TOPIC: Request about the boss for E3

Adam Guay wrote:

Harlax wrote:

jedibcg wrote:

Adam Guay wrote: But the module has probably been written at this point.

Pretty sure it has.

But things tend to change as the Con goes on. I was in the first N1 run at Origins last year. We cakewalked Nightmare. It was much tougher later in the day.

You're welcome....I was on that run with you. Multiple mazes on the ships captain got nerfed pretty quick.

It wasn’t just that. The ogre mage was our only fight that lasted more than 1 round.

Mike Steele wrote:

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

SnakeEyes (Eric) wrote: I only ran against Smoak once. It was NIGHTMARE and the party was in over their heads. I was the last one in the party standing. A solid hit would have killed him... but I overshot the target and he killed me. Even though I died, it was an epic encounter and I'll never forget it.

So whether it is here or in a future adventure, I'm looking forward to an equally memorable experience when we finally do fight the Mind Slayer and have no problem with entire parties being killed in the process as long as it's a fun experience.

I died the round before Eric did, I also over slid and got taken out for my bad aim. We had terrible equipment in retrospect but its one of our best TD memories. We used everything we had potions, ammo and we still lost...so close but it was truly EPIC! It motivated us to play more if anything. I'm very perplexed by anyone getting upset and quitting over losing, the danger is the fun. You are supposed to be adventurers, life threatening monsters comes with the territory lol.

I think TD has gotten too soft on the threat element, and yes there needs to be a balance but EVERY module should not be created equal. Too many experienced parties with amazing equipment mop the floor with Nightmare dungeons now, it's kind of pathetic and not fun. I miss the days of actually feeling threatened in TD. (I was upset when the Frost Giants were powered down, they actually put a real hurting on the party. That should be what Nightmare is about.) Making the Mind "Flayer" extra hard would be a welcomed change to keep players on their toes....and afraid.

Everyone should not get a trophy and you do not always win. Scale accordingly and if needed, put a warning label telling potential players how hard it will be to "overcome" the 6 year old villain. Problem solved.

Preach Fred K!

I agree with you that Nightmare and Epic should be ramped up. I was referring to Hardcore and Normal not ramping up.

BTW - Nothing was directed at anyone in particular, I was speaking in general as I this has been a hot button issue for me. I do think TD has gotten soft on the danger elements. (Props for Giants before they were changed and the Rainbow Bridge. We need more of that) I've seen people get upset when they died but maybe I have too much of a D&D mentality as it comes with the territory. I think it's fun to lose if you give it your all, I miss that element.

Normal and Hardcore I agree with you but Nightmare really needs to be addressed as we all get better tokens the Dungeon threat inflation is not keeping up. It's not even a cold sweat in your sleep it's a cakewalk. As Fiddy pointed out Epic was not available at Origins but Nightmare should always be just that in my opinion.

And the Mind "Slayer" does deserve to be an OG.

Here is a suggestion to make the Mind Slayer difficult in Nightmare+

Chain Contingency
Trigger: Health <50%
Cast Heal
Cast Protection from Magical Weapons
Cast Globe of Invulnerability

Contingency
Trigger: Incapacitated
Cast Improved Invisibility

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

SnakeEyes (Eric) wrote: I only ran against Smoak once. It was NIGHTMARE and the party was in over their heads. I was the last one in the party standing. A solid hit would have killed him... but I overshot the target and he killed me. Even though I died, it was an epic encounter and I'll never forget it.

So whether it is here or in a future adventure, I'm looking forward to an equally memorable experience when we finally do fight the Mind Slayer and have no problem with entire parties being killed in the process as long as it's a fun experience.

I died the round before Eric did, I also over slid and got taken out for my bad aim. We had terrible equipment in retrospect but its one of our best TD memories. We used everything we had potions, ammo and we still lost...so close but it was truly EPIC! It motivated us to play more if anything. I'm very perplexed by anyone getting upset and quitting over losing, the danger is the fun. You are supposed to be adventurers, life threatening monsters comes with the territory lol.

I think TD has gotten too soft on the threat element, and yes there needs to be a balance but EVERY module should not be created equal. Too many experienced parties with amazing equipment mop the floor with Nightmare dungeons now, it's kind of pathetic and not fun. I miss the days of actually feeling threatened in TD. (I was upset when the Frost Giants were powered down, they actually put a real hurting on the party. That should be what Nightmare is about.) Making the Mind "Flayer" extra hard would be a welcomed change to keep players on their toes....and afraid.

Everyone should not get a trophy and you do not always win. Scale accordingly and if needed, put a warning label telling potential players how hard it will be to "overcome" the 6 year old villain. Problem solved.

