Upcoming updates

This page is a list of upcoming RuneScape updates.

Invention
In his personal project time Mod Ryan is working on creating augmentable tools that can be levelled up for Firemaking and Smithing. Protean logs and bars will give half the tool experience of skilling with regular materials. There will also be new perks: Prosper, which gives a chance of finding clue scrolls while skilling with an augmented tool; Breakdown; and Pyromaniac.

Slayer
Several updates for Slayer are planned:


 * More variety will be added in the gear used - a greater range of gear will be viable for specific uses.
 * Lower levels will be re-balanced to make the experience curve smoother.
 * Higher level monsters will be altered to make fighting them less intense e.g. changing attacks that instantly kill the player to ones that deal a large amount of damage. NPCs will use less complex mechanics but will have higher Attack, Defence, and life points.

Menaphos Slayer Dungeon
A new Slayer dungeon will be added in June 2017, this will be located in Menaphos.

120 Slayer
With the release of the Menaphos Slayer dungeon the Slayer skill cap will be increased to level 120. Players' virtual Slayer levels will be converted directly into actual levels. New content will be added such as the player being able to become their own Slayer Master and create their own Slayer assignments. 120 Slayer will become a Completionist cape requirement, but players will be given until the release of the second in-game area expansion in September 2017 to obtain the requirement.

Mining and Smithing rework
A rework of Mining and Smithing was planned for September 2016, however the rework was postponed to 2017 due to player feedback on the initially presented concepts. On 4 August 2016 Mod Jack made a post on the RuneScape Official Forums and on Reddit to begin discussions about re-evaluating what players wanted to see in the Mining and Smithing rework. From this they hope to reuse acceptable elements of the pre-existing plans for the rework as well as create new designs or take suggestions to fully meet with requirements for the rework.

During the Future of RuneScape Skilling talk at RuneFest 2016 Jagex revealed some of the considerations for planning the new Mining and Smithing rework. There were:


 * Coal no longer being needed as a secondary material for high level Smithing, but instead being a universal catalyst - speeding up the speed of smithing rather than being required to smith.
 * The crystal pickaxe maintaining its status as being better than other pickaxes due to the difficulty involved in getting it. It may be required to create higher level pickaxes.
 * Crystallise not offering the best Mining training method, but still being worthwhile to obtain.

It is currently intended that the content added by the rework will be available to free-to-play players.

The rework will still lower the tiers of existing equipment and add in new equipment at higher levels. Smithing will continue to cost money to train, but a cheap or free very slow training method may be added. Players will be able to smith gear up to tier 80, which will have slightly poorer stats than the equivalent tier gear obtained from monster drops. This gear will reuse the previously shown models and concepts. So as not to devalue drops obtained from combat, smithing of tier 90 gear will require both dropped gear as well as a smithing element. The will also be a reason to get level 99 Smithing with the addition of an untradeable, consumable item, similar to overloads. Additionally Jagex are considering adding mastery as optional post-99 content. This would be a way to invest time to learn how to create gear more efficiently, e.g. faster or using less materials, which would be valuable through less players being able to create it.

The basics of Mining will remain the same; with players using pickaxes to mine ore from rocks. Mining experience rates will remain the same or be slightly increased. Mining will remain afk but a bonus for paying attention may be added, as with bird's nests for Woodcutting and chronicle fragments for Divination. Competition when mining rocks will be eliminated. The mining animation and sound effect will be updated to make them correspond to ore being obtained. It is intended that profitability from skilling will be increased and that players will want to keep the ores that they obtain from mining. Mining should be the best method of ores: to achieve this monsters' drops may be replaced with coins or protean-like items. The effect of levelling will be altered to give benefits in mining a tier of ore e.g. levelling from 1-10 could increase the frequency of obtaining tin and copper while mining these rocks. It has also been suggested that the mechanics of rocks may be adjusted so that rocks have a health-like mechanic which players deplete over time (progress). Experience would be awarded for each hit of the rock, with a greater amount of experience being gained when ore is successfully obtained after a certain amount of progress is made.

