Skilling Island - Making skilling great again!

[metal raimon 5]

During my interview with @James & @Kong a subject surrounding skilling on RuneX was brought up.

The issue was as followed: Skilling isn't really worth it. You either skill to max, or perhaps to gain 200M expierence in a skill, but further than that you probally won't touch it ever again. 
Reasons:
- A lot of bosses drop massive amount of supplies, especially very afkable ones such as kraken.
- A lot of items such as mole skin/claws, prize boxes and much more give crazy amount of skilling supplies as well.
All with all skilling in and of it's own just isn't profitable.

But what if it was?

What I would like to introduce is the Skilling Island, a place with a ton of new resources that will bring skilling to the next level, to make it more fun, more enjoyable and ofcourse, more profitable. This would come with new ways of skilling, new items to obtain and much more. So let's jump right into it!

What would it look like?
I believe a great area to chose for this would be the entirety of Fossil Island from OSRS. If not fossil island, the area of Zeah could be an alternative option. 
No matter the area that gets picked for this, it'd be reworked quite a bit to make these new skilling options a possibility. 
I want to intertwine a lot of different skills in here to make the most out of it as well. To the point where a lot of it isn't just AFK'ing, but paying attention and performing a different amount of actions.
A lot of these skills would require a high level to complete.

Woodcutting, Fletching, Firemaking & Construction.
The first brand new addition would be RedWood Trees. These new trees would require a woodcutting level of 90 to cut. 
There wouldn't be too much special things about this except for the fact that you get the new RedWood Logs. More important than that, would be how these logs can be used!

* These logs cannot simply be lit on fire. 
Before RedWood Logs can be used for anything else, they have to be fletched first by using a knife on them. When done, you'll have a few options.
1. RedWood Arrow Shafts. These will be used to create a new type of arrow, talked about later.
2. RedWood Chunks. These can be brought to the sawmill in order to create RedWood Planks.
3. RedWood Snips. These can be light on fire through the firemaking skill.

When RedWood snips are light on fire (90 firemaking requirement) you'll not only gain exceptional firemaking xp, but they will also have a special ability.
At a 1:100 rate, there is a chance for a Fire Fairy to rise from the fire. When this happens, you can talk to the fairy, and she will reward you with a variaty of rewards.
Some of these rewards could be Token bags, Bag/sack of riches, perhaps some other skilling supplies etc. However, the main reason to do so will be for 2 new unique items.
1. The Ring of Fire. "This new ring will make all your fires burn more intense."
Effects: When using fire related attacks, there will be a chance to summon a "blue fire". An example would be using fire surge. At a 1/5 or 1/10 rate, the fire will quite literally become blue, increasing not only it's damage, but also giving it a passive "burn" effect, dealing 50% of your original hit in a bleed form, with 5 damage per 2 ticks. The stats of the ring would be a mid tier tribrid ring (not even close to BIS, but still giving decent stats in all 3 styles). This fire effect would work with any fire related weapon including the brand new "fire arrows" *1
2. Firey Blessing. When worn, the odds of spawning a fairy increase by 15%.

RedWood snips also have the ability to be attached to any type of arrow, followed by using a tinderbox on them to create fire arrows. Better said, they should auto light, but require a tinder box in your inventory to create.

RedWood Planks.
A new construction material that can be used for future Construction expansions to either 
A) Create stronger components that are already existing.
B) Completely new buildables that have special effects.
These planks should require a hefty amount to create at the sawmill, and the planks should be used for new builds that are properly useful or strong. 
This could probally use some input from the community but some ideas I could come up with would be to create dungeons inside the house where NPC's can be added (for a cash or item fee).

RedWood Arrow shafts
These will be used in a new arrow recipe. More about this will be mentioned under the mining & smithing section.

*1: The effect of this might have to be tweaked for PvP vs PvM.

Redwood trees will have 1 more special thing about them: Chances on bird nests. These bird nests can give a variaty of seeds, but also fun things such as rings. More importantly: they'd give a new kind of farming seed, which we'll talk about later.

