At the beginning of the year we started the Power to the Players initiative, and in the last six months the RuneScape community has used it to shape the game in over 50 polls.

Today brings the biggest player-driven releases so far: the launch of Legacy Mode and return of the 138 combat formula.

This year, we vowed to work with the community on making Evolution of Combat the best it can be, as well as finding an alternative for players who preferred things as they used to be. Our aim has been to allow all types of players to enjoy combat their way, and to have them able to play side-by-side.

Read on to find out the details of Legacy Mode and the many other combat improvements - available in-game now.

Legacy Mode

Legacy Mode is an optional setting which allows you to play the modern game, but with traditional interfaces and old-style combat, without the need to learn the new Evolution of Combat system.

Legacy Mode can be turned on or off in either the Game Settings or Powers - Combat Settings interfaces, and when activated enables the following features:

No abilities, with auto-attack damage scaled up

Pre-RuneScape 3-style interfaces, both resizable and fixed

Old-style combat animations and stances

Old-style minimap icons

Health and damage visually scaled down (e.g. 9900 life points in EoC becomes 990 in Legacy)

Global Combat Improvements

For those of you who enjoy Evolution of Combat, we’ve also made significant improvements to the system, based on your feedback. We've fine-tuned these on the beta servers in recent months.

The 138 combat formula has been reinstated, tweaked to have equal contribution from melee, ranged and magic

Special attacks on weapons have returned. In EoC mode you can find the 'Weapon Special Attack' ability in the Defensive Abilities menu

Strength bonuses have replaced critical hit chance

Ability damage has been fine-tuned to address some long-term imbalances. Damage output potential remains the same, but weaker abilities have been improved and overpowered abilities toned down

More life points come from stats than from armour, and combat triangle penalties and bonuses are slightly relaxed

The Loadout interface has been updated to give clearer info for offensive and defensive stats

Some bosses - such as the God Wars Dungeon generals - have had their difficulty slightly increased

Today’s update also brings a few Legacy-only and EoC-only game worlds. While the systems have been designed to be played side-by-side, we appreciate that PKers will want to know which mode their opponents will be using.

Fancy seeing this for yourself? Tune into our Twitch channel at 6pm BST today for our special Legacy Live Stream to spend 4 hours getting the lowdown with Mod Pips, Mod Pi, and Mod Slayer.

Future Combat

Today’s launch of Legacy Mode and the Global Combat Improvements are a landmark point in our quest to make RuneScape’s combat the best it can be – but our ambitions don’t end here.

In the short term, we’ll continue to tune both EoC and Legacy in response to your feedback, and we will also soon be offering limited stat rollbacks for those who used to have pure accounts but lost these in the change to EoC or re-introduction of the 138 combat formula.

In the longer term, we want to do more to revive PvP minigames and the Wilderness; to bring back monster aggression; to rework equipment that has lost its relevance; and to offer options to have Legacy Combat within the New Interface System, and vice versa.

To keep up with our progress on any outstanding issues, visit our 'Known and Fixed Issues' thread.

Please always give us your feedback, both what you’re enjoying and what you’d like to see changed. We’ll do our best to make it happen.

Gear Guide

Having the right weapons and items can help you take your adventure in Gielinor even further and that’s why we created our brand-new Gear Guide.

Use it to find out the very best weapons, accessories, and armour available to your character; simply select a combat method and a skill level to populate a list of all the best gear!

Summer Special Membership

Head to the Gear Guide now to discover the best gear for you.

The Summer Membership Package has been flying off the virtual shelves, and plenty of you have saved yourself over 25% on three months’ membership, plus got your hands on those XP boosting auras and amulets.

To make sure everyone is prepared for the launch of Elf City, we’ve decided to extend the availability of this awesome package. You can now get your hands on your discounted membership and XP boosting items until 28th July.

See our previous news post for more details on what’s included in the package.

In Other News

Keepsake Boxes have been updated to be much more flexible. There are now 20 Keepsake Box slots within the Wardrobe Interface and any type of item can be put into any of the slots.

Treasure Hunter has had its prizes refreshed. They should now be even more relevant to your skills, especially at higher levels. Visit the prize update forum thread for further details.

Read the patch notes for other updates released today.

Mod Pips and the RuneScape Team