Update:Open Beta: Guardians of the Rift Changes (2024)

This official news post is copied verbatim from the Old School RuneScape website. It is copyrighted by Jagex.
It was added on 3 October 2024.

Contents

  • 1 Guardians of the Rift Changes
    • 1.1 Gameplay Changes
    • 1.2 Rewards Changes
  • 2 How to Use Beta Worlds

Before we kick things off, we'd like to say that we'll be hosting a Discord Stage today starting at 16:00 BST to go over these changes and jump into some games to test things out with all of you, so feel free to attend and drop in if possible!

Earlier this year we outlined a number of changes to Guardians of the Rift as part of Poll 82. This post is here to get you up to speed on what they are and tell you everything you need to know to get involved in a beta test for them!

One of the main reasons for us running this beta is to let you all get hands-on with our changes to how games scale in large groups, so we'd love to see as many of you as possible have a go for at least a game or two, tell your friends, your family, your pets - everybody's welcome!

We'll walk you through in a similar fashion to our recent Wintertodt Changes Beta rundown, going through each of the changes in the order you're likely to encounter them from the start of a round to stocking up on everybody's favourite: loot.

Guardians of the Rift Changes

Gameplay Changes

Let's kick off with everybody's favourite phase: standing outside the entry barrier hoping that you can click it before the lobby fills up, managing to click the barrier and then accidentally clicking back through and having to wait for next game. If that sounds awful, it's because it is, which is why we're getting rid of it!

This is where our new scaling mechanics come into play. If a game is initially scaled to 100 players or more, then you'll be able to enter and leave freely. Every time a player enters or leaves, the Great Guardian will re-calculate its current charge and how much is required to complete the round, so it should feel totally seamless and correctly balances at all times.

This aims to cut down on frustration on themed Guardians of the Rift worlds, where you'll frequently see 100+ players inside the game and a sea of people outside waiting for a chance to get in.

If a game starts and is not scaled to 100 players or more, then the game will be locked. This is so that people enjoying the minigame in small teams or perhaps as a clan event aren't interrupted by other players coming in and messing with their scaling.

We don't think this should be an issue, since it's a very safe bet that the themed worlds will always be above the cap, or should have more than enough room if you're trying to play outside of peak hours.

Additionally, for every player beyond the 20th who joins, the amount of charge needed to fully charge the Great Guardian will have a 20% scaling penalty. Effectively what this means is players 21 and beyond scale things up by a smaller margin, in order to account for the likelihood that some of the players in larger scales just aren't pulling their weight - we see you over there, getting the minimum number of points needed and AFKing by the entrance, and we're very disappointed in you...

So you've made it into the minigame, what's next?

If you like, you can build the lowest tier of Barriers or Guardians using Uncharged cells while the game is starting up, without missing out on valuable mining time. This won't provide any Runecraft XP, but should reduce the number of games that fail from the outset, which is particularly useful for smaller teams where there's always a chance for a rough start.

From there, it's business as usual until the round starts: there are no changes to mining Guardian Fragments before Rifts start opening up.

As the Rift opens up, the eagle-eyed among you (particularly those with experience in smaller teams) might notice a change that reduces the variance on the first wave. If the first Catalytic Altar is a Mind or Body Altar (providing Weak Cells), then the first Elemental Altar can not be an Air Altar, and will be rolled into a Water Altar instead.

This means that you will always be guaranteed a choice which provides at least a Medium Cell from the first round. This change is intended to further reduce the chances that your run fails before you've gotten into the swing of things, since you'll be able to get stronger Barriers and Guardians up and running ASAP.

Once the first set of Altars is accessible, you'll be able to craft your runes and charge your cells as normal. We've made another adjustment which will allow you to use your cells to recharge Barriers even if they're at full HP, so that you don't feel as though you need to wait for the Barrier to take some damage and pray that you're quicker to react than other people trying to maximise their XP gains.

You'll definitely want to make use of that change too, since you'll be able to receive up to 2,500 Runecraft XP and 450 Energy (spread across both Catalytic and Elemental) per game for using your cells on Barriers or Guardians.

This cap is here to prevent people from just running Cells endlessly without actually crafting any runes, but should generally result in higher XP/hr than the current iteration outside of extreme cases in really long games. This is something we're keeping a close eye on, since we really want to make sure that people are still crafting their Essence into runes and not changing up the flow of the game too much.

If a Barrier is destroyed, you'll be able to repair it using 12 Guardian Fragments instead of 10 Guardian Essence, since it's often the case that the time taken to craft the Essence results in a buildup of Abyss creatures that's insurmountable. Plus, it feels bad to be using Essence you've crafted to repair a Barrier and not get much out of it, but feels less bad to be using up Fragments which are much quicker to re-obtain!

That's everything you need to know about the changes to the minigame itself, everything beyond what we've mentioned is business as usual - craft runes, get Elemental/Catalytic Essence, charge the Great Guardian, subdue the Abyssal invaders, win!

The changes don't end there though! Let's see what's changing about cashing in those hard-earned points...

Rewards Changes

Let's not waste any time, here's what's changing about loot!

Up first, we've added a 'Big-Search' option for you to obtain five sets of rewards at once. It's always fun stacking up an absolute boatload of Catalytic/Elemental points and getting to cash them all in at once, but if you're looking to save some time and get back to earning Points more quickly, then we're sure this will be a welcome addition!

If you've already gotten a bunch of GOTR under your belt then you've likely secured your Raiments of the Eye and are perhaps chasing one or two specific rewards. For a cost of 25 Abyssal Pearls, you'll be able to receive an extra roll on the Rewards Guardian! This should work out to an extra roll roughly every 14 searches, which should be an extra boost for players chasing specific items from Guardians of the Rift, especially if you're starting to go a little too dry on something.

