The Truth about SwitchScape: Exploring Combat Mastery & Boss Design - Project Combat - Episode 4

[@NorthernStrider]

I feel that the game punishes me for not knowing about the tick system more than anything, I like to visually react to a mechanic rather than count ticks to do a surge or switch shield -> defensive. And once again a great video, looking forward for the next one!

[@zukodude487987]

Same, for me also i dont know what target cycling is or how it works and why i should know that.

[@samurai2emporor]

Same im very visually stimulated

[@nickman287]

The one place I’ve felt rewarded with the rs combat system was with kerapac’s slam. You’ve completely outlined why I was never that much into extended pvm trips. When what you’re doing is just memorization, it stops being fun

[@minizamorak]

You should be hired by jagex as these discussion are truly addressing the real problems that are within eoc

[@leone41ll]

I agree with the idea of switching having costs, like adrenaline loss. And I absolutely agree with your points on Bosses. Excellent video overall. I was also hoping you could consider this problem about armours in the game. Specifically, how Power-armours are considered the correct armour, and Tank-armours, in general, seem obsolete. The team at Jagex introduced a spell like Animate-Dead to boost their relevance, but I feel it solves the problem poorly. I wanted to highlight the potential for Tank amours to scale effectiveness of defensive abilities used, per piece of tank armour equipped. Just as having strength bonuses, or certain armours, modifies damage and abilities. For instance, an ability like Devotion would increase your prayer effectiveness to 75%, if you wore solely Power-armour. Then, for every piece of tank armour equipped, your Devotion increases effectiveness till you reach 100% damage reduction (and 100% duration). A shield would count as a piece of Tank-amour, so players can't bypass the investment simply by having a shield switch. Another example is the ability, Barricade, having a base duration of 4secs. Then, per piece of Tank-armour equipped, it increases in duration. The effectiveness of each piece of Tank-armour can also be modified by its level requirement, just as Nex armours give you a higher DPS potential compared to GWD equipment. Consequently, Tank-armours won't need their inherent damage reduction. They should retain their high-armour values, however, to reduce the chance of being hit. In contrast, Power-armours should forego their high-armour values in favour of stronger strength bonuses instead. Or, set effects that improve your ability to deal damage. These armours should champion the idea of glass cannon; hit hard, harder to survive. It is for this reason I love the recently released, T100 melee armour from Zamorak. In contrast, the set effect of the Trimmed masterwork amour is a tragic mistake, since it has a super survivable concept, attached to a power armour ! Unfortunate. I understand melee needs expectations due to risk, but still. As for Hybrid armours, they could play with the idea of mixing up the concepts governing Tank and Power armours I want the game to be in a place where Tank-armours, and Hybrid armours, are a viable part of the game experience, people mixing and matching, creating builds, instead of zeroing down to the, ''best in slot''. I was planning on making a video on this topic. Alternatively, if you could give me a platform to discuss these ideas, and receive feedback, that would be great. Thanks for your time.

[@TeamJMW26]

the schism between depth and complexity is something i've struggled defining, great video!

[@enhhi]

There's a point in this video that you sort of mentioned offhandedly but is a massively important distinction. RuneScape is a game where you're EXPECTED to do things hundreds or thousands of times. That's just the nature of the game, and it's not a good idea to say "just change it." It wouldn't even be RuneScape anymore if you changed that. That grind is a core identity of the game. I'll compare it to Lost Ark since it's the only other MMO I've played. Legion raids are something you do once a week (per character), and it takes a decent chunk of time (30 mins+) to clear. The rewards are guaranteed and there's no grind besides the initial learning process. All this to say that if every fight was a long encounter where you had to make decisions at every turn, it would be incredibly fatiguing and not fun in the long term. You would have to fundamentally change the way boss encounters work in RS to all resemble Mazcab raids (ie. time lockout, drops not super rare, long fight, etc). And we all know how much everyone hates raids. I think it's perfectly okay for different games to require different skill sets. League of Legends requires good split-second decision making. RuneScape requires good planning and consistency in execution. I've honestly never seen any community complain about the game's difficulty so much, and I strongly believe it's not completely attributed to the game itself. I think it's mostly a symptom of the relatively older playerbase and their lack of time resources. Too many people treat this game like Cookie Clicker and expect more than what they're putting in. I've talked to many new and younger players in the past few years. Some of them try the game and see it's not for them. Some of them hear about how higher level combat is done and their eyes light up. The former stop playing, the latter go on to become enthusiastic and usually pretty skilled pvmers. This is not an inherently bad thing. It's my belief that the core issue with RS combat player engagement is that it doesn't feel immediately satisfying. There are no visceral sound effects, no beautiful visual effects, no unique animations. Every input doesn't have to actually be impactful, it just has to feel that way. Almost anyone who's done any level of pvm agrees there is tons of satisfaction to be found in optimizing your rotation for a specific boss and seeing it work out in a neat choreographed battle. But the fact is, some people just don't want to or can't put in the time to get there. I don't think we should completely cater to these players.

