TOPIC: Suggestion: Restricted Signup For Grind / Epic

I've seen a lot of threads referencing that Grind, Epic, etc runs can't be on the event calendar because new players will register for them.

Why not treat these runs as a "finals" event. I present this sample event for what I'm talking about. Its the finals from the Warmachine / Hordes qualifier tournaments run during gen con. Even though they exist on the gen con event calendar, you can't actually sign up for them.


www.gencon.com/events/133565

Tickets
Available Tickets: 8

This event is only open to participants who have been invited


Why not create a handful of grind, nightmare, and epic runs per day that can be coordinated for purchase outside of the mad rush for events on event sign up day?

I agree and since those events need coordination if they are not "full" 2 weeks before the convention open the tickets up to anyone at normal difficulties.

Ed

Interesting idea! I think I like it.

Has any thought ever been put into selling at least some tickets for each con (or perhaps just Gen Con) with a predetermined difficulty level? For example, earmark a fixed percentage of all tickets sold at epic, nightmare, hardcore, normal, and non-lethal so people know ahead of time what they are getting themselves into when they buy their tickets (and potentially avoiding conflict between new players and vets). Wouldn’t necessarily have to be all tickets; a significant percentage could still be open for determination in the coaching room.

Perhaps Jeff could even use a variable pricing model for these tickets. I suspect some people might be willing to pay a little (not a lot) extra for guaranteed difficulties.

Yes, I know we still run the risk of people ignoring/not reading the “this ticket is for X difficulty only” warning, but it might help the situation. And those that did not read would have less grounds for complaint. (Not that they won’t complain, but I think there would be less collective sympathy for their complaints.)

Surely there are lots of unintended consequences of a solution like this (e.g., making the already too complicated ticket buying process even more complicated), but interesting to think about nonetheless.

Problem I see with prerestricting runs is that not everyone has all time slots open. We haven't made more effort to hop on forum runs at Gen Con because most of us have very tight schedules at Gen Con.

Boilerplate wrote: Interesting idea! I think I like it.

Has any thought ever been put into selling at least some tickets for each con (or perhaps just Gen Con) with a predetermined difficulty level? For example, earmark a fixed percentage of all tickets sold at epic, nightmare, hardcore, normal, and non-lethal so people know ahead of time what they are getting themselves into when they buy their tickets (and potentially avoiding conflict between new players and vets). Wouldn’t necessarily have to be all tickets; a significant percentage could still be open for determination in the coaching room.

Perhaps Jeff could even use a variable pricing model for these tickets. I suspect some people might be willing to pay a little (not a lot) extra for guaranteed difficulties.

Yes, I know we still run the risk of people ignoring/not reading the “this ticket is for X difficulty only” warning, but it might help the situation. And those that did not read would have less grounds for complaint. (Not that they won’t complain, but I think there would be less collective sympathy for their complaints.)

Surely there are lots of unintended consequences of a solution like this (e.g., making the already too complicated ticket buying process even more complicated), but interesting to think about nonetheless.

People don't read the descriptions, so anything that doesn't actually prevent people from buying the tickets doesn't work.

For a few years (I don't remember how many) TD had runs at GenCon that we're listed as Nightmare in the title of the ticket. People still bought them that had never played before. Just like people continue to buy Grind tickets without having played TD before.

What I'd still like to see is the ability to buy all 10 spots as a single ticket. More often than not I am trying to buy out a run and wind up seeing multiple runs I can't take due to one ticket being sold from each of them. Maybe try this with say half the Grind tickets at GenCon (so that the "ticket" is substantially more than the Dungeon, instead of less expensive) and see how it works out?

I have suggested this to Jeff before but I don't know if he looked into it. I figured we could use the XP system to get a list of players who have enough XP to sign up for Grind (or if we wanted to bring back Nightmare runs). One issue I think is that Jeff would need to correlate players to their GenCon ID numbers. Perhaps we could add that to our profile at truedungeon.com.

Fiddy wrote:

Boilerplate wrote: Interesting idea! I think I like it.

