Project Rebalance Part One - Skilling

Dev Blogs, 13 March 2024

Updated as of Thursday, March 28th

Note: Due to character limitations, we've outlined some of your feedback and changes to this blog in a separate post which you can find by clicking here.

Welcome to the first of several bumper blogs about Project Rebalance!

In December last year, we announced Project Rebalance, a massive Game Jam project which will flesh out progression for both skills and gear throughout your Old School adventure.

Since this is such a huge project, you can look forward to several blogs on this topic – including all the details about NPC Defence adjustments, gear changes, and more. We plan to release further blogs in April to coincide with the hands-on Betas. Today though, we’re looking at some smaller, simpler tweaks to skilling content.

Agility

Agility, love it or hate it, is one of the most impactful skills in Old School. It offers access to a huge variety of shortcuts across Gielinor and, more importantly, increases the speed at which your Run Energy regenerates.

Despite this, it’s not exactly a fun skill to train. We think you can all relate to the feeling of dread as you level up and see how many laps there are to go until your next milestone! On top of that, some of those shortcuts aren’t so useful after all, and that boost in Run Energy is a bit too subtle for most players to see the benefits.

Our changes to Agility are simple; we’re tweaking the numbers to better position different activities and unlocks, while identifying prime candidates for shortcuts that make training the skill worthwhile. We don’t plan to significantly adjust the skill’s progression, or the speed at which you gain levels.

Got all that? Then let’s get going!

Agility Courses

Agility Courses are your primary training method from 1-99. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to unlock a new course, check the Wiki, and see that it’s not really worth your time!

These changes are all about making Agility Courses relevant again, giving you a nice change of scenery and a real feeling of progression in the skill.

Level Requirement | Course | Approx. Current XP/hr | Approx. Proposed XP/hr

1 | Draynor Village Rooftop Course | 9,000 | 10,000

1 | Shayzien Basic Course | 8,750 | 10,000

1 | Gnome Stronghold Agility Course | 9,250 | 10,000

20 | Al Kharid Rooftop Course | 9,360 | 12,000

30 | Agility Pyramid (Note: while the access requirement is only 30 Agility, it's typically not worth starting at 30 since failure rates decrease dramatically as your Agility increases up to 75) | 44,750 | 44,750

30 | Varrock Rooftop Course | 13,000 | 14,000

30 | Penguin Agility Course | 30,000 | 30,000

35 | Barbarian Outpost Agility Course | 18,200 | 18,200 + 5,000 Strength XP/hr

40 | Canifis Rooftop Course | 19,200 | 19,200

45 | Shayzien Advanced Course | 28,000 | 30,000

48 | Ape Atoll Agility Course (Note: while the access requirement is only 48 Agility, it's typically not worth starting at 30 since failure rates decrease dramatically as your Agility increases up to 75) | 53,300 | 53,300

50 | Falador Rooftop Course | 27,200 | 35,000

52 | Wilderness Agility Course | 47,500 | 47,500

52 | Hallowed Sepulchre Floor 1 | 45,000 | 45,000

60 | Werewolf Agility Course | 69,500 | 69,500

60 | Seers' Village Rooftop Course | 45,600 | 42,000

60 | Seers' Village Rooftop Course with Kandarin Hard Diary | 56,000 | 56,000 Unchanged, the original post contained some incorrect information.

62 | Hallowed Sepulchre Floors 1 and 2 | 56,300 | 56,300

70 | Dorgesh-Kaan Agility Course | 63,000 | 63,000

70 | Pollnivneach Rooftop Course | 52,300 | 52,300 + Better Marks of Grace than Seers' Village

70 | Pollnivneach Rooftop Course with Desert Hard Diary | N/A | 60,000 + Better Marks of Grace than Seers' Village

72 | Hallowed Sepulchre Floors 1, 2 and 3 | 66,700 | ~71,700

75 | Prifddinas Agility Course | 66,000 | 66,000

80 | Rellekka Rooftop Course | 55,000 | 55,000 + Better Marks of Grace than Pollnivneach

80 | Rellekka Rooftop Course with Fremennik Hard Diary | N/A | 65,000 + Better Marks of Grace than Pollnivneach

82 | Hallowed Sepulchre Floors 1, 2, 3 and 4 | 76,000 | ~81,000

90 | Ardougne Rooftop Course | 62,300 | 70,000

92 | Hallowed Sepulchre Floors 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 | 90,000 - 108,000 | 90,000 - 108,000

These changes will smooth out XP rates between courses, give Rooftop Courses steadier progression, and reward those of you who’ve kept up with your Achievement Diaries with even better rates. Boosted Diary rates also let us improve some of the high-level courses like Pollnivneach and Rellekka, where we currently see players giving up on the grind.

