Q&A Summary 26/01/23
This week's livestream focused on the release of the Wilderness Boss Rework! Topics included:
Thanks to Mod Ayiza (Lead Community Manager), Mod Kirby (Junior Content Developer) and Mod Goblin (Community Manager) for their insights!
DISCLAIMER: Livestreams are a glimpse into the ongoing creative process at Jagex. JMods are speaking off-the-cuff and their comments are not intended to be read in the same way as prepared updates from the company. Please keep this in mind when discussing the Q&A!
Missed the live stream? Check out the transcript below!
Question #1
I’d like to know more about how the balance of Wildy Boss Rewards was decided and the ‘high-risk high reward’ concept was approached. For example, Phantom Muspah gives 225K GP/kill, but Wildy Bosses give 25K. Is this because the new uniques of the Wildy Bosses are more valuable?
Question #2
Hi guys, congrats on the reworked bosses, the arenas and models look fantastic. Now that we have added in the “group loot” mechanic to these bosses, are there any plans to go back and retroactively do the same for other bosses that could benefit from it? Corp beast comes to mind!
Question #3
Do the new lower-level bosses count towards the Achievement Diary? Do both versions of the bosses count towards the Elite Diary?
Mod Kirby
They should! If they don’t, then something has gone horribly wrong! There was a mechanic where you could pull Venenatis off to a corner when you were in Singles, and it would just magically work that you were safe-ish there. That’s the sort of setup that we wanted to preserve.
We’re probably changing the difficulty of getting those achievements, but we’re not substantially changing it. That was part of the reason why I wanted the Singles variants in the first place; there were mechanics where you could, as a lower-level player, get access to things that maybe if you were fighting the boss head-on, you wouldn’t be able to get access to. That’s the sort of mechanic you want to preserve, and that’s why we’re letting you get the D-Pick and Ring of the Gods in Singles.
Mod Goblin
Since this is Combat Achievement-related - we haven’t forgotten about the Combat Achievement point system. We’ll talk about it when we’re ready to talk about it properly. We haven’t forgotten!
Question #4
Any reason why Veti’on Reborn’s sword changes colour? Can we make it so his sword stays blue? The orange/blue contrast looks really nice. The old version's sword never changed.
Mod Kirby
Counterpoint: I like the orange/orange energy!
Mod Ayiza
It is just an aesthetic thing; I don’t know how deep it is, but I saw it mentioned a few times. Do we like the sword changing colour with the style? Or should the sword stay the same colour?
In terms of the reason, I imagine it’s because the art team felt it was appropriate that the sword changed colour along with the rest of him.
Mod Kirby
That’s the real reason it changed. The art team said it should be orange, and then they made it so.
Question #5
I saw in a video that Artio can switch aggro if there are several people in the cave, interrupting the flow of this Single fight. I assume that Spindel and Calvar’ion behave similarly. Is this intended, or an oversight?
Question #6
Is it intentional that the boss cave entry fee is lost on death even if you die elsewhere in the wilderness?
Mod Kirby
This is a weird one. If you’re in the cave and get chased back out, you’re no longer in the cave - but you were in the cave, and you could have started the fight in the cave. Should you still lose the entry fee then? Or if you’re on your way to the cave and you’ve already paid the fee, you’re going to the cave, should you have to lose it then?
Having it lost anywhere is an easy solution. It’s one that could probably do with some more precise tuning, but as a general rule, having it lost anywhere is just easier, so that’s how I programmed it, but I don’t know how consistent it should be with the rest of the game.
Mod Goblin
I think that maybe there’s an avenue where we change it to be more consistent with Revs. Obviously, you’re the dev, I’m not, but my understanding is that it’s something to do with how the game stores who you’ve been in combat with and the damage dealt.
Mod Kirby
The game tries to aggressively assign PvP deaths if it can currently.
Mod Goblin
I’m not sure if it was intentional or wasn’t. I’ve been planning to update the newspost, but I’ve had a lot of meetings today and I’ve written it down that this is something that we’re looking into how best to address it.
I’ve seen suggestions from people about better ways to combat ragging in the Wilderness at large. I know some of those same people will be talking about Wilderness fees now. I think those are much bigger conversations that I’d love to have at some point, but not right now. Soon, but not directly related to the Wildy Boss Rework.
I think we should sort this fee out first, specifically for the cave system, and then we’ll move on to bigger and better things. There’s a lot of stuff to do in the Wilderness.
