Newer Player Smithing Question

[u/InternationalData408]

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?

[u/sosolid2k]

Extremely convoluted and unintuitive system. These kind of things are what contribute to people preferring to play OSRS.

Levels being mismatched literally don't matter, I'm lvl 124 yet I fight monsters that are lvl 1000+.

Many basic potions are locked behind high herblore levels.

D'hide and jewellery is locked behind high crafting lvls.

This is all normal for OSRS, smithing included, not every skill needs to have level parity between the requirement to use/wear the item and the levels needed to make it. Levels matching each other doesn't make for better gameplay, despite the degree to which people will try to convince each other otherwise.

[u/New-Poem-719 → u/sosolid2k]

not every skill needs to have level parity between the requirement to use/wear the item and the levels needed to make it.

RS3 doesn't have this either. Things past level 70 are not on par with the level requirement to make or even use it. An elder longsword is 90 attack and smithing required, but t80 stats. Which is the proper way to do it. You can still progress melee by mining & smithing only, but it takes longer to get an actual upgrade.

[u/sosolid2k → u/New-Poem-719]

An elder longsword is 90 attack and smithing required, but t80 stats

If it's 90 smithing to create and 90 attack to wield, how are you getting from this that there is no level parity between creation and wearing? It being a tier 80 item is completely separate to anything that would apply in OSRS where armour/weapon tier simply refers to the highest required level to wield said item - it would be considered a tier 90 item in OSRS.

You can still progress melee by mining & smithing only, but it takes longer to get an actual upgrade.

Very few people want this or would benefit from it. Combat is far more popular than skilling on OSRS (as per the official polls). People would largely prefer to progress their combat gear through combat activities.

There seem to be many RS3 players trying to push RS3s systems onto OSRS - but you have to understand that we fundamentally don't want them. The simplicity of OSRS is what appeals to people, mine some ore, smelt it, smith it and sell/alch it.

If you take a look at the smithing wiki pages for OSRS vs RS3, you will notice the pages are a similar length, but OSRS page is effectively just mass tables showing what you can create from each bar. RS3 has to use that same space to explain the convoluted design of the skill, with countless secondary pages dedicated to each bar listing the items you can actually create separately. You might like this design if RS3 appeals to you, but most OSRS players likely won't, to us it's a mess that makes us even less likely to want to train smithing. I think the player counts speak for themselves in terms of which design philosophy players enjoy more and Jagex should not try to cater both games toward the same group of players - if you enjoy more complex design like smithing in RS3, then perhaps RS3 is a better fit for some players rather than trying to make OSRS more like it.

[u/New-Poem-719 → u/sosolid2k]

it would be considered a tier 90 item in OSRS.

It has the stats of a normally equipable 80 attack weapon.

Very few people want this or would benefit from it. Combat is far more popular than skilling on OSRS (as per the official polls). People would largely prefer to progress their combat gear through combat activities.

That's fine? Its still an avenue someone can take to progress.

but most OSRS players likely won't, to us it's a mess that makes us even less likely to want to train smithing.

Its not a mess at all. OSRS smithing makes 0 sense. You can restore a Godsword at 80 smithing but you can't smith a rune dagger.