Let's chat about why combat is difficult to understand in RuneScape
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- čas přidán 30. 06. 2024
- Let's Chat About... is a brand new series bringing you extended discussions with developers on the hottest topics in the RuneScape community, all filmed at Jagex in June 2022 with host TheRSGuy.
In Episode 2, the Combat Council sit down for a candid chat about Combat and the challenges of accessibility in a 21 year old game.
0:00 Introductions
2:08 The ease of Learning RuneScape in 2022
5:33 At what point should the developer stop holding the players hand
18:53 Adding Keywords and clarifying them
21:04 Information Bloat
26:53 Hitmarks and how information is convayed
37:09 How Gear/Weapons/Armor info is displayed
42:53 What are the plans to address combat learnability
46:14 Sponge and working with the community
49:55 PVM Macros and what their place is in the game
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#RuneScape #ElderGodWars #PvM #MMORPG - Hry
Got linked to "Why RuneScape's Combat System Feels Bad - Project Combat" and holy crap, it's remarkable how much of this still applies today. We can add new abilities and items until the cows come home but these core issues need addressed. Even something as simple as showing things in TICKS instead of SECONDS, even just as a toggle, would help a lot. The game functions on ticks, a player acting on seconds instead will always feel their abilities being "off"
!!
you can show the ticks on your ability bar im pretty sure it counts down from 3. do you mean like on the tooltip?
This is a really long conversation to have considering the reason most people left with EoC is because combat went from super simple to ultra-complicated literally overnight.
Which is exactly what they asked for as per the poll they were given.
Didn't know this. People voted for it then cried? @@A_Black_Sheep94
What is even the point of having a combat council if they have no plans to fix the major issues with combat keeping players from returning to the game?
The current problem with the combat council, from what I recall them talking about previously, is that they're not actually an official institution within Jagex (like the storytelling team would be for instance), but rather just a group of mods who are interested in RuneScape combat, and get together to talk about it from their work perspective. So the changes that the council would like to make, is not scheduled within Jagex projects, but they make changes through other updates, or through spare time allotted to them.
I may be wrong though, and this situation may have changed since.
@@ChonkyMonkey1 f
I really don’t like that they moved the loadstone in the wilderness
This is such a great point. And from reading one of the responses it sounds like it’s an issue on jagex’s end that there isn’t a dedicated team based around balancing combat etc.
Learning a lot about rs today that has just killed my love for the game
Because the majority of players are fine with it, especially considering 300 million accounts created, so there's no real need to do so. Mostly they are meant to make fixes when they bosses tell them to do so and ensure nothing breaks, they don't have the ability or power to make decisions, all they can do is listen to feedback and tell their bosses about it.
A simple way to help with combo abilities would be to like highlight abilities that work well with the first ability while it's active. Use needlestrike, then highlight the abilities to use next to go well with it so people can see the combo chance. For bleeds and binds, show a blood or rope symbol symbol on the ability icon while it's active then you'll know if a bleed is canceled by someone else's bleed and if your bind failed.
Great suggestion!
I was hoping for more commitment to meaningful solutions that improve the player mastery journey and combat readability, but we kind of got nothing in that regard.
It feels like the devs are acknowledging the issues but not acknowledging that, when compounded together, they make combat an overall bad experience for all but those already hyper-invested in combat.
EoC is now ten years old, and we're still begging for very standard readability improvements. I didn't feel encouraged and inspired listening to the devs talk about combat and their vision for it.
Shout out to project combat
I see you bro
Did you not watch the same video as me? They quite literally said that they are trying to fix those issues.
On the bright side for your channel, MORE CONTENT!
They have 0 ability to make these decisions or implement changes. They're not the guys in charge, the most they can do is talk about it and make suggestions.
@@janitorizamped You can't ever satisfy the majority of runescape players. They will look for excuses to scream and cry complaining about something without exception without even slightly knowing what they actually want. They throw a hissy fit at the slightest change so Jagex doesn't want to make any changes. The only reason they even implemented EoC is because they polled the players about combat and they said it was boring and needed to be changed so they implemented EoC and all the little whiny babies had their hissy fit and soiled their diapers despite getting what they asked for. You can't expect much from these pathetic crybabies which is why you have problems like this, Jagex doesn't want to listen to the confused whiny babies cry
Kinda upset that Runescape team completely glossed over the mention of the Project Combat videos. I was amped to hear discussion on that and whether or not they thought the information was useful. There is a ton of ideas that solve a lot of their hangups. Please check those videos out that the RS Guy mentions. Theres a huge reason he brought them up. Hire Marty to consult on your team. That man is a wizard.
Yes please, I want to upvote your comment to the top. I just watched those videos the other day and they are fantastic. The game would be so much better if some of those changes were implemented.
One thing they could do is a suggested action bar setup based on the number of players that fight a boss. Or they could do in practice mode a pop up of suggest set up per phase based off of previous players. Sometimes I don't know if I have proper abilities when fighting certain bosses.
One really nice thing would be if we could share our ability bar setup with other people, that would help soo much for learners. I try to inform people in my clan on what abilities are good to use but in the end I always have to refer to them to the wiki or something because explaining that in words and not in pictures just adds 3 layers of difficulty that makes it impossible to handle.