The following information about Jagex's plans for the rework were revealed during two livestreams before they made the decision to push back the rework:

Initial plans
On 6 May 2016, the first of a series of Mining/Smithing rework polls was released, to gauge player interest and what the community wanted from a rework. From this survey Jagex found that players wanted Mining to remain a mainly AFK skill; for the Mining level cap not to be increased to 120; and for Mining and Smithing to involve keeping and using ores rather than drop training. The main aims of the rework are to bring the Mining and Smithing levels required to use ores in line with the Defence levels required to use the weapons and armours created from them; to add a reward space for future content; and to make Mining more exciting and less competitive. In a livestream on 14 June 2016 Jagex revealed their plans for the rework. It is proposed that the Mining and Smithing levels required for existing ores will be reduced and that new ores will be added in their place at higher levels:

Proposed new ores:

As part of the rework all ore and smithable items will be removed from monsters' drop tables. Attention will be paid to monsters that will lose the most wealth from the removal of adamant and rune drops: their drops will be replaced with materials that help with Mining and Smithing where necessary. Jagex will also be replacing these items in clue scroll, crystal key, crystal triskelion, and boss monster drop tables. The new necrite, invictum and aetherium ores, bars and equipment will not be obtainable as drops.

There will also be changes to some existing training methods. Due to decreases in the tier of mithril, adamant, and runite, Smithing experience gains in Artisans Workshop and Lava Flow Mine will be reduced. Blast Furnace's resource return rate will be rebalanced to take into account changes in coal requirements. Seren stones will remain mostly the same, but smelting corrupted ore may give a lower experience rate. Mining familiars will no longer giving a Mining level boost, but will instead increase the amount of damage done to rocks. There will not be new divine rocks, but the existing ones may be altered.

A rework of the Mining and Smithing skills was first mentioned at RuneFest 2013 by Mod Jack. The project was pursued again after it being voted the most wanted update by long-term players currently on a break and third most popular by current players.

Mining
The mechanics of Mining will be reworked so that rocks have a "capacity" mechanic, similar to life points. When a player mines a rock they will have a chance to either hit or critically hit the rock. A successful hit will deal damage to the rock and award the player Mining experience. A critical hit will deal greater damage to the rock's capacity and award ore and bonus Mining experience. Reducing a rock to zero capacity will reward the player with a bulk amount of Mining experience and at least one ore, if they have passed a sufficient threshold of damage dealt. It is intended that capacity will be per player, though technical investigation of this possibility is still underway.

Rocks will also have a "hardness" value indicating how difficult it is to mine them, with higher level rocks having increased hardness. The speed mechanic of pickaxes will be removed; instead higher tier pickaxes will deal increased damage to rocks' capacity. Pickaxes will have a "penetration" value indicating how easily they can overcome a rock's hardness. Mining a rock with a higher hardness than a pickaxe's penetration value will make critical hits less likely, so the player will receive less ore and have a lower experience rate.

There will be new pickaxes for each of the new types of ore. Additionally there will be a consumable pickaxe giving a greatly increased rate of mining. It will be possible to smith this at level 99 Smithing; it is intended for training post-99 Mining. Crystal pickaxes will be removed and players who own them will be refunded 4,000 harmonic dust and a dragon pickaxe. A dragon pickaxe will instead be required to make the aetherium pickaxe. It will be possible to use harmonic dust to buff the new pickaxes to provide extra of the new Smithing secondaries.

Another potential addition shown in the first Mining and Smithing rework livestream was mining shafts. These are not currently being developed and will not be released with the initial rework. In this content players would explore mine shafts to search for ores. The mine shafts would be procedurally generated limited instances allowing several players to explore a mine shaft simultaneously, though the mine shaft would not appear the same to all of them. Delving deeper into the mines would grant the player higher level ores but also increase the risk involved. Exploring mine shafts could result in non-safe death to the player. The following mining shaft levels were suggested:


 * Basic levels (1-3) - up to adamantite ore available, little danger but little to explore.
 * Early levels (4-6) - increased chance of rare ores, bonus hit chance to gathering ore and small risk.
 * Level 7-9 - increased hit chance to gathering ore; reduced chance to spawn common ores and increased hit chance to gathering ore; greater sense of exploration (no paths already opened) and moderate risk from monsters, environmental danger and tunnel collapse.
 * Level 10+ - superior hit chance to gathering ore and best chance to discover rare ores, greater sense of exploration and high risk from dangers.

