Thieving Rebalance: High-Level Pickpocketing Update
On Monday, we released changes as part of the Thieving rebalance, and since then, we’ve been closely reviewing your feedback, particularly around high-level pickpocketing.
While the intent behind the update was to improve early Thieving levels, long-term progression and create a clearer identity across the skill, it’s clear from your responses that parts of the experience haven’t landed as well as they should have from a gameplay and enjoyment perspective.
Rebalancing is important for the health of RuneScape, but it should never come at the expense of fun or player trust. This blog brings together what we’ve heard so far, where we think the main issues sit, and how we’re responding. This is in both changes that will come later this week, and broader lessons we're taking going forward.
A consistent theme in player feedback, both before and after release, was that high-level pickpocketing now feels more unpredictable than intended, particularly for players who engage with it as a more laid-back way to train Thieving.
While balance considerations such as XP and GP are important, the moment-to-moment experience matters just as much. Endgame unlocks, buffs, and higher skill levels should feel meaningful, and when they don’t, it’s a clear signal that we need to reassess our approach. That feedback has been central in shaping the immediate changes we’re making, and it’s also informing how we think about skill balance, player expectations, and intensity versus reward across the game going forward.
Going through the feedback thread, four specific points came up repeatedly:
- Pickpocketing feels random rather than intentionally risky
- AFK play is interrupted without a clear warning or consistency
- Higher levels, gear, and buffs do not feel meaningfully rewarding
- It's unclear how the success chance scales with level or setup
What we mean by predictable AFK
When we talk about making AFK pickpocketing more predictable, we don’t mean removing all risk or turning it into something you can ignore indefinitely. What we mean is giving players a clear, reliable window of safe pickpocketing, followed by risk that is readable and signposted, rather than sudden or surprising.
With the changes we’re making, high-level pickpocketing will offer a guaranteed period where failure cannot occur, followed by a more gradual and visible increase in risk. This should result in AFK sessions that are meaningfully longer and more consistent than they are today, with baseline AFK times moving closer to the 4–6 minute range and aligning more naturally with buffs like Crystal Mask. For players who invest further into levels, gear, and additional boosts, that window can be extended even further.
The goal here is to move pickpocketing away from a frustrating “semi-AFK” experience, where you feel forced to constantly watch the screen, and back toward something that feels deliberate and manageable. You should be able to understand when you’re safe, recognise when risk is increasing, and decide how to respond, whether that’s refreshing buffs, switching targets, or continuing on.
Based on that feedback, our immediate focus is on improving predictability and restoring confidence in high-level pickpocketing. The changes below are aimed at making the system clearer, more readable, and more rewarding as your level, buffs, and setup improve.
Proposed Changes
Based on the feedback and internal review, we’re making a number of adjustments aimed at extending AFK time, slowing down failure ramp-up, and making progression and buffs feel more impactful.
At a high level, these changes will:
- Significantly extend the guaranteed safe period before any chance of failure begins, roughly doubling to 2.5x the current baseline depending on levels and buffs.
- Slow down how quickly failure chance increases once it does apply
- Bring baseline AFK times closer to the 4–6 minute range with fewer boosts, aligning more naturally with Crystal Mask’s duration
- Increase the impact of levels, gear, and buffs so that further investment meaningfully extends AFK time
As an example, at higher levels and with appropriate buffs applied, players should be able to reach AFK durations that feel much closer to what many of you described as reasonable and expected for high-level pickpocketing.
We’re also making targeted fixes around specific systems:
- Adjusting the Sticky Fingers Archaeology relic so it no longer causes players to fail significantly faster under the new mechanics.
- Adding clearer in-game messaging when an NPC becomes suspicious, with the aim of making rising risk more visible and understandable.
- The suspicious state means there is now a chance of failure with continued pickpocketing. You'll need to click a different target not to get caught. The chance of being caught if you remain on the same NPC without clicking will begin to increase over time once suspicious.
- Investigating additional messaging as risk increases, to further improve readability.
- When refreshing the Crystal Mask buff, the pickpocket counter will now reset when re-engaging the same NPC. This reduces friction when refreshing or managing longer sessions.