@@joost00555 that's also a good idea! 👍
@@joost00555 So you can actually share action bars. If you right click on the settings icon on the main action bar there is a "Share Action Bar" button. Unfortunately it requires you to share it with someone on your friends list though. Not sure if you were talking about this or the entire action bar setup on your interface
@@joost00555 you can share your bars with other people
@@joost00555 bro lol
"Macros are against the rules but we're not banning for it" Well.... That's a wrap.
When did they say this? So what happens if I make a macro to equip shield and auto fire divert for example?
@@RsAriarch they basically said they would like macros as to improve accessibility and help simplify switches but the combat team don't make the rules on macros.
@@RsAriarch literally the last thing they before the outro
@@KonkiD yeah thanks had only just started watching and didn’t realize it had the chapters :p
~16 minutes in, and I will say that The Elder Scrolls Online has an addon that shows you what abilities you did, how much damage they did, the percent of total damage, etc. It's really good for determining which abilities are best to use for maximum DPS. RS would benefit from something similar to that, where we can see the effects our abilities do. E.g. We can see how much extra damage we got from sunshine.
I doubt they will ever add these features because they want you to pay for rune metrics to see your DPS and such.
You mean the dummies at wars retreat?
@@gobitoe144 extreme greed
@@wolfrig2000 Sad but true.... To their defence, kind of, you have to consider that RuneScape is one of the (or the) cheapest/er popular MMO to play out there at the moment. They've also said in the past (I forgot where) that without monetization in RS3, OSRS wouldn't exist, or would have micro transactions in them. But I do agree that some features should just be granted, especially with how complicated all the damage is in RS3.
Mod Sponge really is the best here imo. He's critical without being too negative, he points out the cons without trying to make up excuses for the flaws in the combat, which some mods here do and it honestly comes of as a bit lazy. Sponge also sounds like he actually participates in Pvm.
Using the lack of something in other games as an excuse to not be the first to do it was tiring to hear. If every game has the same problem then be the first with a solution. Their defensiveness is understandable but obstructive to making improvements.
My only problem with combat, aside from the inherent clunkiness of the tick and tile systems, is switchscape. It's simply not fun having the optimal way to play being to fill half your inventory with things to micromanage for a single ability every 10 seconds or whatever. It's tedious. "You just don't want combat to require any skill..." no, I think the skill should be in learning how to deal with mechanics rather than 1000000 APM gear swapping
I 100% agree. Switching has made the game unfun to play. I learned how to switch for some bosses. I did not enjoy the learning process. After getting decent at switching, I stopped playing for a few months. Then I came back and basically forgot everything I learned regarding switching.
I don't like how switching is almost mandatory for high level pvm. It is made even harder to learn because of the poor tick system and tile system. Honestly, the tick system, tile system, and switching are the main reasons I struggle to get into high level pvm.
The tick system makes it so that I have to predict boss attacks or memorize boss rotations.
The tile system makes it hard to get my character to move where I want them to and when I want them to.
The switch system requires me to try and switch my gear mid combat just to use certain abilities that in a lot of cases are required in order to not die.
The first two points above feel unnatural to how human brains process information/how humans play games.
The last point is solvable by making either in-game macros for switching or making switching optional for every boss (I prefer the macro option).
Skill should come from mastering the battle against the boss itself. Not from fighting with the movement system/combat system/keyboard.
The whole thing about switching equipment in combat is really silly. And this is from some who has not, until now, questioned us eating whole cooked lobsters during combat
In a game about killing bosses 1-10 times? Sure. In a game about killing bosses 1000+ times? Mechanics aren't enough, you've learned them long ago. You don't have to switch scape anything other than a shield, it's a choice.
100% agreed. I hated that EOC made defense roles largely irrelevant. Shields are essentially only used for switches to activate defense abilities and defenders are useless. It's not just an issue of the ability system, it's essentially required due to enemy design. Many bosses hit non-tank players with attacks that need defensive abilities to reduce damage or survive the hit, so shield switches are required. Also, there are few boss mechanics that made a pure tank role viable in most situations. DPS is always king, so constantly wearing a shield is inefficient. It really does feel bad to have to manage a hotbar, constant item switches, supplies in inventory, summons, and prayers while reacting to enemy mechanics. You could have much more complex and fun enemy/ environment mechanics if you weren't constantly fighting all the tedious combat/inventory systems at the same time.
The engine tick system is definitely one of the biggest issues with the game currently. The EOC ability system was clearly not compatible with the RS engine at the time and still isn't. They tried to tack on a far more complex system onto a very limited and outdated engine. In trying to "modernize" the game, they failed to understand how the other MMOs they were copying met their success.
They wanted to turn RS, which was more single-player focused, into a more WOW-like MMO where teamwork is required, but without making the design changes to differentiate combat roles (DPS, tank, healer/support). So we got a mess of completely discordant mechanics and design philosophies where players are expected to simultaneously be self-sufficient and work as a team (sometimes).
I quit after trying to get into higher level PVM years ago starting at Araxxi. I got so frustrated at the arrow key quick time event. Even if I was spamming the key right when the arrow appeared, it felt like a coin toss if the game recognized the input in time. The unresponsiveness also makes movement irritating. The game has lots of mechanics that require quick positioning, but the slow tick rate and lack of animation cancelling make it very difficult to tell if your character is even moving. You can often be hit by an attack on a tile that your character visually isn't on anymore because the server thought you were when the attack was calculated. If often feels like you're fighting the game itself rather than the boss. Several of my veteran friends also quit with essentially the same complaints around the same time I did after exhausting all the non-PVM content.
