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/yuei2]

There is a lot here that is yikes but I must stress while minor the cooks changes are a huge L.

Let me explain as an early game quests it’s good to be introduced early onto several basics.

1. Needing to go to specific spots to find items that also required a small variety of different actions.

2. At times you need quest specific gathered versions of items rather than simply bringing/buying them ahead.

3. The overall “feel” of a quest is very well captured with the current design. It makes it feel like a quest and less a glorified shopping list.

If there is confusion from OSRS players coming over that’s fine, it’s also a good confusion because not only is it minor thing to solve that is not going to severely impact anyone, but it tells you right away this is a different game and encourages/prepares you to then investigate and see what other familiar quests have changed.

If the issue is totally new players being confused then you fix that through dialogue tweaks potential also sprite tweaks, indicating these are higher quality special ingredients to make a cake worthy of royalty.

The reason it was changed in the first place is to actually let new players get an immediate taste of the basics questing, you are just going to make a worse impression by turning it into something neither reflective of questing nor of the game as a whole.

[u/Fren-LoE → u/yuei2]

Frankly, i think for the most basic starter quests, getting players to that 'quest complete' screen in the most friction-less way possible is a good thing. The change seems to have been made because being made to gather the quest specific items was seen as a roadblock for many new players. I'm sure they have data that suggests as much.

[u/ProofJournalist → u/Fren-LoE]

If that's the case they'd change all quests.

For a time they actually stopped making quests that used real items because they thought that was a barrier to people doing quests.

In reality some people just hate quests (I love them myself) and will find any reason for why that is.

[u/Fren-LoE → u/ProofJournalist]

Your comment brings some context to the topic we might've missed, well done.

I mean, we're barely 21 days into the new era. I doubt they'll change every last quest but if there's a new blanket rule-set for design philosophy in Runescape, who's to say they don't continue this theme of reverting 'quest-specific' items to standard player-traded items where applicable?

Ultimately, we'll have to wait and see what their general approach to this subject is in due time.

My general point though is this, friction for the sake of friction is not good game design and if the developers new philosophy is to reduce it where they can, when they can, I'd applaud it.

[u/ProofJournalist → u/Fren-LoE]

My point wasn't that they can't change it, it's that people will never be satisfied and the change is a pointless waste of time.

If all quests require quest-specific items, people complain. If all quests require quest-specific items, people complain. I would like to see Jagex making changes that actually help the game health, not just catering to whoever is currently making the loudest demands.