[@ProjectCombatRS]

There's some simple examples of bosses that require you to pay attention without it feeling like a slog/chore. OSRS's Pestilient Bloat is my favourite example. Throughout the fight you have to constantly watch for falling hands, they're totally random but they stun and damage you. The boss will have a random speed, and he turns around randomly. Players need to be prepared for the boss to do unexpected things while also watching for falling hands. Even really experienced ToB teams will wipe on Bloat because they autopilot for a moment and disrespect the boss. That's what I want to see more of - moments where a player who goes full autopilot gets punished, and players are challenged beyond memorization. You're right though we don't want content a player has to run 1000 times to feel frustrating. And absolutely yes - inputs just need to feel meaningful, and that's usually given through visuals/sounds. Combat just doesn't look or feel cool right now, I'll go deeper into that next episode.

[@HouseTre007]

Terrible take 😂

[@samurai2emporor]

This really needs to be seen and hailed, the time and articulation youve contributed to the game is incredible. Hats off to you. You should apply for a job at jagex

[@Nyx__]

Great video as always! Hoping for more great content in the future

[@holo_graphic]

Incredibly good breakdown, thank you for al the effort put into this!

[@darianlalla8322]

Before watching past the intro: My melee preset is missing an EoF with ezk in it, as well as a physical ezk (which already is hinting at the absurdity of switchscape) Melee switches include: mh leng sword, mh whip, oh leng sword, oh defender, (situationally) oh shield, tmw spear for bleeds, scythe for range, zgs for spec, stat hammer eof (or physical copy), d-claw/g-maul EoF, gloves of passage, cinderbanes, havoc 4 pc set (worn) laceration boot swap, abyssal helmet swap, (extremely min max) tmw 3 piece swap, namely boots gloves helm, enhanced excalibur, dragon battleaxe (also min max and can be banked after use). ONCE AGAIN this is without ezk or ezk eof, giving me 17 inventory slots used for item swaps, that's not including the infernal puzzle box for getting rid of adren stalling or the 3 rune pouches for veng/dis shield (i don't have dis shield but once i do i need the pouches) and spellbook swap to smoke cloud, vuln bombs, and an overload variation. so with all that said and done, 23 of the total 28 inventory slots are used for non healing or prayer restore based items, and because this death cost is insanely expansive, we throw a couple ring swaps in there (assuming you use luck ring instead of relic) beig the ring of death and luck of the dwarves, leaving 3 slots for food. this is extreme and likely not used by many players that are sane unless specifically trying to juice every ounce of damage possible. but the fact that this many swaps exists for melee is absurd and needs to be shortened (said as someone who has played with the set up not just someone complaining about it), now i do think that switching is 100% optional and it should be rewarded to have super high apm and risky set ups, but my main issues with it are 1) the insane death cost punishing limit testing in this way 2) the fact that magic and ranged can output almost on par damage without adding any switches (fsoa and now bow of lost guardian) while melee takes extra damage from all sources because of always being forced to tank, and berserks damage taken increase, as well as the new power armor being a massive toughness nerf, i think switching in mage is in a good spot, ranged needing 3 copies of the same off hand at end game is a little much, and whoever designed melee should quit because they clearly hate the style (mostly a joke)

[@JonathanQShrimpling]

God damn I love all these videos, keep up the good work!

