TOPIC: Power Creep Discussion

There's a lot to read here so let me summarize my view, I don't think power creep is a bad thing. What info hate is people who pick harder difficulty without having the stats for them. Under equiped parties wipping out on hardcore or nightmare at gencon have caused other cons to have monster stats rebalanced for the low end and it sucks for players. They cheapen the joy of winning on those difficulty. That being said power creep has and will happen, more options leads to more interesting combination. I rather people get warned then to cheapen the experience. Epic doesn't get rebalanced because we are glutton for punishment. People who wanted to run epic were told it wasn't an option at origins which sucks. We just need to all agree on a range of player stats and monster stats per tier which make sense and rebalance the creep.

Ian Lee wrote: Anyway, my thought is that your group should play Hardcore all of the time and then complain bitterly if it's far too difficult after the fact.

Ha ha, deal! We are definitely up for a challenge, but would like to live until the last room.

jedibcg wrote:

Bob Chasan wrote: Full Disclosure! I only skimmed as too much to read BUT...,,,.,...
It seems like everyone was looking at the problem from a player perspective.
How about....
1st room combat DM makes a notation in one of the typically blank columns in one of the blank classes such as
+ tells next DM add 50 HP to Monster and +2 AC / +2 to hit
++ tells the next DM add 100HP to monster and +5AC/+5 to hit
- tells the next DM subtract 25HP and-2AC/-2 to hit

Numbers could be adjusted but institutionalized so every DM understood exactly what it meant.

That way it would be individualized for each party.

I don’t think one combat from a dm is going to convey how ‘well’ a team will do on the next combat at least the way my team slides.

So it could be adjusted again after the second combat

James J Krot wrote: There's a lot to read here so let me summarize my view, I don't think power creep is a bad thing. What info hate is people who pick harder difficulty without having the stats for them. Under equiped parties wipping out on hardcore or nightmare at gencon have caused other cons to have monster stats rebalanced for the low end and it sucks for players. They cheapen the joy of winning on those difficulty. That being said power creep has and will happen, more options leads to more interesting combination. I rather people get warned then to cheapen the experience. Epic doesn't get rebalanced because we are glutton for punishment. People who wanted to run epic were told it wasn't an option at origins which sucks. We just need to all agree on a range of player stats and monster stats per tier which make sense and rebalance the creep.

Our group kind of made our own epic by just asking Gms if we could fight the monsters again. Or for example putting out fires repeatedly my point is if you dont feel like your being challenged enough you can always ask for it, most DMs are willing to play along if its clear your group is into it.

I've been sounding the alarm for a couple years now, and there's only a couple models for this: MMOs and card games.

MMOs are a good template because they are inherently PvE at end game. The handle power creep by constantly increasing difficulty and making it easier for people to reach the end game. This is problematic for TD because 20 years from now you're looking at a +2 sword at uncommon, and a legendary goes past +5, which is odd for a D&D based game.

Card games (CCGs) are also a good comparison, because the pack to pouch comparison and the collections are similar, but CCGs are PvP, and TD is PvE. Card games have long adopted the notion of an evergreen set, and a set rotation to make sure that power levels don't reach absurdity and create un-fun results.

My solution would be to allow parties to decide on all gear vs. Limited gear, with the limited gear runs resulting in better loot box mix to encourage limited play. Also in this scenario you could drastically reduce components for relic/legendary gear as you only keep it for a limited time before it rotates out. Treasure enhancers, commons, and uncommon are evergreen. Rares and above rotate out every 2-3 years. Most importantly, if your group wants to slay the gods once or twice with their all orange build, they can. But the base line power level of the game is more controlled.

Jeff makes sales to a person like me, who currently buys relics for $250 that someone spent $500 to craft and virtually never buys pouches due to the complexity of transmuting. The people who spend a lot still have the best gear and still buy a lot of stuff for their builds.

Seth Murray wrote: Jeff makes sales to a person like me, who currently buys relics for $250 that someone spent $500 to craft and virtually never buys pouches due to the complexity of transmuting. The people who spend a lot still have the best gear and still buy a lot of stuff for their builds.

I see a lot of people mention relics are being sold at less than what it costs to make them. I think this isn't really an accurate assessment.

