Old School RuneScape News

[h2]Hotfixes and Issues (29th April)[/h2]

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Though we do say it ourselves, we reckon this update is truly spellbinding! We've opened a special Beta world for members to try out the new Arceuus Spellbook before the release of A Kingdom Divided and made some main game changes that set the stage for this exciting new chapter. We've also tweaked Below Ice Mountain, rebalanced some equipment and launched more 20th anniversary merch! Abracadabra, let's be 'aving ya...

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[h2]A Kingdom Divided: Beta[/h2]



The next chapter of the Great Kourend storyline is on the horizon – A Kingdom Divided. Ahead of its release, we've been working hard on one of the additional rewards for completing this continuation. Introducing: the Arceuus Spellbook!

We're giving you the chance to experience the reworked book and try out all of the new spells across Gielinor. As of today, members will be able to log-in to the special Beta-worlds and test all the new additions and changes!

How do I access the Beta worlds?

Only members can access the Beta. When the game has loaded, you can find the beta worlds W401 (US), W407 (UK) and W412 (AUS), which will be highlighted in blue within the World Selection screen.

What happens when I log in?

Choosing any of these worlds will load a separate profile to your main account. Once you've logged-in, you'll find yourself within Ferox Enclave, with max skills and suitable gear, along with an Inventory full of Runes! If you're wanting to try out some other gear or experiment with different stats, head to the rooms next to the Castle Wars and Free-For-All portals, and rummage in the Supply Chests on the tables. Here you can select your gear and set your stats accordingly.

What can I do in the Beta?

You’ll be able to take part in any content you could find on the main game worlds, apart from the Inferno.

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[h2]Existing Spells[/h2]

So, what's cookin' in the new spellbook? First, let's cast a glance over the already existing spells and any changes that may come with them:


Reanimation Spells

In the current Arceuus Spellbook, there is a reanimation spell for each relevant creature, making a grand total of 22 spells. With the rework, these will be replaced by four new reanimation spells. No changes will be made to the amount of experience granted from reanimating creatures.

Spooky scary skeletons!

With this update, these changes to reanimation spells will also be available in the main game.



Teleport Spells

Most of the teleport spells will be unchanged with this rework. However, the teleport to the Lumbridge Graveyard has been replaced with an Arceuus Library teleport. Handy!

Moving and grooving!

For any players currently with any Lumbridge Graveyard teleport tablets, these will be changed into Arceuus Library Teleport tablets.

With this update, the change to teleport spells will also be available in the main game.



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[h2]New Spells[/h2]

And for our next trick... brand shiny new spells! To use these you will have to complete all of A Kingdom Divided, apart from Ghostly Grasp and Inferior Demonbane. Demonic Offering is the only spell we've left out from the Beta, as we've not added the Demonic Ash item yet. Other than that, you'll be free to wreak havoc with these excellent enchantments:

It's Degrime time!

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[h2]New Mechanics[/h2]

Combat Spells

Some items can be used to auto-cast spells:

• Slayer's Staff
  
• Skull Sceptre (which has had its Attack bonus increased from +4 to +10)
  
  • With this update, the above change will also be available in the main game.
• Ahrim's Staff
  
• Staff of the Dead
  
• Kodai Wand

The following spells from the Arceuus Spellbook can be auto-casted:

• Inferior Demonbane
  
• Superior Demonbane
  
• Dark Demonbane
  
• Ghostly Grasp
  
• Skeletal Grasp
  
• Undead Grasp

Arceuus Spellbook auto-cast spells.

Corruption

When a player is corrupted, they will start to lose Prayer points over a short amount of time. After six seconds, 1 Prayer point is drained. After another six seconds, 2 Prayer points are drained. After a final six seconds, 3 Prayer points are drained. If a Mark of Darkness has also been cast, corruption will occur every three seconds instead. This new type of damage will be reflected with a new type of hitsplat icon.

The animation for casting Greater Corruption.

Naturally, Corruption spells can only be cast on a player who is not already corrupted. However, there is no cooldown between Corruption expiring and a new Corruption spell being cast. It is not possible to stack multiple Corruption spells on a single player, even within multi-combat zones.

Resurrection

To perform a Resurrection spell, players will need to equip the Book of the Dead. This new magic book will be obtained as a reward from A Kingdom Divided, acting as an upgrade to the completed Kharedst's Memoirs!

Much nicer than the Necronomicon!

The Book of the Dead would provide +6 Magic attack and +3 Prayer bonus. Completion of A Kingdom Divided is required to equip the book.

Drawing upon the power of defeated creatures, Resurrection spells bring to life an undead thrall that will aid you in battle. Yikes! This will require runes and Prayer points, and only 1 thrall can exist at a time. Thralls will remain active for one game cycle (0.6 seconds) for every Magic level the caster has. For example, if a thrall is resurrected when your Magic level is 60, it will last for 36 seconds before dying. Hey, maths can be fun - and violent!

A resurrected thrall will not act like a typical follower. They will wander the area where they were created and attack anything the player attacks, provided the target is within range.

It's possible to resurrect a thrall throughout most of Gielinor, even if the undead creature being dragged from its grave is not present in that area at the time. Certain exceptions to this will apply where the aid of a thrall will not be possible – much like how setting up the Dwarf Multicannon is not possible in specific areas.

All resurrected thralls will attack at a rate of four game cycles (one attack every 2.4 seconds). Thralls cannot be damaged and their attacks ignore accuracy checks, but it will still be possible for them to hit 0 at times. While their damage ignores accuracy checks, Protection Prayers will reduce their damage accordingly.

Thralls will not aid you in PvP situations.

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[h2]Main Game Changes[/h2]

Along with this lovely new Beta, we've also made some changes to the main game. Some of these are made to allow for the Beta. Others are A Kingdom Divided-relevant changes we're intentionally launching early to help ensure the main release goes smoothly! The following changes will go live with this update:

Hitsplats

We've updated the appearance of some of the more unique hitsplats in the game, as the ones we had were not suitable for colour blind players. This doesn't impact the iconic hitsplats for things such as damage and poison, but lesser used ones for shields, armour, healing, charging and discharging.

Spell Filtering

With the slate of new spells being added to your Spellbook today, we've included an option to filter out the ones that you don't meet the requirements for yet. We're also planning to poll a visual indicator for these spells as part of Poll 75.

X Marks the Spot

From a timeline standpoint, X Marks The Spot is the first quest in the Great Kourend storyline. However, it actually came out long after the next quest in the series, Client of Kourend, and was not required for it. We want to make sure anyone new to the series has a clear understanding of the order of events, so we've made X Marks the Spot a requirement for Client of Kourend. For anyone who's already started Client of Kourend, X Marks the Spot will instead become a requirement for the Five House quests. If you've already started all five of those, X Marks the Spot will be a requirement for A Kingdom Divided when it launches.

What can we say? We're just maintaining lore and order...

Music

Listen up beat fiends, because we've made some behind the scenes improvements to our music system.

First, music tracks should now loop more reliably, rather than stopping half way through. Looping should occur even when music stops for a jingle or because it's been muted/unmuted.

Second, because we now have a better idea of when a music track ends, we're able to randomise the playing order! It will take a while for us to roll this out across the entire game, so we've started with the free-to-play area. Rather than the same track looping and then abruptly changing, music will now shuffle between suitable tracks when moving from one area to another.

