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The RuneScape Assist System - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) TruthScape Special Reports - The RuneScape World 2 Trading Survival Guide

I wrote the preceding topics with the goal of giving you lots of detailed information about the new Assist System (AS), so you can understand the issues surrounding it and how it works. In particular, I hope that you understand why most of the complaints about the system are unfounded, so you can avoid falling for some of the myths and misconceptions that abound.

I will now wrap up this guide with a general analysis, suggestions for improvement, and a conclusion with recommendations for players.

When I first wrote this review, I gave the Assist System very high marks. Unfortunately, after a few more days of seeing it in action and listening to others who have used it, I’ve been forced to knock it down a couple of notches. I still think that, overall, the feature is a good one, with a certain elegance and a great deal of usefulness. It has a number of flaws, though, that Jagex needs to correct as soon as possible.

It appears that the Assist System has been designed with a good amount of forethought. Jagex has anticipated and avoided most of the potential pitfalls that could have led to serious abuses of the system. Several loopholes that the company missed were stopped up in short order when they were discovered. However, other abuses and exploits have appeared as people have used the system, which is another example of the pitfalls of Jagex’s refusal to implement a beta test program.

One area where the new system is not entirely successful is in stopping scams. It eliminates trust trade scams, but it also facilitates new scams where people offer assistance in exchange for payment. I don’t believe that Jagex can really stop this, short of continuing to make education about potential scams a higher priority. This, of course, has been a sticking point of mine with the company for some time, though I do acknowledge and appreciate its efforts to change the game to reduce common scam situations.

There are a lot of people whining about the new system, but those complaints seem to be almost entirely irrational. People read about the feature and conclude that this makes having skills “useless” or that level 3’s will be running around casting Fire Wave or getting free sharks, without bothering to learn about how the feature really works. For its part, Jagex may need to devote more effort here to educating people about how new updates work, but I fear that this hysteria is just the inevitable result of a game filled with the products of a dumbed-down educational system.

One significant problem related to the feature that Jagex finally did address was the problem of begging that was caused by resource skills being in the AS. By enabling people to ask to “borrow” resource skills, Jagex had provided a de facto endorsement for begging (as seen in Figure 45). This has now, fortunately, been corrected, and the begging has dropped off a great deal.

However, other issues persist. Those assisting have an XP cap, but those bugging others for help do not. If the system is only for help, then it should be limited to a reasonable number of such requests. Right now, a pesty player can literally spend all of his time doing nothing but leaching off of others.

The core problem is the lack of tools provided to high-level players to allow them to avoid people who refuse to respect their time and space. This is just one more symptom of a larger problem, some suggestions for which I discuss below.

In addition to this harassment problem, a number of abuses of the Assist System have been discovered. Jagex needs to act quickly to plug these holes.

Based on the lists of valid criticisms and abuses that I have both come up with myself and heard from others about this feature, I have developed a couple of lists of specific recommendations for improving the Assist System.

The first list deals with serious issues that I feel require urgent action. Most of these are related to the problem of high-level harassment, and the exploits and abuses of the system that are showing up. Here are my more important recommendations:

1. Remove Fishing, Hunting, Mining and Woodcutting from the Assist System: Yay, this has been done. J
   
   
2. Remove Farming from the Assist System: This skill needs to go but for a slightly different reason than the ones above. In this case, the issue is that Farming with the AS is too easy to abuse. It allows power-training and the mass harvesting of herbs, which are not “assistance” at all.
   
   
3. Fix the Power-Leveling Exploit: The ability of low-level players to borrow high-level skills to level faster while getting XP is a clear abuse of the system. Either make it so the assistee never gets XP when using the AS, or make it so that when the assistee already can fish/mine/hunt something, he or she does it at his or her own level.
   
   
4. Remove Spellbook Swap from the Assist System: The ability to have low-level mages use the Assist System to cast Spellbook Swap is abusive.
   
   
5. Implement a Follow Control: The game allows players to control those with whom they chat, trade, assist or duel, but not whom they will allow to follow them around like a yappy little puppy. Since the Assist System was put in, the lack of any ability to stop followers has become even more glaring. It is long overdue and needed in the game now.
   
   
6. Impose an Experience Cap for Assistance Requests: Just as those providing assistance have a 30k XP cap to prevent use of the system beyond giving occasional help, so too should those requesting assistance. If anything, it should be an even lower value, like 10k. There’s no reasonable justification for any player needing to ask for 100k or more XP worth of “assistance” in a single day, but right now that is entirely possible. (Credit to Lady Rhiana for her thread on the RuneScape forums, where I first saw this excellent suggestion.)

These three suggestions are more minor:

7. Improve the Assist Screen: Players who are stuck in place doing nothing while assisting others would like, at the very least, to be able to see what is going on around them. It would be better to have a simple overlay on the sides of the screen—like the one in Castle Wars for example—that shows the skill controls and the XP gained in each. Don’t block the whole view window.
   
   
8. Allow Assistees to End Assistance: Add a button or switch that lets those being assisted explicitly end the exchange. This also would tell the one assisting that he or she could now do something else.
   
   
9. Normalize Inconsistent Skill Restrictions: My main example here is that I don’t see any real reason why it shouldn’t be possible to fish monkfish (if that skill is left in the AS). Also, if people can use Bones to Peaches tablets without having the spell themselves, but can’t borrow the spell from others, which I think is a bit of a contradiction.

So, Jagex implemented one fix, probably the easiest, and ignored everything else. I have no idea why.

I think that once Jagex tweaks the Assist System to fix the problems and exploits, and the usual puerile hullabaloo dies down, the AS will eventually become an appreciated standard part of every RuneScape player’s tool chest. It really does let players help other players more easily, without unbalancing the game in any way.

I recommend that high-level players who enjoy helping others make use of the AS, both to assist those who are deserving and to get some extra XP during what would otherwise be downtime. If you’re spending time on the forums, for example, why not hang out at the West Varrock anvils and let some newer players smith a few bars using your skills? Or help out a budding herblorist? Consider that these skills also would normally result in a net loss, and you have a win-win situation.

To the lower-level players who want to make use of the Assist System: please respect those you are asking for help. Be reasonable in your requests and don’t harass people who are clearly doing other things or who are not interested in helping at any particular moment. Remember that a skillcape doesn’t make anyone your slave. And above all, be considerate and fair, because every high-level person you annoy so much that he or she turns off Assist is one more high-level that nobody can ask for help.

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That’s all! Thanks for reading, good luck and please be sure to tell 200 of your closest friends about this guide (but don’t break any in-game rules doing it!). J

The RuneScape Assist System - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) TruthScape Special Reports - The RuneScape World 2 Trading Survival Guide