Eagle-eyed readers will also note that this proposal includes reducing the Draynor Rooftop Course's level requirement from 10 to 1. This is intended to make Agility more approachable for players just starting out without them wondering how on earth they're meant to trek half way around the world to get physical at the Gnome Stronghold Agility course!

Also of note is the addition of Strength XP to the Barbarian Outpost course, in-line with the rest of Otto’s Barbarian Training.

There are two more changes we’d like to roll out across all ‘primary’ Agility Courses:

Add Marks of Grace to all regular Agility Courses, including the Penguin, Barbarian, Shayzien, Ape Atoll, Wilderness and Werewolf Courses. That Grace gets around!
Remove various points of failure towards the ends of Agility Courses. We shan’t name names… but it’s Canifis. Canifis is the problem here.

Brimhaven Agility Arena

This next Course is so special, it deserves its own category. The Brimhaven Agility Arena has it all. Rope swings, lava pits, falling rocks, parrots, dart traps, and a fiendish timer that keeps even the most agile adventurer sweating. Plus, it's turning 20 this year, which has us all feeling a little old...

Despite all this cool stuff, the Brimhaven Agility Arena is looking a little deserted these days. Our changes aim to retain its identity while improving its overall appeal:

Make Brimhaven Agility Arena more suitable for its target audience of players with 40+ Agility, up to some reasonable drop-off point where other methods pull ahead, likely in the Level 70 - 80 Agility range.
Make up for the lack of Marks of Grace with competitive XP rates for the level range, suitable for a high-intensity skilling method.
Add some polish and reduce frustrations. The current ticket system heavily punishes failure and doesn't feel all that great when interacting with the Arena at the lower end of its intended level range.
Encourage people to play on the same world to add a social element to the skill.

Those are the broad changes – now let’s see the specifics. If you liked that last list, you’re going to love this one:

Update various traps to feel more responsive and smooth.
Adjust fail rates so that the Agility Arena is better-suited to its intended level range.
Give players a flat XP rate when handing tickets in to Jackie the Fruit, instead of an XP rate that scales with Agility level.
Give players XP when they obtain tickets, scaling with Agility level every 10 levels.
Every X tickets obtained, players receive a 'Brimhaven Store Voucher' (name to be decided) which can be exchanged for any of the non-XP rewards from Pirate Jackie the Fruit’s Store.
Add Amylase to Pirate Jackie the Fruit’s store – a more engaging way to stock up on your Stamina Potions.
Remove the 'red-ticket' system, meaning you'll always get a ticket for your first pillar.
To prevent world-hop metas, logging out or hopping worlds will now place players outside the Arena.
On a 'Brimhaven Agility' themed world, the first player to touch a pillar will get an extra chunk of XP and a little hyping up in-game. This will improve on the social element of the skill and make the whole thing just a little bit more fun. We plan to start with just one world and see how popular the Arena becomes before adding more.
Potentially add 'sub-arrows' after you touch your 'main arrow' pillar. This would allow players who want to put the extra effort in to squeeze a little more XP out of the activity.

So, what do you do with all that extra XP? Unlock a few more shortcuts, of course!

Agility Shortcuts

Warning: there’s another list on the way. Our proposals for shortcuts fall into three categories: removing Achievement Diary requirements, adjusting level requirements, and adding high-value shortcuts to the game.

These changes should ensure that skill progression feels good, that shortcuts are more relevant for their level bracket, and that players are more motivated to train Agility overall.

Ready for that list? Let’s see the specifics!

We’ll remove the Achievement Diary requirements for the following shortcuts:

Wilderness - Lava Maze.
Wilderness - Lava Dragon Isle.
Morytania - Mos le'Harmless Estuary.
Lumbridge - Draynor Narrow Tunnel.
Lumbridge - Swamp-to-Desert Grapple.
Karamja - Shilo Village Stepping Stone.
Karamja - Brimhaven Dungeon Stepping Stones towards Red Dragons.
Fremennik - Miscellania Dock to Etceteria Stepping Stone.
Fremennik - Troll Stronghold Roof Rock Climb.
Desert - Al Kharid Palace Window.

We’ll adjust the following shortcuts as follows:

Draynor Narrow Tunnel moved south and sped up.
Shilo Village Stepping Stone requirement lowered from 77 to 32 Agility.
Mount Karuulm's Mysterious Pipe (towards the Alchemical Hydra) sped up considerably.
Forthos Dungeon Spiked Blades Jump requirement lowered from 75 to 63 Agility.
Fremennik Slayer Caves Spiked Blades Jump (towards Pyrefiends) requirement lowered from 81 to 43 Agility.
Fremennik Slayer Caves Narrow Crevice (towards Turoth) requirement lowered from 62 to 61 Agility.
Brimhaven Dungeon Stepping Stones (towards Red Dragons) requirement lowered from 83 to 56 Agility.

