TOPIC: Gen Con General Feedback from Casual Group

I can see both sides of the argument as illustrated above.
I bought all these tokens so i'm going to use them. versus gearing to the level that will make the group have fun.


The last grind I coached was for a run in which i was in. We have some vets, some seasoned and some new. Basically the trifecta of challenges to overcome. If we went with the stats as is and went on normal it would have been a boring slaughter. Much over hardcore difficulty and some members would have trouble hitting.

So what to do.
In this case the highly geared players were ok with getting their gear level reduced if it meant a fun time and a challening encounter. So we went on hardcore difficulty and I cut their stats in half. I messaged some of the numbers a bit and bingo recipe for fun.

I didn't do anything most coaches could do but its only possible if folks are ok with it.
It would have been perfectly acceptable to just go with stats are presented but I think our run was super fun in the end.

Endgame:

I am very glad to hear it wasn’t me... I guess it is good I left a 0.01% chance it wasn’t. You just described the run to a tea... I even now remember someone using ashes and maybe 200 gold to do a Rez... everyone else attacked one giant while I did the other (and our Elf Wizard casting fireball multiple times).

I hope we get to do a run together. That way we both will have a good time (and your whole party get max treasure!)

Everyone Else:

Thanks for your kind words. I wasn’t trying to pull out of you compliments and feel much better knowing I haven’t been a big contributor to the problem. I wear my feelings on my sleeves and I need to think before I react. As before, my tokens are your tokens... I have them to make things funner for everyone. I did use to push lending party card affecting tokens more, but from comments in the past learned some players do prefer to use their own tokens (other than TE’s) and not borrow strange and maybe over-powered tokens with unusual in-game effects. Now I try to lend only to those who ask in advanced of the game... even entire sets like to the gentleman who left his build in Korea... everyone has been excellent in returning them to me.

Kirk Bauer wrote:

Incognito wrote: Yes, but this is a design problem with the game.

The difficulty levels. The way runs are organized. The way tickets are sold.

Telling veteran players who have spent lots on tokens to just "suck it up" and to sacrifice their own enjoyment on behalf of the newbies - that is not a very satisfying mentality, which is the direction you and Kirk seem to be trending towards....

Oh, I definitely think there is a better way to sell tickets and organize groups. Jeff can do more at td.events for the conventions where he is allowed to use it. But I could conceive of much better solutions.

However, within the current system, if you have a Nightmare build and end up with 9 newbies, sorry you need to ramp it down for that run.

Incognito: if you want to run a Nightmare-level build, then I suggest you find parties who want to play at the Nightmare difficulty level. Or a group of friends who don't care that you are way OP for normal difficulty.

I disagree.

There was a time when certain dungeon slots were devoted to Nightmare, but newbies ruined it by buying those slots without reading the description (or buying it because it was the only thing that fit their schedule) and then whining about being forced to play Nightmare.

If someone spends $78 on a ticket (the same as a newbie) and spends $100 or $500 or $1000 or $10,000 on tokens, they have just as much right to a good experience as the newbie. And if they want to use their tokens, that's their prerogative.

Look at it another way - you're saying it's the veteran's responsibility to find Nightmare groups. You could also argue that if newbies are that determined to have a specific experience (without veteran players and without being overshadowed by tokens), then it's the newbies who can form their own newbie-only groups. Or maybe they can play Viper Pit for sealed pack runs.

There was a time when certain dungeon slots were devoted to Nightmare, but newbies ruined it by buying those slots without reading the description (or buying it because it was the only thing that fit their schedule) and then whining about being forced to play Nightmare.

Although True Dungeon is moving towards selling tickets on their own website, there isn't an easy solution to fix this problem. If people don't read the description of the event, there is nothing that can be done. During GenCon I had a complete new player walk up to me and ask to buy some tokens because their first run was through TrueGrind (Incognito probably has a story because of this). If people don't read the event description nothing can really be done to find a solution.

Nick Braun wrote:

There was a time when certain dungeon slots were devoted to Nightmare, but newbies ruined it by buying those slots without reading the description (or buying it because it was the only thing that fit their schedule) and then whining about being forced to play Nightmare.

Although True Dungeon is moving towards selling tickets on their own website, there isn't an easy solution to fix this problem. If people don't read the description of the event, there is nothing that can be done. During GenCon I had a complete new player walk up to me and ask to buy some tokens because their first run was through TrueGrind (Incognito probably has a story because of this). If people don't read the event description nothing can really be done to find a solution.