[@MegaChickenfish]

The "tick" is the most frustrating part of it all for me, I know OSRS has a bandaid solution with learning the timing of that by Runelite having a "metronome" plugin.

[@MegaChickenfish]

My problem with switching is that: 1) it's complex enough already! In WoW I have maybe 3 action bars, in rs3 I'm dealing with like 5. 2) rs has a built in tick delay latency. This can be difficult enough to time time-sensitive defensive abilities, but adding a switch ON TOP of that? Even something as "simple" as the offhand ranged/magic switch for planted feet fails like 70% of the time because I hit the option 0.1 seconds too early for the 0.6 second tick and so they register on the same tick and it fails. STUPID! 3) It massively inflates pvm death costs, which pvmers then complain about. I like bosses like Glacor that help teach those core PvM mechanics like switching, movement, and timing defensives, which have been sorely missing up until now with a big spike between "these npcs have literally no mechanics" and "you will die if you don't time that resonance right."

[@enhhi]

Your complaint about pf not working is either player issue or a visual bug. If you input pf > sun in that order, you will get a pf sun every single time. There is a visual bug right now though that shows only 30 seconds on the buff bar sometimes. #3 will be a non-issue with the death cost rework.

[@Avrahffxiv]

I enjoy you coming back to this again after awhile. I don't know what the solution would be though as RS movement is so restricted which is what allows most other mmos to create that really difficult content as you show with Lost Ark. They are moving in these tiny precise ways to dodge stuff that would be awesome and is awesome in most other mmos but moving in only 4 directions really sucks lol. I think the devs are stuck between a rock and a hard place where they probably have a sunk cost to how far they've developed what they got so they just never change it.

[@Misguidance]

Incredibly well put video and points. There are other frustrations to the combat too. First, the first is the RNG of drops. I'm not a high end pvmer but it took me several tries to get my first Rax kill, and the my reward was less than satisfying. As others have said, Runescape is a game where you are expected to grind, but it's a grind learning to PVM effectively, then another longer grind of getting drops. It basically feels like waiting in one line ("get good") only to wait in another line (grinding a boss for drops). Second, redundancy of weapons and armor. Pre-EOC, there was a meaningful distinction of slash, crush, and stab damage. Similarly, platebody vs chainmail and square shield vs kite shield offered differing defense stats against them. Even though you had a meta of optimal gear, it was still cool to have the variety. In RS3, all weapon and armor are redundant and are basically just there for visuals. There's no difference between choosing between any weapon/armor of the same tier, at least until you get to end game content where weapons have unique passive and active effects. Given it's end game content, it's well beyond the means of your average player (at least i haven't used any ) so combat below that point is bland in comparison.

[@DR4K0R3X]

This made me realize that after you learn a boss your only form of engagement is just trying to kill it faster (or find an afk method lol). Killing the boss faster is just a matter of tweaking and mastering your script.

[@kyrohrs]

Great video hope this series helps de-mystify high tier pvm

[@picklejuice0]

‘Thank you so much for throwing logic at the machine that is RuneScape 3 combat. This was a lot of food for thought that’s probably going to give me a better perspective in the combat system moving forward. More complexity is fun if there is a clear pathway to stuff on RuneScape but most of the time that requires a good youtube video guide to explain to the laymen of runescape players. Theres actually a lot of stuff on the PVM Encyclopedia discord relating to combat stuff that I want on a youtube video to better suit my understanding of this sort of niche combat information that is not intuitive such as stalling, ect. This notion of waiting for a guide to have a better time on RuneScape is a call on the inconsistent use of complexity, depth and apm.

[@b4u334]

Man you hit the nail on the head. I've played many video games. The true test of a gamer is one's ability to react in real time using the VERY INTUITIVE tools at their disposal. RS has it all set up the wrong way. And the answer isn't jumping to making boss encounters unpredictable because their ability system needs to be much more streamlined and simplified first. However, looking at games like Call of Duty, where the complexity is extremely low, its popularity comes from everyone's ability to intuitively understand how it works and instead showcase their ability to react and strategize in real time. This ties into why PVP is dead. It's far too unnecessarily complicated to do it well. There needs to be a shift towards intuitive inputs and complex external challenges.

[@El-Burrito]

Holy shit another video already! Lets goo!