Finally, we’ll add the following new shortcuts:

66 Agility - Taverly Wall shortcut next to Tree Farming patch
71 Agility - Pollnivneach Stepping stone shortcut to Nardah
72 Agility - Barrows Wall jump shortcut on the west side
79 Agility - North Shilo village shortcut, between the trees at the eastern corner
81 Agility - Dagannoth Kings tunnel in the first 'Giant Rock Crab' room on the far wall
82 Agility - Asgarnia Ice Dungeon shortcut from ladder into Skeletal Wyvern area
84 Agility - Crandor Rock climb shortcut on the south side of the island's peak
85 Agility - Waterbith Island rock climb south of the Lunar spellbook teleport location, skips thrownaxe + pet rock section
96 Agility - Viyeldi Caves shortcut from the main room (with the fire pentagram) closer to the relevant Clue step.

There’s a survey at the bottom of this blog where you can tell us your thoughts about all the above changes. First though, how about some crime?

Thieving

Have you ever slipped, fallen and accidentally stolen from a hard-working Knight of Ardougne? Ever done that thousands of times? Don’t worry, this is a safe space – we all love a bit of crime around here.

Our Thieving changes are largely about rebalancing failure rates, clue scrolls from pickpocketing and stall respawn times. In turn, this should give players more options when deciding where to train this sneaky skill.

Pickpocketing

The following pickpocketable NPCs are receiving changes:

NPC | Current XP/hr at Required Level | Proposed XP/hr at Required Level | Current XP/hr at 99 + Diaries | Proposed XP/hr at 99 + Diaries

Knight of Ardougne (Reference) | 86,000 | Unchanged | 252,900 | Unchanged

Paladin | 104,953 | 123,601 | 192,477 | 214,884 + Rare Hard Clues

Gnome | 110,396 | 145,304 | 178,887 | 225,726 + Uncommon Medium Clues

Hero | 129,967 | 182,255 | 190,977 | 252,460 + Rare Elite Clues

These changes mean that at higher levels you’ll be able to harass NPCs again, instead of relegating yourself to Ardougne’s southern Bank for all eternity. The tweaks to failure rates mean that pickpocketing should feel better, too! Note that we're not looking to outright displace existing 'metas' for Elite Clues in particular, it's currently feasible for solo players to gain ~2 Elites per hour if they're willing to burn both GP and shade remains, or ~1 Elite per hour if they're blasting through Sarachnis kills without alts. We anticipate the Elite Clue rate from Heroes would likely sit below Sarachnis in terms of its effective clue output.

Stalls

Outside of early levels and the odd pet grind, stalls have too long a respawn time to be worth engaging with, even when targeting a specific resource.

These changes aim to breathe new life into Gielinor’s marketplaces and are aimed at more casual players. We bet the stallholders can’t wait!

Crafting | 16 | 8 | 16 | 20 | 5,647 | 13,333 | Amulet Mould, Bracelet Mould, Gold Bar

Monkey Food | 12 | 6 | 16 | 16 | 7,385 | 13,714 | N/A

Monkey General | 12 | 8 | 16 | 25 | 7,385 | 16,667 | N/A

Tea | 8 | 6 | 16 | 16 | 10,667 | 13,714 | N/A

Wine | 16 | 8 | 27 | 27 | 9,529 | 18,000 | N/A

Seed | 16 | 4 | 10 | 10 | 3,529 | 12,000 | N/A

Fur | 16 | 12 | 36 | 45 | 12,706 | 20,769 | N/A

Fish | 16 | 12 | 42 | 42 | 14,824 | 19,385 | N/A

Crossbow | 16 | 8 | 52 | 52 | 18,353 | 34,667 | Mithril Crossbow, Mithril Bolts

Silver | 32 | 32 | 54 | 205 | 9,818 | 37,273 | Tiara, Silver Bar

Spice | 64 | 10 | 81 | 92 | 7,477 | 50,182 | N/A

Magic | 64 | 12 | 100 | 90 | 9,231 | 41,538 | Nature Runes, Law Runes

Scimitar | 64 | 32 | 160 | 210 | 14,769 | 38,182 | Adamant Scimitar

Gem | 180 | 100 | 160 | 408 | 5,304 | 24,238 | N/A

Ore | 100 | 50 | 180 | 330 | 10,693 | 38,824 | N/A

Our intention here isn’t for stalls to surpass pickpocketing in terms of XP/hr, but to provide attractive alternatives for low intensity skillers and those hoping to stock up on particular resources.

