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The RuneScape Assist System - Skill-Specific Information and Tips The RuneScape Assist System - Myths and Truths

There are always some who like and some who do not like Jagex’s new content features, or changes/updates to existing ones. Here too, there have been many people who are pleased with the new Assist System (AS), but also plenty of complaints, criticisms and controversies.

Jagex has indeed had updates in the past that were poorly thought out, resulting in plenty of valid complaints. This one, however, has been pretty good in terms of the effort Jagex put into anticipating problems. Some exploits and abuses have been discovered, and hopefully Jagex will correct them soon.

I’ve seen plenty of ranting and raving over the Assist System so far, and while some of it is legitimate, the vast majority is due to immature, impatient people making incorrect assumptions or not bothering to read up on the AS before jumping to conclusions. I’ll discuss some of these issues here; also be sure to check the FAQs and myths and truths topics.

Most of the complaining about the new Assist System seems to be focused around claims that this new feature somehow cheapens the game or lets low-level players do things that they couldn’t do before. Well, it’s true that there are a very few things that low-levels can now do as a result of the update, but not nearly as many as some people think. Many folks carry on about how now low-levels can do what high-levels can. But when we look at things rationally, what has really changed? The answer is: not a hell of a lot.

Jagex has very specifically limited the use of the Assist System so that it is difficult to abuse. The 30k XP cap every 24 hours is hardly going to allow anyone to power-level using the AS. Restrictions on quest items and untradeable items remove any possibility of “cheating” to get items that require a player to have a high level.

When it comes to skills that used to involve trust trades, there is really nothing new of substance at all. There is no difference if, for example, I trade 20 rune bars to a level 95 smith for 200 unfinished runite bolts, compared to using the AS to smith the bolts myself. All that has changed is that it is safer and easier for both parties. The same applies to Herblore, Crafting, Runecrafting and other skills.

There are a couple of places where players can do things they couldn’t do before. The best example would be that now, working with friends, a high-level farmer can grow a larger number of herb seeds in parallel, planting and harvesting them all at once. This is not really a very practical way of leveling, though, and certainly not anything that I consider unbalancing.

Another issue relates to abuses of the system to allow lower-level players to power-level. Jagex has stated openly that they did not desire to have the AS create new ways for people to train, so my guess is that they will quickly address the loopholes that have been discovered.

In the past I have been one of Jagex’s most outspoken critics, when I felt it was warranted. I also try to be fair, however, and with this feature I believe the company has done a great job. The list of complaints that I feel have merit was short as I started writing this guide, and even that brief list was trimmed within hours as Jagex made immediate changes to fix certain problems.

Here are a few of the remaining objections that I think have some validity:

• Harrassment: This, I believe, is the biggest problem with this feature: high-level players are being endlessly harrassed by low-levels looking for “assistance”. This has been improved with the removal of Fishing, Hunter, Mining and Woodcutting from the AS, though. To understand why this was done, realized that for those skills, the AS was little more than a Jagex-legitimized form of begging (Figure 45).
  
  
• Limits on Use for Assisters but not Assistees: The 30,000 XP daily cap is in place to prevent high-levels from abusing the system, but there’s no similar cap for those requesting assistance. This leads to abuses and also exacerbates the begging/harrassment problem.
  
  
• The Assist System Screen is Awful: The entire time that you are assisting someone, a garish full-screen display covers your game window, making it nearly impossible to see what’s going on around you.
  
  
• Interface and Defaults are Unclear: When I first started assisting people, I didn’t realize that all skills start out disabled, and that I had to click to turn each one on. I am sure that others felt the same confusion.
  
  
• Problems with Ending Assistance: The assister has no way of knowing when the assistee is done, and the assistee has no way of ending the exchange short of leaving the area or logging out.
  
  
• Excessive/Inconsistent Restrictions on Certain Skills: If I can use the AS to craft laws without having done Troll Stronghold, why can’t I use the AS to catch monkfish without having done Swan Song?
  

  Figure 45: Just Another Form of Begging

  As bad as busy areas were before in terms of annoyances, they were far worse when resource skills like Fishing were in the AS. Here’s an example of what it looked like before Jagex took the skill out. It was impossible for a high-level player to go to places like the fishing spots at Catherby without being solicited for “assistance” (no, I wasn’t offering anything here). And if you had worked to get a skillcape, then you would very quickly have a throng of pests trailing you around bugging you for everything under the sun.