These changes are designed to support predictable AFK gameplay rather than undermine it.
Alongside these mechanical changes, we’ll be using this blog to clearly talk through any XP and GP adjustments and how they support these changes rather than undercut them. Where rates change, we want to be transparent about why those changes are happening and how they support a healthier balance between AFK and more active Thieving methods.
These updates are intended to move pickpocketing away from a frustrating “semi-AFK” space and back toward something that feels predictable, readable, and rewarding at high levels. We’ll be watching closely once these changes go live and will continue to adjust if needed.
Explaining Thieving Mechanics
When starting to Pickpocket an NPC at any level, you'll start with a base 75% success rate, or in other words chance of not being caught. As you level up, your success rate increases by 1% each level until you reach 100%. You can go above 100%, which helps prolong the time you remain undetected.
Additionally, most pickpocketing targets have an extra "10-level boost" for your next 10 pickpockets, after which your success chance will drop by 0.33% with each additional pickpocket until you either fail or switch targets. At this point, the success rate will once again reset.
Additional buffs, such as the Exo-Skeleton outfit, Crystal Mask, or Magpie familiar will give you invisible level boosts on top of this which increases your success chance at your level.
For example:
- At level 90 Thieving you unlock Dwarf Traders with a base 75% success rate.
- As you level up, this increases, reaching 100% at level 115 Thieving under normal conditions. In practice, this threshold is reached earlier due to the temporary level boost applied when pickpocketing a newly unlocked target.
- At level 102, Thieving you unlock Goebie Scavengers with a 75% success rate. This will increase to 93% when you reach level 120 Thieving, and 100% at level 127 (level 120 + buffs)
With the release of the update on Monday, the success chance would drop by 1% for each additional pickpocket. We'll be changing this to drop by 0.33% for each additional pickpocket instead.
Specifics of Changes
Failure Rate Adjustments
To get Pickpocketing back to a reasonable window of AFK before being caught by targets, we've reduced the threshold for being caught, as well as how much each consecutive pickpocket increases the chance of being caught. With these changes there will be a longer period for Pickpocketing before a target becomes suspicious. These changes also increase the usefulness of each buff by adding a significant amount of time before being caught.
Let's cover some examples. We'll use Elves, Menaphos Market Guards (unlocked at level 104 but with an example of a player of level 118 Thieving), and Fairy Traders.
Before looking at the example below, it's worth calling out that these baseline AFK times reflect the experience at or around the point at which a target is unlocked. As you over-level a target, your guaranteed AFK window increases, and buffs then extend that further on top. Longer AFK sessions are something you earn through progression and setup, not something that is fully available at unlock.
The following times are the base AFK time before an NPC starts becoming suspicious. Players will continue to pickpocketing beyond this time until they get caught.
| Method | Elf (At lvl 85 Thieving) Approx. AFK Time (Mins) |
Elf (At lvl 120 Thieving) Approx. AFK Time (Mins) |
Menaphos Market Guards (At lvl 104 Thieving) Approx. AFK Time (Mins) |
Menaphos Market Guards (At lvl 118 Thieving) Approx. AFK Time (Mins) |
Fairy Traders (At lvl 113 Thieving) Approx. AFK Time (Mins) |
Fairy Traders (At lvl 120 Thieving) Approx. AFK Time (Mins) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline, no buffs used | 0:27 | 4:37 | 0:52 | 2:47 | 0:52 | 1:42 |
| + Crystal Mask | 2:13 | 6:25 | 2:40 | 4:35 | 2:40 | 3:30 |
| + Light Form | 4:01 | 8:13 | 4:28 | 6:23 | 4:28 | 5:18 |
| + Ardougne Cloak | 5:13 | 9:25 | 5:40 | 7:35 | 5:40 | 6:30 |
| + Legendary Five-finger Discount | 7:01 | 11:13 | 7:28 | 9:23 | 7:28 | 8:18 |
Note that the above examples don't include additional buffs such as the Camouflage outfit, Ring of Vitur, or Magpie which can further boost the amount of time spent AFK.
