Hello everybody!

I've got quite a few and big changes ready today. I think this is the largest patch notes I've ever written! Please take your time and read through them. With this update I aim to improve PvM by a lot! Please let me know what you think about the changes.

World 2
Since there's hardly ever more than 5-10 people playing on world 2, I'll be closing it. If the need arises for another world or if our population becomes a lot larger again, I will re-open it. In the future world 2 will be an oldschool world. More details below in the topic!

Combat Rebalancing
I'm trying to balance the damage output of Melee, Range and Magic. I want to make sure that every combat style is able to do about the same damage output and won't be superior to any other. My aim is to let the combat situation decide which combat style is optimal. I've identified quite a few issues with the damage output and am trying to fix them with this update.

1) Magic
The overall performance of magic was just better than anything else. Every staff is a 1h weapon, spell-casting is with the speed of a whip/scimitar and ancient spells have overall really good additional perks (poison, reduce attack, lifesteal and freeze). On top of these spells, there's other staves that hit much harder and have their own spell (ivandis + zuriel). I'm fine with that situation, but we have to re-balance some of these spells in order to make every form of magic viable and not overperform compared to melee or range. I'm not changing any accuracy, attack speed or spell effects, but I'm reducing the overall max hit and base damage in order to balance things out with other combat styles:

• All: The amount of strength bonus each spell gives has been nerfed.
• Zuriel base damage: 35 --> 30 (equal to fire wave and ice barrage
• Ivandis base damage: 35 --> 30 (equal to fire wave and ice barrage)

Zuriel and Ivandis especially were able to hit 60+ with the right potion and new armour setup. That outperformed every other combat style and was simply said just overpowered. These staves also didn't require any runes, so they were just the best weapons you could get in almost every situation. I've continued my tests with lower level armour and found the same difference. Magic was just hitting higher overall than other combat styles and needed to be adjusted.

2) Range
I've identified a similar issue with Range, it was a lot weaker than Magic or Melee and needed to be a little bit stronger in order to compete with Magic and Melee. Following bonuses have been buffed:

• Arrow strength bonus: Increased by 12.5% (1-2 maxhits). No worries, most of your additional damage still comes from equipment.
• Bolt strength bonus: Increased by 5% (1 maxhit).

Bows were in general too weak and needed some adjustments in order to be as strong as whips or staves.

New Boss - Nex
Has it been a while since you've been beaten up in emps? Well, here's Nex! And she's absolutely ready to destroy teams attempting to kill her. It's a new and unique combat challenge with great rewards. I won't be explaining Nex's mechanics, because I want you to develop your own tactic to kill her. Some information about Nex:

• 6 Phases: Water, Smoke, Shadow, Blood, Ice and Zaros.
• Multi attacks: every group member is hit by her spells.
• Unique special attacks that are deadly if not dodged.
• Drops for every participant! (Up to a maximum of 4)
• New power armour: Torva (melee), Pernix (range) and Virtus (mage). The drop chance is 0.3% to get one random piece of the armour. This is PER participant, so up to a maximum of 1.2% for a group.
• Guaranteed elite clue scroll drop.

Boss Instancing
There's now the option to fight every GWD boss as instance. You can create an instance by right-clicking on the Big door before each boss room. The instance name is a unique identifier, which allows other players to join your instance. If you don't want any others to join, enter something random and keep it a secret for the duration of your fight. Each instance automatically deletes itself if no player is no longer in it.

Abyssal whip (bow and staff) Economy
The market has been overflown with abyssal whips. Their staff and bow equal variant will have the same destiny if these items cannot be consumed in some way. With this update I'm introducing abyssal dyes; special thanks to Junkz (https://emps-world.net/forum/index.php?topic=19916.0). These dyes can be used on an abyssal whip, bow or staff to change its color. With this change we're limiting the amount of abyssal weapons that are brought into the game and create a continuous demand for them to be consumed when coloring. It'll also create a market for dyes and make it easier for people to sell donator items. In my opinion this is a win-win situation and thus has been implemented. Colored abyssal items can still be found in mystery boxes!

NPC Configuration System
I've completely reworked the way monsters are configured. Most of their combat actions are now read from a single file and can be changed at any time. We could in theory modify a monster completely without even having to restart the game. With this system, I'm also introducing a bonus system for npcs. This system has always existed, but was invisible and based on the monster's level entirely. I've also updated monster bonuses the same way I've updated equipment bonuses with last patch. Reducing bonuses up to 70% if a weak combat style is used (see https://emps-world.net/forum/index.php?topic=19760.0). This is an overall nerf to the defence and accuracy system of monsters!

