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TOPIC: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure

Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #37

I have the flu and my brain is a bit fizzled, so I'm going to keep this short.

The only extra reward that Hell mode needs is Reward pin, and the knowledge that you challenged yourself to a more difficult dungeon.
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #38

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From TD's perspective, they need people to keep buying tokens. I think even the most blind MFer realizes that at this point. This means that you have to keep upping the difficulty and the rewards. I can understand why people like Mike would not want to see that so he can keep playing his easyass hardcore with his group and milking out treasure draws and whatnot rather than having to spend thousands of dollars on tokens outfitting a group of 10 who can survive the new nightmare. This is true for a lot of people. Will some peopel complain if some new supernightmare or nightmare rescaled had an extra 500 XP? Sure they will. Hell, they might even threaten to quit, but at some point TD is just going to have to say !#^& 'em on the hope that it can keep reeling in people willing to spend a 8k a year or who discovers the event and drops 20 large in one year trying to catch up. This is the stone cold truth of it. No one from on high will say it because it's shitty ass PR, but TD has a clear strategy that focuses on large token buyers. IF you focus on large token buyers you need to give incentives for people to keep buying. That's the long and short of it. IF you don't like it, get off the @!^#ing train.

The worst part about this is you can't even change strategies at this point. This is what I and some others were talking about all those years ago. ONce you start on courting high value buyers and boosting creep each year to entice them to buy, you're like a junkie needing a bigger and bigger fix each year. YOu can't go back to the way it used to be and start fresh without a complete restart, which would be an epic shitfit to end all shitfits. Rares are practically worthless now. No one needs to buy tokens who only plays normal or hardcore. It's not like you could somehow encourage those people to buy when they're more than well equiped for where they are.

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #39

Raven wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: Maybe just add something called Nightmare-plus (tm)


Just thinking out loud here, but would this be (vaguely) similar to the previous suggestions of "scaled" difficulty? Only, it's parties themselves who would be doing the scaling?

If... for every +1 on "Nightmare +"

* You add 1pt of push damage/puzzle fail damage/timed damage
* The monster's AC goes up by 1
* The monster's to-hit goes up by 1
* The Monster's saves go up by 1
* The monster's HP goes up by 10

Then you can have parties self-select a "Hellish" level by saying "Nightmare+10, please."

I think that, as a DM, I could handle that math (a lot easier than the sliding scale which would involve a whole et of stats to work with)

It would add no extra work for the Coach (other than writing a number after a + sign.


This is a very great idea. Although there should be no upper limit. There seems to be concern that if we added a Hellish level some players would choose it just because they could and then die and then
complain. If there is no limit then there is nothing for people to
shoot for, so you would just do what you thought was reasonable perhaps?

Brad Mortensen wrote: But XP, loot and completion rewards stay the same, and each group can make it as challenging as they want.

Raven wrote: ^^ This, I think, would be very important to game balance.


Having not yet run Nightmare (but plan to in 2015) and having only played for 3 years, and having only been on the forums for <1yr, I'm really having trouble understanding the reason for the aversion to extra rewards at higher levels.

At the least it seems to me if you play Nightmare+10 you should get more XP than just Nightmare... I can't really understand why you wouldn't (or wouldn't want to offer it). In any other game, the higher the difficulty, the higher the experience you gain.

Why can't you just get +10 or +100 XP for each plus level you choose?

I'd also like to see something like +1 treasure chip for the whole party for each level (so Nightmare+10 gets you 10 bonus treasure chips to split up as you want) -- but only if the entire party survives.

The primary reason for the aversion seems to be that some people play higher levels than they should because they want more XP or loot and then complain when it is too hard. Well, with the players picking the number can they really complain and say "I played Nightmare+90 and it was too hard, this sucks!"? I guess they can, but can't we just laugh at them?

I feel like the arbitrary number with no limit takes away the incentive to just max it out, because there is no max any longer. Oh, and the whole "scaled difficulty" concept could be used by the community to create a suggestion on the plus level. So the Excel character generator, for example, could provide a "recommended" value based on some formula we figure out.

I doubt Jeff knows who I am, and I'm not sure how much he reads these things, but some of you know him more and I'd really like to make sure he sees this idea.
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #40

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The problem with people just making up a handicap on their own is eventually, some of the smarter ones are going to realize that they can do that even easier and save thousands of dollars by simply buying less tokens. Hey....instead of reducing my damage by 10 to make supernightmare...I could simply not invest $2000 in making a legendary and a couple relics and it's like the same! OMGWTFBBQ! If I go Nekkid Commando I could get a great challenge, props from everyone, and get back some of the thousands of dollars I spent on tokens by selling them all and never buying more! WOOO!