Sticky Fingers Relic
The 'Sticky Fingers' relic's effect increases the rate of auto-pickpocketing by 50%, while also reducing XP by 33%. In the new Thieving system which increases the chance to get caught with each pickpocket, this means that you would actually fail faster, causing the relic to be more harmful than helpful.
We're adding an adjustment to this relic to further reduce how much each consecutive pickpocket increases your chance to get caught. This means that you will still get caught faster at the trade off for slightly more XP, but nowhere near as much as you currently do.
Messaging for being Caught
We'll be adding in-game messages for when your target becomes suspicious and when you're close to being caught. When you hit the threshold for being caught, you'll receive a message to tell you that the target is aware of your presence, signifying that you now have a chance of being caught and stunned, allowing you to know when to re-target NPCs to another NPC and continue pickpocketing or reapply Crystal Mask, for example.
Re-engaging NPCs
Currently, when you reapply the Crystal Mask spell while pickpocketing an NPC, your catch counter does not get reset. We'll be changing this so that if you reapply Crystal Mask mid-pickpocketing an NPC, your catch counter will get reset, meaning you won't need to click on another NPC again.
In the future we will investigate making this work if you re-click an NPC even without using Crystal Mask.
XP and Loot
One of our goals with the Road to Restoration is to better position different methods within each skill in terms of balancing against Activity Vs. GP Vs. XP.
With low activity methods we'd normally want them to give less XP and or GP.
With high activity methods we'd normally want them to give more XP and or GP.
This won't be an exact science each time and can differ based on the skill and its identity, and traditional rates for that skill.
Currently for Thieving this is how all the methods compare to each other for Activity Vs. GP vs. XP:
As a result of maintaining the AFK-ability of pickpocketing, we will be looking at reducing some of the XP and GP.
Our current intention is to reduce the XP of pickpocketing to around 70% of it's current rates, and the loot from pickpocketing to 70% of current rates too.
We will also revisit these changes in the Mid or Late Game Rebalance updates if we find further reductions are necessary for maintaining a healthy balance across methods.
Proposed Release Cadence
To ensure we get this update into the game as soon as possible, we currently intend to release this update in two parts.
- AFK & XP Rebalance: Targeting this week to address AFK feedback along with initial XP rebalancing
- Profitability Rebalance: An initial profitability rebalance will take place as soon as possible after this
Our Tenets for Future Skill Changes & Releases
Before we close out, we wanted to share some of the key tenets we will be using for future design decisions for skilling changes in the Road to Restoration and skilling content going forward.
While these tenets are a natural part of our general approach to design, a redefined direction for RuneScape means we should have these tenets as the basis for every decision we make. This will help avoid design conflicts like those we introduced yesterday, while also giving a shared basis of conversation between us and you. You are a huge part of this journey, so we felt it was only fitting to share these with you today.
Meaningful Variety Within Skills
Skills should offer a range of activities/methods, including both high intensity (lean forward) and low intensity (AFK) options
Balanced Trade-Offs
Activities should be appropriately balanced across intensity/effort, XP rates and GP/rewards, ensuring that there's clear trade-offs between intensity, efficiency and profitability
Predictable AFK Gameplay
AFK activities should be consistent and predictable, allowing players to reliably understand when interaction may be required or rewarded
Progression Amplifies Power
Level ups and unlocks should meaningfully increase your proficiency within activities.
Distinct Skill Identities
Skills should feel different, and what works for one skill may not necessarily apply to another
We'll dive into these in more detail in the future to better convey the philosophies that drive our decision making and to bring you on this journey with a shared understanding.
Before we close out, we just want to say a last thank you to everyone who took the time to write up some awesomely detailed feedback yesterday. As we set RuneScape on the right path, we'll likely encounter a few missteps along the way. Your feedback has helped us focus on the flaws in our original approach, and we hope the upcoming changes feel much healthier to the Thieving experience you are looking for - while also ensuring balanced trade-offs between Thieving activities at the top end of the skill.
Do let us know how you feel about these proposed changes as we work on delivering a first pass of changes for this week.