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Poll 77 & The Future of QoL

Written by developer on . Posted in OSRS News

Quality of Life polls are live and kicking once again! Keep reading to see Poll 77 and learn what we have planned for future QoL polls.



Hi everyone! It’s been a while, but it’s that time again; the next Quality of Life poll is finally upon us!

But before we take you through our plans, we wanted to have a quick look back at Poll 76 and talk about the future of QoL polls.

We’ll be the first to admit that Poll 76 was not delivered within a reasonable timeframe. At the beginning of the year, in the planning stages of the poll, we expected to be able to deliver something relatively large with the development allocation we were assigned. However, not long after the poll was posted, the needs of the product shifted a little and the team working on the poll were reassigned to other, higher-priority projects.

To remedy this, the team opted to work on the smaller chunks of the poll in order to deliver them quickly – this meant that the larger, more complex jobs took longer than anticipated.

Moving forward, we want to strive for much shorter delivery timeframes and more frequent polls. How can we make sure that happens?

Firstly, we’re rebuilding a dedicated team for QoL work. They’ll have a couple of developers focused purely on QoL updates and bug fixes. Another group will work separately on larger features like holiday events and new initiatives.

In an ideal scenario, you’ll get a QoL poll every six to eight weeks, and that poll will contain around 15-25 changes – both polled and unpolled. And, to give you even more say over what goes into the game, we’ll include a survey alongside each poll blog, which will ask you to help us prioritise the changes by selecting which ones are most important to you.

We also want to start theming polls around different sections of the game and player communities, so we can look to serve as many groups as we can.

In the survey (which you’re all definitely going to take, yes?) there’s a section asking you which part of the game we should look at next. Please feel free to leave suggestions for upcoming poll themes! Please remember, though, that these polls are intended to address smaller issues, not big chunks of content.

You’ll notice that Poll 77 is made up of recent suggestions and other frequently requested features. We actually have a weekly meeting where we review suggestions and ideas you’ve posted on social media, so please do keep letting us know your thoughts!

For now though, let’s take a look at the poll!


Poll 77 Questions

We’ll start where most things begin, in good ol’ Lumbridge!

The Lumbridge and Draynor Elite Diary has plenty of tasks to challenge higher-level players, but there’s one that stands out as a massive, and ever-growing achievement.

The task ‘Perform the Quest Point Cape emote in the Wise Old Man’s house’ requires players to have a Quest Cape. However, with 290 Quest Points available, and more quests being added all the time, this task has gradually become a much bigger achievement than anticipated!

In its current state the task seems inconsistent and unfair for newer and returning players.

To fix this, we’d like to allow players with 99% of the total available Quest Points to simply speak to the Wise Old Man to complete the task.

The team have found this to be a very fine balancing act as we don't want to make it either too easy or hard. We've chosen a percentage over a static number as with the latter it will eventually get easier as more quests are added, since there would eventually be more easy ones to give you the required points.

While currently, 1% might be a single medium quest, in one to two years time and beyond it's likely to make much more difference.

It’s worth noting that the other Achievement Diary task which requires the Quest Cape wouldn't change since it already has an alternative solution.


Poll Question #1:

Should we allow players with 99% of the total Quest Points to complete the Lumbridge and Draynor Elite Diary Task by speaking to the Wise Old Man, without having to unlock the Quest Cape?



Using Essence Pouches really improves the Runecraft experience – so shouldn’t the process of getting one be a little smoother?

Currently, the only way to obtain an Essence Pouch is by killing Abyssal guardians, leeches, and walkers – but what if there was another way to gain these fantastically useful tools?

We’d like to give players the opportunity to obtain Essence Pouches from Guardians of the Rift. We actually wanted to include this function at launch, but simply didn’t have time to poll it. We reckon it would be thematically appropriate as well as a canny gameplay decision. Plus, it would make these valuable items available to skiller accounts.

