Yesterday, speculation about Yama’s ‘Contract’ system hit an all-time high. We wanted to clear some bits up ahead of release to make sure everybody’s on the same page and understands exactly what these are and what they’re for!What follows is a section from next Wednesday’s blog, there may be some changes between now and then, but we think this covers most of the important bases!
Additionally, sharing this info now gives us the opportunity to answer any lingering questions you might have in next week’s Game Update blog, so we’re happy to hear what you’ve got to say and will aim to address what we can as Yama releases on Wednesday, May 14th!
What are they?
Contracts are tradeable agreements that you can bring to Yama, sign on the dotted line and he’ll show you a little more of his power in a more challenging fight, with some kind of guaranteed reward up for grabs if you prove successful. This means that upon obtaining a Contract, you’ll have to weigh up whether or not you think you can beat it in a single attempt, or play it safe and sell it to another player instead.
To be clear, Yama in his base form is the ‘intended’ experience and is how the overwhelming majority of players will engage with the boss for most of the time they spend engaging with it. Contracts are an added layer of spice on top for players wanting to push themselves, but the encounter, its rewards and ‘time to complete’ are all built off of the base experience first and foremost.
There are at least seven bespoke Contracts at the moment. Yama will show off more of his power regardless of what Contract you’ve signed, but each bespoke Contract should change the way that you approach the fight fundamentally, and each of them offers a different reward. This reward is fixed for each Contract and you’ll know what’s at stake before the fight even starts, meaning ‘complete this version of the fight, and you’ll walk away with this’, they are not a ‘make the fight slightly harder and uniques slightly more common’ kind of system.
The kicker with Contracts is that you’ll have to take Yama down by yourself. This means no getting a friend to carry you, but more importantly we wanted to steer clear of figuring out how to handle two players with the same Contract – do they do the fight once and get a reward each? Do they have to do the fight twice and risk falling out if one of them underperforms in one of the fights? Does it feel good that Irons need to get a specific Contract to tackle stuff with their non-Iron pals?
We think this is the easiest path forward to avoid friends potentially having averse interactions with each other while fighting what’s supposed to be a fun boss! Perhaps we’re wrong on this and we’re open to adjustments once people have had time to get to grips with them, but for now we reckon this is the most sensible approach.
With Wednesday’s release, you’ll be able to obtain Contracts and see what the rewards are, but Yama has jumbled his terms illegibly – they’ll be revealed when Contracts are turned on. We’re aiming to enable Contracts fully next Friday, May 23rd, giving us time to fix any issues or bugs with the core Yama fight, and allow players time to stock up on them in advance so that any competitions for a World First aren’t reliant on getting lucky and being one of the first players with a specific Contract. The added benefit here is that you get Friday and the whole weekend to grind or watch the chaos unfold for yourself, and some time to get to grips with the core mechanics of the fight – similar to the late activation of Awakened variants for the Desert Treasure II bosses.
How do I get them?
You’ll obtain a good number of Contracts from Yama himself, we expect that you’ll passively accumulate a nice stash of them on your way to ticking off those Collection Log slots. Alternatively, you can target-farm certain Contracts with a lower intensity method if you’re willing to help Yama out.
His demons have gotten lazy and could do with being kept on their toes – chat to Yama and learn a little more about exactly how you can help him out. The long and short of it is that by killing demons in the Chasm of Fire in specific ways, you’ll have a chance at getting a Contract as a drop. To keep you on the right track, Yama will display a glyph that indicates how he’d like you to dispatch of his slackers – perhaps as simple as ‘kill it with Magic’ or ‘kill it while bound’, more active methods of dealing with them result in better odds at Contract drops.
This ‘target farm’ method is there for you if you’re looking to chill out and stack up some Contracts for yourself, or if you’ve used up all of your stash from Yama himself and still need a couple of attempts, though it’s worth noting that some contracts (particularly those with guaranteed, tradeable rewards) can only be obtained from Yama and won’t be available from the common Chasm cannon fodder. An added benefit here is that doing a demons Slayer task in the Chasm should be more appealing for players who just want to sell Contracts on, so even if Yama is out of your reach for the time being then you’ll still be able to benefit! On top of this, it’s an easy lever for us to tweak and make more or less rare if the balance feels off – so we’ll be keeping a close eye on the volume of these entering the game, their price, and the ‘feel’ for Irons.
One thing we will share is that the Contracts for the cosmetic upgrade variant of Oathplate armour, Radiant Oathplate, can be obtained from these demons. We expect this means they’ll be in greater supply than Awakener’s Orbs and that trying your hand at these contracts shouldn’t break the bank like the chase for Sanguine Torva, while also being a much more ‘chill’ farm for Irons than spending hundreds of hours taking on bosses for any meaningful number of attempts.
This system does share some similarities to the Awakener Orb system, but differ in a number of ways. Contracts for cosmetics are target-farmable and will likely end up much cheaper than Orbs, while rarer Contracts will guarantee some kind of tradeable reward that will make them more than worth the initial cost, meaning it doesn’t feel like a waste to keep coming back.
We’re really excited to see you pushed to your limits by some of these and can’t wait to see the kinds of off-the-wall setups and techniques you come up with to sit Yama back down in his big throne. Even if you’re not sure that Contracts are for you, make sure to check out the Old School RuneScape category on Twitch or Kick once they’re activated, it’s bound to be some of the best streamed content this year!
Mods Abe, Abyss, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, BigRig, Blossom, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Criminal, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Donkey, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Entropi, Errol, Freddie, Fuzz, Gecko, Gengis, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Ivory, Jalo, Jamesy, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Leebleh, Lenny, Light, Liron, Lykos, Ludo, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Mobius, Moogle, Morty, Moz, Necro, Nin, Nox, Nylu, Ori, Other, Philomel, Pork, Pumpkin, Puppi, Rach, Redfield, Rice, Roq, Roy, Ry, Saiyan, Sarnie, Schmidt, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Squid, Starry, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titania, Titus, TJ, Tomb, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Yume
The Old School Team.
