Locked Future updates.. plans...?

[Sandstorm]

Dear Velheimers,

 

Honestly I feel like I'm at crossroads right now, the playerbase has been rapidly declining probably most likely due to unpopular changes. I can't even describe the feelings I have right now because of this, the feelings of sadness and depression would be something close to that..

Anyways, we need to do something about the issue at hand. I still enjoy my time developing and managing Velheim, it was and still is my passion project after all! But, and this is a huge but, we need all hands on deck to figure out solid ways to get us back up on our feet.

I ran Velheim for just a bit over 2 years with 10 players online at max until this year, after which it kind of got popular in the RSPS scene, somehow, not sure how exactly, it just happened. I have no problem going back to our roots because I enjoy doing this, but it was really nice to have a ton of people appreciate my work here and if you get something taken away it does feel really off. I'm sure you know of this.

 

The question is, however, do you guys have any ideas that would help me, us, get back to our rightful place as the 718 giant? Can be anything honestly, your opinions, suggestions, comments - I'll read through it all.

 

tl;dr: game dead, please send help.

 

Sincerely,

@Sandstorm

[Medley]

We Appreciate the reach out , lets throw some ideals out.

id love to see Gambling content - pvp content , pvp stores or good rewards, a global lottery system maybe, 

[Parlay]

I appreciate you writing this not only for yourself but also for us. Transparency is a key towards success imo. 

We’ve all been a bit iffy with the server lately and with past discord discussions it might’ve come across like we want bad stuff for the server, i.e most of misfits including hans etc. At the end of the day we just saw the potential and wanted it to keep going but might’ve come out in the wrong way due to large controversial changes.

I respect this is your passionproject but for a lot of us it was a passionserver aswell. I think most of it boils down to when we peaked at like ~400 players, was a helluva great time at the server but after that everything in my eyes started to decline. I dont know what happened internally at that time but after that point in time we started receiving a ton lf hidden game nerfs that we had to figure out ourselves. People prepared endgame perks/setups to get rolled over by a hidden nerf that we had to figure out ourselves yet again. 
 

So my personal opinion is we lack transparency, be transparent with us and your staffmembers. From what it seems half the time they don’t even know what’s going on. Be like ”Hey guys I have X issue with the server and I’d like to solve it by doing Y or Z, what do you guys think?”. I know you’ve been fucked over on previous servers but we’re all here because we enjoy/enjoyed what velheim is/was. A lot of people have been offering help but been rejected, you’re not in this alone mate. Every staffmember and every helpful player doesn’t do this for themselves, they do it for you and because we still somewhat believe in you.

I joined this server back in early January which is when we started booming, everything back then was going great. Seemed like players were listened to and not just told by staff that ”If u dont like the server gtfo” which has been the case recently. It’s like if there has been criticism, albeit harsh at times, we’ve been told that ”we dont need u here gtfo if u dont like it”. 

The base of the server isn’t bad by any means, its one of the best. And I don’t know exactly what to do to go back to where we were, all I know is the server needs to start being a lot more transparent than what it is.

Take the ECB removal from ed2 as an example, that would have been a perfect time to have a discussion with the community.

”Hey do u guys rather want to keep ECB at ed2 and add some new reward to ed3?” Instead of during a random reboot buff ed2 hp 4x and remove ECB and then no update log.

Hell, throw up a community feedback in discord VC once a month, sit down with players at a specific time and go through current balances, proposed future projects, discuss meta changes. Doesn’t have to be a whole day, just an hour or two. That way you won’t have to spend a lot of time doing stuff you know people wont appreciate. 

I know this will never happen but I personally believe, seeing as u have a kid now and not as much energy/time, I think it’s time you hire a dev to do small qol/bug fixes for you so you can focus on the good stuff. Not for the server but for yourself, so you can feel a bit more relaxed. 

Don’t take this text the wrong way I still love you and velheim but transparency is key. Rather over transparent than not at all. 

I hope it one day turns around and sparks a large drawback of players including myself as I haven’t really been playing for some time now. 