[@Mik-lr2yt]

Very well done video as always :)

[@animacity6039]

Depth is one of the reasons why I was so confused with the choice of making chaos roar melee only. What could have been something that had use in hugely variable ways now gets narrowed down to two, three, maybe four different use cases. Missed opportunity to be honest.

[@Jrakula10]

I think jagex needs a clear and concise goal for how they decide to combat switchscape. I dont like thier approach to adding arbitrary cooldowns to glove passives. I do like the vigour passive change. I agree this is a hard topic to provide meaningful design suggestions that make everyone happy.

[@TheRSGuy]

good video !

[@slads1640]

ratio

[@jlayman89]

Makes me wonder if a world where we can assign equipment to abilities themselves. When I click dismember, I have assigned my mws to it and if it's in my inventory then equip it as it's used. This clearly makes the game just flat out easier. Especially if we expand that sentiment to revolution. Manual would still be preferable for situational usage of things, but the discrepancy would shrink. So to allow for more skill expression they need to work on designing bosses that telegraph mechanics more, but make these not scripted. Like glacor, but even that is a bad example because it's like a telegraphed script. Consider something like raksha with all her mechanics. Telegraph them more, but make them happen 3-5 autos apart and make it decide randomly or even weighted. Basically don't make it predictable. Now skill is expressed by how you apply your knowledge to variable situations rather than memorizing a pattern. You make many references to league, this is essentially the expression here. Champions telegraph their abilities (more or less) and how you react to those is a form of skill. Infact, revitalizing pvp could be as easy as telegraphing the players abilities more as well making pvp a faster paced form of bossing with more variability. In the end you made a ton of good points here.

[@radeyz4853]

A new RuneScape with 3rd person camera and action combat is the dream

[@nickman287]

I most likely would not play 3rd person. I love first person, enjoy isometric-ish (rs, rts games), but for some reason, never enjoy 3rd person games

[@Sammysapphira]

Runescape is so good because the abilities AREN'T generic. It's so refreshing playing a game that isn't "This ability does some damage" or "This ability does a different amount of damage!". Almost every button has a precise use that is distinctly different from another's.

[@maximas95]

Lock weapons during combat, but make it so you can switch between two different weapon sets during combat. There might have to be other balancing along with this change, like bladed dive and maybe with defenders, but I think this would solve a lot of problems. You might want to make EOF hold two specs or make an upgraded version that holds two specs if you did this.

[@corruptsoul3]

What is fascinating to me is that people don't like using an ability every 3 ticks but that is how the entire combat system in games like wow work.

[@ProjectCombatRS]

I cover this at 13:25! It's a result of those actions feeling meaningless. Abilities aren't satisfying to use, especially early-mid game - and even moreso when EoC was released because most abilities really were just "deal damage". So it felt tedious and not fun. But games like WoW, LoA, FFXIV have more meaningful inputs - abilities feel unique and satisfying to use so players don't mind high APM. Key point is high APM with meaningless inputs is tedious and players won't like it. EoC is a great example of how NOT to do high APM 😆

[@corruptsoul3]

@@ProjectCombatRS ahh i must have had the thought before getting to that point. Watching at work so can't watch in one sitting. That does make a lot of sense.

[@zerto111]

I really enjoy your in depth video analysis. I see a ton of well researched and sound statements here which I can confirm with my own experience. But I have one tiny issue. The volume is way too low. I have to crank up my system volume (which usually resides between 50 - 60 %) to 100 % to get a volume that's barely acceptable and for my taste still a tad too low. Hope you could address that in the next one. :)

[@ProjectCombatRS]

I will increase the volume next episode! This is just the result of me being a dingus when exporting.

[@neillpaddy]

What we really need is more qol for switchscape equipment slots DW and 2h should be separate from 2h and have a bindable toggle. Also shield specific abilities are a big offender. What we need is a small need to defensives but drop the shield requirement make using a shield worthwhile by giving it better options in the form of some basics that are enhanced by using defensives. So tank a hit with a shield and you can can it for a damage boost or a temporary hp buff

[@HouseTre007]

Bandaids

[@MichaelChiklisCares]

A good step would be non scripted boss fights, boss decides to do the rotation itself, but we are human and the scripts don't always loop in my mind thats why I still like RS bosses. I don't want to be perfect.

