Update:QoL Week 3: PvP Poll Blog



Changelog
 * Added further detail to Poll Question #10 to clarify that the 6 second attackable window in PvP worlds would only apply to those in combat. This means players that walk in/out of the safe zone without attacking will not be impacted and will remain unable to be attacked.
 * Added further detail to Poll Question #13 to clarify that the 1 game cycle delay also applies when switching from another special attack weapon to the Granite maul and using the special attack.
 * Added further wording to the destroying of a Looting bag changes to clarify that it will not be possible to destroy one as an attempt to drop food or potions to others within the Wilderness.
 * Regarding Poll Question #5 - Should we increase the current limit applied to the camera zoom out distance? There would still be an upper limit and the current render distance would remain unchanged. It is important to highlight that this change requires some engine work. We could quite simply increase the zoom limit and leave it at that, but it doesn't look great if that's all we do. We still want to offer this change, but it will likely come later than you would expect the other QoL changes to.

Alongside the array of popular suggestions we'll be polling, we'll be looking at implementing a number of changes intended to target griefing in the Wilderness, in PvP worlds, and in Bounty Hunter worlds. We consider these changes to be matters of balancing, intended to benefit those who engage with the content the most. In November, we released a proposal of unpolled integrity changes we'd like to make to tackle various other matters of game integrity. A revised draft of this post will be released later this week to gather your feedback.

Unpolled Changes

World 318 is the dedicated Bounty Hunter player killing minigame world. When a player enters the Wilderness on this world, the Bounty Hunter target system will track down a player that is close to their combat level and will match them both up as targets to fight one another. It is often the case that this system will assign a target that is deep within the Wilderness, when the player is in the lower levels of the Wilderness. In these instances, the player in the lower levels of the Wilderness will usually skip their target. If too many targets are skipped, a penalty will be incurred, and the player will be unable to receive a new target for approximately half an hour. The penalty will be drastically reduced for skipping targets when you are more than 5 Wilderness levels apart.

In PvP worlds, certain dangerous hotspot areas are near teleport locations. Players are able to repeatedly cast teleports to these locations, preventing them from taking any damage. There will be a 10 second cooldown applied to same spot spellbook teleports on PvP worlds. The cooldown will not apply to jewellery teleports.

You may not have ever used one yourself, but a Mud pie has the ability to lower a players run energy. Because they deal no damage, it is possible to stack multiple Mud pies on the same target, reducing their run energy to 0% in a single game cycle, even whilst is a single combat area. We'll be applying single combat rules to Mud pies regardless of whether you are in a multiway area.

When movement is prevented by a spell such as Ice Barrage in PvP, whilst Auto Retaliate is selected, you don't always retaliate automatically. When you do, the chatbox can get filled with messages stating you are unable to move, even when you are able to retaliate with ranged. We're changing that so Auto Retaliate will work properly whilst impacted by spells that disable movement in PvP.

Currently if you die in PvP whilst having Black chinchompas in your inventory, they are dropped alongside the pile of loot your opponent would normally receive. However, it is possible to release these before you die, meaning not only do you still lose them, but your opponent also receives nothing. We'd like to remove the ability to release Black chinchompas whilst in combat. This will apply to both PvM and PvP combat.

The final change we'd like to make is to the Looting bag. Currently, much like with Black chinchompas, if the player dies with a looting bag, it is lost on death (even if the player doesn't have anything else protecting over it). When this happens, the player who killed the person holding the looting bag will get everything inside the bag. You can however prevent this from happening by destroying the Looting bag before you die, preventing the items inside it from dropping to the floor. We'll be changing the Looting bag so all of the contents inside it get dropped to the floor if it's destroyed in the Wilderness. The items will become visible to the player that would have got the loot, if there is one, else the items will become visible to anyone at all instantly. If the loot appears instantly for everyone, food and potions would be treated with the same rules that currently apply within the Wilderness, meaning they would not appear to anyone.

As always, your feedback is invaluable to us and we encourage you to reach out via the link to our forums at the bottom of this post to provide any.

Before we look at what's coming with this Wednesday's poll, don't forget the team are still developing and testing the content that passed from the most recent Skilling poll blog, and whilst it won't all come this week, we have plenty ready to release!

The schedule for PvP Week is as follows:


 * Blog live by 12/02
 * In-game poll live by 15/02
 * In-game poll closes 19/02
 * Some PvP content ready for 22/02 *(some content may be included in the following weeks)

The final week of QoL month is fast approaching, meaning the focus will soon turn to any Minigames/Other suggestions. Make sure you head over to the Old School Content Suggestions forum, or Reddit (/r/2007scape/ and /r/oldschoolrs/), to share your suggestions for Week 4 - Minigames/Other!

 Poll Question #1 Should a warning message be added when attempting to cast any of the Wilderness teleports on the Ancient Spellbook, informing you that it will take you to the Wilderness? It would be possible to toggle this warning on and off.  Poll Question #2 Should the Wilderness Obelisk teleport locations be ordered according to level rather than their current sorting for those that have completed the hard Wilderness Diary?  Poll Question #3 Should we add a new world to Free to Play that would act as a PvP world?  Poll Question #4 Should the same PJ timer active in PvP worlds also be applied to all Bounty Hunter worlds?  Poll Question #5 Should we increase the current limit applied to the camera zoom out distance? There would still be an upper limit and the current render distance would remain unchanged.  Poll Question #6 Should the effects of Tele Block be fully removed when logging out?  Poll Question #7 When Tele Block is cast on you, you get a message in your chatbox stating how long it is for. Should the same message be given to the person who cast the Tele Block?  Poll Question #8 In Deadman we made a change which meant that Protect From Magic would no longer reduce the duration of bind spells. We'd like to offer a similar change which would only apply to Entangle, the strongest bind spell. Should we change it so that Protect from Magic no longer reduces the binding effect of the Entangle spell?  Poll Question #9 Should the amount of XP you receive when splashing with Entangle be slightly reduced so you know when the bind has been applied?  Poll Question #10 Should we change it so that you are able to attack your opponent for 6 seconds after they enter a safe zone in PvP worlds? Currently players are able to walk in and out of a safe zone and attack without being attacked back. This would only apply to players who have engaged in combat with each other.  Poll Question #11 We recently implemented XP drop indicators for those with 200m XP in stats. Should we also add XP drop indicators for Ironmen in PvP? This would not allow Ironmen to gain any experience in PvP, but would allow them to see how much experience they would have gained, if they were able to.  Poll Question #12 Should the destination of the Revenant cave teleport be moved to the north cave entrance rather than the south?  Poll Question #13 Should the special attack of the Granite maul be changed so that each use of it is delayed by 1 game cycle? This change would make the special attack work in the same way the Dragon thrownaxe currently does. The delay will also be applied when using the Granite maul special after switching to it from another special attack weapon.  Poll Question #14 Should it be possible for players to re-obtain the Bearhead obtained after killing The Kendal in the Mountain Daughter quest, without fully completing the quest? Currently if the helm is lost, players must then fully complete the quest before getting another.  Poll Question #15 Should the colour of the spellbook icon change based on which one is currently active?

Discuss this update on our forums.

Mods Archie, Ash, Ayiza, Curse, Ed, Ghost, Jed, John C, Kieren, Mat K, Maz, Roq, Ry, Stone, Sween, Weath, West & Wolf The Old School Team