The music in Old School is of course iconic, especially in the free-to-play area, so the track shuffling isn't totally random. Instead, different parts of the map have different sets of tracks assigned to them. This ensures each area of the world retains its musical identity. For example, there are six tracks that play in the Lumbridge area. Previously, each of these tracks would only play in a small part of Lumbridge. Now, they can play anywhere in and around the town. Once one finishes, a different Lumbridge track will kick in. Most importantly, the first track for any new arrival in Lumbridge will always be Harmony. Ahh, memories.

And that's it! We'll be keeping a close eye on your feedback over the Beta period and we look forward to hearing what you all think.

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[h2]Equipment Rebalance: Part One – Feedback[/h2]

Some items were missed in last week's first batch. They've now been added:

The Gilded Spear and Gilded Hasta have increased attack rate from 5 to 4, to match their Rune equivalents.

Guthan's, Verac's, Dharok's and Torag's legwear now have -11 ranged attack instead of -7 ranged attack, to match the change we made to other plate legwear.

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[h2]Below Ice Mountain[/h2]

Players can now exchange excess items for Barronite Shards:

• Barronite Head - 100
  
• Barronite Handle - 100
  
• Barronite Guard - 100
  
• Barronite Mace - 500
  
• Imcando Hammer (Broken) - 350
  
• Imcando Hammer - 500

Simply show the item to Ramarno and he'll offer to convert them into shards. Remember, any relics you find in the ruins can be traded at the Varrock Museum for extra change!

We've made some changes to the Vault beneath Ice Mountain:

• The entry fee has been decreased to 750 Barronite Shards.
  
• The drop table has been rebalanced, to reflect the difficulty/time spent.

Players can now interact directly with the forge to add/remove/check the amount of Barronite they have collected.

The Imcando Hammer has been updated to include some of the original Hammer's functions that were missing.

You can now store the Imcando Hammer in your Player Owned House.

Players looking for some extra Kudos will now see the Camdozaal Relics appear on the Kudos list in the Varrock Museum.

When preparing and offering fish in Camdozaal, the menu is now context-sensitive to which fish you have in your inventory.

One for the gym bunnies here: players can now replay Altas's workout cutscene (for a fee) and even keep track of how many times they do it.

The Barronite Mace now has a Strength bonus of +40 and an anti-Golem bonus of 15%, as mentioned in the original newspost.

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[h2]Fishing Skill Boss[/h2]

We're thrilled to see so many of you battling against the newly awakened Spirit of the Sea, Tempoross! We've made some small QoL changes to make an even bigger splash:

A new overlay has been added to the lobby and the surrounding area. This will show how many players are waiting in the lobby, and indicate how long until the next encounter.

Your Personal Bests and Time Taken stats are now displayed after successfully defeating the boss. They've also been added to the stats board in the Ruins of Unkah.

A quick-climb option has been added to the Tempoross lobby ladder, as well as a water pump aboard the ship.

UI on both mobile and PC has been moved to create more space on the screen.

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[h2]Merch[/h2]

We've added even more new lines to celebrate the 20th Anniversary year of RuneScape! You may have already spotted these in the Anniversary packs we sent out to content creators - well, now they're coming to the merch store for everyone to get their hands on!

• Special Black and Gold Map of Gielinor Print
  
• Commemorative Black and Gold Map of Gielinor Tee (with 20th Anniversary logo in neck)

The RuneScape anniversary is not the only milestone we're celebrating. Angels Scapes has now designed a whopping 200 official pins and keyrings for the merch store! You can grab the special commemorative Fire Cape, alongside other designs celebrating content over the past 20 years:

• Angels Fire Cape - 200th Design Limited Edition
  
• Void Sea Pin
  
• Dugeoneering Mastercape Keyring
  
• Thieving Skillcape Keyring

Restocks of Ice and Blood Barrage Pins and the popular Agility, Ranged, Firemaking Skillcape keyrings are also available.



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[h2]Other News[/h2]
It's Raining Cats and Dogs!

This one should make your tail wag: you can now interact with several cats and dogs across Gielinor! Address your pats and strokes to:

• The Myths' Guild dog
  
• The dog in the Falador chicken coop
  
• The dog in the Museum Camp
  
• Mark (Grace's dog, Rogues' Den)
  
• The cat in the Farming Guild

PvP World Rota

The PvP world rota has moved to Period B.

• The host for the High-Risk PvP world will be W337 (US East)
  
• The host for the Standard PvP world will be W325 (UK)
  
• The host for the free-to-play PvP world will be W371 (UK)
  
• The members-only LMS world will be W492 (US East)
  
• The free-to-play LMS world will be W326 (UK)

Extras

• World 315 (US) has now become a designated Fishing Trawler activity world!
  
• The trawler is now leakier when more players are on it. Stands to reason, right? However, more than one player can now fix a trawler railing at a time. Problem solved!
  
• The stock of swamp paste in the Port Khazard general store has been increased. It also restocks faster.
  
• Players will be prevented from accidentally clicking on Inventory items while using the Deposit Box or entering a Bank PIN.
  
• Gravestone payment messages have been added to the game.
  
• The Theatre of Blood is now a safe zone on PvP worlds.
  
• The Serpentine Helm will no longer ask the player how many Scales you want to add to it, as long as no other Scale-using items are in the Inventory. This is in-line with similar items.
  
• The Soul Wars shop has been updated to include a 'buy X' option for the XP rewards. We will look to do the same to other tabs of the shop at a later date.
  
• Dragon Slayer II notes can now be combined into a book!
  
• The Fight Cave leave timer has been reduced to three minutes.
  
• Some new counters have been added to the Collection Log, including the number of Tempoross Reward Permits claimed, and Spoils Of War opened in Soul Wars!
  
• Radimus Erkle's clone has been removed, meaning he will no longer appear in two places at once!
  
• A toggle for the border setting has been added to the Settings menu.
  
• The 20th Anniversary Cape no longer clips when you're carrying an Ale Of The Gods. Cheers to that!
  
• Clearer messaging is now provided for players who are attempting to fight the Thermonuclear Smoke Devil off-task for the Achievement Diary but aren't yet at the required Slayer level.
  
• Death in the Clan Wars free-for-all arena no longer removes PK skulls, for consistency with Clan Wars challenge battles.
  
• The bankers in Mos Le'Harmless now face west by default.
  
• Items no longer vanish when dropped at the top of some stairs in Dorgesh-Kaan.

That's everything for this week's game update. We'd love to hear your feedback so please let us know what you think via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.

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Mods Acorn, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Banjo, Boko, Bonsai, Brow, Bruno, Curse, Daizong, Deagle, Dibber, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Flippy, Gecko, Gee, Grub, Halo, Husky, Jndr, John C, Kandosii, Katies, Kieren, Kirby, Lenny, Light, Lottie, Mack, Maylea, MikeD, Morty, Nasty, Nin, Oasis, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Squid, Steve W, Sween, Tide, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Zuko

The Old School Team

[h3]Player Feedback Changes: April 28th[/h3]

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Thanks for all of your feedback on the blog! There was a lot of discussion around the item that changes the Justiciar Armour into a Vampyre-themed set.

Many of you felt that you don't use the Justiciar Armour as often as other Theatre of Blood rewards, and that you’d rather see more regularly used items receive a cosmetic change.

Here are the items that could change instead of the Justiciar Armour:

• Ghrazi Rapier
  
• Sanguinesti Staff
  
• Scythe of Vitur
  

A collection of concepts for the Saradomin-themed weapons.

When used on any of the weapons, this reward would cosmetically transform it into a Saradomin-inspired version. It wouldn't change the stats or base functionality of the item. We opted not to include a reward for the Avernic Defender – it's too small to portray the right level of detail. Turns out size does matter when it comes to art!

