13 May 2019
The State of PvP Blog
In March 2019, we addressed your concerns regarding the state of PvP. Strengthening PvP and competitive gaming is a key priority of ours. This blog will give you an insight into our plans for PvP including content changes, events, and future poll questions.Content Changes
Changelog:
- Added Bulwark Rework in the “To Be Discussed” section
- Added Imbued Capes and Other Untradeables in the “To Be Discussed” section
- Added a GP value of Gmaul drop with special attachment on PvP Death
- Removed Overhead Prayers from the “To Be Discussed” section
- Specified Wilderness chests for Wilderness Slayer Keys
- Moved Zammy Wine Spawn from “To Be Discussed” section to “To Be Polled” section
- Added poll questions for all “To Be Polled” changes
We are frequently asked to place less focus on new content and instead concentrate on fixing PvP. With our recent PvP cabal in April, we asked members to prioritise a list of changes they want made to help fix PvP. Though the changes below may seem small, we want to ensure we start off with a good foundation for PvP before we introduce any big changes to the PvP meta. We also want to continue to do PvP cabals with various members of the community including ex-pvpers, clan pvpers, and solo pvpers. This will allow us to continue making changes to PvP in the foreseeable future. Below is a list of suggested changes for PvP that will fall under the “Integrity Changes”, “To Be Polled”, or “To Be Discussed” sections.
Click here for proposed PvP Integrity Changes.This section displays changes we plan to make without polling. These are classified as integrity changes as they combat rule-breaking or change elements of gameplay that are considered unfair or counterproductive to the game’s long-term health.
Increase GP drop when a Max Cape is PK’d
The current GP dropped when a person with a Max Cape is PK’d is very minimal (11,880 in deep wilderness and 0 when not) despite the cost of the cape being worth over 2.2m. The proposed change is to increase the GP of the max cape when PK’d to be more in line with the value of it regardless of the level of wilderness the player is in upon death. This change will be 25% of the Max Cape’s purchase value.
Allow players to use a Looting Bag in PvP Worlds
Looting Bags are currently unusable in a PvP world. To allow players to use it, we will have to set restrictions for it to not be abused. We can allow Looting Bags to be used in PvP Worlds under the following conditions: a player is in the PvP world for a set amount of time and the Looting Bag is only used in specific hotspots such as Camelot, Lumbridge, Varrock, and Edgeville.
Imp Box changes in PvP areas
In order to minimise item loss and risk, players currently use Imp Boxes to quickly bank all valuables before they are PK’d on both a PvP world and in the Wilderness. The proposed change is to not allow Imp Boxes to be used in PvP areas as this takes away the risk involved.
Allow T10 Emblems to be tradeable
Currently only the T1 Emblems are tradeable via the Grand Exchange or Player Trading. To allow for future modifications of the BH shop, track gold farming easily, and reduce RWTing through trust trading emblem chats we will make T10 emblems tradeable.
The picture above is an example of the chatbox changes for the teleblock spell and is subject to change.
Chatbox message when teleblock timer runs out
When a player has been teleblocked there currently isn’t a way to tell them when their teleblock timer has run out. The proposed change is to make a chat box message, similar to when potion effects run out, to let the player know when they are able to teleport again.
W45 DMM New Player Changes
New players who join W45 for the first time are at a disadvantage over the veteran players that have been playing since release. In order to aid in the new player experience of W45 we propose the following changes:
- Protection Timer Changes: New players will be given a 12-hour protection timer instead of 6. This is to allow them to catch up to the permanent active accounts.
- Quest Unlocks: New players will unlock the following quests and their pre-requisites: Dragon Slayer, Animal Magnetism, and Monkey Madness.
- Defender Rate Change: The defender rate drop chance will be changed from 1/50 to 1/25. The dragon defender’s rate will be changed from 1/100 to 1/50.
HP orb to show your poison/venom status in the background
When you are low on health, the HP orb by the minimap does not show your health. This can make it hard to see if you are poisoned. We plan to recolour the background of your HP minimap to indicate poison/venom.
The first image is the current health bar and the second image is the proposed health bar representing colourblind changes.
Colour-blind shade changes for player health bars and mini-map dots
This will allow colour-blind players to see player health bars and mini-map dots more easily.
