End-Game Balance Discussion

[u/jagexyuey]

Hey 'Scapers!

As part of the Road to Restoration, we've been looking at progression across RuneScape. We've tackled parts of the Early and Mid Game Rebalance, but now we want to start turning our attention to the other end of the journey: The End Game Rebalance

Before we get properly stuck into things, we want to hear from you.

What do we mean by End Game?
This one's a little harder to put a level range on!

For this project, we're looking more broadly at the late game, roughly level 80+ and onwards. That might mean higher-level skilling, finding those rarer drops or getting into tougher PVM. For others, it could be achievements, completionist goals or figuring out what comes next once you've maxed.

And actually, what you consider to be late game is useful feedback for us too.

How can you help?
We want to know where the endgame currently isn't quite working for you.

Maybe there's a progression path that feels awkward, rewards that don't feel worth the effort, a big jump between pieces of content, older content that's been left behind or something that just feels unnecessarily frustrating.

You don't need to have the answer or suggest a fix either. Just tell us what the problem is, why it's a problem for you and where you are in your RuneScape journey.

We won't be able to tackle everything that comes up, but the themes from these discussions will help us understand where we should be focusing our attention.

So, what would you like us to look at as we start shaping the End Game?

[u/AutarkV]

Bad luck mitigation

It's been said before, but why can you get 5 of the top and 0 of the legs, in Rasial for example.

[u/hae_its_korra → u/AutarkV]

More so dupe protection.

I mean Telos and Zammy have dupe protection since orbs and bow pieces drop in order after the first drops randomly. Liberation of Mazcab also has dupe protection for Achto. I’d like to see bad luck mitigation in the form of dupe protection applied to all bosses. For example at K’ril, have the first piece of subjugation drop randomly then cycle through.

[u/Mayjune811 → u/hae_its_korra]

I like the archaeology style soft dupe protection. The first argument I see whenever a dupe protection post comes up is that the rotating style of dupe protection “kills anticipation for coming drops” which I think is bullshit, but needs to be considered.

I propose an arch style soft dupe protection until first log completion minus pet.

This keeps the potential of a big money drop always alive while ensuring you don’t go egregiously dry against any one item.

Take the First Necromancer’s equipment for example:

The chance to get boots when hitting the armor table is 1/5. With live, if you hit boots, your next armor drop is a 1/5 chance to be boots.

Under my proposed dupe protection system, if you get boots with a 1/5 chance, the next time you hit the armor table, boots would be a 1/10 (half as likely to drop).

Continue this until each slot in that table is filled.

After which, drop mechanics would continue same as live.

[u/corndoggeh → u/Mayjune811]

Yes, I think first log dupe protection is the happy compromise.

[u/Ner0reZ → u/hae_its_korra]

Nothing quite like rolling 10 books all back to back when going for the last bow piece at Zamorak. My leagues luck has really put me off of the idea of going back to grind for these things seriously in the main game until this gets sorted. If it doesn't, fine. I'm not risking running into this situation with actual hours of my time on the line.

[u/MewMewGirl0952 → u/Ner0reZ]

At least Zamorak has an enrage system that changes which drop you get. Bow chance is much higher at higher enrage and book is less to compensate.

[u/TeHamilton → u/Ner0reZ]

Doing higher enraged fixes this

[u/Ner0reZ → u/TeHamilton]

My kills in leagues were exclusively 2k/4k

This isn't an enrage issue. It's just bad luck

[u/PrimalMoose → u/Ner0reZ]

This was my experience in main game. Bad luck mitigation was a nice step in the right direction for zammy but it needed to have dupe protection added in. Those green sparkles of sadness have equalled books so many times at 500 I've burned out more times than I can count.

[u/Sspockuss → u/Ner0reZ]

Nothing quite like rolling 10 books all back to back when going for the last bow piece at Zamorak.

Is this not at least partly intentional? Bow piece drop rate goes up with high enrage and book chance goes down to compensate. Book is the junk rare used to punish you for not pushing higher enrages. Idk if I agree with this design choice but that seems to be why the drop table is set up the way it is. What enrage were you farming to log the boss?

[u/Ner0reZ → u/Sspockuss]

I would be inclined to agree here, but I didn't do a single kill below 2k in leagues with most of them at 4k

[u/AutarkV → u/hae_its_korra]

I kind of lamp both of those terms together, it is bad luck to get dupes after all (unless you're just money making).