[@Qazqi]

The video makes a lot of good points. It doesn't, however, touch on something that will inevitably make it impossible to bring people from both games together on a combat system. One of the biggest things EoC gave us imo was better controls. Instead of it being finnicky to equip a shield or switch prayers or whatnot because your only option is the mouse, you control how you want to perform your action via keybinds. This alone opens the door for some different encounter design, whether it's been taken full advantage of or not. To be clear, I'm not trying to argue against your point of combining shield+reso into one action. This paragraph works the same for that. At the same time, I've seen some OS players say that they play because it has a simple control scheme whereas dragging something to a hotbar slot and keybinding it is too complicated. OSRS's fight design relies on you not being able to do something at the press of a button and takes advantage of things like the player not being able to switch prayers while they're busy eating or switching equipment. Take a look at ToB and the mechanics there are all pretty standard and simple as far as MMOs go apart from the maze one. The bosses instead focus on the forced control scheme and on the tick system. Personally, I'm not too interested in mastering the skill of precise mouse inputs when I'm thinking of an action I want to take and just want to be able to do that action. It is definitely a legitimate skillset that OS drives with clear differences between players, just not one that's interesting to me compared to having more interesting or faster-paced boss mechanics and thinking in terms of the actions I want to take rather than where my mouse is. In other MMOs, it's also quite rare for a pure clicker to perform at as high a level as people using keybinds. It's just not a good control scheme for so many people. While less relevant to the video and applicable to more than just combat, the other thing EoC came with was the interface rework. Again something oft-criticized for being scary, complicated, and all sorts of other adjectives. However, It's immensely useful not having to limit what relevant things are on screen. Forcing less feels like another arbitrary block instead of giving the player freedom to customize their play experience. There are of course arguments to be made for why we need to show 5 action bars full of skills (plot twist, we don't really, other MMOs have this figured out better and let you keep important things without showing the stuff you never look at).

[@ProjectCombatRS]

You make great points! OSRS does rely on the complexity of navigating its interfaces to drive challenge. OSRS community literally argued against making ice barrage icon bigger because it would "reduce skill". It's a very similar argument though, weirdly, both OSRS and RS communities feel the same way. They don't want their specific complexities reduced/removed even if it's nonsense. OSRS players fought against making special attack orb in PvP not require two inputs (switch to combat interface, click spec). So now you can use the orb as a single input in PvM, but "muh PvP skill" unnecessarily hides it behind another input. It's all just meaningless inputs that gatekeep and increase complexity without adding depth. If a game relies on complicating your inputs (in RS, lots of switches. In OSRS, hiding things behind interface switching), it's more frustrating than fun. Yes it would be challenging and skillful if a player had to play OSU to be able to switch interfaces, but it'd be really god damn tedious and annoying. That's why I'm hoping this episode helps people reframe these conversations, and we all (osrs included) move away from comprehension complexity and make content uniquely challenging by expecting players to make meaningful decisions.

[@Qazqi]

Separate topic, there's a middle ground too where bosses can be a fulfilling experience to figure out "once", maybe try to perfect that a little, and then call it a day. This is what I get out of the FF14 raids in particular. The fights are very scripted, often referred to as a dance. Rather than melee/range/magic, there are numerous jobs, each with their own playstyle, that fall into the broader categories of tank/healer/dps and melee/range/caster. The fight itself is only half the battle, with the other half being how to tie your rotation into the fight so that casters can move without losing casts, melees can position without losing GCDs close to the boss, and being able to do the burstiest parts of the rotation during the most mechanically heavy parts of the fight. For me, there's a good middle ground there where it's fun to go through and puzzle out a particular playstyle in the context of one fight and then get that one clear where I feel good about how I played after the work to figure it out, instead of getting a scuffed clear and moving on. If I want the fight to have more replay value, I can switch to a different playstyle (job) and the fight might feel very different with how those two interact. There are roughly 20 such jobs to choose from and you freely pick one before starting the boss. Runescape is going to have a different balance here, especially with the collection log mindset, but the process of learning a boss and setting a goal for yourself to execute a plan you worked on can be fulfilling in its own right even if a boss has nothing more to offer on its own. There's definitely room for some variety there, and I'd of course welcome encounters that stay refreshing. Part of the fun of Mazcab raids for me that I ended up with over 1000 kc was that the group aspect of it always brought up new situations to handle and forced me to think in the moment to clutch out a scuffed kill. I'd absolutely enjoy bosses having that variety well into your kc.

