Not enough resources (long read)

[TrixStar]

I stole this off the high level forum but though people might want to add their opinion and discuss it. This is taken word for word from a player named Drumgun

Hey there fellow maxed players,

Pretty big subject at hand here. Let's start at the beginning!

Bots: Bots = mules, used by main accounts as an income, or obtained for RWT purposes. Bot nuke was announced beforehand, so it is safe to assume that they moved all their valuables from the mules to their mains.

Skilling supplies: Some skilling supplies are used by many players to train a skill, but the only way they are obtained is from dead/rarely used content (example, red dragons).

Maxed players: Already 99 in all skills, quite a large share of these maxed players aim to obtain a 200m xp skill as their next goal. This requires considerably more supplies than training a skill to 99.

Recent events: Jagex has been taking big steps towards making the game more fair; big steps being the bot nuke and anti dicing/rwt measures. Many felt that the mentioned issues were destroying Runescape.

The problem: The people who used bots as an income have lost that income. I highly doubt that they are happy with Jagex for succeeding so marvelousely with the bot nuke. While some may jest that people who bot are dumb, it wouldn't take many brains to figure out that the skilling supplies which used to get botted still have equal demand, yet a big part of the supply has dissapeared.

I've been observing the prices of skilling supplies for a while now - crafting supplies in particular, and it got me thinking. The people who botted will likely want to retain their income flow and it would be logical for them to want to get revenge. If they can't do it by botting anymore, why not do it the 'legit' way? In other words, hoarding these skilling supplies they used to bot so hard that they will become unaffordable for the fair player that Jagex is catering for right now.

Now of course, it's also merchants buying out these supplies - the botted money may be but a minority in this sharp price increase. Whatever you choose to believe though, the problem will remain the same.
The solution: Add skilling resources to the reward tables of minigames. Doing so may even turn dead content into active content again because it will be worthwhile to do. For example, Soulwars. Ever since the bot nuke, Pretty much all of the Soulwars worlds have died out because the game had 90% bots and only 10% real players. Adding scarse yet avidly used skilling supply rewards would surely motivate some more people to give it a try. Will be good for the content creators aswell - after all, what's fun about creating something, only to witness a few people using it?

Other possibilities include Castle Wars, Dominion Tower, Pest control, Conquest, M.A, FOG, Barb Assault and a few other activities. Also, you could add some more skilling supply drops to the rare slayer drop table. Lastly, aura's could motivate people to do certain tasks that would bring those scarce resources into the game. Here's a few examples that I randomly made up just now:

Dragon Hunter - grants the player a 50% damage increase on green/blue/red/black dragons and will send the obtained loot to the bank automatically. 1h effect, 3h cooldown.

Fungus Fury - Mort myre fungus yield is doubled and will automatically send them to the bank. 1h effect, 3h cooldown.

Needle in a Grenwall - Grants the player an invisible +12 hunt boost and doubles the grenwall spikes obtained from catching a Grenwall. 1h effect, 3h cooldown.

Scatterstorm - A whirlwind will appear and scatter a few random items around the player. - effect, 1h recharge time.

Impling Roulette - a roulette is spun; the imp on which the arrow lands will appear infront of you (with that smoke poof cloud thingy), allowing you to catch it. - effect, 15 minutes recharge time.

Plank Fever - Random chance of receiving a noted 100 planks in trade for 1 of the type of logs that you're converting. 1h effect, 3h cooldown.

And oh, make them affordable, obviously.
To summarise: If you, Jagex, want to continue your efforts of making the game a more fair experience, then I hope that you will heed this possible threat and act on it accordingly. There are plenty of opportunities to make this happen (see examples i gave above), so please, make it happen. If nothing happens then the sole purpose of nuking bots and whatnot will be in vain in my eyes, and a big fat stamp that says 'UNPLAYABLE' will be put on Runescape yet again (whether that's because there's 3 bots in every world hogging up black dragons @ evil chicken's lair or because every buyable skill costs 100 gp/xp to train).

And oh, for the players who are still having no problem affording everything thus far, remember that the gp stack of the average rich player is about a few billion. Anything above that is a selective group of people consisting of long time merchants, lucky stakers, RWT customers, lurers, dicers and/or big time botters. Aka, an uncommon or illegitimate group of players. Staking holds a relative risk no matter how many LEGIT tricks you know and can by no means be counted as a solid income for the average player. Flip merching is also not what it used to be - the margins have grown thin and the high value items are all gradually moving downwards.

I hope that this will be enough to set up a decent discussion, hopefully one that will follow with results aswell. Contribution to this subject is very much appericiated such as suggestions to balance the flow of supplies coming in vs supplies being used.

Thanks for reading all that, you may now post

[Jax]

i have been here long enough to know what the game used to be ~9 years ago so this topic doesn't have much effect on my opinion on buying skills, what this topic is more or less about (I don't buy skills, haven't b bought and will not buy any in future).

