TOPIC: Power Creep Discussion

Wade Schwendemann wrote: This is very well thought out, and very accurate.

Things are far, far more complicated than any single issue.

Did I not the say the same damn thing thought not as well thought out a page or two ago....lol.

Rob F wrote: If you are a vet and have a ton of Tokens it's easy to find a run to use them on.

If you're new and don't have a ton of tokens its also easy to find a run. There are lots of people on here who bend over backwards to be welcoming + you can just grab any run on the system and not have to worry about being told you are to powerful and should stop making others feel bad by existing.

Rob F wrote: When new players spend $80 a ticket on TD, TPTB better find a way to make it fun for them to keep them coming back for more.

Same is true of anyone who spends $80 including vets (which all newbies become eventually).

Rob F wrote: And if it means telling an old time vet he/she can't use all their Tokens because it very well may ruin it for them then I have no problem with this.

Well then your being hypocritical.

Rob F wrote: But most vets scale back anyway when it's a normal/hardcore run so I don't see caps bringing that much anguish to the player base.

I agree most of us self police, which is why I think far reaching rules that restrict us all to try and lock down a few jerks who will probably still find way to be jerks will do more harm then good. You are of course welcome to disagree.

Michelle wrote: I have another thought on why my party feels stuck. Through collecting tokens over the years, once we got to the point of equipping mostly rares, we started just replacing rares with other rares. We're not getting URs fast enough to make a difference. We've done a bit of transmuting, and that's maybe helped a little bit, but I feel like a lot of the transmutes aren't great for us lately. Either they're not helping us get better or the recipes are too hard. It would be really helpful for a party like mine, if transmutes were a meaningful way to reasonably "trade up" to UR level tokens.

It's really hard to "make the jump" from red to purple, and I haven't seen a gradual way to do it. Neither should anyone feel they need to.

I would think in terms of annual token budgets

Twenty a year, optimized red build over two or theee years
Two hundred a year, optimized purple build over four or five years
Four hundred a year, optimized build with relics and multi year transmutes
Two thousand a year, optimized legendary build

Note the factor of ten in cost to go from rare to ur. That is the biggest proportional jump.

I would seriously consider picking up enchanters whetstones, they basically turn all your rare weapons into ur weapons,. Whetstone and plus one bliss hammer or the upcoming plus one claymore is very good, and then have a mighty sling or a handful of plus one rare thrown weapons for ranged..

David Zych wrote: It would be super cool if TPTB were willing and able to offer quantitative guidance for calibration based on stats, i.e. "when tuning modules for Hardcore, we assume characters typically have somewhere around X HP, Y saves, Z to-hit bonus, deal ZZ damage per round of combat, etc." Of course these would be rough ranges, and would also vary between classes, but anything of this form would allow you to throw your build into an online character generator and check your stats against the rough guideline to see if you're near, way below, or way above the notional median. Maybe the format could be as simple as publishing a sample party card for a hypothetical Hardcore group?

In case you haven't seen it, "Pick a Difficulty Level" in the Players' Handbook available at truedungeon.com/resources does attempt to offer some guidance, though many people feel that Hardcore especially has become significantly harsher than its current PHB description:

Hardcore: This is for people who have some TD experience and at least three bags of tokens. Monsters hit harder, have more health, and are more likely to resist your spells.

The "TD experience" aspect of this is extremely important. But on the equipment side, three bags of tokens isn't much at all: just 3 rares, 6 uncommons, and 21 commons. By contrast, I've seen people on the forums suggest that maybe HC is for people who have a full rare build with "just a few" URs and/or transmutes including something to gain 5th level, and I've seen other people advocate for pushing HC even higher than that (I strongly disagree with those people).

How it should be calibrated (based on equipment), in my opinion:

* Normal should be comfortably playable as sealed

* Hardcore should be comfortably playable using a good rare+uncommon build -- achievable simply by playing for a few years, drawing from the treasure box, and trading around to get the specific rares you need. Hardcore should NOT be calibrated to assume even a single high-dollar (UR+ or transmute) token; it should be a good place for experienced players who love the game and spend their money on tickets but don't have extra money to spend on tokens. I was such a player for many years.

Once you do own some UR+ gear, you can choose between continuing to play HC and having an easier time of it, or starting to think about Nightmare. I won't try to offer any specifics for that because I only just got there last year myself.

Yes! I agree 100%

That was how things seemed to be in 2011, when I played the first time, and it made sense. Around that time or shortly thereafter, the levels started increasing in difficulty. I should have been able to play hardcore after a few years and here I am at 8 years, with some extra money spent on tokens and I'm still playing on normal.

David Zych wrote: My working definition (I wrote about this in another post but left out an important detail in this one) specifically concerns excessive damage output which leads to killing a monster so fast that the other players in a Normal PUG don't get to enjoy the experience of combat -- a scenario which we know actually occurs often enough to get posted on the forums from time to time. I borrowed your phrase "bad actor", but of course it's also possible to do this without intentional malice. I personally am less concerned about people with lots of AC, HP, healing, etc; I'm inclined to agree with you that large numbers in those stats probably aren't hurting anyone else.

