Tears of Guthix (minigame)

Tears of Guthix is a short Distraction and Diversion that players may use to gain experience in their lowest levelled skill without having to train that particular skill.

To participate, players must have: The Tears of Guthix quest entry in the Quest List will track how many experience points are required and how much time is remaining before the player can again tell a story to Juna and collect tears again (See below).
 * Completed the Tears of Guthix quest.
 * Earned at least 100,000 total experience or one quest point since they last participated (unless they have never used this activity before).
 * Waited at least 7 days (this is a rolling 167 hours, unlike Penguin Hide and Seek).

A player must travel through the Lumbridge Swamp Caves to the Tears of Guthix cavern and tell a story to Juna, the serpent guardian of Guthix's tears. Virtually each time a story is told to Juna, players recount a story based upon a quest that they have completed. Since the Swamp Caves are dark, players require a lightsource in order to play this Distraction and Diversion. Additionally, both hands must be free in order to wield the stone bowl that is used to collect the Tears of Guthix.



Checking eligibility
Players may find out whether they are eligible to play the game via one of three methods. The first is to go to Juna and try to play, and if a player is not eligible then she will mention the requirements not met.

The second (more convenient) method is to use the Quest List of the interface, and choose Tears of Guthix. Players will be able to check how many days, and how many experience points, are needed before being allowed to play the Distraction and Diversion.

The third method, as of 27 August 2010, is having the Runescape Toolbar personalized to show what Distractions and Diversions are ready for you to do.

The journal describes the time left in whole number of days, rounded down, until players are allowed to again access to the caves guarded by Juna. If a player can return within two days, the time until they can return is to the nearest hour (example: "1 day 7 hours"). If a player can return within four hours, the time remaining is given to the nearest minute (example: "2 hours 36 minutes").

Prior to the Level-up Messages update on 21 May 2008, the number of days until a player could collect tears was rounded up to the nearest day. For example, "Tomorrow" would mean a player could collect tears again within 48 hours, and similarly "Later Today" would mean tears could be collected again within 24 hours.

Also, players could visit Juna and collect tears up to an hour earlier than they were supposed to, i.e. 167 hours after they had last done so, rather than the 168 hours in a week.

Playing the game
Players need to collect the blue tears flowing from the inner walls, increasing their collected tear count. Players need to avoid collecting the green tears, as these decrease the tear count. The locations of the tears changes more quickly if there are more players in the game. Therefore, it is suggested to find a less crowded world. There are 3 spots with green tears and 3 spots with blue tears at all times.

The game relies heavily on the player's quest points. The more quest points a player has, the longer the player is able to collect tears, and therefore the more experience the player gets. The formula for the time a player has is thought to be the players Quest Points in Ticks which is 0.6 of a second, plus a certain amount of seconds which is the lowest limit (possibly 45 to 60 seconds). 43 quest points are required for the Tears of Guthix quest. A player with 291 quest points has about 3 minutes (or 180 seconds).

When playing the game, it is best to be calm as the tears tend to switch randomly quite fast and without warning which can be a bit frustrating. There is no known best strategy to get the most possible tears. When the tears switch to green, some players walk to the nearest blue tears (players cannot run in the Distraction and Diversion), regardless of which wall they are on. Other players believe that walking from wall to wall wastes time and it is best to stay at the same wall, waiting for any tears there to turn blue.

When using the latter strategy and there are no blue tears on a wall, walking to the centre of the three sets of tears (without collecting them) positions the player for quickest movement when a set of tears on the wall turns blue. In either of these strategies, one tactic when changing spots is to click the floor in front of the spot the player wants to move to, rather than the tears themselves; this saves the player from collecting an incorrect tear in the event that the wall changes from blue to green before the player gets there.

The interface shows the number of tears collected in the stone bowl, and a bar represents time remaining.

Rewards
After time runs out, the player receives experience based on the number of tears collected. The maximum number of tears collected is reported to be 267 (with 316 QP), disproving the belief that the maximum to be capped at 200 tears. According to this, with the current maximum of 328 QP, the maximum would be about 277 tears.

The experience is added to the skill with the least experience, unless by which one has not completed the quest that is required to train the skill (e.g. Wolf Whistle is a required quest to train the Summoning skill or Druidic Ritual is a required quest to train the Herblore skill, you also need to own a POH to be able to train construction.) Also, the Tears will not grant experience to a skill that has only recently been released into the game. The amount of experience per tear increases as the player's level increases, until they reach level 30. Once level 30 is reached, the player receives a maximum of 60 experience for each tear collected. For example, if a player collects 250 tears, 15,000 experience will be awarded.

The experience per tear is based on the current experience of the lowest level skill, and is calculated according to the following formula:


 * XP per tear = $$MIN(60, (100 + FLOOR(current xp / 27)) / 10.6)$$ Where MIN chooses the lowest value out of its inputs.

The experience per tear is capped at 60.

Note: Experience in RuneScape is recorded to the 1/10th of an experience point, but players do not see the fraction part of the experience in the game interface.

Messages
Players receive a message indicating the skill in which experience was received.

Trivia

 * The 14 July 2008 Tutorial Island Update gave every player one quest point, which counted toward the Tears of Guthix requirement.
 * Players who have begun the Dorgeshuun quest series can reach the Tears of Guthix cave faster by intentionally falling through the first trap in the maze to the Dorgeshuun mines. Players will wash up in the Lumbridge caves north of the giant frogs.
 * When your character tells Juna a story about Miscellania and Etcetaria, Juna says, "War, what is it good for?" to which your character will reply, "Absolutely nothing!" These are lyrics from the Edwin Starr song "War".
 * Players who have not completed the Tears of Guthix quest can collect tears in the quest Death to the Dorgeshuun.
 * If you logged on a PvP world prior to 1 February 2011, Juna would say to you, "Your stories entertained me, but I will not permit any adventurer to access tears on such an unbalanced and violent world."
 * Despite being unable to extinguish a light source inside the Tears of Guthix cave, if you manage to make it through the Lumbridge Swamp Caves without a light source, you will not be bitten by insects in the Tears of Guthix cave.
 * In a Lores and History, it is revealed that it was Zanik who came up with the trial to get to the tears.
 * The Ranged and Attack skills have the same experience message.
 * In the book 'Runescape Betrayal at Falador' it is thought that Kara-Meir drank the tears of Guthix in order to repair the runite necklace.
 * In the updates on 3 March 2010, Tears of Guthix was changed from an activity to a Distraction and Diversion.
 * The experience gain for your lowest skill and the name of the activity can explain that as the god of balance, Guthix is intolerant of skills being unbalanced. Therefore, the activity is called Tears of Guthix.
 * Guthix's emphasis on balanced skills is further emphasized during the quest A Void Dance when Tyr mentions that the lack of non-combat training among the knights is deplorable. The quest requires levels of about 50 in 7 different skills.
 * On 28 April 2010, RuneScape was updated to allow players to gain experience for Dungeoneering if it is their lowest skill. This update was not applied correctly at first and as a result, many players did not receive Dungeoneering experience. The game was quickly updated again.
 * To begin the D&D, players must wait 167 hours since they last completed it - therefore, the minimum elapsed time between starting the activity one week and starting it again the next week is 167 hours and one minute (longer for players with more Quest Points).
 * The 1 hour 'discount' is reflected in the countdown.
 * If a player had completed the Romeo and Juliet quest prior to its removal, the player will still mention the story of Romeo and Juliet.