Matthew Hayward wrote: I'm not confident this is an accurate assessment. You make level 3 with 3000 XP - which is 5 dungeons at Normal (assuming you make it to then end).
For the first 3-5 years I played my friends and I:
1. Played every year, but we could take it or leave it.
2. Entered XP every year (even without really understanding what it was for).
3. Didn't really understand the rules, didn't participate in the secondary token market, didn't spend much on tokens (maybe a few extra 10-packs bought at the con).
As an example of my level of investment, when True Realm was going on, I was like: "What? That's weird? Who would want to do that?" and now I'm like "Darn - really missed out on something special!"
Eventually I, and to a lesser extent my friends. started interacting with the second token market, optimizing our builds, etc.
I definitely would have been confused/disappointed to attend TD at another venue and find there was no XP.
TL;DR: Some non-hardcore players in your taxonomy definitely track/enter/care about experience. Getting to player level 3 is feasible in a few years with minimal effort.
I think we're talking past each other.
I never said 'walk ins' don't track exp. I simply doubt many of them are accruing 4k exp per year, or would be of vastly increased likelihood to worry about that cap if exp was offered at other conventions (or concerned about the cap they're not hitting in the first place). The players concerned about the 4k limit (raising it, keeping it the same, etc) are presumably not likely to be 'casual players', they are by definition, at least capable, geared, and willing to give HC/NM a shot. This is said without judgement, it is great to be a casual player, *I'M* a casual player, but I made 1k exp in my first and only dungeon, top 100 leaderboard status is the last thing I'm concerned about.
For these customers it's presumably The Adventure that attracts them, not 'getting to level 3 in the True Dungeon's Player Rewards system'. There may indeed be SOME people for whom that's a draw, I'm simply extrapolating from experiences in other games with such rewards setups, a good portion of the playerbase generally does not care.
Adding the ability to do the Grind events at level 2 may attract some, picking classes some others, but I think for many players who aren't hyper focused on a class, there's minimal direct appeal in the exp system until 15k exp (again, barring someone interested enough to be on the forums enough to actually care about the title/subforum).
That's 1 full normal run for Grind, and 15 full runs of Normal for an extra treasure. At my current rate of increase, I will get that around... 2044. Though it's possible my group will start going often enough to amend that closer to 2030 or maybe even 2025 or so (a number of awesome folks here have offered slots in their famously awesome runs, but obviously we can't fit 10,000 assorted players into double runs if there's only like 8k slots to begin with between the two dungeons). Again, I'm trying to emphasize the difference between the players who maybe do it once per year or every other year, versus the people who are doing 2-4+ runs per year; catering to both sides isn't going to mesh easily.
I mean, I hope to play more often, but we're already talking about a game that adds up to a considerable expense, time allotment, and frankly there aren't remotely enough slots to go around to imagine that a large number of 'walk ins' are able to do this. There's what, 8k tickets sold? With all the people here that talk about buying out full runs (let alone multiple full runs), and the "you must be THIS tall to ride" aspects of Hardcore/Nightmare, I feel my point stands.
Mathematically there don't seem to be nearly enough top tier runs going around for 'walk ins' or casual players to be worried about the 4k cap, they're not hitting it as it is.
But if other cons added experience, it's possible some might stumble into greater amounts, but again, we're talking about people who would have to hit multiple conventions for True Dungeon in particular, at which point we're getting away from either of those groups.
That's part of what I was trying to express; there are multiple player types who enjoy the game, and finding a 'one size fits all' solution may be impossible, because some of those general expectations (based on anecdote and gut feeling, I'm not trying to sell this as Doctoral research here) may well be mutually exclusive.
Which comes back to my point that while it's fascinating to discuss (I certainly am enjoying the thought exercise), we may simply not have the business model information in the background to make an educated statement regarding what it would cost TD and/or how much extra overhead it would create versus what they would expect it to draw in.
Also to be pedantic, you can make 3k exp in 3 Normal runs if you make it to the end, or 5 Normal even if you die in room one, or 5 on Non-Lethal. :-P