Next up: Mining & Smithing
 

First off let's start with the introduction to a new minable rock: Alexandryte 

This rock will require a mining level of 95, and can take relatively long to get even a single piece from it. Blast mining does not work on this particulair rock (If it would be possible, it should have a lower chance of working)
With this rock you can create 2 different bars, requiring a smithing level of 95.
1. Alexandryte Bars
2. Goldandryte bars.
Alexandryte bars require 5 rune ores, 10 adamant ores and 3 coal combined with 1 alexandryte ore to create. With this bar you'll be able to create bolt- and arrow tips. These will be attachable to the RedWood arrow shafts to create new arrows. The Bolt tips can be attached to Zenyte bolts in order to level them up quite heavily. The reason I believe this is neccessary is due to the huge gap between 2H bows and crossbows on RuneX as it is. These bolts will be extremely powerful in both PvM and PvP situations, but as you have probally figured, they'd be quite hefty in price (or time consument for ironmen). 
The arrows will "simply" be a stronger variation on the existing dragon arrows, with increased stats. The bolts however, will see a special effect. 
* At a 1/4 rate, there will be a chance for the bolt to split up mid fire, resulting in an extra hit capable of hitting up to 50% of the first arrow hit. Minimum will be 25%, the max 50%.

Goldandryte bars: Require 10 gold leafs, 5 rune ores and an alexandryte ore. On top of that it'll require a Herbiboar's* heart. 
With these bars you can create 2 new items:
1. Alexandryte Crossbow Limbs. Requires 3 bars. Used to create the new Alexandryte Crossbow, which can fire the earlier mentioned bolts. New BIS crossbow.
2. Alexandryte's Staff Base. Requires 2 bars. "A shiny golden staff that requires an imbue of some sorts." Can later be combined with a new RuneCrafting orb to create the Armadyl Battlestaff. 

* The herbiboar will be mentioned once we get down to hunter. I want to intertwine all the skill on this island as much as possible to create these new items, so players will be more obligated to travel down the entire island and use all their different skills to gain these new items.

Hunter, Herblore, Farming & Construction 
Let's start off with hunter. 
There will be 2 new things that are hunter related.
1. Bird houses. These will require redwood planks to create (5 of them) as well as rune nails. You can then put any type of seed in here to lure birds. Requires 95 hunter & Construction.
2. The Herbiboar. Similiar to osrs, this is a hunter monster that you have to get out of it's hiding place by tracking it's footsteps.
The introduction of these 2 things will include a new herb and seed. The "Blessed Thistle". From these birdhouses you can gain bird nests. It'll take an average wait of 15-30 minutes to extract nests from them. At 15 minutes you'll get between 1-2 nests, after 30 minutes between 3-5. The bird nests will include a variaty of rewards including things such as bags of riches. Of course the rarest thing that you'd want to hunt these for are the new Blessed Thistle Seeds. These can be planted with a farming level of 95 to gain Blessed Thistles. 
Likewise the new Herbiboar can be hunted for direct herbs of this kind, however it'll be relatively rare. Even from the seeds, only a maximum of 5 can be gained per planted patch. Once we get into their use you'll understand why. 
Other than that the herbiboar can give a mixture of different high level herbs, as well as some special rare drops. Besides the obvious bags, sacks and all of that good stuff, there will be a 1:250 chance to get a Herbiboar's heart from these. As said earlier, these will be used to create the new staff and crossbow!

Herblore 
These new herbs will have a very special ability: To create splash potions & elixirs!
By adding a herb to an existing potion or elixir, they will in return become Splash Elixirs. You'll have 5 different tiers of splash potions, going up depending on how much herbs have been added to them.
When turned into a splash potion, the original effect of said elixir will become lessened. A tier 1 splash potion will last only 1/6th of the regular time. The effect of the potion will also be lessened. At tier 5, a potion will work at 80% of it's original ability and time.
These potions can be thrown on the ground, effecting anyone standing directly next to you as well as yourself.
Example of usage: A tier 5 Infernal Elixir is thrown on the ground with 1 person standing on each side (the max is also 5. Standing under someone else won't allow more of them to to get the effect). After throwing the potion, all 5 players will receive an infernal elixir effect, however only at 20% Power increase, lasting for 48 minutes. Splash potions main purpose will be for group activities such as raids or potential new bosses such as the nightmare of ashihama once it comes out. Of course, anywhere else would work fine as well, however due to the rarity and difficulty to obtain that these herbs have, you'll have to spend them wisely. 

The herbs will work on any splash potion with the same level of effects.

Agility & Thieving

Of course these skills can't just be left out. 
For these skills we'll introduce a new usable item: Graceless tokens.
These can both be gained through thieving and the new agility course.

The new agility course would be a harsh one. The player would have to crawl through mud, make a leap over fire, swim through dirty water and more obstacles in that theme. This agility course will actuallly deal damage to the player because of it - meaning you'll have to bring food to do them consistently. In return, the player will be rewarded with Graceless tokens (A darker version of graceful tokens).
These can be exchanged for some money making related items once again, but also for a "Graceless Dye". This will be usable on the existing graceful items. Each piece will increase the players chance of 
1. Avoiding damage on the agility course
2. Avoid getting caught while pickpocketing
3. Higher succes-rates on thieving chests.
While having a full set of graceless equipped, odds of taking damage will have decreased a total of 90%. The full set will also increase yields from Herbiboar hunting!

