News

Question #1:

Wildy Boss Rework news? It wasn’t mentioned in the Gazette and has been delayed. Do you have any updates on this?

Mod Sarnie

With Mod Ayiza out, he’s said for me to put a message in here that says we have a design, and development is due to begin once the PvP Arena has launched fully - we're still intending for this to be complete this year. But we'll know more once we get to the stage of blogging and polling.

Question #2:

As someone who hasn't been involved in any kind of PvP in OSRS, do you think I should try out the PvP Arena? Does it cater to people just starting, and what incentives are there for me to try if so?

Mod Kirby

The honest answer to that question - do you have any interest in doing PvP in this video game at all? If the answer to that is any form of “yes”, then I would at least try the PvP Arena!

It's completely free to enter, you don't need any gear, you don't need any stats. All you need to do is just show up and play some PvP. If you don't like it, you can at least say “I tried, I didn't like it”.

It's a reasonable starting point; we give you the gear, we give you the stats. There's no investment on your end, you just show up and play. I feel the best way to start doing stuff is just to get yourself in the deep end and doing it!

We still have the imbue scrolls, they're actually really nice to have outside of Nightmare Zone. So if you want some imbue scrolls, there’s your incentive! But even if you just think “maybe I'll enjoy PvP”, or “I haven't done it, I would at least like to confirm I hate it”, now's your opportunity!

Mod Sarnie

For those of you who don’t know, the rewards aren’t implemented yet. They’ll be there next week, so you won’t be able to get anything this week. Just bear this in mind!

Question #3:

Do Jagex have any future plans of hosting their own events/tournaments? There’s no doubt players like Oda will be hosting community-run events, but I feel monthly or maybe even weekly “official tournaments” with ladder ranks & similar flex prizes would be huge for PvP.

Mod Goblin

The short answer is “hopefully”. It's a bit of a multifaceted response. One of the things that PvP Arena does really well is that it makes it really easy for creators and grassroots organisers to actually organise, and have a spectator overlay that works, without needing to dive into something like making remote plugins, etc.

One of the easiest ways to support a thriving tournament scene is for us to properly support grassroots and community organisers, and find ways of maybe helping by promoting them on socials, maybe giving them money towards prize pools, maybe being able to give bonds away, etc.

In terms of hosting our own tournaments, it’s really just a matter of resources and the time invested. Running esports events is not easy, it takes a really long time. But it's the kind of thing I'd like to be able to do, especially if we get to a place of being able to display a ladder.

I think there were some web limitations on the way the HiScores handle numbers that move up and down, I'm not really sure, but if we ever get to that kind of a position where we could perhaps pick out the 64 best players from the last three months, it would be cool to do invitationals and things like that.

Maybe we could move a focus towards LAN events and we could perhaps avoid some of the issues that we have had. So yes, hopefully, but no promises - managing expectations!

Question #4:

Could the PvPA be more made like the WoW arenas? I want to be able to play the main game. Get a queue pop, jump in the PvP action with a maximum of a 1 min timer to make little changes to my gear/setup and then jump right in the action.

Mod Kirby

I haven't actually played any World of Warcraft beyond level 6, so I don't know anything about how their Arenas work! I'm guessing the main complaint here is the staging area times. We were defensive with these because we were slightly worried that things weren't going to work, and we wanted to make sure there was ample time for players to get into matches.

Now we're very happy that's happening, and now the main complaint is it's taking a while to start matches! Next week, we should be decreasing the amount of waiting time you will be spending in that arena.

Hopefully that addresses what this concern is aimed at, because the rest of it is already in the game. If you weren't aware, you can join the PvP Arena from anywhere you'd like! All you need to do is go to the grouping interface, press the button, join the group and wait for the match to come to you.

Question #5:

Have you thought about adding a “copy opponents gear setup” option?

Mod Kirby

Yes, but not for ranked duels. In my humble opinion, inventory management and correct gear setup are something that should be considered for your personal advancement.

I feel that having a gear advantage over your opponent is something that should count towards you winning a fight, so I'm not going to give you the opponent's gear. Also, that could probably be used for scouting!