Preach Fred K!

I agree with you that Nightmare and Epic should be ramped up. I was referring to Hardcore and Normal not ramping up.

BTW - Nothing was directed at anyone in particular, I was speaking in general as I this has been a hot button issue for me. I do think TD has gotten soft on the danger elements. (Props for Giants before they were changed and the Rainbow Bridge. We need more of that) I've seen people get upset when they died but maybe I have too much of a D&D mentality as it comes with the territory. I think it's fun to lose if you give it your all, I miss that element.

Normal and Hardcore I agree with you but Nightmare really needs to be addressed as we all get better tokens the Dungeon threat inflation is not keeping up. It's not even a cold sweat in your sleep it's a cakewalk. As Fiddy pointed out Epic was not available at Origins but Nightmare should always be just that in my opinion.

And the Mind "Slayer" does deserve to be an OG.

Epic was intended as the fix. If the gap between hardcore and nightmare becomes too great, soon the complaints will shift to hardcore difficulty. People won’t make the jump to Nightmare, but will be steamrolling hardcore.

Harlax wrote: Epic was intended as the fix. If the gap between hardcore and nightmare becomes too great, soon the complaints will shift to hardcore difficulty. People won’t make the jump to Nightmare, but will be steamrolling hardcore.

In the very long term, I'd agree. For the forseable future I think it would be nice to keep Hardcore at:

A hard challenge for an optimized red build, with maybe a UR or two.

The creep at that level is much slower than the creep at the top - I think anyway - I haven't done a comprehensive study.

Harlax wrote:

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

SnakeEyes (Eric) wrote: I only ran against Smoak once. It was NIGHTMARE and the party was in over their heads. I was the last one in the party standing. A solid hit would have killed him... but I overshot the target and he killed me. Even though I died, it was an epic encounter and I'll never forget it.

So whether it is here or in a future adventure, I'm looking forward to an equally memorable experience when we finally do fight the Mind Slayer and have no problem with entire parties being killed in the process as long as it's a fun experience.

I died the round before Eric did, I also over slid and got taken out for my bad aim. We had terrible equipment in retrospect but its one of our best TD memories. We used everything we had potions, ammo and we still lost...so close but it was truly EPIC! It motivated us to play more if anything. I'm very perplexed by anyone getting upset and quitting over losing, the danger is the fun. You are supposed to be adventurers, life threatening monsters comes with the territory lol.

I think TD has gotten too soft on the threat element, and yes there needs to be a balance but EVERY module should not be created equal. Too many experienced parties with amazing equipment mop the floor with Nightmare dungeons now, it's kind of pathetic and not fun. I miss the days of actually feeling threatened in TD. (I was upset when the Frost Giants were powered down, they actually put a real hurting on the party. That should be what Nightmare is about.) Making the Mind "Flayer" extra hard would be a welcomed change to keep players on their toes....and afraid.

Everyone should not get a trophy and you do not always win. Scale accordingly and if needed, put a warning label telling potential players how hard it will be to "overcome" the 6 year old villain. Problem solved.

Preach Fred K!

I agree with you that Nightmare and Epic should be ramped up. I was referring to Hardcore and Normal not ramping up.

BTW - Nothing was directed at anyone in particular, I was speaking in general as I this has been a hot button issue for me. I do think TD has gotten soft on the danger elements. (Props for Giants before they were changed and the Rainbow Bridge. We need more of that) I've seen people get upset when they died but maybe I have too much of a D&D mentality as it comes with the territory. I think it's fun to lose if you give it your all, I miss that element.

Normal and Hardcore I agree with you but Nightmare really needs to be addressed as we all get better tokens the Dungeon threat inflation is not keeping up. It's not even a cold sweat in your sleep it's a cakewalk. As Fiddy pointed out Epic was not available at Origins but Nightmare should always be just that in my opinion.

And the Mind "Slayer" does deserve to be an OG.

Epic was intended as the fix. If the gap between hardcore and nightmare becomes too great, soon the complaints will shift to hardcore difficulty. People won’t make the jump to Nightmare, but will be steamrolling hardcore.

The people I see complaining about Nightmare being too easy are ones that I mostly know are geared for a shot at Epic. If anything, I think we should start requesting that Epic officially be supported at all conventions. Don't ask that Nightmare be made more difficult.

I wonder how many people are playing Nightmare who are outfitted more for Hardcore, just to get the extra completion token. That might contribute to keeping Nightmare from ramping up higher in difficulty.

That would be another reason to give the same completion token reward for all difficulty levels. If the only reason to play a higher difficulty level is the desire for more of a challenge, people would be more likely to play in the appropriate difficulty level.

