Today's Dungeoneering changes are a step in the wrong direction.
After a wildly successful remaster last week, today's Dungeoneering changes are a step in the wrong direction. The reason is that the changes represent a significant nerf to the average player (relative to last week) while leaving the top-end essentially unchanged. Widening the gap between average and top-end players feels bad and creates community friction. While I fully support rewards for skill expression, the current balance misses the mark.
The Average Player Experience
Note: All times below are estimates based on my experience and conversations with others. I welcome feedback where I may have missed the mark.
If you are an average RS3 player/Dungeoneer, your post-nerf dungeons probably look like one of the below:
- You solo your dungeons, with full clears taking anywhere between 15-30 minutes.
- You pug with random teammates on W77, with full clears taking between 6-15 minutes.
- You run with friends or clanmates who are also average players, with full clears taking between 6-10 minutes.
Compare the above with pre-nerf critical path training, which achieves the same xp per floor as the current full clear meta:
- You solo your dungeons, with crit paths taking anywhere between 6-12 minutes.
- You pug with random teammates on W77, with full clears taking between 4-10 minutes.
- You run with friends or clanmates who are also average players, with full clears taking between 4-8 minutes.
In each case, the xp you receive per hour was significantly reduced with today's update, with the worst reduction felt by solo players at ~60% less xp/hr.
The Top-End Player Experience
Top RS3 players/Dungeoneers could consistently get 2-4 minute clears pre-and post-update. Some I know even claim to be able to full clear a floor faster than they can boss rush a floor.
Compare these clear times with the times I listed above for average players.
Post-nerf, top-end players receive:
- ~750% more xp/hr than average solo players.
- ~400% more xp/hr than average pug players.
- ~275% more xp/hr than average clan/friend teams.
Pre-nerf, top-end players received:
- ~300% more xp/hr than average solo players.
- ~250% more xp/hr than average pug players.
- ~200% more xp/hr than average clan/friend teams.
The pre-nerf disparities between average and top-end players were already large. Post-nerf, a veritable chasm exists between the groups, particularly when it comes to solo players and pugs.
I am all for rewarding skill in a videogame. There are plenty of other examples (particularly PvM) where top-end players are able to significantly outperform average players and are rewarded accordingly. But the disparities are not typically so large as those created by today's update. This situation feels especially bad when the disparities were created by nerfing the xp/hr received by the average players rather than increasing the xp/hr received by the top-end players. What is the harm to game integrity in letting average players achieve solid xp/hr when there are people capable of getting 200m xp in 16 hours game time?
I understand that Jagex's goal was, in part, to reward fully exploring dungeons, as this method is the traditional training method and possibly more consistent with the skill's design philosophy. But they need to recognize that their changes represent a massive shift in the allocation of xp/hr. If the goal was to nerf xp/hr across the board (I am not advocating for this), then the top-end players should have also seen a reduction. If the goal instead was to further reward skill expression, then I think the changes were misguided at best; the hiscores and new achievements are sufficient incentive, along with the already very high xp/hr rates for top-end players. If the goal was to encourage exploring dungeons fully, then Jagex did not need to also nerf xp/hr; they could have simply increased the xp received from bonus rooms.
All in all, I'm very disappointed with today's changes, particularly given how much fun I had last week. I wish I wasn't right to think that this was yet another example of the early bird bonus, but here we are.