Mod Ayiza
As Goblin said, it’s something we’re aware of and want to look into. I think it’s a little different to Rev Caves because Rev Caves are much bigger, so you’ll typically die within them as opposed to having the escape cave system and then suddenly being in the overworld. We’ll look into it.
Question #7
Is there a reason why the reworked bosses aren’t similar GP an hour to Vorkath and Hydra? This isn’t the case unless you get lucky on uniques.
Mod Ayiza
We’re aware that the drop-tables aren’t the most lucrative at the moment. We’re most likely making a hotfix on the 27th to increase the baseline quantity of loot that you get across the board, and then we’re going to be looking at data over the following days to fine-tune that until we’re at a place where we’re happy, and where you as players are happy.
It was intentional that we put the drop-table to be a little more on the safe side. Maybe a little too far on the safe side, but it happens. I know that players would like to be able to sit there for four hours and farm things with extremely high gold-per-hour rates, but I’d rather be in a position where we don’t mess up the economy or don’t ruin anything in particular. No one will feel like they’ve missed out because they didn’t get the chance to play for four hours to get 20 mil an hour.
Instead, we’re incrementally increasing it. We’ll let you know when it’s in a good place - players will probably let you know when it’s a good place too. Then everything is safe and healthy and we can go back to having fun.
Question #8
Do the lower-risk versions of the Wildy Bosses drop the upgrades to the weapons also?
Question #9
Is the Voidwaker Korasi?
Mod Kirby
The problem is: Who is Korasi? In RuneScape 3, there’s a Korasi and there’s a Korasi sword. In Old School, Korasi doesn’t exist. It would be weird to have a sword of someone who may or may not exist in the first place!
Mod Ayiza
It is and it isn’t. It’s similar to the weapon and was heavily inspired by the Korasi sword, but it’s not the Korasi sword.
Mod Goblin
Stat-wise, it’s a bit different. It’s definitely different to the Korasi, and I think that the average player is way better than they were back in the day. I couldn’t even spell combo eat when I was getting beaten over the head with Korasi back in the day, and now here we are.
Question #10
Will there be any change to the Voidwaker's special attack animation? The other weapons got some really unique and cool special attack animations but the Voidwaker's is a bit underwhelming.
Mod Kirby
Maybe, if players want it. I’m sure we can get something together.
Mod Ayiza
I’ve seen quite a bit of feedback regarding the animation itself, and some people have said “Actually, it’s really good!”. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but originally the Voidwaker as a project had a bit of an oversight. There were all these weapons that we were focused on because we were reworking the bosses, and we all just forgot about the Voidwaker existing! Originally it was going to have the dragon scimitar animation.
Mod Goblin
We didn’t forget!
Mod Ayiza
In terms of its animations, we did. We knew it was there, and the weapon was developed. Then everything else was focused on, and it wasn’t until a few weeks before it was to be released that we went “Hold on a second, how does it look?” and we realised we’d forgotten about it.
Mod Kirby
The reason it has the dragon scimitar special attack is that I needed an item to plug in to represent the Voidwaker in the beta. I chose the dragon scimitar, and I painted it green. I then copied across the special attack animation at the same time, and never changed it!
Mod Ayiza
It was going to be the green dragon scimitar special attack, and then after a quick chat you managed to absolutely pull it out of the bag. I really like the Voidwaker’s special attack, and it was completely unintentional. So some people really love it, which is cool, but we can add something new if people really want.
Mod Goblin
If people really want it, we can ask art if they can spare any time when they’re not working on all the other cool stuff coming in the first half of the year.
Question #11
Will the Voidwaker have useful applications in PvM?
Mod Goblin
The TLDR on PvM applications is that it competes with claws and ZCB. In some places, claws will be better, in other places, ZCB will be better, and in other places, Voidwaker will be better.
I don’t think it’s ever strictly bad, and there are some places where Voidwaker is technically better, but also places you'd be better off using your spec energy on a defence-reducing spec; a dragon warhammer or BGS.
I don’t think it’s insane in PvM ubiquitously, but I also think it’s worth having one. There’ll be places where I feel a speedrunner will find uses for the Voidwaker, which is kind of cool. There’s a bit of spec diversity without being outright better than everything else is neat.
Mod Ayiza
I think there are at least two bosses where the Voidwaker was better, but you then had to make a decision as to whether you wanted to lose those inventory slots to have that extra DPS. It’s better, but might not be for everyone, so I think you’re right in what you said.
