This server has undoubtedly one of the best coders a private server could ever have. But what can someone in Thomy's position do when most of the ideas he worked on (even his own) are garbage.
Emps-World went into the wrong direction for quite a long time now. More and more RS3 stuff is getting into the game while the player count is shrinking. I know many players try to help with their suggestions, but let's be serious. Most of these ideas aren't helpful. Why? Because too many players act for their personal benefits ingame (e.g. construction and all the useless cosmetic items you can donate for).
It is impossible for me to list all changes that need to be done because I did not play this game for quite a long time. I also know that many players won't agree with this suggestion either because of what they have achieved so far. But this is my attempt at "fixing" this server.
1. Complete Reset: Accounts and Items
This is the biggest step that needs to be done. In order to fix all the issues at once, a full reset is the only solution.
2. Rework Drops:
I do not know the corrunt drop rates and amounts of dropped items at the moment, but the drop rates as well as drop tables were horrible when
I left. Dragon claws used to be the strongest special attack weapon at some time with a drop rate of 2% I think. Just to make this clear. You were able to kill 20+ wildy wyrms with one inventory of food/potions and there were multiple locations of the same NPC as well.
Same goes for GWD and many other items.
-> "Very strong items" (strong items and Emps-World? IKR) need to be rare AF (0,5-1% drop rate depending on the difficulty).
3. XP Changes:
The XP rates of some skills need to be changed. Herblore, farming and prayer needs to be harder to max for sure while some other skills are debatable.
4. One Mini-Game:
Pest Control and "Emps-Wars" should get removed and Soul Wars needs to get added instead (ignore the rewards for now)
5. Removal of "useless" items:Emps-World has way too many useless items which were added for no reason e.g. mjolnirs dropped by t95 slayer monsters and much more. Most items obtained by donating need to get removed as well (Do not worry Thomy. You will get your money, but not with this crap). Giving a full list now is not needed since it is unclear whether a full reset will happen or not.[/s]
6. Shop Reworks:
The biggest issue I see are the amounts of runes you can buy from store. As an ironman, getting 99 magic was the easiest skill to achieve.
Since there will be only one mini-game there will be also one reward shop and no, there will be no option to buy XP (I wonder if you still can buy 99 prayer with 10k PC points).
Soul Wars will have mainly rechargable strong and very usefull items. Void armour (gloves getting removed) will be the best armour in the game, but it getting it will take a long time (1% chance to get a random void piece you do not own for winning the mini-game and 0,5% for losing it). The other items are unclear yet.
Slayer shop also needs a huge rework (no, the latest update is not what I meant).
7. Rework of JAD:
The only way to obtain fire cape will be killing jad. However it will be the way it used to be in Emps-Scape.
8. Removal of unhealthy items:
- PvP armours
- GWD gloves and boots
9. Special Weapons:
Dragon claws, Obsidian claws and korasi's are some of the items I remember that were complete trash. There is no point in adding items that meant to be bad in the first place. The way of obtaining them as well as their strength needs a rework. Of course there are many more items like this, which I will not list now.
10. Grand Exchange:
I am not quite sure about it yet, but removing GE is something I thought about some weeks after it got released.
11. Advertising
All of the changes mentioned above won't be that useful if nobody knows about them. The hype we had when ironman mode was introduced needs to be replicated with a full reset as well. Adding a timer to FB, wiki and all other medias/forums where Emps is represented could help alot. The timer depends on amount of time our coder has to work on the changes. 1 month should be time enough assuming Emps is getting changed every day.
This list seems quite harsh already and as I mentioned in the beginning, it is not the full list yet. But I do not see any other way to fix the issues this server has, especially not with the direction this server went for such a long time.
This is the kind of feedback I kinda expected.
7. Rework of JAD:
The only way to obtain fire cape will be killing jad. However it will be the way it used to be in Emps-Scape.
Not necessary and will completely flop if you don't remove all existing fire capes from the game. Ironmen would generally stay away from getting a fire cape because they're at a severe disadvantage due to them not being able to buy gear. Fight caves could be made somewhat more difficult by adding the healers, I wouldn't mind that but I don't think it's necessary either.
Just to make this clear all the changes I suggested are a package. You cannot take one single change and expect that everything is getting fixed. Therefore I will ignore comments like this for the moment.
Let's get back to the topic where most of the worries are coming from.
I will explain all the changes I suggested and add a
priority number from 1-5 (5 being the highest) to make clear how important these changes are.
1. Server Reset (5)Nothing is gonna change without a full reset. I see some players are open minded about that while many other players are not. I also agree that a full reset was needed when Emps-World was launched. The ironman mode showed how balanced the server was when you started from scratch without being able to trade. The problem was that all the normal players had the stats to farm all the items with the overpowered drop rates in the first couple months (this was the time when Thomy left the server for 3 months I think while drop rates were increased 1-2 weeks before).