As for the Vampyre-themed Justiciar Armour, we’ll be holding that back for a future poll. Until then, you can find the concept here.

We’ve updated the blog to highlight these changes, and the poll question regarding Hard Mode rewards now refers to the new cosmetic additions.
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Old School's approach to storytelling is one of its greatest strengths. We always aim to combine compelling gameplay with narrative depth, and to lead our players naturally towards more difficult content. With our new quest, A Night At The Theatre, we hope to introduce more players of different experience levels to the wicked delights of the infamous Theatre of Blood!

Along with this new quest, we're introducing two new difficulty settings for Theatre of Blood - Story Mode and Hard Mode. Read on to find out how we're helping guide mid-level players through end-game content, all while offering end-game players even tougher challenges to sink their teeth into!

Those of you who have been with us for a while may remember back in 2018, shortly after the release of Theatre of Blood, when we pitched the idea of an Entry Mode encounter. If we're brutally honest, it wasn't a strong pitch. It was a hasty response to feedback from a small number of players taking part in the Raid on launch. Our proposal for Story Mode is what that pitch should have been. And, in A Night At The Theatre, players will fight their way through a scaled-down version of the infamous Theatre, with greatly reduced rewards, but more accessible gameplay!

Hard Mode, meanwhile, is aimed at players who have comfortably mastered the mechanics of the regular Theatre of Blood and are looking to step up their game. And we're not just talking inflated stats here - we'll be changing the very mechanics of each fight to add additional complexity and really put you through your paces.

If both Story Mode and Hard Mode are added to the game, you'll make your selection from the notice board outside the Theatre (and you'll play on Normal Mode by default). Story Mode and Normal Mode will be available to anybody who has access to the Theatre, but Hard Mode will require at least one Normal Mode completion. Only the party leader can set the mode, but the board will show what mode has been selected for all recruiting parties. We'll add additional tracking variables so that completions, deaths and best times will be mode-specific, and the scoreboard outside will show statistics for all three modes.

Rest assured, we've heard your requests for new end-game content, and we have much greater plans in the works - we're simply adapting our schedule to add new challenges in the meantime. If you like this proposal, and it proves to be successful when added to the game, we will adopt a similar approach with future Raids.

And so, without further ado, let's pull back the curtain on A Night At The Theatre...

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A Night At The Theatre

A Night at the Theatre will be many players' first experience of Theatre of Blood, so we want it to be a highly playable introduction to this fearsome locale. The quest can be tackled on any mode (Story, Normal, or Hard), but is primarily designed for Story Mode. First-time adventurers can also team up with players who have already completed the quest. You'll need to complete it for the finale of the Myreque series.

[h3]Requirements and Rewards[/h3]
[expand]A Night At The Theatre is a Master-level quest. As it takes you through a challenging (albeit scaled) Raid encounter, we'd recommend that you have 90 Combat before embarking. As it takes place in Morytania, Priest In Peril is required.

Upon completion you'll be rewarded:

• 2 Quest Points
  
• 40,000 XP in a Combat skill

You'll also be able to flex those muscles with a whole new emote courtesy of Checkal! Hwuargh!
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Story Mode

Story Mode is of similar difficulty to the current Theatre of Blood, but with the following changes:

• All boss stats, including health and defences, are reduced – and all attacks deal less damage to the player.
  
• Boss health will scale differently from Normal mode, where health scales down to 75% at three or fewer players. In Story Mode, it will continue scaling down to just 20% for a solo player. At this level of scaling we'd expect it to be similar (perhaps slightly harder) difficulty than our existing quest bosses, so it could be completed as a solo experience.
  
• No unique rewards will be given (this includes Lil' Zik).
  
• All other rewards will be reduced to 20% of their usual quantity.
  
• As detailed above, separate tracking will be used from other modes.
  
• Supplies can't be bought with points. Instead, players will be given untradeable Supply Packs which can only be used in the Story Mode Raid.
  
• Death mechanics are different. If all party members die (and wipe), they'll respawn outside the challenge area, with the challenge reset. This respawn can happen up to three times. If the party all wipe for a fourth time, they will die as normal.

Poll Question #1
Would you like A Night At The Theatre, a new Master level quest, to be added to the game? Story Mode, a new difficulty level for Theatre of Blood, will also be added with the quest.

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Hard Mode

Now it's time for the toughest cookies to step up to the plate! Hard Mode is aimed at players who have mastered the Theatre of Blood and are eager for a new challenge. This isn't like the Chambers of Xeric: Challenge Mode, where we inflated stats on an established and consistent path. Hard Mode will change the very mechanics of each boss fight, giving you a more gnarly and complex encounter. Crumbs!

In terms of scaling, Hard Mode will continue to scale for players in groups of 1-5 using the existing scaling system of 75% health at three (or fewer) players.

Similarly to the Chambers of Xeric: Challenge Mode, the content will carry target times, based on group size, which will affect your chances of acquiring new and unique rewards!

Rewards

Our plan is to improve existing rewards and offer some fresh cosmetic rewards:

• The existing unique drop chances will be increased, and we will slightly lower the chance of any unique drop being an Avernic Defender. This means Hard Mode will be the best way for habitual players to obtain special Theatre of Blood loot.
  
• Quantities of loot on the regular drop table will be increased by 25%.

Speeding through it? For players who finish within the target time, the following rewards await you:

• A further increase to regular drop table loot.
  
• The chance to score a unique untradeable item which can be used to metamorphise Lil' Zik into any of the Theatre of Blood bosses.
  
• A chance at unique untradeable item which can change the following into Saradomin-themed weapons (see image below):
  - Ghrazi Rapier
  - Sanguinesti Staff
  - Scythe of Vitur
  
• This item will function similarly to the Twisted Ancestral colour kit (one kit is required per weapon, the weapon will become untradeable, and it can be detached from the weapon).

A collection of concepts for the Saradomin-themed weapons.

Poll Question #2
Would you like a Hard Mode added to the Theatre of Blood? The boss fight mechanics will be updated to make each encounter more challenging, and rewards will be improved.

Poll Question #3
If Question #2 passes, would you like us to add an item which unlocks the ability to metamorphise Lil' Zik into any of the Theatre of Blood bosses?

Poll Question #4
If Question #2 passes, would you like us to add an item which can change the appearance of the Scythe of Vitur, Ghrazi Rapier, and Sanguinesti Staff into Saradominist-themed weapons?

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This proposal represents a significant change of approach to end-game Raiding content, so we'd really love to hear your thoughts. Do you support our goal of helping new players get to grips with the Raid? Do you think it will work? What would you change? Share your feedback with us via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.

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Mods Acorn, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Banjo, Boko, Bonsai, Brow, Bruno, Curse, Daizong, Deagle, Dibber, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Flippy, Gecko, Gee, Grub, Halo, Husky, Jndr, John C, Kandosii, Katies, Kieren, Kirby, Lenny, Light, Lottie, Mack, Maylea, MikeD, Morty, Nasty, Nin, Oasis, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Squid, Steve W, Sween, Tide, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Zuko

The Old School Team

Ahoy there, salty sailors! We've cast our nets wide this week with Fishing Trawler improvements, plus the first wave of Equipment Rebalance changes. Let's dive in!

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[h2]Fishing Trawler[/h2]

There's a time and a plaice, but now seems like a cod moment to reveal changes to the classic Fishing Trawler minigame! Faster pacing, a new foe from the deep and some extra rewards? It's a net gain.