We’d really like to hear your feedback on these numbers – how rewarding would you like your criminal activity to be?

Slayer

Slayer is an Old School classic, but newer players are often confused by its popularity – after all, the early levels can be a real grind. Beginner Slayer relies on lots of out-of-game research. The tasks you encounter are sluggish and slow, and unless you’ve been boosting your points somehow you don’t have a surplus available to skip the less exciting assignments you receive.

Our proposals aim to improve the early-game Slayer experience by removing the more egregious Slayer Tasks. We’d also like to help newer slayers stock up on Slayer Points by reducing the kill counts in early tasks – which should in turn smooth out the transition into the ‘fun bits’ of the skill.

On that note, we want to bring the thrill of obtaining a special drop into early-game Slayer by adding a small number of uniques which will provide limited utility against other low-level Tasks.

Slayer Task List Changes

The following Slayer Tasks are being removed from these Slayer Masters' task lists:

Mazchna

Earth Warriors

Vannaka

Rock Slugs
Earth Warriors
Green Dragons
Bronze Dragons
Crawling Hands
Cave Bugs
Cave Crawlers
Banshees
Cave Slime
Lizards
Wall Beasts
Killerwatts

Chaeldar

Infernal Mages
Molanisks
Wall Beasts
Harpie Bug Swarms
Mogres
Cockatrice
Pyrefiends
Lizards
Rockslugs
Cave Slime
Banshees
Cave Crawler
Steel Dragons
Iron Dragons
Bronze Dragons

The remaining Tasks now better reflect the stats we expect low-level Slayer players to have, and keeps them doing level-appropriate content throughout the grind.

In addition, the above three Slayer masters have had both the minimum and maximum quantity reduced for most of their remaining Tasks. This means that lower-level players will complete Tasks faster and unlock their Block Slots nice and early, in a more organic way than the current Turael-boosting meta.

Slayer Monster Changes

We’ve also made a couple of changes to some under-utilised Slayer monsters you might encounter early in your monster-hunting careers:

Killerwatts

Ranged defence reduced from +20 to -10.

Fever Spiders

We’re actually giving them a loot table!

Revolutionary, we know! These creepy crawlies won’t become goldmines overnight, but we hope to have them drop something – especially considering that you require specialist equipment and a quest to unlock them in the first place. We know these occupy a bit of a niche in terms of their highly coverted 'Kwuarms per hour' output (first time we've ever written that one out) and would look to retain this behaviour for any Farming-averse players looking to stock up on Super Strength potions.

That’s all we’ve got on the Slayer front for now, but we’d love to hear your feedback!

Mining

While 2023’s changes to Shooting Stars have resulted in more Mining levels than before, there are still a huge variety of training methods that players just aren’t interested in.

To set expectations, we’re not overhauling Mining in the style of RuneScape’s Mining and Smithing Rework – but we are looking to bolster a few activities, make them more approachable, and help players experience all the skill has to offer.

We’re not ruling out a wider rework down the line (we know that Smithing progression is a particular point of interest), but for now we want to try maximising what we’ve got rather than deviating from the core concept of the skill.

Mining Minigames and Activities

Motherlode Mine

Lower floor veins to run on 23-27 second timers, rather than having a chance to deplete.
Upper floor veins to last longer, at 36-40 second timers.
Have coal provide XP when revealed by cleaning Pay-dirt, improving XP rates at lower levels without muscling out Adamant and Runite Ore.
Give the Default Sack an upper cap of 107 Pay-dirt. This avoids punishing players for not doing a full deposit at 80 Pay-dirt.
Add a Super Hopper, unlockable for 50 Golden Nuggets, allowing players to deposit Pay-dirt from the upper level.
Reduce the upper level unlock requirement to 57 Mining.
Adjust the Falador Hard Diary Task to require the Prospector helmet rather than the whole outfit.
Improve obtaining Golden Nuggets so players don’t feel they have to hand in Pay-dirt nine at a time.

These changes make unlocks more impactful while making the activity more reliably low intensity. Additionally, increasing XP rates at lower levels mean the activity is more worthwhile for newer players – and less like a chore to tick off your Falador Hard Diary.

Volcanic Mine

We’re exploring ways to make solo play more viable by removing some of the guesswork, while ensuring that team and group play is still the most efficient way to earn points and XP.
Add the Prospector's Outfit to Petrified Pete's shop.
Remove the Kudos requirement and the requirement to claim rewards from building up the Fossil Island camp.

