TOPIC: Important Update! The Astral Adventure is now NEW

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: there have been some post on the forum that I shake my head at


this one takes the cake


TD is not about Gen Con. TD is about TD

If TD wants to do unique things at other cons ...so be it


nobody had a problem with the Astral adventure being run at Origins....UNTIL XP came into play

IT IS F'ING XP.....IT means nothing other than...I have played longer and more than you...that doesn't mean anything. you get nothing from that

Laz,
Although I completely (Really) agree with you, there seems to be a culture of protecting the initial base. I don't see this any differently than the yearly "discussion" regarding token reprints. (Aside from those that have been declared off the list of reprints by TPTB) Much, not all, of those "discussions" are based on protecting what players who have been doing this longer have been able to acquire. XP and recognition are very similar.

Again, I agree with you 100%

archmage78 wrote: When do tickets go on sale? How will we volunteers buy them? Will we have our schedules in time to order tickets? Sorry for the questions but I will need to get a run in.

Volunteers should have their schedule by April. Then have two weeks to buy tickets for astral, moongate and the other one.

Tickets for patron and raid won't be available .

So I'm confused about the Xperia thing.

Is it same dungeon run ofnormal , hardcore and nightmare gets you xp from all three of those runs or you only get the Xperia from the nightmare run?

Dave wrote: Part of this is repetitious, but I'm going to add a few comments.

1. I really do not like a system that awards more XP at lower levels, but has a cut-off to protect those at the top. It assumes that only those at the top care about their position on the leaderboard. Say there are two people, one with 26,000 XP and one with 25,000 XP. They both get 4,000 XP at Gen Con, so one is happy to get to 8th level. But then notices the person at 29,000 XP is able to get credit for another dungeon. Will that second person be capped at 1000 extra xp and stopped from getting more, or will they get a full 2000 XP and jump to 31,000 XP and leapfrog over anyone between 30,000 and 30,950? Any new system should apply equally to everyone, or almost by definition it isn't fair.

2. Let's face it, XP is an honor system. Does anyone else know someone who played a normal level run, but took their code and input the run as if they ran hardcore or nightmare? I know of at least one person and wouldn't be surprised if their were more. At that point, comparisons start to break down. And if XP really are any more than a fun thing to track, there would be more of a black market for people who have extra codes. What's to stop them from selling those codes to people who were not even at the con? So just keep XP as a fun thing and don't make the rewards all that significant.

3. Lastly, I'm not irritated at all be the thought of people passing me if I can't make a con, nor do I feel sorry if I pass someone because I could make a con and they couldn't. I sometimes just really wish I could have a complete record of all the runs I did. I'm not looking for extra XP, just a log of all the runs I did. However, once I do a version of a run, the system won't allow me to enter a second run of the same version at the same difficulty level. It's not a big deal at all, but irritates me more than this discussion.

Again, this is just another case of some people are going to be upset no matter what is decided. And while I agree that XP is not a major attraction to newbies, it also says something about anyone who threatens to quit the game over this debate. Personally, how many runs I do or conventions I attend will not be impacted by this decision.

#1: This isn't a new system I'm proposing, it's the existing system, and I was just suggesting raising the cap from 5th level to 7th/8th level. I don't recall a lot of outrage at the current system, so I'd be OK leaving it at 5th Level if that is the preference. And, IIRC, the concerns about numbers games at the margins you mention were brought up before, and Jeff didn't think it was a big deal.

#2: Someone did put unused XP codes up for sale on EBay in a lot of items in the last year. I raised it as a possible issue, but the general consensus was that it was perfectly legit to sell unused XP codes. I do personally hope that it doesn't become standard procedure.

#3: I agree it would be nice to have the XP log list extra runs you do, even with the 0 XP. It has done that at times in the past. Maybe it would be nice to log one of each type run at each location, just to capture the data.

jon wrote:

archmage78 wrote: When do tickets go on sale? How will we volunteers buy them? Will we have our schedules in time to order tickets? Sorry for the questions but I will need to get a run in.

Volunteers should have their schedule by April. Then have two weeks to buy tickets for astral, moongate and the other one.

Tickets for patron and raid won't be available .

So I'm confused about the Xperia thing.

Is it same dungeon run ofnormal , hardcore and nightmare gets you xp from all three of those runs or you only get the Xperia from the nightmare run?

You only get the single highest XP from each type of Dungeon you do. That includes puzzle and combat versions of the same Dungeon.

kurtreznor wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: Matthew, perhaps I'm mistaken, but I think in all of those cases the max XP could still have been gotten from GENCON. You didn't have to go to those conventions to get the XP.

You are likely correct about that, I am certainly not sure one way or the other.

So - I was trying to figure this out - it looks to me like those who attended True Realm got more XP than was available at Gen Con alone.

Looking at your dungeon history for example:

truedungeon.com/top-players/adventures?user_id=3321

In 2009 your XP was:

3700 from Gen Con (including XP from both normal and Nightmare Smoak?)
2000 XP from True Realm

Event                                             Room 	Base XP	XP/Room	XP Event XP Towards Total
True Dungeon Smoak (NIGHTMARE) GenCon 2009	  7	650	100	1350	1350
True Dungeon Smoak GenCon 2009	                  7	650	50	1000	1000
True Dungeon Five Aspects (NIGHTMARE) GenCon 2009 7	650	100	1350	1350
True Dungeon Retro True Realm 2009	          7	650	50	1000	1000
True Dungeon Director's Cut True Realm 2009	  7	650	50	1000	1000

I don't believe there was any way to get 5,700 XP from 2009 Gen Con alone.