In the end, they forced what essentially was an entirely new game down everyone's throats with no community discussion, crammed in numerous predatory, intrusive MTX features, lost an enormous amount of dedicated players then and over time, and now are shocked why their game they sunk millions of dollars and years of resources into is hemorrhaging players, while the old version of the game is dominating player counts and publicity with a tiny fraction of the resources put into it.
15:24 i think this highlights the issue perfectly 'needs better logs' 'theres a dps tracker in the game' 'its locked behind rune metrics pro'
Thanks for this video! I really appreciated the mods asking questions and making a point of the animation canceling, just shows how much they care about the intricacies of games/developing a game imo. Mod Ryan was spot on when he mentioned how far the combat has come in this game, remember that when EOC came out they changed most accessories and had their "style str" bonus removed and replaced with crit boost...only to revert that because we as a playerbase weren't ready for that (along with the game maybe not being in a state that could have much use out of that). Now we're seeing so many items and meta defining weapons be BASED off of crit chance. Again, thank you for the discussion :).
Dude perfectly worded, well said host, I'm one of those throwback RuneScape2 players that went as far as acquiring quest cape and aiming for more but got severed off when it started looking more like WoW
PVM in RS is held back by one HUGE thing.. the tick system. I struggle so much in pvm because of the engine itself. I feel im fighting bad animations not showing where the damage actually is. (walls at kerapac, the ice pillars at glacor) invisible auto attacks that cause damage from out of no where..
who cares about tick, a modern mmo without dps meters is not going to go far, its the best indication of if youre doing something good or wrong, it fuels competition between pvmers etc etc which is huge, thats why pve in wow is big, because everybody is trying to parse and get the dopamine hits of pissing on everybody else lower dps than them.
In runescape, you never know when somebody does more dps than u, you dont know if a player is better or worse, so competition is dead, so nobody actually cares.
Glad they mentioned that there isn't a way to really know when things are improving. Even killing a low-tier boss and playing around with the ability order to see what works better, but then kill times vary by too much that it's difficult to know what has caused the drops or quicker times
the answer is because (probably) nobody liked it at the time and jagex pushed it anyways which made a lot of people (probably) not want to learn it :(
yea basically
Probably
It was a necessary step for the game to be able to evolve the combat, the main issue from what I can remember with it back then was partially people's aversion to the change combined with the fact that EoC was an absolute broken mess on release which only soured people's taste even more... It was far, far from ready to be pushed to release and such a major overhaul really needed to work as well as it does now on release
Vast majority voted for EoC. This kind of attitude is getting kinda old. Legacy and OSRS was born out of it. Granted yes OSRS rapidly gained in popularity and may even have more daily players now. But the short of it all is, it was voted and approved by the majority of players. Granted the percentage required maybe should've been 80% instead of 70%.
More of these please. im a long term player and can afford to skip most pvm right to end game, but i need to force myself through the progression... improving the rewarding nature (boss hiscores on zammy = superb FYI) of earlier bosses and pseudo-force//reward following the progression and learning curve would help.
I really think the best way to help combat flow without it being too much hand holding is to fix the visual and audio combined with adding some audio and visual flare. Maybe crits or combos could have a different look too and not just an audio rumble. Even potentially a special effect like interrupting targets current attack or something. Granted that really adds to high lvl pvmers taking hold but it gives something to shoot for other than the current big flashy numbers.
Yup, visual clarity is very lacking. Right now my biggest examples would I just got my first Essence of Finality and put a Guthix Staff in it, and there's barely an animation for that special attack, the only way I tell if I actually pressed it or not is seeing the debuff pop up on the boss. Another big one is Asphyxiate, which is just your character holding out there hand, and I get it's meant to be like a Darth Vader force choke, but it's never going to live up to that visual fantasy because there's no animating of the bosses being lifted up and choked from it, so why not just change it to be more visual like adding a light beam between the characters when it's happening or something.
@@nburtoninferno it would be really cool if you see like a magic trail go from your hand to the creature and wrap around it, I know bosses don't get stunned but others do during. So would be cool to see them freeze in place. Very ouch about the essence of finality. Would be awesome to see other weapons using different animations
RS Guy: dps tracker or tool tips would be nice instead of using 3rd party.
mod ramen: I can't think of any game that tells you how to do things
also mod ramen: in other games if you want to learn the abilities the game has a section for you to read to learn.
🤨
Jagex employees are a bunch of nerds
would it be possible to get mini ability icons on a hit splat so we can tell what ability did what damage?
Cool idea
@@MixnTix3000 that might be cluttered maybe make a damage log like wow has.
This would be awesome
exactly, alot of ppl who insist on learning muscle memory don't realize how unintuitive the entire UI is compared to most other games, and that makes it very difficult to get that muscle memory in the first place.
26:50 I agree and hope they have a thoughtful discussion as a team on how to improve this.
18:41 I think a cool idea for this problem is a whole new mechanic. Combos. Basically, if I press one input, it combos that input with another ability and fires it off right after. The main difference between this and revolution is key bindings to activate multiple abilities on command, instead of on an automatic rotation. One big learning hump is switching from revo to manual. All high level players use it because of the precision and control it provides to your character. This system im pitching might be a cool way to inch players into manual, without completely throwing them into the deep end.
feels like there was a lot cut out from the convo on macro use, i get why, but im yearning for further clarification. if possible please ask for further clarifications again
One of the devs specifically asked that bits be "off the record"
I included as much as I could without breaking any trust, but I understand the frustrations
Great video um... asking for a friend.... about the macros thing, what exactly was the stance again?
