TOPIC: It's time to eliminate the 3rd level player bonus

Guedoji wrote: Actually I get penalized every time I spend hours building my classes, then show up 30 minutes early only to find someone was just a few minutes earlier and took my class. Then I dont get the hp bump, I dont get to use my tokens and I dont get my class.

Coordination on the forums would give people the opertunity to settle their differences and find a new run if needed.

Grekel! wrote:

Guedoji wrote:

Druegar wrote:

Guedoji wrote: It would require people to sign up and do the bare minimum research/communication to understand what they are getting into.

Guedoji, my friend, allow me to introduce you to cold, dark, reality...

The people we want in the community WILL read it and they will be better off for it.

This statement is disturbing. The people we want in the community? That's not the way I see this community at all. The arguments against the proposal of "rewarding" online/forum collaboration with first picks at classes have been well-thought-out, clearly stated. But I'll throw one more on top of the pile - What the advocates are calling "reward" is two-edged. Argue all you want, but it also penalizes those who are unable or unwilling to participate. The difference in the HP bump is all things being equal - everyone will always start with the HP tied to your build. The bump doesn't take anything away from anyone else, it strictly rewards the players who use the app.
Taking choice away from someone who does not participate, is definitively a penalty, and again - for an 80-plus dollar entertainment - you will lose players. I don't know about anyone else here, but "the people I want" in this community, is anyone who wants to play the game, at any level of investment or commitment, and I want the all to be able to share equally in the fun of the game.

I'm sorry you see it that way. The penalization you are referring to is
The rule at the higher levels has always been - work it out as a team, or roll for the best outcome. And having played since 2007, I have never had to roll, or seek the help of a moderator. (Came close once.) But in the spirit and rule of the game, class selection is actually part of building the team and intended to be (as I understand it) the first thing you actually do in at the start of your run.
If you have that specific and exclusive of a build (and there a a number of people who do) then it is best for you to try to either get a run that a single buyer holds all tickets for. Failing that - I know it is difficult - The classes have enough overlap and the character generators are nimble enough to allow a shift especially if you are 30 minutes early. I have have had to shift my character class once or twice since the advent of the character generators - and was able to do so actually well within the 1st 12 minutes of the room. Since that time - I keep multiple backup builds ready and have never needed to punt beyond those. I have also had a couple of guests show up with no builds and was able to generate builds for both of them in the 25 minutes that we were there early... So if it seems that I am being stuck in the mud here, I will simply say that I'll agree to disagree - but if your group didn't get a 10-ticket run to yourselves, it is rare that a bit of polite discussion won't find an equitable solution... I still think that the idea of requiring the pre-Con online coordination to give a bonus of early character selection is not fair to the bulk of players, not inclusive for very new/inexperienced players, and in general a terrible idea. So I'll let my argument rest.

Again - the above is clearly my opinion, so I reserve the right to be Booed if it is unpopular.

Td is not exclusive to just gencon anymore.

Incognito wrote:

Flik wrote:

Guedoji wrote: First come first served seems fine.

To be clear, I will typically let a new player take my preferred class. But only if they've shown they have prepared for it. I've even lent my special tokens to a new player if I see that had their heart set on it. But to be honest... it pisses me off when I plan for my runs for almost a year in advance, pay tons of money for tokens, struggle through ticket purchasing and planning to coordinate a group with my friends, drop hundreds of dollars on the credit card to purchase, return, purchase tickets to get enough slots, then work to build the perfect set up for my team and then not be able to use the tokens because someone who's never played, had no tokens just thinks a class sounds cool.

Note: I have never challenged a person for the card, I've thought about it... I try to show up 30 minutes early, unfortunately it doesn't always work. I dont think its elitist, us vets (just hit lvl 7) put our hearts and coin into this game.

This is pretty close to my situation too. I started TD at Gen Con 2016 but me and my wife didn’t get into buying tokens until last year. We are now both level 6 after only a couple of years attending Gen Con and Origins.

