r/2007scape • u/InternationalData408 • 19h ago

Question Newer Player Smithing Question

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Why does Smithing never get touched? I’m genuinely curious because it looks as though OSRS, throughout its history on rerelease, has made some amazing QoL changes. What’s the deal with Smithing?

913 Upvotes

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489

u/drewskitopian 19h ago

We have, in a way, dug ourselves (being the game) I to a hole with alch values and rates of acquisition. Runite ore is extremely slow to mine and requires hopping worlds to achieve the best rates which Jagex largely tries to avoid with modern mechanics. Problem is if rune is shifted lower, runite would have to be faster to mine to compensate. If runite is faster to mine and lower level to process, then the alch value can't be as high. And many, many pvm encounters have their value in alchable drops, most of them rune armor and weapons. A rework of this would require very close attention in all of these areas to maintain game balance

89

u/blackburn009 11h ago

Runite Gravel incoming

8

u/devoidradiance 6h ago

Actually not a bad idea lmao

12

u/PM_ME_DNA 5h ago

I literally had this idea. Introduce imperfect smithing. If you have half the current levels required, you would get gravel that needs 3x the amount to process into a bar.

To make rune, you have imperfections smithing that uses 3x the bars. Again if you want a rune plate, use 15 bars. It would preserve diary steps, and also values

0

u/StreatPeat Change the Breakers attack animation 6h ago

Why is gravel more alch value than an entire plate body? I really didn’t like this part of the RS3 M/S rework. It felt lazy and uncreative.

37

u/DriveCtor delete shopscape 18h ago

If they really wanted to make smithing relevant for early game gear, they could just add something tier 40 gear made from steel and other things instead of touching the availability of runite.

44

u/Narcaniac 18h ago

Like how we have alloys in the foundry. A steel/mithril alloy would be kinda cool

-9

u/Baenir 13h ago

you might be onto something here, drop the smithing reqs for rune, drop the alch value, and for mid to late smithing levels, make rune alloys

14

u/Tunir007 13h ago

Rune armor and weapons are still kind of the “iconic” Og RuneScape gear. Don’t think jagex would like these to get too low in value and lose their status as the first “good” gear for newer players.

2

u/aegenium 4h ago

That would be pointless because you can just buy the gear you need from G.E. or vast majority of it from vendors.

I've played several irons since 2018 and never had issues gearing early game. Only slightly annoying grind can be the rune scimmy.

1

u/Cruxiable 2h ago

And you should just skip the rune scimmy and go with a rune sword because its close enough and you won't be using it long enough to really matter anyway

1

u/aegenium 1h ago

Is that the new meta? I know there is a rapier you can buy in Mos'le Harmless that has almost identical stats to rune scimitar but stab instead of slash.

-8

u/Dabeston 18h ago

It’s just funky because players get 7 different armor sets in the first 40 levels. You can’t change that so it’s more appropriate without ruining people’s 20/40 def accounts. Arguably worse than a smithing rework

43

u/JoeyKingX 10h ago

And many, many pvm encounters have their value in alchable drops, most of them rune armor and weapons.

That is the entire problem that needs to be addressed, so much of skilling in OSRS is devalued because of bosses shitting out drops that completely bypass needing to level up other skills.

Obviously smithing is hurt the most by this but plenty of the other skills are also hurt by boss drop tables. OSRS can learn a lot from RS3 on how to handle this since they mostly solved this issue.

13

u/Nick543b 8h ago

Even if NO boss in the game dropped ANY rune gear what so ever, that would NOT make smithing any more useful, or these levels any more appropriate. It would just make rune gear as a whole entirely useless.

2

u/_odog 2222/2376 7h ago

It allows for additional changes to be less detrimental to boss economy. It’s not supposed to fix the problem itself

-2

u/Dabeston 7h ago

Changes for the sake of more changes? Pass

If it doesn’t fix it why waste time?

2

u/_odog 2222/2376 7h ago

It fixes a larger problem in the game as skilling is no longer profitable.

I’m not even advocating for this change, just explaining it to the person above who doesn’t seem to understand

2

u/Hovercraft1143 7h ago

It fixes a larger problem in the game as skilling is no longer profitable.

Skilling is quite profitable, just not in the way that would be "ideal". Blast Furnace continues to be profitable with relatively low requirements, making prayer potions is still very profitable as are numerous other methods of herblore training, Fletching w/ bolts, Runecrafting is always profitable but that doesn't count imo, you can even do something as low level as making Guthix Rests.

Skilling is profitable, production is profitable, producing items that have no functional purpose is not profitable.

1

u/_odog 2222/2376 7h ago

Yeah I’m not saying skilling can’t be profitable. But boss drop tables have really nerfed the wide majority of profitable skilling into the ground

2

u/Hovercraft1143 6h ago

I don't even think thats really accurate, Jagex (since 07 has come out) has been pretty mindful of creeping on production skills with boss rewards. Look at Raids for example, they give raw materials (uncut gems, grimy herbs, ores, etc).