One thing that I think that needs to happen is bringing back some sort of calculator for DPS where you can actually put all the abilities and other boosts in and it calculates how optimal your damage is in rotation.
Wars retreat dummies?
Great answers from Jagex on this one, and great questions.
target cycling is 100% something that should be introduced really early
Combat is diffcult because alot of high level pvm requires gear swapping and alot of micromanagement on a very strict timescale i.e. shield with resonance etc. Its just alot going on having to look at the boss for telegraphs, while paying attention to your prayer points, prayer switching, adrenaline, swapping gear, keeing track of how many brews you drank in relation to ur prayer drain rate so you can be extra efficient and restore ur prayer points and stats in 1 sip to extend ur resources out. Oh i took a big hit because i forgot to swap prayers. now I got to time out my heals on the tick reset so i dont lose my attack turn or else im losing dps. that one single mistake puts you behind the curve and its very easy to snowball out of control to where ur just chugging down food and pots hoping to reset the fight. then you run out of resources due to your mistake and have nothing to show for it.
I feel like there is just TOO much information going on, the UI is horrible when compared to other MMO's. The tick system is something you have to do with and it wont go away until a whole engine overhaul but there just isnt enough screen real estate to begin with. Honestly i dont enjoy going for harder bosses on rs3. They make alot of money but i just stick to high level slayer or "entry" bosses that are pretty chill to make the money.
You dont have to do all of that, evil lucario did hardmode kerapac without swaps with melee
@@mohamedbelkacem9889 And RS Guy rolled Raksha with no armor + chaotics. These accomplishments are possible because they circumvent the disadvantage with skill. I struggle horribly trying to kill Raksha in perked +t80 because I don't know what I'm doing with the combat still.
@@MrBadbaron yeah the gear swapping throws me off. Also you need so many keybinds. I think i would enjoy high level PVM more if they had the standard red circle telegraph attacks that modern mmos use like lost ark, and or enemy ability bars like ff14, and WoW. I know alot of hardcore pvmers will say its a handicap and they are glad rs3 doesnt have anything like that so you actually have to Learn the boss moveset and pay attention to the micro details but honestly i need it. Could make it a toggable "handicap" mode with reduced rewards and i will take it.
Gear swapping is one of the only things that requires skill in combat. They shouldn't nerf it to bare bones so everyone's the same then it's not even a game
@@MichiCree Then get good? The game's meant to be hard so it feels good to beat and is fun. If every boss was like clawdia then no one would play
the /wiki function in chat is probably the best way to inform people that more information exists and i tell people to use it all the time
I think one thing that is frustrating is that there are certain abilities that are literally useless, if you don't have a specific rotation then you are leaving damage on the table. This has gotten better recently by emphasize bleeds with melee for example, but there are still tons of abilities especially defensive ones that are pointless.
I also wish they would take a look again at having different style weapons be good at different things. Having daggers do something different than longswords etc. For most players there is no reason to use certain weapons because other weapons in their tier are cheaper or easier to get.
What defensives are useless to you? You didn't give any examples.
PvME is the only solid combat resource to be found anywhere. Why Jagex isn't pushing it hard/partnering with them is beyond me.
This ^ tbh
Partnering with discord channels can be dangerous because one bad person can ruin the entire discord near instantly.
If its a discord server its a terrible resource. Might as well call the Nintendo Power tipline
@@TheModdedwarfare3 They have a website too and it can easily be integrated into the wiki
Small idea for weapon switching, create a "belt" type item that can equip a mainhand, offhand, and ammo all at once and ties it into 1 item that can free up inventory.
Keep these up chaps. Really impressed!
I really love these episodes! The complexity of runescape PVM has been a massive issue for me, as someone who started playing in 2019. PVME is good, but as brought up in this episode, runescape isn't as intuitive as I would prefer. No easy solutions here, but raising the whole of the playerbase up by more obvious interactions when you do something well would be immensely helpful. Thanks
you dont need to add a combat log to tell you your needle strike boosted a hit. just add sound effects for damage boosted hits. whether that is with needle strike, or scripture of ful. Record a slightly sharper tinnier sound effect that plays each time your hits deal boosted damage (like getting a damage boost from a mercy beam in overwatch for example). If you use a stun then your piercing shot damage is doubled, play a more explosive bassy sound effect to reward the player for doing that combo.
Another macro aside from dual-wield that is very popular is spellbook swap disruption shield. We should get borrowed power on every spellbook, not just lunar.
Or make the damage hit number that appears have a star or plus next to it
When organising your action bar, how about helping like you do when you reorganise invention? It will tell you satisfactory or good or perfect etc. At the end it displays total damage after each cycle so you can then move things about and see if the total drops or increases.
Perfect would be different for everyone, also it would completely eliminate the purpose of building your own ability bar.
I know i had a long rant before, this is gonna be short and simple: For additional action bars, when (or if) players decide to add those to the screen, provide pre determined key binds the same way the initial action bar has 1 through 9, that way instead of all blank bars, they at least have placeholder keys until you get comfortable enough to customize further, i think that would really help reduce the intimidation of adding bars
What placeholder keys would they add. This is subjectional and a flawed idea. Yes let's qwert your second bar when some of these keys are binded elsewhere. This is default 1-9 for everything game. No one implemented this further because this won't work.
