TOPIC: Proposal: New Dungeon Difficulty Level

Buried in the new token discussions, and in various other discussions since GenCon , there have been complaints that Nightmare runs are too easy these days.

To address these and other concerns I am proposing that True Dungeon add another difficulty level. Additionally, I propose that we codify what we expect from each difficulty level.

Here are my ideas:
Non-Lethal: Whatever. =)

Normal: New players, who only have their 10-pack of tokens should be able to get through most of the dungeon if they play smart and work together. Maybe they TPK in the final room, but they get to experience it and "get what they paid for". (Normal seems about right to me currently.)

Hard-core: This is for people decked out in good Rares for their classes, maybe they have a Ultra-Rare or two. (If buying on the secondary market, $100-200 worth of tokens should be good for each player.)

Nightmare: People mostly decked out in Ultra-Rares and BiS Rares. Many people on the forums would likely be in this group. (Nightmare should be a bit more difficult than is was this year.)

Hell: This is for people in all BiS gear, including multiple relics and legendaries. This would be significantly more difficult than the current Nightmare runs... closer to Nightmare Grind.

I don't think a 5^th difficulty level is a good idea. It's already confusing enough for players and DMs. In addition, it would be more work for Jeff & the folks who put the modules together.

I think making Nightmare be a lot more difficult is a better solution. I think Hardcore should either stay the same or be slightly more difficult.

Druegar wrote: I don't think a 5^th difficulty level is a good idea. It's already confusing enough for players and DMs. In addition, it would be more work for Jeff & the folks who put the modules together.

I think making Nightmare be a lot more difficult is a better solution. I think Hardcore should either stay the same or be slightly more difficult.

It could be fun.

Hell could only be accessed by those players who know to ask for it and on the sheet we just need to make a note to the Room DM's

"Make them cry"

Brad wrote: It could be fun.

I don't disagree with that statement.
What I'm suggesting is that there is an alternative to adding a 5^th difficulty level which I believe would unnecessarily burden TD creators & volunteers and confuse players.

I love the idea of filling out the token sheet "Make them cry"

commanderFuron wrote: I love the idea of filling out the token sheet "Make them cry"

I'd make a stamp of that.

Alternate text: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

Brad wrote: Hell could only be accessed by those players who know to ask for it and on the sheet we just need to make a note to the Room DM's

"Make them cry"

While it's amusing from an external perspective, I have actually encountered DMs who took that attitude in earnest. It's not much fun.

When you have a DM who arbitrarily increases his monster's HP because he hasn't killed a party member yet, that's a problem. When you have a DM who decided that a puzzle needs to be solved *in a certain way* instead of just correctly, or the way it's described in the Nightmare puzzle stats, that's a problem. When you have a DM who changes the rulings on how tokens work in the dungeon in order to make it more difficult for Nightmare parties, that's not fun, and it's a slap in the face for people who spent $100+ on a token so they could use it in Nightmare runs.

I like running Nightmare for the challenge. I don't run it for a "DM vs the Players" feeling, or out of sheer masochism. "Crying" is really not the intent.

Druegar wrote: I don't think a 5^th difficulty level is a good idea. It's already confusing enough for players and DMs. In addition, it would be more work for Jeff & the folks who put the modules together.

I think making Nightmare be a lot more difficult is a better solution. I think Hardcore should either stay the same or be slightly more difficult.

I think if you make Nightmare a lot more difficult but don't make Hardcore at least a little more difficult, then you are just shifting the problem. Instead of people the people running around loaded with Relics and Legendaries complaining that Nightmare is too easy, you'll instead have people with URs and a couple of Relics complaining that Hardcore is too easy, but Nightmare is out of reach. So you then need to carefully bump up Hardcore so that it is a challenge to this tier. But then you also need to think about what that means to the people with Rares?

