Reward Space
Ship Upgrades and Facilities
New Resources
Cosmetics
Rewards by Activity
Upcoming Events and Survey
Were back with our next Sailing refinement topic! Now that weve learned how Navigation will work and what the Core Gameplay looks like, we can move on to the big question: what Rewards do you get for training it?
If you cant see the video above, click here to watch it!
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Ah, rewards. Nothing matches the feeling of unlocking new equipment, areas, or training methods after a long grind, huh? Of all the content in Old School RuneScape, skills are perhaps the most ripe for rewards and Sailing will be no exception to that rule.
Sailings rewards are bigger than most skills can offer. As the captain of your own ship, the main reward space will be upgrading that ship, kitting it out so that you can explore never-before-seen areas of Gielinor. So far, so normal! But on the islands you discover, youll also find a wealth of resources for both Sailing and other skills and who knows, you might even make some new friends with a trick or two to teach you.
The Sailing reward space is so massive, we cant even hope to cover everything it has to offer in this blog. Normally, wed be showing you loads of detailed information about particular items you can earn as rewards, but Sailing is a bit more expansive than that. Its reward space doesnt just cover a cool new armour set or some fancy jewellery, it covers everything from new training methods to islands filled with exciting resources and monsters to fight, and everything in between.
Were also wary of overwhelming you with loads of tables and numbers for stats that are likely to change during development. Wed hate to put anyone off voting just because they dont like the look of one specific reward!
Instead, were taking a more open approach. Keep reading, and youll see the broad reward space categories that Sailing covers, including Ship upgrades, cosmetics, and the exciting new things you might find on islands. Its a little different from what youre used to seeing from these design blogs, but we hope that itll help you see just how much Sailing has to offer.
Should Sailing pass 'lock-in', we pledge to poll each and every individual reward, so youll have total clarity on what youre adding to the game. You can look forward to loads more blogs and polls as we work together to make Sailings reward space the best it can be weve already seen some fantastic suggestions from the community, and we cant wait to make them a reality.
Before we dive in, lets remind ourselves what kind of rewards an effective reward system contains:
Horizontal Progression
| Vertical Progression
|
Internal Reward
| External Reward
|
Direct Reward
| Indirect Reward
|
Although Sailing is home to all kinds of rewards, we want to focus the reward space on clear horizontal progression in terms of how Sailing interacts with other skills, combined with vertical progression for Sailing itself.
Well kick things off with the main form of vertical progression youll see in Sailing direct upgrades that make your Ship better than it was before and allow you to unlock new training methods.
Ship Upgrades
In the Core Gameplay blog, we established that upgrades to your ship are unlocked by reaching higher Sailing levels. Upgrades mean that as you progress through the skill, youll be able to do things you couldnt before, like take more damage before capsizing, travel across dangerous reefs, or turn faster.
Of course, this also lets your ship access parts of the sea that were too dangerous before. Thats a reward in itself, but it also lets you discover better training methods and interesting new islands, which in turn are full of other rewards.
Ship Customization
As you progress through the skill, youll also unlock new facilities. As we established in the Core Gameplay blog, facilities are things like cannons, sails, and other things you interact with on your ship. The higher your Sailing level, the better the facilities will get.
Lets see an example of how this might look
Cannons
Weve seen how excited you are for cannons, so were going to use them as our example of what a facilities reward might look like.
If you cast your mind back to the Core Gameplay blog, youll remember that there are actually a variety of weapons you can have on board ship. Cannons have a short radius, but hit harder than other weapons.
Weve also thought about different types of cannons dealing different types of damage. What might Magic damage from a ship look like? How about a cannon that fires magic missiles? Or spews dragonfire?
Obviously, you wont be slapping these cataclysmic weapons on your average rowboat, so youll need to develop your Sailing skill first.
Heres what that progression might look like:
Level | Name | Damage type |
5 | Basic Cannon | Ranged |
20 | Strong Cannon | Ranged |
50 | Arcane Cannon | Magic |
65 | Dragonfire Cannon | Dragonfire |
72 | Advanced Cannon | Ranged |
88 | Advanced Arcane Cannon | Magic |
90 | Advanced Dragonfire Cannon | Dragonfire |
92 | Elite Cannon | Ranged |
Alongside these more esoteric types of ammunition, wed like to allow players to smith Cannonballs from Steel all the way up to Rune, with Dragon Cannonballs available as a drop from monsters introduced through Sailing.
Crew
Of course, you cant be a captain without a crew to boss around! As you become more experienced, youll gain the ability to recruit NPCs to join your crew and help operate the ship. Although crewmates will never be mandatory, theyll help a lot, especially on larger ships with more facilities.
Not every NPC can be part of your crew. Most of them have other stuff to do, and some of them get seasick. However, therell be a select number of new and existing NPCs who can be recruited via Sailing and non-Sailing content, such as:
- Pubs at Ports a natural place for people to look for work at sea!