For private 1v1s though, sure, that is something we're working on. I'm hoping we can get it for next week, but if not, it should be soon afterwards.

Question #6:

Why don’t you guys just update Bounty Hunter instead?

Mod Sarnie

I have a little snippet here from Mod Ayiza, which says “we have to bring back Bounty Hunter before we can update it!” - which is completely understandable!

But on a real note, we know there's an appetite for it and we're not ignoring it. We just have to be mindful of where it sits in the roadmap and how we can deliver an effective piece of content that's not plagued by the issues that previous Bounty Hunters suffered from.

If we are going to bring it back, we're just making sure that it makes sense and we've got the time and have the right resources to make sure that we can deliver it, hopefully right this time!

Question #7:

We ever getting noob-friendly setups/rules? Could be fun only with no rewards. BH style PKing I mean.

Question #8:

With the PvP Arena making Pures an official character type, is it possible that we could make removing defensive attack styles possible through the main client rather than a 3rd party client? Could we get the same type of support that we get for Ironmen for niche account builds that limit their stats to certain levels?

Question #9:

Will Prayer Reorder ever get added to RuneLite? It failed a poll by 2% previously and with differing loadouts in PvP Arena main/pure it's annoying as someone who solely PKs as a main to use 15% prays.

Question #10:

Can we just have multiple different presets players can choose from, or a "copy opponent option"?

Mod Kirby

For the second one: yes, soon TM. For the first one, unfortunately the builds are not the cheapest thing in the world to have more of. I think that’s the politest way of putting it. It's not looking likely in the immediate future, but if there is still extending demand for more builds, we can maybe look at it, but don't expect it anytime soon.

Mod Goblin

For the benefit of people, when you say “cheapest”, what does that mean?

Mod Kirby

Cheapest in terms of dev time - interface work to get the stuff on there, and actually making sure that switches go through properly. Also, storing three whole inventories of players' stuff is not exactly small on the player’s save.

Question #11:

Are there any plans to expand the PvPA to include a 2v2 mode?

Mod Goblin

I think when these initial conversations were going on, I wasn't here, so Kirby feel free to correct me, but my understanding was that in the initial pitch we had attempted to design with the intention of having 2v2, 3v3 and 10v10. Is that correct?

Mod Kirby

We had some level of group battles planned, but I can't remember the exact details.

Mod Goblin

I think Mod Ayiza spoke about it maybe yesterday a little bit, while we were monitoring the update. I think it's something that might be cool to explore down the line. I know the Clan Wars Arena hasn't gotten the most love recently.

A lot of people have been self-organising some 5s tournaments, which have been really entertaining to watch. Small team PvP in Old School especially is really competitive. There's a lot to it, I think it makes for pretty compelling viewing!

It's really exciting to watch small teams in a 3v3 or a 5v5 fight and see the team-play and the coordination required to excel in that, as opposed to just a 1v1 where mechanical prowess is absolutely King.

I think it would be cool if we're able to, down the line, expand into having other team sizes, especially small team PvP. Then for bigger team sizes, maybe there's something we could do with the Clan Wars Arena to make it a little bit more exciting and maybe bring it into 2022, or 2023 or 2024. Who knows?

Question #12:

Can you put a big arrow over the heads of people who haven't readied up for tournament fights so everyone else can flame them?

Mod Kirby

No, that would be rude! But we are adding some more aggressive messaging to hopefully indicate to players that they should ready up. Part of the problem is, though, that we need to make sure that everyone who was meant to arrive has arrived, so there will be some inherent delay. Again, we are playing with the numbers as well.

Hopefully next week, it feels better. If it's still not right, maybe we can have another look at being really aggressive with timers. But for players who just are there not pressing the button, expect some more aggressive messages and please just push the button! It's not that hard, thank you.

Mod Goblin

I'm hoping that after the full launch if there are players who are just routinely queuing up and then not doing anything, we can just start stopping them from doing that because it's pretty annoying. I find games really quickly and then I'll be sitting there for eight minutes ready and raring to go, staring at my loadout. Then nobody comes and I'm just back at Bloodvelds going "Okay, that was cool."