You’re missing my point entirely. IMO if someone is acting without malice then I see no fault. It is entirely possible that one of the parties complaining might also be the one in the wrong. We can’t generalize a rule to situations like that. If we do it they will just end up getting gamed. I have, for example, seen many many people complain just to get free stuff or special treatment.

David Zych wrote: You make the point that any rule we come up with always has the possibility to disappoint someone; that's true, but I don't see it as a reason to give up and impose no rule at all.

So why is disappointing one person better then another? You can’t always assume numbers are going to be on the side of low geared newbies. Again IMO, I think rules that privilege one group at the expense of another are inherently bad rules. Best case they end up shifting the privileged class, far more likely though they hurt more people then they help.

David Zych wrote: In my opinion, a default Normal PUG with a mix of newer/low-end players and veteran/high-end players should err on the side of making sure the low-end players' fun isn't ruined,

In my opinion, a default Normal PUG will not have this issue. Most vets already keep to themselves for the most part so as not to ruin anyone’s fun. Which honestly isn’t very welcoming when you look at it the other way.

David Zych wrote: because (1) the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,

If it is ok for the needs of the majority to outweigh the needs of the few then why should we change anything to benefit the few newbies who complain? IMO we should strive to treat all individuals well, not try to socially engineer the interactions of others.

David Zych wrote: and (2) veterans who don't have their own friends to run with can fairly easily get on the forums and pre-plan a higher difficulty run with a party of like-minded people, whereas it's not reasonable to expect most new players to do that.

Why not? Newbies have friends & internet access too. Most if not all of them organized their gencon runs. I have seen many full, well organized, groups of newbies pass through my coaching rooms. Honestly there's a lot of subtle looking down on newbies baked into this statement.

End of the day though I feel like we’re going to start going in circles soon (assuming we aren’t already) and I've said my peace so I’m probably just going to dip out of this conversation before I end up offending anyone.

jedibcg wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: I agree that no one should be able to ruin someone else's fun. I don't see how a new player playing with a group of vets and saying "I planned to play this game, as advertised, on normal with only my 10 pack" would be doing that though.

So the next planned epic run someone let me show up and say No we are playing normal. Also all your cool tokens, yeah you are not going to get to benefit from them because I am I am putting a cap on them. Maybe if you have multiple runs it won't bother you too much. If it is your only run? Odds of this happening slim. If it happened just once, you can bet there would be pitchforks and torches on the forums.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE PUG's. I would rather play with a group of new folks on normal that I would with forumites on a harder difficulty for anything that is not their first run through. I pick my character last and play whatever will help the group and don't slide if I don't have to. I hook everyone up with max treasure if they want it and have a good time experiencing the dungeon with folks that the dungeon is new to. Again I play a lot so I get enjoyment out of seeing the dungeon through someone else's eyes.

When the day comes that I only play through the dungeon once and am told I cannot use my tokens because 1 person doesn't want me to (without knowing if I would be a good ambassador for the new players) I will be done with tokens.

Regardless of a stat cap if you showed up to an Epic level run and told people you wanted to run Normal and it was their only run the pitchforks would probably come out anyway. Not because of a stat cap but because of a difficulty cap that's currently in place today.

Picc wrote:

Rob F wrote: If you are a vet and have a ton of Tokens it's easy to find a run to use them on.

If you're new and don't have a ton of tokens its also easy to find a run. There are lots of people on here who bend over backwards to be welcoming + you can just grab any run on the system and not have to worry about being told you are to powerful and should stop making others feel bad by existing.

Rob F wrote: When new players spend $80 a ticket on TD, TPTB better find a way to make it fun for them to keep them coming back for more.

Same is true of anyone who spends $80 including vets (which all newbies become eventually).

Rob F wrote: And if it means telling an old time vet he/she can't use all their Tokens because it very well may ruin it for them then I have no problem with this.

Well then your being hypocritical.

Rob F wrote: But most vets scale back anyway when it's a normal/hardcore run so I don't see caps bringing that much anguish to the player base.

I agree most of us self police, which is why I think far reaching rules that restrict us all to try and lock down a few jerks who will probably still find way to be jerks will do more harm then good. You are of course welcome to disagree.

Picc, your right, if someone spends $80 it should be fun for the person regardless of them being a newbie or a vet. Current TD rules that allow players with starter packs on the same runs with the decked out elite make this hard to do. I know we disagree on using stat caps as a lever to compensate for this but I do agree jerks will be jerks. They find a way.

jedibcg wrote: So the next planned epic run someone let me show up and say No we are playing normal.

I understand what you’re getting at here, but am gonna take it out of context for just a moment to say this:

If you showed up at a pre-planned Epic Run to tell me we’re all playing Normal, you bet there would be pitchforks! The run was built/billed as Epic - odds are one of us bought out the entire run to make sure we could control the difficulty - we all signed up to play together because we wanted to do Epic, and everyone discussed builds & agreed on classes... and you suddenly decide to be a prick and ruin our plans?!? Yeah, there’d be pitchforks.

