TOPIC: Nightmare Difficulty

Cormroc and I started playing in 2012. We both spent a bit more money than we like to admit and ended up with a few relics and a bunch of URs. Cormroc plays paladin, and with his standard load out can only be hit on 20s by most the monsters in nightmare. My barbarian hits most nightmare monsters on 10+ with a minimum of about 30 damage, assuming I am not raging and haven't popped any consumables. We probably could have done nightmare with just the 2 of us, using healing potions between rooms to get back to full.

For the hardest difficulty, I do believe this is a little easy, since we do not have any legendaries and only have 1-2 relics each. I am not sure we want to make nightmare a ton more difficult though. I do agree a new level might be in order, so we have normal for people with mostly just the tokens they got form the run, hardcore for people with a few URs and the rest rares, nightmare for those with a few relics and a bunch of URs, and something else for those with legendaries and relics. If we want nightmare to remain the highest and add another below it that would work as well.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Ah young Neophyte

Magic Missile (11) + Greater Ring (3) + Bracelets of the Cabal (1) = 15
Earcuff of Energy to duplicate the Magic Missile + 3 piece Cabal set to cast in the same round = 30 (53 with double MEC)

Earcuff of Energy recasts as a scroll so you shouldn't get those modifiers.

And Mad Evoker's Charm only doubles base damage (which is 11) so if you use it twice, the difference between double MEC and no MEC is 22.

Wait are you duplicating the MM with the Earcuff of Energy "This decorative ear piece allows a spell caster to recast a 1st-level spell (1st-level only, not any other level of spell) on the very next round. The bonus spell is “cast as a scroll” (meaning it cannot: benefit from a skill test, be duplicated, be cast as a Free Action, nor be modified in any way)" and thus not be affected by modifers since it is cast as a scroll or are you using + 3 piece Cabal to "When all three Cabal items are worn, wearers gain the ability to cast two spells from their character card in one round. (Both spells are marked off the player’s card.) "

You shouldn't be using both in conjunction in round 1. In fact Earcuff of Energy cannot be used as a free-action.

Eric beat me to it....But is is possible to do the 30 points with magic missle and 3 piece Cabal. You just are casting 2 spells off your party card. With MEC you would be doing 52 is my math is right but you would lose 2 spells and take 20 points of damage because it is 2 spells.

EN 429 wrote: A lot of discussion has occurred on this but I wanted a clear thread to see how we feel. So with experience equivalent for normal through nightmare, to remove that fight.
And to put this in easy to understand terms (rather than 'hard' or 'easy'), what should be the target percentage of survival in a nightmare run?
I'd also like to include this definition of nightmare: "A terrifying or very unpleasant experience or prospect." Or "A person, thing, or situation that is very difficult to deal with."

I say 5-10%.

My reason for this is that it should be an exceedingly tough difficulty. It should not be undertaken by any old group with some rares or a few URs.

darkangel866 wrote: 2 people should not walk through untouched. 10-20% survival rate.

Maybe there could be separate combat boards for Nightmare? That's probably a logistics pita. Worth considering though.

I understand your sentiments and personally I agree with you.

However, there are two immediate frames of reference:

#1. Smoak 1.0 where players complained endlessly about the high mortality rate (though the bigger issue was actually lack of time due to poor room design)

#2. Nightmare Grind which has really low survival rates. At the same time, very few people are brave enough to do it and it's not for everyone.

Nightmare Grind was designed for those who really want a challenge and are okay with dying (and somewhat expect to die).

Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of players don't want to die. They want to believe that they are doing the hardest difficulty level but at the end of the day they are more concerned about "winning" than about the challenge (you are obviously an exception).

YupImJen wrote: I think it's not about survival rate, but what level of tokens is nightmare designed for? I would think that nightmare should be designed for a group of 10 people all purped out, with perhaps a red person and a person with relics and or legendaries.

I want to have a challenge, but I don't always want to die simply because I'm not fully legendaried. (Besides, isn't that what Nightmare Grind is for?)

In a similar way, I believe that hardcore should be doable with a fully red party.

Although people might not think so, Nightmare Grind is designed so an ideally Purpled group has a reasonable chance at success. And Hardcore Grind is designed for an ideally Redded group. Please note that:

1. I assume that players have access to ANY Purple (for Nightmare) or Red (for Hardcore) token, even obscure older tokens and are using Best in Slot choices.

2. I assume that players are able or willing to expend a reasonable amount of consumables (Red level consumables for Nightmare, and Green level consumables for Hardcore).

3. The overall team has a reasonable amount of strategy and teamwork.

If you are lacking some of these, you can often make up for it with having higher level tokens (UR's in the case of Hardcore; Relics/Legendaries in the case of Nightmare).

Although players like to think in terms of "redded" or "purpled" out, those terms are deceptive because not all Purps are created equal and the quality of the Purps is more important than the number.

For example, if your Purpled out character is using Full Plate +1, a +2 Long Sword, and a Ring of Protection +2, that is going to be VERY different than if you are using a +2 Seylah's Sundering Cestus and a Cloak of Shadowskin.