@@Kane.Griffin You're thinking about it as if you can't remap the 1-9 in the first place, place holder keys are exactly that, you can decide what to switch it to, when you add additional action bar #2 to your screen, it having placeholder keys pre implemented would make the transition to multi action bar far simpler, and its extremely possible as every other mmo I can think of with multiple action bars has buttons associated with those bars and its never been a problem.
At 36:00 you were talking about chaining assault -> destroy. No, as someone who primarily uses revolution and only occasionally uses abilities manually, it's not at all intuitive that I can start another ability early without sacrificing damage from assault.
I agree generally with some of the commentary here but other parts of it feel like it's coming from elite fighters rather than "typical" players. As a typical player:
- Yes, I did mess around with my ability bar, but no, I don't really see any feedback on if switching ability A with B is optimal. I'm pretty sure some abilities are better in some scenarios than others, e.g. assault for single target, quake for multitarget, but as someone who mainly does slayer for combat, it's not obvious to me whether basic ability A vs B should be used first, unless they're part of a combo. Even then, revolution does a poor job of chaining combo attacks together due to cooldowns being different.
- Personally, I wish the combat system was simplified significantly. You guys are comparing RS to other online games, but I don't play RS in order to have a League of Legends-level intense experience. I enjoy combat in a chill way, and I dislike how EoC is rammed down my throat, in order to be able to have a good experience with most of the bossing from the past 10 years or so.
I'm a 2003 veteran who took a break shortly after EoC came out, and the sheer complexity of the combat system in this game completely turns me off from engaging in any kind of PvM that's more complex than using revolution for an action bar someone else has figured out and manually triggering like one or two abilities. I don't have the time or motivation to learn all of the abilities and how they interact and how they vary based one the myriad buffs/upgrades/unlocks/rewards/perks/etc that can affect each and every one of them when there's no real direction to it.
I played WoW like a decade ago, learned my class's abilities and combos and gear and mastered them to the point I was leading raid teams weekly and teaching others as much as just playing for myself. I have the ability to learn, but I have zero motivation to do so in this game because it just doesn't feel rewarding or intuitive. If I knew what I was doing already, I have no doubt I'd have fun doing end game bosses, but I just don't feel motivated to get to that point.
I think a huge problem in Runescape's combat system is the fact there's such poorly-implemented progression. you tie ability unlocks to levels, but you gain so much experience that you have most of the abilities unlocked before you've mastered even the basic ones. There's also the issue of not having specializations and builds. The fact that every ability is available, just leads to a feeling of being overwhelmed no matter what kind of role or playstyle I want to go for. It would be much easier to understand and explore if things were tied into trees where you have to actively decide which abilities/effects to unlock and in what order, and having to expend some level of effort between unlocks to allow time to master a new skill or ability. Even if you could eventually reach the point where you've unlocked everything, just having that progression system to get through to focus in on learning individual roles or styles would help immensely.
I have played runescape on and off since 2007, and I still cant even fight arraxor. Do I have to memorize ability rotations for a few hours on when to use which defensive abilities, like performing a dance routine? I've been overwhelmed.
No. Arraxor can be cleared on revolution.
You can do rax without any defensive and on revo. All you gotta remember are off on web, run from acid spider and off on spiders to kill mirror and healing. That's literally it to get a kill. Not gonna be a good kill but will be a kill alright
One idea for things with different tier accuracy/damage is to just say it in brackets:
Wand of Whatever:
Damage 1678 (tier 80)
Accuracy 900 (tier 95)
I use Revolution for basic rotation then manually use thresholds/ults. I find high level bosses harder to full manual aswell and deal with mechanics, movement all in one, specially when it comes to like raksha where mechanics can be fast. It's better to have pvm more accessible with enrage systems, than lock off to p;vmers that can do 2-8 switches in rapid succession with full manual. Not everyone is at that level. I wouldn't say I was top top end, But i have done all bosses ingame, i'd consider myself mid-higher pvm and started learning eoc since release, I was comped rs2. I still use revolution for basics, not that i'm lazy, it makes dealing with mechanics/movements easier in pvm, it gives you a few split seconds back to concentrate on the fight.
Very informative! I didn‘t even know there are different hit splats for default attacks vs abilities?? 😂
One thing that could be explained better is is how adding a few points of attack bonus for a given combat style actually affects damage.. For example, If I am wearing all Armadyl gear And I look at the difference between The pernix helm and the one I'm wearing How do I equate equate that number difference to damage difference? What does 10 more attack damage actually mean?
Hope we get a skilling version of this next week please :)
Thoroughly enjoyed this episode from start to finish. Very well done, excited for more!
This is so awesome y'all let a player into it like this. I love it
I wouldnt call him a player at this point. Jagex simps for this guy pretty hardcore. He is pretty much on jagex's payroll at this point
what if, when you unlock a new ability, you have to go talk to some NPC the "teaches" you about the ability that you unlocked. Also what if you hover over an ability it highlights the other abilities that it buffs?
Look at that, a QUALITY idea that wouldn’t take a lot of effort to implement.
But the combat council out here creating excuses.
Smdh this steam has killed my motivation to play.
Love this suggestion though Andy
@@iyetisnipe thanks. I'm glad someone got to hear my idea. I think it's pretty solid.
