Patch Notes: Early-Game Rebalance

As part of our Road to Restoration roadmap, we’re rolling out a series of rebalances across different level brackets, starting with the Early Game Rebalance.

This update focuses on smoothing out inconsistencies and improving progression for players fresh off Tutorial Island. We’re reducing unnecessary friction in those early levels by addressing things like shrimp catch rates, pickpocket stun chances, drop tables, and more.

Our aim is to make skilling feel simple, rewarding, and engaging, helping players naturally ease into the deeper systems each skill offers as they become more invested.

And this is just the beginning, we’ll be following up with a similar update for mid- and late-game progression later this year. Below you’ll find a full list of today’s changes, and if you’d like more insight into the reasoning behind them, be sure to check out our recent blog.

Agility

Early-game Agility has a few problems right out of the gate: low-level courses feel slow to train, shortcuts don’t really feel worth using anymore, and Silverhawk boots let players skip most of the core training experience.

At the same time, Agility is required for a ton of quests (over 50 of them in total with 20 of them needing up to 30 Agility), so it’s something players need early on. With this update, we’re boosting XP on the early courses and tweaking a few shortcuts so they become useful earlier in your journey.

Courses

Improved the XP gains on the following Agility Courses.

Shortcuts

• Fremennik Slayer Dungeon:
• Crevice shortcut from level 62 to 43.
• Chasm shortcut from level 81 to 61.
• Shilo Village:
• Stepping stones shortcut from level 74 to 32.

We’re also taking a look at a few Agility shortcuts that were being used to train Agility early on. That kind of gameplay isn’t really what we want, we’d rather see players actually engaging with the core training methods instead of just looping shortcuts to level up.

• The following Agility shortcuts will now award 1 XP when traversing them.
• Watch Tower trellis
• Nature Grotto bridge.

Hunter

Getting into Hunter early on can feel pretty overwhelming, there’s a lot of gear and items to manage, catch rates can feel like a coin flip, and XP is pretty slow at the start. On top of that, Whirligigs dominate Hunter training all the way through the skill and end up overshadowing other methods, like Big Game Hunter, at higher levels.

To tackle this, we’re boosting XP on early methods like bird trapping and kebbit tracking, and making them feel better to use by improving catch rates. Bird snares have also been updated to "find" birds within 1 extra tile.

These changes will make those early Hunter levels much faster as you'll fail less and catch more birds, as well as benefit from more XP.

We’ve also reworked Whirligigs so you no longer need to hide in the wardrobe but we’ve reduced their XP and added a few requirements to rein in how dominant they’ve been. They’ll still be a solid option, but we’re aiming to give other Hunter methods more room to shine as well.

Birds Trapping

• Increased the success chance at unlock levels of birds to 75%, increasing with your Hunter level until reaching 100% success rate at unlock level +25.
• Previous success chance at unlock level:
• Crimson Swift: 39%
• Golden Warbler: 41%
• Copper Longtail: 43%
• Cerulean Twitch: 44%
• Tropical Wagtail: 50%
• Increased the XP per catch of birds:
• Crimson Swift: 20 -> 22 (+10%)
• Golden Warbler: 39 -> 41 (+5%)
• Copper Longtail: 34 -> 55 (+62%)
• Cerulean Twitch: 56 -> 61 (+9%)
• Tropical Wagtail: 170 -> 100 (-41%)
• Note: With the new increased success chance, Tropical Wagtails had their XP reduced as only 3 were required to catch to level up once. This will just mean that players have to catch a few more Tropical Wagtails to level up.
• Increased Bird Snare catch range from 2 to 3 squares.

