Q&A Summary - 16/06/23
This week's livestream focused on the Sailing Core Gameplay Q&A after the release of the recent newspost! Topics included:
Thanks to Mod Ayiza (Lead Community Manager), Mod Light (Senior Community Manager), Mod Elena (Senior Game Designer) and our guest Gentle Tractor 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
Why has Sailing been designed as a skill rather than a content expansion or a mini-game?
Question #2
In the blog, we categorised training methods into 3 types - either “Primary, Secondary or Tertiary” methods. Primary gameplay ONLY gives Sailing XP, so does this mean that the Primary methods will be the best way of training the skill? There is a concern generally that the ‘best’ method will be something that certain players aren’t a fan of. How do we balance them so that other methods are not obsolete and are worth doing?
Mod Light
The main issue I've seen here is whether Ship Racing going to be the meta way of training the skill, if people are not a fan of racing or speedy content.
Mod Elena
The way I see it is that Primary is the main training method, right? But the whole reason why we're giving so many different training methods is so that you have variety in what you can do. And if you don't like one of them, there's probably some other thing that you'd like. It's very hard to kind of balance everything perfectly at this stage. Because we haven't even begun developing it. We're waiting until Sailing actually passes the poll - if it passes. Therefore, saying what will be the matter at this stage is just too early to tell.
Maybe that's something that we just lean on opinion polls for. Perhaps we just ask the community ‘’Hey, do you think this method should be the highest XP granting one?’’ or ‘’Rank all of these methods and tell us in what order these should give the most to the least XP’’. So my answer is, the main training methods are the Primary ones, but the exact rates etc, aren't set in stone, we can easily change that around.
Mod Light
Also, we are planning on having a beta should Sailing past the Greenlight Poll where we would take more feedback into account. It’s really difficult to know the exact XP rates and answer those questions that players have. Hopefully, we'll be able to give you as much information as we can, and then discuss that later on, when we actually have started development. Because remember, we're in the design stages of Sailing, we are not actually developing it at this stage.
Question #3
There is so much content on offer in our latest blog. We’ve had to strike a really hard balance between showing what Sailing could become, versus not over-promising which would be extending the length of development too far. Could you outline what training methods players can expect to have on launch and what type of content is to come post-launch?
Mod Elena
It really is a tricky balance to strike, because I played the game quite a lot myself and I played before I joined Jagex, as well. I can absolutely relate to just waiting for an update and just wishing it would come out. If I wanted Sailing to come out sooner, obviously, I would want it to come out finished, but I wouldn't want it to also take too long if you get what I mean.
That's the balance that we need to find. Hypothetically, if Sailing took 10 years to develop, it probably wouldn't be worth it, because you guys would all be moving on to something else like playing Bounty Hunter 3 etc and Sailing wouldn't be as relevant anymore.
The stance that we've had so far, we don't know exactly how much content we can fit in, because we haven't really started refining our backlog for all of this, like looking at the code, and how long would this take to code and how, versus how long would another take.
Our goal is to include all of the Primary methods, and we will pull the Secondary ones and try to get in as many as possible, based on the community’s opinion. Then the Tertiary stuff will most likely be post-launch. I could see us fitting in one or two maybe - depending on the science of them, but they're quite big projects. To be fair, a skill is just like a series of multiple projects.
Mod Light
Awesome. Is there a chance though, that we might be able to squeeze in some Secondary activities for the launch of the skill? Methods that players really like, monster hunting for example. Do you think that could be for launch or is it a post-launch thing? Or is it just too difficult to tell?
Mod Elena
If that's what players want us to focus on, we could absolutely do that. Mod Husky and I were talking about maybe just giving you guys a list of all of them and polling the order that we should make them in or something like that. It would be quite cool.
Mod Light
Oh, nice! Very very cool!
Mod Elena
The way I think about this is that Sailing should obviously feel like a finished skill or like a full skill when it releases, but it shouldn't be finished either! Look at the existing skills in the game -they didn't launch finished. We kept adding to it, we’re still adding to them. So Sailing should do the same. I would absolutely expect there to be Sailing updates years after it's released.
Mod Light
I think that kind of speaks to what Gentle Tractor was saying earlier about how that skill is basically a system that gets expanded upon. We would absolutely expect to keep building on it post-launch. It’s just figuring out that healthy balance of what you want in for launch and what should be prioritised later.
