Prayer flicking - let's settle this one

[Mike]

I know that this issue has been brought up a couple of times in the past, but so far we have always refused to change this mechanic, for good reason.

For those who are unaware of what prayer flicking is, it's a click-intensive mechanic in OSRS where you flick a prayer on for a fraction of a second in order to activate a bonus or protection prayer and then flick it off really quickly before you lose a prayer point. If you time your clicks correctly, this mechanic allows a player to make use of prayers without actually losing a single prayer point.

To be clear, this is and has always been a bug in OSRS. Jagex never intended allowing players to use prayers without losing points, but this mechanic has been in the game for so long and is so widely used by players, Jagex cannot remove it if they do not want to create a huge shitstorm. I do entirely put the blame on Jagex for introducing this bug in the first place and allowing it to stay in their game.

However, we're an RSPS and we focus heavily on player input to steer the direction of our game. And as much as I may personally disdain it, if an overwhelming majority of the community wants us to add a bugged mechanic in the game just because that's how it works in OSRS, then who am I to disagree?

Cast your votes and please let us know why (or why not).

[Uim legolas]

I struggle to see many uses in this.
Prayer doesn't drain that fast and we have super prayer potions, which are very easy to get.
If you add in all the prayer bonusses that certain gear gives, it seems like a lot of effort to save a prayer pot or make your trip last longer...

If I'm missing any advantages, please let me know

[Iron blix]

If its not intended, has made 0 difference in the way our server works and plays, has 0 beneficial uses in our day to day and could possibly lead to further headaches I vote we keep things the way they are.

[Uim elon]

Prayer flicking in order to use no prayer points = No support

But with the inferno coming soon, I’m failing to understand how completing it will be possible with current relationship between protection activation in comparison to attack animation. This is a big part in the inferno since you are required to protect from several attack styles at once.

I would love to see how you plan on compensating for this, if you have given it any thought yet?

I could also be dumb and making all of this up.... but I’m pretty sure it is closely related.

[Rapsey]

Maybe I'm being cynical but I suspect if prayer flicking becomes a thing on here, a lot of the people who use it would be doing it by setting up a macro that does perfect flicking for them. I doubt many players would put that much more effort into PvM'ing by doing it themselves when it really isn;t necessary and supplies are cheap anyway.

[Mike]

But with the inferno coming soon, I’m failing to understand how completing it will be possible with current relationship between protection activation in comparison to attack animation. This is a big part in the inferno since you are required to protect from several attack styles at once.

I would love to see how you plan on compensating for this, if you have given it any thought yet?

I could also be dumb and making all of this up.... but I’m pretty sure it is closely related.

I don't really know. Do you think Jagex added prayer flicking as pretty much an absolute necessity to complete the inferno, because otherwise there's just no way to keep up your prayer points? If that's the case, then super prayer potions (which OSRS doesn't have, to the best of my knowledge) should at least compensate for that. If that's not enough, then we may want to consider an alternative compensation (if prayer flicking is not added on PkHonor).

However, it would seem a major dick move to me if Jagex made it impossible to complete the Inferno if you don't know how to flick prayers.

[Explozionz]

But with the inferno coming soon, I’m failing to understand how completing it will be possible with current relationship between protection activation in comparison to attack animation. This is a big part in the inferno since you are required to protect from several attack styles at once.

I would love to see how you plan on compensating for this, if you have given it any thought yet?

I could also be dumb and making all of this up.... but I’m pretty sure it is closely related.

I don't really know. Do you think Jagex added prayer flicking as pretty much an absolute necessity to complete the inferno, because otherwise there's just no way to keep up your prayer points? If that's the case, then super prayer potions (which OSRS doesn't have, to the best of my knowledge) should at least compensate for that. If that's not enough, then we may want to consider an alternative compensation (if prayer flicking is not added on PkHonor).

However, it would seem a major dick move to me if Jagex made it impossible to complete the Inferno if you don't know how to flick prayers.

I feel that prayer flicking would be absolutely pointless for us.