In the initial livestream Jagex also suggested that they could add more types of pickaxe. Examples given were two handed pickaxes, with a poor rate of ore but superior experience per hour, and dual wield pickaxes, with a superior rate of ore but poorer experience per hour. However, these are not going to be included in the initial rework; and different plans for new tiers of pickaxes were revealed in the second rework livestream.

Smithing
Smelting will be altered so that more ores are required to make bars. Coal will only be required for lower tier bars; new secondary ingredients will be required for the new bars. It is intended that this will cause Smithing to introduce fewer items into the economy while maintaining the same experience rates. The experience curve for Smithing is intended to make it so that it is always more beneficial to smith the best tier items available to the player. The new bar recipes will be:

As more ores will be required for smelting, players will be able to create storage crates to carry ores. Storage crates will be automatically filled when mining and the ores contained within them will be used directly when smelting and smithing. It will be possible to empty a storage crate into the backpack or bank. There will be a crate for each tier of new ore (orichalcum, necrite, invictum, and aetherium) which will be made from the ore from the tier below.

Smithing will be updated to include masterwork Smithing, which will involve using hard-to-make ingredients to create items with higher levels and stats, as well as the existing standard Smithing. Bars created from standard smithing may be spent on obtaining and completing work orders. These will give the best Smithing experience but no items. Players will unlock new kinds of work order with a maximum of 4 bars being required to complete the tasks. The player will be able to become a master of smithing both particular types of item and particular tiers of item by smithing a number of items of a type/tier, which will unlock benefits when smithing the items.

Masterwork Smithing will involve using untradeable tertiary ingredients, obtained only from Mining, or bars to make standard items. These items can then be broken down to make folded bars which can be smithed into masterwork items. These will include the new 70+ Smithing armours. The proposed new necrite, invictum and aetherium armour sets will include full helmets, platebodys, platelegs, shields, scimitars, gloves and boots. These items will be tank armour but will have lower stats than those obtained from PvM at the equivalent tier and take longer to get, to maintain viability of monster drops. Aetherium armour will also have a life point boost. It will also be possible to smith new pickaxes for each of the tiers. The masterwork combat equipment will be tradeable and augmentable.

By using smithed masterwork items as well items smithed from orichalcum and dragon equipment on the the dragon forge it will be possible to make honed masterwork items which will have additional stat bonuses.

Stats of the new masterwork and honed masterwork armour:

Shattered Worlds
Shattered Worlds is a competitive minigame involving combat that is planned for release in the first half of 2017.

Boss kill times hiscores
Players' boss kill times will be reset and a new system of kill time hiscores will be added in 2017.

New boss
A new boss currently called The Ambassador will be released in 2017. This was originally announced as a solo only boss at RuneFest 2016, however following player feedback Jagex have decided to lift this restriction. They are now considering a fight involving 1-5 players.

Sliske's Endgame
Sliske's Endgame will be the finale of the Sliske quest series, it is planned for release on 19 December 2016.

2016 Christmas event and Winter Weekends

 * The Christmas Advent Calendar will return on 1 December 2016.
 * There will also be Winter Weekends, starting from 2 December 2016.
 * The main part of the 2016 Christmas event will be released on 5 December.
 * The festive aura will return.

Bank bidders
Bank bidders is a two week event where players will be able to bet on and win the contents of a banned account's bank. It is planned for release in February 2017.

Crondis quest
To coincide with the release of Menaphos in June 2017, a quest involving Crondis will be released. In this quest the player will find out why Crondis has turned against her followers, taking their food and drink and delighting in their misery.