@@thatdadandy WoW does a good job of this on boosting a character. Small scenario where they get you to role play with some abilities and learn when and how to use them.
Get some goblins to run at us, and use g chain into Omni power to clear them.
Oh look, I learnt to clear
i would of love eoc if it wasnt for the server tick system feeling super unresponisve
So much this.
Would you of?
Add a dps meter that updates constantly with damage per second and overall damage, not a challenge gem, but a Meter like the wow add on so people can constantly check their dps so they can always know what little changes are improving/hurting their damage output
They sell that lol
2 things i would like to see.
1) the channeled ability bar. 1 mod shower off a concept not long ago
2) organize abilities by basic/threshold/ult. or regular/channeled/dot&bleed/stun.
the current ability menu is a disorganized mess.
Because I straight blackout trying to think of what order to put my abilities in. Do they revolution autocast accordingly? or what.
45:50 How about implementing the key-wording (or whatever large feature) in bits and hide it behind a feature flag until finished?
not to mention learning to build adrenaline efficiently with perks relics etc is its own learning curve
Depends on the style TBH. Ranged has Grico + Hydrix Bakriminel Bolts while using Inspiration Aura, Fury of the Small Relic and Impatient 4 Armour Perk. Melee has Jaws of the Abyss + Bleeds from Dismember, Abyssal Scourge on top of the aforementioned relic, aura and perk. Not sure about magic as i don't use it but i'd assume Incite Fear and Nami probably, something around that spell and ability.
I don't think building adrenaline is the issue here, moreso is how to prioritize abilities and how to execute an efficient Zerk,DS,Sunshine Rotation with good abilities and weapon specs. That's where the real learning curve kicks in and where a vast majority of players struggle.
@@Kranon look how many things you just rattled off in order to build adren fast and imagine being a new player explaining all that on top of abilities, damage, switches, prayers, mechanica
@@lasersharks a new player doesnt even have any of that stuff available, so thats kind of a not great standard to hold that information to. No one is learning all of that at one time.
23:02 This moment showcases something I think become apparent if you focus in on it. Why are these ideas seemingly being pitched here? Is there enough internal discussion and cohesion between the developers? As a gamer, I will never know just how much it takes to implement systems into a game. That said, it seems like there could be a communication hurdle happening internally.
If you want "cancelling" abilities to be a thing, give them visual and audible cues like an active reload on Gears of War.
Very nice vids, keep it up!
It's the combat feedback. I didn't need external things to teach me to be one of the best tanks in World of Warcraft for it's first 4 years. Didn't need an external site to create "immortal tank" builds in Elder Scrolls Online. Didn't need an external source to successfully command hundreds of players in Planeside 1 and 2. Didn't need an external source to briefly consider playing Battlefield 2 competitively when I saw I was on par in skill in a show match. Etc, etc, etc
What stops me getting into Runescape PVM even after a thousand hours played is that there's ZERO connection between what button I press, the graphics on the screen and what the server actually thinks happened. That goes for both my skills being used and what the boss is doing. It's so insanely bad I think that the game would be easier to play if you turned off all spell effects and everything just didn't animate and was just stuck in T-pose. That's not what any other game is like, most of the time you can tell what's happening because of the graphics, in Runescape it's the complete opposite.
The fact that EOC didn't come with a combat log really says more than enough. The fact that there's still not one in the game this long after and that it's not one of the very first things you show to players and emphasize how important a tool it is for learning the combat in the game says even more.
The guy on the lower right seems to have completely lost the plot, he keeps trying to compare Runescape to other games saying that they don't do much better... Escape From Tarkov added a combat log... it's an RPGFPS. A FPS game that's too complex to go on without a combat log and somehow Runescape with it's 50 abilities of w/e he tried to say don't need one????
Whats this PVME they mention and how do i obtain access to it?
I'd say swallow the hard to swallow pill and rebuild the back end to have a higher refresh/frame/input rate. Additionally, have it work in seconds not ticks. This would have a force multiplier on anything and everything you would want to implement.
They would have to rework the entire game, everything runs on ticks which is 0.6 seconds.
they are trying so hard to justify the combat system without blatantly admitting you can't learn pvm within the game.
i guess everyone who knows how to pvm was just born that way then?
So how did people learn vorago when it released?
The combat system justifies itself.
What was up with the hyper cutting of the footage in the last 10 or so seconds?
So, weakness is useless? Or does effect my hit chance/accuracy in anyway?
I agree with most points made, though I'm gonna say, learning the game (As a brand new player, not account) in Legacy has been very successful from what I've seen. Legacy is easy and gets people out there bossing and learning boss mechanics, then they lean toward efficiency and faster times. I think a couple small improvements would make legacy incredible, and a key bind system would be #1. My hand after streaking at AG 1200% in Legacy is falling off.
If you update Legacy with QOL like right-click EOF and watch competitive players flock. If you ever feel generous, Ingenuity would be nice too
Legacy's a meme, competitive players are already playing the real game why would they switch to a bare bones version?
@@Fridge_Fiend because of mechanical input. We can't keybind prayers, spec weps in eof, but we do have great healing from soul split. I think it really encourages some competitive niche but you're right it'll be thin. Really I make the case for legacy early game. I just want EOF because of how game changing it'd be for legacy DPS. It would actually be close lol
well this was very useful. I've never heard of pvme and I'm about to give up on rs3 because I can't figure out how to do any boss beyond the chaos elemental
I really hope that's hyperbole... giant mole, KBD, GWD1...
