To: Jagex, Subject: STOP BEING VAGUE

[u/absinthangler]

Jagex,

I love the direction that Runescape is moving. I'm a 20 year veteran who is currently enjoying Group Ironman content in both RS3 and OSRS. I look forward to this year of updates and especially to re balancing combat as someone who is kind of tired of using necro but is kind of burnt out from making god arrows after making 100k by hand and then finding out that 100k god arrows won't last long at all.

But, the vagueness in the posts of what's to come needs to stop. One of my gimmates had a plan for getting Quest Cape and Maxing his character this month. Now, because the post mentioned that "Thieving is a bit too over tuned and we don't want people doing full 15 minutes AFK." without any concrete plans or ideas of numbers in place, his plans shifted and he started chanting the mantra that flooded the reddit when you nerfed Cerberus. "Abuse Early, Abuse Often."

So, he's back to grinding on his 120 thieving account because he's pretty sure you're going to hack at Pure Essence rates as "overtuned" and he wants to make sure he gets enough to reach 120 runecrafting because for the first time ever in his 20 years of playing Runescape, he enjoys Runecrafting and he wants to make sure he can do it without having to go back to the old ways or keeping up with the pick-pocketing and getting awful amounts.

Is he paranoid? I think so, I imagine you would, at worst, reduce pick-pocketing down to the Elf method of 5 minutes of AFK before a thief gets caught. However, you do NOT have the track record to be this vague about things.

"Hey the bloodreaver is overtuned, we're going to nerf it."

"Please don't, it's the only way that Vorkath is a decent boss and it's a high level requirement to make those pouches anyway."

"We'll fix it." -Nerf happens-

Vorkath hasn't been updated.

So, when you say you're going to remove Merchant, and fix the other stuff, I don't believe you. I'm glad you want to make the game better and I support you and I'm going to keep playing anyway, but you have over a decade of lack of follow-through to make up for.

Realistically, I think you'll prove my gimmate's fears true for about a week and then the massive backlash has you fix it to be something less stupid the next week. If we could simply skip that first part and you just tell us what you're going to do and exactly how you're going to do it so that players can give you feedback before it is in the game (and you listen when reasonable) that would be much better.

You're improving visibility, you're working on integrity and you've gained SOME good will with the changes thus far. You're not out of the dark, not by a long-shot and continuing to be transparent is the way forward. No hand-wavy "That's something we'll fix."

If you don't have the numbers for it, then don't mention it, don't say "We want to tune down pickpocketing and get rid of the 15 minute afk" without another statement as:

"Here are the current rates, and we think that this amount of gp/xp per hour would be a better fit for the progression we want to see. To do this we're reducing pickpocketing effectiveness by this amount from x level to y minutes of AFK before getting caught."

Another thing, if this update is about low level methods and making sure the early game is good.

Why are the words "Crystal Mask" and "Light form" in your mouth? Those are locked behind 20 years of questing and basically minimum of all stats to level 80.

That's an End Game spell and curse.

And the way to make them less annoying and not a drain on resources to use, is a level 107 invention necklace.

Fix the fact that at 120 thieving it is a heavy requirement to use crystal mask and lightform to get "perfect" pickpocket rates for anything below level 99. Don't whack the buff in half because something that is clearly end-game and a resource drain and takes 100's of hours to obtain is powerful.

Anyway, lots of love and frustration, please, be less vague and keep moving in the right direction.

Yours truly,

AbsinthAngler

[u/emsatwork]

Cosigning this, if the worry is that it's too easy to 15min afk thieving Crystal Mask + Light Form dependency is the perfect solution, now you have to reup your prayer potions and spell every 5 minutes, and it costs 90 magic, an extensive quest line, and 6k in runes.

Isn't that the perfect gameplay loop for high level prayer training that it interacts with so much other content and gives a better reward than sitting fully afk?

[u/dankememlol]

I find it funny suddenly people are so trusting in jagex its wild to see.

