This week's update featured a small list of improvements as based on suggestions on the official forums. One that stood out to me in particular was the fact that several high level monsters and boss monsters can now be attacked with a single click regardless of combat level. This update offers a much-needed improvement to how these monsters are fought, as fighting these dangerous creatures requires lightning-fast response times. A single in-game tick of 0.6 seconds can be the difference between life and death. By allowing players to attack these monsters with only one click, Jagex has increased the amount of time a player's cursor can spend on the right side of the interface, where they can manage their food and prayers. They have also removed some of the tedium from fighting these monsters, as all of them have such high levels that even at level 138 players couldn't attack them with a single left click.
While this is a great improvement, I think it doesn't go nearly far enough. At level 85, I frequently get slayer tasks that force me to right-click, which makes fighting these monsters incredibly tiresome. Furthermore, there are plenty of relatively high level monsters I kill that I'd love to be able to left-click, such as all chromatic dragons and the giant mole. The difference between these monsters and the ones that have actually been changed is fairly obvious. The monsters are still strong, but don't require the same reflexes. Still, I would like to be able to attack these monsters more easily, and why shouldn't I be?
One of the main reasons why Jagex might not want to allow players to attack every monster with one click is that it originally helped act as an anti-botting feature. Over the past few years we've seen an enormous rise in highly advanced bots that can not only be programmed to fight, but also to eat food when they're low on health points and to pick and choose drops based on their monetary value.
It's exactly because of these bots that Jagex should allow players to left-click these monsters. After all, even if the bots aren't high-level enough to left-click these monsters, they still have an unfair advantage over legitimate players who have to right-click them, simply because it's faster to do this through botting software. However, if Jagex would enable players to left-click these monsters, it would give them a very good edge over the bots. After all, while bots might be faster at right-clicking monsters, they can't beat simple human reflexes when it comes to locating their targets. This is especially true for players who are using ranged or magic.
Then there's the issue of player safety. The game mechanic where players have to right-click an NPC to attack it if that NPC has a higher combat level than them was introduced in the earliest days of Runescape classic. It was intended to protect players from accidentally attacking a high level NPC. Many cities feature relatively high level NPCs, such as the Heroes in Ardougne, that, while not aggressive, are still very dangerous in combat. This was especially true in Runescape classic, as players could not leave combat for the first three rounds. A low-level player in Ardougne could easily get themselves killed if they accidentally clicked on a Hero while trying to talk to a market merchant.
While it's certainly true that in the past few years Jagex has put up safety signs all over Runescape, both literally and figuratively, they've also added in the ability to toggle these warnings on and off. This indicates that Jagex understands that there comes a point in the game where players no longer need to have their hands held and can accept their responsibility to recognize danger on their own. There are two ways this principle could be implemented into the game. Jagex could either add an option to toggle the ability to attack higher level monsters with one click after the player has reached a certain combat level, or they could restrict the ability to left-click monsters to certain areas where this option is most needed, such as dungeons and slayer areas.
Speaking of slayer, it's understandable that certain people might be afraid that it becomes too easy to train slayer or even just combat skills if any monster could be left-clicked. However, the addition of the 'make-x' system has not only seriously reduced the amount of players suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, it has also shown that Jagex understands that forcing players to endlessly grind their skills is just bad game design. I think that adding the ability to left-click monsters would certainly reduce the tedium of slayer assignments and combat training, and I seriously doubt that this change would suddenly double slayer and combat XP rates.
So while the left-click update is certainly a very helpful one, I think that Jagex would do well to expand it to more, if not all monsters. It would make combat, both for experience and profit, a more enjoyable experience, while also giving legitimate players a new edge over those who chose to let automated scripts do their training for them. I'm aware that there's also a security concern involved, but that too can be circumvented. All in all, I see no reason why I shouldn't be left-clicking the giant mole or similar monsters.