Question #13:

With the new PvP updates, have you ever considered a PvP minigame which is purely based on skilling? I understand this sounds daft but what I mean is Something similar to Wintertodt or Zalcano which pits teams against each other for a reward?

Question #14:

Have the rewards that failed been entirely scrapped, or is the team looking at polling a new way to introduce them into the game, and considering whether it would be through PvP or non-PvP related content?

Mod Kirby

The majority of the armours we put in the Calamity sets are available in the Arena right now. If you want to go and play with them, you're more than welcome to do so, and it's a reasonable place for them. It's PvP content. It did fail the poll, but it's fairly defensively statted, and I feel it's more than a reasonable place to have them.

Cosmetics are mostly art, and that art budget has already been spent. Theoretically, if there's in future any kind of content that we go "Hey, wouldn't a Bandos Ornament Kit fit really nicely here?", we have it ready to ship, so I can see that coming back.

I’m going to be honest, I feel like the reason that they failed in the first place is because they're associated with the PvP Arena more than anything else! But there is a potential for it to be repolled. Even in the future, if we wanted to repoll the Calamity sets for the main game, we could. I don't know where they could come from, if not the Arena, but the option is available to us.

Question #15:

The PvP Arena needs some better rewards, untradeable and tradeable rewards. How are you gonna tackle this?

Question #16:

Why invest so much time into a piece of Game Mode when there are essentially no rewards to it, which will mean the Game Mode will die because there is no actual reason for good players to consistently go there.

Mod Kirby

Because we were developing it with the intention to have good rewards with it - see polls.

It is unfortunate that it came out like this, but honestly, the infrastructure we got in for it means the content is good enough that it can stand on its own. If you had to interrupt everything you were doing to go have a PvP fight, it'd be a bit more of a problem. We've got it set up now so that you can go “I’m in the middle of doing skilling, but I would like to go for a 1v1. I can just push a button and I will get into a fight in next to no time at all!”

There’s also the work we’ve done for custom tournaments as well, to give PvP communities some way of holding their own tournaments. I feel like that’s good work in and of itself! It’s unfortunate that we got into the state of rewards that we did. I would have preferred to launch with good rewards, trust me. It's a shame, but I still think it was time well invested overall.

Question #17:

Will there be any plans to add the failed cosmetic rewards to content in the future? They look super cool and it would be a shame to let them go to waste.

Mod Sarnie

Mod Ayiza has put “no plans as of yet, but it's certainly something we can revisit in the future. Some of the cosmetics did look awesome, and it’d be a shame to never see them in-game!”

Question #18:

Have you considered adding rewards that would be useful for players trying to skill/PvM in the Wilderness? Items that may only work while unskulled.

Mod Goblin

This is a point that came up, especially in our discussions with the PvP Feedback Discord. There were some concerns about the potential of items that provide a benefit to unskulled, disproportionately empowering people who are anti-PKing. If anyone hops around in South Revs, everyone and their nan is anti-PKing there these days, and everybody is in disguise; nobody’s real, everybody’s the imposter.

One of the conversations I had with Mod Kirby and Mod Ash about the rewards in terms of skilling and PvM in the Wilderness side of things, is that there would maybe be a better position for Wilderness content than the structured PvP Arena. Things that were specifically designed for these competitive 1v1 environments might have been a better fit for here, which is what we tried to do. They failed, and it is what it is.

If there’s something that people really want to see, and if the community is overwhelmingly in favour or crying out for these kinds of rewards, then we’ll have to think about it, because I’d love to be able to attach rewards to it - we all would! A fit issue was the main thing, and leaving some of that design space to be filled by future Wilderness content, which is coming!

Question 19:

Can Wintertodt damage be changed to scale based on your current hp, instead of hp lvl? So at 10hp left you'd be hit the same as current players with lvl 10hp get hit. This doesn't punish players for not rushing Wintertodt on a new account.