For thieving, there will be new NPC's to pickpocket that yield a higher amount of rewards. However, the odds of getting caught by them are quite high, dealing you 10 damage everytime you are. 
There will also be a 1/5 chance to steal a LockPick from this pickpocket NPC. These can in turn be used on the new Thieving chest.

The thieving chest gives even greater rewards, but requires a lockpick like mentioned before. The odds are about 1/5 to make it a succes, however failing it can result in 1 of 2 things.
1. "The chest wouldn't budge. Perhaps you should try again"
2. "You triggered the boobytrap on the chest, dealing you some damage!" - this will hit you for a 20.
When succesful you could gain amazing rewards including an orb of armadyl (for the armadyl staff), a "Heavy string" (used to create the Alexandryte crossbow) as well as some more common rewards like the new herb, graceless tokens, alexandryte ores, redwood logs, etc.

Runecrafting & Crafting 

New obelisk type ores will be added surrounding the island. They can spawn in different areas, 3 in total. These can be mined to gain a rock.
These will take a while to deplete, however once it does it'll take 30 minutes for it to restore back to normal. The more players are mining one obelisk, the faster these rocks can be mined. These will require 95 mining as well. The rock is a non stackable item, filling up the inventory. An obelisk will be depleted after a total of 1.000 rocks have been mined. 
In turn, a chisel can be used on the rocks. They'll have a 50/50 chance to either crumble to dust, or be turned into an uncharged armadyl shard (stackable).

To use these shards for anything useful, you must use the runecrafting skill.
There will be a new "Armadyl Altar", which would be a decent walk from the bank (quite the chore). 

First a player must bring as many pure essence as they can as well as an armadyl item. When using an armadyl item on the altar a player will gain access to storing charges through pure essence. The amount of charges, will be reliant on the runecoin value of the armadyl item. The pure essence will in turn change the uncharged shards into charged shards. 
When in turn using charged shards on the altar, you'll be able to create Armadyl Runes (required to cast Storm of Armadyl). Every rune requires 5 shards.

These runes will be required to charge the new Armadyl Battlestaff as well (created with the Alexandryte's Staff Base from smithing and Armadyl orb from thieving).
If a player gets 10.000 charged armadyl shards he'll also be able to create an Armadyl Orb on top of that!

 

Anyway guys that's going to be it for this suggestion. I am aware that I am missing fishing and cooking but I couldn't think of anything worthwhile for these skills. Perhaps a new kind of fish or something...? A stackable one? Not entirely sure. I really hope you guys like these ideas and that Ryan would be willing to add all of this. I believe it would be the type of expansion that would make RuneX level up in it's entirity, adding hundreds of hours worth of new content. Let me know what you guys think down below! Surely some abilities/items etc could receive tweaking depending on what is seen as broken/underpowered. It can be hard to know these things until they're in actual developement and being tested though. Hope you enjoyed the read!

Edited February 14, 2020 by metal raimon

[metal raimon 5]

*Reserved

[ismokemeth 1]

Great idea i think it would be fun and a nice addition to runex

[Iron Meth 1]

+1 on the idea i think its dope and would provide something to do with the skills great suggestion!

[Sydpreme 29]

+1, would love to see a universal skilling area with some higher-tier xp options

[Cyan 1]

+1 , Solid ideas! will bring skilling to another level 100% support

[Iron Logic 910]

I think there is way too much in this suggestion to give proper feedback.

An overarching theme I see is that these new methods would cause a lot of redundancy with the old methods. Such as the creation of new arrows. Most players don't bother to create blunt rune arrows, which re relatively easy to make and decide to use the slightly lower tiered arrows to save time. 
Same with a new agility course, we have like 12 of them, we really don't need any more. If agility is lacking something, we should focus on modifying the current content, rather than just shoving it aside and adding new content. 

I don't think the redwood firemaking would be used by many. Magic logs are just too easy to get and redwoods would just be OP if they tried to balance out exp vs the ease of obtaining magic logs. Perhaps if redwoods could be added to a bonfire, be genereally slower to add than traditional firemaking and give less exp per hour than magic logs, but allow the AFK.

Redwood construction is far too vague. I'm all for adding in new end game construction content, but I want the content to be well thought out, and not just thrown together to facilitate redwood construction. RS3 anachronia construction/totems are a cool idea, maybe we could do something similar.