Kebbit Tracking

• Players can no longer randomly fail the final step in tracking Kebbits.
• Increased the XP per catch:
• Polar: 15 -> 17.5 (+16.7%)
• Common: 36 -> 41 (+13.9%)
• Feldip: 48 -> 54.5 (+13.5)
• Desert: 90 -> 93 (+3.3%)

Chinchompas

In preparation for the incoming ammo changes in the Combat Modernisation, we have added the ability to multi-catch:

• Grey chinchompas
• Can now be multicaught in volumes of 1-6. Once you reach 70 Agility, you are guaranteed a multicatch of 2-6.
• Added an entry to the Agility skill guide.
• Red chinchompas
• Can now be multicaught in volumes of 1-6. Once you reach 78 Agility, you are guaranteed a multicatch of 2-6.
• Added an entry to the Agility skill guide.

Whirligigs

• Increased the requirement of plain whirligigs from 1 to 16
• Increased the requirement of dazzling whirligigs from 1 to 20
• Increased the catch xp of the following whirligigs:

• You can no longer accidentally walk to the edge of the pond if you click on it while handling a crocodile.
• You can still interact with and walk to locations around Het's Oasis such as flowers, bank chests, or NPCs when handling a crocodile.
• Reduced the whirligigs XP bonus purchased from Dundee's Crocodile Upgrade store from+10% to +5%.
• Reduced the XP gained from "chained" catches from 100% of base xp to 25% of base xp.
• Flower harvest volumes have increased by 10-20%.

Thieving

Early-game Thieving, especially Pickpocketing, has some rough patches. Ever been punched in the face by a level 2 Man four times in a row? More players than you’d think have, especially during Leagues when the Lumbridge courtyard turned into a full-on brawl.

To make things less frustrating, we’ve updated how Pickpocketing calculates failure. Before, it was based on your level versus the target, with a bunch of buffs to success that weren’t very intuitive so we’ve updated it to make the experience smoother alongside reducing the time you are stunned.

Alongside pickpocketing we have reworked older thieving chests to function better along with the Thieves Guild doors/chests and polished up Pyramid Plunder to improve the experience and make core Thieving gear more accessible.

Pickpocketing

Now, when you start pickpocketing a target, you’ll have a base 75% success rate at the level you unlock that target. For example, when you hit level 10 and start stealing from Farmers, you start with a 75% chance. This increases by 1% for every level above the unlock level, so by level 35, you’re at 100%. On top of that, most targets get an extra “10-level boost” for your next 10 pickpockets. After those 10, your success rate drops by 1% per additional pickpocket until you either fail or switch to another target, which resets the count and the success rate. And of course, all other buffs still apply, giving invisible boosts on top of this.

While this update is all about the early game, these Pickpocketing changes also come with some tweaks to mid and high-level content.

• Prifddinas elves and eastern lands residents have larger and longer boosts (+25% boost for 25 pickpockets) to make them longer, more laid back targets as they were originally.
• Pickpocket targets with level requirements of 100 and over have a 15% stat boost to reflect that fact that you cannot over level them as much as the lower tier targets.
• Crystal mask's invisible stat boost has been reduced from 25 levels to 15 and as such the boost whilst under the effects of the light form prayer has dropped from 50 levels to 30.
• Reduced the stun time from 7 ticks to 5 ticks.
• Increased stun damage from 3% + x of current HP to 3% +x of base HP (Constitution x 100).
• Changed the Oblivious perk from increasing stun damage by 3x and not being stunned, to increasing the fresh target pickpocket boost by 5 additional pickpockets.
• The Cheeky Monkey has had its effect removed.
• Effects which caused the player to evade stun damage now continue to do so, unless otherwise specified, and also reset the success rate of the target back to its initial levels. As a result some effects have had their chance to trigger reduced:
• Trahaearn exoskeleton set - reduced from 25% chance to trigger to 10% chance to trigger
• Featherfingered necklace - reduced from 21% chance to trigger to 10% chance to trigger. A charge is still only consumed on success.
• Shock absorber - reduced from guaranteed trigger to 10% chance to trigger. A Shock absorber is only consumed on success.
• Unified the HAM pickpocket unlocks so that both men and women are unlocked at the same level.

