Last Man Standing
09/02/2019
On May 13th we put out a development blog regarding the state of PvP in Old School. Within this blog there was a section about the revamping of Last Man Standing.
After numerous betas, line-of-sight-changes, and a rewards poll, today's game update brings you the launch of the revamped Last Man Standing.
Here are some words from Mod Roq, the person who helped make the Last Man Standing Revival become a reality:
"It doesn't feel like it’s been as long as it has but taking on the project of Last Man Standing back in mid-April has been the best experience in my 3+ years at Jagex. It feels a little surreal that I've gone from being the QA on the original release of LMS, migrated over to doing development on it, and eventually become the lead designer, vision holder, and project manager of it. I've not had to manage a project like this before. I was thrown in at the deep end. Project managers must act as the focal point for everyone to go to when they have questions, get people together for discussions, organise the work that needs doing so people can do it, and keep everything running smoothly. Whilst doing this I also had to maintain my role as a QA analyst on the week to week releases. Thankfully the systems within the Old School team allow me to juggle both things and keep everything running smoothly.
After taking what I expected to be a small project in the middle of April, I thought it would be a simple gear change and away it goes but that was not the case. On top of the equipment changes the following had to be changed as well:
- Potions had to be created - ones that work off the boosted stats instead of base stats like potions normally do. This meant creating the boosts on the LMS potions to essentially be flat boosts rather than % based. This one had a lot of back and forth going through making sure it worked with all the new systems. Mod Maz did a good job to get it working.
- LMS has never had a timer which ticks up stats each minute, because this also had to work off boosted stats rather than base. Maz had to create a whole new stat restore system, which was by no means a small feat.
- Beta systems had to be modified to handle the new minigame and only have it on those worlds.
- Modifications to the entry system and the various game modes were needed.
- Line-of-sight was not adequate for the PvP focus of the minigame.
- An all new system to allow players to plan and predetermine their inventory and gear loadouts was required, which Mod Ash has done an amazing job with.
Would I change the experience in any way? Definitely not. I’m happy and proud of how far the project has come, and it’s not over. Last Man Standing can expand and become bigger, whether that’s new maps, new game modes, competitive events - who knows? I hope that people enjoy the content and am thankful for everyone that’s participated in the beta tests and given feedback and reward ideas, as well as all the people that have supported me either via social media or by bringing the project into the game. This isn’t the end for me, it’s only the beginning."
~Mod Roq Starting Equipment and Loadouts
Players now have the ability to customize their loadouts before starting a game. This can be done via the supply chest outside the lobby. It will highlight items in red if the loadout contains an illegal quantity of an item such as having more than 2 karambwans. Looting System
Players will no longer receive loot from locations such as drawers and cupboards - only chests. These chests will now require a bloody key to be opened, which are still dropped when you kill an opponent. When looting a chest this way, your loot rolls once on an offensive loot table and once on a defensive loot table: If a player is in the final five survivors, they'll start to receive bloodier keys as a drop. These roll on the same defensive loot table as the standard bloody keys, but also roll on an upgraded version of the Offensive loot table which contains the following: Loot crates will still appear on the map as before, but now roll on the upgraded offensive loot table. Point System
Players can now accrue points while participating in competitive Last Man Standing games. These points can be used in the Rewards Shop by speaking to Justine to unlock certain rewards as outlined in the rewards section. This will be the point system for Last Man Standing: There will be bonus points available based on the number of kills in a single game. The bonus points do not stack with each-other. At the end of the round the player will be awarded the points based on their finishing position and any additional bonus points they are eligible for. Rewards
