TOPIC: Propsal: Hellish Difficulty XP and Treasure

Kaledor wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: A big concern with adding an XP component to NM+ is pragmatic. The current XP system is FUBARed. Getting complex coding changes when we can't get the current one back on its feet seems like asking a lot.

But even if we could, I'd still vote against it because it goes against the spirit of it. And then what do you do about all the nightmare players who got the same XP as hardcore for the last decade? And if you fix that, how do you deal with the hardcore players who whine they'd have done NM if they'd known?

So, for everyone's sanity, just leave XP out if it.

I really don't see why Hardcore is the same XP as Nightmare when it's easier to survive. I would do 1000 Normal, 1500 Hardcore, and 2000 Nightmare, if added a harder level in the mix it is 2500.

I know groups that don't do Nightmare because they rather have ZERO chance to die in Hardcore and it's the same XP.

There's nothing actually wrong with that choice. Different people have different motivations for playing. There are groups that do difficulty levels that they can fairly easily defeat because that is the experience they are going to enjoy, while others enjoy an exceptionally difficult challenge with a low probability of success. I'm guessing most of the people on this thread fall into that latter category.

Running the Epilogue room for two years now I hear a lot of feedback from new people and experienced players. I didn't talk with every single player but out of two shifts the following was a trend I heard.

New Players in general like TD for:

1) Great experience was fun.
2) Treasure at the end and sense of accomplishment (they really hated monster bits this year)
3) Better understanding of what tokens do

Experienced Players in general like TD for:

1) XP (tied with treasure)
2) Treasure
3) Challenge (only heard that from Nightmare folks)

I know this isn't a scientific survey just in general observation.

We all say we do this for XYZ and everyone should be doing this for XYZ. Those are just opinions. People say, well you should reevaluate why you are doing TD if you don't feel challenged or having fun.

It really comes down to this IMO. There is a power creep (I think we all agree on this), how does TD adjust for the new power? We all have different opinions on this too. No one is right or wrong, I see people making hard stances on which way to go, new difficulty level, more xp, less xp, more treasure, less treasure, the list goes on.

The end of the day TD is a business, business succeeds on new customers, and old faithfuls. Jeff has a plan, what that plan is, we don't know yet. There is a reason for the power creep.

The ideas being thrown out there and some great discussions, ideas, and of course opinions. Which is what this is really about. No reason to say XYZ is wrong, that is their opinion, they may think you are wrong. Lets sit back have a discussion and give some food for thought to Jeff on the players view.

I find it very difficult to believe that the number 1 answer for why people like TD is not the experience (not XP) of doing the adventure. They enjoy the combat, puzzle, the submersion into the world of TD that Jeff has created. Maybe I, my group and all the random people I have run with are the exception, but I very much doubt that. If there were no more XP and no more treasure I and my group would still do TD, and I bet more than you think would too.

jedibcg wrote: I find it very difficult to believe that the number 1 answer for why people like TD is not the experience (not XP) of doing the adventure. They enjoy the combat, puzzle, the submersion into the world of TD that Jeff has created. Maybe I, my group and all the random people I have run with are the exception, but I very much doubt that. If there were no more XP and no more treasure I and my group would still do TD, and I bet more than you think would too.

BC, I agree with that. My group loves the treasure and the XP, there is no disputing that. But, if we didn't enjoy the experience of playing, we would be spending our time and money elsewhere.

Kaledor wrote: I really don't see why Hardcore is the same XP as Nightmare when it's easier to survive. I would do 1000 Normal, 1500 Hardcore, and 2000 Nightmare, if added a harder level in the mix it is 2500.

The answer is that - in a tabletop game - XP is what lets players unlock new and different dungeons, bigger monsters, new character powers, and access to more powerful items.

In True Dungeon, we can't just build another Dungeon to accommodate a new "level" of player. We can't swap out monsters with different costumed NPCs because a powerful party is coming into the room. We can't re-make character cards and let players level up to 10th without completely screwing up the balance of the game for the new players. And we can't use XP as the door to powerful treasure because that's what drives token sales.

So what TD has done, is to tie XP to the player, instead of the character. You play more True Dungeon, you can get some cool rewards. But they don't scale directly to the level of the dungeon.

TD did, at one point, try to open up opportunities for people to get more XP. They made the XP between dungeons stack. So if you played on Normal, and then played on Hardcore, you could get (say) 1000 XP PLUS 2000 XP = 3000XP. This was done to let newer players "catch up" to the more experienced ones.

It did not work out as planned. What happened was that veterans who were happier playing on HardCore bought a lot of normal runs just for the XP. Regular players and new players complained that they couldn't even get tickets to the event anymore... or that they could only get a single run... because everything else was full. Vets played multiple versions of the same dungeon just for the XP and pulled way ahead of the new players, actually increasing the XP gap, and making a lot of people unhappy.

So TD capped the XP at Hardcore level.

This was done to reduce the increasing XP gap; to provide less incentive for people to buy multiple runs just for XP; and to put the focus of the game on fun - and/or the buying of tokens which actually profits True Dungeon - rather than accumulating experience which was not directly tied to any in-game advancement.