Pickpocket drop tables

Farmer

• Farmers now always drop 20 coins with a 50% chance, and a 50% chance for various seeds.
• The seed table has been expanded and now contains the following:

Master farmers

• Adjusted the drop tables:

Pyramid plunder

• Increased the drop rate of the Sceptre of the Gods from 1/625 to 1/480.
• Luck rings now apply standard increases on this number.
• E.g. Tier 2 provides 1% increase, Tier 3 is 2% and Tier 4 is 3%.
• Removed the increased chance from the camouflage outfit - the tooltip has been updated.
• Black Ibis outfit drop rate improved from 1/2300 to 1/800.
• Each subsequent room improves the chance by 100 so room 2 is 1/700 until 1/100 for the final room.
• Removed the level 78 Thieving requirement to roll for the outfit.
• Removed the increased chance from the camouflage outfit - the tooltip has been updated.
• Removed the 2-tick delay when opening urns.
• Removed the ability to interact with urns again once they have been opened.
• Modernised the Pyramid Plunder UI, and it will now include an exact timer.

Thieves Guild/Chests

• Chests across Gielinor have been updated to work like Heist chests.
• Updated Thieving Guild doors and chests
• They will now work like they do in Heists and be player specific instead of world specific. You will receive XP in chunks with each successful progression instead of all at the end.
• Doors now reset instantly.
• Chests respawn in 45 seconds.
• Slightly reduced the XP gained from the doors and chests.

Prayer

Early Prayer training can feel slow to get going. It’s also trickier now that bones have a new use in Necromancy rituals, and the removal of the Nexus last year (even though it wasn’t widely used) took away a way to pick up a few levels early on. Meanwhile, better methods like altars aren’t always obvious to players.

To help with this, we’re adding the ability to offer bones and ashes at normal overworld altars for extra XP. It’s a simple change with minimal requirements that will guide players more naturally into other methods, like training at the Fort or in your PoH later on. We’re also tweaking some other altars to better balance them with this update.

Surface World Altars

Most surface-world altars have been updated with an Offer action, giving +50% Prayer XP when you offer bones or ashes instead of burying or scattering them. This change will also be reflected in the in-game skill guide to help point players in the right direction.

Wilderness Chaos Altar

The Chaos Altar in the Wilderness used to give a massive +250% XP from level 1 with no requirements. It was originally designed around the PvP nature of the Wilderness, but with no real risk now, it’s just too powerful and doesn’t fit well with Prayer progression.

We’ve updated it so that now, each Wilderness area task set you complete gives you +50% XP at the altar, making it more balanced while still rewarding effort.

• No Task +50% (same as other surface world altars)
• Easy +100%
• Medium +150%
• Hard +200%
• Elite +250%

Fort Forinthry Altar

We’ve reduced the XP bonus from the Fort Forinthry Chapel. With this change, PoH altars will now offer the best XP per hour, while the Fort will still be useful for its chance to save materials which can indirectly boost your XP rate.

Player Owned House Altars

The early POH altars have also been updated to include the initial surface-world XP boost while keeping their high rates. Both incense burners still give an extra 50% each, so you can reach a maximum of 250% XP on the Gilded altar with both burners active.

Additional Note: Any altar not mentioned has remained untouched.

Fishing

There’s only a small change for Fishing in this update: we’re reducing the catch rates for Shrimps and Crayfish to bring them more in line with other low-level fish. At one point, Shrimp catch rates were tripled, which made it harder to catch Anchovies and kept players stuck on Shrimps and Crayfish for too long. This change nudges players to explore other fishing spots sooner, though it’s still a minor tweak — it’ll only take a couple of minutes to hit, say, level 5.

• Catch rate on shrimp and crayfish has been reduced from 60% to 20% which brings them back inline with other fish.

Farming and Herblore

Farming and Herblore have a few early-game issues. Some low-level herb seeds are hard to come by, which makes training both skills a bit tricky. At the same time, beehives let you power through early Farming levels too quickly for very little effort, making core methods like planting seeds less appealing.

To make early Herblore and Farming more accessible, we’ve added some low-level herb seeds to the drop tables of early-game mobs. This lets players naturally pick up seeds as they play, while also giving new ways to target specific drops if they want. Alongside this, we’ve added level requirements to honeycombs instead of unlocking them all at level 17, and we’ve updated their XP rewards to match these new requirements.

