New Era Compendium Pt. 1, My Suggestions To Fix RS3

[u/DreysSquire]

Hello. I'm an almost 20 year veteran who returned to runescape 3 years ago, and have once again fallen in love with Runescape, especially seeing the potentials it's trying to utilize. Over the past few years i have noticed the chaos and uncertainty on the developers end, as well as spending time with communities in both members and f2p. I tend to go out of my way and help show newbies things that aren't so well presented to them and teach them mechanics when they're receptive enough to conceive, like snagging the pathfinder armor and making portents, let alone handing out the best gears to start with.

Free to play has always just felt like a chat room where you can semi skill and i feel like if you want people to really join members, a better wholesome first impression will make all the difference. I have noticed pay to play has so much dead content and unused resources i wish i could see be used, so I've put a lot of thought into some good ways to spruce them up and maybe even change the economics and flow of both sides of the paywall.

With ignited flopping i hope jagex can see these suggestions to fix what we have for the better, especially for new players. These changes would cause economic shifts through f2p, smeltdown, and the ability to disassemble stuff without invention like the springcleaner does, as well as by bringing traffic to the less used areas and items in the game. And new players will get a more abundant first impression that I believe will be hard to leave. I just want to see a more trafficked and lively world when everybody stops hovering around portables and the same skilling areas all the time.

Over the past five years i have been a part of destiny 2's journey and i can wholeheartedly say nothing impacted the community more than when they finally fixed up and utilized all of the broken and dead content, and created a complete and fully enjoyable game.

I waive all rights to any ownership of these suggestions or royalties and hope you make use of them.

1-CRAFTING/SMITHING/MINING QOL REFURB

The economy has some issues with a lot of early game content and junk among other things, so i propose some much needed changes to help fix through the implementation of smeltdown and other f2p things.

1a-Gemstone mining nodes should be tougher and take longer to mine scaling with pick tier, and both uncommon and common nodes should be combined into the same node with common and uncommon chances for the gems, and the gembag should hold all gemstones. As it stands now money is easy to grind afk with alts. This rework rewards mining level. Lapis and other metamorphic stones im going to mention should be rare with low drop odds from pocket geodes. Less gemstones on the market will also encourage players to craft things to level rather than just wizz through it cutting gems.

1b-I see potential in brooches especially in the pocket slot but dont really know how to work it in. But it could just be a rare flavorful f2p thing worn in the pocket slot. Knots are rare drops from all trees, maybe falling on the ground similar to birds nests but also dropping in f2p giving new players a taste of that mechanic, and lapis and other metamorphic stones a rare drop from the inventory geodes. Maybe a different color geode for all the classes. All for pocket slot brooches of course. Feldspar for ranged, garnet for melee, lapis for mage, agate for necromancy, pearl for prayer, and ammonite for summoning (ammonite being a rare cage fishing drop). Maybe in members or late f2p these brooches can be trimmed and finished with gold with adequate crafting level boosting their bonuses.

1c-Existing brooches will have to be turned into the well and reissued to avoid too many, and the ring of luck will need a new stone, maybe made with irony of crushed gemstones. Maybe rings of luck are made with all 4 metamorphic rocks explaining their all encompassing bonuses.

1d-Smithing/fletching/crafting should require leather strips, wood, cloth etc.

1e-Smeltdown, the ability to smeltdown smithed gear and/or salvage pieces to ingots. Probably junkier smelter setups made of clay in certain lower status locations. Gotta have one in free to play probably rimmington and next to the ge at that outlaw camp like they sell salvage for a living Or in the wildie to incentivize trips to the bandit camp there. Depends on if pvp is coming back or if danger is a fun incentive for this idea. Could just be incorporated into the smelter too.

1f-Dissassemble could be a basic destroy ability period and can break items down into components/salvage by choice and only give invention xp and components after invention is unlocked. You can switch between physical pieces or invention components. Or maybe you get both. And then you can disassemble those too. Can choose whether you disassemble an item and all yields or just the primary item and can choose to do the yields yourself in settings.

1g-Smithing needs some better animations. Be nice if when forging weapons we're holding a hot rod that we're actually whacking, and a plate held with tongs when we are smithing armor. And when heating items we actually hold those things in the furnace, rather than look like we're smelting more ore, which looks kind of silly. also everybody hates the obnoxious sound effects as they are now.

2-GATHERING OVERHAUL AND TWEAKS

I think foraging would be a fun adventurous niche to make money. Rewarding farming levels with a high octane dungeon delver style of cave diving with a good payout. Another clue scroll like pass time to earn income and have fun with friends. Foraging will add traffic to underground pass like cave systems as well as other existing caves. I do not want to see this as a minigame, i envision this as a new farming related gather skill, where I'll see people run by as I'm fighting my slayer tasks or journeying to Priffdinas for the first times. So i propose the cabinet backpack, as well as changes to other harvesting storage providing balance between the containers, instead of just carrying them all at once.