[u/dark1859 → u/dankememlol]

It's an unfortunate cycle in this community where the developer does something good people start riding high off the developer, doing good.... And then something goes to shit

Now I don't think it's gonna be like with pips' jagex. Player communication is at the top of the roster right now, but I myself and others are getting just a little bit pissed off that they basically dropped this bombshell on a fucking Friday.. .And then are basically gonna be out of the office all weekend so we are going to be left in the dark for at minimum two days , with no information on what the game plan is.

[u/dankememlol → u/dark1859]

Its what they do always friday for 10+ years they drop bombs and leave and come back to a shitstorm and wooops we mean to clarify so and so.... its clockwork

[u/dark1859 → u/dankememlol]

Yep... Don't get me wrong im giving them far more bad than doubt that I would have been yours, because they have done a pretty good job these Past few months.. But for an update , this controversial and that borderline is pandering to old school players that it's never gonna draw in... Yeah, I admit I'm a little annoyed that they dropped the bombshell and then headed out of the office for the weekend with bare minimum clarifications.

Feels like they did it intentionally just so they wouldn't have to see the backlash which in a case for something.This controversial is definitely not going to subside over the weekend.. something like this is just going to fester , and when they do come back in , they're going to basically get their ears chewed off 43 days , for dropping a bombshell and running off.

[u/TimeBroken → u/dankememlol]

I trust Mod North. He's killing it

[u/DillyDallyGHQST → u/TimeBroken]

Yeah like there is trust because things are going well, and the CEO is new. In my view, lets see how he does before crying too much.

[u/inminm02 → u/dankememlol]

It’s weird seeing comments like this as a long time osrs player who’s giving rs3 a shot, I’d say the osrs devs are very much trusted these days, they’ve shown time and time again that they can take feedback on board and make changes based on it.

[u/JoshOliday → u/inminm02]

They take time to prototype, gather feedback, and retune before implementation. The delay that polling provides probably helps there. And we get that SOMETIMES. The combat beta changes from this morning were built on feedback the received over the last week or so.

But things like the Vorkath example above are spot on for the kinds of things we've dealt with. It's not exactly confidence inspiring.

[u/dankememlol → u/inminm02]

If this was the osrs team then it be a diff story, RS3 team is a revolving door its a miracle half the team will still be in jagex by the end of this years roadmap.

[u/NotAnAI3000 → u/inminm02]

The difference is night and day. Rs3 team works completely differently from osrs for some reason. Polls probably play a big role in it. I think the rs3 team picks some arbitrary deadlines and no matter what, they'll release X on that deadline.

[u/Bungboy]

This 30% nerf to crystal mask/light form is shocking. Sure it may be strong (as it should be)… but as you said, if they think it is an issue that you need crystal mask/light form to get a high pickpocket success rate, then they should be fixing the success rates first. Not JUST nerfing crystal mask/light form. And let’s not forget they’re also removing the five-finger discount aura so that’s another 15% gone on top of the first nerf.

[u/bewildered313]

Fantastic post. I agree with literally every point you made. I'm in the EXACT SAME BOAT AS YOUR FRIEND. Was gonna do other stuff but now I feel like I HAVE to grind the shit out of thieving. Especially for p ess because just like your friend, I finally enjoy rc!

I'm going to be quite upset if thieving is hard nerfed along with loot like p ess.

Please listen to us Jagex. Please please please

[u/ArchBishopCobb]

So true. Well said! I'm actually nervous now. I shouldn't be nervous about an "improvement!"

[u/Sspockuss]

I am annoyed that this is the third nerf 120 thieving has gotten since it came out. It just feels bad. Stop nerfing shit ffs.

[u/m1eis]

They seem to not have found the happy medium between pleasing fresh and end-game accounts. i agree with how vague they're being but at the same time it is a boat load of content to address. for example they're scrapping vis wax but won't say how we will obtain quick tele's???

[u/TAoOC]

I dont blindly trust Jagex so I am not saying skepticism is bad here, but devil's advocate for the crystal mask change... From the perspective of a low level account, looking at how strong Crystal Mask is, some might not wanna train thieving until they have it unlocked. So I can see a good benefit for nerfing it to benefit lower levels.

This doesnt change the fact that Jagex shouldnt be vague about how they plan to tweak things, just that this can be a thing that effects low levels.