She loves playing rogue but so do a ton of others. So I got her the rogue relic necklace and have been working on buying tokens for her build over the last year (Guided Strike, Libram, etc). This year we had three regular dungeon runs at Gen Con. We showed up 30 mins early for E1 and were first ones so she took rogue. The other two runs we showed up 25 minutes early and there were already people in the room who had selected rogue. No big deal I expected this. I created contingency builds on the app and she still had a good time playing Dwarf Fighter. We never even thought about asking for a roll off. I just simply asked what is left. In E2 the person who took rogue Had some tokens but was only a normal build and the E3 rogue had legendaries.

But why should I upgrade that relic necklace to Raphael’s? I honestly want to build it but I cannot even guarantee she’ll ever get to even use it. After seeing how many people get to the room early and seeing how popular rogue is I don’t see a point in buying any rogue tokens any more. That will directly cost TD money because I’m buying less. I even loaned it my rogue tokens to both rogue players because they didn’t even have libram.

On another note I love playing cleric and never have to worry about the class being taken, so that’s a plus for me lol. From what I can tell it’s one of the least played classes.

Well, one easy way to reduce the demand for Rogue is to remove the extra treasure tokens you get from the Rogue Box. I still maintain that that is a major motivating factor for a lot of Rogues and wannabe Rogues....

I sent Troy a bunch of ideas, rogue treasure should not be as easy in the future...

Guedoji wrote: Gencon is already doing this. TD is not getting any advantage from this currently. Most companys would pay tons to get this level of reach to its client base. You don't have to create an account, but then you dont get xp, forum access and preferred class selection. You can also " opt out "of marketing...

You are already here... this would not affect you negatively.

edwin wrote: Mandatory signup for marketing is sometging that results in avoiding the event all together.

Pay me if you want to spam marketing.

I avoided setting up an account until my 3rd year playing because I misunderstood and expected all kinds of junk email.

Lordoftherealm wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Flik wrote:

Guedoji wrote: First come first served seems fine.

To be clear, I will typically let a new player take my preferred class. But only if they've shown they have prepared for it. I've even lent my special tokens to a new player if I see that had their heart set on it. But to be honest... it pisses me off when I plan for my runs for almost a year in advance, pay tons of money for tokens, struggle through ticket purchasing and planning to coordinate a group with my friends, drop hundreds of dollars on the credit card to purchase, return, purchase tickets to get enough slots, then work to build the perfect set up for my team and then not be able to use the tokens because someone who's never played, had no tokens just thinks a class sounds cool.

Note: I have never challenged a person for the card, I've thought about it... I try to show up 30 minutes early, unfortunately it doesn't always work. I dont think its elitist, us vets (just hit lvl 7) put our hearts and coin into this game.

This is pretty close to my situation too. I started TD at Gen Con 2016 but me and my wife didn’t get into buying tokens until last year. We are now both level 6 after only a couple of years attending Gen Con and Origins.

She loves playing rogue but so do a ton of others. So I got her the rogue relic necklace and have been working on buying tokens for her build over the last year (Guided Strike, Libram, etc). This year we had three regular dungeon runs at Gen Con. We showed up 30 mins early for E1 and were first ones so she took rogue. The other two runs we showed up 25 minutes early and there were already people in the room who had selected rogue. No big deal I expected this. I created contingency builds on the app and she still had a good time playing Dwarf Fighter. We never even thought about asking for a roll off. I just simply asked what is left. In E2 the person who took rogue Had some tokens but was only a normal build and the E3 rogue had legendaries.

But why should I upgrade that relic necklace to Raphael’s? I honestly want to build it but I cannot even guarantee she’ll ever get to even use it. After seeing how many people get to the room early and seeing how popular rogue is I don’t see a point in buying any rogue tokens any more. That will directly cost TD money because I’m buying less. I even loaned it my rogue tokens to both rogue players because they didn’t even have libram.

On another note I love playing cleric and never have to worry about the class being taken, so that’s a plus for me lol. From what I can tell it’s one of the least played classes.

Well, one easy way to reduce the demand for Rogue is to remove the extra treasure tokens you get from the Rogue Box. I still maintain that that is a major motivating factor for a lot of Rogues and wannabe Rogues....

I sent Troy a bunch of ideas, rogue treasure should not be as easy in the future...

