The Tip.It Times


Issue 27499gp

Never Too Late?

Written by and edited by Hawks & Racheya

The day after the Apollo 11 took off to the moon, the New York Times printed a correction to a previous article that they had published well in the past. This article had bashed and dismissed the idea of space flight utilizing rocket fuel, with no reference whatsoever to that day's event. While it has hardly been close to the 49 years it took the New York Times to correct the error, the year and a half since the Evolution of Combat first surfaced could feel just as long in the gaming world.

Anyone with some level of activity on RuneScape should have observed that change within the game is resisted, just as it is done so in real life issues. Any large update to the game, including a complete revamp of the very basis of combat, is going to be met with a large number of complaints flooding the Recent Update Forums. But often, it is not long before such protests fade into acceptance. The issue here is that the time frame for such whining and complaining is very much over. As an example, some people (if they have played long enough) might have nostalgia for the RS Classic graphics, but I don't think anyone is complaining about it or suggesting that Jagex revert them back!

A few weeks back, Jagex implemented a poll for a Legacy combat system. Such a system, according to Jagex's claims, would be brought back alongside the Evolution of Combat and players would have the option to toggle between the two. Many players expressed skepticism about this, citing Jagex's (apparent) ineptitude at designing one functioning combat system, let alone two, working, competitive and interchangeable ones. Nevertheless, it soared through the polls, passing easily.

The poll that followed in its footsteps was another surprise, asking whether players preferred a calculation for combat level based on a maximum level of 200 (as we have now) or 138 (the old maximum level). There were some straw polls conducted on the forums, and a thread on our own forum discussing the possibility, which probably encouraged Jagex into making it an actual poll. It is important to note that this affects the whole game, not just a potential legacy mode. In any case, with the current standing I think it's safe to say that the 138 formula has won and I'll assume that for the moment.

For those of us who haven't played Old School, it's most likely been a while since we have considered the old formula. One of its distinct quirks was that it put melee at a distinctly higher level than either magic or ranged. If we work under the assumption that Jagex keeps damage per second between the three styles more-or-less equal at comparative levels, we perhaps need to ask ourselves a silly question: How do you have a combat triangle when the formula for that combat establishes one style as firmly dominant over the other two?

Luckily, this isn't a difficult issue to fix. All that really needs to be done is rescaling the magic and ranged components to have as much weight as some average of Attack and Strength. There are all sorts of more involved ideas on the forums, but given the fact that Jagex has made (sincere so far) promises to run all major changes against polls, I have my doubts about the extent of such revisions to the 138 formula. I do approve of the requirement to level up prayer and summoning for those last few combat levels. Given the fact that combat level is one of the first things that people see and form an impression of another player by. A few extra levels to differentiate those who have maxed out melee (or ranged/melee if those changes come to pass) from players who have additionally trained Prayer/Summoning substantially seems fair enough. People will roll their eyes if I mention "respect" for a combat level, but that's really what it boils down to—within the scope of the game it's something extra to appreciate.

In any case, whatever Jagex—I mean, the players—decide to do, it looks like Jagex is searching for the Undo button without hitting Ctrl+Z.


Do you have any thoughts or comments about this week's articles? Want to discuss these articles with your fellow RuneScapers? We invite you to discuss them in this forum topic.


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Tags: Combat Current Events Future Updates and Speculation

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