But I know you aren’t talking about groups who have all agreed to a particular challenge, whether that’s Epic or Turkey Leg or 7-token challenge. I suspect you mean those individuals who show up to a run and expect that because they are equipped for X level, that everyone else has to play that way too. And if that level is Normal, and it’s a PUG, I think that’s fair. That’s already in the rules. But I don’t want to penalize the pre-planned groups just because some jerk thinks their enjoyment trumps the next guys’.

Matt Robisch wrote: There's something to be said for the newer players' unintentional slowplaying of a boss encounter as well. Two rounds of attacks plus push damage at low difficutlies may be comparable to 3 rounds of getting hit by the boss and has the same effect of getting to the next room to continue the adventure. So there is a self-correcting gimmick that newer players actually end up in a situation where their damage output may be straight-up irrelevant. Some of us got talked into a hardcore run at PAX this year and we never killed a monster, but the only players to die got auto-killed by Byfrost rather than damage.

This made me wonder if push damage in combat is scaled to how much damage the party did to the monster. The push damage probably should scale or there will be times where the best option is essentially to not play the game because the push damage might be less than the damage the party would take from another round of combat.

Rob F wrote:

Picc wrote:

Rob F wrote: If you are a vet and have a ton of Tokens it's easy to find a run to use them on.

If you're new and don't have a ton of tokens its also easy to find a run. There are lots of people on here who bend over backwards to be welcoming + you can just grab any run on the system and not have to worry about being told you are to powerful and should stop making others feel bad by existing.

Rob F wrote: When new players spend $80 a ticket on TD, TPTB better find a way to make it fun for them to keep them coming back for more.

Same is true of anyone who spends $80 including vets (which all newbies become eventually).

Rob F wrote: And if it means telling an old time vet he/she can't use all their Tokens because it very well may ruin it for them then I have no problem with this.

Well then your being hypocritical.

Rob F wrote: But most vets scale back anyway when it's a normal/hardcore run so I don't see caps bringing that much anguish to the player base.

I agree most of us self police, which is why I think far reaching rules that restrict us all to try and lock down a few jerks who will probably still find way to be jerks will do more harm then good. You are of course welcome to disagree.

Picc, your right, if someone spends $80 it should be fun for the person regardless of them being a newbie or a vet. Current TD rules that allow players with starter packs on the same runs with the decked out elite make this hard to do. I know we disagree on using stat caps as a lever to compensate for this but I do agree jerks will be jerks. They find a way.

Thanks Rob, for what it's worth I do apreshiste your perspective.

jedibcg wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote: This is very well thought out, and very accurate.

Things are far, far more complicated than any single issue.

Did I not the say the same damn thing thought not as well thought out a page or two ago....lol.

Consider me your hype man!


Also to little or no effect as well

Fiddy wrote:

Ro-gan wrote: I posted this a few days ago about my solution/help to Power Creep. I stand by it...

Ro-gan wrote: Avoiding power creep is always a good thing.

How about in the future Relic and Legendary Tokens be something like this...

Magic-Users: The Relic/Legendaries are familiars. Maybe the Relic just offers a special power like night vision or able to see invisible things/people or never surprised. The Legendary could be a familiar that has damage numbers and the Magic-User gets to slide as a second attack.

Every year or so the new Legendary is a new type of familiar. No power creep here because the Token is spotless and doesn't break the game... it just adds a coolness factor.

Paladin: A War Horse Relic/Legendary Token. The Relic version could just add a unique special ability like trample or never surprised or first strike (Paladin gets to always slide first in combat. The Legendary could be a War Horse that gets to attack and do damage.

Ranger: Same as above. Rangers usually always get an animal companion.

Fighter: Same as above but it's a squire-type Token.

Dwarf Fighter: Same as above. The Relic/Legendary Tokens are either a squire-type or animal companion.

Bard: Same as above. The Relic/Legendaries are an animal companion. Or a Bard Instrument that turns into a mechanical companion. Think Bubu from the original Clash Of The Titans movie.

Monk: Same as above. The Relic/Legendary are "padawans" or whatever low level trainee a Monk takes on to train.

Barabarian: Same as above (see the pattern developing - LOL!!). The Relic/Legendary are an animal companion like a wolf or bear.

Druid: Same as above. Animal companion - duh!

This way for the next few years power creep is avoided and there are some cool arse Tokens being crafted for specific classes their respective years. An attacking familiar/squire doesn't have to be uber-powerful and won't break combat. Same for the Relic version. Getting something minor-ish like free movement/never surprised/special vision/some type of minor immunity/whatever doesn't break the game and frees up a different Token slot that did grant that ability.

In all seriousness, I'm not sure how adding a new slot with the intent to free up other slots won't contribute to power creep.

Because for a few short years the majority of the Tokens would be meant for ingredients for making these Tokens. That's less Tokens that contribute to Power Creep.

It's not a permanent solution, but helps stem off game death.