Mod Kirby

I did way too much Wintertodt on the GIM when it came out. HP is certainly an issue for accounts! Honestly, Wintertodt was a pain in the bum for reasons that weren’t HP as well. This would be a very nice thing to do in combination with making it less painful to play - “why does the animation keep going when you interrupt the fletch? I just need to know when to fletch again, oh god, please stop interrupting me!”

Mod Goblin

For me, I feel that a lot of people who are, down the line, looking to max an Ironman just rush Wintertodt to get it out of the way, because it’s good to do it. Wintertodt rush is just so awful; the rewards are pretty bad when you’re rushing unless you get a spooned a Tome of Fire which is good in the mid-game for Iban’s, and then at the late-late-late-game.

But rushing Wintertodt, especially people trying out Iron and having seen loads of creators doing it, I think it can be pretty off-putting for new players who feel like they’re missing out by not doing it. I don’t like Todt rush personally, but I’ll say that when you get to the late game, it’s not that bad with brews, especially if you’re soloing.

Question #20:

Why do so many PvP minigames/modes use the NH format? Wasn't the minigame supposed to have a diversity of builds?

Mod Goblin

In terms of so many mini-games or modes using the NH format, LMS uses the NH format. The default setup, which is completely changeable, for the PvP Arena uses the NH format. Players looking to PvP competitively use NH because it is the strongest and the most versatile style of 1v1 PvP.

You can put anything in your build - the problem is that because NH is skill-based and because NH is stronger than the other styles in a deathmatch or an outlaw scenario it is the meta. People use NH. You can use anything in the mode itself, you can put Graceful on!

I get the point that’s being made, and we addressed this earlier, that perhaps there are ways that we could experiment with some slightly lower skill floor styles, like melee only, or encouraging some veng-fights and such.

Generally speaking, I think it's disingenuous to say you're forced to use NH. If you're rolling into the max-med bracket and you're just veng-tanking, you're just rag-bolting with some tank with vengeance. You will beat so many bad brids and even like average brids because range rag/veng tanking is just so easy.

You're not forced to use NH. It's just that people do it, and in terms of a ranking system is the most skill-based and the least RNG-reliant style of PvP, in my opinion.

Question #21:

Now that we can get back pets if we have a place holder in the bank, can the same be done with an untrimmed skill cape that also has a placeholder in our bank?

Mod Kirby

Technically, yes? This is one where I'm going to pass it to the team. I know why players care about the untrimmed skill capes so much, but this affects such a small portion of the player base!

Mod Goblin

I think it would be cool! For the untrimmed capes that are flexes, or that people just want to remember as their first; if you’re getting untrimmed Slayer or untrimmed Herblore on an Iron or a UIM, the difficult part is getting the cape, and the tedious part is “oh no I have to drop it and then tele-grab it”.

I wish it were easier to hold onto them, because the difficult part is already done, and the tedium of maintaining and risking ruining it, it’s not fun or engaging or interesting. It’s just a little bit bleh. I could be wrong, I don’t have any trophy accounts with niche untrimmed!

Question #22:

Can we get a nerf to Chambers of Xeric and Theatre of Blood after Tombs of Amascut release? OSRS recently got an influx of new player. Jagex can't expect a new generation of player to perform like the older players. People like doing easier content than doing difficult content, for example WoW Classic raid vs WoW Retail raid. The skilled player can do Tombs of Amascut or Nex. Chambers of Xeric and Theatre of Blood can cater to people with lower skill sets.

Question #23:

Is it possible in the future for f2p players to sell members items they held previously?

Mod Kirby

I don't actually know if we can currently do sales on free-to-play worlds. I don't actually know if we give the client the data to actually sell the items in the first place.

Of course, the real answer is please buy a bond or buy membership, that works too! Then you can sell your items and buy bonds as well. You know, pay us money please. I'm not a salesman. This is why I’m a content dev, I'm not a good salesman!

Question #24:

In a past Q&A, Mod Kieren talked about his intention to give to run energy a proper QoL update e.g. make it restore 5x-10x faster when we're idle or making pots give a much better restore ratio/ longer effect...Are those plans/ideas still in development?

