TOPIC: Important Update! The Astral Adventure is now NEW

Brad Mortensen wrote: One of the most pernicious logical fallacies is to attack the other sides character or motives instead of addressing the issue at hand. Bad enough we see it in politics every day. It saddens me to see that here.

Even when I disagree with someone I try to remember that maybe we don’t have the same info, or a different perspective. And I try to look for areas of agreement. Like, we are all passionate about TD and love that it’s going to new cons and bringing in new players.

“Where you stand depends on where you sit.”

If you want to discuss pros and cons, fine. If you want to try to understand someone else’s position better, fine. If you want to shame long-time supporters and players and try to tell them they aren’t losing something here, when they clearly are, and they have no right to feeling that loss, then you’re violating Weaton’s Law.

IMO

And it’s unlikely that any bickering here will change Jeff’s mind. He seems like a guy who responds to reason more than vitriol.

Perhaps it's the long standing supporters and players who want to deny others the ability to gain XP from non-Gen Con events and/or redux/best of dungeons, when they themselves have gained experience from non-Gen Con events and/or redux/best of dungeons who are violating Wheaton's law.

I generally try to be nice, but the fact is in this debate some people want two sets of rules: one for the XP that they have already earned, and another directly contradictory set for XP others will earn in the future. If pointing that out is a violation of Wheaton's law then I guess I'll be guilty of violating it.

I think having exp earnable at non-GenCon events will encourage experinced players to attend them providing support for the newbies... just because a high level player can’t go shouldn’t detract from what they already have achieved... (we are not trying to support and encourage elitism, are we?j

At Pax-South almost every run (most of my twelve) had only never-evers or people who played maybe once before...

Since I have not played runs before 2015 even the redux runs are new to me... new rooms, new experiences, et. al. so most logic on not giving exp to those runs fails to apply in my specific case... in my mind (which some feel I am loosing).

Having up to 4K available at GC and 2k additional available if someone attends a second con only supports True Dungeon and doesn’t seem to distract from the veterans experience.

Attending cons is expensive and time consuming, so why not reward people who make the sacrifice and support TD at other cons helping to keep it popular and build non-GC player base?

Mike Steele wrote: I don't think it's productive for you to imply that those concerned about XP aren't welcoming to new players.

Let's be clear, the issue is not concern around XP in some broader sense.

The issue is around those who are lobbying against a policy for awarding XP to players at a new dungeon presented elsewhere than Gen Con.

Some of the players at this new dungeon will be new players.

Please explain how restricting XP awards for these new players who pay admission and participate in TD new content is welcoming to those new players.

I may have been guilty of loose speech - the individuals who are lobbying against XP for new players in this situation may themselves be welcoming to new players. The policy they are advocating for is, I believe, not welcoming to new players.

New players will not be aware of or understand someones internal psychological state. They will be aware of and understand policies which prohibit them from gaining XP. In this sense they are not being welcomed by those who are advocating they should not receive XP.

Random thoughts:

One big reason GenCon has the highest number of players is that, until recently, there was no other option.

This Astral Dungeon may be a one-shot, like True Realm, and maybe we’re getting worked up about something that won’t happen again for another nine years. (Hope not.)

A 4K cap made perfect sense when GenCon was it. Now it just seems punitive. A progressive cap feels arbitrary. Whatever we do, it shouldn’t come across as petty.

What about:

A very limited number of players (top 10? L9+ ?) are inducted into the Adventurers Hall of Fame. One of the perks is that once per season, they may choose an adventure to grant them double-XP, with the restriction they may only gain XP from one other dungeon. The effect is that, so long as they continue to play and support the game as ambassadors, they can earn enough XP at GenCon to keep progressing as quickly as those with the advantage of geography, while continuing to attract new players at the satellite cons without having to explain complicated XP caps.

Just a thought.

It's easy for me to not get worked up about the XP issue as GHC is under an hour away for me.

I sympathize with some of the top xp players as it's a long haul for them to any of the Cons. For others at least one of the new Cons is a reasonable driving distance, even for a one day Con experience.


Has anyone considered the impact of 6k per year on level progression? A total newbie who runs with an experienced group could hit 4th level in a single con. 5th in two years and 6th in three. (Here is where I could get all curmudgeon like and talk about how long it took me to reach those levels. Uphill. Both ways.)

Is this is a concern? Would the levels need to be adjusted?

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I don't think it's productive for you to imply that those concerned about XP aren't welcoming to new players.

Let's be clear, the issue is not concern around XP in some broader sense.

The issue is around those who are lobbying against a policy for awarding XP to players at a new dungeon presented elsewhere than Gen Con.

Some of the players at this new dungeon will be new players.

Please explain how restricting XP awards for these new players who pay admission and participate in TD new content is welcoming to those new players.

I may have been guilty of loose speech - the individuals who are lobbying against XP for new players in this situation may themselves be welcoming to new players. The policy they are advocating for is, I believe, not welcoming to new players.

New players will not be aware of or understand someones internal psychological state. They will be aware of and understand policies which prohibit them from gaining XP. In this sense they are not being welcomed by those who are advocating they should not receive XP.

I proposed a policy to allow extra XP at all conventions up to 2 levels below the top (currently it would be through level 7), and then a hard cap of 4K per year. How is that not welcoming to new players?

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.

In the case of True Heroes, that was still a GENCON event. That's what I was saying my preference still would be - you could get XP from multiple different conventions, but you'd only have to go to one to get the max XP for the year.

I think this is one way to go that could be fair, but I'm not sure it's possible.

If the idea here, as I understand it, is: "Max annual XP should be obtainable with attendance at any individual TD presentation." ?

