· 5 years ago · Mar 04, 2020, 04:36 PM
1Obviously, many people are pretty upset about the PvP blog. While it does indeed contain some good changes, much of the rest is bad or severely lacking.
2This will be a rundown of the current blog followed by a list of potential things to add to it or a second blog. I’ve discussed these with numerous people from multi clans (RoT, Rev, etc) as well as single teams or straight stole ideas from others (ty RobJr, Abyss).
3The current blog:
4To start off, the first line states “Strengthening pvp and competitive gaming is a key priority of ours”. I’d like to address this from the point of view of the current effort by the team. First, we have Roq updating LMS. Great, could be a good use for certain things I’ll talk about later but he’s doing it on his free time. That’s not a priority, and no other devs are dedicated to the job. Second, the “cabals” that “PvPers” were invited to clearly served as nothing but a friend group circle jerk. This is VERY disappointing for all of us not in that small group of friends and could only be expected to generate biased inputs. After speaking to Roq about this, I believe the team will address this but I’ll state it here: There needs to be representatives from as many major multi and single clans as possible at the next event. If you really want to call PvP a priority, you won’t just invite people by convenience based on their proximity to Jagex HQ.
5The integrity changes:
6While myself and many agree that it’s about damn time Jagex introduced PvP changes that don’t get tested by the entire community, it’s also fundamentally flawed. The main idea should be to promote a much larger chunk of the playerbase to be interested in PvP and therefore want to vote fairly and in favor of PvP related polls.
7Max Cape: Great. Only seems right for the cost of the item and it’s use for it to drop a more realistic amount.
8Looting bag in PvP: Also great. Not sure why this had to be added to DMM first.
9Imp Box changes: Good. Prevents high risk fighters from virtually cheating the system and prevents chin hunters from banking their chins once they get attacked. I know many skillers won’t like that, but black chin hunting isn’t supposed to be safe.
10T10 Emblem selling: Very iffy. This will be good for those who do a lot of BH and actually grind out loads of T10s by actually PKing. BUT, this will also promote the hell out of the current emblem farming epidemic. Before this is added, emblem farmers need to be stopped. Also consider adding new rewards to the shop to give PKers more value for their T10s so that selling them to other players isn’t the only viable option.
11TB Timer in chat box: Ok. Not really sure why this is needed but doesn’t adversely affect anything.
12W45:
13Protection: Ok, the server is mostly controlled by a few people anyway. Although, with the upcoming revamp of DMM in general I’m not sure promoting new players to play the perm server will do any good.
14Quests: See above.
15Defender: See above.
16HP Orb: Ok? Why is this in a PvP blog?
17Shade changes: See above.
18F2P TB: Very much a good thing. F2P is a great, simpler way for new players or any player in general to start getting involved in F2P. However, it’s currently pretty hard to die without getting killed by a near max combo. TB will help promote activity in F2P. You should also consider allowing Snare for F2P, which would help loads for deep wild PKing by teams/clans.
19Remove CW/Duel/NMZ unskulling: Great. No down sides to this. Many might also argue to make everyone skull in BH world as soon as entering combat. A lot of people refuse to skull fight so they can get better gear out of a +4 setup instead of +1. Sketchy ground, though, as much of the meta revolves around AGS+gmaul in d hides anyway so perhaps the BH system rework (new target wep/gear assignments) will shake this up a bit.
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21To be Polled Changes:
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23Wilderness slayer Keys: Fantastic idea, and needs to be expanded. After a bit of discussion with others, we believe there should be a tiered system for these based upon a combat level range of the slayed monster. For example, stuff like Earth Warriors and Dark Warriors only have access to the Tier 1 key on their drop table. Tier 2 for monsters like green dragons, Mammoths. Tier 3 for Bosses. Each subsequent tier has its own chest and increasing drop table. The highest drop table could be used to house PvP items (weps and armors, more about this later please don’t lose your mind over it) or even the Korasi Sword. Korasi sword would be GREAT for shaking up current Melee Pray meta, even with its lower than AGS max hit and 60% spec requirement. Many people have been asking for this for a very long time and I agree, it would be good for single pking. Tier 1 chest should be located somewhere low level single way in the wildy. My idea was near the old Daemonheim entrance on the far east side of the wilderness around level 6-10. The tier 2 chest should be mid level multi. My idea was near the old Clan Wars location around 19-21 wilderness by the ghost hut near black salamanders. This would help create a smaller lower multi combat hot spot (which I’ll address again later in the blog). The Tier 3 key should be located in the Pirate Hut/Ship between the agility arena and Mage Bank. This would (re)add a deep single hot spot for solo pkers and teams. All drop rates for these should be increased if skulled, similar to revs.