Question #25:

Can we please rework/revisit coin pouches? Methods for cheaters to circumvent this mechanic are already prevalent through bot scripts and other macros, meaning that the only players punished are the innocent.

Mod Goblin

There was a change that was made to coin pouches when you're pickpocketing, so that you get up to 28 coin pouches and then you have to open them. I think it was introduced way before I joined, as a measure to counteract auto-clicking. I think these days you just click 28 times and then click the coin pouch.

Mod Kirby

I thought we made a change to coin pouches I wasn't aware of, like we’d made them so that you have to input your bank pin to open a stack of coin pouches!

I mean… maybe? It's not that bad. You just get 28 coin pouches and go “oh, I actually have to pay attention to the game and left click”. It's not that much of a pain honestly. I don't know if we would implement it now, but I don't know if it's worth removing honestly.

Mod Sarnie

Alright, again, as probably potentially something we can raise, but I wouldn't take anything away from a potential for it

Question #26:

Can the Redwood abyssal lantern prevent pouch degradation outside of Guardians of the rift.

Mod Kirby

I believe the intention with the abyssal lantern was to be an item specifically for Guardians of the Rift, and that is meant to be an item that helps you in the mini-game long term, through the grind. I guess it would be a minor buff to other runecrafting methods, if you could to get away with no degradation with this lantern outside of the rift. But that wasn't the initial design for it. Technically it could be done, but I can't imagine it being done just on a level of what the item was meant to be in the first place.

Mod Goblin

I'm pretty sure that preventing pouch degradation is the only benefit of the Runecraft skill cape! It'd be pretty rough if you've got all the way to 99, to be like “Ah, but my 90 Firemaking from my epic Wintertodt rush strategy when I had 10HP allows me to circumvent needing 99!”

Mod Kirby

Skillcapes in general are wild, man.

Mod Goblin

I think the range of “useful” to “why even spend the 99k on this cape?” is brilliant!

Mod Sarnie

Yeah, there is probably a bigger conversation to be had outside of this specific example.

Question #27:

For placement of spells, can we get the option to decide what runes are in the pouch?

Mod Kirby

This is actually a thing that we've agreed to work on. It does require some level interface which is not trivial. I don't know if it's going to be ready for next week but it should be Soon™, and by Soon™ I actually mean soon, just not necessarily next week.

Mod Goblin

I really hope so, yesterday was the first time I ever cast Smoke Barrage in a 1v1…

Mod Sarnie

Yeah. To restate what Kirby saying - this is not soon as in “soon”, like we say with some questions and never get around to it. This is something that's been agreed upon.

Question #28:

Any chance the hit box for the top of the agility pyramid can be expanded on mobile? It's so hard to actually climb on mobile without clicking to walk somewhere else.

Mod Kirby

We can’t do it just for mobile. I can’t say how bad it actually is having not actually done Agility in forever… We can pass this on and it might just be a case of us needing to expand the model’s hitbox a little bit, and see how it handles after that.

Mod Goblin

The way that click box is - it’s not a contiguous clickbox, it's a bunch of small little circles that you have to click. It's really easy for you to want to click on the wall, then you will click slap bang in between all of them. Then you just start running around.

It's an unusual click box. I think a lot of Agility click boxes sometimes vary in terms of “here is a huge box” or “here is a tiny peg on a tight rope that you're allowed to click”. The pyramid one is a little bit unusual, especially on mobile. I've got fat fingers so it's really easy for me to just hit everything perfect!

Question #29:

Thoughts on a 1-use potion that would remove freeze/root?

Mod Kirby

Correct me if I'm wrong - I'm fairly sure we proposed this in like the original PvP Arena blogs, and people hated it. This is off memory so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's demand for this unfortunately.

Mod Goblin

Hm, you give up a food but I think generally, if somebody catches the freeze on you and starts DD’ing, the difference in not having that food is outweighed by you not being frozen anymore. I think it seems a bit busted… If it's like a one use, there's other questions; how many can you have in your inventory? Is there a cooldown on it? I think it's already pretty easy to escape these days as well, which is maybe a spicy thing to say, but you can just catch a freeze and run around a tree and you're fine.