I don't think that's inherently bad, but I see a potentially showstopping problem: it would mean that each presentation of TD would need to have the same, or at least the same number, of different dungeons. This might not be logistically possible.

If it were logistically possible, it would withdraw one incentive to attend multiple presentations: the capacity for more XP. This seems odd to me.

XP is essentially a player loyalty rewards program. I can't think of any other loyalty rewards program that caps/stops granting benefits once you hit a certain level of participation in a certain time period - usually they go the other way: increased participation grants more and more perks - 2x the participation would garner more than 2x the perks in many loyalty programs.

I suspect capping benefits in a rewards program would be casually related to reduced participation.

I do empathize somewhat with people who feel they "must" gain max XP, but I think it's important to understand that is a pressure they are putting on themselves - TD doesn't owe anyone the easy ability to obtain maximum annual XP. If I felt I "must" obtain the maximum status on every airline or rental car rewards program I joined I would probably go nuts.

Mike Steele wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I don't think it's productive for you to imply that those concerned about XP aren't welcoming to new players.

Let's be clear, the issue is not concern around XP in some broader sense.

The issue is around those who are lobbying against a policy for awarding XP to players at a new dungeon presented elsewhere than Gen Con.

Some of the players at this new dungeon will be new players.

Please explain how restricting XP awards for these new players who pay admission and participate in TD new content is welcoming to those new players.

I may have been guilty of loose speech - the individuals who are lobbying against XP for new players in this situation may themselves be welcoming to new players. The policy they are advocating for is, I believe, not welcoming to new players.

New players will not be aware of or understand someones internal psychological state. They will be aware of and understand policies which prohibit them from gaining XP. In this sense they are not being welcomed by those who are advocating they should not receive XP.

I proposed a policy to allow extra XP at all conventions up to 2 levels below the top (currently it would be through level 7), and then a hard cap of 4K per year. How is that not welcoming to new players?

I agree the policy expressed above is not unwelcoming to new players. (There may be a tiny number of new people who would seek to get to the top of the leaderboard, and would recognize this system basically guarantees that is impossible, but I don't think that's a "new player" problem).

Everyone who plays a TD event deserves the opportunity to earn XP regardless of event location, current player level, number of tokens bought, amount of time volunteered, or number of years supporting TD. Players that play more TD should have more XP, the current system does not do this and is broken.

The current system is highly discouraging to mid level players and feels “rigged” to keep those at the top there indefinitely.

Here’s what I would do:

Create a TD “hall of fame” that rewards long time players, supporters and volunteers.

Create an XP system that includes all runs from every convention.

What’s best for the game and Jeff and his family is what’s most important.

GC sells out, one day. End of story.
GHC and Origins are hurting,
Wide open runs, all day long.
The game might even be losing money.

Let’s try it as is,
And see if it helps get the numbers up
And the income up for the game this year.
Jeff more then deserve it.

Also why are people always trying to stick it to the new guy.
Let them catch up a bit if they love the game.
Yes it was slower and harder in the old days, but yeah things change.
I have been playing since day one,
And I’m not sweating a new kid, jumping up fast to 5th or 6th level.
Let’s them enjoy themselves.

Mike Steele wrote:

jedibcg wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: It's been a very long day. Thanks for your feedback on this. I'll talk to the team via phone on Saturday and get their input on different ideas. We should have a final decision by Monday morning.

Thanks again.

Thanks, Jeff! One thing to consider is that far more people play True Dungeon at GENCON than at other conventions. For those that do GENCON but not other conventions and who care about XP (I'm guessing it is a significant number of people), it would be a real negative for other conventions to offer more XP than does GENCON.

Why would it be a real negative? If you want to play TD aren't you going to play were and when you can? I also wonder what you think a significant number is. This are real questions I am attempting to understand.

I think the simple fact that there are far more people that play True Dungeon at GENCON than at the other conventions shows that there are a lot of people, for whatever reason (time, money, etc.), only attend GENCON and no other conventions. So there are clearly a lot of people that enjoy True Dungeon that don't play it at every single convention it's at. Especially since Origins and GENCON are less than two months apart.

I obviously don't know an exact number of players that only play TD at GENCON and to whom XP is important. There seem to be thousands of people that only play it at GENCON, and since XP is important to a lot of people (even the more casual players that I play with), I think it's a lot of people. The counterpoint obviously to someone asserting that XP isn't important to very many people would be that, in that case, why offer exclusive XP outside of GENCON?

I do understand that if True Dungeon has exclusive XP at non-GENCON conventions that it might drive additional attendance there. That is counterbalanced by the GENCON players that won't attend those conventions and might be unhappy and disincentivized by getting less XP than those going to other conventions. I'd imagine those and other factors we haven't even considered are what Jeff and the team are discussing this weekend.

I wouldn't consider it to be Jeff being pressured to change his decision, but rather him considering some points / options that perhaps they hadn't considered before.

So, lots of people play at gencon. And many care about XP. And some of those cant/wont attend other cons. There is no logical reason that the conclusion should be to cap XP at gencon unless you want to add one more premise: those few people mentioned above should receive special treatment/consideration.

I suppose you could try one other approach: if you feel that any player who only attends 1 con per year should be able to get max XP. But i would think that is a terrible restriction to place on TD.

Im sorry, mike, but TD can and should grow beyond being a gencon event that happens to also run its gencon dungeons elsewhere. Allowing non-gencon XP opens the possibilty that there could be many new dungeons and other events every year. I would love to see that, even if i couldnt make it to all of them.

Maybe change the XP to a soft cap of 2k per dungeon and you earn 1% extra XP for each time you run through the dungeon past the max out.

Just a thought, possibly only at cons other than GC since ghosting is aloud there.