[@Qazqi]

@@ProjectCombatRS Looking at your reply now, as I was typing up the other point independently. I completely agree about both communities being like that. The interface parallel to the finnicky things in RS3 rings true. It can be fun sometimes to get good at a "useless" skill, both in games and in real life, but it's more of a special case than anything, and I can feel the tension there when I know the interface navigation in OSRS is the same sort of "incidental" skill that I've enjoyed mastering elsewhere. I'm in general agreement there. It's *possible* for such an "incidental" skill to feel fulfilling to people, but generally eclipsed by focusing on the more broadly fulfilling skills. I think a good example of this is Celeste. Demodashes were really hard and finnicky to perform, but then the devs added a dedicated button. Following this, the speedruns saw many creative uses of demodashes incorporated into the run beyond the minimal number of "worth it" ones from before, further increasing the skill ceiling while having it be meaningful as well as approachable to practice rather than completely relying on something so easy to get wrong even after hundreds or thousands of hours of practice.

[@ProjectCombatRS]

@@Qazqi Absolutely yes, something like OSRS Inferno is about planning and execution . But players clear it once and never go back, that's totally fine. It feels amazing to finally clear it, and you think "thank god, I can leave and forget that hell hole". But that feeling of accomplishment (pride and accomplishment kek) is what makes the content valuable to players. We can have a complicated fight that's scripted/puzzle-esque, even LostArk has a ton of scripted mechanics for bosses (Ex. At X HP bars boss does something). It's all about how those mechanics are played out, and how the base combat system supports those mechanics. FFXIV has classes that are just fun to play on their own. You're jumping around, comboing your abilities, doing flashy things that form a cohesive playstyle. RS lacks that cohesive class identity that makes using abilities and engaging in combat fun on its own.

[@Lemonskill77]

EOC should have been released without basic damage abilities. Turning ALL combat into a high APM activity overnight was a terrible decision and the reason so many people quit. Like you said, Revolution was a band-aid fix that functionally just let you auto attack again by removing the needless complexity of basic ability rotations. If combat was still based on auto attacks with thresholds, ultimates, and defensive/utility basics on top, it would've kept the fundamental feel of rs combat AND made it more engaging. It would've been a real evolution, not a rework. And honestly, outside of the top level players that enjoy optimizing on full manual, it would be more enjoyable for most players. I also think iconic weapon identities were killed for no reason and the Special Attack bar should never have been removed, but that's a whole other topic.

[@alexromm9126]

Yay combat rework lets do it!

[@killler240]

What are the popular marcos used in RS3?

[@geordynikas4538]

this channel is fantastic. theres not been enough talk about the details of rs3 combat. for me weopan swaps are cool but then gloves and amulets? too much. and the worst part is the bosses are static! its the same mechanics over and over its just a script. gets boring fast.

[@mehiskortel6435]

Amazing video. A lot of time was put into this and it shows. Maybe use a bit less of the same gameplay in the background, especially the arch glacor clip :D

[@zukodude487987]

I have been saying for YEARS that combat is unnecessarily complex through EoC. Back when EoC came out you felt like you went from auto attacking to full manual just to perform the same function as before and there were no bosses to justify the different abilities. Revo should have been there from the start. EoC felt forced because there was no justification for using abilities and right now abilities are more of a nuisance like greater barge where i pay tons of cash to gain an ability to gain an edge in Pvm, but then it turns that the ability is so complicated to use that you need to look up tutorials on youtube and even then they advise to practice and even after doing so it is still easy to mess up in actual combat with switches and tons variables to keep track of in game. It is just complexity layered on complexity and it just keeps going. I no longer look forward to Pvm and new bosses because each item/ability that comes out will not only cost billions, but you also need to look up a guide on how to use it and maybe grind money to buy it only to find out that you dont like it. I mean i cannot refund my greater barge after buying it so i just wasted money, what a great combat system...

