Guardians of the Rift Changes Out Now!

Runecrafters; the Rift is calling: Guardians of the Rift changes are LIVE NOW! Plus, Mobile UI and Official Client fixes, Curse of Arrav tweaks and Wilderness QoL!

Today we’re causing a commotion under the ocean with these highly-anticipated Guardians of the Rift changes! If you played October’s Open Beta, none of these will be especially surprising – but if you didn’t, keep reading to see what’s new!

First off, here are the changes we made based on your feedback from the Beta:

• Improved the 'bad RNG mitigation' mechanics for the first two rounds of altar spawns. Players pointed out that re-rolling Air into Water was effectively useless since you'd be guaranteed at least a Medium-tier Altar in the second round. Now, you'll be prevented from receiving back-to-back Weak-tier altar rolls in the first two rounds, meaning you'll be guaranteed at least two Medium-tier altars at the start of the game.
• Rearranged the order of interactions on the Uncharged Cell table. The default option is now 'Take-10'. You can right-click to use the 'Take-1' option, and the 'Take-5' option has been sent back to the Abyss from whence it came.
• There's now a window after a round ends where you'll be able to use your cells to 'create' a Guardian. Nothing will actually happen, but you’ll still earn XP.
• Most Talismans obtained from the Loot Guardian will be obtained as notes to cut down on Inventory clutter.

If something isn't mentioned above, then it'll be exactly as it was in the Open Beta. For the rest of you, here's what's changing this week!

Prior to this week, most games of Guardians of the Rift began with everyone stood outside the entry barrier frantically clicking in the hope that they’ll get in before the lobby fills up. If that sounds rubbish, it’s because it is, which is why we’re getting rid of it.

As of today, rounds of this minigame will be scaled according to the number of players involved. If it’s scaled to 100 players or more, you’ll be able to enter and leave freely. Every time a player decides they’ve had enough of these antics and leaves, the Great Guardian will helpfully rebalance itself, so gameplay should feel totally seamless.

This should 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.

Additionally, for every player beyond the 20th, there’ll be a 20% scaling penalty on the charge required for the Great Guardian. Effectively, this means that 21 players or more scales things up by a very small margin, to account for the likelihood that players in bigger teams aren’t pulling their weight. We see you AFKing by the entrance, and we’re very disappointed in you.

Once you’ve made it in, you can build some basic Barriers or Guardians using uncharged cells while the game starts up. This won’t provide any Runecraft XP, but should reduce the chance of your game becoming doomed from the outset – especially if you’re on a small team.

As the Rift opens up, you’ll notice that we’ve adjusted the weighting of different Altars to ensure that you’re guaranteed an option that will give you at least a Medium cell in the first two cycles. Again, this change simply gives you a fighting chance. You’re welcome!

During the game, you’ll be able to use your cells to recharge Barriers even at full HP, which will net you a maximum of 2,500 Runecraft XP and 450 Energy per game. This should result in higher XP per hour, except in extremely long games. The cap should prevent unscrupulous Runecrafters from simply running cells all game instead of properly contributing, but we’ll be keeping an eye out to make sure we’ve got the balance right.

If everyone in your game took that last bit to heart and let a Barrier be destroyed, you’ll be able to repair it using 12 Guardian Fragments instead of 10 Guardian Essence, since time is of the – well, you know.

You can now ‘Big-Search’ the Rewards Guardian to obtain five sets of rewards at once. You can also pay the Rewards Guardian 25 Abyssal Pearls to let you have another cheeky dip in the prize pool. This should work out to an extra roll roughly every 14 searches, which should be a nice boost for players chasing specific rewards.

Abyssal Pearls will roll between 14 and 16, up from 10 and 20. This should reduce variance a bit if you’ve had a few unlucky rolls in a row and make progress feel steadier.

But what if you haven’t gone dry? What if you’ve been spooned an Abyssal Needle, but you’re ages away from being able to use it? Never fear – this last change is for you.

The Colossal Pouch now scales up with you, cutting down on clicking on the long road to Level 85 Runecraft and serving as a valuable boost as you continue on to 99. We’re scaling the quantity of Essence the Colossal Pouch can store, depending on the other Pouches 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)

We get to these numbers by taking the amount of Essence the Pouches can store and subtracting the number of Inventory spaces they take up. For example, a Small, Medium and Large Pouch would use three Inventory slots, resulting in 15 extra Essence.

The Colossal Pouch will degrade after 320 Essence has been stored, so it may feel like it degrades faster as you hit new Pouch thresholds.

That’s all we have for you on this front – so get yourself down to the Rift!

Last week marked our biggest-ever Mobile update, including the launch of the new Mobile UI and loads of new features for both Mobile and the Official Client. You can learn all about it in the dedicated newspost.