YupImJen wrote: With that said, I believe that dungeon difficulty level and grind difficulty level will mean different things.

Yup, I just mentioned on a different post that IMO:

(Easiest)
TD Non-Lethal
TD Normal
Grind Normal
TD Hardcore
TD Nightmare
Grind Hardcore
BIG GAP
BIG GAP
BIG GAP
Grind Nightmare
(Hardest)

jedibcg wrote: I know we might not want to add this into mix, but if the last room is a treasure room. Do you want your chances of getting a treasure to be that much lower on nightmare than hardcore or normal?

Well, with the Treasure Finding Troubadour, this may not be as big of an issue anymore.

Kaledor wrote: One thing you are forgetting to account for is... LUCK... my party (I wasn't there) all died on a Nightmare run due to bad luck on dice rolls. And they are all purple/relic/legendary out. Luck is just that!

In the past it has been rumored that Smakdown's group, despite having access to an Artifact and lots of top-tier tokens, still found dungeons challenging because apparently a lot of them are really terrible sliders!

I think the current Nightmare is fine, it was always set up for a group with people to have 2 - 3 purples each. But with the new power we have at hand, Relic's and Legendary's, there should be a new level Hellish. This will give more XP than Nightmare but will truly be hellish for players. Now you would have to have each player have 2 - 3 Relic/Legendary to complete. Boost up the Nightmare by 10% to 20% on the Monsters, push damage is 20, etc.

Don't need to change Nightmare then you are pushing players with 2 - 3 purples from playing it.

Really? I would think that something redded out with just a couple of Purps should probably belong in "Hardcore" difficulty.

EN 429 wrote: This isn't about the treasure it's about challenge. I want to burn all my spells, deplete consumables and have a couple guys make it out alive. Like the Smoak year, these would be epic adventures. I'd almost say double the HP of monsters in Nightmare (from what it is) and there to hit bonus should be a +18-25 .

And that is EXACTLY what Nightmare Grind is all about!

Mike Steele wrote: On the other hand, five of us did joint as Mercenaries two people for a 7 person Nightmare run, and we didn't have too tough of a time on Nightmare. It seemed like Nightmare this year (for us at least) was a lot easier than it was for the three Smoak years.

Well there is power creep every year and MASSIVE power creep this year. And unfortunately the standard TD monsters aren't sufficiently adjusted for the creep. So it is no surprise that things are getting "easier."

Incognito wrote:

YupImJen wrote: With that said, I believe that dungeon difficulty level and grind difficulty level will mean different things.

Yup, I just mentioned on a different post that IMO:

(Easiest)
TD Non-Lethal
TD Normal
Grind Normal
TD Hardcore
TD Nightmare
Grind Hardcore
BIG GAP
BIG GAP
BIG GAP
Grind Nightmare
(Hardest)

jedibcg wrote: I know we might not want to add this into mix, but if the last room is a treasure room. Do you want your chances of getting a treasure to be that much lower on nightmare than hardcore or normal?

Well, with the Treasure Finding Troubadour, this may not be as big of an issue anymore.

Kaledor wrote: One thing you are forgetting to account for is... LUCK... my party (I wasn't there) all died on a Nightmare run due to bad luck on dice rolls. And they are all purple/relic/legendary out. Luck is just that!

In the past it has been rumored that Smakdown's group, despite having access to an Artifact and lots of top-tier tokens, still found dungeons challenging because apparently a lot of them are really terrible sliders!

I think the current Nightmare is fine, it was always set up for a group with people to have 2 - 3 purples each. But with the new power we have at hand, Relic's and Legendary's, there should be a new level Hellish. This will give more XP than Nightmare but will truly be hellish for players. Now you would have to have each player have 2 - 3 Relic/Legendary to complete. Boost up the Nightmare by 10% to 20% on the Monsters, push damage is 20, etc.

Don't need to change Nightmare then you are pushing players with 2 - 3 purples from playing it.

Really? I would think that something redded out with just a couple of Purps should probably belong in "Hardcore" difficulty.

Troubdour is a little over 100 (if everyone with with a Ro7P used their vouchers to play Bard and never played together) out of the 800+ runs? So I don't think you can count on it, but I agree it is something to think about.

I have died on Hardcore on Grind a few times but never been part of a party wipe. I have been a part of 2 party wipes on TD Normal (first year of Smoak and this year viper sealed run). Besides those two TPK never died in TD across normals, hardcores and 1 nightmare. So I dunno.

jedibcg wrote: Mike I am at the opposite point with my group. Some are lobbying to try Nightmare because we had a relatively easy time on Hardcore this year. I honestly don't think we are ready for Nightmare yet. I know we are not on combat, but maybe on Puzzle...maybe.

Ha ha.

I only play on Nightmare difficulty. This year I wanted to run with some friends who are relative newbies (one was completely new to TD and the other two had played once before).

I "suckered" them into playing Nightmare. They had a great time. And we went through the dungeon rather easily (Zephyr Combat - solved all rooms, won all combats, got all treasure and DM stamps).

