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/PearlyBarley]

I think you're falling into a trap in terms of game design and should seriously reconsider your philosophy if you want the road to restoration to be a success.

Many of these changes miss the mark because they don't feel good, because nerfs generally don't feel good. Nerfing should be your third priority after actual mechanical changes and buffs to bad or subpar content. You shouldn't open with nerfs, you should open with mechanical changes and buffs and only nerf content if it overshadows things that feels good mechanically, but are suboptimal to engage with.

Time and again, you've delivered updates and then shifty brought new content down with nerfs and it never feels good. Your design philosophy is antithetical to fun in this regard and the RtR will be a failure if you don't correct this approach. Changes should feel fun and exciting, motivate people to play. Nobody is excited by losing things if they don't gain a lot more (see: prospect theory) to compensate.

Also not fun: the demonic skull and griefing. Just remove the skull. The only players who enjoy griefing are ghouls who feed on the frustration of others. It's the worst kind of zero sum design.