TOPIC: Nightmare Difficulty

jedibcg wrote:

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.

BC, maybe we'll do a run again together someday, that was a lot of fun.

My friends are just like yours, they don't spend a any time at all in-between GENCON's thinking of True Dungeon, and the only thing they know about tokens is the abilities I tell them about in a summary sheet I send out every year. And, there is only so many token abilities they are going to remember, so I purposely try to largely get tokens that affect the party card that they don't have to remember. And we aren't really a full optimized group for that reason, which is fine. They like a challenge, but they really enjoy solving the puzzles and succeeding in the combats and successfully completing the Dungeon, so I ere on the side of "too easy" and go with Hardcore, rather than go Nightmare and risk a bunch of unhappy friends. XP does mean a lot to my group though, everyone always gets a huge thrill when they go up a level. One of my friends has played every single year (although not every single Dungeon like I have), and most of the rest have been playing since the second or third year of TD.

Mike Steele wrote: BC, maybe we'll do a run again together someday, that was a lot of fun.

My friends are just like yours, they don't spend a any time at all in-between GENCON's thinking of True Dungeon, and the only thing they know about tokens is the abilities I tell them about in a summary sheet I send out every year. And, there is only so many token abilities they are going to remember, so I purposely try to largely get tokens that affect the party card that they don't have to remember. And we aren't really a full optimized group for that reason, which is fine. They like a challenge, but they really enjoy solving the puzzles and succeeding in the combats and successfully completing the Dungeon, so I ere on the side of "too easy" and go with Hardcore, rather than go Nightmare and risk a bunch of unhappy friends. XP does mean a lot to my group though, everyone always gets a huge thrill when they go up a level. One of my friends has played every single year (although not every single Dungeon like I have), and most of the rest have been playing since the second or third year of TD.

It was alot of fun Mike. My group of people that want to play has grown hugely since we played (2 years ago?) I am still buying 40 tickets but have 2 or 3 extra people showing up to each run because we also have a number of people cancelling because they are casual players. By Sunday my waitlisters stop showing up, but still over the course of the 4 days this last year I played with around 30 of my friends not counting any non-dedicated runs I may have joined.

jedibcg wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: BC, maybe we'll do a run again together someday, that was a lot of fun.

My friends are just like yours, they don't spend a any time at all in-between GENCON's thinking of True Dungeon, and the only thing they know about tokens is the abilities I tell them about in a summary sheet I send out every year. And, there is only so many token abilities they are going to remember, so I purposely try to largely get tokens that affect the party card that they don't have to remember. And we aren't really a full optimized group for that reason, which is fine. They like a challenge, but they really enjoy solving the puzzles and succeeding in the combats and successfully completing the Dungeon, so I ere on the side of "too easy" and go with Hardcore, rather than go Nightmare and risk a bunch of unhappy friends. XP does mean a lot to my group though, everyone always gets a huge thrill when they go up a level. One of my friends has played every single year (although not every single Dungeon like I have), and most of the rest have been playing since the second or third year of TD.

It was alot of fun Mike. My group of people that want to play has grown hugely since we played (2 years ago?) I am still buying 40 tickets but have 2 or 3 extra people showing up to each run because we also have a number of people cancelling because they are casual players. By Sunday my waitlisters stop showing up, but still over the course of the 4 days this last year I played with around 30 of my friends not counting any non-dedicated runs I may have joined.

BC, Congrats on getting such a large group of friends interested! I think my group is down to about 15 or so, but that includes a core five (me and four more) that are up for every single run. We only did two runs for my group this year (plus the one Mercenary run), but I'm hoping we can get it up to 3-4 next year.

Keep my number handy, in case you have vacancies on Sunday next year.

Mike Steele wrote: 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.

You did add the Lenses of Divine Sight though. I think that was one of the biggest areas of power creep this year, esp. if coupled with the 2 piece Eldritch. Those lenses served us very well on the run we hired you guys as mercs.

Cormroc wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: 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.

You did add the Lenses of Divine Sight though. I think that was one of the biggest areas of power creep this year, esp. if coupled with the 2 piece Eldritch. Those lenses served us very well on the run we hired you guys as mercs.

That's a really good point! Between the Cleric and Druid now, we have pretty insane healing, we didn't come close to using up all of our healing spells.

Hey, we had a great time on our run with you, thanks for hiring us!

