Fixing Inconsistencies in PvP and PvM

Oh this is a great subject.

Pop quiz. Do you know how your autocast settings work on your magic staves?

Right, we know you get to save your autocast setting while weapon swapping in PvM, but it doesn't save while in PvP, right?

Wrong.

It actually does save in PvP. See here in this clip I'm switching weapons in Castle Wars, a safe PvP minigame, and my autocast is getting saved.

Your autocast setting also saves in PvP while you are playing Soul Wars, another safe PvP minigame.

Also in Player-Owned-House combat ring PvP, another safe PvP activity, autocast settings do also save here.

And in Clan Wars, another safe PvP minigame, your autocast settings... do not actually save here. They get cleared for some reason in this one.

Probably because people use this one to practice Wildy PKing... or I dunno, Jagex just decided this one doesn't save autocast.

And in the PvP Arena, another safe PvP minigame, your autocast settings... do not actually save here either. Again maybe because it's closer to Wildy PKing? But not really because everyone just uses max gear?

So here's my question to you, the non-PKer audience, do your autocast settings get saved in Last Man Standing? Because I don't have a clue if they do. I haven't played LMS since it was released.

Okay maybe what I'm pointing out isn't fair - of course autocast works differently in safe PvP minigames, because the whole point of autocast settings not getting saved is within the Wilderness, right?

So here's my next question, your autocast settings save outside of the Wilderness, and they don't save within the Wilderness, right?

Wrong.

It actually does save in the Wilderness as you can see in this clip here.

However, it actually does not save in the Wilderness.

In the Wilderness, this is a basic game mechanic that is getting dynamically switched up on you in the middle of your gameplay depending on if you're attacking a player or an NPC.

I would say it depends on whether or not you're engaging in a risk-based PvP scenario like Wildy PKing or Bounty Hunter, but that's not exactly consistent with the PvP Arena and Clan Wars.

I guess it's more because those two are more emulating what Wildy PKing is like or they're intended as like a way to learn Wildy PKing, and I'd guess LMS falls under that boat?

Except I would argue that none of those minigames really teach you the same things as the Wilderness anyway and you can practice similar things like bridding or venge speccing in Soul Wars too.

So it's really just kind of "wherever we feel like it".

Honestly, I'd rather just see autocast saving working globally. It's a basic game mechanic. Like this inconsistency is one that frustrates me because playing with unsaved autocast is also just not fun.

I think it's unfair to magic in the combat triangle that we have to do that in PvP.

Like, if it's such a great mechanic or show of skill expression, then why don't I need to reload my crossbow every time I switch weapons before I can attack with it again? Or why don't I have to reset my "posture" and select an attack style again after I switch on and off my melee weapon?

If the depth of doing that is so good for magic, why doesn't ranged and melee do the same?

I don't think magic is just so strong that it needs this unique hindrance.

I know that there is actually a PvP strategy that utilizes autocast not being saved.

YouTuber Extile teaches this one fairly nicely:

(video clip)

This causes your character to run up to your opponent with perfect pathing and close the gap setting you up for a special attack or death dotting or just making it harder for them to run away.

So, would making autocast save mean destroying this strategy and that's why we shouldn't have it?

Well no, because if you want to use that strategy, you can just not set your autocast settings and then you can still do the same thing.

So why can't we have saved autocast?

Well, I know that Mod Goblin would be happy to fix autocast remembering amongst other inconsistencies, and he also brings up several game balance questions about the various inconsistencies.

He also mentions that the more there are these inconsistencies, the more people have to rely on esoteric knowledge in PvP and that it doesn't feel like very great design. Which I generally agree with.

Mod Manked also asks similar questions.

And I just want to ask, why is it wrong for magic to attack in 1 tick on weapon switch, but it is okay for ranged to do that and still hit for fairly high damage through prayer? Is damage the problem? Or why is it okay for melee to have 1tick switch special attack combos that can probably kill you from full health?

Is it because mages would be able to freeze 1 tick faster or maybe more unpredictably? I mean, I would argue if they wanted to freeze me, they're going to eventually anyway or they're going to just ice barrage me more than once after their weapon switch. Inevitably they're gonna get me. Unless I'm in max gear.