 

edit; I also believe all of PVM is to easy, people just skip most gear upgrades and go from mystic + cstaff to SOS + tectonic. 

Much love, 

 

 

[mr bombastic]

First of all I think content wise, the server is doing great! and you're doing a fantastic job with all the summer events and the constant updates.

 

1- However I think the content that we already have (which is amazing by its own) can be taken to a further step;

For example, you grind your ass off the first 5-6 of creating your account to get your stardust from ;;cst and then after you buy everything off the store, you just drop the entire ;;cst and never go there. Now if we can take it a step further, like , you can charge ur imcando/pickaxe of earth and song with star dust for some cool effects (that aren't overpowered ofcourse), people would still be doing ;;cst even in the end - game. This example can be used for other on the hour teleports aswell.

 

2- People are addicted to gambling, you really have types of people who just log in to gamble and not do anything else in the entire game.

 

3- Pvp content is dead except for lush kekw. By making a ;;cst in wildy every now and then won't let people who already have bis pickaxe go there. There should be a more rewarding but more risky wilderness content. Like maybe a boss who spawns in level 50 wildy every 4 hours or so and has some serious good drops. This way people have a high risk high reward opportunity a couple of times a day.

 

4- End game donations. I've donated about 230$ to the server and about to hit 250$ for ddz and I'm also about to run out of perks to buy. I know there are legendary pets that you can also donate for. But they all have the same effect except for their skin. And I'm not really into SOF so turning bonds into SOF isn't an option for me. What I'm trying to say is that maybe change the legendary pets to something like, each pet has their own special ability, Like one of 'em picks up items for you (like it is now). But another banks the items for you but with a cool down of 30 seconds instead of 5. And another one that passively heals you and so on so forth. What I'm trying to say is , when you reach diamond donator, you don't really have anything worth to donate  for the ranks above it. The gap between sapphire donator and diamond donator is huge but from diamond donator to the rest of the ranks it feels like there isn't that much of a difference.

 

[gim nice]

Idk maybe the decline is the new mmo alpha/beta releases that made people logout and try these new mmos? 

[A G0D]

Debatable but I would say make pvm harder. Minimum gear requirements that you can do telos with looks like a joke.

Try to make all combat styles similar in dps.

Make some drops rarer. For example araxor legs makes no sense leg drop rate is like 1/10 but hilt is still 1/100 so everyone just has this excess amount of useless spider legs.

[Lucinda]

First off, we are all here for you. That won't be changing.
I think, in my opinion, the best thing that is needed is more DISCUSSION, when it comes to decisions.
- Polling
- Different zones
- Activities within the community (Beach for example. 10/10)

No matter what happens with the declining of playerbase, you have to stay with the fact that your loyal players won't leave you.

The more you can engage with the community, the more things will be able to be set for the future.
This isn't all on you. This is a team effort.
I'm not the best at things like this, but what I can say is - You're doing an absolutely fantastic job and I couldn't be more thankful for what you've done and hope to continue to do so.
 

[sterling]

Thank you for being humble about this. It shows your growth as a developer and it shows you can trust your players to help you out.

I'll be asking my clan about our complaints and issues, but I'll fire off some suggestions for you.

1. Adjust Dual Wielding; It is outclassed almost no matter what by 2h and is completely neglected.
    
2.  Adjust the invention perk weighting. Easier said than done and I know you're wanting somebody to bring you a more refined system for it. Ancient invention is one of the biggest gp sinks in the endgame due to the extremely rare perk combinations. You should also consider reworking some perks/adding custom additions to them (Caroming is custom anyway)
    
3.  Introduce further 120 skills. Herblore and Farming as 120 skills would set the path for a lot of other issues (I.E. Extreme Invention Potions for ancient invention)
    
4.  Find something out about the Grand Exchange. This is extremely complicated, but this server has many ironmen and not very many normal players that trade and cycle gp around, and many items are very limited due to the lack of people actually going for drops. 
    
