RuneScape Desert Treasure II – Tweaks and Drop Rates Patch Notes, August 3, 2023

Table of Contents Table of Contents

Just last week, RuneScape had a Desert Treasure II update, but now it is time for another, and this one comes bringing some Tweaks and apparently worked on some of the drop rates as well. So many people are loving the adventure of Desert Island, and it is time to dive back in again.

Below is the list of updates and tweaks made to Runescape.

RuneScape Desert Treasure 2 Patch Notes

Below is the list of patch notes from the official RuneScape website.

Desert Treasure II – Week One Tweaks

Since last week’s release, tens of thousands of you have taken it upon yourselves to undergo the epic adventure that is Desert Treasure II – The Fallen Empire.

Before we get into talking about what we’re changing, what we’re likely to change in future and what we’re still waiting for info on, we’d like to take another moment to say thank you to each and every one of you. The response to Desert Treasure II and everything that’s come with it has been overwhelming and we’re beyond grateful for all of the kind words you’ve shared with us.

With all that said, we’d like to make a handful of changes this week to improve players’ experiences with the quest itself, as well as cementing some of the hotfixes we’ve implemented since the quest’s release. You might not see as many changes as you anticipate this week, since our focus is on quest improvements and bugfixes first and foremost. The remaining feedback changes will be coming in next week’s game update, so you won’t have too long to wait!

Ring of Shadows

Let’s kick things off with something we know you’ll appreciate! Have you ever fallen afoul of multiple axes simultaneously while fighting Vardorvis, prepared yourself for the walk of shame to re-gear, and only then realised that your Ring of shadows is stuck in your gravestone and you’ll have to run from half the world away? Us neither, but it’s happened to a friend of ours…

Today, you’ll be able to Trade with the Mysterious bandit in the Ancient vault to purchase multiple Rings of shadows, for a mere 75,000 coins. Perhaps now you’ll be able to leave the Witch’s plant pots alone, she worked hard on those and your grubby hands are starting to disturb the soil.

Stamina-Boosts

All of the areas added alongside Desert Treasure II are pretty hefty, and will absolutely put your cardiovascular systems through their paces. While Stamina potions do exist, some players pointed out that it felt unusual to be provided with stamina-restoring items in Ghorrock prison and the Scar, but not in either of the remaining areas.

Anybody starting (or continuing) the quest this week should keep an eye out for shrines in the Stranglewood and rejuvenation pools around Lassar, which we’ve added to help you keep topped up while navigating these sections of the quest.

Ghorrock Prison

Many of you seem to have really enjoyed your prison break from this icy hellhole, while others have found yourself broken instead. Two puzzles in particular stand out as perhaps a little unclear for some of you, so we’ve updated a handful of the notes throughout this section of the quest in the hopes that the correct solutions feel more intuitive to any budding escape artists!

Additionally, we received reports that some of the locked gates throughout the prison were difficult to discern for players with various forms of colourblindness, so we’ve renamed the gates to reflect their associated gem key.

The Strangled

For those of you struggling to navigate your way through the Stranglewood (you’re definitely just spam clicking the minimap, aren’t you?), we’ve got a stinky addition to help you sneak past the hungry Stranglers. 

A chest has been added to Kasonde’s hideout in the Stranglewood. Within this chest you’ll find some Stink bombs that can be taken from it. When set off, a Stink bomb will attract the nearest Strangled to the coordinate it was set off on, keeping them far enough away from you to make your great escape. Nice.

Awakened Boss World Firsts

It’s been exhilarating watching you all take on the awakened forms of the Desert Treasure II bosses. For those of you who missed it, here are the first ten completions we saw since they were released on Friday, 28th July.

Desert Treasure II – Drop Rates

Let’s take a step back from the enigmatic and thrilling battles of Desert Treasure II, it’s time to turn our attention to a burning issue that has been the talk of Gielinor – the hotly-debated drop rates. We’ve seen the speculation, and your fervour hasn’t fallen on deaf ears.

In response, we’re pulling back the curtain on the drop tables. It’s time to dispel the rumours, clarify the odds, and equip you, our intrepid adventurers, with the knowledge you need to brave the challenges of this exciting new update.

Rates to hit the unique table before today’s update:

• Vardorvis – 1/180
• Duke – 1/108
• Leviathan – 1/120
• Whisperer – 1/77

Note: the Awakened variants of these bosses have 3x the chance to hit the unique table.