Based on previous super condensed auctions (especially pre order auctions that have extra stuff in them and a chance at a golden ticket), we can see that trade goods can have some pretty low costs. For example, we're looking at or under $1 for Silk / Plank / Stones, 25 or under for argonite, etc.

If you were to pre order a 8k set yourself, sell off everything else but the trade goods, I'm estimating relic costs under $225 not counting fleece, and desirable current relics, like the lute of free fury, selling at ~350.

What even the above doesn't reflect, however, is that people are generating trade goods from treasure pulls, so that is going to drop their actual cost of building the relics / legendaries even lower.

Long story short, it's not costing anyone $500 to build a relic...

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.

Did you see these transmutes from last year:

tokendb.com/token/enchanters-whetstone/
tokendb.com/token/charm-of-treasure-boosting/
tokendb.com/token/belt-of-ogre-mage-power/

Also, a mostly rare build should handle Hardcore. Feel free to PM your Rare build (or post it in a new thread - not this one) and we will absolutely help you. Note, some times is it much more cost and power effective to get the token you need in the secondary market then to try to just build your character on $8 token packs.

Ed

MasterED wrote:

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.

Did you see these transmutes from last year:

tokendb.com/token/enchanters-whetstone/
tokendb.com/token/charm-of-treasure-boosting/
tokendb.com/token/belt-of-ogre-mage-power/

Ed

I think these fall under the "recipe is too hard" category for him. The monster bit requirement on the charm of treasure boosting meant my group couldn't make any of those. The easiest one to make for us was the belt because I bought a whole buch of silk at $1 per during the auction blitz last fall and was able to acquire gold at just under $12 per 1000.

The whetstone is a little rough due to the Argonite - if you are trying to make your own argonite, you probably don't get many per year.

Endgame wrote: I think these fall under the "recipe is too hard" category for him. The monster bit requirement on the charm of treasure boosting meant my group couldn't make any of those. The easiest one to make for us was the belt because I bought a whole buch of silk at $1 per during the auction blitz last fall and was able to acquire gold at just under $12 per 1000.

The whetstone is a little rough due to the Argonite - if you are trying to make your own argonite, you probably don't get many per year.

I think the key is player to player interaction and trading. Trade your stuff you don't need for stuff you do.

Ed

Endgame wrote:

Seth Murray wrote: Jeff makes sales to a person like me, who currently buys relics for $250 that someone spent $500 to craft and virtually never buys pouches due to the complexity of transmuting. The people who spend a lot still have the best gear and still buy a lot of stuff for their builds.

I see a lot of people mention relics are being sold at less than what it costs to make them. I think this isn't really an accurate assessment.

Based on previous super condensed auctions (especially pre order auctions that have extra stuff in them and a chance at a golden ticket), we can see that trade goods can have some pretty low costs. For example, we're looking at or under $1 for Silk / Plank / Stones, 25 or under for argonite, etc.

If you were to pre order a 8k set yourself, sell off everything else but the trade goods, I'm estimating relic costs under $225 not counting fleece, and desirable current relics, like the lute of free fury, selling at ~350.

What even the above doesn't reflect, however, is that people are generating trade goods from treasure pulls, so that is going to drop their actual cost of building the relics / legendaries even lower.

Long story short, it's not costing anyone $500 to build a relic...

Historically, it has cost that much to buy the raw materials. If we are talking about buying an 8k order, finding willing buyers for all the stuff I can't use, etc., we're now talking about hours and hours of work, which isn't free. The value of my time might be different than yours, but if we can say conservatively that the average person values their free time at $15 per hour and it takes about 10-15 hours (posting, haggling, shipping) of my time to sell off everything, there's a baked in time sink worth about $150-$225. I could drive an Uber for the same amount of time and buy the relic with my earnings. That's not even getting into the part where we are assuming that everyone who has $250 to spend on a token also has $8,000 that they can tie up for a month or two. If I had that kind of money sitting around I'd invest it conservatively for a few months and let the interest pay for part of the relic.

Long story short, it's not that simple.