Beehives/Honeycombs

Growing honeycombs in the POF Beehives have the potential to let players shoot past multiple levels as soon as they are available at level 17, currently all flowers become available to use at that level and with access to very cheap higher level materials such as Woad leaves led to jumps of 15+ levels in one go.

To address this and smooth out the XP as a more progressive method we'll be adding level requirements to honeycombs instead of having them all unlocked at level 17. As a result we'll be giving these their own XP rewards in line with the requirements.

Honeycombs now have varied requirements and xp per type to farm.

Herb Seeds

To make early Herblore and Farming easier to get into, we’ve added some low-level herb seeds to early-game mob drops. This means players can pick up seeds naturally as they play, while also having new ways to go after specific drops if they want.

• Added early game herb seeds to relevant drop tables
• Guam seeds
• Unarmed goblins
• 1-2 guam seeds on Member worlds and bread dough on F2P at 11/128 rate.
• Armed goblins
• 1 guam seeds on Member worlds and bread dough on F2P at 15/128 rate.
• Swamp frogs
• 1 guam seed added on Member worlds at 3/53 drop rate.
• Marrentill seeds
• Guards
• 2-3 marrentill seeds dropped Member worlds at 4/128 rate.
• Barbarians (level 14)
• 1 Marrentill seed dropped on Member worlds at 19/128 rate.
• Barbarians (level 21 and 23)
• 1-2 Marrentill seed dropped on Member worlds only at 19/128 rate.
• Tarromin seeds
• Mugger
• 1-2 tarromin seeds in Member only at 12/128
• Hobgoblin (level 15)
• 1-3 tarromin seeds in Member, drops 5 coins in its place in F2P at 22/128 rate.
• Harralander seeds
• Hill giants
• 2-3 harralander seeds in Member, in F2P it will drop 15 coins instead at 8/128 rate.
• Flesh crawlers
• 1 harralander seed in Member, in F2P it will drop 5-85 coins instead at 15/100 rate.
• Irit seeds
• Moss giant
• The 2 coin and 37 coin drop have been swapped
• The "new" 2 coin drop slot has been Replaced in Member with 1-2 Irit seeds at 19/128 rate.
• Catablepon
• 1-2 irit seeds in Member at 10/100 rate.

Divination

Early-level Divination can feel pretty slow, especially if you’re banking energy for later use. We’re increasing the XP gained at the low levels for both gathering memories and converting them, plus a flat success chance boost to help players move through the early stages faster.

On top of that, we’re increasing divine energy gains in the early levels allowing you to gain even more XP by using the "convert memories and energies" mode.

• Pale Memories
• +5% success.
• Gather XP 1 -> 1.3xp.
• Convert XP 3 -> 4xp.
• Flickering Memories
• +5% success
• Gather XP 2 -> 2.3xp
• Convert XP 4 -> 4.6xp
• Enriched gather and convert are still double normal values
• Bright Memories
• +5% success
• Gather xp 3 -> 3.5xp
• Convert xp 5 -> 5.6xp
• Enriched gather and convert are still double normal values
• Glowing Memories
• +5% success
• Gather xp 4 -> 4.6xp
• Convert xp 7 -> 7.8xp
• Enriched gather and convert are still double normal values
• Sparkling Memories
• +5% success
• Gather xp 5 -> 5.5xp
• Convert xp 12 -> 13xp
• Enriched gather and convert are still double normal values

• Divine Energy
• The following has changed when gathering energies:
• Level 1-44: 1-3 energy up from 1.
• Level 45-74: 2-3 energy up from 2.
• Level 75+: 3 energy unchanged.

Salvage and stone spirits

When the Mining & Smithing Rework landed in 2019, most gear, ore, and bar drops were changed into salvage and stone spirits.