I'll point back to an idea I had a few years ago. Short version is a deck of event cards (or event tokens) to represent rogue treasure. Stuff like cache of healing potions, x points of healing divided as the rogue sees fit if they take the treasure. Or Magic sword, mark +x damage on the party card. Or deadly trap take X fire damage. Or treasure cache, +x treasure for everyone in the party. You get the idea. In all cases though something that could be adjudicated quickly within the room by marking the party card possibly with a different color ink. Pros are it would stay compatible with the libraries, and not require refilling the boxes, cons are a time investment by the gm to mark the party card so we would need to keep the effects beyond simple. Could also be a way to have automatically succeeding rogue tests do something in grind while still maintaining an element of risk with trap cards.

Does setting up an account mean they have to read threads like this? Not sure who has that kind of time.

Honestly, I think its been an interesting discussion and has prompted a lot of thought about how we can and should conduct ourselves when choosing classes. Ideas are good, but that doesn't mean all of them should be implemented. In the case of having forum participation required for advance class selection, I'm sure many would be ok with it, but many others would not. Do we want to do anything that turns any segment of the potential market away?

I'm still in the camp of eliminate the 3rd level bonus, but otherwise just leave things mostly as they are and have a roll-off at the official start time to resolve conflicts. Whatever is decided, keep it simple.

I would add that adjudicating issues regarding class choice conflicts on the forums would be worse. People act completely different on an anonymous forum then they do in real live in a coaches room.

I feel this was a good discussion but there is not a clearly better method then what we already have. Keep the rule (clarify it regarding roll offs - you get one challenge), post it (signs) so everyone is educated about it.

Ed

MasterED wrote: I feel this was a good discussion but there is not a clearly better method then what we already have. Keep the rule (clarify it regarding roll offs - you get one challenge), post it (signs) so everyone is educated about it.

I disagree. Here is the current method: a Lv3+ player can arrive any time up to say 23min after the start time and take any class from a Lv2- player. Likewise, a Lv3+ player can arrive any time up to 23min after the start time and force a roll-off between them any any other Lv3+ player.

Are you saying not a single proposal in here is better than that?

Guedoji wrote: Then I dont get the hp bump

there is a real easy solution to that problem...

Kirk Bauer wrote:

MasterED wrote: I feel this was a good discussion but there is not a clearly better method then what we already have. Keep the rule (clarify it regarding roll offs - you get one challenge), post it (signs) so everyone is educated about it.

I disagree. Here is the current method: a Lv3+ player can arrive any time up to say 23min after the start time and take any class from a Lv2- player. Likewise, a Lv3+ player can arrive any time up to 23min after the start time and force a roll-off between them any any other Lv3+ player.

Are you saying not a single proposal in here is better than that?

Agreed, I'd be in favor of dropping the Lvl 3+ rule, having people work out the classes among themselves, have die rolls when more than one person wants a class, and have some cut off point where if anyone arrives after that they'll pick from the remaining classes.

Picc wrote: I'll point back to an idea I had a few years ago. Short version is a deck of event cards (or event tokens) to represent rogue treasure. Stuff like cache of healing potions, x points of healing divided as the rogue sees fit if they take the treasure. Or Magic sword, mark +x damage on the party card. Or deadly trap take X fire damage. Or treasure cache, +x treasure for everyone in the party. You get the idea. In all cases though something that could be adjudicated quickly within the room by marking the party card possibly with a different color ink. Pros are it would stay compatible with the libraries, and not require refilling the boxes, cons are a time investment by the gm to mark the party card so we would need to keep the effects beyond simple. Could also be a way to have automatically succeeding rogue tests do something in grind while still maintaining an element of risk with trap cards.

love this idea

Mike Steele wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote:

MasterED wrote: I feel this was a good discussion but there is not a clearly better method then what we already have. Keep the rule (clarify it regarding roll offs - you get one challenge), post it (signs) so everyone is educated about it.

I disagree. Here is the current method: a Lv3+ player can arrive any time up to say 23min after the start time and take any class from a Lv2- player. Likewise, a Lv3+ player can arrive any time up to 23min after the start time and force a roll-off between them any any other Lv3+ player.

Are you saying not a single proposal in here is better than that?

Agreed, I'd be in favor of dropping the Lvl 3+ rule, having people work out the classes among themselves, have die rolls when more than one person wants a class, and have some cut off point where if anyone arrives after that they'll pick from the remaining classes.

+1