In case somebody's interested in it, here's the config of Commander Zilyana (don't worry, these configs were automatically generated, I didn't write down every single npc ):"6247": {
    "size": 2,
    "name": "commander zilyana",
    "health": 380,
    "combat": {
        "attackType": 0,
        "attackAnim": [
            6967,
            6964
        ],
        "combatClass": 1,
        "blockAnim": 6966,
        "aggression": 1,
        "deathAnim": 6965,
        "bonuses": [
            350,
            350,
            350,
            182,
            182,
            182
        ],
        "levels": [
            350,
            160,
            240,
            0,
            0
        ],
        "attackTimer": [
            14,
            6
        ]
    },
    "combatLevel": 596,
    "walkAnim": 6962,
    "standAnim": 6963
}She has level 350 attack, 160 defence, 240 strength, 0 range and 0 magic. She also has 350 melee, range and magic accuracy bonus, 182 melee, range and magic defence bonus. Since she is a boss, she has neutral defensive bonuses. Starlight has a weakness to magical attacks, because it's a melee npc.

Engine Updates:

• Texture filtering for intel chips has been improved. Mipmapping has been adjusted and textures are now smoother.
• Brightness of textures adjusted to give them a more natural look compared to other objects in the game.
• Updater improved. New players will now have less loading interruptions. The assumption here is a decent internet connection, else it's just going to take a while. A bug has been fixed that could crash the updater and leave people without the ability to download new files (invisible objects).
• Pick Mode option added: By default the internal pick mode is selected. This performs mouse hover actions on the CPU rather than on the GPU. It's proven to me that this yields better performance, because certain GPUs have really bad and slow implementations of reading specific pixel values. If you experience bugs with it,  you may disable it to get back the old mode. However, I recommend to keep it enabled for better performance! Everyone also has it enabled by default.

Drop table updates:
I've adjusted the droptables of certain monsters. Special thanks to Wg (https://emps-world.net/forum/index.php?topic=19900.0) and Charr (https://emps-world.net/forum/index.php?topic=19891.0) for the feedback topics!

• Skeletal wyvern
• Hellhound
• Gargoyle
• Bloodveld
• Chaos druid
• Chaos dwarf
• Jelly
• Troll
• Poison & Red spider
• Obsidian dragon
• Chaos elemental
• Kolodion
• King black dragon (onyx drop removed)
• Kalphite queen (onyx drop removed)
• Chronozon (onyx drop removed)

In-game changes:

• Guthans lifesteal bonus has been increased to 20% from 15%.
• Barrow set descriptions updated.
• Healing bug fixed.
• Saradomin katana lifesteal bonus buffed from 3% to 5%.
• Regen bracelet lifesteal bonus buffed from 2% to 4%.
• You no longer face south-west when super heating.
• Ring update scrolls no longer delete their entire stack when used.
• Degraded crystal shields are no longer tradeable.
• Gertrude is selling pets again.
• Colored ranger boots names fixed.
• All spears and halberds now correctly have an attack range of 2 tiles.
• Smelting jewellry will no longer bug other actions (teleporting to Ancient Caves).
• Clicking items now flushes the current action trigger. You could use certain items during dialogues to trigger other dialogues.
• Onyx tokkul value has been doubled.
• Regen bracelet can now be repaired with onyxes.
• Iban staff now auto-casts the Iban spell.
• New teletabs can be crafted in your house: Trollheim, Rimmington, Taverly, Pollnivneach, Rellekka, Karamja and Yanille.
• I've found the correct dart throwing animation and changed the current one.
• Small adjustments have been made to the dharok animations. The axe position sometimes was a little bit off.
• Emps-Wars boss HP fixes. I can't really verify what caused the bug, but I couldn't reproduce it on my local test world anymore. I've also reduced the amount of tickets you gain by killing the boss from 10 to 7. Compared to other ways of gaining tickets (killing players and capturing flags) it just wasn't worth it to even bother doing that.
• People can now talk at tutorial island.
• Saradomin sword can now be used to repair 10,000 charges of the Saradomin katana.
• Deaths in the GWD are now less punishing. Your items spawn outside the boss room, right at the place before you enter it. A bug with a height problem on death has also been fixed, which wouldn't let you pick up your lost items.
• Experience drops for 250m stats fixed.

Oldschool Emps-World
Some of you may have already seen this on the forum, but I'm now officially announcing the project. I'll be creating an oldschool version of Emps-World. This game will co-exist with Emps-World and your account name will be shared. However, no items and levels can be transferred between the 2 realms. You will start from 0 in oldschool Emps-World! You will be able to talk to friends and join clan chats though. I cannot talk too much about this project yet, because a lot of things are yet unknown or yet to be decided! I've set myself following milestones in the next months (weeks, days?):

• Load oldschool data and create an updater for it
• Map current game to oldschool: I aim to get an alpha up as soon as possible, where you can walk around and enjoy the oldschool feeling. This version will contain bugs and will be reset once it's fully released. I just want to know how people react to it before spending months on finishing the full project.
• Discuss combat system: This counts for Emps-World and oldschool Emps-World. Imho the current weakness changes have done their bits to improve the situation, but we can also copy osrs' system completely with all bonuses and worry about their balancing issues instead of ours.
• Oldschool items: Serpentine helm, toxic blowpipe, tentacle whip, abyssal dagger, abyssal bludgeon, etc.
• Oldschool monsters: Zulrah, Abyssal sire, Kraken, Cerberus, etc.
• Zeah: I would have the maps
• Get a million players.

