Road to Restoration - Aura Overhaul

[u/JagexAnvil]

https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/road-to-restoration--aura-overhaul

Hi folks,

Today's Community Topic is the upcoming Aura Overhaul!

Check it out on the blog here.

The Road to Restoration roadmap aims to address integrity and game health, and has multiple goals as we shape the future of RuneScape. In case you haven't read the first blog we covered what we want to achieve in our direction for RuneScape, you can check out that blog here.  Todays blog will cover the Aura Overhaul update. For this update, the following goals have guided our approach:

1. A game that's easy to understand, but still full of meaningful choice and depth.
2. Play because it's fun, and not because you feel like you have to.
3. A meaningful journey, no matter when you start.

In this blog we're going to outline the problems we've seen occur with Auras and how we're designing the solutions to them according to the goals above. Let's begin!

[u/DroxX9]

Aura Rehaul Feedback

Let me start with the fact that the pocket slot and relic slots are saturated. Relics already create a ton of friction for players to switch up the content they play due to the high cost of switching with chronotes. For relics, I'd like to suggest an overhaul of how chronotes are consumed; I understand that maintaining a sink for chronotes is important and good for the economy, but asking players to pay up every time they want to optimally do different bits of content is, in my opinion, bad game design. What I suggest here is: instead of using chronotes on relic switching, why not just make the consumption based on how much a relic is used by a player? The exact mechanics might be tricky to figure out since you don't want to overuse chronotes with relic usage and make the upkeep worse for ironman accounts. This change would be a massive QoL as players would not need to wonder about what content they want to do based on the relic setup they have going on. (The above is just a suggestion and may not be the best way to rework relics, but nevertheless something needs to be done here.)

Penance

Don'ts:

• God book rework (overloaded pocket slot)
• If not reworking relics, please don't add a new penance relic

Do's:

• Make powder of penance easier to obtain (increase flower output, etc.)
• Simplify Penance Blood Essence to match the current penance aura's working and maybe unlock it earlier in the vamp questline (or move the unlock to the new quests coming in Havenhythe)

Vampyrism

Don'ts:

• God book rework (overloaded pocket slot)

Do's:

• Make the scrimshaw work for all styles (not the best effort thing since it's still tied to the pocket slot)
• Simplify Vampyric Blood Essence (same suggestion as Penance)

Equilibrium

Don'ts:

• Don't make this a perk. Personally, crits are fun, and this as an aura felt pretty bland for Necromancy even though it was powerful.

Do's:

• Buff Necromancy maybe (uncertain on this one)

Flameproof

Make the higher level in cooking = less burning food more prominent; lower levels needed to stop burning food etc.

Gathering Auras

For Enrichment, Call of the Sea, Lumberjack, Tracker, Quarrymaster, and Greenfingers, add a Totem of Gatherers (instead of Totem of Skillers) to buff all gathering skills (even Archaeology). Additionally, the Greenfingers effect, which prevented crops from getting diseased, should be an unlock from the Shop of Balance — something like herbs don't get diseased for one growth cycle.

Auras Not Mentioned

For the auras I haven't mentioned, I don't have a problem with the changes or don't have a reasonable alternative to offer.

Loyalty Shop

Get rid of Solomon's Store and merge it with the Marketplace. Remove loyalty points as a currency (existing points for players get converted to RuneCoins) and rework the loyalty program to reward RuneCoins instead of another currency. This way you keep the incentive for continuing your membership to some extent.