Elder Gods quest
A quest involving the Elder Gods is an update intended for release in 2017.

Evil Dave quest
A quest involving Evil Dave is planned for release in 2017.

In-game area expansions
Three game world expansions are planned for June, September and December 2017. Each expansion will introduce a new in-game area with a depth of content similar to that of Prifddinas.

Menaphos
The city of Menaphos will be released in June 2017.

Achievements
A unified Achievements system is an update planned for the first half of 2017. This will bring together existing systems such as the Quest List, current Achievements, and path system.

It may also incorporate new achievements in areas such as combat, skilling, quests, minigames, distraction and diversions, exploring the world, gear and collections to give a total achievement score comparable on hiscores and visible on examines. There may be new rewards for completing subsections of achievements.

Bank rework
The ninja team will be starting work on an update for banks after they complete the development of Deathmatch and the Bounty Hunter rework, some time around the middle of September. This will include a system to allow placeholders and improved search/filtering functionality. The bank update is aimed for release around the summer of 2017, and will be preceded by beta testing.

Weather system
A dynamic weather system which affects players' gameplay will be added in 2017.

Clue scroll rework
A rework for clue scrolls is planned for 2017. This is intended to make completing clue scrolls more rewarding and may allow the player to work on more than one clue of the same difficulty at the same time. Improved rewards may include new god birds, third-age armour, unique clue scroll gear, and footprint trails left as the player moves around the world.

Jagex are also looking into adding a new tier of clue called champion clue, which would include skilling clues. Champion clues could also have hiscores and competitive clues involving players racing to be the first to claim a single prize from completing a clue.

Pets
In 2017, skilling pets will be added for combat skills (including Attack, Constitution, Defence, Magic, Summoning, Strength, Ranged and Prayer). There may additionally be pets for clue scroll and minigame completion.

There will also be the pet park, a place to store pets and potentially unlock hidden rewards for collecting different groups of pets. Players may also be able to customise their pet park and command their pets to work for them, similar to in Managing Miscellania.

Permanent ban appeal system
Reinstatement of a system to allow permanently banned players to appeal their bans is planned for early 2017. This system will be available to pay-to-play players.

Live chat
Introduction of the ability to have live text-based conversations about limited customer support related issues with Jagex Moderators in the customer support team is planned, following successful trial of the feature.

New game guide
The Jagex-run RuneScape Wiki will be removed from the website and will be replaced with a smaller game guide section.

Other planned fixes and updates

 * The "buy bonds" button of the currency pouch will be made less obtrusive and the currency pouch itself will be streamlined.
 * Kharshai's dialogue in Children of Mah will be corrected to identify Lucien rather than Enakhra and post-quest dialogue will be added for Seren.
 * Mod Shauny is working on a project to allow players to choose skyboxes of different times of day, as well as adding filters for lighting.
 * Mod Curse is adding information about tactics to the tabs of Telos and the generals from Heart of Gielinor to the Beasts tab.
 * The number of players required to form a group for Barrows: Rise of the Six will be reduced. It will be possible to solo.
 * Training dummies will have minimum and maximum hit modes added.
 * Mod Ramen is converting item pets into interface pets in his personal project time.
 * Mod Doctor is developing some improvements for player-owned houses in his personal project time. These include:
 * Adding a toggle for the "There's no place like home" loading screen which is displayed when entering a house. It was initially planned to remove the loading screen, however this idea was altered due to player feedback.
 * Adding an option to replace door hotspots with walls to increase customisation of room layout.
 * Customisation of furniture hotspot's positions and rotation within a room. Players will still be restricted to placing types of furniture within the corresponding room.
 * Ability to move rooms without losing their contents.
 * Mod Orion is working on making cosmetic overrides for god books during his personal project time. Players will be able to use different recolours if they have created the corresponding god books. Additional colours will be available if the player has all other recolours unlocked.
 * Mod Dolan is working on graphically updating blurite weapons.