Fire arrows - I just don't agree with these. Just seems like too much and quite unnecessary. 

Armadyl Battlestaff - Same with fire arrows, it's just not necessary. We have so many magic weapons, I just don't see a place for this.

The crossbow - I agree that 1H range is underpowered, but I don't think we need a new BIS crossbow, especially one gained through skilling. Maybe we can replace the crossbow with an offensive based off-hand for range. 

The additions to mining and smithing also seems quite empty. Minings biggest issue is that you do 45-99 at the same spot, and since the new ore is described as being time consuming to mine, that won't change. The stuff you can make is also quite limited, as it is described as slow, you wont do this for experience and likely wont want to do for arrows or bolts, since the time investment isn't worth it.  Perhaps if the mining requirement was lowered to 90, and they were better exp per hour than granite than it would be better. 

Bird houses - Love it, but they should be available at lower levels with different level logs and lower loot/exp. 

Herbiboar - Love it.

Splash potions - I like the idea, it's much better than the first time I saw the idea. However, I'd also like the see the new herbs be used to strengthen the power of an elixir ONLY IF you have the elixir recipe unlocked, this allows for the herbs to be useful for players who aren't doing group events.

Thieving - I love thieving, especially chests. I'd love to see the things you suggested, as long as the annoyances are balanced with the rewards.

Runecrafting / crafting - I kinda like the ideas, but I'm not a fan of the armadyl staff being added. I'd love to see this stackable ore be used at any runecrafting altar. Would really help for ironmen and would not work for charging astral shards.

 

I hope you get where I am coming from, I love the effort put into this suggestion and hope to see them added soon.

 

 

[combat test 2]

I can agree with the general idea of making skilling more relevant and profitable. If it was to be implemented in the form of an island like you are saying I think there should be an skilling task NPC located on the island which will give you tasks specific to the islands content. NPC would also have a rewards shop relevant to the islands content. So then there is maybe extra incentive to grind the island for leader board contents and could also be viable during skilling events when the holiday events come around. 

 

Woodcutting, Fletching, Firemaking & Construction.

 

 I like the redwood and fire fairy section. Particularly the ring of fire idea, however i'd like to see a more simple acting passive effect where maybe you have a 1/10 chance to burn an enemy. Burn would act like poison, set amount of damage increasing over time. It would be useful for high hp bosses, burn the enemy and then switch to a better ring. It should have a respectable amount of dps but nothing game breaking and should be very rare imo. This item would be for those players going for the most dps possible in something like raids. 

 

Next up: Mining & Smithing

I like the idea of new bolts and crossbow but I do not think we have need for the arrows nor staff. just my opinion obviously. 

 

Hunter, Herblore, Farming & Construction 

+1 overall.

However if I am understanding correctly, it would take 5 of the hearts to fully upgrade a splash potion? At 1:250 drop rate, I dont see that being super relevant content. Perhaps reserve the hearts for use in making the new crossbow only and increase the amount of hearts needed to make it. Additonally add an item to the islands skilling NPC reward shop which upgrades splash potions for x amount of skilling points. 

 

Agility & Thieving

not too much opinion on these. again I dont really feel runex needs arma bstaff so possibly rework thieving rewards.

 

Runecrafting & Crafting

you know my opinion 😛

 

 

thanks for the post man! I think this would be neat to see overall and would add a nice chunk of relevant skilling content to keep players entertained for a while to come. 

Edited February 19, 2020 by combat test

[metal raimon 5]

On 2/18/2020 at 4:56 AM, Iron Logic said:

I think there is way too much in this suggestion to give proper feedback.

An overarching theme I see is that these new methods would cause a lot of redundancy with the old methods. Such as the creation of new arrows. Most players don't bother to create blunt rune arrows, which re relatively easy to make and decide to use the slightly lower tiered arrows to save time. 
Same with a new agility course, we have like 12 of them, we really don't need any more. If agility is lacking something, we should focus on modifying the current content, rather than just shoving it aside and adding new content. 

I don't think the redwood firemaking would be used by many. Magic logs are just too easy to get and redwoods would just be OP if they tried to balance out exp vs the ease of obtaining magic logs. Perhaps if redwoods could be added to a bonfire, be genereally slower to add than traditional firemaking and give less exp per hour than magic logs, but allow the AFK.

Redwood construction is far too vague. I'm all for adding in new end game construction content, but I want the content to be well thought out, and not just thrown together to facilitate redwood construction. RS3 anachronia construction/totems are a cool idea, maybe we could do something similar.

Fire arrows - I just don't agree with these. Just seems like too much and quite unnecessary. 