5.  Most PvMers are actually bored cause of one thing; Lack of difficulty. There is no challenge in this game and as a big PvMer myself, I absolutely welcome it. Leading back to the Grand Exchange issue, a lot of these high level drops CANNOT be sold on the Grand Exchange because nobody can sell them due to extreme undercut or lack of gp circulation. Make content harder! It's not a bad thing. Make people feel like their gear is progressing and they're actually getting better for practicing the content. You can do just about anything in this game in T80 gear if not less. Accessibility is good, but too much is a curse.
    
6.  Host community events perhaps? Not just like, The Beach, but maybe weekly PvM events, or skilling competitions. Get your community involved and excited to not just compete with eachother, but come together as a community and enjoy eachother. For PvM events, maybe try handicaps and buffs (only use these parts of gear, but allow something very strong inbetween.)
    
7.  Work with your PvP community and fix the problems they all have with it. Give incentive to go into the Wilderness, face off against players, and make it rewarding. Or even add PvP based modes, like Last Man Standing, or perhaps a PvP only world where everywhere is dangerous.
    
8.  Provide more raw gp gain. I know you're probably sick of hearing this but the economy is in shambles because of the gp nerf. Allow people to be rewarded for doing their favorite bosses/slayer content WITHOUT being on task or on reaper assignment.
   An addition: rework the slayer and reaper reward shops. Make tasks longer, allow preferred tasks, and add additional rewards to the reaper shop.
    
9.  Fix some collection logs; I have the most Vorago kc in the game and I cannot complete my collection log still (add hardmode vorago cause its too easy anyway) Perhaps add Golden Reaper? And maybe add pet thresholds to encourage people to grind for their pets but rewarding them for doing it anyway.
    
10.  Add additional Achievement Diaries. I know a lot of people would love to see Tirannwn Quiver, Wilderness Sword, Desert Amulet, Daemonheim Aura, and Ardougne Cloak.
     
11. Finish the missing Arch relics and mysteries. A ton of people try to get some relics just to be told they're not coded or don't work and that kills motivation for a lot of content.
     
12.  Work on Anachronia more! Introduce Big Game Hunter, and flush it out a little bit more. It largely feels incomplete and the only incentive to go is for Grenwalls. Also add Orthen when you get the chance (we know you're working on it)
     
13. Add somebody to your dev team. We know you don't want to, and we know why. But you have a lot going on in your personal life and you need that assistance, you NEED that backup support. Find somebody you know you can trust, and work together with them to help your game grow. Also! Ask your community more things like you're doing now. Ask us in game even.
     
14. Allow more beta gameplay. I was able to test the ED3 patch and I had a ton of fun doing it and giving you some notable feedback on it all, and it's good to have an early opinion from early access so you know what to adjust and fix. Allow your players and your own staff team access to give you early feedback before throwing anything into live. We want to help, you know?
15.  Add scaling to Elite Dungeons. Give people incentive to solo the content for higher droprates.

ED1: Fix the Ancient Scale drop for Seiryu, it's STILL severely underwhelming.
ED2: Make the Elite Dungeon Banking ability drop from Black Stone Dragon not as rare, it's the equivalent of an ECB part before ED3 patch.
ED3: Allow some use of Black Stone Hearts, and make Black Stone Arrows work. Maybe create custom passives from them, or a sigil like item like Excalibur's effect.

It's a lot to take in, but this is for the better of your server and for the better of your community and loyal players. I love this game a lot, despite only being here for half a year, and I want it to be better. We wanna help, Sandstorm, and I'm glad you're reaching out. 

Edited July 17, 2021 by sterling
formatting

[sterling]

50 minutes ago, Medley said:

We Appreciate the reach out , lets throw some ideals out.

id love to see Gambling content - pvp content , pvp stores or good rewards, a global lottery system maybe, 

This is a much better look on it than simply Flower Poker & Staking. Good shout. Don't know how it could play out, but your heart is in the right place.