Seth Murray wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Seth Murray wrote: Jeff makes sales to a person like me, who currently buys relics for $250 that someone spent $500 to craft and virtually never buys pouches due to the complexity of transmuting. The people who spend a lot still have the best gear and still buy a lot of stuff for their builds.

I see a lot of people mention relics are being sold at less than what it costs to make them. I think this isn't really an accurate assessment.

Based on previous super condensed auctions (especially pre order auctions that have extra stuff in them and a chance at a golden ticket), we can see that trade goods can have some pretty low costs. For example, we're looking at or under $1 for Silk / Plank / Stones, 25 or under for argonite, etc.

If you were to pre order a 8k set yourself, sell off everything else but the trade goods, I'm estimating relic costs under $225 not counting fleece, and desirable current relics, like the lute of free fury, selling at ~350.

What even the above doesn't reflect, however, is that people are generating trade goods from treasure pulls, so that is going to drop their actual cost of building the relics / legendaries even lower.

Long story short, it's not costing anyone $500 to build a relic...

Historically, it has cost that much to buy the raw materials. If we are talking about buying an 8k order, finding willing buyers for all the stuff I can't use, etc., we're now talking about hours and hours of work, which isn't free. The value of my time might be different than yours, but if we can say conservatively that the average person values their free time at $15 per hour and it takes about 10-15 hours (posting, haggling, shipping) of my time to sell off everything, there's a baked in time sink worth about $150-$225. I could drive an Uber for the same amount of time and buy the relic with my earnings. That's not even getting into the part where we are assuming that everyone who has $250 to spend on a token also has $8,000 that they can tie up for a month or two. If I had that kind of money sitting around I'd invest it conservatively for a few months and let the interest pay for part of the relic.

Long story short, it's not that simple.

You can, alternatively, just buy at auction prices. Not counting fleece, the Lute of Free Fury cost my group $263 funded entirely on auction prices. I have since learned that auction prices occasionally go above the prices seen on some of the token sites, so I could have saved a few bucks by being slightly more strategic. Of course, it did cost me the time to submit a bid, and I decided to spend extra transmuting via mail instead of at a convention. Still no where near $500.

Endgame wrote:

MasterED wrote:

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.

Did you see these transmutes from last year:

tokendb.com/token/enchanters-whetstone/
tokendb.com/token/charm-of-treasure-boosting/
tokendb.com/token/belt-of-ogre-mage-power/

Ed

I think these fall under the "recipe is too hard" category for [her]. The monster bit requirement on the charm of treasure boosting meant my group couldn't make any of those. The easiest one to make for us was the belt because I bought a whole buch of silk at $1 per during the auction blitz last fall and was able to acquire gold at just under $12 per 1000.

The whetstone is a little rough due to the Argonite - if you are trying to make your own argonite, you probably don't get many per year.

Yes, exactly. Those things would be great but they are too hard for my party to make. I address the whetstone and belt below. As for the Charm of Treasure Boosting, two of us (including me) have more than one treasure enhancing token, so we couldn't use it. If I did some trading to get a few Charm of the Faithful, I could make three for my party (I've only got three Philosopher's Stone).

Michelle wrote:

Endgame wrote: The current transmutes are pretty awesome with the Enchanter's Whetstone and Belt of Ogre Mage power. Last year's Blessed Tempest Gloves were pretty awesome too.

The 4* Transmutes really seem like they should be the bridge between rare and UR. Maybe I need to go petition for some upgrades on the Ring of Stamina, since it is pretty lacking compared to Blessed Tempest Gloves and Belt of Ogre Mage Power

Yeah, I was super excited when I saw the Enchanter's Whetstone, but the recipe was problematic. Aragonite is very slow for us to come by (we could make one for our whole party) and it didn't seem worth it to spend an Aragonite for an effect I could get with +2 STR that I could get from a rare token. Slotless would be nice, but I just couldn't justify spending an Aragonite on it.

The Belt of Ogre Mage Power was also awesome, but I didn't get a Belt of Ogre Power in my token order. I thought about trading on the forums, but honestly I don't have 10 Mystic Silk. I have 4.

I was able to make 1 Blessed Tempest Glove. I can usually make a few of the 3* transmutes each year, but can only make 1-2 of the 4* transmutes each year. Again, this is for my full party, not just one character.