24All CWA changes: Good. There’s still quite a few people out there who love doing CWA fights (Including a fair few “RSB” style teams). Anything to promote doing this is good. You should also consider adding in ladders permanently to a themed world. At the end of these ladders you should strongly consider adding a Clan Cup. This could be seasonal ladders with a points system which generates seeding for the Clan Cup at the end of the year. This would be huge for reviving CWA, which was a huge part of clanning for the longest time.
25Clear TB when TBer dies: Iffy. While this would be beneficial for small fights (ie 1v2 or 1v3) it would virtually have no GOOD effect on a team fight or a team focusing a kill. A solo player is never going to get enough counter play against a team to kill their TBer so this has no effect. Also, as mentioned by Sfa05 and many others, this opens up the potential for virtually unlimited TBing. Teams could half or full a player deep wildy, focus down their food, and after a couple of minutes, suicide their own TBer so they can get a new TB off. This would greatly affect how a person tanking a team actually tanks as you’d basically have to rush to a tele spot and negate all other forms of combating the team (boxing hobs, running up/down ladder @ KBD, going axe hut @ MB). Given that concern, I don’t see the point in adding this unless the suiciding issue could be addressed.
26K/D HUD in PvP worlds: Great.
27To be Discussed Changes:
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29Granite Maul rework: 100% yes. In its current state, the Granite Maul is completely broken. A 50 attack 13k item should not be so powerful. The 60% spec change is a great idea. Allowing it to be reverted back to 50% with an add-on that will make it far more valuable is a great compromise. Having it hold much higher value for the cost of the spec will limit its use and at the very least, make it worth killing people for again. The other idea is to just not re-add the buff and allow pvp weapons to fill the void that the 60% gmaul will create.
30Overheads from 40% to 60%: Terrible. This is on par with your “infinite TB” proposal from some months ago. This is absolutely not needed. It’s already very very difficult to kill someone in single and this will very adversely affect multi (and promote ragging). Not sure why this was ever brought up. Some people mentioned “Promoting using correct prayers in NH fights”. Sure, except it would just make people even harder to kill. If you want to promote using the correct things, consider re-adding “soaking” to the game. Soaking was incredibly balanced. It scaled purely off the armor you were wearing. Ie, wearing torags against a melee hit allowed for much higher soaked damage than wearing black d hides (the current meta) against a melee hit. This would do a good job of breaking up the black d hide meta, be awesome to combat power creep (see the above PvP wep/armor changes), and doesn’t break the game for pures since it doesn’t scale off defence level. Yes, I know many will say it does anyway since pures don’t have access to the same gear but there simply aren’t many accounts out there at pure combat level wearing the tankiest armors in game. It won’t be an issue.
31New wine of Zammy spawn: Congrats, Venezuela. This does nothing but promote bots. You’re already not getting these from skilling, so just add them to a few drop tables so ironmen can farm them (in the wilderness, of course).
32Reduce black D’hide stats: Absolutely unnecessary. There are loads of calculations out there about the accuracy of magic against black d’hide. Black d’hide is SUPPOSED to be good at defending against magic attacks. If anything, buff karils armor to make it actually better than black d’hide. Also consider reworking the magic accuracy in PvP calculations. This is a major problem. Currently, 70% of the accuracy comes from the defender’s magic level. This makes 0 sense, it’s as if the game is assuming that you’re casting a defensive spell every time you’re attacked at 0 rune cost. It’s also EXCESSIVELY high considering just how many people have splashed their way to 99 magic on all of their accounts. We didn’t see this issue pre-eoc since nowhere near as many people had 99 magic running around in PvP. I’ve asked Ash to put the reworked formula on beta worlds for testing. I believe reworking this calculation with the soaking changes will greatly break up the issue surrounding black d hide as well as fixing many of the existing problems with the combat triangle.
33Avernic defender: Great, as it should be.