To answer the question: yes, but it’s not intended to be a new, absolute best-in-slot for everywhere in PvM.
Question #12
As an Ironman, is my only option the lower-level bosses? Or are the harder ones also possibly solo-able?
Mod Kirby
Harder ones are definitely solo-able - I would suggest maybe not in the immediate time period just because of the sheer quantity of people that are going to be wanting to do them, but it is doable.
Mod Goblin
They’re doable, Vet’ion especially because so much of the damage is avoidable. It’s actually quite easy if you’re uninterrupted. It’s doable, it just takes longer.
Question #13
Will you guys look into the way the minibosses work for Ironman? Currently, we don't get kill credit as soon as someone enters the instance and gets hit, even though it's supposed to be singles.
Mod Ayiza
We’re aware of it and we’re going to look into it. We are very much intending for the bosses to be able to attack other people that enter the cave because we feel that it’s a good dynamic; you don’t have to defend against a PKer and the boss, the PKer has to attack you and defend against the boss at the same time.
We know about the whole recoil thing - we know that it’s obviously causing issues with your kill credit. Hopefully, that’s something we can change, and we’ll keep you posted, but it’s not going to be something immediate.
Question #14
Though it wasn't mentioned at the time of the blog, or poll but could we maybe see the new upgrades to the wilderness weapons be BIS at each of the specific bosses?
Question #15
Will Group Ironmen Men lose prestige if another person attacks the reworked Wilderness Bosses?
Mod Kirby
Do you want to be griefed?! We could do that if you really want!
Mod Goblin
The answer is no. We’ll do “bad cop, helpful cop” for that one!
Question #16
Will there be any changes to the Iron-only Kalphite Queen lair itself? It's gonna get super busy and right now, an Iron's kill can be accidentally or intentionally griefed just by another stepping into the lair. Paid private instances perhaps?
Question #17
Why weren’t the drop rates of Dragon Pickaxe from Volcanic Mine revealed yet? Is it because this info will be provided in the upcoming weeks?
Question #18
Is the team investigating Broken Dragon Pickaxe not being visible at the Collection Log?
Mod Kirby
I believe it's fixed, and it's now without problems.
Mod Goblin
It was fixed yesterday.
Mod Ayiza
I think this question came in before the fix, but it's a good segway for us to remind you that it was fixed! You should be able to see the Broken Dragon Pickaxe in the Collection Log. If you can't, then please let us know because that's a problem.
I think the only exception is that if you got the Broken Dragon Pickaxe and repaired it before we applied our fix, then it won't show in the Collection Log. You had to have the Broken Dragon Pickaxe still available after our fix, and anyone who was caught in that small period of time is unfortunately not going to get it added; there's no way we can revert that.
It's unfortunate, but we just can't really do anything about it. We're sorry, and hopefully, you can enjoy mining a little bit more. We'll release the drop rates within the week or after and then you'll know how long you've then got to spend to get it back.
Question #19
Could Krystilia receive her own block list for Slayer? I wanted to try Wildy Slayer with the new updates but to do it properly I would have to get completely new blocks. It incentives not to switch between Krystilia and other masters. Not being able to block certain tasks is troubling for Wildy Slayer.
Mod Goblin
Personally, I would be keen. Wildy Slayer is in a weird spot now where I'm not even sure that it's the best points per hour anymore. If you want to jump between doing conventional Slayer and Wildy Slayer to set your block list up properly, you have to frontload a bunch of points, meaning that you've got a deficit that you have to make back up before you're actually profiting points.
I think it'd be cool to do and I think it makes sense as well given that the streaks are separate. It would be cool to see more people doing Wildy Slayer. People in chat are saying that it is still the best points per hour, though I think Turael boosting might actually be a little bit better these days. Maybe I’m wrong, I haven’t Tureal-skipped in a long time.
I would like to do it, and it's something that comes up a lot in Player Suggestions Meets. It would be cool; it would be nice to make all the Wilderness a little bit better and also probably a little bit more profitable outside of just like the points as well.
The Wilderness Slayer cave drop-table would be neat to boost a little bit so that it feels a bit more valid for people that are willing to take the risk for some extra reward while slaying. Plus, most of the tasks are pretty good - some of them suck, like magic axes, but that's what the block list is for!
