Now that we have a good idea of how the Wilderness Rejuvenation II poll is fairing, we’d like to address the rewards from Revenant caves and gather your feedback based on the information we’ve provided. If you haven't already, you can catch up by reading the previous Dev Blog.
Reviewing the results of the poll, the main content is passing favourably but it’s clear we need to revisit the rewards on offer. After reviewing your feedback over the last few days, we are aware some changes need to be made and further clarification given for the rewards we initially offered.
We want to promote a risk vs reward scenario and bring with it the adrenaline rush you get when seeing that rare drop appear on the ground. Without any unique drops, the drop table for Revenants will be filled with supplies and alchables – great for many other NPC’s but not the most exciting of things to get from the Wilderness!
We want to be open and honest with you on this one, but ultimately, it’s down to what passes the polls.
The Rewards: Reworked
A lot of people were concerned over the effectiveness of the Amulet of Peril, especially when it came to accounts built specifically for rushing. We also saw a lot of very valid comments regarding the full details of the amulet not being released, which understandably hindered their decision to vote. If you didn't get chance to read up on the amulet's effects, you can catch up by reading the "Amulet of Peril" section of the previous Dev Blog.
The amulet when uncharged would have +5 to all Attack bonus stats and +5 to Melee Strength only. When fully charged, it would have +25 to all Attack bonus stats and +15 to Melee Strength only.
The amulet would charge based on the % of hitpoints the wearer has left, working in increments of 10. A player with 99 HP would have to be at 9 hitpoints or less to gain the maximum stat bonus from the amulet.
For the amulet to gain any additional stats, you must be in combat with your primary target for a minimum of 5 game cycles, which is equivalent to 3 seconds. If you attack a new target, this timer will reset.
Currently in most PvP situations, most players tend to sit at maximum HP throughout the entire fight. This means that other than a well-timed, or rather lucky special attack, there can be little opportunity to get a good kill. The purpose of the amulet is to mix up the current meta of sitting at full HP by giving players an incentive to risk being at lower HP.
We don’t want to make any changes to the proposed Loot Key Scroll that was suggested as a drop, but would like to address some of the main points raised. If you didn't get chance to read up on how Loot Keys work, you can catch up by reading the "Loot Key Scroll" section in the previous Dev Blog.
Many players have asked why isn’t this in the Bounty Hunter store. Whilst we can see why this would be wanted and it does give more options for PKers to spend their points on, we think them coming as a drop is a more favourable option. You can currently purchase any item of choice from the Bounty Hunter store via Emblems (which can be obtained from the G.E). The Loot Key Scroll would be tradeable, meaning anyone that doesn’t want to gather or buy Emblems could buy the scroll from the G.E (just as you would Emblems).
We want to help diversify the Revenant drop table by adding it as a tradeable drop, whilst also giving everyone a chance to obtain the unlock.
We’ve also seen players request the ability for Loot Keys to have the option for food and supplies to be split from the key, so they can restock after each kill. If we did this then the Loot Keys would be far too strong – players are already gaining a huge benefit of not having to carry a full inventory of loot. Any player that intends to PK and gather supplies from the defeated whilst doing so should simply toggle off Loot Keys.
Loot Keys are a permanent unlock once the scroll has been used, with players being able to toggle them on or off as many times as they like from the Witch in Edgeville at no extra cost.
When killing a player with Loot Keys enabled, the key would be dropped in the way you'd expect normal loot to drop from a kill. You will still need to run over and pick it up. Keys would have an "Inspect" option on them, this option is available while they are on the floor or in your inventory. This will tell you the value of the key. You can then decide whether or not it's worth getting rid of one of your existing keys for one on the floor, etc.
Keys will always be lost on death and we won't be giving players holding keys any special skulls or indicators.
The PvP Armours were iconic to the original release of the Revenant caves and brought a large amount of variety to the Wilderness - we're looking to repoll all of the armours. Although many players that used these before knew how effective they were, some have raised concerns over their strength.
First off, let’s make it clear that we intentionally kept the stats the same as they were when first introduced, as we know what impact they had. We also didn’t want to shy away from the fact we offered these as they were before, which is why we didn’t change the armour names from their originals.
We want to offer the PvP armours as a more exclusive PvP item but don’t want to change any of the stats. Instead we’d like to propose them as having no offensive bonuses when not attacking a player. This means that in any Player vs NPC (PvM) activity, you would only gain the defensive bonuses of the gear. The items will still degrade as usual.
Many players were concerned about people switching to the PvP armours for a single tick simply to spec or tank, in an attempt to avoid the degradation timer. We have coded the armours in a way that stops players from being able to extend the duration of their armours whatsoever. The absolute maximum amount of time the armour will last is 60 minutes.
Each piece of armour lasts for 60 degradation cycles, these occur every 100 game cycles (60 seconds) when in combat. A degrade cycle is also added any time the armours are switched to during combat. Due to this degradation mechanic, the armour is going to last considerably less than 1 hour if the wearer is repeatedly switching between it and something else.
You can find the stats of the PvP armours in the previous Dev Blog under the "PvP Armours" section.
We're not looking to repoll the proposed ranged gloves/vambraces. Although they are at a higher pass percentage than the PvP armours, it was clear with the feedback received that many people feel an item like this should come from another piece of content. We've taken the feedback on board regarding what changes could be made, but as many of them didn't fit the theme of the Wilderness or being a drop from the Revenant caves, we've decided to not repoll them at this moment in time.
We'd love to get more feedback on the changes proposed above, so please discuss this update on our forums.
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