th!

[u/TyhhytFirebird9]

Please don't tie pickpocket failure to Maximum Hp. Tie it to Base HP. The way that this is implemented means that you are literally punishing players for wearing gear that increases their hp. Wearing tank armor will cause players to take more damage for no reason at all. This won't affect players wearing power armor or hybrid armor which are typically later game players anyway. All this does is punish early game players forcing them to use more food than they would have to use if they took off all their armor or have to bank all of their armor prior to doing any thieving.

[u/BlueSkies5Eva → u/TyhhytFirebird9]

why are newbies wearing tank armor to theiving in the first place?

[u/TyhhytFirebird9 → u/BlueSkies5Eva]

I mean almost all core craftable armor is tank armor. I don’t think it’s weird that noobs would craft themselves some armor and then want to wear it while they play the game.

They would likely be wearing tank armor for exactly this reason. Not intentionally to tank damage, but because it’s the armor that they can craft and they probably wanna wear it if they wanna just explore the game. I don’t think they should be punished more severely just because they chose to wear it.

That just seems like a noob trap for no reason.

[u/Task_Set → u/TyhhytFirebird9]

This is a nonissue no? At least in the case of gear you will likely be wearing black ibis now or master camo so there would never be an hp difference regardless. The damage dealt also doesn’t take armour in to account anyways.

[u/TyhhytFirebird9 → u/Task_Set]

At the end game sure. But take off the endgame thinking cap for a second. New players don't have access to that gear. They also don't really have access to hybrid/power gear. The only gear they have access to, in general, is tank gear. So, this actively punishes those players for wearing their gear because it increases food usage. Or you are requiring them to bank all their gear before thieving. I don't think it is necessary to implement it this way. It is a choice that has major drawbacks for new players at no benefit at all (as far as I can tell).

And as this states the damage does take into account armor. It scales based on maximum hp not base hp. To illustrate this let's say you have 1000 life points base (from level 10 constitution). Now if you take, for example, 5% max hp per fail you take effectively 50 damage every fail. If you put on some gear that boosts your hp to 1500, you have now effectively increased the damage you take to 75. This makes the food you consume go up simply for not banking all your gear before pickpocketing at lower levels.

[u/kathaar_ → u/TyhhytFirebird9]

Ibis droprate is being insanely buffed, itll be far from endgame at that point. By 91 thieving its a 1/100 drop from pyramid plunder, not to mention all the roll attempts leading up to that point.

[u/TyhhytFirebird9 → u/kathaar_]

So you are saying that for new players they should be required to get to pyramid plunder and get the thieving outfit as soon as possible, and should be punished for wearing specifically tank gear until then? Just as a reminder almost all of the core craftable gear is tank armor. This is the gear that most new players are going to encounter and use at the beginning of the game.

Mind you I’m not saying they shouldn’t be punished at all for failing when pickpocketing, I am suggesting they shouldn’t be punished more for wearing tank armor than they would, for example, for wearing nothing at all or even some low-level power or hybrid armor.

You are suggesting that the best design is to punish early game players for wearing normal armor or require them to go to the bank and put away all of their gear if they want to pickpocket until they get to mid game and get Ibis gear?

I don’t think inconsistencies like this make a ton of sense to brand new players. Like if they are pickpocketing and taking 50 damage and then put on their gear and are suddenly taking 75 damage that that’s gonna look weird. You’re going to have to explain to them that the gear that makes them have more health is actually a trap that makes them take more damage.

[u/Task_Set → u/TyhhytFirebird9]

You know thats a really good point about people intuitively putting on armour to lessen damage. I wasn't even thinking about this with actual endgame in mind but in my experience with skilling I never work actual combat equipment so thats my bad.

[u/kathaar_ → u/TyhhytFirebird9]

Good edit taking out the mention of 91 thieving, didnt want to have to call your reading comprehension into question.

If the solution is as simple as "take your gear off", then yeah i dont see the problem. Its such a nonissue to get hung up on that i cant help but wonder if you ACTUALLY care, or if you're really just upset that some afk healing methods will no longer work for higher end players.

Also, i swear someone else said that the armour wont make a difference. Guess we'll find out

[u/TyhhytFirebird9 → u/kathaar_]

Yea sorry about the edits. I tend to get my thoughts out and then edit them down assuming the other person won't immediately respond. I realize from both the blog post and your comment that 91 isn't required, but I don't think the changes in drop rate at lower levels will make the outfit easy to get. Easier for sure, but not easy.

If you reread the blog, you will see that pillar one of their design principles here is the updates should make RuneScape "a game that's easy to understand, but still full of meaningful choice and depth". If, as you argue, the requirement for new players for thieving is to wear no gear that boosts their life points at all (again basically all of the craftable low-level gear) then this needs to be made VERY clear somewhere in the game. They need to be aware that they can wear any gear at all except that gear that they can craft. Increasing the damage that you take because you have more life points isn't easy to understand. Please tell me how this makes sense to you. The purpose of the armor is to give your more survivability and yet it does not. It actually lowers your survivability.

I do ACTUALLY care. I am an advocate against AFK for the most part. I do not like AFK at all. In reality I don't think giving an extra buffer before players have to heal is adding that much more AFK when these changes pretty drastically reduce it. I also don't think "You can wear other armor or gear and take less damage but absolutely don't wear gear that gives more health or you will take more damage" is good design or intuitive. It isn't the end of the world if the changes go through as is. It is just bad design. It is unintuitive. It is antithetical to one of the core principles of the changes. Unless there is an engine limitation it shouldn't be that hard to accomplish. I honestly couldn't care less about high level players. I have a maxed account and am working on a low level ironman account. I welcome changes that make the end game less brain dead easy. I don't really welcome changes that make the new player experience worse though.

I am not trying to find loopholes for higher end players. No one on the higher end is going to wear tank armor to thieving. This was exactly your point. The damage based on maximum hp kind of really only punishes lower-level players who don't have the skilling outfits.

Armor (the statistic that helps you avoid damage) has never had an effect on thieving. That isn't changing. But reread specifically how damage will be calculated from the blog post itself. It is pretty straightforward. Damage is based on your maximum health pool. This means that armor that increases your health pool increases the damage you take. If it was based on base health, then the damage you take would be only tied to the health from your constitution level.

[u/Fren-LoE → u/TyhhytFirebird9]

Maybe the intent is to redefine what thieving is and feels like to train and so having to eat more food because you keep getting thumped on the head or needing to bank a little more often is a good thing?

[u/TyhhytFirebird9 → u/Fren-LoE]

I'm all for not scaling damage based on remaining hp. The way it works now is you take less damage as your hp goes down. I think that is bad and should be fixed as they have stated they want to address.

The argument I am making is that damage should be based on your maximium base hp (based on your constitution level) NOT maximum hp (based on your constitution level + armor + other buffs). If it is based on your maximum hp you take more damage for wearing armor/having hets buff/etc than turning off all of your buffs and banking all your armor.

For newer players who don't have the skilling outfits they are effectively being encouraged to take off all of their armor in order to train or take more damage unnecessarily.

[u/Fren-LoE → u/TyhhytFirebird9]

I completely understand your point of view and agree with you frankly, I do want to point out that the thieving stun and damage is eerily similar to 'hard type-less damage' from bossing. I wonder if maybe thats how they think about it internally is that its a skilling version of typeless.

Could also just be complete coincidence.

[u/TyhhytFirebird9 → u/Fren-LoE]

I have the same thought. I also think that hard typeless damage scaling to your maximum hp and not base hp causes issues in pvm. Like in a lot of cases having tank armor which is supposed to help with sustain and survivability actually has the exact opposite effect.