These changes give players more reasons to engage with Volcanic Mine by presenting a faster way to get your hands on the Prospector’s Outfit.

By improving the viability of solo play, we’re also encouraging players to explore different roles at their own pace, with the end goal of finding a team and maximising their gains.

Blast Mine

Add more 'good' layouts per world. This means more layouts similar to the commonly used '6 vein' spot, within a reasonable distance of a deposit.
Marginally increase the XP offered by ~10%.
Reduce the shop price of Dynamite, so that Irons could feasibly engage with Blast Mine without having to build up a stock of Dynamite from other content.
Improve how Run Energy is handled during the activity. At present, it's not possible for us to allow Run Energy to regenerate while interacting with the veins, but we'd like to see if there are any places we could give players a little bit of Run Energy back.
Increase the Blasted Ore 'crumble' or despawn timer.
Increase the capacity for depositing so that players can claim more ore and ultimately see bigger XP drops - bigger number makes brain feel good!
Add a counter so you can easily track how much ore you've deposited.
Add an additional reward to the Kourend & Kebos Elite diary that would improve the chances of players receiving higher tier ore. Since the ore you receive is what provides the XP, this would also buff XP after completing the Elite diary, in addition to the ~10% XP buff that was already proposed.

Blast Mine is chill, fun, and the massive XP drops offered when claiming ores make it a unique kind of satisfying. These changes are about making the activity more approachable, especially for Irons looking to stock up on ores and players hoping for something more engaging than Motherlode Mine.

Amethyst/Mining Guild

Adjust Amethyst veins to run on a timer, rather than whenever a single Amethyst is mined.
Rebalance Mining Gloves in terms of both price and passive effect so that they're more desirable and have more utility across the skill.

Gem Mining

Unlock the Gem Mine with the Karamja Medium Diary instead of the Hard one.
Improve messaging regarding the use of a charged Amulet of Glory while Gem Mining.

Sandstone and Granite Quarry

Add more viable spots per world to reduce competition if players are looking to engage in common tick manipulation methods.

'Regular' Mining

Improve Clue Geode rates across the board.

Our changes to ‘core’ Mining don’t overhaul the skill in any significant way. Instead, we’re hoping to cement the AFK status of Amethyst Mining for high-level players, strengthen the utility of Mining Gloves, and making Gem Mining more approachable.

Zalcano

Zalcano gets a section all to herself, in the biggest change we’re proposing today.

Right now, Zalcano is a potent moneymaker, but we see a lot of calls to make this high-intensity boss a more viable training method. Our intent has always been to put profit over XP here, so we’d like to propose something new.

We’d like to add a new currency to Zalcano’s regular loot table, which players will be able to trade in to an NPC. The unique loot table will not be affected. When handing over currency, you’ll be able to choose whether you’re paid back in XP or cold, hard cash. This neat solution lets players get more XP out of Zalcano if they want to, while keeping the boss a consistent moneymaker.

We will still be capping XP rates somewhere in the 50,000 XP/hr region, to make sure there’s still a good balance. We don’t want Zalcano to become the one-stop Mining shop!

Lastly, we want to resolve scaling issues so that it’s easier to jump into this activity without world-hopping to find the perfect group size. This may mean making instances available, changing how Zalcano scales, or adjusting the way contribution works. Stay tuned!

With that, we’ve covered the majority of our skilling proposals – but before we sign off, we have a few more miscellaneous improvements to tell you about.

Miscellaneous Skilling Improvements

Final list, you're on the home stretch!

Improve the Dorgesh-Kaan Light Orbs activity.
Allow players to make Guthix Rests in a single action. This assumes the player has all of the necessary items in their Inventory and means you can no longer fail to make a Guthix Rest by doing things in the wrong order.
Add the 'Make-all' functionality to Barbarian Potions. This would be a toggle-able setting.
Have Necklace of Faith provide 25% Prayer Points when triggered, up from 10%.
Give Ring of Pursuit a 100% chance to fully reveal Hunter tracks, up from 25%.
Improve Efaritay's Aid:
Adjust requirement for creating a Toxic Blowpipe to 78 Fletching instead of 53.

There’s a lot to chew on in this first blog. For dessert, might we suggest this survey? We’re keen to hear your thoughts on everything we’ve covered above! Fair warning, there are a lot of questions - so make yourself comfortable!

Meanwhile, those of you interested in combat will want to keep an eye out for our next Project Rebalance blog, where we’ll be taking aim at a variety of combat improvements. Until then…

That's everything for this week's game update. We'd love to hear your feedback so please let us know what you think on the 2007Scape Reddit, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel.

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The Old School Team.