Small, Medium, Large and Giant Rune Pouches would all become available on the Rewards Guardian loot table, alongside the Abyssal Needle required to craft the Colossal Pouch. They’d be a relatively rare drop, as we want the Abyss to remain the most optimal way to obtain new pouches. In keeping with the usual rules, they would only be obtainable for players who don’t already have the relevant pouch.


Poll Question #2:

Should we add Small, Medium, Large and Giant Essence Pouches to the Guardians of the Rift loot table?

Speaking of Essence Pouches, don't you hate it when they decay while you're helping at Guardians of the Rift, and you realise that you don't have the Lunar Spellbook activated? Well, worry no more, fellow Runecrafters! We want to introduce a new way to repair pouches that’s a little bit closer than the Abyss.

We propose that Cordelia should be able to repair Pouches for a one-time payment of 25 Pearls. Once unlocked, players would be able to get their Pouches repaired for just one Pearl each time.

Using NPC contact to call the Abyssal Mage yourself would, of course, still be the fastest option – this change is just to make life easier for players who don’t yet have the Lunar Spellbook or have forgotten to activate it.


Poll Question #3:

Should we add the option to repair your Essence Pouches at Guardians of the Rift? This would cost 25 pearls to unlock initially and would cost 1 pearl for each repair made this way.



Our next suggestion is something that should make your journeys across Gielinor a bit smoother. The Fairy Rings by the Tower of Life and the Legends’ Guild have various bits of vegetation nearby that can give players the run-around. We propose that we hire a leprechaun or two to move a tree away from the west side of the rings, keeping the landscape as close to the original as possible while providing a better pathing route on your travels.


Poll Question #4:

Should we move some of the vegetation surrounding the Fairy Rings at the Tower of Life and the Legends' Guild for better access?


Got a lot of unfinished Torstol Potions lying around? How would you feel about using them to make Antivenom+, ensuring that you don’t waste any precious Torstol goop?

You’ll get the vial back when using the unfinished potion, and you’ll also get the same amount of XP as you would normally. You will, of course, need level 94 Herblore to create the potion in the first place.

It’s worth noting that we made a similar change to Super Combat Potions back in 2019.


Poll Question #5:

Should we allow you to use a Torstol Potion (unf) as an alternative to Torstol when making Antivenom+?


Stale bread isn’t generally sought after, but this is Old School RuneScape – from Monkey Nuts to Burnt Fish, all kinds of items turn out to be more valuable than expected!

The Stale Baguette, for example, is one of the rarest items from the Quiz Master’s Mystery Box, with only a 1/256 chance to drop. Two big problems here: it’s a ludicrous rarity for a chunk of inedible bread, and it doesn’t make much sense for this item to drop from the Mystery Box.

We want to take the Stale Baguette back to its humble origins by making it a potential gift from the Sandwich Lady. Should she tell you to pick a baguette from her tray, you would have a 1/8 chance to receive the Stale Baguette instead.

Separately, we’d like to change the Baguette’s drop rate from the Mystery Box from 1/256 to 1/32, giving everyone a good chance of wielding the almighty bread.


Poll Question #6:

Should we change the drop rate of the Stale Baguette from the Mystery Box from 1/256 to 1/32?


Poll Question #7:

Should we allow the Sandwich Lady to give you a 1/8 chance to receive the Stale Baguette when she asks you to pick a Baguette?



Speaking of drop rates, we also want to look at the Jar of Darkness. You may be getting déjà vu, because we’ve actually polled this change before, and it failed by a mere 3%.

Long story short, we think the drop rate for this item is disproportionately low compared to other ‘Jar’ items, especially given the time needed to obtain Dark Totems, and we’d like to make this change to give everybody a fair go at owning their very own Jar of Darkness.

We’ve crunched some numbers, and this time around we want to adjust the drop rate from 1/2500 to 1/200.


Poll Question #8:

Should we change the drop rate of the Jar of Darkness from 1/2500 to 1/200? This would bring its drop rate in line with other jars.


Have you ever wondered how Charlie the Tramp knows whether you’ve brought him a freshly fished or cooked item? We know you have – we’ve read the Postbag thread!