There are definitely things that TD could do. For example, add a confirmation screen where a person has to clearly accept (and sign) saying they understand that Grind is for experienced players.

Taking a harder "buyer beware" stance instead of coddling ignorant people who could very well be abusing the system (such as buying something because it is the only thing that fits their schedule and then expecting everyone else to accommodate for them).

Someone suggested requiring a special access code to be able to buy Grind runs.

I feel like every year there are lots of newbies (include complete newbies) who end up buying Grind tickets. Raven and Brad feel like this year there was a sharp spike/increase in such players, possibly because there were some incorrect (and inconsistent) event descriptions in the GenCon event catalog.

Nick Braun wrote:

There was a time when certain dungeon slots were devoted to Nightmare, but newbies ruined it by buying those slots without reading the description (or buying it because it was the only thing that fit their schedule) and then whining about being forced to play Nightmare.

Although True Dungeon is moving towards selling tickets on their own website, there isn't an easy solution to fix this problem. If people don't read the description of the event, there is nothing that can be done. During GenCon I had a complete new player walk up to me and ask to buy some tokens because their first run was through TrueGrind (Incognito probably has a story because of this). If people don't read the event description nothing can really be done to find a solution.

_If_ TD did sell tickets through their own website, they could probably contrive to enforce some player XP gated difficulty runs.

Incognito wrote:

Nick Braun wrote:

There was a time when certain dungeon slots were devoted to Nightmare, but newbies ruined it by buying those slots without reading the description (or buying it because it was the only thing that fit their schedule) and then whining about being forced to play Nightmare.

Although True Dungeon is moving towards selling tickets on their own website, there isn't an easy solution to fix this problem. If people don't read the description of the event, there is nothing that can be done. During GenCon I had a complete new player walk up to me and ask to buy some tokens because their first run was through TrueGrind (Incognito probably has a story because of this). If people don't read the event description nothing can really be done to find a solution.

There are definitely things that TD could do. For example, add a confirmation screen where a person has to clearly accept (and sign) saying they understand that Grind is for experienced players.

Taking a harder "buyer beware" stance instead of coddling ignorant people who could very well be abusing the system (such as buying something because it is the only thing that fits their schedule and then expecting everyone else to accommodate for them).

Someone suggested requiring a special access code to be able to buy Grind runs.

I feel like every year there are lots of newbies (include complete newbies) who end up buying Grind tickets. Raven and Brad feel like this year there was a sharp spike/increase in such players, possibly because there were some incorrect (and inconsistent) event descriptions in the GenCon event catalog.

Might also have something to do with the cost difference. People looking for TD just go for the the cheapest tickets.

At least I'm assuming Grind is still cheaper than the full Dungeons.

My perception of Grind is such that I'm not sure why it couldn't just be much more expensive and have better rewards because of it. It's the devoted players who care far more about showing off token builds, who care about XP, and maybe some other things.

To continue to avoid having people have run TEs, could just have a fixed amount of treasure draws as another possibility for rewards - don't know the history on the event as to whether that offends the philosophy of it.

Once the cost is higher than a dungeon run, probably weed out tons of players.

But, I don't know what the goal is, so giving out XP, et al, may not fit.

Ugh. I'm not even sure why I'm weighing in on this topic, other than the subject is something I'm very sensitive about.

Mongo, you're a pleasure to run with. I can't imagine you ruining anyone's run.

I don't consider myself an ambassador for the game, but I've had the good fortune to be around long enough to amass a pretty solid collection of tokens. In the past few years I've grown from 2 builds, to 3, to 7 and now 9. I'm pretty sure I'm going to stop there.

Yeah, I'm one of those guys who runs a LOT. I did 19 runs at Gen Con. Why? I think I answered that in another thread, but half of the runs are just me reconnecting with friends and groups I've loved running with over the years. Why not stop there? Well, I also love the PUG runs. I love meeting new people in an environment I'm comfortable with. I love watching the group dynamics and see how things play out. And sometimes I really need to do a run 5 or 6 times to figure out a puzzle. I just find TD fun. And it's very important to me that the entire group have fun. Don't get me wrong, the treasure is nice and helps offset some of the cost, but that's not why I do it.