Mike Steele wrote:

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

SnakeEyes (Eric) wrote: I only ran against Smoak once. It was NIGHTMARE .land the party was in over their heads. I was the last one in the party standing. A solid hit would have killed him... but I overshot the target and he killed me. Even though I died, it was an epic encounter and I'll never forget it.

So whether it is here or in a future adventure, I'm looking forward to an equally memorable experience when we finally do fight the Mind Slayer and have no problem with entire parties being killed in the process as long as it's a fun experience.

I died the round before Eric did, I also over slid and got taken out for my bad aim. We had terrible equipment in retrospect but its one of our best TD memories. We used everything we had potions, ammo and we still lost...so close but it was truly EPIC! It motivated us to play more if anything. I'm very perplexed by anyone getting upset and quitting over losing, the danger is the fun. You are supposed to be adventurers, life threatening monsters comes with the territory lol.

I think TD has gotten too soft on the threat element, and yes there needs to be a balance but EVERY module should not be created equal. Too many experienced parties with amazing equipment mop the floor with Nightmare dungeons now, it's kind of pathetic and not fun. I miss the days of actually feeling threatened in TD. (I was upset when the Frost Giants were powered down, they actually put a real hurting on the party. That should be what Nightmare is about.) Making the Mind "Flayer" extra hard would be a welcomed change to keep players on their toes....and afraid.

Everyone should not get a trophy and you do not always win. Scale accordingly and if needed, put a warning label telling potential players how hard it will be to "overcome" the 6 year old villain. Problem solved.

Preach Fred K!

I agree with you that Nightmare and Epic should be ramped up. I was referring to Hardcore and Normal not ramping up.

Often times nightmare and hardcore are toned down from gencon or the first time they are run which makes me sad. It's ok for people to die.

I outfit our group of 10. We geared up for Nightmare for one year, and did fine and liked the challenge. Then I saw that it was going to be more difficult to do that in the future and had to make a personal financial decision to cut back to hardcore/borderline nightmare builds. I would say we should be geared on the high end for hardcore.

Often in the coaching room, I'm told you should play Nightmare. But the in dungeon experience usually goes like this: Before room 7, kill the monster in 2-3 rounds, very little party threat. Room 7 - struggle to get the damage output required, but you usually take the monster down round 4 (5 a couple times) or run out of time auto wipe (a couple times). Still before an auto wipe timeout, the party is generally still not in true jeopardy of death.

My conclusion: No way should we play nightmare, as we could not get the damage output required in room 7. Also current builds should choose to maximize damage over AC, taking a few more hits, but giving more breathing room to finish room 7, no later than round 4.

Still and I would say hardcore players are invested enough to want a serious challenge. I would much more prefer the boss monster to epic slay a few party members and then die in a great battle, than timeout, sorry charlie the monster gets real mad and goes berserk killing you all. The timeout ending is much less satisfy than even the monster still destroying us in the 12 minutes.

So I agree hardcore should be held relatively steady and allow for red/blue/couple purple builds to generally succeed, but still offer a challenge. Nightmare and Epic should scale with the power creep, and both offer a challenge.

James J Krot wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

SnakeEyes (Eric) wrote: I only ran against Smoak once. It was NIGHTMARE .land the party was in over their heads. I was the last one in the party standing. A solid hit would have killed him... but I overshot the target and he killed me. Even though I died, it was an epic encounter and I'll never forget it.

So whether it is here or in a future adventure, I'm looking forward to an equally memorable experience when we finally do fight the Mind Slayer and have no problem with entire parties being killed in the process as long as it's a fun experience.

I died the round before Eric did, I also over slid and got taken out for my bad aim. We had terrible equipment in retrospect but its one of our best TD memories. We used everything we had potions, ammo and we still lost...so close but it was truly EPIC! It motivated us to play more if anything. I'm very perplexed by anyone getting upset and quitting over losing, the danger is the fun. You are supposed to be adventurers, life threatening monsters comes with the territory lol.

I think TD has gotten too soft on the threat element, and yes there needs to be a balance but EVERY module should not be created equal. Too many experienced parties with amazing equipment mop the floor with Nightmare dungeons now, it's kind of pathetic and not fun. I miss the days of actually feeling threatened in TD. (I was upset when the Frost Giants were powered down, they actually put a real hurting on the party. That should be what Nightmare is about.) Making the Mind "Flayer" extra hard would be a welcomed change to keep players on their toes....and afraid.

Everyone should not get a trophy and you do not always win. Scale accordingly and if needed, put a warning label telling potential players how hard it will be to "overcome" the 6 year old villain. Problem solved.

Preach Fred K!