All the best,
Thomy



Fixes of 25th:

• Nex improvements. No longer bugs when not killing her minions.
• Torva, Pernix and Virtus now have level requirements are are in the level tables.
• Your HP / Prayer is no longer randomly restored / reset.
• Void knight has received his defence level back.
• Certain objects that were unclickable can be clicked again (Slayer dungeon, GWD)
• Slayer tasks for bosses no longer give 10+ to kill.
• You can no longer only hit 0 on level 1 Magic, Range or Strength.
• Rod of ivandis can now be repaired again.

Thanks for all the bug reports!

Good job,

New power armour: Torva (melee), Pernix (range) and Virtus (mage). The drop chance is 0.3% to get one random piece of the armour. This is PER participant, so up to a maximum of 1.2% for a group.

Some might hate this kind of items ing, I've heard some people arguing how this kind of items can turn the game into a miss, however as a person who never played RS, I don't mind em its a good chance on trying it. ( is it tradable ? )

Removing World 2

- Thank you, this will actually limit entrance of a lot of items to the game, which is something we really needed.

Combat Rebalancing

- We actually wanted something similar to this, since magic was way 2op, however I have a question, does reducing overall ' magic spells ' damage affect both zuriel and Ivandis damage ? so like it has been a double nerf for em.

Btw, I still believe that D darts should have a buff, your last few nerfs to this item has killed it completely, some might be saying that it shouldn't be that good at all, however taking a look at how rare it is ( only obtainable from barrows ) and the price of 1 dart  ( x5 - x10 Zammy / sara / dragon arrows ) it should do a bit more damage ( or at least a bit more accuracy since I remember one updated reduced it by 35% ).

Saradomin sword can now be used to repair 10,000 charges of the Saradomin katana.

- this is actually a good thing to have, however after trying the katana for some time, I still believe its accuracy is a bit low )

Lol rip emps PvMing along with the magic nerfs, u shall be missed.

Lol rip emps PvMing along with the magic nerfs, u shall be missed.

You can still easily PvM with magic. However it's no longer stronger than anything else.

I have a question regarding OSES.

Does it mean OSES has the access to all OSRS and Emps-World items, dungeons, bosses, etc. or is OSES limited to the things that only OSRS has?

Oldschool items: Serpentine helm, toxic blowpipe, tentacle whip, abyssal dagger, abyssal bludgeon, etc.
Oldschool monsters: Zulrah, Abyssal sire, Kraken, Cerberus, etc.

Plz no

I have a question regarding OSES.

Does it mean OSES has the access to all OSRS and Emps-World items, dungeons, bosses, etc. or is OSES limited to the things that only OSRS has?

Yes and no. All the details will be decided at a future date. As for now, the aim is to get a working oldschool copy of Emps-World. That will include the current starting area and items. Certain items aren't available in oldschool and will be disabled. That includes PvP armours, GWD, elemental stuff and more. The project isn't far enough to really sit down and talk about the details yet.

Oldschool items: Serpentine helm, toxic blowpipe, tentacle whip, abyssal dagger, abyssal bludgeon, etc.
Oldschool monsters: Zulrah, Abyssal sire, Kraken, Cerberus, etc.

Plz no

It's something that people look for in oldschool and there is a possibility that they find their way into the game. I won't stop developing content. However, I also won't do something the majority of the community is against.

Can we expect the release of old school emps within this year?

Quote from: Someone12116 on August 24, 2017, 08:07:29 am

Lol rip emps PvMing along with the magic nerfs, u shall be missed.

You can still easily PvM with magic. However it's no longer stronger than anything else.

Yeah so in nutshell it's endless streak of hitting 0 like everything else lol.

thomy iam now really happy because you will do an oldschool emps world that will be perfect
i promise you that oldschool emps world will join in it 1000+ players! (and you will be rich  )
we will see soon

Can we expect the release of old school emps within this year?

I cannot promise it, but I think that an alpha/beta will definitely be ready this year.

Yeah so in nutshell it's endless streak of hitting 0 like everything else lol.

Nope. Accuracy hasn't been touched. This change was only about the maximum hit.

great job!

• Oldschool items: Serpentine helm, toxic blowpipe, tentacle whip, abyssal dagger, abyssal bludgeon, etc.
• Oldschool monsters: Zulrah, Abyssal sire, Kraken, Cerberus, etc.
• Zeah: I would have the maps
• Get a million players.

All the best,
Thomy
[/quote]

Please do not make this, keep it easy.
Old emps back, but please dont make this items ingame, many many players won't like it.

God damn Thomy you been busy love the nex update and the news about oses got me hyped like crazy

I'm a bit dissapointed in nex boss because it's hard to find a group to kill her with and people who tried killing her on W3 with maxed gears end up dying as they said. But overall great update, thanks.

e// Tried out the nex with ~6 maxed gear guys, 1 of us died but overall it was great experience.

e'2// After 10+ trips with experienced 4 man team we can kill nex with no problems.