The idea was to make Smithing and Mining the main sources of gear and materials, so skilling would hold more value. In practice, though, this hit low-level players pretty hard. Salvage doesn’t have much use before Invention, high-alching only really makes sense from adamant and above, and for new players it’s often just confusing plus, it doesn’t feel great to get as a drop early on. Because of that, we’re rolling back some of these changes.

A number of early-game mobs will once again drop actual armour, weapons, ores, and bars, so those drops are useful, intuitive, and feel rewarding again.

The affected NPCs are:

• Dung kalphites
• Desert lizards
• Outlaws
• Market guards (Fremennik)
• Rock slugs
• Minotaurs
• Goblins
• Cyclops
• HAM guards
• Black Guard members
• Dwarves
• Cave goblin miners
• Cave goblin guards
• Men
• Women
• Farmers
• Rogues
• Thieves
• Al Kharid warriors
• Giant spiders
• Guards
• Hobgoblins
• Muggers
• Orks
• Rock crabs
• Skeletons
• Thugs
• Tribesmen
• Zombies
• Dragith Nurn
• Hill giants
• Flesh crawlers
• Barbarians

Additional Changes

• The Spring Cleaner options for salvage will continue to target these drops relative to salvage size.
• E.g. "Small Salvage" will disassemble 2-bar smithed item drops.
• Thieving drop table changes:
• Silver stalls will now have a 20% chance to give Silver stone spirits, and 80% chance to give Silver ore.
• HAM members can now be pickpocketed for the following instead of salvage
• Bronze dagger, offhand bronze dagger, bronze pickaxe, bronze hatchet, Iron dagger, offhand Iron dagger, Iron pickaxe, Iron hatchet, Steel dagger, offhand Steel dagger, Steel pickaxe, Steel Hatchet.

Quests

Over time, some early-game quests were changed to require special “quest versions” of items instead of the normal ones players expect to work, leading to moments like “Why can’t I hand in this egg?” or “What do you mean it has to be black wool?”.

This broke player expectations and caused a lot of confusion and frustration, especially for returning players. Iconic quests like Cook’s Assistant and Sheep Shearer are good examples of this. Because of that, we’re reverting these changes and letting players use normal, generic items again.

Cook's Assistant

• Has been reverted to its pre-2009 state and now requires normal usable items rather than custom quest items.
• Re-added chat guidance from the cook for where to get these items.
• Changed the first option on windmill hoppers to be "Fill" instead of "Investigate".
• This will now prevent players from getting an unhelpful message when trying to produce flour.
• Added an easter egg if the player has all items already with them when starting the quest.

Sheep Shearer

• The item requirements changed back to normal wool from black wool.
• The Crafting XP reward has been doubled from 150xp to 300xp.
• The coin reward is now claimed in two parts, the initial 60gp on completion, then the 1940gp from talking with Fred again to complete Fred's Shearings achievement.

Combat in Lumbridge

Depending on which direction you head from Lumbridge, you can run into very different combat challenges. Go east over the bridge and you’re dealing with cows and goblins, pretty manageable. Wander into Lumbridge Swamp, though, and suddenly you’re up against rats, spiders, and frogs, standard early game RPG enemies who are suddenly packing heat. While we love a bit of challenge, these critters have been absolutely deleting brand-new players who are just trying to explore and learn the map.

So we’ve toned down their combat power a little. They’re still a threat, just one that new players can reasonably handle straight off Tutorial Island.

Giant Rats

• Adjusted their combat level from 7 → 4
• Reduced HP to 1100
• Reduced their max hit from 80 to 40
• Reduced their defence slightly
• They were healing 1 HP every server cycle - this has been removed

Spiders

• Adjusted their combat level from 2 → 4
• Increased HP to 1000
• Reduced their max hit from 60 to 40
• Reduced their defence slightly

Frogs

• Adjusted their combat level from 11 → 4
• Reduced their max hit from 60 to 40
• Reduced their defence slightly
• Their models were being reduced in size by 50% which made them really annoying to click - boosted them up by 25% which should help!

Cows

• Reduced their max hit from 40 to 20

- The Runescape Team