So, a direct answer to your question, "Why is Hardcore the same XP as Nightmare when its easier to survive?" is because we all run through the same dungeon, and it's tokens (not XP) which make the difference both in difficulty, and in TD's overall profit.

Raven, great analysis.

I'd add that to a fairly substantial portion of the dedicated players, XP is pretty important. If Nightmare were made a higher XP than Hardcore, and a difficulty level above Nightmare were even higher than that, many of these players would choose to play at the highest difficulty level to get the max XP, even though otherwise that would not be their difficulty level of choice. And they would likely not enjoy the experience, which could lead to a number of the more dedicated players (and probably token buyers) dropping out and/or spending less on tokens. I think True Dungeon wisely chose to not create higher XP incentives which would have a number of players having a much less enjoyable experience than they would otherwise have.

Good analysis... but based on that Normal should be the same XP.

Mike Steele wrote:

jedibcg wrote: I find it very difficult to believe that the number 1 answer for why people like TD is not the experience (not XP) of doing the adventure. They enjoy the combat, puzzle, the submersion into the world of TD that Jeff has created. Maybe I, my group and all the random people I have run with are the exception, but I very much doubt that. If there were no more XP and no more treasure I and my group would still do TD, and I bet more than you think would too.

BC, I agree with that. My group loves the treasure and the XP, there is no disputing that. But, if we didn't enjoy the experience of playing, we would be spending our time and money elsewhere.

You may find it difficult to believe but that was the fact. Everyone has their own reason, look what Mike said.

They never said they didn't enjoy it... just said the reason in order of the general responses.

My group really likes the experience of combat (rather have 100% combat) we find that more of a challenge than the puzzles. Again, opinions...

But if its not for the treasure not being a priority then there would not be a huge discussion about the Charm of Plenty.

Kaledor wrote: Good analysis... but based on that Normal should be the same XP.

I think the thinking on that was that the next highest level above normal has always been higher XP since 2005, and probably that the level of tokens needed to jump to Hardcore isn't nearly as significant as jumping to the higher levels. I do understand your logic though. I think Jeff thinks of it as Non-Lethal, Normal, and Advanced, with Advanced consisting of more than one difficulty level.

Kaledor wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

jedibcg wrote: I find it very difficult to believe that the number 1 answer for why people like TD is not the experience (not XP) of doing the adventure. They enjoy the combat, puzzle, the submersion into the world of TD that Jeff has created. Maybe I, my group and all the random people I have run with are the exception, but I very much doubt that. If there were no more XP and no more treasure I and my group would still do TD, and I bet more than you think would too.

BC, I agree with that. My group loves the treasure and the XP, there is no disputing that. But, if we didn't enjoy the experience of playing, we would be spending our time and money elsewhere.

You may find it difficult to believe but that was the fact. Everyone has their own reason, look what Mike said.

They never said they didn't enjoy it... just said the reason in order of the general responses.

My group really likes the experience of combat (rather have 100% combat) we find that more of a challenge than the puzzles. Again, opinions...

But if its not for the treasure not being a priority then there would not be a huge discussion about the Charm of Plenty.

Kaledor, I don't doubt at all what people were telling you, and Treasure and XP might be their highest motivators. I think BC was just saying that if those people had a terrible time every year playing True Dungeon, most of them would not continue playing even if they did like the XP and treasure pulls.

Here's what makes me sad: we spent a total of three posts talking about how NM+ should WORK, and dozens on what should be the REWARDS for it

And that, IMO, is 100% bass-ackwards.

Kaledor wrote: Good analysis... but based on that Normal should be the same XP.

Should be? Perhaps. But it wasn't set up that way originally, and people (operating from a level-based mindset) were expecting higher XP for higher difficulty, and it was implemented for HardCore.

If it was to be changed to all Dungeons being worth the same XP I would be okay with that. But it's unlikely to happen.

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I've been mulling over Henwy's statements about how more difficult dungeons NEED some further reward, to keep people churning away on the "buy more tokens, do harder dungeon, get more stuff, buy more tokens..." treadmill.

Right now, we've got a huge conversation going about how it's unfair that HoP owners get more treasure than others, as if, somehow, those extra 6 treasure pulls make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. Personally I don't think they do, but I'll run with it...

People doing higher levels of difficulty are also concerned (to an extent) that harder will mean less chance of getting the treasure stamps. So they actually risk getting less treasure by doing a harder dungeon. That's why people want more loot as an incentive to run harder dungeons, right? To off-set the risk of less loot?

With that in mind, I could see a "harder" dungeon (I'm not saying "lets create another level" I'm just talking about it in principle) giving out a certain number of treasure chips, possibly equal to the HoP bonus (so, 6) which might encourage HoP players to run the dungeon without fear of losing loot, and might encourage non-HoP players to run it as a way to get the extra treasure they feel they can't otherwise acquire.

Except now, if the HoP is changing to a flat +6 chips instead of a multiplier, it's less of a risk. Hmmm. So perhaps a flat +1 or +3 or +5 for doing a higher level of dungeon might be more fitting.

Dunno. Just thinking. And trying to keep an open mind about giving people reasons to play at higher difficulties, while not creating incentive to play beyond their ability level.