OldSchool RuneScape - My Time With Leagues IV

I’ve been a semi-casual fan of RuneScape off and on since about 2008, so naturally when the main game began leaning harder and harder into microtransactions and predatory game design, I found myself drifting more and more towards playing OldSchool exclusively. Though I’ve touched very little of thje late-game content, one aspect of the game that I’ve always been curious about is Leagues, the somewhat annual time-limited event they’ve been running for a few years now.

I had never touched Leagues before the current event, but after seeing a few streamers I occasionally watch get into it, I thought I’d give it a try myself. Of course, unlike a lot of Leagues players I went in with absolutely no plans for my endgame, and no advance knowledge of the different mechanics involved other than “you get XP real fast and there’s a bunch of tasks to do” which ticks all the right boxes for my skinner-box addicted brain.

The event’s been running for about a week now, so I thought I’d take a moment to log my progress a bit, as well as put together some of my thoughts about how it’s been going.

First off, here’s a quick summary of the progress I’ve made:

My levels so far

Starting off my main objective was to smooth over the more irritating parts of the game. Trickster, for instance, completely trivializes Agility and Thieving, so naturally I had to opt for that one. For the second I chose Globetrotter, since I figured that fairy rings tended to be too far away from most points of interest, and would mean a lot more walking to get to wherever I needed to be, whereas Globetrotter teleports are usually right in the center of most major areas (except for the desert, which I have precisely two teleports to that are right by eachother).

Banker’s Note vs. Fire Sale was by far the hardest choice I’ve had to make, but ultimately I figured that I’d get more use out of unlimited noting/un-noting than free items, though there have been times where having that would be nice. Banker’s Note works really nice with my general strategy of “sit in one place for three hours and spend precisely zero brain power on the game” so I can’t complain really.

For the first combat relic I went with Sorcerer, not for any real reason but just because I like killing things fast from afar with magic. Kind of painted myself into a corner though, because with my regions it’s really hard to get decent armor and I’m still rolling with level-20 Xerician robes.

I almost went with Infernal Gathering, but I’ve heard it only really shines if you also have Endless Harvest, since that’ll net you both the processed items in your inventory, and extra unprocessed copies in your bank. Some people suggested Treasure Seeker was good for getting a lot of tasks done quickly by streamlining clue scrolls, so I opted for that just so I could see what mid-to-late-game Leagues was like a bit faster.

And then there’s Farmer’s Fortune, my beloved. This relic completely tears Farming apart, turning it from a slow daily task into something I was able to shotgun in only a few hours. Getting 99 Farming at the Tithe Farm also helped a bit with Herblore by giving me an easy, repeatable source of herbs alongside the seeds I’ve been able to pickpocket with Trickster. The last few relics I’ve yet to unlock are all combat focused so I don’t really know what my plan’s going to be for those yet, but Berserker sounds fun so I might go for that.

As for the areas I picked, I started with Asgarnia kind of on a whim, and in retrospect something like Kandarin or Fremennik might’ve been a better call, because I’m not sure how much there really is for me to do there past the early game aside from Motherlode Mine. Kourend has a lot of nice skilling-related stuff that I’ve never really interacted with in the main game, so I figured it’d be worth giving it a look. I picked Desert last, not because there was much specific there I wanted to see, but I realized that since I had already committed myself to the magic relic I kinda needed Ancient Magicks to make the most of it.

My current goal now is to try and brute force the Fight Caves with Banker’s Note, so I can get into the main TzHaar city and do some pickpocketing there. After that it should be a fair bit easier to keep a steady supply of cash on hand, so maybe I’ll lean harder into Slayer and try out some of the easier bosses. I haven’t done a ton of questing so far, so maybe I’ll try and knock some of those out too.

Ultimately I’m not sure how much further I want to go with Leagues, so I might start treating it as kind of an accelerated practice mode for the main game, where I’m nowhere near the levels I’ve reached over here. I’ve had a lot more fun than I expected so far, so even if I don’t make much more progress I think it’s been worthwhile.