Please note, I'm not saying that difficulty levels shouldn't be adjusted, just that you can't adjust Nightmare by "a lot" without doing some adjustment to the lower difficulties. And preferably there would not be a massive jump to any given difficulty level in a single year unless you want to listen to people whine about how they went into Nightmare not knowing that it would be 50% more difficult than it was in prior years.

I do think that Jake's list is pretty sensible from where I sit. But I decided to take some liberties and expand on them with some additional thoughts. Take them for what they are, just one person's view.

Non-lethal: only really intended for first timers? Players of this level really want to make sure they stay alive to play in the whole dungeon and get their money's worth.

Normal: balanced based on party members only having 1-2 rares each. These players probably play with just the tokens that come with their runs. People that are brave and competent first timers have a shot at success. People that have run for a few years will likely survive to the final room and have a good chance to succeed.

Hardcore: balaced based on party members having 1-2 URs each and solid rares to back them up. Likely has bought some tokens from the secondary market, but likely less than $200 of tokens total. Has probably been playing for a few years already. Hopefully are forum members, but likely only visit from time to time. These people want a challenge, but know their limits. They know they have a decent chance of dying in the final room, but they feel prepared to survive to that room barring an unexpected misfortune.

Nightmare: balanced based on party members having 1-2 Relics each, and solid URs to back them up. Players have either been playing for a significant amount of time, or has done some significant purchasing from TD directly and/or from secondary market. Probably has more than $1k in tokens, and likely adds >$100 each year. Almost certainly a forum member. Likely has more than one character that they can easily put together a build for at this level. The party brings means of revivng party members, because they expect death to hit someone before the final room.

Hell: you probably shouldn't even admit to yourself that you know this level exists if you don't have a Legendary, preferably several, and Relics and URs to back them up. An Artifact or two wouldn't be a bad idea for the party to have, and some of those fancy GT widgets wouldn't hurt. You've probably been running since the early days of TD and/or you likely spend a good amount with the TD token shop each year. You have a bandolier of PoDDs, as you know party members could die in Room 1. You know there is a decent chance you might TPK before Room 7. And you will be elated if even one person survives the final room.

It's an interesting attempt at a breakdown, Fiddy, but I don't think it's taking the broad range of experience into account.

For example, I run Nightmare with a crew of folks who are almost never on the forums (a couple are, tho not often) and some of them are well equipped with URs, but some of them DON'T BUY TOKENS, and we do fine.

Does that mean Nightmare is too easy? No - it means the teamwork is incredible.

We've been playing together for a while. We know our stuff. Our Cleric has never in my memory missed a bead test. Our Rogue pulls the clues (unless the party says otherwise). Our fighters have passed out the sliders by the time the DM has finished his spiel and we're all lined up at the combat board ready to go. We can get 5+ combat rounds in where an average party manages 3.

I've also seen teams of newbies take on Hardcore and survive, with no more than their starting tokens.

On the other side of the equation, I've seen parties with full UR builds and even a few Relics manage to get half the party killed off on Hardcore mode. And I doubt they would have done much better if one of them was wearing an Artifact.

There is a strong tendency to over-estimate how much tokens affect performance. The heart of the problem is the RANGE of differences. High-end tokens exacerbate that. The difference between a party of newbies with no teamwork and a well-oiled veteran party equipped with Relics and Legendaries is just mind-boggling.

Raven has very effectively echoed my repeated drone that higher levels of difficulty in TD should not devolve to the players vs. the DM. I regret that I have seem more than once a DM recognize from the party card what just walked in the door, and then my feeling that the DM increased the monster abilities to arbitrarily make the encounter more difficult is inescapable.

Case in point - nightmare run - Medusa suddenly immune to mirrors when she wasn't for a different nightmare run.

Case in point - monster has enough magic missiles to exhaust the violet prism when he didn't in previous runs.

Case in point - wyverns have seemingly unlimited hit points in nightmare when on a previous nightmare run they were reasonably quick kills.

I am OK with more difficult situations being developed as a way to balance the uncontrolled power creep and keep the game challenging. Adding hit points and abilities to monsters is not the most creative way, but it is OK if it is consistent.