Armadyl Battlestaff - Same with fire arrows, it's just not necessary. We have so many magic weapons, I just don't see a place for this.

The crossbow - I agree that 1H range is underpowered, but I don't think we need a new BIS crossbow, especially one gained through skilling. Maybe we can replace the crossbow with an offensive based off-hand for range. 

The additions to mining and smithing also seems quite empty. Minings biggest issue is that you do 45-99 at the same spot, and since the new ore is described as being time consuming to mine, that won't change. The stuff you can make is also quite limited, as it is described as slow, you wont do this for experience and likely wont want to do for arrows or bolts, since the time investment isn't worth it.  Perhaps if the mining requirement was lowered to 90, and they were better exp per hour than granite than it would be better. 

Bird houses - Love it, but they should be available at lower levels with different level logs and lower loot/exp. 

Herbiboar - Love it.

Splash potions - I like the idea, it's much better than the first time I saw the idea. However, I'd also like the see the new herbs be used to strengthen the power of an elixir ONLY IF you have the elixir recipe unlocked, this allows for the herbs to be useful for players who aren't doing group events.

Thieving - I love thieving, especially chests. I'd love to see the things you suggested, as long as the annoyances are balanced with the rewards.

Runecrafting / crafting - I kinda like the ideas, but I'm not a fan of the armadyl staff being added. I'd love to see this stackable ore be used at any runecrafting altar. Would really help for ironmen and would not work for charging astral shards.

 

I hope you get where I am coming from, I love the effort put into this suggestion and hope to see them added soon.

 

 

I get where you're coming from but like mentioned at the top this isn't an area for training. It's mostly for near 99 and post 99 ways of using skilling to be profitable and fun in new ways. For example hunting pets or going for 200m's, it would just allow players to do far more with skilling than currently possible. Having this island added with all it's features would also open doors for creating skilling accounts, something that used to be populair back in the day but nowadays seems completely irrelevant.

All with all appreciate the feedback but it feels like you missed the overlapping points of what the island is about:
- Giving skilling a purpose OUTSIDE of maxing it

- Making it fun

- Adding new features

- Adding potential profit

[metal raimon 5]

On 2/19/2020 at 10:25 AM, combat test said:

I can agree with the general idea of making skilling more relevant and profitable. If it was to be implemented in the form of an island like you are saying I think there should be an skilling task NPC located on the island which will give you tasks specific to the islands content. NPC would also have a rewards shop relevant to the islands content. So then there is maybe extra incentive to grind the island for leader board contents and could also be viable during skilling events when the holiday events come around. 

 

Woodcutting, Fletching, Firemaking & Construction.

 

 I like the redwood and fire fairy section. Particularly the ring of fire idea, however i'd like to see a more simple acting passive effect where maybe you have a 1/10 chance to burn an enemy. Burn would act like poison, set amount of damage increasing over time. It would be useful for high hp bosses, burn the enemy and then switch to a better ring. It should have a respectable amount of dps but nothing game breaking and should be very rare imo. This item would be for those players going for the most dps possible in something like raids. 

 

Next up: Mining & Smithing

I like the idea of new bolts and crossbow but I do not think we have need for the arrows nor staff. just my opinion obviously. 

 

Hunter, Herblore, Farming & Construction 

+1 overall.

However if I am understanding correctly, it would take 5 of the hearts to fully upgrade a splash potion? At 1:250 drop rate, I dont see that being super relevant content. Perhaps reserve the hearts for use in making the new crossbow only and increase the amount of hearts needed to make it. Additonally add an item to the islands skilling NPC reward shop which upgrades splash potions for x amount of skilling points. 

 

Agility & Thieving

not too much opinion on these. again I dont really feel runex needs arma bstaff so possibly rework thieving rewards.

 

Runecrafting & Crafting

you know my opinion 😛

 

 

thanks for the post man! I think this would be neat to see overall and would add a nice chunk of relevant skilling content to keep players entertained for a while to come. 

Thanks for the feedback.

- The burn effect seems really nice. It was kind of hard to come up with ideas that are both useful without being broken at the same time. Perhaps a burn effect would work better.

- You need 5 new HERBS for the splash potions. The hearts are used for the new crossbow/armadyl battlestaff. The main reason I suggested these items in particulair is because adding new smithable armor/melee weapons seems more redundant than having a nice pking staff. I do want to see pking improve overall over time.

[Nat 20]

Some good ideas here. To be honest these could be added to max guild / achievement guild. You hit max and then there is nothing / very little you get until you are either 200m'ed up or have comp cape.