I am surprised that JP is willing to give up all the things he has achieved for the sake of the server. Quite nice that I am not the only one who cares more about the server than the personal achievements ingame and this is why he has my biggest respect (JP = Emps-World). For those who do not know me, JP and I competed for the ironman rank #1 while my main account was probably the richest player ingame when I quit Emps-World. I also doubt that anyone has more unique accounts than I do.
2. Rework Drops (4)As I mentioned before, I do not know the exact drop rates and amounts but as far as I know most ironmen used to make money from jelly tasks because of their low slayer requirement vs the valuable drops (alchables). I am sure I will find many flaws up till now when I take a look at the drop tables. Drops should be adjusted according to the difficulty or made very rare instead.
3. XP Changes (3)Reducing the XP for all the combat stats was a very good move by Thomy. But it does not affect most of the players anymore. Why did I suggest making herblore harder? Because you get tons of seeds from thieving and PvM while farming is one of the easiest skills. You can easily collect white berries or eye of newts and power train herblore to 99 if you go for XP. What I am trying to say is that many ingredients are obtained way too easy/fast for this xp rates. Either change the xp rates or change the way + amount of the ingredients you get.
4. One Mini-Game (2)This one has a low priority. Why? Because not many people will focus on mini-games when Emps-World gets a reset. Having one mini-game with 250 players max in ucoz times was more than enough. Back then the rewards were also more appealing. The mini-game I am suggesting does not have to be Soul Wars, but Pest Control is a mini-game we do not need for sure and never needed. I guess Emps-Wars can be made even more interesting than the classical version, but the rewards need to be different as well.
5. Removal of useless items (1)At first we would need to discuss which items are useless and which are not. I think we all can agree that mjolnirs are one of these. There are many more items like this and most of them were added by Mary, a creature that is problably the most iconic player when it comes to having a personal benefit of updating the server.
Since this list has a low priority, it does not have to be changed immediately. I know that many players like fashion-scape. I guess moving all these items to a single shop with a decent price (-> money sink in exchange for cosmetics LUL) could solve the problem.
6. Shop Reworks (4)As I mentioned before, some items and the amount you can obtain from shops are way too overpowered. Runes are the best example. Combine the low requirements for jellies vs their alchables, add them to rune costs + the amount of runes you can buy at once and there you got 99 magic by spending 20m only. Runes should be mainly obtained by doing runecrafting only making magic a valuable and effective time consuming skill. I do not know how often magic is used nowadays, but back then it was the best way to do any PvM activities.
This would mean that the skill runecrafting would also need a rework to make it more enjoyable and profitable.
The other shops that need a rework are all mini game shops, slayer, donation store and general store.
7. Rework of JAD (1)This is also a mini game that has low priority. Why? Because it takes quite a while to get the fire cape when you start from scratch. The very first version of obtaining a fire cape was a mini game that made people come together. Competing with other players over an item or a win is way more fun/interesting than the Pest Control type of mini-games.
The shop would need a full rework as well.
8. Removal of unhealthy items (4)This one has a high priority. Items such as bandos helm, and all the other boots and gloves pieces were never needed. GWD drops way too many valuable items. I still believe that the only person benefiting from this update was Mary.
PvP armors were also very unhealthy for the server. I admit that it was also my fault that these items got into the game the way they did. They dominated the server for quite a long time and led to alot frustration across the server even though a much stronger version of them was planned before they got released.
9. Special weapons (4)This is something that Thomy has his own problem with. He never liked the idea of having strong items. You can see that the first releases of specific items were complete garbage e.g. korasi's, abyssal cannon, obsidian claws and the nerfed versions of the melee pvp items. He was so focused on his formula based on level requirements that he made every item look like trash that got into the game for the first time.
There should be weapons like korasi's and claws that are only good for one thing - their special attack. But having an excuse like "look how easy you can get it" is what made him stop making these items strong back then. These items should have never been obtained that easily in the first place.
Emps-World needs more items that benefit players in certain situations e.g. vs slayer tasks (good job on that), weaknesses, health and defense based special attacks and much more.
10. Grand exchange (1)This is an idea that barely made it to the list and that I am not quite sure about it yet. The only reason I suggest to remove it is to force players to interact more with each other. But I guess the grand exchange has way too many positive benefits to offer.
11. Advertising (5)For those who did not understand my idea behind that. We should advertise that Emps-World is having a full reset e.g. on FB while linking the page to forums for more information. It would have a similar effect like the Deadman Tournament on OSRS where everyone is hyped for the whole week. It is proven that streamers get way more viewers during this time or any other huge update (e.g. release of raids and inferno on osrs).
While other people see the timer when Emps-World is getting a reset (e.g. 1 month), Thomy has this time to work on the things that need to be changed to not replicate a launch from 2014. All of the changes made during this 1 month would be made public to hype the "Comeback" even more. I know that this will be stressful for Thomy, but it is not getting any better the way it is now either...
12. Auras (4)They should have never entered the game.