@@A_Black_Sheep94 giant mole I’ve done. KBD I’ve beat a couple times, but not consistently. And I’ve never managed any of the bosses in GWD1. I’m more of a skiller/quester than PVM, but the high level quests have bosses or boss mechanics that I haven’t been able to grasp. It’s very frustrating. I go in there with Masterworks and drygore and an inventory full of prayer potions and food and can’t get them down more than halfway in health. Obviously I’m doing something wrong, but figuring out what has gotten extremely discouraging.
OSRS combat is awesome. I watched a guy use a client to tell him where to stand after every attack. 🤭
Rs3 combat should do that too
@@cubedpotatoeshd2479 No, it should just play the game for you. And everyone should do the same dps and get the same time
this was awesome, always good to see both sides
I wish they follow through with an in game macro system
Bind together MH and OH slots with an item, and allow us to have multiple of them. It could even be an item that combines both MH and OH Weapons into one, so they're equipped and unequipped on one click and both use a single item slot.
i def think that hand holding til dragon slayer is a good goal i think its a bit much but a better activity tracker/ suggestions would be nice
Yes. Rs3 has so much content coming from 2001 all the way till 2022. It's alot. So hand holding up till rune would be a great help. I'm a runescape player from 2001. I've took many hiatuses throughout, and when eoc came out it was a huge shocker. This coming from someone who had a maxed combat account, to relearn everything from scratch was crazy. And then everytime you take a break from the game for a few months to a year, then come back to it, it's like a new world, I have to learn and update myself again and that takes a long time to do, which makes most people not want to put in the time needed to get back to your pre-hiatus levels of efficiency.
WHAT?? I had no idea that the monster specific weakness did nothing lol. I was wasting fire runes when I could've just used melee....
More of this please! Any insight is very appreciated by the community. :)
The problem with EOC is the conflation of Depth and Complexity. I heard the team say "Depth" when they meant "Complexity" and it's important to make a distinction.
Currently, the system is extremely complicated but has limited depth. Ultimately, every bar boils down to "use abilities in this order" and that's not very interesting.
If the system was actually deep, you would have hundreds of combat bars having debates over which one is the best, rather than 3 per combat style... based on what you have unlocked.
Name one mmorpg that doesn't use rotations lol wtf are you even saying
@@nou2716 Runescape. Before EoC. bollockbrain
@@cubedpotatoeshd2479 So literally the game that i am citing! Super high iq individual clearly
MOAR. Also, have an exterior creator host a live stream every week, so you can have more conversations like this, and more often.
We don't have many well known content creators who are as involved into Combat and PVM like the RS Guy is. There's the PVME collective but let's be honest, people only know ONE guy.
30:21 thats a damn good idea just put the ability icon png next to the number its hitting
Oh also the biggest barrier to making clarity tools in RS is that it's already recognized by Jagex as a revenue stream. They already made tools to track DPS but locked it behind a MONTHLY PAYWALL that isn't included with the already monthly subscription. RSguy mentioned it and was very quickly led away from that because obviously these devs have no say in what is and is not going to be locked behind paywalls, but it is undeniably an issue and barrier to them doing game design the way they would love to do it. I feel for these devs because I know they love making and playing games it it has to be very difficult to have ideas for improving the game, but it has to be filtered through management to find out if they should instead further monetize it beyond just implementing it as a regular update. This is also a reason I think they don't want to include add-on support for RS3, because ultimately people will make add-ons that improve the game in ways that Jagex would have like to add as payed features, thus apparently hurting their bottom line.
23:50 Small example of one dev countering another’s previous statement. In this timestamp, he claims the reason the default bars are trash because they haven’t been updated. However previously, it was said that they were intentionally made this way. This makes me think they are implementing systems and aren’t fully thinking through the long term ramifications of what these systems will require to upkeep. That’s why we are seeing this contradiction, because the idea wasn’t hashed out well enough before implementation.
please make the audio louder for the next episode
The real question is Jagex gonna do something about it?
I know some people enjoy EOC but I find combat too complicated to learn, I get that it should be hard to master but it’s not intuitive and easy to pick up which takes me away from it, and yes they did improve combat a lot but it still is fundamentally flawed, pre eoc for beginners meant that the ins and outs of combat where not unlocked until later, while not perfect pre eoc was great but outdated compared to modern standards in most games.
I don't understand this, what's so complicated about it? Just read what ur abilities do and look up a simple rotation. I understand that there are a lot of switches and stuff at end game but people just enjoy instant gratification now. Just practice and play the game its that simple.
@@nou2716 "muh instant gratification" will you shut up and go back to reddit
Gconc, ability, gconc, threshold, gconc, ability
can you guys please up the volume? i have to turn my volume up until 90 to properly hear you.
Put Hints in the Achievements, for example for learning to Understand Telos would be an achievement like "Can you move now?" which is unlocked by stunning Telos. This can be done with so many bosses and abilities together. Good way to get a hint of how the Boss mechanics are working and How much of a difference an ability can be at the right time.
can we get the ability to configure the Excalibur
Please do the in-game macro system...
98% of people learning watch these high-end streamers. Then want to PVM like them. Instantly. As a beginner.. No tutorial is going to show that, its a trial and error style which is the best way to learn and grind the game.