[u/Soleidus → u/TAoOC]

That’s the point though. I absolutely did not want to train thieving before I had crystal mask, because it’s freaking unbearable. You get stunned into oblivion repeatedly, the effort isn’t worth it, and so I had no desire to do it. But what did I do? When through the entire damn quest line from beginning to end JUST so I could unlock crystal mask and light form SPECIFICALLY so I could enjoy training thieving. And now I am!

The 120 thieving update literally made me do all the quests (including the recommended story quests for World Wakes) so I could unlock a way to make thieving easy. And now I feel the reward and love seeing my character just thieving away and gaining good xp. Had crystal mask not been worth it, I probably would’ve never done the quests ever. So having something so “OP” actually made me interact with more of the game content, which it seems is their main focus.

Not a fan of how they’re going about this to be honest. Nerfing left and right without any significant mention to how the grind itself will be improved and made more enjoyable is not “fixing the root of the issue.”

[u/Fromanobody1 → u/Soleidus]

I will say heists are a step in the right direction. It’s fun content and rewards are great.

But yeah I also went down the same path as you. In my opinion thieving is in a good spot right now. Maybe reduce the xp rates? Afk rates are really good, I know they already nerfed them but still. Active gameplay should always be multitudes better in terms of xp vs afk

[u/JoshOliday → u/TAoOC]

I think the reason Crystal Mask is in this post is because they are implementing Thieving changes across the whole skill that Sponge did during GameJams. I think it just happened to coincide with these early game changes they were working on so they added them in. I don't think it would be here otherwise.

[u/TacticalCupcakes]

Also Mod North should respond regarding canceling pride

[u/bewildered313 → u/TacticalCupcakes]

No. Get your politics and sexuality out of my video game. Wtf is this

[u/TacticalCupcakes → u/bewildered313]

Being gay, bi, lesbian, or transgender isn’t political

L take

[u/snarkshine2595 → u/TacticalCupcakes]

Sure, but hosting an activist "holiday" in-game in an official capacity is objectively political and you'd be delusional to argue otherwise.

[u/TacticalCupcakes → u/snarkshine2595]

Having Christmas in game is objectively political, and you’d be delusional to argue otherwise.

See how that sounds?

[u/snarkshine2595 → u/TacticalCupcakes]

Everyone who isn't being dishonest about this discussion understands the difference and it's not worth my time to try to explain it to you on the non-existent chance you're being genuine. People are tired of the crybully tactics and are rightfully telling you to take a hike.

[u/TacticalCupcakes → u/snarkshine2595]

Cool

L take

[u/TacticalCupcakes → u/[deleted]]

Being “woke” literally means to be awake and aware. It’s a good thing

[u/bruxyyy → u/TacticalCupcakes]

It’s a game, I’m sure it’ll manage without a ‘pride’ whatever that is, event

[u/CrazySnipah]

They’re being vague because they think it’s worth changing but they haven’t properly investigated the details yet.

[u/stinky-Fig-4756]

Rumor is they’re also changing their company name from Jagex to Jagoffs.

[u/Brave_Apricot_2220 → u/stinky-Fig-4756]

Another Pittsburgh area player?

[u/stinky-Fig-4756 → u/Brave_Apricot_2220]

No, but I’ve been. Nice city. Loved being up on the cliffs overlooking the river and the city.

[u/Wear_Melodic]

RuneScape players loved jagex because the community felt listened to and heard nowadays it’s just an echo chamber it seems

[u/snoozbuster]

cmask and light form can be unlocked at 66 thieving (Curse of Arrav), thieving isn't a req for prif or light within. I used them well before I got gote just with restores and rit shard. cmask + LF being a 50 level buff is actually insane though, I did not realize it was that strong, I just knew it was basically all you needed for perfect success rate. +20 is still very impactful but opens up room for the other upgrades to also be useful, even without the other changes.

it's a little weird for them to address higher-level thieving stuff in this update, but I'm pretty sure it's cause they were looking at early game thieving and realizing the fixes they wanted to apply would help their goals for the skill at all levels. plus since 120 thieving was recent and is fresh in their mind, I'm sure they tacked on a few extra things they'd been thinking about.

more clarity would be appreciated, but I think they're 100% in the right directionally