Weightings:

• Virtus 1/8
  • A separate 1/3 roll then determines which piece is awarded
• Vestige roll 3/8
  • Rolling this will increment a variable by one, the third time this is hit, drop the vestige and reset the variable
• Chromium Ingot 3/8
• Axe Piece 1/8

Untradeable Unique rates

These drops get more common with your KC until you get it for the first time, then they are flat rate as per the below:

• Teleport tablets – 1/25
• Ancient Elemental Quartz – 1/200

Awakener’s Orb rates:

• Vardorvis – 1/80
• Duke – 1/48
• Leviathan – 1/53
• Whisperer – 1/34

Clue rates

• Equal chance to roll for any Easy/Medium/Hard/Elite clue
• The rate is 1/40 for a specific clue mentioned above

Pet rates

• Vardorvis – 1/3000
• Duke – 1/2500
• Leviathan – 1/2500
• Whisperer – 1/2000

Drop table order

• Roll for tradeable unique
  • If not, roll for Awakener’s orb
    • If not, roll for untradeable uniques
      • If not, roll 1/5 for supply drop
        • If not, roll for resource drop
• Additionally roll for clues & pets

Let’s take a moment to dive into the drop rates for the Virtus set that’s been catching everyone’s eye. Finding that sweet spot between Ahrim’s and Ancestral’s price has been key, so the rarity of Virtus had to be dialed in just right. We made the decision to include Virtus as drops for all four separate bosses, encouraging you to grind all of them for their unique drops. You still have the option to focus on one boss if that’s your thing, but we wanted to make sure that if you were going for each of the respective rings, you’d eventually get Virtus passively along the way

We did toy with the idea of having just one boss drop the whole Virtus set at a more common rate, which could have made target farming the set much easier. Implementing it this way could also prevent a potential crash in the set’s value, as it wouldn’t be coming into the game as quickly as it will when all four bosses are being farmed simultaneously by those hunting for their Vestige. Ultimately it all boils down to a delicate balance of rarity, demand, and the effort required to obtain them. We feel like the current implementation is the best option for the long-term grind, but understand why some of you may feel frustrated if you’re exclusively seeking out Virtus.

As for general drop rates, we feel much more comfortable erring on the side of caution, especially for the initial few day. We’d much rather avoid a situation where too many uniques are entering the game vs not enough. It’s much healthier for us to correct too few uniques entering the game vs too many.

With all this in mind, now that we have more information, we’re changing the core unique rates (Virtus, Ingots, Vestige & Axe pieces) to be approximately 20-30% more common, depending on the boss (Vardorvis and Leviathan have received the biggest improvement).

This means the following rates will now apply:

• Vardorvis – 1/136
• Duke – 1/90
• Leviathan – 1/96
• Whisperer – 1/64

Note: the Awakened variants of these bosses have 3x the chance to hit the unique table.

Keep in mind that we might fine-tune the drop rates even further down the line. Our goal is to ensure that the long-term value of items remains balanced, but we’re also considering how these items fit into each player’s progression journey, taking into account the time and difficulty of each encounter. So, stay tuned for any updates in the future as we continue to optimise your experience.

Other Changes

• As Raiding dungeons can now contain banks, players protected by the Deadman Mode PvP protection are no longer permitted to enter them. You can speak to the Doomsayer to cancel your protection early.
• Various spelling mistakes during Desert Treasure II dialogue have been resolved. Thankfully most of you spacebar spammed and didn’t notice, but we fixed them anyway.
• Improved pathing to Salt deposits within Duke Sucellus’s room. You should now be able to click from the upper floor to a deposit with ease!
• Vents within Duke Sucellus’s room will now correctly despawn when the encounter ends.
• Resolved an issue that could prevent the Duke Sucellus encounter from starting.
• Female Sanguine Torva has the correct assets.
• Both male & female sanguine torva has correct inv models & chatheads.
• Torva has been replaced with reworked version shared in the Poll 80 newspost.
• Players are no longer able to feed Abyssal leeches items with a “destroy” option.
• The leeches in the Persten wight fight will now always target the player.
• Ketla and her clones were not doing the right amount of damage, this has been changed so they are closer to what we had intended.
• The Amulet of the Eye will no longer be lost on death.
• Damage should no longer carry over to Kasonde once the fight has ended.
• Various minor balancing changes have been made to the quest versions of the Desert Treasure II bosses (the difficulty of these bosses should remain very close to how they were last week). Their respective combat levels have also been increased to better reflect their difficulty.
• Some temple walls within the Stranglewood can no longer be walked through.
• Awakener’s orbs have been added to the Collection Log. As the orbs are tradeable, any gained before this update will not appear.
• Boss slayer tasks for the four new bosses could be given before completing DT2. This is now fixed.
• Slayer tasks no longer apply to the Awakened versions of the Desert Treasure II bosses.
• Vardorvis has had some clickbox improvements.
• It is no longer possible to safespot the Mysterious Stranger.
• Wearing the Ring of Shadows will correctly show the hidden ghosts inside the Sepulchre.
• Some scenic Braziers within the throne room of the Lassar Undercity have been removed.
• Progress while in a Scar maze will now save, so if you need to leave and return, you don’t need to redo already completed challenges.
• Boss information has now been added to the Combat Achievements interface, alongside Monster Examine being enabled.

PvP World Rota

The PvP rota has moved to Period A:

• 539 – (US) – PvP World
• 318 – (UK) – Bounty Hunter world
• 548 – (Germany) – High-Risk PvP World
• 577 – (US) – Free-to-Play PvP World
• 559 – (UK) – LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been activated with this rota.

World 569(AUS) for Bounty Hunter has been activated with this rota.