Again, I just don't recall this ever being a problem or hurting anything when we had this in 2010 Runescape.

I believe that most things, we want to be consistent. But there are some things, we don't want to be consistent.

Everyone is talking about how PvP has a bunch of mechanics and things unique to it and that makes it harder to learn, but I believe that's not really completely the problem.

For example, nobody really has a problem with Protection Prayers being 40% in PvP and 100% in PvM.

I don't think anyone wants 100% protections in PvP.

The example of the elemental tomes pointed out by YouTube creator, Kriibus, I think is more of a problem of the tomes being inconsistent with each other, and not so much the fact that there's a different stat for PvM and PvP.

The tomes only have a 10% bonus in PvM because Jagex added elemental weaknesses to PvM. In PvP, elemental weaknesses are irrelevant.

The more pressingly bad thing here is that in PvP alone, each book has a different bonus with no rhyme or reason as to why.

Like, why is the Tome of Fire 50%, Tome of Water 20%, and Tome of Earth 0%? Last I checked, earth spells weren't that powerful in PvP and their max hit gets raised to match the fire spells after you unlock them anyway.

If each book had a 50% damage bonus in PvP, I think that would be perfectly OK because the books would be consistent with themselves.

Like, imagine if Protect from Magic was 60% accuracy reduction, and Protect from Missiles were 30% damage reduction, and Protect from Melee were 70% damage reduction and could only be flashed for 1 second.

I think everyone would hate that. I think we appreciate that they fundamentally all work the same way despite having different stats in PvM and PvP.

So, I think the line that most people would agree with is that the "most basic game mechanics" should be consistent, but it's okay if the actual stats of things are different between PvM and PvP.

But within a single archetype of similar things, those should have consistent stats with each other - so like the elemental tomes for example all having a 10% bonus in PvM and 50% bonus in PvP would be perfectly fine.

The "most basic game mechanics" would be really fundamental things like, "clicking on a tile causes you to move", or "you can attack with a weapon", or "the game interface looks and works like this", or "you can click on food to eat it" - basically things that feel like it's just part of the game engine or UI. Not like stats on equipment or skills.

So if you interpret that as a set of 4 rules for our designs in PvP, we can figure out what needs to be changed and how.

The 4 rules being:

1. "Basic game mechanics" need to work the same in PvM and PvP.
2. "Numeric stat differences" can exist between PvM and PvP.
3. "A single archetype of similar things generally needs to be consistent with each other".
4. "Reasonable exceptions are allowed to improve game balance."

I want to say though, that the goal isn't 100% consistency. When going through this I figured some things make sense to have exceptions to the rules, thus me adding rule 4. So the goal is more of trying to reduce inconsistencies as much as possible, with only a few exceptions.

So:

• The Special Attack Orb should work in both PvP and PvM because it's a "basic game mechanic". Which I'm glad it does now.
• Spell autocast settings should be saved in both PvP and PvM because it's a "basic game mechanic". Balancing issues of mage should be solved a different way, maybe through the stats.
• Spellbook and Prayerbook icon resizing and reordering should work in both PvP and PvM because it's a "basic game mechanic"
  • I also want to add that if the muscle memory or skill expression of PKers who are used to icons being in certain positions and sizes is so important, why isn't the muscle memory or skill expression of a PvMer not just as valuable? Why should they be forced to learn someone else's UI setup instead of the one they learned to use and are comfortable with?
  • That's like playing a first person shooter and not being allowed to customize your crosshair - which is something I would literally uninstall a first person shooter for if it did that.
  • Also players get to use a RuneLite plugin to resize the logout button, which is relevant in PvP in the Wilderness because that's your #1 escape tool that you don't want to fumble, so why are Prayer and Spellbook icons held to a different standard? It's against the rules to resize those.
• Protection prayers are allowed to be 100% in PvM and 40% in PvP because it's a "numerical stat difference"
• Toxic Blowpipe makes sense being 1tick slower in PvP because it's a "numerical stat difference".
• The Camphor, Ironwood, and Rosewood Blowpipes should be updated to match the Toxic Blowpipe in being 1tick slower in PvP because "this is a single archetype of similar things so they need to be consistent with each other".
• The elemental tomes should all be 10% (PvM) and 50% (PvP) because it's a "numerical stat difference" in PvM and PvP, but "this is also a single archetype of similar things so they need to be consistent with each other" or consistently different in PvM and PvP.