Game Time & Lobby

The first tweak you'll notice is the duration of the minigame – it's been halved, from 10 to 5 minutes. Snappy! This does mean that the rate of obtaining the Angler's Outfit has changed from 1/8 to 1/12 to reflect the shorter game times, which still makes it faster to obtain than before! Murphy's become more vocal too – he will bellow ship status updates, indicating how much time you have left. Heed his call and get cracking...

Murphy will let you know wherever you are!

Contribution Meter

Taking the place of the old Activity Meter is the shiny new Contribution Meter. You'll need to be actively participating in a game to reap the rewards of the sea, so get to work, landlubber.

Similar to the system in the Wintertodt minigame, the Contribution Meter will slowly fill up based on your actions. You'll need a certain amount of contributions to start earning rewards, but don't worry - you'll be notified when you hit the threshold! All activities onboard will give you some contribution, from bailing water to attacking the Kraken, and contribution does not deplete over time. At sea, hard work pays off.

Contribution means points, points mean prizes.

The Kraken

The infamously grumpy Kraken is not too happy about you disturbing its waters. Now players will have to deal with this slippery sea creature at the same time as maintaining their ship! The Kraken's creepy tentacles will pop up next to your net, preventing you from gathering any more fish until it has been dispatched and the net has been fixed. Players on the upper level of the ship can use their axe to cut the tentacles, receiving a little bit of tasty Woodcutting XP for every successful chop. Once they are subdued, you'll need to use a Hammer to fix the hole. Not fixing the rail will cause the next tentacle to spawn sooner, so be quick because the Kraken will be back twice as fast otherwise!

It's not all bad news, though - attacking those pesky tentacles and fixing the railing will grant a larger amount of contribution than other activities onboard.

Now, you will often climb the ladder to find the offending tentacle has mysteriously vanished. That's because the sun can be temporarily blinding. Be assured, the tentacle is coming – so get ready to chop!

It's well known that the trawler has some minor graphical issues that would require large sweeping changes to fix. Sadly the tentacles are affected, so don't panic if the tip of the tentacle sometimes doesn't appear. You can still chop it as long as it's not sweeping.

Obviously our smaller fishy friends are smart enough to steer clear of the monstrous Kraken, so keep attacking because he can drastically reduce the fish/XP you receive at the end of the game. He will also tear the net when he sees it's fixed. There'll be between three and six Kraken attacks per game, depending on how many people are on your boat. Players on the lower deck will be notified when an attack is underway. If you are in need of an axe you can purchase one from the shop in Port Khazard along with any other supplies you may need. In a pinch, some supplies will be found in crates at the front of the boat. You'll still have to bring your own Rope and Swamp Paste though, so make sure you're tooled up.

Come on Landlubber, let's get Kraken!

Rewards

Some other activities aboard the ship will earn you a little XP. Repairing the net will yield you a pinch of Crafting XP, while fixing those Kraken-made holes will yield a smidgen of Construction XP (as long as you have a Player Owned House to construct, of course).

Once you've completed your trawling adventure, you'll be rewarded as per usual with fish and any XP from your haul. At full contribution, you'll find 50% more fish in your net! On top of that, fish caught with the trawler will now give 50% more Fishing XP than before. Fish will also give approximately 50% more Fishing XP for each fish obtained during that game.

Since the mission takes half the time to complete, you'll get twice as many chances to snatch a Heron pet. The chances scale with contribution though, so fill that bar up for the best odds.

Bird up!

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[h2]Equipment Rebalance: Part One[/h2]

This update marks the beginning of the long-awaited Equipment Rebalance. These first changes are fairly small and were mostly welcomed by the community in our very first ERB news post.

Here's what's happened:




Medium Helmets - Ranged Attack stats have been increased from -1 to 0. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune, Dragon and White Medium Helmets (including the Gilded Rune Med Helm)
  

Full Helmets - Ranged Attack stats have been reduced from -2 to -3. This Includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune, Dragon, White and Decorative Full Helmets (including gold, trimmed and heraldic versions)
  
• Initiate and Proselyte Sallets
  
• Dragonstone, Ardougne Knight and Corrupted Helmets
  
• Ironman, Ultimate Ironman, and Hardcore Ironman Helmets
  

Platelegs/Plateskirts - Ranged Attack stats have been reduced from -7 to -11. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune, Dragon, White and Decorative Platelegs/Plateskirts (including Gold, Trimmed and Heraldic versions)
  
• Initiate and Proselyte Cuiss/Tassets
  
• Corrupted Platelegs/Plateskirt
  
• Dragonstone and Ardougne Knight Platelegs
  
• Ironman, Ultimate Ironman, and Hardcore Ironman Platelegs
  

Platebodies - Ranged Attack stats have been reduced from -10 to -15. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune, Dragon, White and Decorative Platebodies (including Heraldic, Gold and Trimmed versions)
  
• Initiate and Proselyte Hauberks
  
• Dragonstone, Ardougne Knight and Corrupted Platebodies
  
• Ironman, Ultimate Ironman, and Hardcore Ironman Platebodies
  

Squareshields - Ranged Attack stats have been increased from -2 to 0. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune, Dragon and White Squareshields (including Gold Rune Square Shield)
  

Kiteshields - Ranged Attack stats have been reduced from -2 to -3. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune, Dragon and White Kiteshields (including Gold Rune Kiteshield)
  
• All versions of Steel, Adamant and Rune Heraldic Kiteshields
  
• Corrupted Kiteshield
  
• Decorative Shield
  

Spears - Attack rate has been decreased to 4. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune Spears (from 6 to 4)
  
• Dragon Spear (from 5 to 4)
  

Warhammers - All Warhammers (including Dragon Warhammer) now require Strength to wield instead of Attack.

The following have also increased in strength:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune and White Warhammers
  

If players no longer meet the requirements, the item will be un-equipped to your inventory (if not full), failing that your bank (if not full), and failing that it will drop to the floor. Players will receive an in game message if this occurs.




Maces - Attack rate has been decreased from 5 to 4. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune, Dragon and White Maces
  

Hastae - Attack rate has been decreased from 5 to 4. This includes:

• Bronze, Iron, Steel, Black, Mithril, Adamant, Rune and Dragon Hastae (including all Poison variants)
  

The Twisted Bow Prayer bonus has been reduced from +4 to 0.




The Dragonstone Gauntlets Ranged Attack has been reduced from -2 to -3.




Both the Dragonbone and Bonecrusher Necklaces have had all Attack stats increased from 0 to 10. all Defence stats increased from 0 to 2 and their Melee Strength bonus increased from 0 to 2. They also now require 70 Prayer to wield instead of 80 and both necklaces' effects are activated immediately.




Basilisk Knights have lost their Special Attacks, although the Basilisk Superiors retain it. These Attacks can also no longer be fully broken by auto-retaliating with Ranged.


That's it for the first wave of ERB changes. If you've not had a chance, check out yesterday's blog and send us your feedback on the next stage!

