Has RuneScape become a little too easy?

I was doing some big net fishing and picked up a pearl. I then proceeded to craft the pearl, thinking I would only get a message about me not having the right tools, but it proceeded regardless. I took a look and found that over 30 basic utilities are available at my disposal without even having to go to a bank.

And a few days before, I opened my money pouch and checked to see if anything would be lost by dying. It turns out, not one coin can be lost by dying if it is in your money pouch.

And the new improvements to Home Teleport, I can switch between my spellbooks and get anywhere in RuneScape and there is no waiting time between teleports either.

All this begs the question, has RuneScape become too easy? I've played for years and find that having pretty much everything like this is a little TOO convenient.

Yeah. I remember my favorite part of runescape was the hard work at the beginning...the exploring without knowing what you'd run into. Nowadays there're 70 warnings and everything is thrown at you.

A game shouldn't be made difficult by inconvenience - that just makes it dull, it should be made difficult by high level content and plenty of that has been introduced recently

It wasn't inconvenience...it was fun, mystery, exploration. And back then the expansions to my travel system seemed perfectly timed. I never felt like I didn't have enough resources...I just felt challenged...and that's why I fell in love with the game. The change from selling by screaming in banks and forums...that was good. The GE was a good move. That was a move to convenience...

The GE was a move in the right direction, a proper means of player controlled marketing.

Also, because you don't need to go on the forums to buy obscure lists of items any more.

---

I don't know. I'm somewhat agreeing with Dark and agreeing with Slayer. Some things were just too "inconvenient" rather than difficult. The toolbelt was a good idea, as it allows you to carry those pointless items that you always need without taking up bankspace. However, and as economy-efficient as the Lodestone is for not wasting my law runes, it does seem to have completely mooted all the effort I went to into unlocking all the travel systems I'd unlocked.

I only hope that Ardougne requires the quest... even the Teletabs required the quest, didn't they?

If most of them aren't already, they should be quest-tied. Move the Seer's one into Camelot courtyard, and make the King's Ransom a requirement (like, make lodestones a reward instead of "you can now spawn here"). Most of the areas have quests that could easily add "you may now access the town's lodestone"; Watchtower, White Knights, Varrock, Al Kharid, etc. I feel just going to the locations isn't enough.

Also, I was disappointed there weren't loadstones on Karamja and in Morytania. I mean if you're giving us convenience, at least give us the inconvenient areas.

Changes to the death system were welcomed, in my opinion. Mostly. I am now stuck in a conundrum that I find it pointless you drop anything at all out of wilderness, given how much you already keep. I'm wearing Black Armor at the moment because it looks badass, and I died in a medium temple trek (I'd never done one, and I was doing the Mory tasks, I had no idea what to expect)... I kept pretty much everything except all my task junk (thin snail, shade remains, etc). Luckily I was in the Shades Burning world and there were so many people around that one of them blessed my grave, but if you're letting me keep my armor, my tools, my gold, why not just let me keep everything? Or, drop everything. I'm happy if the toolbelt and gold pouch are safe... but the rest of my meaningless items? Now death is mildly annoying because of how picky the system is, rather than because I must now brave the perils again.

I can imagine dying and loosing all your stuff would be a leading cause of players quitting RuneScape. I think the changes to death are just a way of making less players quit, and I personally imagine them to be quite effective.

Meh...the loss on death was actually something I liked. I've since played games where you lose nothing and it just feels like I'm cheating.

I don't mind either system. I just find the weird middle ground we current have overly specific about completely random things.

I totally agree with some of the points raised here. I feel like RuneScape has made such an effort to be easy for new players, so they just continue playing, that it's taken a negative toll. However, even before all of these things were introduced, I had little problems anyway. Doing lots of quests and playing Minigames gave you access to items that worked very similarly to the current systems anyway. Mobilizing Armies Quest Kits were basically Tool Kits, Teletabs and such were basically slightly more expensive home teleports.

So yes, work was required on my part initially, but these new updates have barely changed how I played.

Is this at all similar to the old Pest Control? Players complained that the experience reward was too good, and the community actually started to divide where you'd get people saying "I got 99 without PC" like Pest Control was something to be ashamed of. I was always adamant at the time that there will always be something more efficient than the way you did it.

Maybe the difference here is that even Pest Control required you to do something, even if it was easier. All these "beginner" features replace the need to do anything at all?

But you don't see people saying "I got level 99 thieving without Pyramid Plunder."

...even though in the world of training the skill, it is the fastest way to train.

People seemed pretty happy to play Pyramid Plunder, mainly because it is well balanced and offers modest rewards at a high risk (and food expenditures lol).

You don't even see people say, "I got 99 WC without chopping ivy!"

...people love it and it gives the fastest wc xp in the game.

So it all depends on what the players take as a symbol of effort because both the woodcutting and Pyramid Plunder are monotonous and have relatively low return with high risk involved. However, in Pest Control, I believe people thought it was simply unbalanced and awarded too much xp or others were jealous.