[Runescape News] Hero Pass: A Better, More Rewarding RuneScape

[News Bot]

Hero Pass is a brand new part of the core RuneScape experience, designed to make the game even more rewarding whenever - and however - you choose to play!

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[Gasti21]

This should be a replacement for the yak track if i m not mistaken right?

[Beric]

1 hour ago, Gasti21 said:

This should be a replacement for the yak track if i m not mistaken right?

Yep, that's the plan. Until their next great idea hits.

[Sirsir]

1 hour ago, Gasti21 said:

This should be a replacement for the yak track if i m not mistaken right?

Correct. It's replacing both Yak Tracks and Daily Challenges.  

 

Sneakily ninja'd by Jade.

 

~~~~~

 

Honestly, I like what I see here. Reducing Dailyscape, making gameplay rewarding in itself, and having most rewards easily accessible with "extra" tiers for the more active players are all good ideas.  

 

At the very least, they seem to have learned from their mistakes. It appears to be a lot better-considered than the Yak Tracks were, let alone the original RunePass. The team behind this clearly spent effort on it, and I do hope it will show. 

 

We'll see how implementation and the level of grind actually play out starting next week, but I'm optimistic, especially if they're open to make positive changes. 

[Elvinloar]

1 hour ago, Sirsir said:

Correct. It's replacing both Yak Tracks and Daily Challenges.  

 

Sneakily ninja'd by Jade.

 

~~~~~

 

Honestly, I like what I see here. Reducing Dailyscape, making gameplay rewarding in itself, and having most rewards easily accessible with "extra" tiers for the more active players are all good ideas.  

 

At the very least, they seem to have learned from their mistakes. It appears to be a lot better-considered than the Yak Tracks were, let alone the original RunePass. The team behind this clearly spent effort on it, and I do hope it will show. 

 

We'll see how implementation and the level of grind actually play out starting next week, but I'm optimistic, especially if they're open to make positive changes. 

I do always enjoy reading your opinions Sir sirsir. Thank you.

[MrsDewwBerry]

11 hours ago, Sirsir said:

Daily Challenges.

That's sad

[Fedal]

Looking at the pass rewards…. it’s pretty clear Jagex realized XP is becoming irrelevant so they’ve started to monetize other areas of the game (clue and zammy buffs stand out to me as the most terrible precedents). I’d say i wish community backlash held them back in the future but they just don’t give a fuck when it comes to MTX.

[X5-452]

2 hours ago, Fedal said:

I’d say i wish community backlash held them back in the future but they just don’t give a fuck when it comes to MTX.

Yeah, as usual reddit was again filled with anti-mtx posts. Jagex even had the nerve to hype up this event as some kind of big game content.

[Rafi]

I haven’t read up on this other than the few in game prompts on login - is the uproar that in addition to selling xp and gold now that they are also selling other boosts? 
 

Once they went down the MTX route beyond cosmetics feels like that was always inevitable. Not a huge difference between selling one type of boost and another. It’s all just selling time and skill substitutes. 
 

Realistically, either you want to play the game fully as a game or you don’t. While I detest MTX for destroying the integrity/purity of the game, I came to terms with it years ago, and play the game as I always have - without MTX. 

 

[Douglas]

2 hours ago, Rafi said:

I haven’t read up on this other than the few in game prompts on login - is the uproar that in addition to selling xp and gold now that they are also selling other boosts? 
 

Once they went down the MTX route beyond cosmetics feels like that was always inevitable. Not a huge difference between selling one type of boost and another. It’s all just selling time and skill substitutes. 
 

Realistically, either you want to play the game fully as a game or you don’t. While I detest MTX for destroying the integrity/purity of the game, I came to terms with it years ago, and play the game as I always have - without MTX. 

 

The majority of the uproar is that they spent the last few months marketing it as a major "core game update", in ways like putting it side-by-side with Necromancy in graphics and media, but not disclosing its identity. Just "TBA" until the weekend prior to release.  So people are incredibly disappointed. 

 

Another major reason for the uproar is that they are selling buffs that reduce damage taken by 20% in the Zamorak fight. This on its face isn't that bad, but it's a slippery slope in 2 ways. First, it means that to be the best at the boss you have to pay money to get that buff. Teams without the buff are at far greater risk of dying, as 20% reduction is extremely significant. Secondly, gameplay buffs incentivize developers to balance content based on the buffs available to the player. We've seen this happen previously with auras, where bosses were created assuming that you had the stats from the auras active at all times. It's also an old scheme where you create a problem and then sell the solution. What if Zamorak were released today and it happened to do 20% more damage by default - a great way to push damage reduction sales.

 

Another reason for disliking the pass is that it is time-gated. There are 99 levels at 1000xp each and then it goes up to 120 at 3000xp each. But you only gain 4xp per minute that you play (and you have to be earning regular experience, so if you're sitting at the ge you're making no progress, etc). It ends up being approximately a month of continuous online time (or 8 hours a day each day) to complete the pass before it ends. Only the absolute most hard-core players can spend 8 hours a day online, and even we will only get the last buffs right before it ends. (15% exp buff in total). To speed this up they changed daily challenges to give a small boost (instead of what they were before), and added weekly challenges and occasional special challenges. However, it's extremely difficult to power through the pass in a reasonable amount of time without purchasing level skips, only available by redeeming bonds. 

 

Daily challenges were important xp boosts to Ironman accounts, and they're upset that it's gone. Marketing prior to this update indicated that they wished to reduce dailyscape and fear of missing out, but this new iteration of daily challenge takes longer to complete and ensures that if you miss logging in on a day that your battle pass progress is reduced significantly. 

 

So there's a lot going on with this within the community, and it affects everyone who plays even if they avoid MTX personally. 

 

Personally I don't mind having a battle pass and id probably enjoy it a lot as long as they kept the bonuses out of it. I really wish they just loaded up Call of Duty and ripped off their battle pass - nobody's accusing Activision of failing to make an absolute fortune off of that. It's full of cosmetics and 1 hour xp tokens, and enough coins so that if you buy 1 battle pass with cash that you can get enough coins to get the next one free in perpetuity, as long as you're completing the whole pass - which many do. There's no complicated charges or clever buffs or anything like that in the pass. Looks great and if you have a great match then you're probably getting enough progress to earn a reward from the battle pass.

[Rafi]

They'll make harder and harder content to balance the buffs just as they've raised level caps to 120 to account for all the constantly buffed xp rates (and free xp), just as there has been insane inflation thanks to pumping huge amounts of gold into the game with mtx. 

 

Do I hate it all? Yes. Do I think that Jagex will relent and stop selling advantages to the highest bidders? No. It's been one continuous march in this direction for more than 10 years now since the launch of Squeal of Fortune.

[MrsDewwBerry]

https://www.reddit.com/r/RS3Ironmen/comments/16dbe61/oh_my_they_actually_listened/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=13&utm_content=share_button