This consumable scroll, when taken to Perdu, will offer to enchant one of the items he would normally repair for a fee. This enchantment will enable the player to take that item above 20 wilderness and not have it destroyed on death. Should the player die within that section of the wilderness, the item will lose the enchantment. This will occur even if the death is a PvM death. If the player is PKed while using these items. 75% of the fee will be dropped to the floor for the PKer as coins. Instead of being destroyed on death, the items will lose their "locked" (l) status. Each scroll would enchant one item and the enchantment would last until the player dies with the item. The person who kills a player that holds an item with this protection will receive 75% of the GP cost dropped as part of the kill. This is to widen the items used in the whole of the wilderness and bring more variety whilst increasing the amount that players are risking. Because players will no longer have to go get these items again with an annoying grind (defender, void etc), you're more likely to see them appear. The cost of each trouver parchment is 50 points. This weapon will attack every 3 cycles and be one handed. It has no stats, similar to the Ham Joint. This will cost 350 points. Players will be able to purchase the Guthixian icon and hand it in to Juna, who will infuse it into a Staff of the Dead, creating the Staff of Balance. The Staff of Balance will carry the same stats as both the Staff of Light and Staff of the Dead, whilst also being allowed to cast/autocast Claws of Guthix. The cost of the icon is 500 points. Originally the armour that came from Deadman mode, this armour has no stats. It consists of the chest, legs, and cape. Each piece will cost 160 points. The Reward Shop now offers 5 new halos: Armadyl, Bandos, Seren, Ancient, and Brassica. These have the same stats as the existing halos. Players can now store these halos in the POH costume room. This will also apply to existing Castle Wars halos with an updated ability to add the decorative ranged and magic armour sets to the armour case. The cost of each halo is 450 points. LMS will have tiered capes that players can claim from the Last Man Standing Reward Shop. These capes will change based on the number of competitive wins that player has accrued inside the minigame and can be stored in the POH costume room. The tiers are:
New Rewards for Polling
On August 16th we put out a poll for Last Man Standing Rewards. While players accepted some of the rewards we offered, we'd like the minigame to have more, and we've seen plenty of appetite for that from the community too, with plenty of suggestions submitted for what else we could offer. So we've opened up the minigame again for real, rather than just as a beta, so that you can earn the existing rewards and save up points for more, while we run another poll for additional rewards. Since the Warding skill did not pass, we thought LMS may be a good place to put some of the highly voted on armour and item suggestions. We have also taken on new rewards suggested by the community. We will poll the below rewards from September 9th to September 13th. Any changes to these poll questions and rewards will be reflected in a changelog that can be viewed at the top of this blog.
New Rewards to be Polled
Combat ring imbues exist in-game as rewards from the Nightmare Zone minigame. We would like to offer the ability to purchase ring imbue scrolls from the LMS Reward Shop that allow you to imbue combat rings as an alternative to the Nightmare Zone minigame. By doing this, you will not be able to trade in your imbued items back to the Nightmare Zone Reward Shop for NMZ points. Note: We will not be removing the ability to imbue rings from NMZ. Currently players who want to access Callisto, Venenatis, and the multi-way combat area that surrounds them must either teleport to Annakarl, come from the Corporal Beast cave or run all the way through the Wilderness from the lumberyard. This tradeable teleport tablet will be purchasable from the LMS Reward shop and teleport you to a single-way combat zone between the bears and spiders in level 33 Wilderness. The teleport location is represented by the green circle on the above picture. Players may use the Magic cape to change to any spell book that they already have unlocked, but it is limited to five uses per day. We would like to offer the ability to purchase a tradeable token from the LMS Reward shop, that when taken to Wizard Sinina in the Wizards' Guild will increase the spell book switches limit from 5 to 10. This will also work for players with a max cape. We would like to offer a tradeable attachment to the occult necklace. This attachment will halve the magic bonus but double the magic accuracy of the regular occult necklace. When PKed the attachment will be lost on death. This item will allow players to have increased casting accuracy whilst also having some magic damage bonus from the necklace slot. For a while now, members of the community have been asking for ways to produce magic weapons with special attacks. The Dragonfire staff was one of the suggestions utilising a special attack. Players will be able to purchase bottled dragon breath from the LMS Reward Shop and use it on a Staff of the Dead to engulf the staff in flames and create the Dragonfire staff. This process is not reversible. The Dragonfire