Change To The Highscores - Prestige

[IceNineKills]

Long, long ago, in the mists of time, the Runescape hiscore table was a place where the best players competed daily for the top spot. Then one day the first player reached 200M, and that race ended. Nowadays, no matter how hard you work, you’re never going to see that prestigious rank 1 because someone else got there first.

You may also remember a time when a 99 was a rare thing that made you stand out from the crowd. These days there are so many 99s that some players treat 99 as if it’s the bare minimum requirement for respect, rather than the achievement it really is.


Prestige is going to change all this. With this update, due to arrive at a Runescape near you some time in November, the hiscore tables will unlock and once again the top spot will be occupied by the player who worked the hardest, not the one who got there first.


But what is Prestige?


It’s actually really simple. The Prestige System will allows you to choose any of your current 99s, click a button and reset that skill to level 1. Then, you'll be able to level it to 99 again. You’ll be doing this because once Prestige goes live, the hiscore table will be sorted firstly by your Prestige level (the number of times you’ve prestiged the skill), then your current level, then your current XP (i.e. the progress you've made since you last reset the skill).


Here’s an example of what the hiscores might look like:


Player Prestige Level XP
Darrrlek - 3 - 2 - 450
Murderiffic - 2 - 99 - 26,068,862
Sum of Awe - 2 - 97 - 20,400,000
Xontax - 2 - 12 - 4,800
Acceler8or - 1 - 87 - 8,200,000
Monkey Bait - 1 - 83 - 5,400,000
TwoTimesTwo - 0 - 99 - 157,000,000
Ffarquar - 0 - 99 - 14,000,000




That’s not all, though. To really separate the legendary from the merely awesome, the amount of XP you need to level up increases by 100% of the base total for every time you’ve reset the skill. That means that reaching 99 for the second time takes 26M, reaching 99 for the third time takes 39M, and so on. That increase will be spread across all levels, so it takes two, three, four times as long to reach each individual level as well as to reach 99.


If you do reset a skill, you’re not trapped at low level. It would suck if a new quest came out and your Prestige level wasn’t high enough yet, or if you just wanted to go bossing for a bit and couldn’t. As such, you can turn off Prestige and revert to your previous skill level of 99. While it's switched off, you can’t earn XP towards your Prestige level. When you turn it back on, you keep going from whatever Prestige level you reached when you turned it off. You can only make this switch while you’re in a bank, and we’re considering adding a gold cost to it to make it clear that you’re not supposed to be flipping it willy-nilly.


The Overall category of the Top Players hiscore table has an additional restriction. If we sorted it by your total number of resets, everyone would just reset the easier skills a bunch of times. Instead, the Overall table will be topped by whoever has reset all skills the most times. The Overall Top Players table might look something like this:


Player All Skills Total Prestige Total Levels Total XP
Immortalzor - 2 - 57 - 6993 - 762,000,000
Twinkage - 1 - 60 - 8453 - 889,000,000
Ruminati0n - 1 - 52 - 6498 - 492,000,000
Chai Latt3 - 0 - 29 - 4221 - 328,000,000
XX Nuff XX - 0 - 22 - 3258 - 296,000,000
mondo1987 - 0 - 0 - 2365 - 283,000,000
ar1gato - 0 - 0 - 1300 - 5,400,000




There are also some amazing titles, emotes and cosmetic overrides for showing off your Prestige accomplishments in game and on the forums. You’ll able to prove which skills you’ve reset, and how many times you’ve reset them, in a showy way.


You need to be a member and have 99 in a skill to use the Prestige System, but because it resets your skill level, beyond that everyone is on a level playing field. This makes it a true race from a fair start for all 99s.


We’re not forgetting the accomplishments of those who already hit 200M in the old tables, and those who haven’t yet reached it. You’ll still be able to view the old hiscores on the website, with the same rankings. We store your lifetime XP, which is all XP ever earned in that skill regardless of whether or not you've reset it. You’ll still be able to make progress towards 200M in your lifetime XP - which is still the cap - and earn your rank on the old hiscores.


We hope there will be some other positive side effects on the game as well. At the moment, since only the highest level content is relevant to the most dedicated players, this skews the economy towards certain things and away from others. With Prestige, players will be competing at all skill levels making items and areas that haven’t been relevant for a long time suddenly of interest again.


We're still ironing out the details of the Prestige system, and we want to know what you think. If you have any thoughts on how the Prestige System should work, ideas on how it should be improved or anything you're worried about, let us know here on this discussion thread.


Mod Jack & Mod Verrah

Thoughts?

[Rachel]

I will never reset it ....never ever!

[Zak]

Do you lose your cape if you reset? My thinking is that you'll keep the cape but the cape will get more glamorous the higher prestige you are..

If you reset also .. say smithing.. would you have to start at Bronze again.. then at whatever you can make the others switch to them? Or could you just Rune bar from level 1 1st prestige?

I like the update but it's hugely favouring the no-lifers and basically devalues a 99 so badly now. Plus the cash needed to reset a 99 (say prayer) then prestige again would be stupid. All cash will now go to skills. It's hard enough getting 99 anyway but they've made it so much easier in recent years to gain exp. Just dissapointed that I'll never max now...

[Kardan]

Do you lose your cape if you reset? My thinking is that you'll keep the cape but the cape will get more glamorous the higher prestige you are..

If you reset also .. say smithing.. would you have to start at Bronze again.. then at whatever you can make the others switch to them? Or could you just Rune bar from level 1 1st prestige?

I like the update but it's hugely favouring the no-lifers and basically devalues a 99 so badly now. Plus the cash needed to reset a 99 (say prayer) then prestige again would be stupid. All cash will now go to skills. It's hard enough getting 99 anyway but they've made it so much easier in recent years to gain exp. Just dissapointed that I'll never max now...

You keep capes, you would start at bronze again.

And I'm in two frames, it's good if you want to challenge for high ranks without getting 200mxp... But I'm so close to maxing, but now people's total levels will just increase up to infinity...

[Zak]

You keep capes, you would start at bronze again.

And I'm in two frames, it's good if you want to challenge for high ranks without getting 200mxp... But I'm so close to maxing, but now people's total levels will just increase up to infinity...

Yeh I feel like you. I'm not exactly close to maxing though.

What happens with Dung now tho? Do capes get better as you go up prestige (like badges in cod lol)

[IceNineKills]

Might reset so I'll be level 4/5 with a slayer cape .

But even though resetting sounds horrible, it'll make so many things become tradeable again, like lobsters, ores and bars etc.

[Zak]

I could spend my cash stack straight away getting enough supplies to prestige a few times

[IceNineKills]

I could spend my cash stack straight away getting enough supplies to prestige a few times

just reset your crappy 99s like farming, smithing and crafting

[Inseriousity.]

As someone who hasn't got a 99 yet, I think its alright. If you were maxed out then it'd be something to do. On the other hand, the snobbery involved that the 99 that I've worked really hard for (when I bloody get one) is worth less cos I've only got it once, arghhh

[Zak]

As someone who hasn't got a 99 yet, I think its alright. If you were maxed out then it'd be something to do. On the other hand, the snobbery involved that the 99 that I've worked really hard for (when I bloody get one) is worth less cos I've only got it once, arghhh

Yeah it devalues what a 99 is worth because there will be people out there like 5th, 10th prestige.... :/

I just don't have the time to go past 1st prestige really

What happens to those who say have 200m exp? Do they lose that reseting their prestige or do they retain it and automatically get to like 4th/5th prestige?