[@whoeveriam0iam14222]

old combat is boring because I'd be sitting and waiting for the monster to die new combat is frustrating because revolution often uses a charge-up attack on a very low HP monster just because it happened to be the next one to activate and doing everything manual seemed just as pointless as just waiting in the old system.. except that I had to press buttons at the right time or I'd do nothing

[@themather1]

The annoyance of high complexity/low depth combat in RuneScape comes down to a single point, one that the developers have almost ruined the game as they ignore; RuneScape is not a game designed for engaging combat. Combat in RuneScape is one minor activity of many, and the engine is at its core designed for it to be no more complex than say Woodcutting besides encounter-specific gimmicks like prayer switching against Jad's attacks or using the Ancient Mace to disable Sigmund's prayers. Each additional feature that gets added onto the baseline combat only serves to bother the player with extra work that raises the skill floor rather than the skill ceiling in a system that is not designed to require a significant number of inputs and actively penalizes you for timing your inputs wrong. The idea of high-difficulty combat in RuneScape is in itself an idea incompatible with the core of the game itself. This is a game where the levels you have, the equipment you wear, and the preparations you've made are supposed to matter more than your control inputs at any given moment.

[@whoeveriam0iam14222]

unfortunately Jagex looks at this and thinks: wow that's a lot of work. maybe we should hype up another yak track instead

[@Rathial]

I'd like if they had the auto switch to shield would save on the amount of keybinds. Honestly the amount of unnecessary keybinds you have to use is annoying. Hell they could add an ingame macro system to runescape same as like what wow does where you can just have 1 button to be like equip masterwork spear use bleed skill all with one button. Yeah that would make certain things much more op but if people are already cheating to use macros then why not.

[@omegahaxors9-11]

I want weapon speed to determine GCD, with the curve for damage per second increasing higher for slower weapons. Slow weapons are clunky and inflexible but benefit from a hearty hit. Fast weapons are weak but let you go totally ham.

[@greycrimson3228]

I'm sad to see Jagex leaning into full revolution so much lately, with cryptbloom/animate dead making a lot of combat interactions afk and accessible. Even the new whip making Raksha have no need for ability rotations or prayer flicking, scaling it down in difficulty by a lot and not even having bad kill times, even though it's meant to be a really difficult boss to tackle and gain mastery over. It feels way less rewarding to learn full manual these days, like the combat system is being buried and I think the basic high end-ish rotation isn't even that bad to teach. Personally I think memory based bosses are fine as well, otherwise you simply feel like you are being screwed over by rng and even if you follow a rotation, you can still mess up but do an almost impossible recovery. As for the EOC point, I do think EOC gave the game more freedom to the design of Raksha, otherwise you would have to invent like 5 new items to make the boss manageable in OS while in RS3 you can just use existing tools these days. I don't think the bosses need to be impossibly complex either but I like having complex rotations to deal with them, focusing more on the player side combat which I quite like. I'm personally a big fan of switches such as the shield or the spear after they made it like the only 2h I ever need after the ezk release but there's also some switches I really dislike, so overall I probably wouldn't mind having all the extra inputs taken away. After they released ezk, I felt melee was doing perfectly, I just needed my spear switch for my ezk and my shield but then they added whip switching and it overwhelmed me.

[@iwndwyt4422]

your audio is extremely low. Can barely hear you in max volume.

[@catgrrlz]

why has jagex not hired you as a lead game designer?

[@ProjectCombatRS]

Mod Jack is the new lead designer and I personally think he has great insight into the game. We've been having casual design conversations and he agrees with a lot of the points we discuss. He's currently undergoing an audit of the game and very soon he'll be really experiencing combat and all of its flaws. I think we're on the right path towards improving combat, we need to all continue that open, meaningful dialogue with devs and the community.

[@Jsanon00]

Moope

[@HouseTre007]

Switchscape is THE reason why I don’t play rs3

[@Will-yi5zc]

EOC was a mistake

[@HouseTre007]

The rs community is just ass because the people with voices like the meaningless complexity of switchscape. I really like the theme and aesthetic of the game but the movement, tick system, and pointless apm are a huge barrier that is not worth it for me.