Make teleblock spell F2P
To encourage more people to try out PKing in F2P we want to allow them to access the teleblock spell as it is a key component in PKing as such, the spell will become F2P.
Remove Clan Wars, Duel Arena, and NMZ Unskulling
Players currently go in and out of Clan Wars, Duel Arena, and NMZ to get unskulled. This change will stop the removal of the skull when entering and leaving those minigames.
Click here for proposed PvP To Be Polled Changes.This section displays changes we plan to make if it passes a poll. These are changes that were suggested from the players that have an impact on PvP as a whole. Please give us feedback on these changes before write up a poll blog so we can ensure we are giving you all the updates you want.
Wilderness Slayer Keys
Similar to Konar slayer, when doing Wilderness slayer tasks you will have a chance at getting a key that will allow you to open one of two chests located somewhere in the wilderness for loot. There will be one chest in low level wilderness that will have similar loot to Brimstone chests, and a second one in the deep wilderness that has a better loot chance.
Poll Question #1
Should Wilderness Slayer tasks give you a chance at getting a key, similar to Konar slayer, that will allow you to open one of two chests located in the Wilderness for loot?
The pictures above are examples of the Clan Wars interface with added options and subject to change
Additional Clan Wars set-up options
We would like to include more options to the Clan Wars set up interface. Below are some options we would like to add:
- Leaving a CC: Currently, you are able to set up a fight as “first to 25 kills”, but if someone is getting attacked by other players and almost dead, they can simply leave the CC and it doesn’t count as a kill for the enemy team. We would like to create an option for leaving a CC during the game which would include “counts as a death” or “does not count”.
- Rejoining a CC: If clans wanted to do larger scale wars that mimicked wilderness fights, having a time delay before you could rejoin could balance this out instead of being able to go right back in immediately. We would like to create an option for rejoining a CC during the game which would include “no limits” or “60 second limit”.
- Player Capping: Currently, clans can go in and agree to “matched ops” and they will cap the numbers at a set amount. There is a current issue called “flooding” where one team will cheat and bring extra people in after a fight has already started. We would like to create an option for capping the number of players in a game which would include “Unlimited”, “10v10”, “15v15″, 20v20”, and “30v30”.
Poll Question #2
Should we have additional Clan Wars set-up options, as described in the blog? These will include options for leaving a CC, rejoining a CC, and Player Capping.
If a player is teleblocked, when the teleblocker dies, the player’s teleblock timer will be lifted allowing them to teleport freely without having to wait out the timer.
Poll Question #3
Should we clear a player’s teleblock timer when the teleblocker dies as described in the blog?
Toggleable K/D ratio display on HUD in PvP Worlds
Similar to how we display the Kill/Death ratio in the Wilderness or BH we want to allow a toggle option to display your K/D ratio on HUD in PvP Worlds.
Poll Question #4
Should we have a toggleable Kill/Death ratio displayed on the HUD in PvP worlds, similar to how we display it in the Wilderness and BH?
New Wine of Zamorak Spawn in Deep Wildy
Currently, competing for Zamorak Wines is difficult with the limited spawn points. This change would be an additional Wine of Zamorak spawn that will have a faster respawn rate than the one located in the Chaos Temple. In order to counter-act the faster respawn rates, this spawn will be in the deep wilderness.
Poll Question #5
Should we add a new Wine of Zamorak spawn in the deep wilderness that has a slightly faster respawn rate than the others, as described in the blog?
Click here for proposed PvP To Be Discussed Changes.Last Man Standing
Mod Roq with the help of Mod Maz, have been toiling away and redeveloping Last Man Standing (LMS) into a different type of minigame that focuses on a style of PvP more likely to be seen across the game. This section will go over proposed changes to the minigame.
When Last Man Standing arrived in August 2016, it arrived with a lot of hype but ended up with a mixed reception. Contrary to our expectations, the minigame only peaked when high stakes weekends were run to attract the top tier players. In addition, with no real rewards for playing there was little reason for PvPers to play. In short, although a PvP minigame is definitely needed, Last Man Standing didn’t end up being the minigame players wanted.
Behind the link, we address some of the biggest issues and show you how we intent to improve on them in the initial iteration of the new Last Man Standing minigame. We will detail how the first live playtest will look and function and how we will process the feedback from it. Everyone has their own ideas about what gear should be used, what loot there should be, and how the mechanics should work. We plan to use live-testing and feedback to direct the minigame into the best possible position.
