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The original was posted on /r/2007scape by /u/LordJRazE on 2025-05-26 02:09:33+00:00.
Hello. I am posting my feedback on reddit because this is the platform the jmods read. I want to say that I think, minus the bugs, this is my favourite PVM update in a very long time (CONTROVERSIAL CONTROVERSIAL CONTROVERSIAL), and I want to explain why in this post. I will only focus on the contract fights themselves (apart from pet which I haven't done yet) and the existence of contracts as tradable items, because as an 'endgame' player I have zero GP issues.
Here are my creds:
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Radiant oathplate
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COMPLETED the worm contract (duo) (could even say worm first)
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some other stuff in the game
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haven't tried the pet one yet
First of all: the bugs are really really bad. In my opinion Jagex's biggest mistake with this update was releasing it on a Friday so they couldn't patch any. They should have just delayed it to next Wednesday, people would have been (comparatively) less mad. How did the update get shipped like this? (there's probably various reasons behind the scenes that make it a more reasonable situation, which only Jagex are privy to, and so me backseating them is not useful or helpful). I'm trying to evaluate the content as if there were no bugs, because that's how it will hopefully be next week onwards, otherwise this whole feedback should just me saying 'too many bugs' 500 times in a row.
Also, some of the oathplate contracts aren't very interesting. E.g., the stamina one and the prayer gear one. I think this is kinda whatever, since they're so easy you can just quickly get them out of the way and move on to the main brickwall contract. But it's a bit disappointing that they don't have any interesting mechanics.
OK: the most difficult oathplate contract is 'bloodied blows'. You have to camp very low HP and you will die if the boss makes a mistake, and I've seen a lot of people complain about this. I want to also say that (I think) a lot of the frustration for this contract comes from the fact that it is BUGGED and you can SPLASH ON THE ORBS which is clearly unintentional. However, I think the rest of the contract is fine. There are some other fights in the game where you can make one mistake and die, perhaps you've heard of Awakened Vardorvis and Awakened Leviathan? In Vard, axes can hit 90s and in Levi, if you lose focus for a second on enrage phase you can get stacked 40 40. Despite that, these are really great bosses. So why does bloodied blows, which similarly kills you if you make a single mistake, have such a negative reputation? (it's bugged as mentioned).
The only change I'd make for the oathplate (and other solo-scaled) contracts is reduce the HP of the boss a lot. It feels like the contracts were designed to be duo, and then last minute changed to solo only. In regular Yama, the boss has high HP to sort of 'punish' you for doing it solo (in my opinion). For the contracts that are solo only I don't see the need. Or at the very least, if you want to keep the difficult of P3, just reduce the duration of P1 and P2 only because they are kind of boring. The general changes to contract fights (2 autos in between specials) feel like they are supposed to make the fight more fast-paced, and they do in duo but not in solo cause the fight is just so long.
Ok moving on from radiant contracts, I can say definitively that the 'worms acquisition' contract is my favourite PVM encounter in the game by a long shot (NOT A JOKE). I know that it's a bit of a meme because the reward for this difficult challenge is 250 worms but putting that side it's a really great fight. It's also probably bugged right now, because the orbs in P3 spawn with full HP and you only hit the boss twice before the next set spawns. But it's still my favourite encounter in the game because it's very challenging, with NO rng, and it punishes you for just chugging food blindly. Think about HMT P3, where you can bring in 20 brews, and chug them all the way to the finish line with no consequences. In worms P3, you have a very tight DPS check against the 2 orbs you need to kill (takes a minimum of 16 ticks, and you have 20 or so before they explode) and then a very short window to hit the boss. If you get smoked and have to eat food, you do literally zero damage because you have to spend your only DPS window restoring HP. This is not a bad thing because the only reason you take damage is skill issue. You get heavily punished for playing badly, but you don't die. Also, the movement in P3 is just fantastic. Dodging the waves + flames at the same time while hitting the orbs and flicking prayers is such a great feeling. Again, there is no RNG and every bit of damage you take other than a very small amount of chip is preventable. When you pull it off perfectly you feel like a champion.
Now, that being said, maybe the worm + catalyst contract should be a bit easier to match the reward (also all the 'duoable acquisition contracts' are bugged right now, and not completable solo). The oathplate + horn contract should remain unchanged: it's supposed to be very difficult and it is. But maybe in solo reduce the HP of P1 and P2 because they aren't interesting phases. If they do decrease the difficulty though, maybe add a 'contract of practice' so people can practice the hard encoutners without shelling out a lot of GP (which the function these worm/catalyst contracts currently serve).
My hope with this update is that Jagex does not have a terrible knee-jerk reaction and make changes that ridiculously trivialise fights that are supposed to be very hard. This is an end-game boss, and contracts are an additional difficulty system. Patch the bugs, don't gut the fights completely. It's perfectly fine for incredibly difficult (non-bugged) encounters to not be cleared day 1, this is the standard in MMOs generally and OSRS is the exception because all the new content is easy relative to the community skill level (hot take). Also, if you are a billybob iron and think that you should be able to trivially complete the oathplate contract that you got randomly, I think your opinion is irrelevant and contracts shouldn't be balanced around you (hot take). Also they will get easier because of bug fixes and when guides get made. In my opinion the difficulty is significantly overstated for something that only took a day to complete. Go do a real raid like Brelshaza deathless hellmode which takes 250 hours to complete and then we can talk.
Also I hope that the takeaway from this update is not that incredibly difficult PVM encounters are a bad thing. Unfortunately I think that this is the most likely outcome because the direction of this game is entirely dictated by redditors who haven't played the content (hot take).
In closing some other minor suggestions:
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Keep autocast on purging staff when you die. It's pissing me off.
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Remove mark of darkness for the same reason.
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Remove 'not weak to demonbane' from all contracts. This restriction just translates to 'the most interesting attack style is not allowed' and doesn't make the fight harder.
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Remove ironman gamemode.
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Give Goblin a raise for (presumably) having to wake up at 1AM, brave the dark streets of Caimbridge, put the fires out in the server room, and then trek back home probably fighting 2 or 3 wild bears along the way.