Mike Steele wrote: 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.

There was plenty of power creep at the UR level as well.

Weapon-wise, we had the +2 Slayer Sword, +2 Viper Strike Fang (most monsters are susceptible to poison), the +2 Sacred Sling, and Gloves of the Flying Fist. And the Viper Strike set.

The Cloak of Shadowskin (especially combined with the Charm of Brooching).

Figurine of Cat which is much better than the Dragon or Tortoise.

Lenses of Divine Sight (especially overpowered with the Eldritch set).

Mad Evoker's Charm. Shield of the Scholar.

And of course the volunteer Quicksilver Ioun Stones.

On hardcore grind our cleric and druid used up all their healing wearing Divine Goggles of Heal lots of Stuff. Only the Druid had the Eldritch Set though. It was close to the end though.

Incognito wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: 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.

There was plenty of power creep at the UR level as well.

Weapon-wise, we had the +2 Slayer Sword, +2 Viper Strike Fang (most monsters are susceptible to poison), the +2 Sacred Sling, and Gloves of the Flying Fist. And the Viper Strike set.

The Cloak of Shadowskin (especially combined with the Charm of Brooching).

Figurine of Cat which is much better than the Dragon or Tortoise.

Lenses of Divine Sight (especially overpowered with the Eldritch set).

Mad Evoker's Charm. Shield of the Scholar.

And of course the volunteer Quicksilver Ioun Stones.

I agree, there was a pretty insane amount of power creep last year. The only tokens on that list that I outfitted our group with was the Lenses of Divine sight combined with the Eldritch 2 Item set, and the Shield of the Scholar - for the Bard - which he never cast a scroll with.

I may well outfit the Wizard with the Mad Evoker Charm - I'm torn because she REALLY likes her Crown which lets her choose the various damage types, and I think I'd have to replace that with the Hat of Intellect to allow her to use the Mad Evoker Charm.

I guess I should mention that one reason we did so few upgrades is that I've established an internal rule (which has had a few exceptions to it) not to replace any UR or above tokens the group has with more powerful UR's or Relics. It was expensive enough outfitting everyone, so I figure once I've got a UR in a slot for someone it is what they are sticking with unless I really just can't resist (like this year I replaced the Wil's Dragonheart Charm for the Cleric and Druid to enable them to use the Lenses of Divine Sight). And of course, if a new treasure-enhancing token is created, I'll get 10 of those no matter what they replace.

Jedibcg- I'm very much in the same boat except dealing with reds instead of purples. I'm been working on redding out a character to play at hardcore while the rest of my group (3 others) don't/won't care until gencon rolls arounds. All they want is the little token wallet with their build and thats it.

I'd like to make the jump up to hardcore myself but its hard to do in a pickup group and most around here are for nightmare runs.

Looking out I see the powercreep as something above my head as a player/buyer (outfitting other members) as something that must be nice to worry about but really doesn't affect the lower/entry level players who've only been around a few years or on the lower budget.

Really would like a concise posting somewhere of the true practical differences between dungeon run levels and suggested recomendations on who should go for what difficulty.

Incognito wrote:

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.

My only probably with your Grind reasoning is that I would have to schlep those obscure tokens halfway across the country. Also, we can't switch out tokens to account for all of them so we pick a few to handle. It becomes an exercise in being shown that we can be 'outsmarted' by disparate effects. I'd prefer a Nightmare Grind that was difficult monsters and being nickeled and dined with goofy environmental effects (I've lived in the desert, it doesn't get cold enough to make you drop stuff). If the effects are there make them monster related (like the charms in 2013). But that is a different thread I think so I'm stopping.

Living in the desert (ie Arizona) and living in the desert (ie Mojave Desert) are two different things.

If you say it doesn't get overly cold in the desert you aren't referencing a true desert. Get out there in the Mojave or truly desert terrain and it drops to FREAKING COLD really really quick.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Living in the desert (ie Arizona) and living in the desert (ie Mojave Desert) are two different things.

If you say it doesn't get overly cold in the desert you aren't referencing a true desert. Get out there in the Mojave or truly desert terrain and it drops to FREAKING COLD really really quick.

50 degrees at night is not cold, unless you have been in 120 degree temps all day
if you are in Alaska then come from negative 20 to 50 degrees, you are shedding cloths
all about the situation