[Yggdrasil]

• Change how coin drops work; give every mob a coin drop table, 25% chance to hit that table to gain GP rather than it being strictly set to on-task. These rates should increase by 5% per tier of luck. Enhance the drop-tables of end-game bosses to make them more lucrative as far as item drops go, rather than increasing the drop-rates of the rare items -- an improvement without having to tank the price of valuables

 

• Provide more content by adding two new gamemodes to the game, Expert and Bronzeman.

Here's a brief overview of what these gamemodes would provide:

The expert gamemode would provide users with unrestricted access with 10x experience rates and a 5% drop-rate increase.

The Bronzeman game-mode would prevent users from using items that they had not previously obtained by themselves, whether it be by drop or creation.
 

• Add custom elements to the server, rather than custom items and bosses. For example, adding skilling hotspots that rotate by the hour which increase experience gained for specific skill-sets (gatherers, artisans, combat, etc)

 

• Upgradeable game perks that increase their effectiveness at the cost of upgrading with VC, or via completing in-game quests (like we talked about in the staff meeting.) Not all perks have to be upgradeable, but for example, allowing Dungeon Daemon to operate with Skill Doors as well as key-doors would be a fantastic upgrade. We can work together on that project to make sure that everything is balanced.

 

• Add boss highlights that temporarily increase the drop-rate of rare drops on specific bosses; adding exceptions for bosses such as Telos, Arraxor and Vorago, all of which should not be affected.

 

• When updating the server, do so on a weekly basis where changes you propose (such as damage alterations to bosses) all come at once rather than being scattered around across one week. Provide the update log a day before the update comes out, giving the community some much needed transparency.

 

• Add a polling system for future mainline updates; though the content which we can vote for is by your choice, not ours. I understand more than most how much this server means to you given how close I have to work with you. Let us vote on content that YOU are willing to work to create. There are no illusions here; some users have unrealistic expectations on the work that you're able to put in, so I feel this is a system that works in both your favour and our favour as players.

 

• Work on how you interact with players; case in point, Hamderhans. While his criticism soon devolved into nothing but incessant, toxic whining, he had a good basis to complain at the start because of the state of the game that he loved. Personal feelings aside, I feel like a mac-ban was a harsh punishment for somebody who isn't all that different to you; relentlessly defending something that they love in any way that they can.

 

• Client-side improvements (many of which I know you're working on) that helps to streamline the new player experience by making it smoother.

 

• Re-open suggestions but add a prerequisite requirement of 20 posts in order to create threads in there to prevent an accumulation of suggestions that stack up over time

 

• Increase PvM complexity by adding Surge, Freedom and Resonance to the game as hot-keys. I feel like most people speak about 'difficulty' and that auto-implies that bosses should be buffed and users should be nerfed, but I think adding extra ways to PvM, and thus increasing complexity would be effective in reviving that side of our server.

 

 

As for a personal message to you, Sandstorm, Vichy, Friend, Boss....

Health is wealth, even moreso for mental health. Make sure that you take care of yourself mentally and physically; I feel like you've yet to reach your potential, nor has the server.

[Iron Tyrone]

I'll just throw a few points of my own, some based upon the PMs I generally receive.

Transparency:
I've received plenty of PMs from too many players wondering why bosses do more dmg, or they ask if drop rates have been lowered the next day - because they get changed without notice. 

Content:
I have no doubts that you probably have a few ideas in mind with the recent revision update, and I think this ties into the above point. Let us know what you're working on - get us excited. Better yet, start up a public Trello board. Let the community see what projects you're working on in the meantime.

Edit:
Hard Mode Bosses:
I personally think that all bosses should have hard-modes implemented.
Hard Mode Bosses would have higher HP, higher defences, deal more damage - and have more rewards, hell - you could even give them abilities since you have that now. They would have a higher DR% for what they already drop, but added on: Component Crates for those specific bosses. 
Armadylean Component Crates would provide Invention Components which would be gained by disassembling any of the main drops from Armadyl, and these Crates would be tradeable.

Events:
Some of the events recently held have been insane, such as the KOTS event, and the previous Boardhunter Event. 
Now, I don't want to see events running 24/7. The Boardhunter, and KOTS events were held 2 months apart, and that left some downtime in the middle.

