RuneScape Devs Deep Dive Into The Drastic Changes Coming To Its Death System
One of the many new things coming to RuneScape this year is the promised death mechanic revamp which will drastically reduce the cost of dying in the classic MMORPG. Traditionally, dying in Gielinor meant that you lose all of your items except those that were protected on death. Losing items was frustrating and extremely costly but it helped keep the economy and item prices in check.
Fast forward to nearly a decade later and the gold sink caused by the loss of items on death isn’t as necessary as it was back in the day. This led to the decision that it was high time to change up the death mechanics to make it more forgiving, especially for well-equipped players who stand to lose more valuable items.
Once the updated death system rolls out, +1 items will be charged a minimal death cost of 0.1%. The change should cut the reclaim costs of some items by up to 80% and some by up to 96.7%. Parties will also no longer be required to sacrifice their items in order to recover those dropped by their fallen comrades.
To offset the huge reduction in death costs and its effect on the in-game econo, Jagex will be adding a 2% tariff on all trades above 50 coins.
The developers will also be reworking the Ring of Death to give players full health and three minutes to finish whatever they were doing before they died and will be reducing the number of destroy on death items and making them reclaimable on death. Items will also require just 1% of their Grand Exchange cost to replace. The death interface will also be reworked to for all of the changes that will be made.
Jagex has a new dev blog up that goes into extensive detail on the planned changes to RuneScape’s death mechanics. You can check that out on the RuneScape official site.