• The Justiciar Armor set effect damage reduction could stay unchanged as it's technically just a "numeric stat difference" between PvM and PvP. It just so happens to reduce 0 damage in PvP.
  • Although I would say it would be fine if it did reduce damage in PvP because it still has the weakness of having no magic defense. Like maybe the damage reduction could just be half as effective in PvP but still be there so it still has its basic unique mechanic, just it could be balanced differently in PvP?
• Dinh's Bulwark follows the same idea as Justiciar Armor.
• Elysian Spirit Shield provides an average of 17.5% damage reduction and it does work in PvP. I don't know if there needs to be a consistent rule for damage reduction in PvP. These items are different enough that I wouldn't say they count for the rule of a single archetype of similar things.
• Powered Staves should be enabled in both PvP and PvM because "being able to attack with a weapon" is a "basic game mechanic".
• HOWEVER, I think it would make a LOT of sense if Powered Staves had the Toxic Blowpipe treatment and had PvP specific "numerical stat differences".
  • This could mean having powered staves attack 1 tick slower in PvP, OR more preferably, having a 25% damage penalty in PvP which allows them to keep the same feel with their attack speed.
  • Personally, I don't think most of the powered staves would actually need a nerf like this because I remember Polypore Staff in 2010 and it was not really that bad. And Trident of the Seas and Thammaron's Sceptre today are nothing too crazy.
  • Most notably the Eye of Ayak and Tumeken's Shadow are clear outliers because the Eye of Ayak fires a lot faster than any other powered stave and Tumeken's Shadow is a mega-rare and also the only two-handed powered stave, so you can interpret these weapons as being in a class of their own.
  • Compared to those two, every other powered stave in the game has a 2.4s firing rate and is one-handed.
  • So maybe the Eye of Ayak could fire 1 tick slower in PvP, similar to Toxic Blowpipe, and Tumeken's Shadow... I'll talk about that later.
• Scurrius ratbane weapons should be usable on non-rat enemies because it's a "basic game mechanic" to be able to attack enemies. But it would make a lot of sense if they had like a 75% accuracy and/or damage penalty against non-rats just to sell the fact that they're ineffective against anything that isn't a rat.
  • This would be similar to how PvP can have a "numerical stat difference". But in this case, it's for different types of PvM enemies. I think having these differences makes a lot of sense for "bane" spells and weapons in general.
  • I would be very happy with a change like this just because it's odd to be able to hold a bow that can shoot normal arrows, but for some reason you just can't shoot the same arrows from it against a target that isn't a rat? Like you aim this bow at a human... and suddenly you can't let go of the bowstring?
  • Or you can be holding a mace... flail and you can swing it at little rats but for some reason you're unable to swing it at anything else? That's just kinda odd to me. I think it'd be a lot better if you technically can use it against anything, just it's extremely weak if you do, like Arclight against non-demons.
  • Or even make it just slightly weaker so you can use it like a low level normal weapon if you just don't have anything else like if you're a really new player or something, but where you really want to use it is against rats. So like, make it as strong as adamant normally but much better against rats specifically.
• Crumble Undead similarly would be usable on non-undead, but it would be extremely or completely ineffective or just splash all the time with a chat message that says, "It's not very effective..." or to avoid a potential lawsuit headache, it could say "Your spell is ineffective against this enemy."
• Demonbane spells would get the same treatment.
• The Tormented Synapse special attacks could stay different and be demon-only, though to be consistent with the rules, you'd just make them ineffective against non-demons with a chat message saying "Your special attack is ineffective against this enemy."
• The Ivandis Flail special attack would be the same. You can flub it against non-vampyres just to be goofy.
• Anyway I think that covers most or all of the "bane" items.
• Anglers overhealing in combat, presumably in the Wilderness. Now this is one that I think you can argue could either be considered a "basic game mechanic" therefore should work the same in PvP and PvM, or you can argue it's a "numerical stat difference" therefore can work differently between PvP and PvM.
  • That being said, I ask: Why is it a problem if Anglerfish can do this, but it's not a problem that Saradomin Brews can do the same thing? Like can't I just keep overhealing with Saradomin Brews to make myself almost impossible to kill? Plus, I can do that 4 times per inventory space as opposed to Anglerfish being 1 time per inventory space.
  • I legitimately don't know why Anglerfish is the outlier here. Is it because Saradomin brew drops your stats so you can't do it offensively? But an anglerfish would interrupt your attacking, putting you at a disadvantage, while drinking a potion actually lets you keep attacking. So I really just don't know why anglers are the problem here.
  • So if I go by the rule of "this is a single archetype of similar things so they need to be consistent with each other" well, that can be argued either way too. They are similar in that they are healing items, but these are some very very different kinds of healing items.
  • So my answer to this is: We may as well do what's best for balance here. But maybe we could try it and see whether or not it's really that much worse than people using Saradomin Brews to overheal?
• Consumables appearing instantly on the floor [in the Wilderness]. The current mechanics are that dropped consumables never appear for other players when dropped in the Wilderness, and they despawn in 15 seconds, while other items appear instantly when dropped in the Wilderness and despawn after 3 minutes.
  • I think based on my rules, we can argue this is a "basic game mechanic" and should work the same in PvM and PvP.
  • HOWEVER: This is one of the few things I think deserves to have exceptions to the rules I mentioned. I know that item drops work the way they do in the Wilderness for very good reasons.
    
