It's been a minute since we've taken a look at the third and final installment of our Varlamore, The Twilight Emissaries arch, but now it's time for one of our upcoming activities to come into focus. Let's chat about the Fletching activity!
We'll be chatting more in-depth about this activity, along with the other offerings coming with Varlamore: The Final Dawn in the new year, but for now we'd love to hear your opinions on what we've cooked up for the Fletching activity.
The Activity
So, first things first, when we introduced you to The Final Dawn and pitched this new activity, we put out some slightly conflicting information. In the original blog we mentioned that the activity will "have you recycling your old Bows into new Ranged equipment to be delivered across the kingdom, and beyond", while in the Summer Summit video we talked of ancient Ents and offerings left to appease them. After some back and forth, and fleshing out the activity a little more, we've opted to explore the Ents who praise the lands of Varlamore and encourage you to connect to nature. You'll still be able to recycle old unstrung bows, shields and crossbow stocks to improve your XP gain while getting stuck into something we feel is a little more thematic.
In this new activity, you'll be whittling totems for the Ents to leave offerings beside. This is currently aimed at players with 50+ Fletching.
Here's a quick rundown of what we have in mind for the gameplay loop:
Pick between multiple locations to start your totem-making.
Scout the area and take note of which critters are the most common around your chosen spot. For a top tier and most rewarding totem, you'll need to represent the three most common animals - this will change from time to time, so you can't always rely on the same combination.
Gather lumber. The higher tier the wood, the longer your totem will stand, allowing you to keep the site active for more Ent visits without maintenance. This in turn allows you to maintain more sites simultaneously, leading to greater XP per hour!
Once you have your log, whittle it into a blank pole, choose which animals to represent, and carve the pole into the chosen totem.
After carving your totems, you can either fletch unstrung bows, crossbow stocks and shields, or use ones you've previously made, and add them to the totems as decoration - this will increase the amount of XP gained from the offerings. There'll even be some conveniently placed banks along the route to pick up any pre-made items!
Ents will pass by your totem, paying their respects to the spirits and leaving behind offerings. However, there's no need to wait around, you'll be able to make further totems in other locations to really maximise your gains, just make sure to check your previous totems regularly, as they won't last forever! But don't worry, your offering will last until picked up, phew!
Collect your offerings at any time, and gain XP and a chance to be rewarded with unique items, all based on your totem score!
There'll also be a little downtime while running between your totem sites, perfect time to do some Fletching on the go, or even other activities like Alching, Glassblowing or Herblore, giving you options to tackle multiple goals at once! Win, win, win.
That's the basic loop, we'd love to know what you think in our survey linked at the end!
OK, we know what you're all wondering - what about the rewards? Let's take a look!
Rewards
We've workshopped a range of potential rewards for this new Fletching activity, but they're not locked in yet! We'd really like your feedback on these suggestions to get an idea for what you'd like to see from an activity like this. Plus, if you have any ideas yourself, you can head to our forum thread in Discord, or to the 2007scape subreddit and share your best ideas. We'll be taking a look through and using it to guide our final decision and designs!
Until then, here are the ideas we're considering ourselves. All names are a placeholder for now and may change throughout the process, as may some of the descriptions following your feedback. You'll see a blog in the new year where we'll be polling our final pitches.
Bow String Spool
With this handy Fletching tool, you'd be able to load this spool up with bowstrings to make for a 1-slot stack of strings that can be used directly when stringing bows. We're thinking it could hold up to 270 strings, and making a bowstring would automatically add it to the spool. This effectively lets you string 27 bows at a time, increasing your AFK time and reducing bank time - perfect for those players who like to kick back and bankstand in true Old School fashion. This would be an untradable, rare item.
Fletching Knife
You can sharpen and sharpen the same knife, but sometimes it just makes sense to invest in a new one, and after 23 years of using the same knife you can purchase in Lumbridge general store, we felt it was about time to see a little improvement here. What's a more fitting way to get your mits on a new knife than a Fletching activity? We think the thematic here is strong, but we're not too sure on a direction when it comes to its features. Here's what we're considering:
20% chance to reduce Fletching action speed when using the knife by one tick, meaning you'd on average fletch one in every five bows in 2-ticks, or one in every five sets of arrow shafts in a single tick. Note this only covers activities that use the knife, so actions like attaching feathers to arrow shafts won't count.
We'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this, or if you have an alternative idea in mind, let us know!
Primitive Whittling Blade Plans
You'd be able to take this Uncommon item to a Forestry Shop to unlock the ability to purchase Whittling Blades for GP from the Forestry Shop. When woodcutting, Whittling Blades would have a chance to fletch chopped logs into arrow shafts automatically, incurring a slight cycle delay, and consuming 1 blade. This would give Fletching XP as normal and would work from your inventory or Forestry Kit. Both the Plans and the Blades themselves would be untradeable.
Ent Branch
We're thinking that this would be an uncommon, tradeable drop that could be used for a range of different items:
Enhanced Hunter Traps
This would give you the ability to craft enhanced versions of:
Bird Snares
Net Trap Kit
Box Trap
Enhanced versions would have a 50% chance to reset itself if it fails to catch something. However, Enhanced Traps cannot be picked back up and collapse after 10 minutes. We're thinking this would give an option for training Hunter with less interaction needed, perfect for a more relaxed style of Hunter at the expense of some XP per hour vs using standard traps with perfect timing.
Access to an extra Slayer Area
You'd be able to use these branches in the upcoming Slayer Dungeon releasing with Varlamore: The Final Dawn to access a private instanced area, home to the highest tier versions of the new Slayer creatures with a 5-10% increased chance of Superior spawns. Our current thought is that these would be a consumable item that would allow a set number of trips into the area before the branch is destroyed. So basically, spend as long as you want inside but you might want to limit bank trips if you want to make your branches last!
Auburn Darts
Using an Ent Branch and a number of Maple, Yew or Magic Leaves, you can create the Auburn Dart. These darts can be used at the start of combat to debuff your target, with the potency scaled based on leaf type used. While we know we want this to be for PvM only, we haven't landed on the exact debuff idea, so we're open to suggestions! Here are a couple we have thought of:
Non-stacking attack & defence reduction against undead creatures.
Binding effect that roots the target (PvM only)
POH Carvings
You'd be able to combine a certain number of these branches with the Greenman Mask to carve a decorative piece for your PoH. Let us know where you'd most like a new decorative piece added - mounted on your wall? Or inspired by your totem sculpting and praising nature it could be free-standing in your Garden!
Auburn Seed
If traversing the Auburn Valley has given you some gardening inspo, this one's for you! This very rare drop would be used to build an Auburn Valley themed Garden. Once used, it would change to an untradeable version, allowing the Garden to be switched back and forth as much as you like, with the base item being tradeable.
Greenman Mask
A cosmetic head item with different styles that you can switch with the item transmog menu. You'd also be able to use this for crafting POH carvings and statues. This would be a rare cosmetic and component reward.
Your Feedback
We'd really like to know what you think of both the general activity concept and loop, as well as our reward concepts. Like we mentioned, the rewards aren't set in stone, and it's early enough for us to rework and rethink them based on your feedback, so make sure you have your say!
There's a short survey you can take here or by clicking the button below, which is the best way to give us a direct overview of your thoughts and feelings on the pitch.
If you have any of your own ideas for rewards or suggestions on our existing concepts, you can head to our forum thread in Discord, or to the 2007scape Subreddit to share your best ideas. We'll be taking a look through and using it to guide our final decision and designs!
That's it for now! Stay tuned for more updates on Varlamore: The Final Dawn in the new year!