Question #4
With Sailing, we decided that using any facility on your Ship gets Sailing XP. At a surface level, this is quite simple. We gave the example of fastening Sails as one of the easiest ways to visualise training the core gameplay for players. For some players, it can feel simplistic or a bit boring. Can you explain a bit more about how we intend to layer the gameplay mechanics for the skill, with NPCs etc, so that the gameplay from 1-99 is not about luffing the sails?
Mod Elena
I'm just gonna loop back to what I was saying before, on the whole topic of ‘this is why we're showing so many methods’. We want there to be something that appeals to most people and also appeals to you in different settings. Sometimes I'll be on the bus, or I'll just be on the couch, playing on my mobile and I don't want to do something intensive - I don't want to sweat out gameplay at that point. I just want to AFK Woodcutting and watch a movie on the side.
But sometimes I am sat at my computer and wanting to pay 100% attention to the game. Naturally, you're going to want different methods for that. That's kind of what we're trying to capture in the different training methods.
Gentle Tractor
I want to hop back to what you were saying before about the overall potential for the skill going forward. I quite like that about the Sailing core - interacting with the ship facilities. You've got the consistent basis of your ship, that's your home base for all things Sailing-related.
These facilities on it - they could be anything! Sky's the limit; whatever your imagination comes up with. Just like a skill wants to be full but not necessarily complete, I could totally see more little facilities whenever a cool idea comes along for a new little mechanical form of Sailing that could occur when a particular ship type and that could equal a new facility being added to your ship. Then that's just another little source of Sailing XP. It's not just that same one individual fastening of the sails.
I think there's just a tonne of potential there for all those little interactions that can just add up over time and just gradually be added to. It's one of those skills that's quite unique or will be in that it can keep expanding and becoming more interesting and varied as time goes on, rather than feeling like it replaces all things coming before it.
Question #5
Do you imagine that there will be something for the really high-level and competitive community to sink their teeth into, like tick manipulation, to make the gameplay feel really quite engaging?
Question #6
Will Ship Racing be group instanced like Hallowed Sepulchre, where others can see you do your time trial, or personal instanced, where it's just you and the NPCs? Are we concerned about Agility references?
Mod Light
I would just like to confirm with Elena - Ship Racing is against NPCs; it’s not against other players, you're not gonna have to compete against your friends for Ship Racing.
Mod Elena
The way I see it is, it's primarily you against the ocean, against natural dangers at sea - be that dangerous reefs, rocks, storms etc. But there's this faction - the NPCs called the Barracudas, and they live off of this; they thrive on this thrill-seeking race against nature.
What they do is they time themselves essentially, like speeding through these routes. I've seen a lot of feedback on this topic, like ‘’Does it have to be time-gated?’’ etc. I think it doesn't have to be; we can explore options here. For example, you complete the route, but maybe you get extra rewards - something like either extra experience or maybe a resource that you get from beating them at their own game.
But considering that this needs to be repeatable content as well - it's actually a training method, it's not a one-off - we might want to consider whether timing it just maybe feels bad. It's one of those that we just have to see what it feels like once it's implemented, then try navigating a lot and see what it feels like to navigate across the route like that and decide then.
In short, it's mainly you against the sea. You are against dangers. The time is optional, I would say, at this stage. But it would mean mainly against the NPCs - though we do want to include leaderboards I think for this, if we still keep the time. So I think there's something fun there where you can kind of compete for the world's best Karamja Run route or something like that.
Mod Light
Awesome, great clarification there. And I love the idea of using time as more of a bonus rather than gatekeeping people!
Question #7
I’ve seen a lot of people make comparisons to Agility courses at Sea. What is your response to this - how does it differ?
Gentle Tractor
I guess the obvious and logical comparison that comes up is just that element of movement, right? Agility is kind of a defacto movement skill, Sailing is the act of moving at sea. So there's always been natural comparisons being made there. I think that's why Ship Racing comes up.
Obviously the nature of the core structure that agility runs off of and hearing something like a race or going around something - there's obvious comparisons here. I do think there's enough to be distinct, though. I think agility gets a bad rap and is not super well-beloved because it's very simplistic, static, and linear. It's all very subdued and basic in what it's doing and how it's structured - you’re just picking this big green box on RuneLight, and following the path around the same way again and again.
Whereas based on some of the descriptions I've heard for Ship Racing at least, and having a few more subtly dynamic elements to it - maybe it's over a slightly larger area, dealing with these different oceanic effects and hazards, and then utilising your actual different features on your ship, like using those facilities. Maybe you've applied the proper kind of battering ram on the front of the figurehead of your ship to crash through a wreckage point, or you're stopping by to try to remove some big areas of debris with a salvaging hook as you try and careen around a big corner and dodge a giant wave coming through. That, to me, sounds a lot more engaging and interesting!