34Last man standing: Good. I won’t go into too much detail here since we haven’t had the change to test the changes Roq is working on, but they look good. LMS will hopefully (or at least should) serve as the final boundary in getting players into active risk based PvP (ie the wilderness). The use of mechanics is near end game, the gear is meta for most solo pking, and the changes to looting will make it virtually identical to the wilderness. There won’t be gear lost by the players, reducing the GP input required by new players and the addition of a rewards shop will give it something lasting to keep playing for. The key here is that this should be the LAST step before entering actual PvP. The first step is part of what I want to address for future additions to the blog.
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36Now for what else needs to be added.
37Nerf the bulwark. There have been a couple of suggestions along the lines of removing it’s magic defence, lowering its overall stats, and preventing running while wearing it. I think lowering its magic defence as well as preventing running while wearing it are good. It’s currently stupidly tanky, especially for how low it’s priced. This WILL need to be nerfed if the 60% prayer change happens as it will literally be impossible to die while wearing it.
38Revert imbued/untradeable items to their tradeable form when dropped by people in wilderness. Currently, people can drop their imbued slayer helms, imbued fremmy rings, colored whips, etc just before dying to limit their lost items and return to loot them after dying. Prevent this.
39Limit the number of worlds the wilderness can be accessed on. Currently, there are still quite a number of people out PKing at any given time during the day. However, it seems empty because of the insane amount of worlds available now. Removing hop limit would be nice, but wouldn’t be as effective at grouping people back together as drastically limiting the available worlds.
40This next suggestion is going to cover a lot of issues at once so bear with me.
41Re-add Fist of Guthix.
42FoG was an amazing minigame for a lot of reasons. It gave people a very simple, no risk means of learning both offensive and defensive PvP tactics one at a time. The game was fun and engaging, had a very decent rewards shop (Gauntlets, berserker shields, battle/combat/druidic robes) and costed exactly nothing to participate in. The minigame is nearly perfect for getting new players involved into PvP without facing the massive skill gap that exists in current PvP since the game could very easily be built around an ELO system. It also included a high scores to keep people interested in the minigame outside of the rewards shop. The wielding orb requirement while tanking will prevent misuse of most overpowered PvP items (Ely, bulwark, etc) and the game would be just fine implementing a “standard gear set” similar to what LMS is receiving. It would serve as a decent platform for introducing more moderate PvP rewards/items in the future (I saw loads on the Twitter post, won’t list them all here) and provided a low level multi hot spot. This hot spot is DESPERATELY needed for 2 reasons. First, to break up the rev caves meta. Currently, all of multi is condensed into this one area and it’s suffering because of this. Rev caves were definitely a great update to boost multi activity, but it’s time for more. Second, rev caves being the meta has completely killed the entire med/zerk/tank scene. Having a low multi hot spot would allow for pure and med/zerk/tank clans to fight each other without getting constantly crashed by the next bracket up. These clans thrived in that environment Pre-EoC and FoG entrance was one of the most active spots in the entire wilderness. This entrance was located just south of the level 15 chaos altar in about level 8 wilderness.
43Remove entangle half freeze on mage pray. Normal spell book already costs tons of inventory space, even if using combo runes. Simply underwhelming compared to ancients.
44Revert spec trade timer update. Has done nothing to help solo players and has only hurt teams. At the very least, remove d scim spec from the timer.
45Introduce additional multi hot spots. I developed an idea I’ve dubbed “Roving Renegades”. Have 1 outside FoG entrance to the west, 1 north/northwest of corp entrance, and 1 near gap/dwarves. They’ll be combat based NPCs that act like clans or teams. They will have magers, rangers, meleers that teams/clans can fight similar to fighting any other team. Potential pvp armor/wep drops scaled based on their combat. Regular drop table consists of what you’d expect from killing any regular geared PKer: D hides, mystic sets, d scim, rune items, etc. Have them rotate locations in random order at random times (to mimic a clan). Have them cast teleblock. Vary combat levels and numbers that spawn. Limit these to themed worlds (ie make new themed worlds for roving renegades). The roving location on a random timer will make it incredibly difficult for clans to lock down locations. And with the access to pvp weps and armors, the spots will be highly contested. Most of the mechanics this will need already exist in game (Roving Elves, MA2 demons for tb/freeze, etc). Treat combat like them the same as combat with a player, attacking them will skull you.
46Themed worlds for 60% protect prayers, if you decide to add them. This will allow for those players who want to have the increased skill to compete against each other. I don’t imagine these will be popular at all, but it’s an option for the future if there’s interest.