staff will have the same stats and requirements as the Staff of the Dead but it will include a special attack that fires a magical fire ball at your opponent hitting similar to a ballista spec. This special attack will cost 65% per use. Inventory space is generally considered a problem for players who like to PK on the normal spell book either as their main magic offensive or as a support/utility caster. One suggestion coming from the community is Runic Orbs. Runic Orbs will store three specific types of runes in quantities of up to 1000. Each of the orbs correspond to a commonly used PvP spell. The tradeable runic orbs will require 100 casts of spells to be added into them in order to activate it making it usable. All runes used in each orb are immediately lost on PvP death. The orbs will be the following: We would like to offer a tradeable ethereum scroll that when applied to the bracelet of ethereum with 1000 revenant ethers and any of the Culinaromancer gloves will create an Unworldly bracelet. This bracelet will have distinct colours to represent the different Culinaromancer gloves the player has attached to it and will have the stats of the gloves used combined with the effects of the bracelet of ethereum. When PKed the PKer will receive the bracelet of ethereum, ether and the GP value of the Culinaromancer gloves. This tradeable scroll will have a one-time use to unskull the player. It has a cooldown of 10 minutes and can only be used outside the Wilderness. We would like to offer a tradeable attachment to upgrade the amulet of avarice. This upgrade will allow the player to use the protect item prayer without draining prayer when worn. This upgrade will be tradeable and when attached to the amulet will be lost on PK death. The amulet will still keep the player skulled when worn. Players can currently get clue scrolls from PvMing, skilling, or buying implings. We would like to allow players to use LMS points as an alternative method for obtaining any tiered clue scroll. Each clue scroll tier will be assigned different points based on the tier and hourly rate it takes to obtain them in LMS. We would like to offer a tradeable Elder maul attachment purchasable from the LMS Reward Shop. When attached to the Elder Maul, it will add +3 Strength bonus and +10 Crush Attack bonus to the weapon. Originally offered in the Warding blog, we would like to bring the Thammaron's set back with two changes: removing the boots and no longer making it degradable. This tradeable set will offer one unique effect when all pieces are worn together. The set effect "Thammaron’s Fury" applies an additional 50% Magic accuracy and 12.5% Magic damage boost when attacking any NPCs in the Wilderness. This set will require 60 Magic to equip and will stack with the Thammaron's sceptre. We would like to offer the ability to purchase the ability to taunt from the LMS Reward Shop. With this purchase, players will be able to set one of the standard emotes that every player starts off with as a taunt which will play immediately upon killing a player. This animation will not override anything the player is doing and can be interrupted as all other animations can be. It can be turned off and on by Krystilia in Edgeville.We would like to take this time to thank everyone who brought forward ideas for LMS Rewards. There were over 100 reward suggestions, so many in fact that we ended up putting some in the backlog because the team loved it but thought it might be more useful for other content in the future. We pride ourselves on being community driven and having players come together to help design new rewards for the LMS Reward Shop is something we could not just ignore.
In Other News
- It's been a few weeks now since Song of the Elves launched, so the standard login screen has returned.
- Captain Barnaby's right-click options now let you choose a destination directly, rather than opening another menu first. His dialogue also specifies prices more accurately up front before you make your choice.
- The inactivity timer in the Grotesque Guardians' room has been adjusted to give you a couple more minutes before it hoofs you out.
- The Lumbridge banker's in-game model now has the same hairstyle as her chathead.
- The permanent Deadman world now gives fake XP drops in instanced areas like the seasonal worlds used to do.
- Some grammar has been corrected on a house furniture creation menu.
- The algorithm that calculates line-of-sight to be symmetrical has now been applied to PvP only, as tested by the community on the beta worlds over the last weeks. This means that if a player has line-of-sight to range/mage their target, their target will also have line-of-sight to return fire. This does not apply to PvM.
If you run into any bugs, please ensure the bug occurs on the official client and then submit a bug report by right clicking or long pressing the in-game report button at the bottom of the chat box and selecting "Report game bug". You can find out more information about how to submit a bug report here.