What if you're not dry? What if you've been absolutely spooned an Abyssal Needle and it feels like you're ages away from being able to use it? If that sounds like you, we've saved the best for last!

We're adjusting the Colossal Pouch so that it scales up with you and cuts down on clicking if you're still working your way up to level 85 Runecraft, but remains an impactful boost at 85 and beyond. To make this happen, we're scaling the quantity of Essence that the Colossal Pouch can store, depending on the other pouches that you can already use. Here's how much extra Essence you'll be able to carry:

Current Pouches:

  • Level 1 - 2 extra essence (Small Pouch)
  • Level 25 - 7 extra essence (Medium Pouch)
  • Level 50 - 15 extra essence (Large Pouch)
  • Level 75 - 26 extra essence (Giant Pouch)
  • Level 85 - 39 extra essence (Colossal Pouch)

Updated Colossal Pouch:

  • Level 1 - 2 extra essence (Small Pouch)
  • Level 25 - 7 extra essence (Medium Pouch)
  • Level 25 - 7 extra essence (Colossal Pouch) - (Capacity of 8)
  • Level 50 - 15 extra essence (Large Pouch)
  • Level 50 - 15 extra essence (Colossal Pouch) - (Capacity of 16)
  • Level 75 - 26 extra essence (Giant Pouch)
  • Level 75 - 26 extra essence (Colossal Pouch) - (Capacity of 27)
  • Level 85 - 39 extra essence (Colossal Pouch) - (Capacity of 40)

This number comes from taking the number of Essence the pouches can store, then subtracting the number of Inventory spaces the pouches take up. For example, a Small, Medium and Large pouch can store 18 total Essence but take up 3 Inventory slots, resulting in 15 extra Essence.

That's all we've got for you to get your hands on, so make sure to jump on to the Beta Worlds and let us know what you think!

If you've not used a Beta World before, the next section of this post provides a detailed breakdown on how to get started. Note that if you read our recenty blogpost concerning the Wintertodt Open Beta, then you'll have read this section already, so feel free to carry on with your day!

How to Use Beta Worlds

Note: For the purposes of this beta, you should find Raiments of the Eye, an Abyssal Lantern, a full set of Runecraft pouches, Binding Necklaces and some Varrock armour added to the 'All Gear' interface for you to test things out!

Additionally, if you manage to run out of Hitpoints during this beta, somehow, you might see your Hardcore status revoked. Keep in mind that this will only impact the Beta worlds and should not be reflected in the live game at all. Now, let's get you situated!

The Open Beta for all these changes is open right now! This section will clue you in to all things Beta Worlds and provide some guidance as to what’s worth trying out in one.

Log in to Beta Worlds 585, 586, 587, 588 or 589, and you’ll find yourself on Tutorial Island. Be sure to skip the Tutorial so you can start testing – or use a more familiar profile to see how these changes impact the gear setups or Firemaking level you're already accustomed to.

To import your main game save to a Beta World, open the Settings menu while logged in to the main game and search for 'Beta', then tick the 'Convert save to Beta Worlds' button. From there, you can hop to any Beta World and should find yourself logging in at the same location, with the stats, gear and progress of whichever save you copied over! Please note, we recommend making sure you have some space in your Inventory before converting your save.

Note: We'd heavily recommend converting your save before trying out today's beta to account for changes to the game's engine between now and our last Open Beta.

Once logged in, assuming you had space in your Inventory, you should notice a charming little egg brightening up your UI. Left-clicking on this egg, or 'Boss helper tool' to use its government name, brings up a Debug menu with a number of options. Remember that you can use a Minigame Teleport to get yourself to GOTR in a pinch!

'Teleports' brings up a list of - you won't believe it - teleport locations for most of the bosses in Old School. 'All Gear' brings up the Tournament Supplies interface (shown below) which you can use to grab any gear you fancy, including the Pyromancer Outfit. 'Gear Loadouts' provides you with some rudimentary setups if you're not sure where to start building out from. 'Swap Spellbook' does exactly what it says on the tin. 'Set Stats' lets you set the level of any skill, which will be handy for you to experiment at a variety of Firemaking levels. 'Unlock Everything' can be used to tick off all the Quests or Achievement Diaries you might need, in case you can't interact with a piece of content you’d like to test.

That’s all we have to share today! Do give the Beta Worlds a go and let us know if anything doesn't feel quite right, tell your friends about the changes and under no circumstances should you throw anything in to the rift 'just to see what happens'!

You can also discuss this update on the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam forums, or the community-led OSRS Discord in the #gameupdate channel. For more info on the above content, check out the official Old School Wiki.

Mods Abe, Abyss, Arcane, Archie, Argo, Ash, Ayiza, BigRig, Blossom, Boko, Bruno, Chilly, Criminal, Crystal, Curse, Daizong, Dylan, Ed, Elena, Enigma, Entropi, Errol, Gecko, Gengis, Gizmo, Goblin, Grub, Halo, Harold, Hend, Hooti, Hornet, Husky, Jalo, Jerv, Keyser, Kieren, Kirby, Kurotou, Leebleh, Lenny, Light, Liron, Lykos, Mack, Manked, Markos, Maylea, Moogle, Morty, Necro, Nin, Nox, Nylu, Other, Philomel, Pumpkin, Redfield, Regent, Rice, Roq, Ry, Saiyan, Sarnie, Shogun, Shroom, Sigma, Skylark, Smithy, Sova, Squid, Starry, Suharun, Surma, Sween, Tide, Titus, TJ, Tsourorf, Tyran, Veda, Vegard, West, Wolfy & Yume

The Old School Team.

Update:Open Beta: Guardians of the Rift Changes (2024)

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