2a-The foragers cabinet (looks like the alchemist backpack cabinet from the game Outward) and is used to run around and forage mushrooms and other reagents. I propose not only more dark caves, but dangerous caves. Dark, full of traps, ripper demons, gas, but the premise is you would take these boxes and go on foraging runs, hunting the depths to search for randomly spawning mushrooms (tombshrooms, bittercaps etc). Some non farmable mushrooms (demons hunch and ashback maybe) should be added as well for the highest tier herbology, maybe for making antibiotics for my POF rework i mention as the big payout chase. Maybe pickable limpwurt, herbs, harvestable newt colonies requiring hunter maybe, as well as other reagents. Colonies would probably harvest like a tree. More shrooms than just farming them, and maybe require less farming levels to just forage them. Possibly a glove requirement. Plain leather or some special gloves?

2b-Ore boxes and wood boxes with their tiers are just a nuisance. Rather than just buy the best tier people buy all the proceeding tiers and get gouged for it because there isn't any on the market for a reasonable price all while not knowing they can just use the best tier. Instead we should have back slot items. The lumber rack and the ore bag, both for the cape slot, auto filling as we harvest. No tiers, craftable with crafting. Possibly untradeable? I also suggest including a fishing basket, and maybe the bonesack from the strange old man can store bones? Be nice if we could get his bag and hat at the same time. 

2c-Maybe the gem bag from dungeoneering and the herb sack should become their own independent back slot items too. Maybe the herb sack should become part of the foragers cabinet i mentioned.

2d-Wood boxes could be repurposed as a separate inventory reagent chest in inventory for other things like fever grass, rosemary, marigolds, nettles. Could help with farming. Or maybe the box is just a smaller version of the alchemy box that can be carried at the same time as well as the herb bag. I don't know. Different components that could be added to the foragers cabinet with crafting level maybe or carried alongside in inventory as is.

2e-Pickaxes, hatchets, noose wands, fishing rods, lobster cages, big net, and harpoon should all have to be equipped/carried. The tool belt is still nice for smaller easily carryable tools, pretty much everything else, and could also hold a sowing needle or few as well as a thread spool we can refill, up to 1000 thread. Sowing is an on the go thing after all. 

2f-The farming sacks and baskets for farming need to encompass the rest of produce, and leprechauns shouldn't be able to note produce. Farming should take some work.

3-FISHING OVERHAUL

As it stands now fishing is the most depressing skill where i have met the most depressed people. Anytime i walk past barbarian village or lumbridge goblins i see countless piles of trout and salmon just being dropped on the ground and people just endlessly fishing and not really...living... Doing that skill. Cage fishing as a whole is irrelevant. So i propose some much needed changes.

3a-Barbarian fishing and the basic mixture potions should be usable and tradable in f2p. Only way they'll see any use. Another Otto could stand on the river near the barbarian village for just the barbarian fishing techniques and mix recipes. An otherwise completely unused item set will once again dominate and add true potion relevance to free to play. Of course this follows my proposition to raise the herbology cap to 15 in f2p.

3b-Also harpoons need a slight rework. The barb tail needs a level requirement boost and slight catch rate increase. And to make barbarian fishing good remove harpoon from the tool belt and make it so barbarian fishing happens anytime harpoons aren't on your person and you know the techniques.

3c-Ashdale should get revamped and provide as a better fishing hub for all levels of shore based sea fishing, like a new karamja, especially for f2p. If you want to add some deep sea flavor too that's your choice. Minnows need to see some integration into the rest of the game as well.

3d-I also propose big net fishing be brought to f2p as well. The only time i personally have big net fished was for the seers village achievement... Once. I imagine all this fishing being able to be done on ashdale, except for river fishing of course. Pretty much all the big net fish are just disassemble fodder in members as it stands. I think f2p will enjoy and actually use a wider variety of fish. Seaweed is at least compostable, and caskets obviously will remain a members drop. 

3e-Also another reason to open the lumbridge caves and maybe add some cool cave type fish and reagents somehow. Maybe another option for high level fishing. I'm vouching heavily for the cave to be for f2p. I'm not saying f2p can use the fish or the reagents but i like the idea of f2p players gathering stuff for members to use to earn money. 

3f-Also besides using the hand for fishing maybe having offcuts passively consume to increase catch rate as bait being consumed each catch attempt. And the ability to turn all fish into offcuts that dont see much use like sardines/anchovies/minnows/bass etc. in other words you could carve up your tuna to try and catch more swordfish (or sharks in members).

3g-An added chance to get crab chitin very rarely when caging would be nice, crab meat could remain locked behind the quest and maybe found in cages after quest, maybe both. Oh and kelp could be compostable too. Maybe a sushi recipe would be nice to add relevance to seaweed and kelp for f2p and make new useful food items.