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[h2]Last Man Standing[/h2]

Thanks for your helpful feedback on the latest Last Man Standing map. With today's update you'll see:

• More chests have been added around the map, specifically to final zones
  
• Chests are now more visible
  
• The amount of scenery in certain areas makes the environments feel more 'open'
  
• Spawn locations have been improved
  

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Other News[/h2]


Below Ice Mountain

We've made some smaller tweaks to Gielinor's latest dungeon:

• Golems now drop Noted Rune Essence
  
• The Camdozaal Collection Log tab will now turn green when the player has completed the collection
  
• The Collection Log now displays totals correctly since new items within Camdozaal were added
  
• Any text mentioning the Ancient Forge has been adjusted to refer to the Sacred Forge
  
• A small typo has been fixed in the Below Ice Mountain buff interface
  

PvP World Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period A:

• The host for the High-Risk PvP world will be W343 (Germany)
  
• The Standard PvP world will be W324 (US West)
  
• The free-to-play PvP world will be W417 (US East)
  
• A small fishing net has been placed within the ruins
  
• The members-only LMS world will be W333 (UK)
  
• The free-to-play LMS world will be W469 (US East)
  

Extras

• Additional special characters, such as "—", can now be rendered in chat. Go on, express yourself!
  
• Dialogue and quest progression in the Grand Tree quest has been improved.
  
• The Skavid map now stays with the player upon death.
  
• Amlodd's Magical Supplies has a slower price increase in Runes, to match other popular Rune stores.
  
• The anti-alting mechanic implemented last week has now been applied to the Abyssal Demons in the Catacombs, Demonic Gorillas, and Warped Jellies. The Catacombs' Abyssal Demons have had their maximum walking range increased slightly too. This will allow people to group more easily between rooms.
  

That's everything for this week's game update! We'd love to hear your feedback so please let us know what you think via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.

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Mods Acorn, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Banjo, Boko, Bonsai, Brow, Bruno, Curse, Daizong, Deagle, Dibber, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Flippy, Gecko, Gee, Grub, Halo, Husky, Jndr, John C, Kandosii, Katies, Kieren, Kirby, Lenny, Light, Lottie, Mack, Maylea, MikeD, Morty, Nasty, Nin, Oasis, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Squid, Steve W, Sween, Tide, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Zuko

The Old School Team

[h2]Equipment Rebalancing: Ranged Meta and High Level Concepts[/h2]

In our last Equipment Rebalance blog, we discussed splitting the process into four releases. The idea is to start out on the simpler rebalancing, before moving on to tackle trickier subjects - such as changes to the Ranged meta - separately, giving everything the room it needs to breathe and be properly considered.

In this blog we're going to take a closer look at those Ranged meta changes, covering:

• The current Ranged meta
  
• Our previous proposal
  
• Various top-level concepts for what we could change
  
• Detailed DPS numbers
  
• Our next steps - and a survey for you to fill in!
  

As a team, we believe a rebalance is clearly needed in order to curb any risk of powercreep and to ensure the long-term health of the game. It’s vital that we get this right, and we appreciate all of the support we’ve received so far.

A bit of a warning, though - this blog will contain a lot of information. But regardless, we strongly advise reading through all of it before providing any feedback. We also encourage you all to be constructive in your responses - if you're unhappy with an approach, consider offering an alternative suggestion or let us know which areas in particular need changing and why. This ensures that we’re able to action the changes that matter the most to you.

We should also note that the 'solution' to the Ranged Meta won't be found in this blog! We're going to continue working on it, and further down the road we'll be asking you to fill out a survey that will help shape our actual proposal. Together, we'll be able to find solution that we can all be happy with.

So, grab some water and stay hydrated as you traverse the desert of Equipment Rebalance...

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[h2]The Current Ranged Meta[/h2]

First, how do things currently stand?


Toxic Blowpipe

It’s no secret that the Toxic Blowpipe is strong. Here's why it's so popular:

• It's never a bad weapon to use unless a monster is specifically invulnerable to Ranged, you’re forced to wear a shield, or you are attacking a creature that the Blowpipe cannot reach (such as TzKal-Zuk).
  
• It has a very versatile special attack (when it hits).
  
• It is very obtainable, costing anywhere from as little as 3m to 5m GP depending on the market.
  
• It's among the fastest attacking weapons in the game, which drastically reduces its overkill potential (this also allows it to scale better than most Ranged items as max hit increases).
  
• The upkeep cost isn't all that high unless using Rune/Dragon Darts, and the return on investment only provides marginal increases in damage.
  
• It’s the only Ranged weapon which can compete with the Twisted Bow in terms of DPS output against lots of creatures.
  
• The only Ranged weapons which out-perform the Blowpipe in places where Ranged is relevant are:
  
  • Dragonhunter Crossbow against high-defence dragons like Vorkath (but only if their Defence is not reduced)
    
  • Twisted Bow against creatures which have mid-high Defence and also a mid-high Magic level
    
  • Armadyl crossbow with Ruby Enchanted Bolts against creatures with exceptionally high Hitpoints, such as TzKal-Zuk
    
  • Chinchompas in places where creatures can be affected by Ranged AoE damage
• Even against creatures it would not typically be match for, the Blowpipe will be a reasonably strong choice as long as the Defence can be reduced, making it fit to take on tough cookies such as:
  
  • Xarpus
    
  • Vorkath
    
  • Abyssal Sire
    
  • Sotetseg

Twisted Bow

When used against creatures with a high Magic level, the Twisted Bow is the strongest Ranged weapon in the game by a large margin. This is because of its unique effect; the higher the target's Magic level or Magic accuracy, the higher the Twisted Bow's accuracy and damage becomes!

It can be used to great effect against creatures including:

• The Great Olm
  
• Commander Zilyana
  
• Dagannoth Prime
  
• Alchemical Hydra
  
• Skotizo
  
• Vasa Nistirio
  
• Most Chambers of Xeric: Challenge Mode creatures
  
• TzTok-Jad
  
• TzKal-Zuk
  
• Zulrah
  

And, even if it isn't the strongest weapon, The Twisted Bow is still a reasonable choice against creatures such as:

• Cerberus
  
• Abyssal Sire
  
• King Black Dragon
  
• Maiden of Sugadinti
  
• Sotetseg
  
• Xarpus
  

However, The Twisted Bow is significantly worse than almost any other alternative Ranged weapon if the creature has a low Magic level, and is worse than almost every weapon in the game when the creature has no Magic level at all.

Because the Twisted Bow is a very rare drop from end-game content, it remains relatively exclusive and has held its position as one of the most expensive non-cosmetic items to obtain in the game.



Heavy Ballista

The Heavy Ballista sits within the Tier 75 Ranged weapons alongside the Twisted Bow and Toxic Blowpipe. Even though it is comparable in requirements, it sees next to no use in most PvM scenarios compared to its tier-mates because of its slow attack speed.

With the Ballista having such a slow attack speed, the potential for overkill becomes a much bigger issue.

It is, however, one of the best Ranged KO weapons in PvP due to its high hits and powerful special attack.



Crystal Bow

The Crystal Bow is an iconic Tier 70 Ranged weapon, known for having one of the longest attack ranges in the game - and not requiring arrows to shoot!

It can be used by players on a budget, and is great for those that cannot afford (or are yet to unlock) the Toxic Blowpipe. It also has some niche uses such as attacking the respiratory systems of the Abyssal Sire.

The strength of the Crystal Bow can be enhanced further by equipping a full set of the Crystal Armour. Each armour piece will give a 3% damage boost and 6% accuracy bonus to the bow. If all pieces are worn, the total set bonus is equal to a 15% damage and 30% accuracy boost.

This increase in power would suggest its effective strength should be higher than a Tier 70 item. However, it isn't all that useful because:

• The set bonus require a head slot to be equipped, so it's often replaced by the Slayer helmet for better bonuses in many situations.
  
• The set bonus is not strong enough to outdo the Toxic Blowpipe - even in situations where you cannot fight a creature on a Slayer task.
  