I am totally and unequivocally against arbitrary jacking up of monster stats and abilities on a case by case basis.

I am totally against the DM vs. the players mentality. It ruins the game.

Fiddy wrote:

Druegar wrote: I don't think a 5^th difficulty level is a good idea. It's already confusing enough for players and DMs. In addition, it would be more work for Jeff & the folks who put the modules together.

I think making Nightmare be a lot more difficult is a better solution. I think Hardcore should either stay the same or be slightly more difficult.

I think if you make Nightmare a lot more difficult but don't make Hardcore at least a little more difficult, then you are just shifting the problem. Instead of people the people running around loaded with Relics and Legendaries complaining that Nightmare is too easy, you'll instead have people with URs and a couple of Relics complaining that Hardcore is too easy, but Nightmare is out of reach. So you then need to carefully bump up Hardcore so that it is a challenge to this tier. But then you also need to think about what that means to the people with Rares?

Kyle speaks the truth. This is the issue that Grind is encountering right now. Nightmare Grind is significantly above Hardcore Grind in difficulty, so few people are doing Nightmare and there is a high range of people doing Hardcore.

Raven wrote: It's an interesting attempt at a breakdown, Fiddy, but I don't think it's taking the broad range of experience into account.

For example, I run Nightmare with a crew of folks who are almost never on the forums (a couple are, tho not often) and some of them are well equipped with URs, but some of them DON'T BUY TOKENS, and we do fine.

Does that mean Nightmare is too easy? No - it means the teamwork is incredible.

We've been playing together for a while. We know our stuff. Our Cleric has never in my memory missed a bead test. Our Rogue pulls the clues (unless the party says otherwise). Our fighters have passed out the sliders by the time the DM has finished his spiel and we're all lined up at the combat board ready to go. We can get 5+ combat rounds in where an average party manages 3.

I've also seen teams of newbies take on Hardcore and survive, with no more than their starting tokens.

On the other side of the equation, I've seen parties with full UR builds and even a few Relics manage to get half the party killed off on Hardcore mode. And I doubt they would have done much better if one of them was wearing an Artifact.

There is a strong tendency to over-estimate how much tokens affect performance. The heart of the problem is the RANGE of differences. High-end tokens exacerbate that. The difference between a party of newbies with no teamwork and a well-oiled veteran party equipped with Relics and Legendaries is just mind-boggling.

Consider my earlier post more of an attempt at drawing some generalities that can be used for purposes of balancing the difficulty levels in the modules. I was not intending to say that everyone running fit those descriptions. There is obviously a lot of variety in the player base. I was originally just trying to agree with Jake that maybe instead of trying to balance as if everyone fit into 4 groups of difficulty that maybe 5 difficulties would better fit the current player base.

I definitely agree with you that party organization is a huge impact on how easy a time a group will have. And yes, I've seen runs where teamwork (or lack of teamwork) was a bigger impact on success than tokens, particularly on puzzle runs. My usual group had success on Nightmare this year though we are closer to what I described as kitted out for Hardcore (then again, 1 was dead and 4 were petrified at the start of room 7). But we tend to be fairly organized in combat (and have learned to pay some attention to the clues as we go through the dungeon).

I've also noticed that either the group I usually run with has gotten better at sliding over the years, or the tables have gotten easier to slide on. Either way, we seem a bit more likely to hit where we aim now than we did 7 years ago. I suspect the same is true for other groups that have been running for a while as well.

So, in addition to tokens being used, it seems like balancing also needs to adjust the expected number of combat rounds that are happening slid (normal:2,HC:3,NM:4,H:5?) and how accurately/strategically they are being slid (normal:low accuracy, HC:fair, NM:good, H:bullseye?). Memory and attention to clues plays a part on the puzzle side as well. I wonder what other levers there are...

I really don't envy the people that actually have to do all this balancing each year