LMS Game Modes: Pures & Zerks | Weekly Game Update (August 10th)

This week we're introducing new Last Man Standing game modes!

New Last Man Standing Game Modes

Last Man Standing just got a lot more variety with two new game modes! Head to the heart of Ferox Enclave to try them out:

• Zerker: level 75 Attack and level 45 Defence
• 1 Def Pure: level 75 attack and level 1 Defence

You’ll be able to choose your preferred game mode from the Settings button on the lobby HUD – after Lisa’s walked you through the game, of course!

When it’s time for a game to begin, the system will look at the preferences of the waiting players, and choose which game mode enters play. For example, if most of the waiting players had Zerker as their preferred mode, a few preferred Max/Med, and only one player chose 1 Def Pure, the game will have a high chance of picking Zerker, a medium chance to choose Max/Med, and a very low chance to choose 1 Def Pure.

However, the system can still choose a random game mode, no matter how many people in the lobby prefer a certain game mode. This ensures variety and prevents big groups (or bots!) from skewing the results too heavily.

The chosen game mode will be announced as you arrive in the battle arena. We’ve increased the countdown duration, so you’ll have plenty of time to get ready to fight!

Now that you have three separate modes to prepare for, you’ll want to properly set up your loadouts. You can do so using the Supply Chat in the lobby.

As always, we’re up for adding more item options in later updates, based on your suggestions. For now, though, we’ve added a choice of Spellbooks:

If your loadout includes the Rune Pouch, it’ll enable a selection of spells from whichever Spellbook you’ve selected:

• Standard: Surge spells and Entangle
• Ancient: Ice and Blood Blitz plus Barrage
• Lunar: Vengeance and Cure Me

Your choice of Spellbook is specific to each game mode, so make sure to set them before you head out! By default, you’ll have access to the Ancient Spellbook.

It’s also worth noting that Lunar Spells will be available to 1 Def Pures, as is the case in the PvP Arena.

One last note on new game modes - although converting the minigame to accept alternate modes has taken a long time, now that the work is done it’ll be much easier to add new modes in subsequent updates.

We know these aren’t the only game modes you’ve requested for LMS, and we’ve seen some great suggestions from the community – including a mode with no Protect Prayers, which seems mighty interesting! Watch this space…

Last Man Standing Improvements

Over the years, we've seen a huge number of player suggestions for items and mechanics in PvP. Many of these are things whose performance in-game aren't easy for us to gauge. We've used beta worlds in the past to mixed success, since it's often difficult to see large numbers of interactions and give players more time to experiment as we iterate on changes.

With this in mind, we'd like to try and experiment a little more within LMS and give players the opportunity to try out new things and provide us feedback on ways we could keep LMS (and perhaps PvP in other places) fresh. It could be the case that we build on the 'game modes' idea above and implement a mode solely for testing these experimental changes on a regular basis!

This week, the three Protect Prayers have been made more effective. Damage is now reduced to 30%, up from 60%. So, if you got whacked for what should be 100 damage, you’ll take 30 damage instead of 60 with the correct Prayer. This is an experimental change designed to reward players who’ve taken the time to develop their switching skills. We’re open to reverting or rebalancing the buff and will be monitoring feedback closely in the days following the update.

Here are the other improvements we’ve made this week:

• Yellow notifications on the heads-up display should no longer overlap with the Buff Bar on official clients.
• The Buff Bar will also no longer show the minigame’s ammo after you’ve left the battle arena.
• Lastly, although the supplies in Last Man Standing do look pretty tasty, you probably don’t need to be warned that they’re valuable every time you want to drop some on the floor. We’ve supressed those warnings inside the minigame.

Dark Varrock Map Improvements

• Updated the starting positions for players. This map now uses pairs of spawn points rather than clumps of six, making it more like the spawns on the original Desert Island map.
• Loot crates are now more likely to spawn closer to the final safe zone. The map is so large that they previously kept spawning in areas that the fog had already reached.

Loot Chest Improvements

• Loot chests and crates will now check what items you already have when deciding what to give you. No more cussing as you get your third pair of Dragon Claws!

We’ve also added a few bits and bobs to the loot table:

Good luck in the updated minigame, and don't forget to visit the Supply Chest in the lobby before embarking on a fight!

Further PvP Changes

NPC PJ Timer

We’ve fixed some unintended behaviour where NPCs could initiate the PJ Timer.

This meant that if an NPC hit a player, that player couldn’t be attacked for 12 seconds, causing frustration in both PvP and PvM scenarios.

Following this week’s update, NPCs will use a five-second timer, in line with their behaviour before the PJ Timer was introduced.

Here’s how that works:

For PvP:

If Player B is in combat with an NPC, but escapes the NPC without killing it, Player A cannot attack Player B for about five seconds, since Player B is still in combat with the NPC. Likewise, Player B cannot attack Player A.

If, however, Player B kills the NPC, Player A is immediately able to attack Player B – this behaviour is unchanged.

Lastly, if Player A is attacking Player B, NPCs will wait 12 seconds before attacking Player B. This behaviour is also unchanged.

For PvM:

If Player A is in combat with NPC A and then moves towards NPC B from a position NPC A can’t reach, NPC B will wait five seconds before attacking Player A.