When you look at the parts of Agility scale in particular, people - generally speaking - tend to like things like Hallowed Sepulchre. I'd fully agree with that - it has that nice level of dynamism to it that just feels quite good and satisfying when you probably get into it and get into that kind of flow state. I really think Ship Racing could hack into that - the good parts of those elements of that skill, while perhaps circumventing and sidestepping some of the less desirable ones. But I do get the comparison, it's kind of inevitable in a way, but I don't think it is fully 100% apt.
Mod Ayiza
Very similar take to mine, actually! When I see the comparisons, I want to understand what part of Agility players are thinking that it's so reminiscent of. I think Twitch chat just now has hit the nail on the head when they bring up Sepulchre, or just like General Tractor mentioned there as well.
However, is that really a bad thing? Because Hallowed Sepulchre is a really good Agility training method, and if we're able to - by the way, this isn't the intention for what it's worth - recreate an experience similar to that that fits into Sailing as a skill. Why is that a bad thing? Do the players really think that that's a bad thing? And if so, let us know so that we can look to adjust any of the designs for it. But I personally don't think it is - players really love the Hollowed Sepulchre. Why not look and take from what we've done before, learn from it, and improve it for other pieces of content?
I think that the way that Sailing makes it so much more interactive and engaging with a whole host of other features that we just wouldn't be able to pull off in something like traditional Agility is one of the main reasons why ‘yeah, they're similar, but they're not the same’. I think it's okay for things to be similar as long as it's similar to the good aspects of it, rather than just the poor.
Question #8
For some players, Ship Racing will absolutely satisfy the ‘need for speed’ and highly engaging content. But for others, RNG elements can spook them, and they might immediately get worried that it is too challenging, they don’t want to be timed, etc. - it’s not relevant or fun for some types of players. Can you expand upon how Ship Racing can have more mass appeal to multiple types of players? Also, are you racing against other players or other NPCs?
Mod Light
One thing that we did look at in feedback after the Discord Stage that we had was the idea of Sepulchre at sea - some people absolutely loved it, but some people were understandably cautious about it, because they felt that it was almost too difficult or too challenging content. They didn't want that to be necessarily a Primary method. So we really wanted to look at how we can make this welcoming to every kind of player, even if you're not a hardcore Sepulchre player. Maybe you're just starting out? How do we make Ship Racing feel approachable to every kind of player? Elena, if you can talk a bit about that in terms of your vision for making this kind of content appealing at the higher end and at the lower end of players?
Mod Elena
I want to open with a bit of a spicy take: I don't think every piece of content needs to be approachable by everyone. Because the sooner you do that, you just ruin the charm of it. If everything just feels the same, eventually, nothing is special, right? It's good to have different pieces of content.
That said, I also think we could have different races worldwide. So you could have one that's maybe quite early on - like at level 10, you unlock this Karamja Run one. And maybe it's quite a simple one, but then you'd level to 50, and you unlock an extension to that route. Suddenly it's way more difficult.
You don't have to do that. Perhaps it's not for you! Go do another activity or do the race that you feel comfortable doing, but as I said, we can play around with times as well - times don't need to be punishment. Maybe it's just a bonus if you hit it.
Lots to consider! There are many things for us to consider during playtests when we actually get to jump in the game and see how it feels.
Mod Light
So do you feel like Ship Racing has that skill ceiling for more apt players that they can take that challenge further, but it's not going to be a punishment to the people that maybe can't necessarily do those higher-intensity kinds of ship races?
Mod Elena
Yeah, I guess that's my dream - a low entry point but a high skill ceiling for really mastering it. I think that would be the dream! Someone in the chat says Tokyo Drift Sailing; I love that!
Mod Ayiza
It ties back into the point that I made earlier, which was that we need to make sure that content appears for everyone. We can't forget that high-level players exist. If racing is more appealing to high-level players, then that should be fine because there are a whole host of other training methods that we are looking to implement.
Question #9
Does Ship Racing need to be a Primary training method? There are some concerns that a competitive activity should not form part of the Primary way to train a skill. How would you respond to that?
Question #10
In the blog, we touched on the idea that Ships would have their own Combat system, but we didn’t expand it other than explaining it would give Sailing XP and not Combat XP. Some players have asked for more detail on Ship Combat. Additionally, they were wondering what the appeal of Ship Combat is when they already have Combat as a player in-game. Thoughts?