    It's like this so you can't just gain extra food in a fight in the Wilderness and you can't just drop your items to negate risk by picking them back up before 3 minutes so it has very strong balancing reasons to be this way.
  • Maybe I could say that the rule I defined should be different. While this is a "basic game mechanic", dropping and picking up items is not fundamentally a "basic combat mechanic".
  • And also this more so involves multiplayer interaction whereas every other change we are talking about is a change that only directly affects the individual, so it makes sense that we can treat this differently.
  • Also, this does follow the rule of "this is a single archetype of similar things so they need to be consistent with each other" because consumables work the same as each other, and non-consumables work the same as each other.
  • It does also follow the idea of allowing items to have a "numeric stat difference" in PvM and PvP technically, although that stat difference is the drop timers.
• If we ever get Overloads some day, should they work in the Wilderness? This is one of those things where I think it's okay to have a specific exception to the rules and just not have these work in the Wilderness just like it was in 2010.
  • Like maybe there's a way to balance it, or maybe they're not that much different from fighting someone using a Super Combat Potion, but for this one I'd be happy to just say the gods of Runescape use a magical force to prevent you from using that item in the Wilderness.

And yeah I think that's most of the PvM and PvP differences I can think of.

I know there's some other MMORPGs out there that have been fairly successful with having separate stats in PvM and PvP because inevitably, the balancing requirements for these two things ends up being completely different.

In PvM, if the players get stronger, the developer can technically just create stronger enemies with more health, which is what usually happens in MMORPGs and Oldschool Runescape is no exception.

In PvP, it's just different. I mean, Jagex already tried giving players more health in the Pre-EoC era with Nex armors having +40 health. This was a design choice intentionally made for both PvP and PvM.

In the Pre-EoC era, Jagex also gave us damage soaking, or absorption, as a way to allow players to deal more damage in PvM, allowing more powercreep, without going past certain limits in PvP.

Your damage soaking had a different stat for the three different combat styles. It only reduced damage past your first 20 damage, so as to prevent you from feeling like you were hitting way lower numbers all the time.

Later in Runescape 3, after the Evolution of Combat, they simplified this from a different absorption stat for each style to just "PvM" and "PvP" damage reduction.

I really want to hammer down the point that it's okay for there to be SOME differences between PvP and PvM.

I hear Mod Goblin's concerns when he mentions that it means people will have to learn a lot of niche, esoteric knowledge specific differences to only PvP.

In my experience, if the activity is fun enough, players will go through the effort of learning those differences and they won't have a problem with it.

What experience do I have with this that I speak of? Well for over a decade I ran my own multiplayer custom gamemode in Team Fortress 2.

