There have once again been significant developments in RuneScape technology. A revenge match years in the making came to a dramatic conclusion in a new speedrun entry for Old School RuneScape (OSRS), with the creator of the whole category returning more than three years later to one-up the venerable speedrun legend who previously obliterated his first time by nearly 50%.
Way back in December 2021, OSRS YouTuber Settled – well known around the game's community for long character playthroughs with absurd restrictions, as well as short runs with intense goals – set about "creating a Runescape world record."
The plan was to make a new account, choose the Ultimate Ironman account type, which can't trade other players or use banks to store items, and obtain the coveted Fire Cape from a difficult PvE gauntlet called the Fight Caves. You'd have to train up your account, access the Fight Caves, and clear 63 waves of enemies – including the iconic boss TzTok-Jad – as fast as possible.
This "speedrun" took just over 34 hours to complete, which is actually pretty fast by some RuneScape standards.
Before Settled could even release his final run, however, another player by the name of Evonaabi shared his own Fire Cape clear using the same rules. Evonaabi, known for his enduring reign at the top of many Speedrun.com RuneScape leaderboards, managed to do it in just over 19 hours. At the time, Evonaabi reckoned the run could be cut down to 13 hours.
In a new video proudly taking aim at "beating Evonaabi," who Settled dubs "Runescape's immortal king of speedrunning," Settled revisits the challenge with several more years of experience under his belt, and with many more routes available as references.
Another player, Rendi, previously claimed a 12-hour win, only for Evonaabi to beat him again with 11 hours and 14 minutes. That's where the record sat for years, but with his latest entry, which outpaces Evonaabi by a solid 41 minutes, Settled hopes the category "continues for many years to come."
"That's a great run, gg," Evonaabi said in a YouTube comment on the video. "I wish I had the time to do speedruns again, but unfortunately it's not going to be me who lowers the time."
I don't want to spoil or summarize the entire 36-minute video here, but beyond calling attention to the commendable effort and fascinating tinkering that goes into a speedrun like this, I do want to highlight a few key stressors tied to this run. It's also my duty to mention lines like "optimal levels to drink Lizardkicker," because nobody else will, and that is primo, grade-A material.
Long speedruns are always nerve-wracking because the runner has so much to lose from a mistake. Even if they're brutally precise, runs measured in minutes are at least quickly repeated. But this OSRS speedrun comes with a few unique headaches.
With every new record in this category, competitors forced each other to adopt new and riskier methods of beating it. There'd be no way to surpass their time otherwise. This steadily upped the ante on the Fire Cape, forcing people to play more and more aggressively.
OSRS actions are measured on the game's side in "tics" of 0.6 seconds, and optimal play involves tic manipulation that requires near-perfect timing on your clicks. Tic manipulation is often used to trick the game engine during long actions or to negate negative effects that only kick in after a certain number of tics.
In his run, Settled used tic manipulation to speed up a training grind that previously slowed down Evonaabi. More importantly, he used it to maintain virtual invincibility during the Fight Caves by abusing RuneScape's protection prayers, which (as a general rule) grant you immunity to certain damage types in PvE. The Fight Caves are intended for more mid-level players, and even they rely on protection prayers – so as a very fresh account, Settled found that protection was even more important.
If you miss a tic, you risk losing one of the limited prayer points that provide this protection. Plus, the routing for this category has gotten so extreme, any way to replenish prayer points has been cut out – all but demanding tic perfection.
On top of that, normally harmless enemies that appear in the Fight Caves jump from "weak little bats" to "run-ending threats" due to their ability to drain prayer points on contact.
The preparation stage of Settled's run only took about five hours, so he ends up with "nearly six hours of near-perfect gameplay ahead of me."
"I feel like I've started to hallucinate a little at the end," he says at one point. "My forearm started to tense up so bad at the end," he concludes.
The whole video is an interesting, white-knuckled watch, so you should definitely give it a look.
"I also need to give a massive shoutout to Evonaabi," Settled adds. "He set the standards for this run, he showed everyone what's possible, and I don't want to take credit for that. He optimized this run to a brilliant level, and I'm really glad he was the first domino to creating a history for this category."
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