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #41

Fizzikx wrote: But here's the kicker, what % of TD's operating income comes from that 10% of players? I would guess certain individuals are probably up to 5-15% all by themselves. And if you were in Jeff's shoes who are you going to cater to? You want to make *everybody* happy but do you really care that 10% of people who come to TD go away angry because they tried an *INSANE* difficulty and were not prepared? Or do you cater to the higher % who "pay the bills" and make TD a reality?


It is a very important point to consider. Based on some information I know and some that I am making educated guesses about, I'd say that token revenues exceed GenCon revenues, possibly by a decent amount, and that the top 3 token buyers (together) account for 25%+ of token purchases.

Brad Mortensen wrote: @Raven - yup. It's very much like Henwy's suggestion, except the players pick and it's all on them.

You could make the math even easier on DMs by saying:
"We are Nightmare + 10, please give each critter an extra 100 HP. Oh, and we are -10 to hit."


I know it ends up the same, but I really dislike the idea of crippling the players. That isn't fun. Why would I spend $2000 on tokens only to cripple myself. It *is* more fun to have stronger and more challenging monsters to fight though. It is more fun to hit than miss. It is more fun to do 50 damage than 15. So that is why the monsters need more AC and, most importantly, higher HP.

Mike Steele wrote: I think that all difficulty levels Hardcore and Higher need to have the same XP level. The last thing we want is for people to be playing at levels higher than they are ready for because they want max XP (which a LOT of people want) and becoming extremely unhappy with the experience because of that.


I still think that if there was no limit and you picked an arbitrary number then, out of necessity, players would have to moderate their own difficulty (they aren't going to ask for Nightmare+1 million, right?).

Interesting idea perhaps (especially if we stop reporting our own XP): Nightmare+?? means you get 2000+(??*100) experience, but only if you survive. If you die then you get nothing (or perhaps only the base 2000). Wouldn't that help with the problem?
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #42

How about this:

The only difference between Epic/Hellish difficulty and Nightmare, is 1 more max XP.

That's it. 1 XP.

Assuming 2 unique dungeons a year, it would be 25 years, before that accumulated Epic XP is worth the same amount as surviving an extra room (50 XP).

B)

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #43

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That actually works for me. Maybe slightly higher than 1 but still a small amount. Something like 2 extra per room or 25 overall. I think I'd find it incredibly amusing to have some people watch the slow creep of supernightmare people crawling up their asses on the xp chart.

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #44

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Kirk Bauer wrote: I'd also like to see something like +1 treasure chip for the whole party for each level (so Nightmare+10 gets you 10 bonus treasure chips to split up as you want) -- but only if the entire party survives.


Hmm.
Well, technically, treasure chips are not something which you can't get on Normal or Hardcore mode.

I would not be completely averse to adding a treasure-chip incentive for a higher risk level... especially if the incentive is not significantly higher than the chips provided by treasure-generating items.

Incognito wrote: How about this:

The only difference between Epic/Hellish difficulty and Nightmare, is 1 more max XP.

That's it. 1 XP.

Assuming 2 unique dungeons a year, it would be 25 years, before that accumulated Epic XP is worth the same amount as surviving an extra room (50 XP).


You people are sick.

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #45

This is how the ghost thing went.
Ten is too many, we want to play with eight.
Then wait, the ghosts should get loot and wear synergy tokens and whatnot.

Now, it's nightmare is too easy so it isn't fun. But if we make it harder, now we want more XP and loot for daring to do it.

Please, not this time. If you're not looking forward to the challenge of doing a harder version of the dungeon than anyone else dared to try, then don't do it for loot. Just don't do it at all.

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #46

Ultra Nightmare mode - Gives +1 Treasure Chip, Gives +1 XP, Gives Ultra Nightmare Survival Pin (no pin on death)

Thoughts?

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #47

Brad Mortensen wrote: This is how the ghost thing went.
Ten is too many, we want to play with eight.
Then wait, the ghosts should get loot and wear synergy tokens and whatnot.

Now, it's nightmare is too easy so it isn't fun. But if we make it harder, now we want more XP and loot for daring to do it.

Please, not this time. If you're not looking forward to the challenge of doing a harder version of the dungeon than anyone else dared to try, then don't do it for loot. Just don't do it at all.


I'll take a harder dungeon with no loot. If that's what it takes to get it.
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 9 years 6 months ago #48

Shouldn't add more XP past hardcore?!?! Hardcore shouldn't be equal to Nightmare in XP at all. Hardcore is WAY to easy compared to Nightmare! People "farm" XP in Hardcore because it is so easy.

I like the idea of Hell, I would play that in a heart beat! More risk more reward!

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