  
  

See the Suggestions for Improvement section to read some of my ideas for resolving these issues.

Note that I have specifically excluded from this list the complaint about how you cannot do anything while you are assisting. Well, you are supposed to be assisting someone else—you can’t do two things at once. I feel that’s a reasonable limit on the feature.

While Jagex has done a generally good job of stopping most ways that the Assist System can be abused, they let a few things slip through the cracks. (Will they ever learn the benefits of beta testing? It seems not.) Some of these have been fixed already: for example, for a short while it was possible to get certain untradeable items using the AS, or to exploit it to enter guilds—both of which I think would have been huge abuses of the system. Others have yet to be corrected.

Here’s a list of some of the abuses and problems of which I am currently aware:

• Low-Level Players Getting High-Level Skill Benefits: Low-level players who “borrow” from high levels also get access to benefits that are supposed to be only for high-level players. In Cooking, for example, a level 41 cook could ask for “assistance” from a level 94 cook. The assisted player would then be able to cook lobsters without burning any, while getting all the XP from cooking.
  
  
• Farming Power-Leveling: One high-level player gets a bunch of friends to use his “assistance” to plant a large number of herb seeds all at once. They grow in parallel, and then the high-level comes back and “assists” his friends to harvest all the herbs. The high-level gets a bunch of XP and a lot more high-level herbs enter the game than should have. Even though there’s a 30k XP cap, that adds up for a skill like Farming.
  
  
• Lunar Magicks Spellbook Swap Exploit: If you are on Lunar Magicks but below level 96, you normally cannot cast the Spellbook Swap spell. However, it is possible to “borrow” another mage’s level 96, cast Spellbook Swap, and then cast offensive spells. The other mage doesn’t even have to be on Lunars, since you are only borrowing his level 96, not his spells.

All of these issues need to be fixed immediately, yet in its update Jagex only removed the four resource skills and left the other issues untouched. Why?

Every time Jagex puts out some thing new, the RuneScape community is besieged by whining and ranting from people who “hate” the change or thing it is going “ruin the economy” or “destroy the game”. I see it week after week. In that context then, it is truly remarkable to see just how bad the raving hysteria has gotten over this particular update. I can’t remember the last time I have seen so many players worked up over nothing—the melodrama is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

(Think I’m exaggerating? Check out this quote from the RuneScape forums: “If the purpose of this update was to completely ruin the game and destroy the intricate fabric of the already completely messed up economy of runescape, you have successfully done your job. ... I used to love runescape. I loved the challenge. Now, its just ridiculous. I can't take it anymore.” All that over an update that changes very little. Good grief!)

I’m not sure why this particular update has brought so many loons out of the woodwork, but it’s truly a sad commentary on the maturity and intelligence of a large chunk of the current RS community. Past changes, like the recent one to Pest Control, have certainly resulted in similar panics, but those at least actually had a big impact on how the game was played for certain players. Perhaps it is because this update sounds like it allows far more than it actually does when you look into it. The problem is that players don’t bother to read up on the feature and actually try it out.

Certain exploits have indeed been found in the Assist System, as mentioned above, but that’s not what most of the complaining is about. It’s more childish ranting about claims that are untrue. As one typical example, I had someone tell me that “low levels are probably not going to train their skills” and would instead “rely on higher levels to help them with everything.” Well, duh. If someone didn’t want to train skills before, they could have done this all along—nothing is different now in that regard.

It’s always been possible to get high levels to do things for you. But is it fun to have to track down a high level herblorist every time you want to make a potion? Hardly. People level skills for the sense of accomplishment and for the independence that the level affords them, and that’s not going to change. Most of the invalid complaints seem to focus on a perception that the Assist System means that being high-level no longer matters. As I said earlier, however, if you examine the feature rationally, you find that very little has really changed.

To make matters worse, a lot of folks don’t have the first clue about what the AS can and cannot do at all, so we still get people saying “z0mg now n00bs can plant sp1rit tr33z!”.

See the next topic about myths for some more specific examples of bogus complaints about the AS.

The RuneScape Assist System - Skill-Specific Information and Tips The RuneScape Assist System - Myths and Truths