- Quest Rewards some NPCs might sign up to your crew after youve helped them during a quest. Youll learn more about this in the Lore and Integration blog.
Were not certain yet how in-depth we want the crew system to be. Were considering giving crewmates the ability to level up and become better at the tasks you assign them. Youd need to choose your crew carefully, as some NPCs would have different strengths and abilities some might be excellent fighters, but some might prefer to stay below decks and cook up tasty meals for you and the rest of your crew.
However, complex mechanics like this require extra development time. We need your help to prioritise the most important features before launch, and so were asking you is an in-depth crew system something youre interested in? Or would you prefer a more simple system that just lets you automate tasks on board ship?
Youll have the chance to answer questions on this topic in the survey at the bottom of the blog. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Construction, Crafting and Smithing
Sailings reward space also integrates with other skills in particular, upgrading your ship will involve Construction, Crafting and Smithing.
Weve already covered how youll use Construction to add facilities to your ship. Crafting will also let you make Sails, Nets, and other new items that youll need to build facilities. Wed like to extend the same treatment to Smithing, which will let you build cannon barrels and new kinds of cannonballs, to name just one example.
Note that none of these skills are required to train Sailing Sailing merely provides a reward for having put the hard work in to level them. For example, any shipwright could build facilities for you at Port, circumventing the need to level Construction but youll save some GP if youre able to build them for yourself! We see massive amounts of value in making existing skills feel useful as part of the reward space.
With that in mind, the strongest upgrades are designed to make players feel rewarded for their prowess in other skills so youll still need to build them yourself. Making your ship look and feel badass with your own two hands is a thrill that money cant buy!
Port Logic
Another cool reward from Sailing is the ability to dock your ship in different ports. Mechanically though, this is a bit complicated. What happens if you left your ship in Port Sarim, but youre trying to sail from Port Tyras? If you teleport away from a ship at sea, is it lost forever?
As you know from our previous blogs, were in favour of solving logical problems like this in ways that feel natural and well-integrated into the game world. We intend to go into greater detail in the Lore and Integration blog, but we feel like the reward space is also a good place to provide solutions.
For example, a popular player suggestion is to utilise the Magic skill to create a Ship in a Bottle, which would let you shrink your ship and store it in your Inventory. Players without the required Magic level could utilise a Spell Scroll or pay an NPC at Port to do it for them.
This also opens up a ton of new gameplay opportunities! You could sell your Ships in Bottles to shops and other players, find one as part of a monsters loot hoard, or even pickpocket one from an NPC!
This isnt the only solution that might function as a reward. Magic levels could let you teleport yourself to your ship, or teleport the ship itself within reason, of course. We dont want players to be able to teleport colossal ships to themselves while fighting a boss, no matter how funny that sounds!
Cooperative Play
As you can see, owning, customising, and captaining a ship is one of the most important intrinsic rewards of the Sailing skill. It lets you fundamentally interact with the game world in a new and exciting way. Even more excitingly, we plan to let you do it with friends!
Just like you can use your Player Owned House to hold fun house parties and provide your friends with important resources (like Cups of Tea!), you can invite other players onto your ship and let them join in the Sailing fun or just use the facilities, if theyre still getting their sea-legs.
Imagine piling onto your friends colossal ship and setting out to fight a boss in a far-off land! Or perhaps meeting a seafaring friend on the docks, where they sell you a piece of jewellery that will teleport you to an island youve never seen before. There are all kinds of possibilities, and best of all, players of all levels can explore the seas of Gielinor with their friends only one player in the group needs the Sailing level required to have a fully kitted-out Ship.
To be clear though, hitching a ride with other players wont negate the need to train Sailing at all. While designing this feature, were being careful to balance the need for players to get stuck into new content without it being locked behind skill requirements, and the need for players to actually see a benefit to training the skill. Well make a clear distinction between the ocean-based content you can experience without training the Sailing skill, and the content which requires you to sail there yourself. Were eager to see what you have to say on this topic but remember that the decision doesnt necessarily have to be made right now. We can discuss this in greater detail when were deciding the requirements for specific pieces of content after Sailing passes 'lock-in'.
In the past few years, weve seen traditional skilling become less valued. A major cause of this shift is that PvM feels better in almost every way its more efficient, more fun, and the loot is far more lucrative.
While PvM will be a huge part of Sailing, we also want to show some love to skilling by introducing new resources that will encourage players to use their skills. Consequently, the focus is on profitability, not XP value. We dont plan to shake up the existing training meta, but we do plan to give skillers more lucrative training options.
These resources will be useful both inside and outside of the Sailing skill. Some will help you upgrade your ship, build facilities, or do other useful things at sea. Others will impact the wider game and we expect to include some familiar resources like Planks, Logs, metals, gems, herbs, and so on.