Jokes aside, the current objectives for these Clue steps just aren’t good gameplay and are currently one of the biggest problems with Beginner Clue Scrolls.

We think that it would be fairer if you could go to the Bank, grab whatever Charlie’s asked for, and deliver it, rather than having to go out of your way to catch fresh fish or cook an item from scratch.


Poll Question #9:

Should Charlie the Tramp's Beginner Clue steps allow the player to give him items they’ve prepared in advance, instead of forcing them to fish and cook new ones?


Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to mine we go! Players have noticed that after Mining some ores there’s a random cycle (or tick) delay.

The problem is that this isn’t reflected for all mineable materials. We want to make things more consistent by removing the delay altogether, with the notable exception of Iron, Granite and Sandstone which this already applies to. We’ve run some tests and we’re certain it wouldn’t affect the best-in-slot experience too much, but it would bring a lot more consistency to the skill.


Poll Question #10:

Should we remove the random cycle delay when mining ores (excluding Iron, Granite and Sandstone)?


This next question is aimed at Iron players… btw. The current meta for these ferrous fellows is to obtain Gold Ore from the Blast Furnace Shop. However, we’ve noticed a level of griefing in the Iron version of the shop, and we’d like to put a stop to it.

We want to change the Iron-specific version of the Blast Furnace Shop so that players can buy or sell items when they are not at their base stock, while stopping the price from changing depending on the stock available. We’re hoping this will alleviate the griefing issue.

Obviously, this would not affect the normal version of the shop.

Regardless of whether or not the above suggestion passes, we’re going to adjust the timing of the shop’s restock and de-stock cycle to be much faster than it currently is.


Question #11 will ONLY be polled to Iron players.


Poll Question #11:

Should we remove the price scaling mechanic from the Iron version of the Blast Furnace Shop and instead allow Iron players to buy and sell at a fixed price?



We’ve had something for Iron players, now let’s move on to the ULTIMATE Iron players! One of the items currently missing from the perpetually useful Player Owned House storage are the Mining Gloves. If you’re not familiar, these magic mittens give you increased rates of non-depletion for minerals including Silver and Coal all the way up to Runite and even Amethyst.

We think these definitely belong in the Armour Case alongside your trusty Prospector Kit!

If this question passes, we’d like to offer Ultimate Iron players the chance to tell us what they think the storage options should look like – whether we should stick with one slot for one pair of gloves, or give you space for all three options (Standard, Superior, and Expert).


Poll Question #12:

Should Mining Gloves be storable in the Player Owned House?


Question #13 will ONLY be polled to Ultimate Iron players.


Poll Question #13:

If Poll Question #12 passes, should we include space for all three versions of the Mining Gloves to fit separately inside the Armour Case?


While we’re cosied up at the Player Owned House, let’s talk about the Fish Sack. When combined with the Fish Barrel to make the eloquently-named Fish Sack Barrel, this item becomes impossible to store in your humble abode.

We think you should be able to store it in your Magic Wardrobe. If added it will become an alternative slot for the Fish Sack, ensuring that Ultimate Iron players don’t get a cheeky extra spot for Fishing storage.

Unfortunately for your noses, we will not be adding an ‘air freshener’ item to go with this change. Sorry, Demon Butler!


Poll Question #14:

Should we allow players to store the Fish Sack Barrel as an alternative to the Fish Sack in the Player Owned House?


Our final question involves the Wilderness! We want to give PvPers a bit more accessibility by enabling the Special Attack Orb wherever you choose to fight other players – in the Wilderness, on PvP worlds, or inside PvP minigames like Last Man Standing or the Emir’s Arena.

This method would still be slower than the classic route in the Combat Options tab, but will allow players to choose how they feel most comfortable using their special attacks.

We reckon that most active PvPers will stick with the OG method, as muscle memory and fast reactions are key – but we think having the alternative option will add a nice bit of consistency to the game.


Poll Question #15:

Should we enable the Special Attack Orb in the Wilderness, PvP Worlds and PvP minigames?