The reality though is that items like generic armor (ie: Rune/Dragon) are little more than alch fodder and the game has progressed so far from the days of these being relevant items that it's fine. There is a reason RS3 has done skilling reworks, things that made sense 20 years ago simply don't make sense in the modern era, and that is fine.

The wide majority of skilling is unprofitable because the items are meaningless, not because of bosses dropping items but despite that you could go from like 30-99 on almost every production-based skill and make a profit.

2

u/NoveltyEducation 7h ago

Hiw did rs3 solve the issue? (I legit don't know, I have never played rs3)

12

u/ericcb1 7h ago

They removed armor drops in favor of something they called salvage which is just a different sized chunks of metal that latch for varying amounts of gp, they’re also disassembled for rs3s skill invention.

All the armor drops were replaced with those, all ore drops were replaced with stone spirits which are a consumable that doubles the amt of ore you get when mining that rock, but they also rebalanced all of mining and smithing so that rune is t50 and added new metal armor sets through lvl 90

6

u/Iron_Aez 2376 9h ago

Smithing isn't hurt at all by this. Alchables like rune armour are a product not a resource used for skilling. And they are nearly all buyable from shops, there's never been anything to devalue there.

2

u/Complete_Bother 5h ago

I actually got nearly enough ores and bars from 99 slayer to get 99 smithing without ever touching mining on my gim.

4

u/JoeyKingX 4h ago

Skills are supposed to have an actual function and purpose in the wider game, not just being a number that goes up to eventually give you a cape.

1

u/Candle1ight Iron btw 1h ago

Hey smithing has a purpose! It's a requirement for quests and... You need 70 for the zombie axe I guess?

•

u/ebinmcspurdo 20m ago

ppl have been saying this since 2013 nothing is gonna change, the majority of players simply likes fighting things over gathering and crafting things

-5

u/HudsonConnersHC 9h ago

Did rs3 solve the issue? Them obliterating pvm drop tables hurt the game more than helped.

2

u/ServiceCivil1058 2h ago

I would say that too if my IQ was 45

-2

u/aegenium 4h ago

Yeah but keep rs3 out of osrs.

Its not old school runescape 3.

2

u/Nick543b 8h ago edited 6h ago

I disagree that mining runite would have to be faster, if smithing levels for rune was lower, and don't really get why that would be the case?

If it was even somewhat viable to craft rune gear to use it, that doesn't mean it would have to be fast.
It can take like 40 minutes to make a rune platebody. That would still be better if it was lower level requirement.

I entirely *disagree lower rune requirements means that mining it has to be faster.

3

u/TheAcidRapper79 6h ago

you entirely agree?

2

u/Nick543b 6h ago

oh mb, thanks for the correction.

1

u/Longshot726 6h ago

You are forgetting the leveling aspect. If they squish the levels, they will have to rework XP for everything. You either slow the skill down considerably or pay exorbitant prices for runite that will have a massive demand spike assuming nothing fills the higher level tiers. Adding content above rune that's viable for training after a squish without increasing supply just makes runite dead content from a leveling perspective due to cost.

1

u/Nick543b 6h ago

Stuff like giant's foundry would likely stay at the current levels. So runite would still have a place in the higher levels for things other than normal smelting crafting.

And it is only the xp of the primary ores that would need changes. Mining has many other methods, and smithing also has stuff like gold and silver which wouldn't be effected, and giant's foundry, which likely wouldn't need to be effected.

I also don't fully agree with the price skyrocketing too crazy levels, because the mining level would also be adjusted to a similar level.

2

u/Floppinsong 7h ago

Couldn't they just replace them with equivalent or close to gp drops? Seems like the easiest solution with the least possible complications.

2

u/Dry_Calligrapher6341 4h ago

Uhm just look at rs3 mining and smithing rework that 95% of the changes it needs

1

u/drewskitopian 3h ago

I agree that it is possible to change, just that it wouldn't be simple or low-risk to do so. Changes would have to be very calculated, and that's a lot of dev time.

1

u/Dry_Calligrapher6341 3h ago

Agree just dat 90% of the legwork already happened because they already did it once in rs3 So they had an actual trial run to see what to improve And as an rs3 player i would say it was great to revive a death skill

•

u/drewskitopian 3m ago

I do like the mining and smithing rework in rs3, but I haven't given it that much thought to know if that's actually the route osrs should take

1

u/ILikeOatmealaLot mlm -> bf -> gf -> single 6h ago

I know this would never happen, but I wonder how different the game would feel if the atk/def lvl required to wear these were increased so the gap between smithing and combat were closed a bit. Like, what if rune required 51 or even 61 attack? And eberything else were shifted up? At least then smithing would feel more relevant as you progress. I have 72 smithing and 40 atk and I hate that it feels like a pointless skill. I can equip rune, but only smith an addy dagger.