I'm not sure there is one perfect way for a veteran to blend into a PUG. It kind of depends upon the group and the individual. I can only speak to what I do.

First, I don't scale back my build. I suppose I could, but it's complicated enough with 9 builds keyed into my app and I'm not about to start unequipping items and then try to remember to reequip them later. I suppose I could just add a couple of scaled back builds to the app. I just don't feel it's necessary. Where does it end? You can equip normal weapons, but then I've seen some veteran's that can pretty consistently slide crits. Is that fair? Should they intentionally slide poorly? I think the key is, don't take over the combat and kill the monster in turn 1 or 2 unless the majority of damage was done by the rest of the group.

So first I don't select my class until it's pretty close to the start time. There's no need, it's all in the app. I try to let the group have first choice of characters. If no one in the group selects cleric or druid, that's what I'll take. Then it's easy. My job is just to keep them alive. A cleric can start a combat by casting prayer or bless and then start healing people. If I end up with a melee class, I'll try to slide the weaker of my two weapons, but at least I'm not that proficient at hitting crits. If I end up in my usual elf wizard or wizard class I do forego using MEC or Cabal Set. I can stick to 0 level spells and my damage won't be that out of line. I can also sprinkle in some Bull's Strength spells to help the group. I think I did pretty good at making sure the PUGs I ran with had fun in combat.

As far as loaning tokens. Sure, I have a lot of tokens I could lend, but then newbies can't keep track of a lot of token effects. I don't have TEs to loan, but I will use my extra Rings and Charms of Heroism to boost some of the party to 5th level. They seem to appreciate that. In some cases, if another person has a CoAS of CoS, then I will offer to loan my extras to make those more effective. That's about it. I don't want to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Puzzles are a challenge. If I know the answer, I don't give it away. I try stay engaged with what the group is doing and if necessary, nudge them back on course. There are a few times I've given away the rogue clue, when there was no rogue. But I still want the group to feel like they solved the puzzle and if not, I'll take damage right along with them. But there was one time this year where someone commented that with my knowing the answer and not participating, that the group was not getting the benefit of ten brains working the problem. That did bother me a little, but I don't really have a solution. If we go down that path, then anytime you solve puzzle, you should refrain from ever running that dungeon again. I'm not at a point where I'm going to give up multiple runs.

At the end of a run, I always ask newer players if they had fun. If they say yes, then I feel all things considered I did ok. Having run as often as I have, I've seen a lot. I don't think you have to be a veteran to ruin a run, I've seen newer players think they know what they are doing, take over and the entire party fails miserably. That situation is no fun for me either. Fortunately, the bad experiences are very rare. I think 99% of the people I meet are great to run with. If I have contributed to any negative experiences, I truly am sorry. It's never my intent. I also apologize that my memory is so horribly bad, but I had the pleasure this year of running with some people who remembered me from a few years ago. That was pretty awesome, and I'll try to remember all of you for next time.

Lengthy, but there are my thoughts on the subject.

Thanks for your very well thought out response.
I think your approach is perfect.

Dave wrote: A ton of stuff I agree with

I am alike in that I run the same dungeon a bunch. TD is a real treat for me, and so I do it as much as I can when given the opportunity.

Dave I think I ended up with you on 2-3 runs. One was planned out, and the other two were PuGs. In the planned as well as In both pugs you and I asked the group if anyone else had run the dungeon before. We let them know that we had, and that our help would be 'nudging' just as you said, and that we would give little hints here and there. We checked to make sure they were ok with this


I think this is the real big thing - making and managing expectations from the beginning. If you simply ask the group what they want in terms of puzzle/combat help, and they tell you what they want and you do it, then there can be nobody reasonably upset when you follow that.

It's unfortunate that in this instance a group had a bad experience, but the majority of responses to this thread that focus on "how can we make sure future players enjoy themselves" is a testament to most vets' wish that everyone regardless of experience enjoy True Dungeon.

I find the majority of TD vets are interested in the group having a good time and are empathetic to the plight of some new players. I think most are doing the 'right' thing, with the group's experience as a whole at the forefront of their thoughts. I don't think you can ask for much more than that.

I like the idea of some sort of sliding scale for difficulty, that brings lower geared players up in power.

I also think that rewards should be normalized for each run. I think the challenge should be why players select hardcore, nightmare, etc. not extra XP.