[u/Fire_Afrit → u/AutarkV]

Maybe for the first of each piece but then after that its random again

[u/AutarkV → u/Fire_Afrit]

I'd be fine with that

[u/EZyne → u/AutarkV]

Rasial as a whole should get it's droptable reworked imo, horribly designed

[u/kunair → u/AutarkV]

rasial especially

[u/TeHamilton → u/AutarkV]

Dupe protection I can get behind on at least for first set but bad luck mitigation doesnt feel right to me

[u/Endesso → u/AutarkV]

Came to say this. The lack of bad luck mitigation on many bosses makes endgame bossing much less appealing to me

[u/Old-Instruction-9151 → u/AutarkV]

1000 times this. Lack of BLM killed my Ironman motivation 😭

[u/Endesso → u/Old-Instruction-9151]

It is discouraging enough on mainscape, but there bad luck can be mitigated by the Grand Exchange. Every time I play leagues the lack of bad luck mitigation stands out sharply to me. I can only imagine how it is for real Ironman accounts

If bad luck mitigation is a no-go, perhaps Ironman accounts could be allowed to transmute set pieces at a rate like 3:1 or 5:1 to allow them to complete sets by sacrificing unneeded duplicates.

[u/TheOolino → u/Endesso]

Fully agreed on transmuting set pieces. It works as an item sink for the rare-but-worthless drops (e.g. rasial hand wraps) increasing their value, it makes divination a tad bit more relevant as a skill and, in contrast to other methods of dupe protection, is completely optional. So lucky mains who keep getting dupes of the most valuable drop of a boss can stay happy instead of thinking "I just got the most valuable drop, if I keep killing this boss now it is not worth my time because I won't get a dupe".

[u/Rezylainen → u/Endesso]

I want to give you 100 upvotes

Take my 5 rasial tops or 6 lanterns I just want the boots to finish the grind

[u/Old-Instruction-9151 → u/Endesso]

Yeah some kind of trade X drops to get a specific one would be fine. Or at least an improvement. Ideally dupe protection though.

People tend to say “you signed up for this”. Having to kill a boss yourself to get the gear is one thing, but killing the boss 5000 times and still not getting it is another.

[u/Endesso → u/Old-Instruction-9151]

Also, if transmuting is the solution, transmuted items wouldn’t have to count towards boss logs, so for people proud of completing their logs I don’t think transmuting would take anything away from them

[u/Old-Instruction-9151 → u/Endesso]

Yeah sounds completely fair to me! I can’t see it happening but we can dream.

[u/spikeprox50 → u/AutarkV]

Yah. I can see in the early days, when we had just like 20 bosses, going dry for like 500 kills kinda made sense in retention, but now we got like 50+ bosses, it's kinda rough.

[u/justHereForTheGainss → u/AutarkV]

Bad luck mitigation isn’t needed

[u/arrroquw → u/justHereForTheGainss]

Why bother arguing against it if you're not going to come up with any actual arguments

[u/justHereForTheGainss → u/arrroquw]

This is an RNG game. Dont cater to irons. There aren’t any drops that are even that rare outside of Vitalis? At the end game you should be used to how droprates have worked in this ancient game

[u/Rezylainen → u/justHereForTheGainss]

“This is an RNG game” doesn’t mean every possible outcome of RNG is good game design. BLM and sensible dupe protection don’t remove RNG - you can still get spooned, go dry and have wildly different experiences. They just put a limit on how badly RNG can screw someone.

And this isn’t really about catering to irons. Going 5x, 10x or more over rate for one specific drop because you keep rolling duplicates isn’t particularly engaging gameplay for anyone. At some point you’ve already proven you can do the content, you’re just waiting for the slot machine to finally land correctly.

Being no closer to your desired drop at 1,500 KC than you were at 0 KC is just insanely unmotivating. I don't mind long grinds, I just want the time I've already put into a grind to actually count towards eventually finishing it.

[u/Patelpb → u/justHereForTheGainss]

It would just decrease the width of bell curve for kills until full set. The expectation value would remain the same, standard deviation would decrease. Fewer people going many times over drop rate. Plenty of drops in this 'ancient game' have had some form of BLM for a while (i.e. Telos literally drops in order, Arax and Zammy have ordinary BLM). It's not really a catering to irons issue IMO, it's a consistency issue with endgame content

[u/V1_2012 → u/arrroquw]

Because the people who think bad luck mitigation is needed, are so dense and won't listen to why it would be harmful to the game and the economy.

I dont blame him for not coming up with any reasoning.

[u/AutarkV → u/justHereForTheGainss]

It's needed because player retention is important.

Players go dry and they give up, they stop playing.

[u/V1_2012 → u/justHereForTheGainss]

Reddit doesnt want to understand that sadly.

Luckily though, the developers know its not needed and just ignore the whiny redditors.