Mod Elena
The way I see it is: there might be creatures out at sea that you simply aren't strong enough to defeat. I mean, sure, you can defeat everything you've found so far on land. But what about a massive sea creature? Or how are you going to use your Tumeken's Shadow to sink an entire ship? If you're fighting a pirate ship and they're trying to sink you, how do you deal with that?
I think it makes sense to include some sort of ship combat. We were talking very loosely about how - because it doesn't follow regular combat rules - we could just boost the damage numbers by quite a lot and say that the base damage for the standard cannon is about 500. That would feel really cool! Like, “Look, I hit 1000 against that ship!” Just to make it feel really different. We could change up the hit spots and everything to make you feel like it's significantly different. I would say it should resemble combat but shouldn't feel the exact same; because otherwise, what's the point?
Question #11
There were a few discussions in various threads about XP/hr and comparing the different methods we presented in the blog. It’s fair to say that ‘Low’, ‘Medium’ or ‘High’ rates vary between different skills - Low for Mining is very different from Low for Construction. Can we talk a little bit about the XP ballparks we gave a bit more? How long do you expect 1-99 to take for an average player? What would you want players to keep in mind when considering and comparing XP rates at this early stage of development?
Mod Elena
I guess in terms of the XP ballparks, it’s really because we don't know yet. What we're trying to do is see where does this activity fit in compared to this activity? But we haven't set the baseline XP. We haven't said what medium XP is, what high XP is, or what low XP is. We don't know that yet.
I'd be open to feedback on this. How fast do you guys feel like XP should be gained? How much XP per hour do you reckon you should get at level 50? At level 70? At level 99? Give us a ballpark that you think is right because we could absolutely look at existing skills and base it on that. What skill do you guys think does it well, and what should we aim for? We're very open to seeing what feels right.
Gentle Tractor
I was just going to talk about experience; a new skill presents a really interesting opportunity we've literally never had before in the game. But when it comes to XP rates - and like you mentioned - all of the current skills are a little bit lopsided; some very fast, some very slow, and some cause really big design challenges, I imagine, for you guys on the team. You've got this old skill that’s got a really, really high-intensity training method everyone does. But it's really pathetically low XP and starts at a really low level. How do you go beyond that? You can't do that comfortably without disrupting a lot of things, and the progression gets all thrown out of whack; you hit these plateaus and weird level bands that don't make a lot of sense.
That's why a new skill is really interesting as well. It's a blank canvas! For the first time, you can actually properly lay out ‘’Okay, what should the skill really look like when training it? What should the XP be like at low levels, mid-levels, and at high levels? What should the low-intensity content be giving? What should the high-intensity content be giving?’’
Then create a proper broad spectrum and a good spread, covering all the bases and areas from low to high to ensure the whole skill feels positive - you're always gaining greater XP per hour, and you're getting higher and higher up every level. Also, making sure each individual activity is appropriately balanced against one another. Obviously, we do end up with a lot of dead-ish content in the game from just years gone back because it wasn't factored in to be balanced alongside this high-intensity tick manipulation thing that exists at level 40 or whatever. So I think an interesting consideration with a skill like Sailing - or any new skill - is that you've really got that blank canvas to start fresh and make a proper robust, well-designed XP curve from 1 to 99.
Mod Light
That is something that we discussed in our kickoff a few months ago when we sat down, and we were talking about, for example, Hunter and all of the issues we had with it that we definitely wanted to avoid. We want to make a good skill, right? So being able to see it through from 1 to 99, and all of the bits and pieces that go in between, I think it's going to feel a lot more fleshed out and be a better player journey as a result of that! Because we know that the goal for a lot of players is to get to 99, whereas I think in the past, skills weren't designed with that whole thing already planned out. Really good point there, Gentle Tractor!
Question #12
We’ve had some questions come in around Ship “Sinking” mechanics. Can you explain our approach to Sinking and whether you’ve considered it to be a ‘Safe’ death for HCIM? Do you think players will lose their items or potentially even lose their ship?
Mod Elena
We've gone a bit back and forth on this. Generally, where we stand is that just like how ship combat is a bit different to traditional combat, I think that your ship capsizing doesn't necessarily mean that you die with the ship. Maybe you land in the water, and some sailor is passing by, and decides to tow your ship and save you! Maybe you pay some money to fix up your ship or whatnot. But personally, I don't want just capsizing to be a death; getting sent off to port and having to pay for repairs is kind of punishment enough in my opinion.