• The armour set takes up a total of four worn equipment slots (including the bow), limiting its effectiveness where switching gear is favoured.
  
• The Bow and its armour have a steep upkeep cost as they degrade in combat. They can only be recharged with Crystal Shards.
  
• The armour is reasonably expensive/difficult to unlock, and the cost does not necessarily reflect its strength.
  

Standard Crossbows

The most commonly used standard Crossbows in game are Tier 61 for Rune, Tier 64 for Dragon and Tier 70 for Armadyl.

There is very little difference in power between them, with the best Tier (Armadyl) only providing +1 Prayer bonus alongside +10 Ranged accuracy over Rune and +6 Ranged accuracy over Dragon. However, Dragon and Armadyl crossbows are the only crossbows which can fire Dragon Bolts and their enchanted variants, which provides a substantial DPS increase over the Adamant enchanted Bolts used by the Rune Crossbow.

Crossbows allow a shield to be equipped at the same time making them a more defensive option, and in some specific encounters, this approach is forced by design. Some examples include:

• Taking an Antifire Shield or a Dragonfire Ward against Dragons such as Vorkath
  
• Taking a Crystal Shield or Dragonfire Shield into places where Defence matters
  
• Taking a Mirror Shield or V's Shield against creatures such as Basilisks and Basilisk Knights
  

With Dragon Bolts equipped, the Armadyl Crossbow is the strongest Ranged weapon option against high Defence targets with high Hitpoints and a low Magic level. It's the second strongest weapon against creatures such as TzKal-Zuk.

The Armadyl Crossbow also has a special attack that doubles the accuracy of the next attack by 40%. However, this attack has no effect if the next move triggers the special effect of a Bolt, as this is checked before accuracy rolls occur.

Against the vast majority of creatures, a Toxic Blowpipe will always be better DPS than any Crossbow.



Karil’s Crossbow

Karil’s Crossbow is another Tier 70 Ranged weapon, though it sees much less use due to its high upkeep cost.

As it is a part of the Barrows set, it degrades during combat, and after 15 hours of use it will need repairing before it can be used again. In addition to this, the crossbow uses unique ammunition that is consumed with every shot fired.

Other noteworthy points about Karil's Crossbow include:

• It has higher DPS than a Rune Crossbow against low-mid Defence targets, unless the Rune Crossbow is used with enchanted Ruby Bolts against creatures with high Hitpoints.
  
• It attacks from a significantly shorter range than a Rune Crossbow.
  
• A shield cannot be equipped at the same time as it is two-handed.
  
• When worn with a full set of Karil the Tainted's armour, shots from the Crossbow benefit from a special effect that gives a chance to reduce the agility level of an opposing player by 25%
  
• But... this has little to no significance even in PvP combat
  
• When worn with a full set of Karil the Tainted's armour and an Amulet of the Damned, there is also a 25% chance for each attack to deal a second hit for half the damage of the first.
  
• This set effect does provide a slight DPS increase and can find uses in PvP for certain players, but it does requires 5 items to be worn, all of which will degrade over time.
  

Magic bows

The Magic Shortbow and Magic Longbow are Tier 50 Ranged weapons, though Longbows are mostly considered irrelevant due to their slow attack speed. However, this doesn’t outweigh the benefits of having an increased attack distance!

Magic Shortbows can have comparable DPS to a Rune Crossbow, depending on the Defence of the creature and the quality of ammunition used. But a shield cannot be equipped at the same time, as they are two-handed weapons.

Even when using Amethyst arrows, the Magic Shortbow is weaker than using Karil’s Crossbow. However, the cost of upkeep is severely reduced as it doesn't degrade and any ammunition used benefits from the ammunition-saving effect of Ava's devices.

The Magic Shortbow can be imbued, increasing its base Ranged accuracy from +69 to +75 and lowering the special attack energy used from 55% to 50%.

But, imbued or not, you're always better off using a Rune Crossbow against targets with Hitpoints high enough to take full advantage of Ruby Bolt special attacks.

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Room for Growth[/h2]

The Tier 70 Ranged meta has lots of options, with plenty of ways for lower-tier items to be improved, increasing the available variety. However, the Tier 75 Ranged meta only has four options:

• Twisted Bow against specific bosses (for those who can afford it)
  
• Toxic Blowpipe for everything else, unless there's a significant drawback/reason why it can't be used
  
• Armadyl Crossbow for the few occasions where the Toxic Blowpipe isn't the right choice
  
• Crystal Bow with Crystal Armour... trying to be relevant and failing spectacularly!
  

The solution to the current meta isn't as simple as just introducing more Ranged items at Tier 75 either. Simply put, the Toxic Blowpipe is just too strong everywhere it is used. Its damage per tick ratio (see further down for more info) is too high for where it sits. This leaves us with the following options:

• Nerf the Toxic Blowpipe so we can introduce more Ranged items at Tier 75. These would fill in places where the Blowpipe was previously used, and might be even better in some circumstances.
  
• Create a new Tier above the Toxic Blowpipe. This would unavoidably result in powercreep for what one is one of the most dominant playing styles.
  

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Our Previous Proposal[/h2]

What was it?

These are the changes we had suggested for the charged Toxic Blowpipe:

• 100% increased accuracy added to the special attack
  
• Toxic Blowpipe base Ranged accuracy reduced from +60 to +30
  
• Toxic Blowpipe base Ranged strength reduced from +40 to +25
  
• All Dart variants' accuracy and strength reduced (see table below)
  
• Ranged level requirement increased from 75 to 78
  

The intention was to make Dart choice more important, with cheaper ones being notably weaker than the more expensive options. In addition to reducing the base stats of the Toxic Blowpipe, this would bring its overall power more in line with where we considered it to be as a Tier 75/78 Ranged weapon.

Space would have been created for new items in the Tier 75/78 bracket, leading to increased diversity of options for Ranged combat.

These changes would also have helped to overcome the balancing hurdle we face currently when designing new PvM content. The Toxic Blowpipe would have a new identity as the best Ranged weapon to use against low Defence targets.

We then looked to offset the nerf of the Toxic Blowpipe by increasing the damage and accuracy bonus of Crystal Armour set. Unfortunately, our previously proposed buffs weren’t enough to make a sufficient difference and failed to bridge the gap that would have been left behind.

You can find the original details of the Toxic Blowpipe changes and more in this newspost.



What worked?

• Darts became a more important factor, emphasising that higher DPS should have an appropriately higher cost.
  
• It created a larger gap between the Toxic Blowpipe and the Twisted Bow, allowing us to fill that space over time with future rewards.
  
• It created space for diversity in the Ranged meta and made existing items better in various situations.
  
• It gave the Toxic Blowpipe a clear identity - the best weapon against low Defence targets.
  

What didn’t work?

• The power level between those who owned a Twisted Bow and those who didn't was widened considerably, resulting in players feeling like more content would be locked behind an incredibly expensive item.
  
• Despite its identity as the best weapon against low Defence targets, the Toxic Blowpipe would still be the best weapon against medium Defence targets too, unless they were specifically susceptible to the Twisted Bow.
  
• With the power level of the Toxic Blowpipe being balanced more around Rune and Dragon Darts, players with limited access to these Darts (especially those playing an Iron account) felt like the nerf impacted them more than others.
  
• Whilst the Ranged meta changed, it didn't really change by enough to make a noticeable immediate impact, especially towards end-game content. It still mostly revolved around using either the Toxic Blowpipe or the Twisted Bow, with the Toxic Blowpipe just being weaker than it was before. This went against our goal of increasing diversity in viable Ranged weapons, and relied too heavily on new items being added in the future.
  