3h-Crab gear could be repurposed as follows: Crab helmet- fishing summon +1 fishing lvl bonus Crab claw- barbarian hand fishing catch rate Crab amulet- cage fishing success rate

4-GAMEPLAY TWEAKS AND ADDENDUMS

F2P has a problem where questing doesn't seem all that important to new players, and in general everyone seems kind of aimless, i aim to help give players activities to pursue and reasons to actually quest, and to eventually complete the pinnacle f2p quest i suggest is added.

4a-Highlight players from chat with right click on chat text. To help find them in crowded areas.

4b-Antipoison potions and poisonous creatures in world and dungeoneering for f2p. Let king black dragon have his full glory! It will make everything more interesting and players will always want to come back and play more. Especially in members. I also believe slayer beasts should be involved in f2p but not slayer levels as much. Incentivizing members and adding danger. Ripper demons scared the crap out of me. Herblore up to level 15 for f2p would be necessary, and Dungeoneering cure potions should only cure poison.

4c-Rings of wealth and amulets of glory see no use in members when there's the ring of fortune and amulet of fury so i suggest along with a nerf (and rework of amulet of power) they be moved to free to play for their teleportation abilities especially. Stats probably brought in line and ring of luck and amulet of power repurposed. Maybe instead the amulet of power becomes necromancy. Also need trimmed ranged/accuracy, defense, and wealth amulets.  The heroes quest should be the pinnacle free to play quest. Not much is given up from members to go to entrana for a firebird and under ice mountain to kill the witch queen. And lava eels can be caught in the wildie. The extra geodes and tier 2 luck can be unavailable to free to play but gain those benefits when players upgrade to members. 

4d-A new cape equal/better to that of lower tier veteran capes from Dragonslayer called the champions cape giving new players more direction and reason to do that quest. As it stands now there isn't one really. The drapes should be reissued as a rarer find amongst enemies being that they are the only f2p stat boosting capes. Or just added as random loot amongst mobs if the new cape i suggested is added. 

4e-Pathfinder armor should be given to newbies again, probably nerfed, and implemented by quest. Probably death plateau. The weapons can be added to other quests and maybe buffed. Not a lot of special weapon attacks at lower levels. Increases incentive for questing. Keenblade from the death of chivalry, Quickbow from stolen hearts, and the Mindspike from Imp catcher.

4f-Im not saying f2p can use the reagents but i like the idea of f2p players gathering stuff for members to use to earn money. For instance i wish the swamp pastes could be gathered in f2p and sold on ge to members. Let alone that f2p could taste cave diving.

4g-F2p should use candles and torches (considering all the lower tier light sources are useless) and also get the lumbridge cave and maybe members should get more dark caves period. F2P should also get the lanterns that can use the candles as well incentivising use and crafting for those items. Other than that everybody just kind of buys a bullseye lantern from the ge. Might be best to make lamps untradeable. The components are fine. Maybe require crafting levels to assemble candle, oil, and bullseye lamps. Bullseye lamps should be able to run out of oil and the miners helmet should use oil as well. Also the lorehound should only carry emergency torches. Not free bullseye lanterns. An alternative idea is bullseye lamps could be an invention thing as well and run on "divine charge". 

4h-All these light sources should also have to be held in the offhand slot, and emit a visible radius allowing piggybacking by other players whose lightsource went out. Bullseye lanterns should not only run out of oil/divine charge but also have the biggest radius.

Ensouled pumpkin masks and the smashable pumpkin head will have to lose their light effect. Possibly the lower 3 levels of the seers crown as well. Maybe the tier 4 seers crown light is only for you and cannot be piggybacked as well.

4i-Morwenna could be re-added to ashdale as a tougher quest with boss and the headress boosting necromancy. Looks like a lot of work went into some of that and i never got to experience that quest myself. Maybe her helm buffs xp from necromancy combat or grants a chance to save ectoplasm. I can envision an impressive rework.

4j-The Citharde amulet should also have the best f2p prayer bonus giving more relevance to the questline for f2p players.

4k-More meat foods need to be added to portents including rabbits and minnows, and more beef like meats should be able to be turned into sinew, like rat meat. 

4l-All teleport overrides should be completed packages, complete with quick teleport overrides and ring animation overrides.

4m-Graphical bug fixes for the rune medium helm and tyras helm, hot chocolate rest, and certain off-hand overrides like the fortune tellers orb.

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/runescape/s/YBEdiWLRfN

[u/QuitSpendingMyMoney]

Love the foraging idea and ideas for free to play, and i could see junk being used alot more and seeing alot more market activity. The foraging aspect of farming will certainly bring life and excitement to that skill. And i miss ashdale its so pretty!