[Starwolf]

I like what the topic is addressing. I do agree that without bots, prices have gone up a considerable amount; therefore making skilling for the moderate level member a viable option to gather money. However, there is not enough supply to meet the demand.

The created auras listed are potentially very balanced, and to think there can be plenty more created around this theme. Adding resource rewards for minigames (I will never call theme activities) is something that could work out as well. Maybe adding new areas to gather resources and use a time limit bought with minigame reward points to the already suggested bulk resources available as rewards, similar to accessability to mahogany and teak trees after doing enough twai bro cleanup or warrior guild tokens to access Cyclopses?

[scootch]

he Makes a good Point. Mini Games IMO Need to do more for the player. Jagex Needs to find its Hay day Hitch. Get More Players In the Game. I Have said this Before. Players Can Not Keep Up to the Supply Needed. Improving a mini games Would Help.

[Huzzah]

Am I the only one that doesn't have an issue going to the ge and paying current prices? Its not that they're much more outragous then things used to be pre-ge/mass bots. Is it? Also since there were so many bots I think there was also an issue where there was such a massive amount of raw material being brought in, we got a massive supply to the point it was more then what we needed. Thats why everything was so cheap.

That being said it might be nice to allow more skilling supplys into the game though I just hope it doesn't take away too much from people who do choose to skill because I enjoyed the fact skilling was profitable again.

[Dragon20208]

Ah....we have an 'intelligent' moron. Jagex removed accounts that broke the rules, if it made the game 'hard' thats too bad. I hate ppl that rely on cheaters to play a game. Exploiters ruined another game that i used to play and it was closed.

[Ally J]

- Edit:

Nevermind. My post just reminded me of what is important in life, and what is not...

[Darth Kaz2]

Hi all...I guess I will throw my two coins into the discussion.

First, I agree that minigames need broader awards. Jagex has to consider that the players have a wide variety of goals in the game. Low levels working on everything and needing any cash they can get; pker's building pures; skillers gathering and spending like mad (me ; players working towards max; players at max and working on 200m skills; players in it for the gold pile; etc, etc. As far as I see it, Jagex ought to poll their current players and generate a statistical analysis of the goals and pleasures of their players. This could then be used to strategize about future content updates. For example, let's say the poll shows 20% of players like PKing, 40% like skilling, 10% are new and training eveything, 20% like huge piles of gold, and 10% are maxed and working toward 200m in a skill. In this case, Jagex should focus more on updates that result in inflation, since increased prices help skillers and hoarders. Deflationary updates, on the flip side, would help pker's and maxed players.

In any case, any fluctuation in the economy helps some and hurts others. As someone who has bought everything I want at the moment, inflation is a good thing. I need to train mining, fishing, and hunting, and all these will now bring in more money than before.

Seriously, there is no 'right' answer here. A big part of Runescape (for me at least) is playing the economic trends. (Not flipping or merching, but major economic fluctuations.) It's fun...almost like a game should be!

[Mjoltiny]

DIY skiller here, so the topic's fairly moot, however... sure the bot nuke will change things for those of you who gain money then spend it to skill I'd recommend simply adapting to the new environment. Many things sell for a much higher price, sell those...

Changing up minigames and/or their reward system isn't a bad thing and could be implemented well. Same could hold for randoms.

[graber10]

So in my opinion, I feel like the price of raw materials are pretty high at the moment. BUT! Along with this inflation, your possibilities for making more money is also increasing. It directs very closely with the real world, as the economy raises and people are receiving more money for the jobs they do, the housing market also rises and the goods and services do as well. With the whole price increase, players are able to make more money as well, and in return they will be able to afford the material that is more expensive than it ever was before. They just have to realize this adjustment and begin other ways of making money that will earn them enough to afford them

[Dave]

While adding skilling supplies as minigame rewards could help lower prices, as well as adding auras to promote specific activities, I don't think they're a solution to the problem. The problem in my mind isn't that skilling items are in low supply or that mid level players will not be able to afford certain skilling methods. The problem is that the players got used to low prices and want them to stay that way.

Edit: Lets take one of his 'solutions' a little farther: Instead of just adding skilling items as rewards to minigames, lets add weapons and armor pieces as rewards. This is great because now instead of just skilling items being lower in price, it'd make Torva, Pernix, Divine, etc lower in price too! Now everybody can both level crafting with dragonstones and monster hunt in Torva/Pernix/Divine.

I think its great that a time is once again approaching where skilling will provide reasonable income. And when it comes to some training methods being unavailable to the players who aren't extremely rich - I feel that is and should be an important part to runescape and the gameplay.

Let the supply & demand fix itself instead of forcing fixes upon it.

[Kaejer]

I think most of his ideas are really good and thought out. They could be useful in many ways and if they're available to basically everyone then it's not making the game unfair. The only thing is I imagine Jagex will probably not care about this and bring up how everyone can gather their own supplies.