47Themed worlds for PJ timer. Quite a few people (B0aty, Amenity, etc) have asked for more worlds to have the BH world PJ timer. While I agree that it would help promote 1v1 fights for those wishing to engage that way, it would also promote the hell out of ragging. Currently in BH world, if a pure ventures deep enough wildy, they can get camped by med levels or mains with absolutely no counter play. There’s nothing you can do to box them off. This completely defeats the ability for lower combat accounts to defend themselves against higher combat accounts. Yes, that’s the wilderness and I’m fine with that, but the people wanting the PJ timer should understand that it’s a consequence of the timer.
48Remove loot bag timer for PvP worlds. Abyss mentioned this in his recent review video. Removing the timer promotes use of pvp worlds for all activities, making the worlds useful for hunting all over the map like they used to be rather than camping 2 banks like now. Many think this would be great to boost some activity in PvP worlds as literally any PvM or skilling spot would be a viable spot to PK on the entire map.
49Actual statement addressing misuse of ahk and clients in pvp. Seriously harming the integrity of pvp allowing people to quite literally macro in PvP. Auto gear switching, auto prayer switching, auto combo eating, safe spot tile locators, etc. It’s a rampant problem and needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
50Put a cooldown timer on the POH pools when entering wilderness. Currently insanely overpowered for teams and would allow the removal of the spec+tab blocking mechanic (which many have complained about as well). Only do this if you remove spec trade timer, as adding it without would only further damage single teams.
51Buff the hell out of the wilderness boss drop tables. The wilderness slayer keys won’t count for this, either. The risk involved with most of them doesn’t really add up with the profit you receive. I understand this may be a hot topic considering the ability to safe spot many of the bosses, but that can be addressed as well. Perhaps a log out timer if attacking a boss since if you were fighting it legit, you wouldn’t be able to log to escape pkers. Also consider adding a multiplier to the drop tables similar to revs for skulling while killing them.
52If you decide to add PvP weps/armors to the main game, there needs to be some tweaks. First, all of them need to be degradable. This is a must to ensure they keep value and to balance their power. A simple (not sure how easy to implement) solution for this would be to have them charged with coins. The items would store charges based on the coins inserted (up to a max) and lose the value based on damage dealt or taken. Upon death, only drop 75% of the remaining value of the item in coins. Do not drop the PvP item. This will provide a great gold sink and keep the items at value, which will promote activity at whatever source they come from. Also, add corrupt versions. The corrupt versions were amazing for limited account builds and would go a long way to regenerate those accounts being used in PvP. Additionally, the corrupt versions came with F2p Dragon weapons which were quite popular for F2P Pking. These would retain the same stats, but degrade much faster. The armors would require 20 defence, but the weapons would remain the 78 stat requirement. The corrupt weapons would have no special attack.
53The last major idea I’ve seen is re-introducing the EP system. This is good and bad for many reasons, but I believe can be quite effectively added to the game. Prior to EoC, the most popular time in PvP history was during the EP system era. For obvious reasons, as well. The system provided incredible gp/hr and gave bonuses for killing your target, having lots of “Death potential”, and spending time in PvP to boost your “Earned potential”. All of the same mechanics can be re-released with a few exceptions. First, with free trade being around, do not make all loot dropped randomized. The risked gear is fine to be dropped as it would after a normal kill. Second, only add the emblems (similar to rev monster drops) to the rolled drop table. Will still generate good profit for kills (especially for pures) and won’t come with any of the economy breaking stuff like before with DFS/DFH, etc. Third, prevent 76king. Do not allow coins to count towards the required risk needed in order to be eligible for a roll on the emblem drop table. To prevent players from also using junk items at alch value (ie 8 noted rune meds), add a minimum damage counter and/or timer before the rolls are eligible. This last addition will help prevent rushing, help prevent people rushing specs at the beginning of a fight, and greatly reduce the ability to manipulate the system for pure profit over actually using the system for engaging in fights. Any similar mechanic to produce the same results is fine as well, this was just an idea. Point being, something needs to be in place to prevent 76king as it was terrible for the economy.
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55I’d like to close with an important note. While it’s very clear many people were quite upset with this blog (too little too late, and so on) I want to point out how awesome it is to see the team not only taking an interest in PvP, but actively pursuing updates and changes. Please bear with the PvP player base, we’ve been neglected.
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57Thanks for reading.