Give us some random stuff in-between, such as (possibly); 
Slayer weekends: Login msg: "Slayer Masters are reporting that monsters all over Gielinor are being unnaturally rewarding!".
Slayer Task Monsters provide x% Bonus EXP, x% Higher DR and/or x% Increased GP on kill - and have an increased respawn speed.

GWD1 & 2 weekends: Login msg: "The gods have provided blessings upon their representatives, they return to battle faster and are even more rewarding!".
All GWD bosses affected with a x% higher drop rate, public rooms are defaulted to "Extreme" respawn speeds so people can group together for bossing again.

Skilling weekends: Login msg: "The remnants of Guthix have allowed natural resources to flourish, you earn more experience, and can gain more resources during this time!".
x% Bonus EXP in non-combat related skills (so no combat skills nor slayer, summoning, and dungeoneering), x% chance to gain an extra resource which is automatically "porter'ed" (without providing the EXP for it) - not applied to Divine Locations.

Bossing weekends: Login msg: "It seems that the most dangerous of bosses that are unaffiliated with the gods, have somehow become more bountiful!".
All bosses excluding GWD1&2, are affected with x% Higher DR.

Rewards:
From what I could find; the Oddments store hasn't been touched since at least September, the last changes to the Vote Shop, and the Trivia shop were in August of last year. Players like "new things", whether it comes as content, or as rewards from the already existing sub-rewards - they just want "new".
Don't forget; you still have my document pinned on Discord - if you need ideas for rewards, you have that available.

Announcements:
Let players show off their achievements, we already have announcements for Maxing, Comping, Achievement Diaries etc; give us Collection Log completion announcements. If somebody has been grinding KBD for 3000 kills to get the pet and complete the log, let them show it off with that announcement. Sure it's only there for a little bit of time, but people enjoy recognition for their achievements.

Advertisement:
I cannot express how, almost strange it was - seeing the prize pool of the KOTS, compared to how little it was advertised. I understand that you want to give back to your players, and I'm not saying that the prize pool should have been less, but the opportunity for getting more players was insane, if only it had been advertised more whether it was; through YouTubers, updating the Rune-Server thread, banners on top list websites, etc.. then there would probably have been some pretty decent growth.
Most servers give out in-game rewards & prizes when they do events, I've never heard of an owner of a server putting up over $4K, of real money, as rewards for an in-game event and in my opinion, that is what makes you stand out compared to others.

 

Sand, you have an absolute gem of a server.
It must be hard having to ask something like this from your community, because you are the one that has built it from the ground up.
Your hard work has paid off, and will continue to pay off, and all of us want to see it stay successful. 
This is a step in the right direction.

tldr; TRANSPARENCY, more active smaller events, more advertising on large events, new rewards in existing shops, collection log announcements, edit: hard mode bosses

[sterling]

4 minutes ago, Yggdrasil said:

Add custom elements to the server, rather than custom items and bosses. For example, adding skilling hotspots that rotate by the hour which increase experience gained for specific skill-sets (gatherers, artisans, combat, etc)

Absolutely! Make us want to do specific activities and not pigeonhole everybody into doing one thing.

 

5 minutes ago, Yggdrasil said:

Add boss highlights that temporarily increase the drop-rate of rare drops on specific bosses; adding exceptions for bosses such as Telos, Arraxor and Vorago, all of which should not be affected.

Possibly allow the spotlights to increase pet droprate too, if thresholds are not an option in the future.

 

6 minutes ago, Yggdrasil said:

When updating the server, do so on a weekly basis where changes you propose (such as damage alterations to bosses) all come at once rather than being scattered around across one week. Provide the update log a day before the update comes out, giving the community some much needed transparency.

100% yes. We adore the transparency of updates, and while looking for some ninja updates can be fun on our own, a lot of them are very detrimental if not mentioned beforehand. 

 

5 minutes ago, Iron Tyrone said:

Announcements:
Let players show off their achievements, we already have announcements for Maxing, Comping, Achievement Diaries etc; give us Collection Log completion announcements. If somebody has been grinding KBD for 3000 kills to get the pet and complete the log, let them show it off with that announcement. Sure it's only there for a little bit of time, but people enjoy recognition for their achievements.

