Ultracompost Aftermath

A simple analysis and discussion on the Ultracompost update to Oldschool Runescape. I will go over how ultracompost has affected the herb market and where / if it has a place in the game.

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[uglinus]

Really nice and thorough video! I had never really though about updates in Runescape like this. Please do more of these, even with old updates!

[beach]

Didn't think about it that way. Very informative video and well presented.

[thephilosophersstoned]

So what you're telling me is, Ultracompost is a Government Subsidy artificially inflating the production, without taking into account the demand on the item is so stable that it actually manages to punish success by driving prices down while the workload stays the same.

Good job, Jagex.

[relientker]

Can't wait for the livestock update now, just gunna farm baby moles all day for mole parts.

[kennethabad]

It brought a mild increase in farming xp and made getting herb levels just a bit cheaper. It didn't effect the game too much overall just added a new stronger part to the farming meta.

[Lucaemar]

Nice vid as always!
A few things: trees which you get several logs from work in such a way that everytime you get a log, there's a 1/8 chance the tree will fall (this is a fact) and I believe picking herbs works similarily, but the rolling only starts after you have picked your minimum amount of herbs (depends on compost). Some have said that higher level herbs also have a slightly higher chance not to become diseased and to give more yield but I havent personally seen that. What I have seen is that if a herb gets diseased and cured, its a lot more likely to become diseased again, which is very annoying.
Disclaimer: I have been doing between 5 and 10 herbruns almost everyday single this year.
Now as for profit: Kwuarm, Toadflax and Avantoe actually usually have the highest profit margins, Ranarr mixed up there in the top three depending on how the seed/herbprices are, but snapdragon usually is quite a bit worse for profit. Since ranarr and snap seeds/herbs are a lot more expensive there's also a lot of fluctuation in their price, whereas the cheaper seeds and herbs are more stable. The Wiki has a calculator that shows the expected profit for farming herbs at a given time with (two tables, one assuming the normal herbpatches and one assuming you use alle 7 (two of them disease free) patches since the average yield differs there), but the wiki only takes the ge price of herbs and seeds into account ie the streetprice might've changed a bit since the ge price is slow to adjust.
Although I have no expect records of hm I was making b4 ultracompost vs now, I would say I make more money now (granted I also only recently unlocked the Harmony Island patch) but I would say you underestimate the daily and weekly changes and trends in especially seed prices as those went up and down a lot in the quartile before ultracompost and have continued to do so after, affecting the profit a lot

[wyinafdiar]

It mostly affects ironmans, which isn't a bad thing perse

[ryangraef]

This is a similar thing that was discussed back when rs3 was adding content that increased herb yield (perfect juju potions). Rather than increasing profit for people who could access that content, all it did was reduce profit for people who could not. I also wonder how much of an affect Herbiboar had on prices, since that came out at the same time as ultracompost.

[MissLinore]

Joe, I'm not sure if I agree. The profit from herb runs has stayed constant, but the reduced cost of herbs has cut into the profits from heavily botted areas (Chaos Druids) and AFKable, high-profit mobs like Turasks. The cost of using potions has decreased, which closes the margin on the loss of profit from mid-to-high level herb dropping mobs. Herb runs give slightly more experience, and I view less variance in outcome as a benefit. In short, I think that herb runs have been made slightly more relevant and botting/AFKing herb dropping mobs have been made slightly less relevant, which I think is a positive result.

[ruihanzeng]

I do watermelons + herbs on my farm runs. I seen about a 30% increase in exp from switching from super compost to ultra compost

[devanlambert]

A bit of feedback on the video: when you displayed the three graphs you didn't include headers or any clear visual indication of what graph was associated with what herb. Otherwise great video!

[vitmorez]

i always grow watermelons an use then to make my own super compost, then buy Volcanic ash from ge an turn them into ultra compost, is that a waste of my money an time ? should i just be using super compost ? whats your opinion thanks !

[TheLunarFX]

You overlooked a HUGE point. You made the assumption that this update was purely to make farming more profitable... which of course it really didn't as you proved.. By making this statement you must also then agree that Supercompost doesn't have a place in the game because it has the same effect.

Now, let's pretend you're a lower level. In everything. Not just combat related things. Ultracompost is nearly as easy to obtain as Supercompost. The ash requires 10 mining or can simply be purchased. You can also skip all of these steps and buy the Ultracompost right out of the Grand Exchange. So their intention was not to reward players that obtained this compost but instead allowed crops to have more yield, for everyone.

Most plant herbs, some plant trees, few use all the allotments. For those who do all the 3, the benefit comes with the allotments. Higher yield means more experience per trip or per hour. I do a farm run of 4 patches, all of which have allotments, and get, now, 11.5k exp per run. That's awesome. Thanks for the extra exp/hour jagex.

Also take into consideration how much use the Ironmen get out of more herbs per run.

No one loses in this update, farming is now just faster should you be more involved in it than just paying people to look after trees.

[Pakyakachu]

Joseph, can you apply for a position at Jagex. They need someone like you.