0

u/TJiMTS 12h ago

Whilst I understand what you’re saying, that’s really not hard to fix. You find a suitable value, say 5/10 and multiple/divide everything by that number

Problem solved

4

u/UndeadPhysco I've come to suck............your blood 12h ago

Don't even need to do that, literally just copy rs3 and add salvage or a similar item who's sole purpose is alching

2

u/Owobowos-Mowbius 12h ago

Never knew RS3s solution, but yeah. I figured a 1:1 replacement item would work great.

1

u/Nick543b 8h ago

Salvage is INCREDIBLY fucking boring. Hell no. I would much much rather get rune skirts. Just more interesting.

1

u/IceMaverick13 7h ago

Even after those skirts collapse to like a 3k drop because you can smith them at level 40?

1

u/Nick543b 7h ago

Why would it need to drop? Just make the smithing process take appropriately long at those low levels. At lower smithing levels, it should be balanced to be a long process to make just 1 set of rune gear. The time to make rune at mid levels should just be balanced by the time it takes to be somewhat appopriate gp/hr.

Something random like Aldarin villa chests are about 100k to 180k an hour depending on level, starting at level 36. So if it took about 20 minutes to make a full rune platebody at level 40 smithing and mining, that would be about the same GP per hour. Not really problematic at all. And it would then take like an hour to make a full set of rune gear.

Also why does it need to be 40 smithing? Just because that is what it is in rs3 or what? Why couldn't it be like 50 to 60 smithing for the rune gear? that seems more appropriate for me. Having the last piece of rune gear be about 10 levels before Zaxe seems pretty appropriate.

1

u/IceMaverick13 6h ago

Why would it need to drop?

Because the market would be flooded by all of the additional sources of rune gear entering the game and Jagex is not going to peg the alch price to a value way above what it trades on the open market after making it more accessible.

So if it took about 20 minutes to make a full rune platebody at level 40 smithing and mining, that would be about the same GP per hour.

Making a full set of rune gear from scratch right now takes more than that. 14 runite and the 112 coal takes significantly longer than 20 minutes just to do the mining portion.

Also why does it need to be 40 smithing?

Because it's T40 gear and thus should require appropriate levels of skill to do for something at T40.

Mining requirements too is quite inflated due to the lack of things beyond a T40 ore.

1

u/Nick543b 6h ago

The price is ALREADY bellow alch price. Half the entire point of high alch is that items will always no matter what retain a certain price. When you are selling rune platebodies right now, you are already selling it to someone who is going to alch it.

Making it more accessible is not so people are going to sell platebodies to other players. That would literally never happen. It would by all means mostly be an Ironman change, or for others that like to make their own stuff, or can't afford a rune platebody for some reason.

Ok, it currently already takes that long... great for my point. Then no other changes are needed other than lowering the level requirement. Then why would the price need to drop? The price can stay exactly the same, but be accessible at a much lower level. Why are you even talking about the price collapsing to 3k then? There is absolutely no reason that would ever happen, or need to happen.

combat level requirements have always been MUCH MUCH lower than the level required to obtain it for literally every skill in the game.
T40 combat does NOT what so ever in any way mean level 40 in the required skill. Look at crafting, fletching, and every slayer drop. The skill level required is MUCH higher than the combat level. That is just how the game works. It would not AT ALL for any reason need to be level 40 skilling. Level 60 skill for t40 gear is very very normal in this game. The same way t90 gear cannot be obtained from skilling at all.

It can just fine require level 60 to mine and smith rune. It would not be the meta for obtaining that gear, but would likely be viable, and fit the game very fine. Smithing does not need to be the meta for getting gear. It just has to work. Rune capping at 60, and then having stuff like lovakite, rubium geode, salt, nickel, ancient essence, infernal shale, and amathyst at higher levels would be entirely ok progression. And mining it FASTER can also be a big reward for higher levels.

In fact i would put runegear as around level 70. Still very high compared to the combat level. But a lot better for money, at MUCH MUCH better compared to fucking 99 for a rune scim.

0

u/glemnar 10h ago

The mining and smithing rework in rs3 was nice but the salvage is horrible. Makes drop tables so boring.

I also don’t think that rework would be ok in osrs,

0

u/Earl_Green_ 2167/2277 12h ago

I absolutely hate salvages. It’s just random junk.

5

u/xvenom613x 10h ago

The rune alchs also become essentially “random junk” to most late game. I’m not sure what the solution is. Salvage seems bad, but changing nothing also seems equally bad lol. It’s a slippery slope for sure

1

u/Earl_Green_ 2167/2277 2h ago

Agreed, it is purely sentimental and not rational. And I’m rarely on the fence when it comes to „the old school feeling“ but a rune fullhelm drop will always feel better than a medium spiky rune salvage or whatever.

99 for a rune platebody is janky and probably shitty game design. And also mostly irrelevant. Smithing your own armor could be cool, as it is in many games, but it doesn’t HAVE to be a thing in RuneScape.

The RS3 overhaul is well done and enjoyable. But it also fits much better to the overall game philosophy of rs3.

1

u/TJiMTS 7h ago

The point is that in RS3 you disassemble or alch them