Click here for proposed LMS Changes.
Starting Equipment
Initially when you started the game, you were handed a single basic weapon that didn’t exist in the real game other than that it was a recolour of the Toktz-Mej-Tal. From here you had to loot chests, cupboards and drawers to get better equipment in an RNG fashion. While this gave the very Battle Royale feel that the design of the minigame was looking to provide, it didn’t really help players when it came to sentiment as they were forced to rely on a lot of RNG rather than using some of their skill.
With this we have changed the starting setup into a full tribrid set of actual items used regularly by PvPers. This removes the focus on looting and directs players towards combat as to be described in the next segment of this blog.
Looting
A large part of LMS in its current iteration is involved around racing off to loot chests, drawers and cupboards and relying on the RNG involved to get something useful. This often-frustrated you as it made it feel like your skill didn’t have as much of an impact as it would in regular PvP. Within this new version looting has been removed due to the initial starting equipment. The way you can upgrade your gear is by killing other players and taking the Bloody or Bloodier Key rewarded from a kill.
The key system itself hasn’t changed; when you kill a player and there is more than five remaining, you will acquire a Bloody Key. If there is five or less players, you will receive a bloodier key. Simply take these keys to any chest on the map and you will receive the loot. Due to the looting being removed, the loot received from these keys however has changed. All keys give one roll on the offensive item table, and one roll on the defensive item table. Bloodier keys have access to more powerful offensive weaponry. This is to help incentivise killing players as opposed to waiting out hoping others die.
Prayer
One of the most common complaints we saw when it came to feedback on Last Man Standing is that the combat was centered a lot around turning prayers off and on due to the limited amount of prayer. This really isn’t a common mechanic across the rest of PvP so we decided to switch it up and make it more about making sure you have the right prayers on at the right time.
Previously you started with 10 prayer points and had to purchase prayer doses from stores with any tokens you had acquired throughout the game. Now, Prayer is unlimited and there are no prayer potions. Allowing novice players to hold a single prayer up while being more effective in their gear switching, and more experienced players to get more used to predicting their opponents combat style with prayer switching on top of the gear switching. As a result, the ability to use Smite against players has been removed. The likes of Rapid Heal, Rapid Restore, Redemption and Retribution are still not able to be used within Last Man Standing nothing has changed in that respect.
Other Changes
- Starting defence level has been increase from 70 to 75.
- The stat restore timer has been reactivated however it will count down or up until 75 defence.
- Every player always has the Ancients spell book active.
- Dropped equipment will appear to all players immediately, dropped supplies will never appear for other players.
- Loot Crates still exist however they now roll on the same offensive table as the bloodier key.
- Shops that exist for players to buy and sell various items during the game has been removed.
- Similar to the method used between 1v1 stages during Deadman’s Permadeath event, upon a successful kill, all potions and food in the killer’s inventory are replenished to the equivalent of what they started the game with.
Rewards
With any minigame comes rewards. Last Man Standing has never had any form of a rewards shop. This is where we’d like to get you involved about what could go in it. Whether that’s cosmetics or new items for certain PvP brackets (this is a PvP minigame after all). Alongside the rewards, there needs to be a method of how you earn them, such as tickets for top 5 finishes, or points based on where you placed in the round.
Release Plans
As the design above would have to go through polling like any other content (with rewards to be polled separately), we would like to outline our idea on how we would see the changes coming into the main game.
Firstly, a tournament world will be opened with the new design in place for people to try out and provide feedback on. This would require turning off access to LMS in the regular game from feedback stage to release. Turning off regular LMS should not be a problem as due to the low amount of participants and the opening of a beta world. However, we would move the music track that is obtained from LMS to be unlocked at the entrance to avoid you from not your music track unlocks. After feedback has been processed and any changes made, a second version of Last Man Standing will go into the tournament worlds. If no further changes are necessary, then the content will go to poll and come into game once passed.
During this time, discussions on rewards and how they should be obtained will be ongoing and would likely be polled and released after the new version of LMS has come into the game. Depending on the rewards and how they’re unlocked, it may be possible to add tracking in before the reward shop release so any players who have played the minigame before the release do not feel like they have wasted time.
