TOPIC: Decoupling XP from Dungeon Difficulty

Given the discussion in the other thread around class selection, I figured I'd start a discussion about another coaching room issue that can crop up at the start of a run: difficulty selection.

For myself (and I think I can speak for most of the people I normally run with in my group), the different completion token isn't a really compelling reason to run HC -> the increased XP is, especially when a lot of us only do one con a year, and some of us only have the budget to do each dungeon once at that con. "Falling behind" on the XP progression feels bad, and since ANY vote for Normal means you run Normal, this means that if you're not securing all 10 slots for a run, you're always running the risk of not being able to gain the benefit.

From the other thread:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: Please, please PLEASE, don't try to push new players onto HC just because your build is EPIC. They could have a terrible time.

XP being tied to difficulty, in my mind, is the primary reason why most of this "pushing" would happen. If XP were decoupled from difficulty, then there would be less reason to try to push new players into trying a difficulty level beyond Normal on what might be their first and only run.

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The flip side of the coin is, if we moved to not having increased XP for increased difficulty, what is there to compel players to run dungeons at a higher difficulty? Increased treasure for increased difficulty would be an even worse decision in my mind. The completion token difference for HC // NM is neat, but (again, for n=1) not really a compelling reason to run at that difficulty over any other most years. Just the increased challenge? Sure, that's compelling for a lot of players (see, the creation of Epic difficulty), but I'm not sure having a ladder to climb without any incentive to do so would hook new people into the token game.

I don't have a solution. I'd like to hear if other people have better ideas.

One thing you can do it run support classes to let the newer classes shine. Cleric, bard, elf wizard, etc can be great support. A dwarven fighter heavy on retribution damage acting as a low damage tank could work as well.

Generally, we have had success helping new players bump up to be ready for hardcore via moving them to 5th level, loaning them some tokens (you can do hardcore on all rare builds so any URs are gravy).

The trick is not to show up and just obliterate everything yourself in combat when playing with newer players. The challenge is some classes are really built to do that (Rogue, Wizard, Monk, Ranger, Barbarian) (it's so strange adding Rogue to that list but after this year's changes, they definitely are in the discussion).

I'm not sure I support decoupling xp but maybe a work around would be counting 2 normal runs as a hardcore, 2 hardcore as a nightmare, etc..

Fred

Have you tried coordinating a full group of ten so that you can control the difficulty?

Yes, it definitely requires some up front planning and effort, but you aren't reliant on chance then.

Personally, I'd be totally OK with removing nearly all incentives for higher difficulty levels. Go ahead and give them all the same XP and completion tokens, and just let people choose the difficulty level based on the amount of challenge they want. I think lots of people will still try to beat the highest difficulty level they can. I know we wouldn't move to Normal even if it had the same XP, it just wouldn't be challenging.
It's kind of decoupled already, since people can say they played Nightmare even if they didn't play it.

I would still have different survivor pins for different difficulties, so people have a keepsake of their accomplishment.

Anything that is different might be a motivating factor for some. I don't even keep or take survivor pins, but I know a lot of people want them.

The different completion tokens are enough for me.

XP being self reported definitely means people can play normal and enter NM regardless.

I would like to take away the level 3 benefit, but I don't care that much.

Mike Steele wrote: Personally, I'd be totally OK with removing nearly all incentives for higher difficulty levels. Go ahead and give them all the same XP and completion tokens, and just let people choose the difficulty level based on the amount of challenge they want.

My preference.

One of the problems I see is that completion tokens are very uneven in terms of value. Origins 2018 seems way better than 2019, for instance. That pushes to NM play even when there's no particular increase in enjoyment at NM unless you know you don't care about one or both completion tokens.

XP obviously heavily incentivizes HC barring doing dungeons multiple times.

Again, what sounds good in theory isn't always what works well in practice. The theory that doing something harder gets rewarded sounds fine. The practice is people playing at difficulty levels they don't prefer, myself included.

Fiddy wrote: Have you tried coordinating a full group of ten so that you can control the difficulty?

Yes, it definitely requires some up front planning and effort, but you aren't reliant on chance then.

I'm organizing/have organized 6 different runs this year between 2 cons. Fair few of us (who may not be active on the forums much) do want to play higher difficulty or volunteer and are glad to play their 1 run as hardcore/nightmare vs pugs. Just a matter of talking and communicating with folks.

I like higher rewards or something where it feels like my token investment matters. Agree on completion token disparity of perceived/play value. Really don't like where something feels like its' now a must have BiS token, getting to point that i would like to see more of these tokens in the treasure mix at other cons.

Mike Steele wrote: Personally, I'd be totally OK with removing nearly all incentives for higher difficulty levels. Go ahead and give them all the same XP and completion tokens, and just let people choose the difficulty level based on the amount of challenge they want. I think lots of people will still try to beat the highest difficulty level they can. I know we wouldn't move to Normal even if it had the same XP, it just wouldn't be challenging.
It's kind of decoupled already, since people can say they played Nightmare even if they didn't play it.

I would still have different survivor pins for different difficulties, so people have a keepsake of their accomplishment.

I agree with most of this, but something still feels wrong about the idea of removing yet another aspect of the "game" from TD.

Picc wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: Personally, I'd be totally OK with removing nearly all incentives for higher difficulty levels. Go ahead and give them all the same XP and completion tokens, and just let people choose the difficulty level based on the amount of challenge they want. I think lots of people will still try to beat the highest difficulty level they can. I know we wouldn't move to Normal even if it had the same XP, it just wouldn't be challenging.
It's kind of decoupled already, since people can say they played Nightmare even if they didn't play it.

I would still have different survivor pins for different difficulties, so people have a keepsake of their accomplishment.

I agree with most of this, but something still feels wrong about the idea of removing yet another aspect of the "game" from TD.

I do understand that. One reason I like officially decoupling XP from difficulty level is because it already is decoupled for those that are willing to list a different level than they played, but still coupled for those that aren't willing to do that.

I like the idea of multiple runs upgrading. If I have to pug E1 three times, it counting for one normal and one hardcore, including completion, would be awesome, even if I don’t get a pin, and end with only two completion tokens.

I try and have participated in forum runs, but I’ve only seen a pug (players unguided group) go hardcore once at Gencon