Hi Adventurers,
It's been a while since we talked about Runecrafting. We sat down with Mod Deluxe and Mod Pointy to look into the ways in which we want to revisit the skill and the changes we intend to make. Let's start with the basics.
We're reducing teleportation costs, increasing the volume of runes from vents, boosting XP, and scaling Essence in multiplayer worlds. We're reducing crafting times across all attunements and reducing punishments when cracks form in attunements. Here's what we've found.
Our Findings
We feel that the XP Curve for Runecrafting is in a good place but we will be revisiting the XP rates to assess what changes we may be taking there.
The number of Rune Essence Geysers you find along the "golden path" (the most direct route to each quest objective) feels appropriate.
The volume of runes you need to make in order to level feels extreme - part of that is the essence to rune conversion.
Levelling is slower in multiplayer worlds, and the more players in a world, the harder it is to skill.
Skilling feels slower because the target is Level 50 to unlock Law Runes as they are essential for teleportation.
The Runecrafting Skilling Activity (Attunement) duration is too long to feel worthwhile relative to the rewards.
The Attunement activity's signs and feedback are not clear around difficulty and the success and failure states.
So, with that in mind, we set about making changes. Here's what we're putting forward as our intent and direction looking ahead.
Proposed Direction
We want to bring Rune output numbers back into line, and make the skilling activity more rewarding. You put more effort in, you should receive more rewards.
To address this, we will be:
Adjusting Rune Ratios
We're lowering the base Rune conversion ratio from 1:10 → 1:5.
1:10 Conversions will still be available by completing High Attunement difficulty when performing the minigame.
With Attunement, we're adjusting bonuses to base crafted Rune amounts:
Low Attunement: +33% Runes
Normal Attunement: +67% Runes
High Attunement: +100% Runes (Equivalent to 1:10)
Updating Skill Tree Perks
All of the current "Rune Efficiency" perks that currently boost the "High Attunement" rune gains will instead be reworked to better enable a sense of mastery as you progress the skill tree:
Per Rune Type: Autocrafting will now award High Attunement rune output (1:10 Ratio)
You'll get less XP than the Skilling Activity rates this way, but you'll get runes faster as a result.
This allows players to bypass the need to play the skilling activity for rune types you've outlevelled and just focus on easily creating those runes when you need them. These perks will serve as a core chase aspect of the skill tree right up until the later levels.
Updating Anima Vents
Anima vents will now produce 1:10 output ratios, matching rune alters and Concentrated Anima Vents will offer even bigger bonuses.
Our maths on this is expected to be:
~100 Runes per standard anima vent, up from 40.
~300 Runes from a concentrated vent, up from 80.
Adjusting Teleportation and Law Runes:
We’ll reduce teleportation costs from our initial calculations that we launched with - they're currently too high.
We’ll increase Runes distributed from Anima Vents (as we mentioned above), giving players more teleport resources earlier.
Shortening the Activity Time Commitment
Reduce the Infusion Phase (sealing cracks in the Runes) phase duration by 25%. Same output, just faster.
We'll also adjust the drain rate during the infusion phase of runes across all attunements.
Improving the Skilling Activity Signs and Feedback
We're replacing the Low/Medium/High bonus rune chance with the exact number of runes you'll get.
We’ll normalize the bonus Rune loss when cracks open. Currently, high attunement can lead to 15-20% loss per second with multiple cracks, which is excessive. We’ll bring this down to a sensible value across all attunements.
Adding clearer signs and feedback when you're failing at the minigame so that it isn't confusing.
Adjusting the Autocrafting XP Rates
To better lean into Autocrafting being the option for when you just want runes now and are not fussed about getting maximum XP gains, you'll be getting the 10:1 ratio of runes, at 25% of the base XP earned.
We'll add a UI message to clearly communicate this penalty to players.
Why this direction?
Our intent here is to create a more balanced overall Runecrafting experience. We want to give players a chance to more clearly understand how to perform the Skilling Activity "well" and understand what success means in the activity. Engaging with the minigame will mean you get the chance to earn the 1:10 conversion ratio you desire, but you must use the active skilling method. AFKing is never optimal! We also want to make sure there is a clearer value and purpose for the skilling activity in both training and crafting. As you level up, your focus will be less on the XP, but instead on Rune Production at scale - reinforcing the feeling of mastery as you progress through the levels.
"Why not just move Law Runes earlier in the Skill Tree?"
It's possible, but the problem stems from the number of Law Runes being consumed, rather than the runes being unlocked too late.
It's worth noting that unlocking runes in the Skill Tree is meant to be a step towards Mastery of the Rune - it is the resolution of the supply and demand driven by using Skill Spells. As an example, a full inventory of high end gear with a decent amount of heavy resources, at present would cost around 1000 Law Runes to teleport from the furthest point in Dowdun Reach to the very beginning of Brynmoor. That's a problem, rather than the way the Runes are unlocked.
By fixing this problem, we can resolve the issue and lessen the burden on needing to have so, so many law runes, and the idea of having to make your own vs finding them from Anima Vents and Chests around the world keeps the Law Rune as the mid-level Skill Tree chase reward we want it to be. There's a Law Rune Anima Vent in most vaults, and a few dotted around on the surface for good measure, so you'll want to orient yourself around them as sources to tap into at regular intervals. We want these to give you a stronger impulse to seek out the vents and add gathering the runes to your resrouces runs.
What's the timeline on this?
We're going to be launching these updates in 0.11.2 which will rework the "Rune Efficiency" perks and balancing discussed above, and shorten the Imbuing Skilling Activity by 25%. Secondly, we want to rework the minigame UI & UX. That means messaging, improvements to the experience, clearer signposting of failure and success.
We're targeting these fixes to be delivered in 0.11.2. We're eager to ensure that we don't let the Runecrafting experience be off-kilter any longer than it needs to be, and also ensure that these fixes that have been driven by the feedback we've heard from you, are in the game as soon as possible.
All that being said, myself, Mod Deluxe and the entire Dragonwilds team are still listening and taking on feedback around this, and so many other things. We'll be in touch soon with more proposed changes coming with future updates, and we're excited to discuss these with you further.