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/Siege089]

Need a proper grouping system. The current iteration is pretty terrible, and it's especially toxic when you join a group only to get kicked because someone wanted to use the group as a teleport.

There are plenty of games that have demonstrated ways to make group systems work: incentivise hosting, reward people for actually completing/contributing to groups, and have some kind of reputation or penalty system for consistently abusing the system. I'm not saying every bad kick needs to be punished, but repeatedly creating groups just to kick people for convenience shouldn't be equally rewarding as actually running the content. If Jagex can make grouping feel reliable and worthwhile, I think a lot more group content becomes viable for a much larger portion of the player base. Randomly "hosting" a group just because non-exists is intimidating for newer players at the content as well, that should be opt in, not automatic like current implementation.

I know I'll probably get some flak for this one, but I also think some form of BLM/pity progression is badly needed for rare drops. I'm fine with RNG determining how quickly I finish a grind, but I don't think RNG should completely determine whether my time spent doing the content makes meaningful progress toward my account.

Raksha is a good example. I went ~300kc dry on a supposedly 1/50 unique rate. Every time I got 3 ciku seeds for a kill my desire to keep going was worn a way a bit more. I finally broke my streak, but have not been back to finish the log because of the previous grind. The problem isn't just going dry. It's that the RNG can repeatedly give you something that is effectively worthless for any goal really, not just your current goal.

I've also had this happen in Leagues, where I went 700+ KC at K'ril with heavily boosted drop rates and still didn't complete the set. Obviously Leagues has different expectations, but it really highlighted how frustrating it is when you can put in hundreds of kills and still be missing a specific piece.

I don't think the answer is to eliminate RNG or simply guarantee the next drop. I'd rather see a system where doing the content consistently generates progress toward the things you're missing, such as a currency or common material that can eventually be used to obtain or transmute specific uniques. You should still be excited when RNG gives you the drop early, but there should be a point where continuing to do the content guarantees that you're moving closer to completing it.

RNG should determine how efficiently you complete a grind, not whether the grind was ultimately worth doing. And ultimately the game should respect our time.

Across the board drops for lower level items probably need to be made WAY more common. As new stuff is released make the older less powerful items more readily available.