This player has 7,050 (!) XP from 2009 True Dungeon events alone (so much people nowadays being able to level faster than in the past!).

truedungeon.com/top-players/adventures?user_id=10959

It appears there was a rule change at some point in the past around gaining XP for running the dungeon multiple times at different difficulties. Or maybe the rules didn't change but bookeeping was done wrong on XP.

To explain what happened at true realm:
The additional XP you see is from the re-make of the very first dungeon (from 2003). And it offered XP as that 2003 dungeon. So, you will see many players like myself that missed the first year getting full XP for that dungeon at true realm PLUS full XP from the gencon dungeons, and you will also see players like raven who have full XP from gencon plus a smaller amount on the 2003 remake...because hardcore was not available in 2003, so raven got the difference from 2003 and the hardcore run at true realm.

Also, as i looked up info i remembered that normal and hardcore offered different XP, so you had to play both to get max XP. Which is why you see people getting multiple instances of XP. It was later streamlined to give max XP for a single hardcore run.

That makes sense, but lots of top players, such as Mike, have XP from 2003 and from both events at True Realm:

True Dungeon GenCon 2003 Indy 8 650 50 1050 1050

And it appears there were 2 XP generating things at True Realm: "Retro True Realm 2009" and "Director's Cut True Realm 2009" - were both of these throwback dungeons?

Harlax wrote: Remove the Top Players page. Problem solved?

That made me laugh

I’d actually be ok with that. 99.9% of players don’t care about the top XP list.

As an out-of-the-box idea, how about having a dual track XP system.

The first would be just like it is now, limit of 4K per year except for bonus XP for dungeons with unique content up to a certain level (currently level 5).

The second might be something like a Universal XP. It would grant you XP for each unique Dungeon you do at each convention (puzzle & combat variants still count as one unique Dungeon). So, for instance, if you do the two base Dungeons at GENCON, Origins, and GHC, you could earn up to 12K XP on the year for them. If the goal were to encourage players to do multiple Dungeons at multiple conventions, that might be the most encouragement they could get from the XP system. Perhaps the XP for this starts either at Origins or GENCON this year. Or maybe it takes your XP from the base system as the starting point, and adds on from there.

I'm thinking the rewards might still be tied to the original XP system, since people will be going up the ladder MUCH faster on the second track.

Harlax wrote: Remove the Top Players page. Problem solved?

Actually that is the right answer.

Let's call this "experience" tracking what is really is - a customer reward program. After playing enough times I get rewards A, then B, then C....

In almost all rewards programs customers cannot view other customers rewards - by design. I am sure initially it helped drive ticket sales and guarantee people coming each year. It is an idea past its time.

Keep the program, change the name to player rewards points, remove the "leader board", and give experience for every ticketed run. If necessary, change the reward levels accordingly or apply experience by ticket price.

Ed

Jeff321 wrote:

Harlax wrote: Remove the Top Players page. Problem solved?

That made me laugh

I’d actually be ok with that. 99.9% of players don’t care about the top XP list.

I posted that facetiously, but the more I think it about it...


If what is driving this discussion is position on the top players list, then maybe the top player list should go.


I wonder if we should be more worried about the pace of level gain. But if anyone thinks that might be a problem, the solution is to adjust the XP per level. Or the XP given. But no one sees this as an issue as yet.

MasterED wrote:

Harlax wrote: Remove the Top Players page. Problem solved?

Actually that is the right answer.

Let's call this "experience" tracking what is really is - a customer reward program. After playing enough times I get rewards A, then B, then C....

In almost all rewards programs customers cannot view other customers rewards - by design. I am sure initially it helped drive ticket sales and guarantee people coming each year. It is an idea past its time.

Keep the program, change the name to player rewards points, remove the "leader board", and give experience for every ticketed run. If necessary, change the reward levels accordingly or apply experience by ticket price.

Ed

That's a possible answer, but it certainly isn't the best answer for everyone. I think there are a lot of people that enjoy seeing how they sit on the overall XP list. And, I do think that XP is one of many factors that keep people coming back to play. That motivation would be greatly decreased if the overall list was abolished and people just saw their own XP. Plus, it adds some "flavor" to the game. I'm not sure why a business would intentionally get rid of something that motivates people to buy their product, when it isn't causing any real problems.

The length of this thread suggests that the current system is causing a problem.


I don't know that I'm on board with XP for every ticketed dungeon run.

Would that include ghosted runs? Do we want to further incetivize that?

Would it negatively impact volunteering? If I volunteer at GHC two runs is the most I can feasibly do. And that only with some flexibility from the Coordinators. Others are doing many.

Does it start to feel like "pay to win?"

Harlax wrote: The length of this thread suggests that the current system is causing a problem.


I don't know that I'm on board with XP for every ticketed dungeon run.

Would that include ghosted runs? Do we want to further incetivize that?

Would it negatively impact volunteering? If I volunteer at GHC two runs is the most I can feasibly do. And that only with some flexibility from the Coordinators. Others are doing many.

Does it start to feel like "pay to win?"

There are some disagreements on the proposed changes on this thread, but I think that's different from saying it's a problem. Over the course of the year, how many complaints are there about the existence of the XP system? Rather, what I mainly hear is people excited about hitting a new level, getting a new reward, etc. On the whole, it seems to me like a pretty big positive for True Dungeon. Once this thread is done and Jeff decides for sure on the new way forward for XP, I doubt there will be a lot of problems after that.

I certainly wouldn't want to see XP for every ticketed run. I like the current system pretty much as is, but I do like the idea of a 2nd XP track that shows and gives XP for each unique dungeon at each convention. It would be neat to have that second track to show how many conventions you went to each year, and how many different Dungeons you did at each. The real True Dungeon Road Warriors could rack up XP pretty quickly.