In the Core Gameplay blog, we spoke about a super chilled-out way to obtain new resources: Shipwreck Salvaging. As you salvage a shipwreck, youll passively add resources to your ships cargo hold. To make use of these valuable goods, youll need to take them to a sorting station, found at all reputable docks. Youll soon find that one mans trash is another mans treasure, and your salvage is full of useful materials like wood, metal, precious minerals, and more!
Experienced sailors will even be able to build their own onboard sorting station facility, to make it even easier to find valuables at sea.
This is just one example of how the Sailing skill will reward players with lucrative resources. Here are some of the more familiar goodies you can find and use to improve your ship:
Resource | Category | Rarity | Tradeable? | Use | Primary source |
Larch | Wood | Common | Yes | Upgrade hull and mast, build facilities. | Barracuda Trials and low-level Port Tasks. |
Cedar | Wood | Uncommon | Yes | Upgrade hull and mast, build facilities. | Woodcutting on islands and port tasks (mid-level) |
Rosewood | Wood | Rare | Yes | Upgrade hull and mast, build facilities. | Woodcutting on islands and Barracuda Trials (high-level) |
Hemp | Fibres | Uncommon | Yes | Upgrade sails, change sail cosmetics. | Farming on islands and port tasks (mid-level) |
Cotton | Fibres | Rare | Yes | Upgrade sails, change sail cosmetics. | Farming on islands and Barracuda Trials (high-level) |
Lead | Metals | Uncommon | Yes | Build facilities such as cannons and weighted dredging nets. | Mineral dredging and port tasks (mid-level) |
Cobalt | Metals | Rare | Yes | Build facilities such as cannons and weighted dredging nets. | Mineral dredging and Barracuda Trials (high-level) |
Were already seeing lots of new, exciting, and valuable goodies but the ocean has much more treasure in store!
Remember, the ocean is full of strange and dangerous creatures. Defeat one, and you could gain access to a resource youve never seen before! What does it do? Did you just pull a rare drop and gain loads of gold? Was this the upgrade you needed to sail your ship to a place youve been longing to visit? We expect the early days of Sailing to be full of excitement, as players uncover strange and wonderful new items from the furthest reaches of the sea.
For example, you could pick up shiny minerals on your Sailing adventures and use them to craft and enchant new jewellery. Its about time we had some ocean teleports!
Or perhaps youd rather engage in a spot of Fishing? You could reel in dinner or some sea monster bait.
How about some corals? These beautiful marine invertebrates would be the perfect addition to an Aquarium, and they make excellent armour, too!
Theres a lot of scope here for these rewards to have effects outside of Sailing. Wed love to hear your ideas about Sunfish Potions, Aquamarine Amulets, and Umbral Coral Armour or anything else you can imagine! Remember, our aim is to make resources found at sea especially profitable, so the cooler the stuff you can make with them is, the better.
To kickstart your imagination, heres a list of resources and their potential uses:
Resource | Category | Rarity | Tradeable? | Use | Primary source |
Agate | Precious minerals | Common | Yes | Low-level jewellery | Mineral Dredging |
Garnet | Precious minerals | Uncommon | Yes | Mid-level jewellery | Sea Monster Hunting |
Aquamarine | Precious minerals | Rare | Yes | High-level jewellery | Bossing |
Haddock | Fish | Common | Yes | Bait for common sea monsters, low-level food | Low-Level Deep-Sea Trawling |
Blue Tang | Fish | Uncommon | Yes | Bait for uncommon sea monsters, mid-level food | Mid-Level Deep-Sea Trawling |
Sunfish | Fish | Rare | Yes | Bait for rare sea monsters, high-level food | High-Level Deep-Sea Trawling |
Elkhorn | Corals | Common | Yes | Low-level potions, plant in Aquarium | Coral Farming (sea or Aquarium) |
Pillar | Corals | Uncommon | Yes | Coral-tipped bolt ammunition, plant in Aquarium | Coral Farming (sea or Aquarium) |
Umbral | Corals | Rare | Yes | Armour, jewellery, plant in Aquarium | Coral Farming (sea or Aquarium) |
Again, we want these resources to be even more valuable than their landlubbin counterparts. A great suggestion weve seen in the New Skill Discord is to give ocean fish a healing over time effect, or an effect which restores other stats in a unique way. Were exploring lots of options, so keep the suggestions coming!
Islands
Islands and other points of interest are one of the most exciting Sailing rewards new, hitherto unexplored landmasses filled with new activities to try, new resources to utilise, and new friends to meet!
As an example of how islands might work, wed like to invite you to journey with us to an example island known as the Great Conch.
This island is hidden in one of the more dangerous areas of the sea. To get there, youll need to learn how to find it from one of the inhabitants.