We've also talked about having dedicated resources that you gain from Sailing and having you store them in the cargo hold of your ship. I would say that maybe instead of losing your items and gear and that kind of stuff, maybe you lose just the stuff in your cargo hold instead. This is an interesting mechanic because then that opens up the door for, maybe down the line, you can actually upgrade your ship in a way that lets you keep more of those when you die so that you don't actually lose as much from your cargo hold.
It's a super interesting theme, and I think it's something that we need to think a bit more about. Is it a hardcore death? Probably not. I would say if you get boarded, and your character is the one dying, like you get stabbed by pirates or something, then yes - it's just a traditional death.
Mod Ayiza
It's gonna be a really interesting dynamic, actually, between the two. When you have to consider Ship Combat acting differently to normal combat, and then ship deaths separate to your own character's death. I really like that, personally! I find it quite interesting when you mentioned the idea of a pirate boarding your ship, and you could die to a pirate - which would mean that your player would die just as a normal death throughout the game because you are able to interact on your boat as you would anywhere else within Gielinor too. But yeah, not dying if your ship is capsized.
What about in PvP combat? Because I know that we've not really spoken about it a lot here but in previous streams and Stages we have talked about the idea of having an area of no rules within the sea that might enable PvP combat. How would you see that potentially working Elena? It might again be a bit too early, but are we thinking that it would be purely based on ship loot? Or do we anticipate that players may be able to actually board someone else's ship as well and then kill them on the ship just like they would within the Wilderness?
Mod Elena
I really like that idea, actually, boarding other people! I honestly don't know. We haven't started designing that yet, so it's all up in the air now. I do like that idea, though. How would you board them? Would you just ram into them? Or would you shoot yourself over in a cannon?
Mod Ayiza
I love the idea of shooting over from a cannon! That is only if we had the dumbest animation in existence. We've talked about different ship customisations and upgrades. There could be a whole suite of them designed just for navigating through this dangerous sea with no rules. You could have a boarding plank or ropes that you shoot out with a harpoon cannon instead of a cannonball cannon, and then scale across them using Agility or something and try not to get shot down with arrows.
Mod Elena
I saw someone say as well: maybe to indicate that a ship is skulled, you could have a skulled sail or a flag that is the skull to indicate that the entire ship is skulled.
Mod Ayiza
Grapple Hooks! We have Grapple Hooks in-game; it could make great use of them. Board someone else's ship by shooting them with a Mithril Crossbow.
Mod Elena
Maybe that's the Grapple Hook expansion we've all been waiting for! Introducing: the Adamant Grapple Hook! The Runite Grapple Hook!
Question #13
Is PvP completely optional and avoidable for those who don’t want to engage in it?
Mod Elena
Yes, PvP has to be optional. We don't want to force that upon anyone. But again, I would really love to do this because it's such a cool theme; pirates at sea. PvPers would literally be pirates, pillaging other ships, boarding them, and firing cannons. So it's really cool, but absolutely opt-in.
Mod Ayiza
I think it's just important to remember that the Wilderness works the way that it does now because it was implemented many years ago. It had a long-standing history; players were used to the way that it worked, the way that it operates, what it gives you, and why you go there. But we have the chance to do something completely different that is built for purpose instead of trying to expand on something that has got that history.
The current Wilderness - we say that it is opt-in, you don't really have to go there unless you don't want to - but that's not technically true. There are Clue Steps that are there. There are rewards from bosses that you want to get a hold of that make you feel like you need to go there, and training methods that you might want to do, like Chinchompas.
We can do that completely differently when it comes to Sailing if we were to go down that route of having PvP combat. So we could make it entirely, purely optional. Maybe focusing more on cosmetic aspects as opposed to Best in Slot upgrades. Or - as I mentioned - if we had the option to customise ships purely for PvP, you could unlock more customisations for better upgrades that are for only ship-based PvP.
That way, if you're not interested in it, it won't impact your normal Sailing journey or levelling experience in any way, shape, or form. But it will help you if you are looking to navigate those more dangerous waters. Nothing's set in stone. We could completely flip that around. We could if people wanted us to make it so that you had to go there. I don't think that's going to be the case, though. I just want to ensure that people aren't falling down the road of “Well, Jagex have said this before, it doesn't work with the Wilderness because we are forced to go there”. But this isn't the Wilderness; it won't be the Wilderness. It's something brand new, a blank canvas; we can make it whatever we feel it should be and whatever the players want it to be. Just be open-minded!
Mods Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Gecko, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Hend, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Lenny, Light, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Meat, Moogle, Morty, Nin, Nylu, Other, Pumpkin, Redfield, Regent, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Sova, Squid, Starry, Stevew, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, Torrance, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West & Wolfy
The Old School Team.
