Welcome back to another Right Click Examine (RCE)!
In this blog format, we open the floor to our J-Mods as they look to involve you in their development - whether that's content already in production, potential concepts for the future or anything in between. Whenever you see Right Click Examine (or RCE for short), prepare to share your thoughts and help us shape the future of RuneScape together!
What is this update?
High atop the recently launched Sanctum of Rebirth, players will find a mysterious shrine to an absent goddess. There they will have to use their skills to put a stop to whatever has been corrupting this once holy place and return balance to this ancient sanctuary.
This boss is RuneScape's second ever skilling boss, and its first soloable skilling boss! Players will be able to bring along friends to help but we wanted to approach the design of this boss from the solo intent first and then scale up to more players instead of the opposite way around.
This blog is to give you some insights into the thought processes around designing this skilling boss!
What makes it a Skilling Boss?
When players hear "Skilling Boss," an idea jumps to mind that isn't quite the same as hearing "Skilling Encounter" or "Minigame." So, we sat down internally with the development teams and folks from the OSRS team, alongside chatting with players, to identify the core pillars of a Skilling Boss:
1. Resolved using your skills in a non-combat focus
Skills have to take center stage and be the defining way players interact with this encounter.
This can take various forms, like using your gathering skills to collect resources, artisan skills to craft tools to solve problems, or using your support skills for their unique attributes to work around those problems.
This doesn't mean combat skills can't be helpful or involved, such as using Prayer to cleanse or bless objects just that your combat prowess isn't the main way you approach this boss.
2. Focused around a central entity
Like traditional combat bosses, there is a singular entity that players must interact with and ultimately overcome.
3. Is a Boss
Bosses by definition come with a variety of expected mechanics and systems such as loot tables, a collection log, a boss pet, Boss fights are designed to be repeatable etc.
So, a Skilling Boss is a repeatable encounter focusing on an entity that is resolved using your non-combat skills and has rewards like a regular boss.
This is a rough explanation, as players may reasonably describe some other things in-game that tick several of these boxes and aren't described as Skilling Bosses (looking at you, BGH). The intent is to give some clarity on what makes this, and by extension, Croesus, a Skilling Boss instead of just an activity or minigame. In our eyes, the main deciding factor is what is being focused on.
In a minigame, the focus is on the activity itself. You might be capturing a flag to beat another team or working together to keep a furnace running—the primary goal is the activity. In contrast, a Skilling Boss encounter shares the same objective as a combat boss: you need to defeat the enemy. This can involve various methods, from draining the boss's health bar to protecting another character from enemies. The main focus is on handling the boss, while the activities are secondary.
For example, during the Croesus encounter, the goal is to put Croesus back to sleep. You achieve this by using your skills to repair the statues around the arena and harnessing their power to clear a path, allowing you to damage the core. If the objective were merely to repair the statues while avoiding the boss's attacks, it would lack the urgency and feel more like a minigame than a boss encounter.
Hopefully, this general concept of what makes a skilling boss resonates with you. We would also like to hear:
What makes a Skilling Boss in your eyes?
What can I expect from this encounter?
Players will be challenged to think on their feet and use multiple different skills such as Divination or Crafting to resolve problems that arise throughout the encounter. They will also have to use their wits and the environment to stay safe, as the situation is actively hostile to them!
We can't go into much detail without starting to spoil things, but we can discuss a bit of the design thought.
Phases
The encounter will be broken into two thematically distinct phases: a time-limited Preparation phase and an End phase.
Phase 1: "Preparation"
In this phase, players will be preparing for what lies ahead, gathering resources from the environment, and using them to strengthen protective measures. This phase will mainly use a combination of gathering and artisan skills and will last for a limited time. To be best prepared, you will want to use this time wisely.
Phase 2: "Endgame"
After some time the Endgame phase will activate, and all heck will break loose! Players will be under attack and will have to work fast to keep their defenses up using the resources they gathered in the first phase.
During this phase, the Boss will be active and vulnerable, so you will need to juggle offense and defense to put an end to the corruption. As the name implies, this Phase will last until either the boss has been defeated or the players fail.
Lifepoints not Stat reduction
Let's get this on the table: you won't have your stats drained during this encounter.
Part of the challenge of a boss is that you can lose. You run out of time to stop the boss from building up their "I win" attack, or the repeated attacks and hazards wear you down, and the boss wins. For Croesus, we used a system of stat drains to act as the player's health as we wanted to lean into the no-combat skills aspect of a boss and foster an alternate approach to the encounter.
For this boss, we wanted to use a more streamlined system, so we will be using the player's Life points as their health pool, we will be playing with scaling incoming damage based off the player's HP level to make the encounter more accessible. This will be a safe encounter regardless of using Life points, so don't worry about that.
This not only helps make the encounter more approachable as it is more akin to a regular boss, but it also opens up more potential strategies for players to keep themselves alive throughout the fight, such as different foods or brews.
Design Elements
An inverted pyramid floating in place over the waters of the underworld, with a boss arena on top.
This was the starting concept for this encounter, and as more of the Sanctum's role in the universe and design got fleshed out, our design for what could be up there solidified. Thematically, we were drawn to elements in the area—water, the moon, and stars, etc. One early idea was a big moonstone pillar at the top of the Sanctum that could act as a conduit.
The artists took this idea and ran with it, coming up with some amazing concepts and mood imagery like these:
This further spurred discussion, and gradually we refined more and more how we wanted things to look and feel. At this moment, we aren't going to give a full picture of what the Boss will look like, but it definitely has elements from these early designs. We look forward to unveiling the full Boss in the coming weeks!
Rewards
Finally, we will touch on some of the ideas around rewards. First up, this is a boss, so there will be the usual suspects such as experience in the skills you are using, a boss pet, a collection log, titles, and a variety of interesting tools and upgrades to fill out your slots. We have some interesting ideas cooking, but what we want to ask players is:
What kind of rewards do they expect to see from a skilling boss?
Some additional thoughts to help the main question, Do skilling rewards have to match the skill your using to battle the boss or can they be from any skill that thematically fits? Can combat gear drop? What should or shouldn't be in the common drop table for this boss?
These are all questions we would like to hear more from players about, not just for this boss but in general for skilling bosses, should they be on a case by case or should there be a through line for them. We look forward to hearing from you!
Get Involved
Now you're up to speed with these concepts, we want your feedback! We'll be paying attention to conversations across the community as always, but for the most direct line to the team, we encourage you to join our Official Discord.
Head on over to #rce-chat to see what is being discussed and #rce-dev-questions to add your thoughts to ongoing questions from the development team. Click the button below to join today!
Thanks for reading Right Click Examine blog! We're super excited to be opening up our development for your feedback and we hope you'll get involved. See you in Gielinor.
- The RuneScape Team
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