Has any thought ever been put into selling at least some tickets for each con (or perhaps just Gen Con) with a predetermined difficulty level? For example, earmark a fixed percentage of all tickets sold at epic, nightmare, hardcore, normal, and non-lethal so people know ahead of time what they are getting themselves into when they buy their tickets (and potentially avoiding conflict between new players and vets). Wouldn’t necessarily have to be all tickets; a significant percentage could still be open for determination in the coaching room.

Perhaps Jeff could even use a variable pricing model for these tickets. I suspect some people might be willing to pay a little (not a lot) extra for guaranteed difficulties.

Yes, I know we still run the risk of people ignoring/not reading the “this ticket is for X difficulty only” warning, but it might help the situation. And those that did not read would have less grounds for complaint. (Not that they won’t complain, but I think there would be less collective sympathy for their complaints.)

Surely there are lots of unintended consequences of a solution like this (e.g., making the already too complicated ticket buying process even more complicated), but interesting to think about nonetheless.

People don't read the descriptions, so anything that doesn't actually prevent people from buying the tickets doesn't work.

For a few years (I don't remember how many) TD had runs at GenCon that we're listed as Nightmare in the title of the ticket. People still bought them that had never played before. Just like people continue to buy Grind tickets without having played TD before.

What I'd still like to see is the ability to buy all 10 spots as a single ticket. More often than not I am trying to buy out a run and wind up seeing multiple runs I can't take due to one ticket being sold from each of them. Maybe try this with say half the Grind tickets at GenCon (so that the "ticket" is substantially more than the Dungeon, instead of less expensive) and see how it works out?

My very first run was nightmare puzzle, which I did read was nightmare but assumed 'meh ok so I'll expect it to be a little harder, no worries I like hard games'. Worked out fairly well for me, I played the wizard, solved the puzzles and got hooked. But I understand thats not by any means the norm when a total newbie wonders into nightmare.

I’ve often thought Grind tickets should be one per slot, cost $300, and the description says the ticket is for “you and nine friends.”

If they don’t sell out in a month, and we all know they will, you can split them into ten and just deal with the newbies you know will show up. We usually manage okay.

Would this run the risk of upsetting some people that want to run the events, feel they are capable of running the events, but aren't invited because they didn't meet whatever criteria are set up?

Mike Steele wrote: Would this run the risk of upsetting some people that want to run the events, feel they are capable of running the events, but aren't invited because they didn't meet whatever criteria are set up?

Maybe. But if we set up mandatory criteria, people SHOULD have to meet them. That’s the point.

It causes Grind staff a lot of problems when a lot of people show up without any tokens just because it’s cheaper and they don’t read. We had two back-to-back runs like that. We don’t stock spare weapons like the main Dungeon, and you know commons won’t cut it.

The first run had one guy with tokens or the other nine would have had nothing to hit with. We copied random stats off of a previous party card, and the first ten minutes of the one-hour adventure time was spent on training. It’s not fair to the staff, and it certainly wasn’t fair to the one guy who followed directions when he was put under stress and had his experience cut short because nine people thought (wrongly) they were capable of running Grind with zero gear.

So, if they’re upset that we set reasonable limits and enforce them, then tough. IMO

That’s why I like the $300 ticket idea. If someone wants to bring along nine inexperienced players and be responsible for their equipment and training, then fine. We deal with it when we have to, but that run was almost a total debacle. But odds of destitute newbies accidentally wandering in on such an expensive run would be remote.

I’m glad people are trying to fix this. As the main tickets get more expensive, I think more and more people will try to get by on Grind. (It felt like we had a lot more of that this year vs last.) So let’s think of something that will work.

One Grind ticket for up to 10 people does make a ton of sense for Grind. I have suggested the same thing before for dedicated Epic dungeon runs. But it is even easier for Grind, and it makes the ticket no longer cheaper than the dungeon runs.

Brad Mortensen wrote: I’ve often thought Grind tickets should be one per slot, cost $300, and the description says the ticket is for “you and nine friends.”

If they don’t sell out in a month, and we all know they will, you can split them into ten and just deal with the newbies you know will show up. We usually manage okay.

"For you and nine friends. Don't have nine friends? Go to truedungeon.com/forum to find people to join your noble quest."