Unpolled Changes

That’s a total of 15 questions for the poll itself! We know it’s not as chunky as Poll 76, but as we’ve explained, the plan is to do smaller, targeted QoL polls for the foreseeable future.

We’d also like to let you know about the following unpolled changes which will accompany Poll 77:

Pures and Ape Atoll

We want to let pures re-enter Ape Atoll. How’s that supposed to work?

Well, as many of you know, at the end of Monkey Madness you have to visit Daero and accept his training before you can revisit the home of the monkeys.

So to allow pures to return to this banana-laden paradise, we want to make it so that you can start Monkey Madness II simply by speaking to King Narnode, and travel to the Atoll without Daero’s training.

But there’s a catch! You will still need Daero’s training to complete Duke’s training, and you’ll need Duke’s training to use Heavy Ballistae. We think this is a fair compromise that will allow pures to return to Ape Atoll without disrupting everyone else’s experience.

This also means that pures will be able to complete King Awowogei’s chapter in Recipe for Disaster. As Adamant & Rune Gloves already have a appropriate Defence requirements (13 and 34 respectively) and other gloves are subsequentially gated via other quests, the gloves from the Culinaromancer's Chest will remain the same.

Player Owned House Tele Tabs

We’re giving builders everywhere the option to teleport to your Player Owned House using a teleportation tablet and have it automatically set to Building Mode! Can you fix it? YES YOU CAN!

A new setting in the House Options menu will automatically apply if you have both the ‘Building Mode’ and ‘Teleport Inside’ options turned on, allowing you to teleport into your house on Building Mode.

With both settings enabled the default teleport will do the trick – otherwise, you’ll have to right-click and use the new ‘Inside’ teleport option.

Deep Wilderness Lever

To give you more flexibility when exiting the Wilderness, we’re adding a toggleable option in the Settings Menu which will let you switch the default option on the Deep Wilderness Lever from Ardougne to Edgeville. You must complete the Easy Wilderness Achievement Diary to enable this option.

Elite Clue Drops

Good news for treasure hunters – we’re applying the Elite Clue Rate unlocked by completing Elite Combat Achievements to the Gold Chests found in Shades of Mort’ton and the Hallowed Sepulchre, giving you a whole lot more bang for your buck!

Grand Exchange Buying

If you fancy spending all the cash you have on one specific thing (Burnt Fish, perhaps?) you’re in luck! We’re adding a new ‘Buy All’ button to the Grand Exchange that will automatically set the number of items requested to the maximum number you can afford at the desired purchase price.

And don’t worry – you’ll be warned if you’re trying to purchase or sell the item at a much greater value (10x or more) than the usual asking price.

Charter Ships

Tired of hearing those pesky messages from Charter Ships? Simply use the new ‘Yes, and don’t ask me again’ option, and you’ll receive them no more!

We also want to hear about other areas of the game you’d like a similar ‘don’t ask again’ option for. Tell us your ideas on the relevant social channels, or in the Poll 77 survey below!


Have Your Say: Poll 77 Survey

Just in case you scrolled past our heartfelt speech up top, here’s what’s going on with QoL Poll Surveys in future.

Essentially, we want you to take a look at the poll questions above and tell us which suggestions matter most to you. We’ll use that information to prioritise which jobs we tackle first and shape the release schedule of Poll 77, so be honest!

You’ll also get the option to tell us about more changes you’d like to see – so it’s well worth clicking that button and telling us your thoughts!


Well, that just about covers everything for Poll 77. Make sure to let us know what you think about the current iterations of the questions, and whether we need to make any adjustments, on the usual social channels – they’re listed below for your convenience.


You can also discuss this update on our official forums, on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

Mods Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Boko, Brow, Bruno, Chilly, Curse, Daizong, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Gecko, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Havik, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Mack, Maylea, Markos, Meat, Moogle, Morty, Nin, Nylu, Regent, Redfield, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Shaun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Soffan, Sova, Squid, Starry, Steve W, Surma, Tide, Torrance, Veda, Vegard, West & Wolfy

The Old School Team.




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