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TOPIC: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure

Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #25

  • henwy
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Druegar wrote:

Raven wrote: If you create another level and give it ANYTHING which can't be gained on a lower level (more XP, cooler loot, unique completion token) then you will have people who run it for the reward, instead of for the challenge.

QFT! (with my emphasis added)

Sing it, sister!


And why not? Hasn't this sort of been TD's plan all along to gin token sales? Encourage people to go up to higher difficulties which you can only do by buying more tokens. You might be able to Naked Commando run Normal but no matter how good your individual people are or your teamwork is, no one is able to Naked Commando Nightmare (well, this might not actually be true but it would involve effectively cheating the system by stalling each monster so they either never attack or only attack once and having a huge amount of healing for push). You're going to need equipment which comes from sending money to TD and even if you purchase from the secondary market, a chunk goes back to TD anyway in a roundabout way.

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #26

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

Here's how it works: add a box to the party card called "Nightmare-plus," and the last thing the party does is tell the coach what number to enter into that box, from 1 to 100. Higher, if sanity is not an issue.

The DMs use nightmare stats, and add the chosen number to the monsters' AC and saving throw bonuses, and all combat/push/puzzle-fail damage. (Or the players can add the damage themselves so the DM only has to deal with AC). Maybe each monster gets extra HP equal to 10 or 20 or 50 times that modifier, too.


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.

It would add no extra work for Epilogue (they just give out rewards as per Nightmare)

Then parties can come here and brag about their NM+ run, but only if they don't get TPK'ed. Whatever team has chosen the highest NM+ modifier and has the most survivors at the end (at least one) is proclaimed champions. Winners get to gloat and be acknowledged as demigods by their fellow players. Losers whine about bad slides and crazy die rolls and vow to be champions next time.


*snicker* It's like you know how this bragging thing works.
(And for reference, the dice do totally hate some people.)

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


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

The only "perk" I could imagine being different is this:

Make the Nightmare Survivor Badge have a convenient (mostly) blank space next to the word Nightmare. Have a Sharpie on hand in Epilogue, and if players want to write in their Nightmare PLUS level in that space, they can do it.

People still get the same Nightmare survivor (or Victim?) badge as anyone else, but they can customize for bragging rights.
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #27

Nightmare, power level 9000, please

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #28

Correct me if I'm wrong here but TD has always felt to me like a "pay to win" event?

We have 10% of our collectors who have URs and "power builds" and 1% who have the artifacts and relics/legendaries.

So this argument here is to support more difficulty for a vast minority of players?

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's really not an easy situation and I already know what has been done in the past.

So rather than go on about it at length, face the reality of the situation. If you were Jeff, what would YOU DO to encourage new players, help sperad the awesomeness that is TD, while also making your "Payer"base happy?

Also what defines a "Happy Player?"?

Is that a new player who went through and made it to the last room to die with their 10 pack?

Is that a mid level 10%er who went through on hardcore or normal and beat the last boss?

Is that an artifact/legendary owner who went through and cake walked everything and hit on 2?

Is that an artifact/legendary owner who bought out an entire run, got all the draws regardless of the system and then took home the treasure box?

I suppose it all depends on who you ask... but we should keep these things in mind when making these suggestions.
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Last edit: by Fizzikx.

Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #29

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henwy wrote: And why not? Hasn't this sort of been TD's plan all along to gin token sales? Encourage people to go up to higher difficulties which you can only do by buying more tokens.


Because more tokens = bigger numbers on the character sheet.

But more rewards = more people playing on the wrong level to get those rewards, which leads to needing to add more levels, and THAT results in a harder job for the Coach, the DM, and the Epilogue staff.

I roll my eyes at the yearly arguments over tokens and power creep.

But when I see Volunteers quit because the job is getting too difficult and there's too many settings, and there's so many variations that epilogue needs a flowchart to track it... then I really feel for them.
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Last edit: by Raven.

Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #30

@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."

And whenever the DM says "you take 12 melee damage" or whatever, you add the extra 10 yourself, just like you calculate your own resistances.

I like the blank space on the button. Instead of sharpie you could have some clear stickers with numbers printed on them, but that's 100% optional.

It's not perfect, but it feels simple to me, and effectively creates dozens of new levels of difficulty without burdening any of the TD staff or adding expense for more rewards.

I always wondered how many non-HoP players try nightmare knowing they'll lose a TC or two in exchange for a red completion token.

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #31

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Brad Mortensen wrote: 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."


Now I have visions of a flock of stirges, each with 101 HP.

And the Nightmare+10 party going, "... ... oops."

Tho on the topic of making it easy for the DM, it's also possible for the Coaches to factor that -10 to hit, into the party card. Drop every player's to-hit by 10, right on the card. And hey, drop every player's AC by 10 on the card if that's easier than giving the monster more + to hit.

That does make it harder on the Coaches, tho :/
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #32

Raven wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: 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."


Now I have visions of a flock of stirges, each with 101 HP.

And the Nightmare+10 party going, "... ... oops."

Tho on the topic of making it easy for the DM, it's also possible for the Coaches to factor that -10 to hit, into the party card. Drop every player's to-hit by 10, right on the card. And hey, drop every player's AC by 10 on the card if that's easier than giving the monster more + to hit.

That does make it harder on the Coaches, tho :/


Require a pre printed party card and its all good.
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #33

darkangel866 wrote: If there is a difficulty above Nightmare I am against extra rewards for it.


I agree 100%

Leave the XP and rewards the same. It's only being designed as a way to allow over geared players to have a chance at a more challenging run.

Want a perk? Maybe ROSP subclass use doesn't count as 1/year for Hellish runs?

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #34

Harlax wrote:

Raven wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: 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."


Now I have visions of a flock of stirges, each with 101 HP.

And the Nightmare+10 party going, "... ... oops."

Tho on the topic of making it easy for the DM, it's also possible for the Coaches to factor that -10 to hit, into the party card. Drop every player's to-hit by 10, right on the card. And hey, drop every player's AC by 10 on the card if that's easier than giving the monster more + to hit.

That does make it harder on the Coaches, tho :/


Require a pre printed party card and its all good.


Shoot, the players can do that already. You want a Nightmare. Pre-print your party card at -10 everything across the board. -10 to hit and damage, -10 to AC, -10 to saving throws, -10 to hp. I don't think any coach is going to complain that your stats are BELOW the tokens you have. Then just run Nightmare. You brag post GenCon that you did GenCon Nightmare-10, or -20 or whatever. It would be similar to those of us that do sealed events. We manage and regulate them ourselves. We don't put any extra burden on True Dungeon.
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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #35

I was thinking most DMs are used to handling bard song, so making it a reverse-bard-song would be easier ("we are -10/-10") and least imposing on all the staff.

Minus to damage would avoid upping critter XP, but it would make Horn of Blasting pretty useless pretty fast :)

But you're right, people could do this now without TD's blessing, as long as the stats they claim are lower than what they equip.

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Re: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure 10 years 1 month ago #36

Kaledor wrote: Okay like to through some ideas out there and get people to weigh in.

With the idea of Hellish (Hell) difficulty level the XP would need to be increased. Currently Normal is 1,000 XP and Nightmare is 2,000 XP which theoretically Hellish would be 3,000 XP.

Treasure would be increased, if you do Hellish you get 3 extra treasure pulls for surviving the Hellish difficulty.

Completion tokens you would get the 2 for Nightmare and 1 extra (maybe a new token?).


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. If people want to play the higher difficulty levels it should be for the thrill of the challenge. All those people that are saying that Nightmare is no challenge at all anymore would be ideal for that higher level.

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