Mechanics and some tips
Treasure Hunter replaced the Squeal of Fortune daily activity. In it, players earn keys from various activities to open chests. It provides rewards ranging from RS3 gold to rare weapons and armor. Sometimes, you might even get cosmetics. While it may look simple, there might be some mechanics you might not know.
The Mechanics
The premise is simple. You have keys, and you open chests with them. You can check what you can get from them by looking at the Probabilities option. You’ll see the percentages of getting a specific gem with a prize. There are five gems and rarities they represent:
- White for Common rarity
- Yellow for Fairly Common
- Orange for Uncommon
- Red for Rare
- Purple for Very Rare
When you open a chest, you have the choice to send the item to the bank or your inventory, collect it later, or convert it into oddments. The conversion rates vary depending on the rarity of the item. Rewards have their own categories:
- Promotional
- Lamps
- Stars
- Proteans
- Cash Bags
- Utility
- Skilling Supplies
Some are obvious, such as the XP Lamps and Cash Bags that give RS gold. Promotional items are available or have higher rates for a limited time. Proteans are a set of things you can process for skill experience. While Stars and Lamps have a similar effect, Lamps give direct XP while Stars provide bonus XP.
From the interface, you can also set auto-redeem options. Any redeemable item you get from the feature will automatically be redeemed without your input. Others may want to keep them for a rainy day, and here is where they can do that. You can also see your rewards and redeem or destroy them.
You can play Treasure Hunter from anywhere in Gielinor, but not in the following areas:
- Daemonheim
- Inside Runecrafting altars
- Entrana
How to Get Keys
All players receive keys every day. The amount differs depending on their membership status. Free-to-play accounts get one, members receive two, and Premier Club members have three daily keys. The lattermost has that for as long as their club membership is active.
You can double the daily gain by buying the ‘Double Daily Keys (30 Days)’ from the ‘Buy Keys’ option in the Treasure Hunter interface. Daily keys expire at midnight, so you can’t keep them for future use. Hover over the keys in the Treasure Hunter window to see a breakdown or check how many you have left.
Other sources of keys are monster drops through key tokens. They drop any time, but you may only claim them if you have less than 10 earned ones. You may also get them by skilling. The process is similar to finding a Strange Rock. Though it will not replace an item in your inventory when you have 10 or more keys, it will automatically drop or be redeemed.
Distractions and Diversions will also give you a key every month if you start a game of Troll Invasion. Also, participating in a designated minigame will provide players a key token every week. While F2P players can only get keys from Evil Tree and Shooting Star, those are still more chances of getting keys every other week or so.
Completing quests will provide players with two keys. However, this is only possible until they receive 100 keys through this method. That means after 50 quests, you won’t earn keys this way anymore. The game considers sub-quests of Recipe for Disaster, Dimension Disaster, and the Thieving Guild as individual ones.
Completing daily challenges also award keys, but only for paid members. Free ones can do the challenges- they just won’t get the same rewards.
Buying keys is always an option. Where you buy them influences whether the game considers them ‘bought’ or ‘earned’ keys. Buying from the Marketplace through oddments counts as ‘earned,’ and you can only buy 60 daily. Exchanging Bonds (one equals 15 keys) and buying them directly with real money would count as ‘bought’ keys. Those keys expire in a year.
Lastly, you can earn keys through surveys and advertisements when choosing the “Earn Keys” option from the interface. You’ll be logged out to the lobby if you do this.
Promotions
Promotions are limited-time offers. They can increase the chances of getting rarer rewards or change up the usual mechanics of Treasure Hunter. Some promotions last about a week, while others only take the weekend. Sometimes they match with Double XP weekends or real-life holidays. Here are some (not all) of the recurring Promotions for Treasure Hunter:
- Time to Train
- Mysteria
- Gemfall
- Loot Duels
- Double Dragon Chests
- Phoenix Lamps
These ones you’ll encounter at various points throughout the year. In 2021, starting in August, Mysteria was the promotion every weekend until November. During the week, it was a different one. Others only appear once or twice a year, such as Shining Prismania or Gifts of the Creators.
July 2022 introduced three new themes to enjoy. First is Foresight, where players can see inside chests, revealing the prizes they can get and a multiplier. Second is the Academy of Heroes, where the mechanics become some kind of idle clicker hero game. You use keys to defeat monsters and help a randomly named hero level up. Damaging or killing enemies yields prizes from a pool unique to the event.
The third is the Assassin’s Return, a Promotion that reintroduces the rewards from the old Faceless Assassin event. You’re given the choice of three monsters to kill and a contract on one side you can complete. The former gives you rewards from a set pool. Finishing the contract spawns an Assassin’s Chest, which can be opened without a key. That chest has a separate reward pool filled with cosmetics.
Tips and Tricks
Use up your daily keys, as they have a limited lifespan. It’s better to keep using them and get even the most common rewards than getting nothing by leaving them to expire.
Save up your keys for a Promotion you enjoy. Usually, that’s Prismania or one of the other rarer events.
Since this is pretty much a gacha mechanic, RNG rules what you get. Don’t expect to keep receiving valuable items from this mechanic. At the end of the day, it’s designed to make you spend your money in hopes of getting something expensive.
Use your Hearts of Ice on rewards you don’t want to get. Typically, you’ll use it on the common prizes. Note that some promotions disable the use of this item, so you can’t do this every time.
Not All that Glitters is Gold
Players have always criticized anything that could become unfair in games. For Treasure Hunter, the fact that you can get Lamps is their problematic point. They feel it’s directly buying XP, which is unfair for free players and those who don’t buy keys.
Some past promotions also had similar controversies, like removing an exploit that wasn’t precisely an exploit and developers forgetting to place a check. Still, Treasure Hunter remains a fixture of RuneScape 3 for the foreseeable future.
This feature is here for you, whether needing RS3 gold, cosmetics, or XP boosts. Have fun opening chests and getting rewards!