If Player A kills NPC A, NPC B can attack Player A immediately – this behaviour is unchanged.

While this fix was necessary to repair the unintended behaviours, we hope the examples above give players the information they need to make sure any would-be escapes aren’t cut short by these changes!

Teleport Delay Changes

Players attempting to teleport from the Revenants’ Cave while attacking the NPCs there will now have to wait about two seconds for their teleport spell to begin - no more teleporting to safety as soon as you see a little white dot appear on your minimap! This change is intended to help tackle players using prohibited software to teleport with seemingly inhuman reflexes.

PvP Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where players could not attack the player that just killed Maledictus.
• Fixed a bug where players could log out immediately after attacking another player with some special attacks.
• Fixed a bug where players were able to remove the freeze effect for spells like Ice Barrage and Entangle. If you see anybody still able to abuse this bug in-game, please send as much evidence as possible via email to [email protected].

PvP Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period B:

• 560 - (UK) - PvP World
• 579 - (US) - High-Risk PvP World
• 561 - (UK) - Free-to-Play PvP World
• 580 - (US) - LMS Competitive

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

The PvP Arena is now using 'Max/Med' loadouts in Ranked Tournaments this week.

Poll 76 Cat and Piano Changes

Kick back and relax in an upgraded Clan Hall!

Note: these Clan Hall changes were included in last week's post in error. We're sharing them again to make sure nobody misses them!

Be careful where you sit, though – the latest member of your Clan, Hannibal the Clan Hall cat, just got a whole lot more personality! Now you and your Clanmates can pet this fluffy fellow to your heart’s content, and even feed him fish and milk to make sure he’s living his best life. Maybe stay away from the liver and chianti, though…

If you’re the proud owner of a Catspeak Amulet, you’ll also be able to chat to Hannibal and receive his wisdom on a number of topics – including the nearby piano, which has also received some love this week!

We've sent an army of piano tuners (Hannibal kept eating the piano salmons) to your Clan Halls to perform some much-needed musical maintenance.

Adventurers who sit down to play a tune should find that the black keys are now working when using either the 'Entertain' option for your clan or the 'Play quietly' option for yourself.

We hope to see some fantastic covers now that you’ve been given a full range of musical options!

Finally, if you want to see who exactly is busting out another Sea Shanty II in the Clan Hall, the Clan Chat now indicates how many members are currently in the channel, as well as how many people are in the Clan. Click or tap on that info to switch it to the number of guests in the channel instead.

Poll 76 Timeline

So, what’s left in Poll 76, and when can we move on to Poll 77?

We’re pleased to announce that there are only a couple of jobs left.

The first is Poison Dynamite, a new item that should help certain restricted accounts access more of the game. The development work is complete, and the testing is nearly done – but there’s a couple more steps to go. We want to conduct an internal playtest among the Old School team before bringing Poison Dynamite to an open beta, where you can all explode stuff to your hearts’ content.

As it stands, we plan to host the beta a few weeks after Raids 3 launches. The aim is to make sure that Poison Dynamite is in-line with expectations and that there are no unexpected consequences for those most likely to use it.

The second job is further Clan Hall upgrades, including the Combat Ring and the Party Chest. The Party Chest in particular requires further work to make sure it delivers the experience we’re hoping for. Once this work is complete, both upgrades will go through testing before being assigned a release date.

Other Changes

• Fixed a rare issue where some pets weren’t automatically insured. In this instance, if a player had an uninsured pet in the Bank with placeholders disabled, and that pet was also not marked in the Collection Log, the pet would be marked as uninsured. We recommend double-checking with Probita if you think this issue may have affected your pets, or if you believe your pet should have been automatically insured and it wasn’t.
• The Redemption Prayer no longer drains Prayer Points after it turns itself off. Bit overzealous, that!
• A few flowers by a house in Ardougne have outgrown their pots and been planted in the ground, allowing safe passage for any passing adventurers.
• Sister Senga will now reluctantly allow you to fight Phosani’s Nightmare without having defeated the Nightmare first. Just be assertive about it!
• Worlds 490 (USE) and 507 (UK) have been given the activity 'Guardians of the Rift'.

Mobile Known Issues

Since the Clue Scroll Helper update, there have been a few reports of new bugs on mobile. This typically happens when we are deploying a heavy update on the mobile client and we'll be working on any bugs as they arise, so thank you for all your reports!

The following bug fixes launched last week:

• Entity highlights are working as desktop highlights on mobile clients.
• New tooltip UI opens to the right and down, regardless of screen position.
• Top left text is appearing as expected on mobile devices.

We’re aware of the following issues and working to fix them:

• Haptic feedback (vibrations) no longer works on 207.2.
• Skill XP Tooltips are still displayed after switching tabs on mobile.
• Chat Box can become unusable.
• External keyboards are having issues on iPads.
• The trolley in Garden of Tranquillity does not update after placing a certain statue on it.

We’ll be prioritising the most impactful bugs and will keep you updated on the latest fixes as we make them. Thanks for all your patience as we work on enhancing the mobile experience!

Discuss this update on our official forums, 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.

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