Riots Starting in Gielinor

May 2016

Jagex has made a woolly decision and inspired high-level RuneScape PvM players to get out their pitchforks and prepare themselves to riot. The newest patch notes promise to change combat and players do not like that.

What is going to actually change? First of all, NPCs stunned by other NPCs will be immune to stuns for 10 seconds instead of 3, like it is now. Dreadnips, a PvM staple since forever, has been nerfed into the ground by this change and PvM players started training their torch making skills.

Second, the Barricade ability will now scale according to the level of the equipped shield. Before the nerf, it was active for 10 seconds regardless of the tier of shield used. Such a nerf further irritated annoyed players, boosting their firemaking skills by over 9000, creating a powder keg of tension in the community.

The final controversial change to the game was the nerf to Heal Other and Heal Group spells, making them deal damage to the player even while under effects of Barricade. As a result, players won’t be able to Barricade themselves and heal, greatly nerfing healers. Players reacted by combining their torch making and firemaking skills, as well as pitchforks to set up tents in front of reddit’s top page to let their displeasure be known. Mods noted the community’s discontent and promised to bring these concerns to the Combat team. Even if the changes are reverted due to community backlash, players will remember this for a long time nevertheless.

While analysing community’s views concerning this matter, we noticed that a great number of players were more concerned with the lack of communication concerning the matter than with the changes themselves. People pointed out that RuneLabs are there for a reason and getting such changes dropped on your head without any warning and discussion was a sucker punch in the guts. We can certainly understand such views, while hoping that Jagex will learn their lesson and not repeat this in the future.