As with any big release, there are a few bugs on our radar. You can see the list of known issues at the top of last week's newspost, or in the Mobile Known Issues channel on our Discord server, which is being updated regularly.

Here are the ones we've fixed with this game update:

• The Bank Pin interface is no longer overlapped by the left-hand side panel.
• After depositing Paydirt into the hopper in Motherlode Mine, the Sack's counter now correctly updates to display how many ores you've deposited.

There’s also an issue where the Minimenu Reordering button disappears if Tap-to-Drop, Tile Highlights, or NPC Tags are enabled. We’re still working behind the scenes to fix this permanently, but in the meantime, disabling all three features will make Minimenu Reordering work correctly.

Huge thanks to everyone who’s sent in their feedback so far. Keep it coming!

Last week also brought the Curse of Arrav back to Old School RuneScape! It seems you’ve really enjoyed immersing yourselves in the next chapter of the Mahjarrat storyline.

This week brings a range of fixes:

• Arrav's Ranged defence stats are now calculated and displayed correctly.
• It is no longer possible to walk into a wall at the Uzer Mastaba.
• The Messenger who delivers Elias' message will now be able to find players while they are in Bank areas.
• If a player is venomed when defeating Arrav, their venom will now be cured when they begin the cutscene.

Last week we shared a newspost full of all the updates we plan to release before the end of the year. You’ll be pleased to hear that some of them are here already!

• You can now use Blighted Items in the Ferox Enclave and Mage Bank.
• You can now delete a Loot Key if it's worth more than 30,000 GP. This limit has been increased to 1,000,000 GP.
• Loot from Larran’s Chests and the Muddy Chest will now go straight into your Looting Bag, if it’s open.
• Fixed an unusual interaction across single- and multi-combat borders:
• Assume Player A and Player B are in multi-combat and Player C is in single-combat. If Player A and Player B are fighting in multi-combat, then Player C can happily attack Player A from the single-combat zone. If Player A tries to attack Player C, they'll be able to, but will receive a message reading "I'm already under attack", meaning Player A will have to repeatedly click Player C to attack them. We've now removed the "I'm already under attack message" and allowed Player A to hit Player C without interruption, rather than needing to spam-click.
• In the Bounty Hunter Worlds where the PJ timer is shorter, we've removed the 'anti-boxing' mechanic that allows players to PJ you after hitting multiple 0s in combat against an NPC.

Aside from the above QoL changes, here are two other tweaks:

• Escape Crystal is now disabled in the Permanent Deadman World (World 345).
• Fixed a bug where two of the map links from Scorpia's dungeon weren't working.

Now’s your chance to get your hands on a copy of Issue #0 of RuneScape: Untold Tales of the God Wars, 100% per gratis. You can download yours direct from the Official Merch Store.

This special issue builds on the 2023 Free Comic Book Day issue, with an extended story packed with more fun, more adventure, and more lore.

Delve into the iconic God Wars Dungeon and discover the untold stories of a conflict that reshaped the realm of Gielinor: Four armies meet at the Temple of Lost Ancients, bound together in conflict to decide who shall wield the Godsword - the only weapon capable of killing a deity. But amidst the chaos, an unexpected hero is about to emerge...

The pages of Issue #0 are also included in Issue #1, a 48-page bumper edition that kicks off the story proper. If you can’t wait to know what happens next, you’ll be pleased to hear that Issue #2 hits shelves on December 4th.

You can order the physical issues from our Merch Store, or check out Titan Comics’ handy blog for all available issues, covers, and ordering details.

• Thanks to all the ghosts and ghoulies who helped Marika out in this year’s Halloween Event! With October over, we’re packing up the decorations for another year and removing the event from the game.

The PvP rota has moved to Period A:

• 539 - (US) - PvP World
• 318 - (UK) - Bounty Hunter World
• 548 - (Germany) - High-Risk PvP World
• 577 - (US) - Free-to-Play PvP World
• 559 - (UK) - LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.

World 569 (AUS) for Bounty Hunter has been activated with this rota.

The PvP Arena is using 'Zerker' loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.

Creator Crafted is back with even more RuneScape-inspired designs! This time, check out the Zulrah mouse pad, featuring artwork by Amentos.

Illuminate your gaming cave with these Rigour or Augury Prayer LED signs. We expect these to get glowing reviews.

You can get 10% off your order using the code ‘ZULRAH’ at checkout. If you're interested in any of the designs above or want to see what else is on offer, click here to take a look!

Creator Crafted LED signs and mousepads are produced in collaboration with members of the OSRS art community, under license from Jagex.

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, Ori, 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.