• The changes essentially nerfed the player rather than the weapon, as there were no immediate replacements for the Toxic Blowpipe. With no publicly available schedule for releases of new items, this undermined player confidence in the changes.
  
• Many felt like those who had used the Toxic Blowpipe pre-nerf had achieved things more easily than players attempting the same tasks post-nerf.
  
• Even after buffing the Crystal Armour, the Crystal Bow would remain uncompetitive. After testing various stat changes, we determined that we'd have to increase the set bonus accuracy and damage to 40% accuracy and 50% damage for the Crystal Bow to be better against the Ket-Zek in the Inferno. That's quite a substantial increase over our proposal, and something we were not comfortable doing given the Crystal Bow is still a Tier 70 item!
  
• The Crystal Armour was still less viable against creatures where getting a Slayer task is possible.
  

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Is This REALLY Needed?[/h2]

The game has been just fine for the last six years with the Toxic Blowpipe in its current form, so why change it now? Does it even need to be changed at all?

No it doesn’t.

There is almost certainly a scenario where the Toxic Blowpipe could remain in-game just the same. However, we’d be left in a situation where adding new Ranged gear from future pieces of content would result in blatant powercreep. The gap between Melee/Magic and one Ranged item would continue to grow.

We believe that making changes now is in the best interest of the long-term health of the game. We still want the Toxic Blowpipe to remain viable, but for it to be a tool in your arsenal rather than the entire army!

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Top Level Concepts[/h2]

Since first suggesting Equipment Rebalancing we’ve received an overwhelming amount of feedback. We’ve listened to it all, and here are some of your suggestions.



Ranged Damage Types

One popular suggestion was to separate Ranged accuracy and strength into different styles, similar to how Melee works with Stab, Slash and Crush. Our internal discussions proposed:

• Piercing (Arrows/Bows)
  
• Bludgeoning (Bolts/Crossbows)
  
• Magical/Special (Crystal Bow)
  

A change like this would definitely help to fix the issue with diversity in Ranged equipment, although it's arguably a bit extreme considering the issue only really exists because of one Ranged weapon.

Implementing the fundamentals of this would require an incredibly large amount of dev work. First we’d need to completely re-write almost all existing NPCs defensive stats and respective Ranged weapon offensive stats. Then, a similar amount of time would be needed to calculate the shift in DPS values for each Ranged weapon to ensure each one was correctly balanced.

With something of this scale, it’s likely a lot of existing metas would change (potentially for the worse) and the reality is that no matter how much time we spent balancing things internally, it would take several iterations to get right. This would have huge implications on the work done for Combat Achievements and potentially delay the project even further.

It’s also a huge shift in how Ranged combat works across Old School, and might not be a universally accepted direction for the game to take. This level of change needs serious thought, and isn’t something we’d approach without first fully investigating alternative options.



Special Boss Mechanics

Another suggestion was to introduce unique mechanics for bosses and creatures that would limit the effectiveness of the Toxic Blowpipe against them.

This is something we’ve done in the past and continue to keep in mind with new content releases. For example, Basilisk Knights require a shield and TzKal-Zuk is intentionally placed out of range for the Blowpipe.

Alternate ways of achieving this could involve:

• Mechanics such as damage reflection, making the use of a fast attacking weapon much more punishing.
  
• Mechanics that require the player to move around a lot so there are fewer opportunities to attack.
  
• Drastically increasing the Defence/Ranged Defence of bosses and creatures to combat the Toxic Blowpipe. However:
  
  • This would however impact the viability of Melee
    
  • Increasing Ranged defence makes all Ranged weapons weaker, not just the Toxic Blowpipe
    
  • Landing special attacks with the Dragon Warhammer still has the potential to undo any high Defence stats we apply unless we specifically limit the amount of Defence that can be reduced like we have at Sotetseg
    

Ultimately we still feel like these solutions don't fix the underlying problem. Whilst we’re able to design new content with the current Toxic Blowpipe in mind, all existing content would remain susceptible to powercreep as and when new Ranged items become available. There’s also the potential for any changes having an unintended negative impact on other weapons.



Rebalancing Old Content

One of the most common concerns was that existing content would become much harder, or that some PvM goals would take longer to achieve. For example:

• Lizardman Shamans would be impacted significantly due to the low Ranged accuracy of the Shayzien armour, which is required to fight them effectively.
  
• The Inferno would become slightly harder. If the Blowpipe is dealing less damage, then monsters are taking longer to die. This would become a problem when reaching TzKal-Zukm, as taking down the Jal-MejJak’s quickly is very beneficial. There were also concerns raised about the increased difficulty of defeating sets of Jal-Xil and Jal-Zek during the TzKal-Zuk phase, and that the triple JalTok-Jads taking longer to kill.
  
• Vasa Nistiro becomes even more reliant on having fellow raiders with a Twisted Bow, especially in Challenge Mode.
  

It was suggested that we could reduce the stats of affected creatures accordingly. But again, applying this kind of change across the entire game is something we’d like to avoid. However, we can certainly look case-by-case and adjust bosses and creatures where necessary.



Why don't we just ban the bots?

“The Toxic Blowpipe is only a problem because it's cheap. It's only cheap because Jagex haven't banned bots/goldfarmers. It's not our fault and we shouldn’t suffer because of this.”

Whilst the affordability and upkeep costs of the Toxic Blowpipe are an issue, they’re only contributing to the bigger problem of how crazy powerful the weapon is. By just making it more expensive to purchase and use, we'd still face the following snags:

• A single Tier 75/78 weapon being the meta.
  
• Continued issues with powercreep whenever new Ranged strength and accuracy items are introduced.
  
• Dart scaling issues, with extremely accessible and affordable Darts out-DPS-ing some of the best-in-slot alternatives.
  

We don't disagree that the Toxic Blowpipe is cheaper than we’d like. And yes, that is partially due to the amount of them available because of accounts farming Zulrah.

We asked our Anti-Cheating Team to provide some insight into the situation:

"We have multiple BotWatch heuristics specifically looking at bosses such as Zulrah. These are frequently updated to remain as accurate and informative as possible. However, with the vast amount of scripts and bots out there, we simply can't catch every one of them, all of the time. This is an ongoing battle between the Anti-Cheating Team and people abusing our system.

"The number of botted accounts that the team remove on a weekly basis fluctuates, but is usually in the low thousands. A lot of these accounts are played manually, just as a normal player would do, but their intention is purely around Gold farming.

"This is an issue because players seek to make a living from converting in-game items to real-world currencies. So long as our games provide these players with a real-world financial incentive to play, then they'll do so at all costs. These type of accounts aren't easily identifiable via BotWatch - they require a mixture of data analysis, profiling and manual tracking.

"Over the last year, the team has been working to improve our arsenal with new talent, fresh ideas, and innovative ways of working. One example we can give is the implementation of Machine Learning models and analysis to help flag any suspicious accounts for manual review!

"We're happy to report early success with this. Through these additional analysis methods we're now seeing on average of 600 to 2,500 additional Real World Trading bans applied daily.

"We're aware that there is more work to do, and we can be doing better. Over the coming months we are actively going to be working on developing new systems to aid in the fight against cheating in our games. We can't go into detail about these new systems for obvious reasons, but alongside hiring more staff it's been a main focus of the team's planning and strategy over the past year."

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[h2]Damage Per Tick - Accuracy Is Our Friend[/h2]

One of the fundamental issues with the Toxic Blowpipe is its potential damage output is far higher than its competition.