As for token equipment, I mainly lent them best-in-slot Reds with a handful of Purples. We were never in danger of dying in combat.

The rest of the team were DDA members so all were experienced. And it actually did help that two of the party members had already gone through the dungeon. While they let the rest of us (who hadn't done Zephyr yet) figure things out for ourselves, they did steer us in the right direction when time was an issue.

So yeah, newbie friends of mine are going to get press-ganged into doing Nightmare!

jedibcg wrote: Troubdour is a little over 100 (if everyone with with a Ro7P used their vouchers to play Bard and never played together) out of the 800+ runs? So I don't think you can count on it, but I agree it is something to think about.

Well, only a fraction of the 800+ runs will be Nightmare

And the usage of the prestige classes is not going to be independent events. Most of the RoSP owners will know each other and may be doing runs together so they can spread out the Troubadour love.

So instead of 4 people (who each have a single RoSP and each do 4 runs) doing completely separate runs (which would be 16 total), what they might do is agree to run together for all 4 runs and utilize the RoSP's so that for each person, all 4 of the runs get Treasure Finding.

Incognito wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Ah young Neophyte

Magic Missile (11) + Greater Ring (3) + Bracelets of the Cabal (1) = 15
Earcuff of Energy to duplicate the Magic Missile + 3 piece Cabal set to cast in the same round = 30 (53 with double MEC)

Earcuff of Energy recasts as a scroll so you shouldn't get those modifiers.

And Mad Evoker's Charm only doubles base damage (which is 11) so if you use it twice, the difference between double MEC and no MEC is 22.

Right. Miscalculation on my part there.

Yeah, I apparently misread the earcuff multiple times this year when organizing my builds. I could SWEAR there was an item which duplicated a spell as a spell, not a scroll.

Hmm, going to have to recheck my numbers again.

Either way it is possible to hit 52 damage using the combination mentioned if you burn 2 MM spells (or MM and a level 2 spell with Charm of Spell Swapping)

Incognito wrote:

EN 429 wrote: This isn't about the treasure it's about challenge. I want to burn all my spells, deplete consumables and have a couple guys make it out alive. Like the Smoak year, these would be epic adventures. I'd almost say double the HP of monsters in Nightmare (from what it is) and there to hit bonus should be a +18-25 .

And that is EXACTLY what Nightmare Grind is all about!

Mike Steele wrote: On the other hand, five of us did joint as Mercenaries two people for a 7 person Nightmare run, and we didn't have too tough of a time on Nightmare. It seemed like Nightmare this year (for us at least) was a lot easier than it was for the three Smoak years.

Well there is power creep every year and MASSIVE power creep this year. And unfortunately the standard TD monsters aren't sufficiently adjusted for the creep. So it is no surprise that things are getting "easier."

There may have been massive potential power creep in this last year, but virtually none of that power creep was enacted in my group. We didn't add any of the Relic / Legendary weapons, and actually the only new Relics we added were some +4 Save Cloaks. And we didn't equip our lone (currently) Wizard with a Mad Evoker's Charm. So, the combat bonuses for our group stayed pretty constant from 2013 to 2014.

Incognito wrote:

jedibcg wrote: Mike I am at the opposite point with my group. Some are lobbying to try Nightmare because we had a relatively easy time on Hardcore this year. I honestly don't think we are ready for Nightmare yet. I know we are not on combat, but maybe on Puzzle...maybe.

Ha ha.

I only play on Nightmare difficulty. This year I wanted to run with some friends who are relative newbies (one was completely new to TD and the other two had played once before).

I "suckered" them into playing Nightmare. They had a great time. And we went through the dungeon rather easily (Zephyr Combat - solved all rooms, won all combats, got all treasure and DM stamps).

As for token equipment, I mainly lent them best-in-slot Reds with a handful of Purples. We were never in danger of dying in combat.

The rest of the team were DDA members so all were experienced. And it actually did help that two of the party members had already gone through the dungeon. While they let the rest of us (who hadn't done Zephyr yet) figure things out for ourselves, they did steer us in the right direction when time was an issue.

So yeah, newbie friends of mine are going to get press-ganged into doing Nightmare!

I did play nightmare a couple years ago with Mike Steele's tokens and 2 of his friends and 6 of mine 3 of which were complete noobs. Only 2 of us had seen the combat side of the dungeon and only I had seen the puzzle version we were on. We didn't have any difficulties that I remember. I know that I am fearful of Nightmare Combat particularly because we don't have the ranged weapons (if needed) or are not good enough sliders. Last year's wisp on hardcore almost pushed us out of the room because we almost did not kill it. I got lucky with a with a +2 Boomstick our only UR ranged weapon at the time. My group also doesn't pay any attention to TD except when GenCon rolls around. They are very casual players with access to a pretty decent collection of tokens. They however don't know what half the tokens do and don't care to do. I have given up attempting to explain all the tokens to them as it means I need to remember 12 builds. So we may try Nightmare Puzzle next year...maybe but I don't want to take them into Nightmare Combat yet. I myself would play Nightmare Combat as I can build 1 character very purpled and reliced out.