I agree with you that Nightmare and Epic should be ramped up. I was referring to Hardcore and Normal not ramping up.

Often times nightmare and hardcore are toned down from gencon or the first time they are run which makes me sad. It's ok for people to die.

I think sometimes people on the forums forget that they are in the top 1% as far as token builds, adventure preparation, room effectiveness, etc. A difficulty level that many forum members might see as challenging but achievable might seem hopeless to most players.

Lots of forum members either defeated smoak or barely fell short, but lots of groups were getting annihilated, even on normal mode. My group was one of those, even though I probably averaged 15 URs or Relics per person and most of our group has been playing since the start or shortly after. Between the massive retribution damage on every successful attack and the huge area attacks on the group every round, everyone in my group felt we had no chance (for 3 straight years), and several friends permanently quit True Dungeon as a result, and the rest of us nearly quit. I'm sure if there were another similar experience, especially at $80 per ticket, we'd find something else at GENCON to spend our time and money on. To be honest though, if prices get much higher, we might do that anyway, reluctantly.

I think Epic and to a lesser degree Nightmare should be aimed at the top 1% (maybe Nightmare should be aimed at the top 10%) to give a challenging experience to the people with Best in Class builds and strategies. Hardcore and below should be aimed at the other 90% . Just my thoughts on the matter.

Mike Steele wrote:

James J Krot wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

JACKOFTRADZE wrote:

SnakeEyes (Eric) wrote: I only ran against Smoak once. It was NIGHTMARE .land the party was in over their heads. I was the last one in the party standing. A solid hit would have killed him... but I overshot the target and he killed me. Even though I died, it was an epic encounter and I'll never forget it.

So whether it is here or in a future adventure, I'm looking forward to an equally memorable experience when we finally do fight the Mind Slayer and have no problem with entire parties being killed in the process as long as it's a fun experience.

I died the round before Eric did, I also over slid and got taken out for my bad aim. We had terrible equipment in retrospect but its one of our best TD memories. We used everything we had potions, ammo and we still lost...so close but it was truly EPIC! It motivated us to play more if anything. I'm very perplexed by anyone getting upset and quitting over losing, the danger is the fun. You are supposed to be adventurers, life threatening monsters comes with the territory lol.

I think TD has gotten too soft on the threat element, and yes there needs to be a balance but EVERY module should not be created equal. Too many experienced parties with amazing equipment mop the floor with Nightmare dungeons now, it's kind of pathetic and not fun. I miss the days of actually feeling threatened in TD. (I was upset when the Frost Giants were powered down, they actually put a real hurting on the party. That should be what Nightmare is about.) Making the Mind "Flayer" extra hard would be a welcomed change to keep players on their toes....and afraid.

Everyone should not get a trophy and you do not always win. Scale accordingly and if needed, put a warning label telling potential players how hard it will be to "overcome" the 6 year old villain. Problem solved.

Preach Fred K!

I agree with you that Nightmare and Epic should be ramped up. I was referring to Hardcore and Normal not ramping up.

Often times nightmare and hardcore are toned down from gencon or the first time they are run which makes me sad. It's ok for people to die.

I think sometimes people on the forums forget that they are in the top 1% as far as token builds, adventure preparation, room effectiveness, etc. A difficulty level that many forum members might see as challenging but achievable might seem hopeless to most players.

Lots of forum members either defeated smoak or barely fell short, but lots of groups were getting annihilated, even on normal mode. My group was one of those, even though I probably averaged 15 URs or Relics per person and most of our group has been playing since the start or shortly after. Between the massive retribution damage on every successful attack and the huge area attacks on the group every round, everyone in my group felt we had no chance (for 3 straight years), and several friends permanently quit True Dungeon as a result, and the rest of us nearly quit. I'm sure if there were another similar experience, especially at $80 per ticket, we'd find something else at GENCON to spend our time and money on. To be honest though, if prices get much higher, we might do that anyway, reluctantly.

I think Epic and to a lesser degree Nightmare should be aimed at the top 1%, to give a challenging experience to the people with Best in Class builds and strategies. Hardcore and below should be aimed at the other 99% . Just my thoughts on the matter.

The year of Smoak was my first year...we were laid to waste and I was hooked! I might not be so excited to be destroyed nowadays...but back then I thought it was amazing.

We have one member that will only play non-Gencon, loves TD but won't pay $80.

I think there needs to be some chance of success in every (boos) fight, but if the final encounter of a multi-year arc is particularly challenging, I think that would be awesome!

Extremely challenging does not necessarily equate to not fun. As long as the encounter is interesting, the player agency is not removed or limited, and the players feel they have a chance, an enjoyable and memorable event can be had even when a TPK is the intended outcome.