By working out the raw potential damage output of an item, we can focus purely on the figures when comparing them. We don’t need to worry about various different stats, if a weapon is one-handed or two-handed, or things like attack range. In its simplest form, our calculations take a weapon's max hit and attack speed, and then output a simple figure that we can refer to.

The below table is based on the following:

• Maximum Ranged gear available
  
• A boosted Ranged level of 112
  
• Rigour active
  
• No Slayer Helmet
  
• We've used three different Magic levels for the Twisted Bow to show how the Magic level really affects its raw damage output
  
• We've ignored the Bolt effect chance of Crossbows
  
• Naturally this doesn't take into account any upkeep costs, which we'd normally consider during balancing
  
• We assume that you have 100% accuracy and will never miss, which is a good way for us to actually show the potential DPS output of a weapon
  

*The Twisted Bow only scales past 250 Magic inside the Chambers of Xeric, where its cap becomes 350 Magic.

Accuracy Matters, So Why Are We Ignoring It?

Accuracy is a very important metric in Old School combat. It controls how often you’re going to hit with a weapon, which directly impacts to the amount of damage you can output over a period of time. As a monster's Defence value increases, accuracy against that same creature decreases, and therefore the overall DPS typically goes down.

However, accuracy is not a very reliable stat, especially given how a lot of existing encounters involve using Defence-reducing special attacks to get as close to 100% accuracy as possible.

So in general, this is a good way to show the potential power level of items. You can clearly see from the table above just how far ahead the Toxic Blowpipe is against low Defence targets, even with low-tier Darts being used! This method also emphasises the non-existent gap between the Toxic Blowpipe and the Twisted Bow - something we should certainly work on filling with other items or future rewards.

Let’s take a look at how things are when we bring Effective Defence into the mix…

The below graph is based on the following:

• Effective Defence is calculated by the formula Effective Ranged Defence = (Ranged Defence + 64)
• (Defence + 9)
  
• The benchmarks in order of effective Ranged Defence: Lizardman Shamans, Jal-Zek, Jaltok-Jad, Tzkal-Zuk, Sarachnis
  
• Twisted Bow: The Accuracy/Damage of Twisted Bow assumes a creature with a Magic level of 250
  
• Creatures are shown in this graph only to highlight Effective Defence - this is not the DPS against these specific creatures (they are placed approximately where their Effective Defence level lies)
  
• Armadyl Crossbow and Dragon Bolts with procs assumes that the max hit of the special attack is always 100
  
  • The true DPS value will be somewhere between the 'with procs' and 'no procs' lines, though this would entirely depend on the creature being killed at the time
    

By looking at the graph, it’s very clear that the Toxic Blowpipe is strong against more than just low Defence creatures, which is really limiting the Ranged design space.

In our eyes, a healthy meta would look something like this:

• Weapon A = 12 DPS against 0 Defence and 4 DPS against 30,000 effective Defence
  
• Weapon B = 9 DPS against 0 Defence and 6 DPS against 30,000 effective Defence
  

This allows for a clearly identifiable breakpoint where you choose to use weapon A over weapon B. Obviously this is just an example of how it would look, and a rather simple one at that! We'd expect the actual meta to be much more diverse, factoring in one-handed vs two-handed weapons, attack range, bane effects against specific monsters, special attacks etc.

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[h2]Moving Forward[/h2]

If you’re still with us after all this information, then very well done - you most certainly command the power of armies, and could probably punch a horse to the ground? Which is why we need your help!

We've been working on a new proposal for the Ranged portion of Equipment Rebalancing, but before we share that, we’d really appreciate some additional guidance from you all.

We’ve created a survey about the Ranged meta and how we might proceed. Please help us by clicking here and letting us know what you think!

Some of the questions in the survey should give you some insight into our current thinking. While we will not be polling all of these changes, we do want you as a community to help us shape a healthy Ranged meta that will keep us playing happily for years to come!

Once we’ve processed your feedback from both this post and the survey, we'll come back to you with some new proposals. We expect that there will be several rounds of feedback required, so don’t worry - we won't rush this!

As Combat Achievements is close to completion, it’s important we make these changes soon, and that we get them right. We'd like to give ourselves an opportunity to evaluate any immediate changes to the meta too, so this time has been factored in.

As always, thank you for your continued support and we'll see you next blog with our shiny new Ranged meta proposal!

Start your discussion with us and other players via our official forums, on the 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.

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Mods Acorn, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, Banjo, Boko, Bonsai, Brow, Bruno, Curse, Daizong, Deagle, Dibber, Ditto, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Errol, Fed, Flippy, Gecko, Gee, Grub, Halo, Husky, Jndr, John C, Kandosii, Katies, Kieren, Kirby, Lenny, Light, Lottie, Mack, Maylea, MikeD, Morty, Nasty, Nin, Oasis, Roq, Ry, Sarnie, Squid, Steve W, Sween, Tide, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Zuko

The Old School Team

[h2]Reserve Your Clan Name![/h2]

We're really excited about the upcoming release of the Clans system - it's getting so close we can almost taste it! With that in mind, it's now time to think about reserving your unique Clan name. Handily, we've put together a Clan Reservation form so you can easily submit all the information we need.

As there are many potential claimants for any name, we don't want to run this on a first-come-first-served basis. We want to make sure that long-established Clans can bag their rightful name without fear of losing out to some cheeky chancers! To ensure fairness, this will be a manual process. We therefore greatly appreciate your patience as we try to allocate names as best we can.

Before we get into the specifics of the form, some guidelines:

• The form should only be submitted by the owner/leader of the Clan. Sending us multiple requests from the same Clan won't improve your chances of reserving the name, but is likely to slow down our process as we try to validate the information.
  
• On a similar note, please be patient with your request. We will review all requests before the release of the Clans system, and you will receive a response. Do not send us multiple requests if you haven't yet received a response.
  
• As this is a manual process, please don't misuse this form. This will take time away from us assisting people who genuinely need our help.
  
• Misusing this form to do something that you might think is funny, like requesting rude words or falsely trying to claim a rival Clan's name, may result in action being taken against you/your Clan, and you may lose your Clan's name as a result.
  

Okay, now that's out of the way, let's get on to the form itself! Clan leaders/owners can click here for the Clan Reservation form.


Here's a breakdown of what we ask for, and why we're asking for it.

• Your email address: This is the email address where you'd like to hear back from us, and does not have to be your usual login email.
  
• Subject: Simply put Clan, Clan Reservation or Clan Name.
  
• Clan Name: The name you'd like to reserve. The limit is 12 characters, the same as display names.
  
• Clan Creation Date: The approximate date your Clan was created (we invite you to offer proof of this date later in the form).
  
• Clan Size: The approximate size of your Clan (again, proof can be provided further down).
  
• Current Friends Chat: We're going to assume that you use a Friends Chat Channel (also referred to as a Clan Chat Channel).Telling us this will help to inform our decision-making if we're faced with similar name requests.
  
• Proof of Clan Existing: Here's where you can submit screenshots, videos etc to support your reservation request. For example, you can include proof of the Clan creation date or number of members.
  
• Discord Tag: As we mentioned earlier, the reservation process is a manual affair and requires realtime in-game interaction between leaders and J-Mods. We'll use Discord to arrange meeting dates and times. Let us know where to find you!
  
• Description: This is an area for you to include any other information that you think is relevant to your name reservation request.
  

Thank you for following the guidelines. We look forward to receiving your Clan Reservation form!

The Old School Team