The thing is, that gamemode changed the stats and functions of almost every single weapon in the game, and only for my server. It was extremely specific.

The thing is, players were absolutely fine to learn how all of it works because it was just fun. I also had a very good written guide players could look up to read about all the changes.

I never really received complaints about the inconsistency of all weapons working differently from the normal game. It did come up in conversation, but the solutions my playerbase proposed were better ways of teaching people the changes. And my guide page sufficed.

I think players have a problem with what we have now in OSRS, because those differences are goofy and illogical inconsistencies amongst "items that seem similar or seem like they should work the same way" or they're differences on "the most basic and fundamental game mechanics being outright disabled in one area versus the other" like UI stuff or being able to attack with powered staves or remembered autocast.

I didn't have many designs like that in my multiplayer gamemode. Almost all weapons were enabled with only 2-3 outliers that were completely disabled for game balance issues. I didn't have any entire ranges of weapons disabled like OSRS has with powered staves today.

So, I wouldn't be completely worried about having some differences. After all, I think everyone can agree that Protection Prayers being different in PvP compared to PvM is perfectly fine.

More on the topic of consistent and inconsistent game mechanics:

Hey, do you know how Ice Burst and Ice Barrage 3x3 multi-hitting works in PvP?

It hits adjacent targets in multi right?

Did you know it doesn't actually do that in a Player-Owned-House combat ring?

Interestingly here, it's not considered a multi-combat zone, but multiple players can attack each other.

I guess that's just a random exception.

Oh but did you know you also can't barrage Castle Wars barricades and players at the same time? Or sometimes you can? I'm not really sure exactly how that one works but it seems to be kind of random whenever I try. Or maybe it's based on the teams? I'm not sure.

Here's another question, if you're in multi in the Wilderness and you have Skull prevention enabled, and someone skulls on you, letting you fight back without skulling on them, if you ice barrage that guy and it hits another player in multi, will that skull trick you?

I don't know the answer and I'm not willing to risk finding out with randoms, and having that question certainly doesn't give me any confidence that there isn't a way for people to skull trick me despite having the skull prevention setting enabled.

And if I am unable to skull in this situation, does that mean a team of two can force me to be unable to fight back by just following each other? Or will my multi-target attack only hit one player?

Whatever the case is, I don't think it's really a big deal, but it is an interesting question.

So given everything I said, how would I balance Tumeken's Shadow in PvP?

Just the other day I was playing Castle Wars and got hit for 69 damage and I thought to myself, "nice".

Well, Twisted Bow is already "not a problem" in PvP due to how it works.

Likewise, the Scythe of Vitur is also "not a problem" in PvP because its mechanic only works against larger enemies. The Noxious Halberd outclasses it in PvP.

Well I did a quick calculation of how hard Tumeken's Shadow hits in max mage in Castle Wars and found these numbers:

Hitting up to 81. Wow, that's pretty insane. Even the Noxious Halberd at the same 2-handed attack speed only hits up to 66.

I don't think even Storm of Armadyl in 2010 was this strong. Or was it? I'm kind of curious which one is stronger.

Twisted Bow's max hit in PvP sits at around 49 or so according to this calculator.

In PvM, the Twisted Bow maxes around 88.

Scythe of Vitur also maxes at around 81-88 in PvM while only hitting around 40-50 in PvP.

So maybe Tumeken's Shadow would be brought in line with just a 40% damage penalty in PvP? Bringing it down from 81 to around a 49 max hit.

Or maybe we can be clever about it and say that against a PvP target, Tumeken's Shadow only doubles your stats instead of tripling them making 3x be 2x instead in PvP, or its stat bonus is only half as effective meaning 3x would be 1.5x instead in PvP.

Any of those would probably work. Tumeken's Shadow would still be very strong in PvP, but not as insanely strong.

This would fit the rules of a "numerical stat difference" between PvM and PvP, and "this is a single archetype of similar things so they need to be consistent with each other" in the sense that it's a megarare that's great in PvM and kinda mid in PvP.

And just for comparison sake, Fire Surge, our highest hitting normal spell, maxes at around 51 damage.