Feedback
Your feedback is invaluable. Please make sure you get involved in all the Last Man Standing discussions. You can follow and discuss these changes directly with Mod Roq at @JagexRoq on Twitter or feel free drop us an email with the subject “LMS” at [email protected], use the community-led 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.
Deadman and Competitive Gaming
Deadman Spring Finals Re-Run
The final 256 players from the Spring Finals Tournament that took place on the 30th of March 2019 will be re-invited to compete in a re-run. We’d like to thank you for your patience, and we’re now able to announce that the date of this re-run is 14th of June 2019. There’ll be two open beta tests ahead of the re-run. The provisional dates for these tests are the 24th of May and the 7th of June. There’ll also be a trial login on the 3rd of June, this is specifically for the 256 players we’ll be inviting to the re-run. This will be an opportunity for us to test that the steps we’ve taken to restore your game saves are correct, and that your accounts will be as you expect. Please look out for more information in your in-game message centre in the coming weeks. Future news posts will also talk about the re-run finals start time and the beta test date.
Deadman Summer Finals
The weeklong Summer Finals will begin on the 22nd of June. Competitors will have one week to prepare, and it will conclude with the Permadeath stage on the 29th of June 2019. In early June we will send inbox messages to all that have qualified regarding finalised times of the tournament and finals.
Future of Competitive Gaming
Competitive gaming events help grow the community through Marketing and Influencer Livestreams. We want to work closer with you to determine what you want from competitive gaming events. Whether it be something as small as a community initiative PvP Bingo Event/PvP Clan Cup, to an entire overhaul of a new competitive gaming mode, we want you to feel like you are being heard. We started our first cabal in April by outlining community ideas like a Deadman Revival and a Territory Wars event and we want to continue to gather new and innovative ideas to make an event the community enjoys playing and watching.
You can email your new competitive gaming mode ideas at [email protected] with the subject “Competitive Gaming”, or discuss in the community-led 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #old-school channel.
Bounty Hunter Rework
Two years ago, a Bounty Hunter Rework was mentioned at RuneFest. We promised big changes but then made little progress on those changes, and failed to communicate this to our audience of dedicated Bounty Hunter players. It is time we made a start on delivering some Bounty Hunter changes.
Mod Gambit has now taken on the Bounty Hunter Rework discussions and planning. We would like to involve as many people from the Bounty Hunter community as possible to work together on integrity changes, major content changes and a new Bounty Hunter system. We will start by inviting some top Bounty Hunter players to an open design discussion, covering the current issues and potential solutions. From there, the design will be pitched to you all in a future design blog to ensure we are on the right track. The final plan is to release a poll blog based on your feedback from the design blog.
We want you to help us make the right decisions to fix the root of the issues relating to Bounty Hunter, not just band aid the problem. This will not be an easy task with simple fixes. We want to get it right, and that will take time. We appreciate the dedication and passion of our player-base and we look forward to seeing your design and ideas around Bounty Hunter.
While we await a dedicated Bounty Hunter Design blog, here are some small changes we would like to make to Bounty Hunter:
Leader board: This leader board will allow players to see who has the top BH kills that day or most emblems farmed. The leader board will reset around midnight game time.Disable Box Traps, Fires, Bird Snares, and Cannons from being set up in BH Worlds (1-10 Wilderness): When on a BH world in levels 1-10 of the Wilderness it will no longer be possible to set up Box Traps, Bird Snares, and Cannons. This is to prevent disruptive behaviour within BH. Should this be successful, we can look to extend this change to every world to improve PvP across the board.Cosmetic Reward Shop Additions: As the rune pouch can now be obtained via Slayer, there aren’t any unique rewards for participating in BH. We want to create some unique cosmetics such as a hat or cape to signify elite status within BH and encourage more players to participate. These are just suggestions and we are open to more feedback from you about rewards to include in this potential shop.
Discuss this announcement on our official forums, the community-led 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For reference on the above content, check out the official Wiki.
Mods Acorn, Archie, Ash, Bruno, Curse, Ed, Gambit, Ghost, Gee, Husky, John C, Kieren, Lenny, Lottie, Mat K, Maz, Nasty, Roq, Ry, Sween, Tide, Weath, West & Wolf
The Old School Team