Mod Ayiza
It seems to have gathered a pretty decent amount of support. Most people are saying “Yeah, makes sense. Sounds reasonable”, so maybe that is something that we could look at doing in the next round of Wilderness-style updates.
I think there's more that we would need to consider. We wouldn't just suddenly be making the absolute most broken form of Slayer possible, because obviously there are bad tasks that you would never guarantee. That's all part of the process and there’s no reason why we wouldn't be able to, but it’s not something that's going to come out next week. Maybe in the next poll, we’ll see.
Question #20
The New Wildy Boss fights, areas are great, better than the old ones! Thanks for an awesome update. Can we expect any more Wildy updates in the future?
Mod Kirby
We're almost certainly going to do a Wilderness update in the future. I think the only reason we wouldn't is if Jagex suddenly collapsed, and we all just couldn't work on Old School in the future. We will do stuff in the future.
Mod Ayiza
In the immediate future, Bounty Hunter is the next thing that we're working on after Wilderness Boss Rework, so we've got a little bit more feedback post-Boss Rework release. But if I'm not mistaken, the next project for the team that's currently working on Wilderness Boss Rework is Bounty Hunter.
I would personally really like for us to look at one of the upcoming polls. We’re currently on poll 78, so maybe Poll 80 or Poll 81 could include some elements of PvP towards the later end of this year, where we can clean up a few things.
From there, it's figuring out what that next big Wilderness update is, but that's at least not immediately. Following on from that, who knows, but I think the answer is yes, we are going to do more.
This update really has gone down really well. I'm really happy with it, so I’m keen to see all the data that comes from it. I think that will help inform us what kind of scale we go to going forward.
Mod Goblin
I'm just excited to do more. There are definitely candidates like the Resource Area and stuff from the Game Jam Wilderness expansion. There are all kinds of cool stuff that we've pitched that people seemed excited about, it’s just finding the time to do them.
Question #21
It was honestly absolutely brilliant to have Content Creators describe the content. Are there any plans to do the same for other content? I hope you guys do this more because it was great!
Mod Goblin
I have really enjoyed what the RuneScape Chronicles team came out with when I reached out and just asked “You guys do really cool stuff really quickly, could you do something for the Wildy Boss Rework?”.
I didn't ask Kemp to go out and ask other people to voice-act and do a skit or anything like that and he was like ‘’Yeah, I got you Skill Specs, Torvesta, 9Rain and Solo Mission!”. I didn't ask him to do that, but he did and it seems to have gone really well. People really liked it.
We really want to do more on the YouTube channel this year. We want to do a lot of cool stuff like collabs; like we did last year with the Recap.
Mod Ayiza
We had a lot of Creator Collab Content last year towards the last half of last year; we really started to ramp that up. I think going into it this year as Goblin said, we want to continue that momentum but do even better than we did before, so you should absolutely look forward to more Content Creator Collaborations!
It's a fantastic way for us to advertise content, pay the creators, and get them some extra exposure on the back of that - though this is not the reason for it because we do pay them. It also just brings everyone closer together. So I think it's just a win-win for us all really and I love doing it.
Question #22
Do you think we would ever see a blanket Wilderness fee, one that is 200k? It would combat the ragging mentality which is mainly for harassment purposes and is a root of toxicity in PvP. Having a 50k entry fee for Multi Caves did not solve it, as it was too low to impact anyone and was irrelevant because they could wait outside in rags avoiding that penalty.
Question #23
Is there any possibility that the cannon can be allowed at least in the lesser variant caves? We were able to use cannons before, but not anymore!
Mod Goblin
I think we could talk about it. 10 HP Accounts used to be able to do them, and now they can't. I'm not saying we need to cater to 10 HP accounts, but I think it'd be worth discussing at the very least. I don't want them to feel like they've had the rug pulled out from under them because now there are 10 HP Irons with Vet’ion pets that you can’t get any more, for example. It feels a little bit bad, but it's not like catering.
Mod Kirby
There's a non-zero chance with the way Callisto is programmed that it might just break with a cannon. I'll investigate, and if the answer is no, I might enable cannons. I’ll see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow!
Question #24
Is Artio KC going to be counted in high scores for Callisto?
Mod Kirby
No, he's significantly easier!
Mod Ayiza
Cool. Do they have separate Kill Counts on the Boss HiScores?
Mod Kirby
They have separate Kill Counts, and they're not on the HiScores currently. Our arms could be twisted.
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