I mean they ask "how much should be taught vs figured out by the community" I say *enough to beat the Reaper Crew achievement.* That is all bosses in RS, on their lowest non-tutorial difficulty.
the biggest thing that put me off wasnt having all these abilities, but the emphasis on mobility during combat. Movement in Runescape has always been a bit slow and clunky, and that was okay since it wasn't necessary at all to be running around. But that all changed when they started introducing boss fights with attacks that could really screw you down if you didn't run out of the way or get to safety in time. I dont get why this needed to be a thing, considering the slow reaction times of the game and the fact that you never have total control over your avatars movement.
A lot of MMOs have 1 hit AOE potential bosses nothing new. But the dash in rs3 is a bit much
@@MentaIcare True and I'm not big on those attacks in other games either. It's just worse in Runescape because of games reaction time and that you dont move with WASD, you have to click where you want to go and hope your guy doesnt run into anything bad or take the slower route.
Have an themed resource similar to the wiki with the game. Like a player journal or a combat academy. Also combat ≠ bossing. Make combat relevant through mini games for example. Finally the tick rate stops many from really investing into high level combat.
i actually like the way they did the last few bosses...being an average player...im able to do the content and learn new techniques while enjoying the game
this def make me fell herd i had no clue what i'm doing when i make a bar i just look up bars and go with that because is have no idea how bars are optimized i just look at calcs and assume they are good
I used to love RuneScape but I just can’t kill bosses so I got frustrated and quit. I have near max skills and high tier equipment and none of that seems to help. The tick system just makes combat impossible to me. Any time I click to move or attack there is a long lag before anything happens and by then I have died.
Og combat needs updates like necromancy.
I think these talks are good for runescape it keeps things real thanks given to the Rs guy for help keeping the game going and keeping things on a real note.
I think the problem with pvm community in general is most of them have forgotten the fact that it is a game and have moved towards max efficiency..
And i feel the game design has always promoted that partly because of how rng works.
Solak for example has become much more fun and chill boss since the grim page drop was made 100% chance
We need more drops like that which get consumed on use but then are not rng based but kill count based.
And then there is an issue with ping for most of us not based in EU or US .. my avg ping is 120-130ms and it changes quite a bit at times. I play on world 24 and i can really feel the dps go down or up with no of players on that world or the ping fluctuation and when you have to be tick perfect it causes some issues..
I have had times when my ability cooldowns are out of sync than usual throwing off rotationsand the hit splats are delayed just barely but noticeable enough for making the game feel keyboard control heavy and laggy as it turns less responsive having to spam press
I can for sure say from personal experience that this degrades your dps performance and in my opinion it gives a slight advantage to people who have better ping (I could do a lot more things quicker and efficiently if the game is more responsive and have observed that various time when the ping changes or even if i hop to a better world so its not my imagination.)
Now its not a day and night difference but when people expect you to be tick perfect on most pvm group content this results in poor consistency.
This game caters to those that only have runescape
Legacy mode would be a great alternative if they didnt just abandon it.
I play osrs so trust me I’m more comfortable with legacy mode but it doesn’t really make sense in rs3. The game and gear kind of has to be balanced alsongside abilities and that means legacy will either be better or worse dps than using abilities. It’s just a balancing nightmare
ive been saying this for years. legacy system is not the original combat like rs2. Its just eoc without abilities and weapon tiered like world of warcraft. They killed their own game who cares lets move on.
One huge problem is damage ranges. In other games an ability will do the same damage every time so it's easy to sort out which is better and which is worse.
i agree, the ability damage range is also ridiculous, it is something from 100-400% difference between min/max. At max it should be +-5%
i mean.. reading the ability tool tips tell you what abilities are higher damage.
to answer, "what is the game responsible for teaching?" its simple. teach basic things like how abiliities work together instead of just just saying "oh here is an ability and what it does" I play many fighting games and the best tutorials are always the ones that not only show how to do the move, but they give examples of when a move can be used. we're not asking for you to teach sweaty stuff like 4 tick auto attacks or switch scape, but give a basic tutorial of how moves work and how they can work with each other like wrack is ok to use but its better use after a stun or something like that
Nobody here is a bad person because of the game they play, argue the point not the person.
Goes for both sides ;)
14:56 - they can't tell because of the huge EOC numbers, with smaller numbers it becomes much more apparent in my opinion.
So are macros allowed then or not?
I really don't understand what it is aside from change and nostalgia. I started playing this game recently and have never had issues with the combat. It's so easy for those who don't care to learn about fancy stuff (you just click lol) and it can be more complicated if you want to get good with switches and all that. Those who learned something else and then had to adjust to a large change are going to be instinctively opposed on principal. What is funny is most of the comments are saying either it's too simple or it's too difficult and that inconsistency in responses is going to make it impossible to satisfy everybody. My opinion is that it's fine now, I've barely updated the ability bar since I started. I like skilling and questing so being forced into a more complex system would turn me off. But I like knowing that when I get to Bossing, I'll be able to learn and teach myself and the abilities will help.
The idea that it's too complicated when literally everything in Runescape requires more 'research' to figure it out is silly. I wouldn't know anything about the game if it wasn't for the wiki lol
I'm with you on that. I rarely update ability bars. Maybe to test new abilities or to try different combos, etc. But as someone who has played many games including many MMOs, RS3 really isn't that bad to learn. The only thing that spoke to me was the improved audio and fixing animations. This thing of hand holding all the way to end game would just make it feel unfulfilling.