I love this a lot, thank you for mentioning it. As a collection log completer, I would love the addition of Feats like from RS3 to show a log has been fully completed. 

 

8 minutes ago, Yggdrasil said:

Client-side improvements (many of which I know you're worknig on) that helps to streamline the new player experience by making it smoother.

This would be fantastic coming from somebody that strictly plays on Experimental client and often memory leaks if I go through too many loading gates (I.E. Elite dungeons)

[sterling]

26 minutes ago, sterling said:

4. Find something out about the Grand Exchange. This is extremely complicated, but this server has many ironmen and not very many normal players that trade and cycle gp around, and many items are very limited due to the lack of people actually going for drops. 

@Fulltimewife gave me the addition to this of adding an inverse to the GE system, where as of now, items can be bought at an unlimited quantity; Allow items to be sold to the Grand Exchange at maybe 80% value infinitely as well. The GE deletes the item, so there is no item bloat and it gets sunk, and gp gets injected into the economy. You'll always lose money rather than selling it to a real player, and to get items, you have to PvM for them, and that's okay. Player-to-player trades could still occur and bartering could still function in that regard.

[Torkoal]

Hey. I've only been on here for about a month, but I've been playing runescape a very long time and seen my fair share of bad updates. I'm looking at you free trade limit. Anyway, I've been having a blast on here and have little complaints, but i do have a few suggestions.

• Add some form of polling, whether it be on the discord, forums or in game poll booths. People love to have a say with what gets added, but you choose what goes on the polling lists as to what you are willing to work on.
• New game mode for non ironmen players. Cant say this for everyone, but maybe there's too many ironmen around is because 2x seems to slow and 50x is too fast.
• Adding in 120 content. whether that only be farming and herblore or custom content for skills that have yet to receive any 99-120 content.
• Ways to train skills at higher levels that isn't solely afk. Xp rates go up the more you interact with the skill you are doing.
• Store rotation. Once a week, 2 weeks or a month, the loyalty, trivia, vote and oddment stores could get rotated with new stuff in them, instead of it being the same stuff all the time.
• Gote/Lotd. Not sure if this would be possible, but maybe having a separate loot table for the Gote but still needing the Lotd to access super rare drops. Seems a bit lacklustre that when you finally get a seren spirit to appear, all it seems to give is an uncut gem or 5 rune javelins. Could maybe add a way to upgrade the higher tier tools, or add new ones that have special effects like for woodcutting which doesnt go higher than dragon/crystal.
• Not really a game improvement, but more a social one. Not sure if you have them as I've not seen any, but maybe some chat moderators for when things get out of hand. I very rarely pay attention to the chat because of some of the topics that get spoken about sometimes and that could be off putting for some new people.

All in all this is a great server and you've done well. I hope things continue for the better.

[Parlay]

I want to add onto what @Torkoal said about FC as I feel that myself aswell.

The chat/Fc rules are so vague at the moment. 5-10 people sit and talk openly about using/buying/selling drugs, discussing what effects you get from which drugs and what drug they’re taking this weekend. And all of that is allowed, but as soon as someone says ”I’m retarded I forgot to bring excalibur” or ”I like trump” it seems like you get hit by the banhammer. I’m obviously exaggerating here but you get the point. 

Little 16 year old Timmy joins the server and sees fat drug talk in Fc, not so good ey?

There’s to much inconsistency with enforcing FC rules and they need to be looked over. To me drug talk is worse than a healthy political talk, so I don’t see the logic in allowing one and not the other. Do drugs if you want but I dont think anyone on an rsps cares about people boasting drug usage in FC. I’m not saying political talk should be allowed, I just don’t get the logic behind some of the FC rules. 

If i joined a new server when i was like 15-17 I’d get discouraged by all the drugtalk if that’s all i see in FC. Obviously this doesn’t happen at all times I’m just using it to prove my point that rules need to be overlooked.