During a special investigative Port Task, intermediate sailors will encounter something a bit strange among a lost shipment at Corsair Cove. Its a member of the Oceanic Turtle Tribe! Her name is Floopa, and shes been injured in a sea monster attack. Help her get back home, and youll gain access to the Great Conch. Unfortunately, this once-bustling town has been damaged by a terrible storm. Help the turtles rebuild their village, and they might just teach you a trick or two
One of the most exciting things about Sailing to new lands is the ability to encounter new creatures and other sentient species. The Oceanic Turtle Tribe are one such species! Befriend them, and they can teach you a new Fletching method which focuses on tools suitable for turtle hands er, flippers. As always, were cautious of impacting the meta so you can be reassured that this new method wont outshine existing ones although it should make a welcome change from Bankstanding all the way to 99!
The Great Conch is also home to Woodcutting and Mining nodes, including unique new resources like Rosewood trees. Other activities could include an Agility course, and a new Slayer monster in the form of the Gryphons.
We dont yet know how many Islands youll encounter out at sea but the team has agreed that wed like to provide you all with multiple small islands and points of interest rather than one big island with nothing else surrounding it. Our design goal is to bring Gielinors ocean to life, and well be collaborating closely with the community to make that happen.
As an example, check out these fan-made maps by GentleTractor and NinjaPig, covering the western and eastern seas, respectively. Both maps are so close to our vision its great to see that were in sync with what the community is looking for!
Community Example: GentleTractor's Western Sea
One reward from Sailing is a charted World Map, which youll get whenever you explore a new ocean area. We imagine itll look a lot like these fan concepts, with loads of different islands and points of interest for you to discover out at sea.
Community Example: NinjaPig's Eastern Sea
As you can see, the sky really is the limit when it comes to what youll find on islands. Each and every one is really a reward in itself, with unique and fascinating new content for you to discover and revisit time and time again. Of course, well poll each individual addition with the community once Sailing passes the poll and we have time to map out each island.
In the meanwhile, wed love to hear your ideas about the kind of content youd like to see on islands you can tell us all about it in the survey below!
Of course, the greatest reward has to be the addition of new and exciting FashionScape not just for you, but for your Ship.
Sails, for example, are prime FashionScape territory. You could unlock and combine different colours, patterns, and icons. You could even use your Clan colours and icons on the sails imagine a whole Clan armada out at sea!
Were keen to tie cosmetics to achievements, so that youre flexing your in-game prowess as well as your sartorial elegance. The myriad Max Cape variants have shown us that you love showing off, so lets create more opportunities to do so!
For example, slaying one of each type of sea monster might unlock a special kraken icon that you can display on your sails. Lots of you have also mentioned dreaming of a beachfront home for your Player Owned House. We love this suggestion. In fact, were in talks right now to decide whether we can expand this concept even further howd you like to change the scenery around your Player Owned House to a desert island?
Lastly, no discussion of cosmetic rewards would be complete without talking about the coveted Sailing Skill Cape. Weve borrowed the popular icons made by ScreteMonge and GentleTractor and created some mock-ups of what the Cape might look like:
Since this has been such a community-led skill, were committed to running a player competition, where YOU can decide the final design of the skill icon and skill cape.
In fact, there are tons of community initiatives wed like to run, including player-designed islands as well as cosmetic rewards. Keep your eyes peeled for more news after Sailing passes the poll!
To sum things up, heres a big list of which activities we expect to fill each reward space:
Training Method | Reward Space |
Charting the Sea |
|
Shipwreck Salvaging |
|
Port Tasks |
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Barracuda Trials (formerly known as 'Ship Racing') |
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Ship Combat Including 'Bossing' and 'Sea Monster Hunting' |
|
Deep Sea Trawling |
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Mineral Dredging |
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Coral Farming |
|
A new skill is an unprecedented addition to the game, and well be looking for your feedback to make sure were heading in the right direction.
When the time comes, each individual reward and their stats or effects will be polled. Our aim with todays blog was to give you some idea of what those rewards might look like but were open to suggestions, and were sure that you have some great ideas brewing!
On that note, weve prepared a dedicated Rewards Survey so you can tell us what you think about the topics weve discussed today. Let us know your thoughts on the design so far!
Stay involved in our upcoming events throughout refinement, and make sure to join the Discord to stay up to date if times change:
Date | Event | Description |
July 6th | Twitch Q&A | Ask us your questions about the Sailing Reward Space blog! |
July 14th | Discord 'Stages' Integration and Lore | To discuss our design doc with you before a blog goes live around existing game integration and lore. |
July 25th | Integration Blog and Survey | Pencilled-in date for our fourth refinement blog, which covers Integration and Lore. |
August | Final Design Blog and Poll | Pencilled-in date for the final design blog and poll. |
You can also 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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