The reason being is that we've got items such as Souls whip, Comp cape souls, Chaos whip, Soul split, Overloads and more. It's only really an advantage in Runescape because it's used to not only preserve your prayer but also keep your hp high. We've got items in which can allow us to heal, complete the waves faster than npc's can attack and more.

I honestly see this as a waste of your time when you could be bringing out new updates then implementing this.

[Uim elon]

But with the inferno coming soon, I’m failing to understand how completing it will be possible with current relationship between protection activation in comparison to attack animation. This is a big part in the inferno since you are required to protect from several attack styles at once.

I would love to see how you plan on compensating for this, if you have given it any thought yet?

I could also be dumb and making all of this up.... but I’m pretty sure it is closely related.

I don't really know. Do you think Jagex added prayer flicking as pretty much an absolute necessity to complete the inferno, because otherwise there's just no way to keep up your prayer points? If that's the case, then super prayer potions (which OSRS doesn't have, to the best of my knowledge) should at least compensate for that. If that's not enough, then we may want to consider an alternative compensation (if prayer flicking is not added on PkHonor).

However, it would seem a major dick move to me if Jagex made it impossible to complete the Inferno if you don't know how to flick prayers.

No no no silly mike. I’m not referring to the prayer draining attributes of prayer flick. What I’m referring to the fact that if you activate a protection prayer after an NPC has performed the animation, the protection will not be effective against the incoming attack, while on OSRS, as long as the protection is activated before the hit is calculated (upon impact), the protection prayer will be effective. This makes it possible to protect again an incoming range and magic attack (especially for triple JADs). With the current prayer mechanics, this is not possible.

[Mike]

No no no silly mike. I’m not referring to the prayer draining attributes of prayer flick. What I’m referring to the fact that if you activate a protection prayer after an NPC has performed the animation, the protection will not be effective against the incoming attack, while on OSRS, as long as the protection is activated before the hit is calculated (upon impact), the protection prayer will be effective. This makes it possible to protect again an incoming range and magic attack (especially for triple JADs). With the current prayer mechanics, this is not possible.

Ahh, that explains it. My bad.

So that does mean there's a difference in prayer in PvM versus PvP in OSRS? Because in PvP, you get the XP drop when you perform the animation, not on impact. So in PvP, having a protect prayer at the time of impact does nothing, you need to have it activated when the other person starts their attack, right?

Or is protection prayer one of those weird cases where you can actually still block it when it hits you, even in PvP? Meaning if the other player had an XP drop when they start their animation, you activate your prayer and their damage will still be reduced (meaning the XP drop does not necessarily reflect the actual damage if you activate a protection prayer between cast and impact)?

[Uim elon]

No no no silly mike. I’m not referring to the prayer draining attributes of prayer flick. What I’m referring to the fact that if you activate a protection prayer after an NPC has performed the animation, the protection will not be effective against the incoming attack, while on OSRS, as long as the protection is activated before the hit is calculated (upon impact), the protection prayer will be effective. This makes it possible to protect again an incoming range and magic attack (especially for triple JADs). With the current prayer mechanics, this is not possible.

Ahh, that explains it. My bad.

So that does mean there's a difference in prayer in PvM versus PvP in OSRS? Because in PvP, you get the XP drop when you perform the animation, not on impact. So in PvP, having a protect prayer at the time of impact does nothing, you need to have it activated when the other person starts their attack, right?

Or is protection prayer one of those weird cases where you can actually still block it when it hits you, even in PvP? Meaning if the other player had an XP drop when they start their animation, you activate your prayer and their damage will still be reduced (meaning the XP drop does not necessarily reflect the actual damage if you activate a protection prayer between cast and impact)?

From my limited understanding, there is a big difference between protections between PVM and PvP because of the fact that protections in PVM have the ability to negate 100% of incoming damage, while in PVP, it simply serves as a damage reducing attribute, and it does not determine whether a hit lands, but rather how hard it lands if that makes sense.

You’re now asking me to go past the realm of my knowledge to answer that question. I really don’t want to give to any misinformation on hit calculations when differing from PVP and PVM because I just haven’t done it enough.

I’ll leave this for someone else to answer.