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[PATV] Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - Extra Credits Season 4, Ep. 19: Power Creep
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
This week, we finally get around to talking about the trouble with power creep (with special guest)! In addition to being awesome, Scott makes a webcomic called <a href="http://www.fanboys-online.com/" target="_blank">Fanboys</a>. You should read it!<br /> Details about our community shirt design contest <a href="http://extra-credits.net/news/site-news/extra-credits-shirt-design-competition/" target="_blank">here</a>!<br /> Come discuss this topic in the <a href="http://extra-credits.net/episodes/power-creep/#discuss" target="_blank">forums</a>!
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I feel... I don't know what to add, really.
So... anyways
excellent video as always. BTW, is alice OK? Just a normal vacation?
Still, VERY eye-opening!
As an aspiring designer this was a very interesting episode. I've noticed power creep before, mostly in relation to Magic: The Gathering (the sets system you discussed seems... complicated). Some of the newer cards I've seen seem blatantly overpowered compared to my 9 and 10th edition cards (back when the editions had numbers), but even then I still have a chance. It's especially interesting because persistent games are becoming more common in more areas, whereas before it was pretty much just MMORPGs.
Still, to Valve's credit, they do look for these overpowered combinations and make tweaks and changes along the way to ensure that most weapons are generally distinct but equal. Some are less popular because they take more finesse or rely on teamwork, but under the right circumstances they're all valid choices.
As for magic, in some cases they'll release a card that seems fine in testing, but then absolutely dominates until it's rotated out. TITANS. SO HARD.
But because of this rotation, it keeps power creep in check. And in terms of the older tournaments, because of the fact that once you move out of block it's possible to take almost any combination of cards and make something that can combat another, then it sort of balances out in that regard. at least, from what I've seen in the short time I've played.
A game based on numbers and searching better gear like Diablo 3 really has no other option than to throw more and more powerful items at the players over time.
I totally see this as the most obvious business choice (at least from an initial development and profitable standpoint). I'm sure we can all agree that such a decision will only upset the fanbase and prove <puts on tinfoil hat> the conspiracy of Activision only using Blizzard's name to milk consumers for money. I actually hope that should they put this in place it fails miserably and puts up red flags around the industry as a major no-no.
The only alternative I could think of would be to not increase the level cap (which I believe was mentioned by Jay Wilson) per expansion, and instead add new content like extra acts, sidequests, prologues/epilogues. Expansions could also introduce alternative tiers of gear (eg, tier 4b/7.5/etc) and new affixes, instead of just going WoW's route and stacking new tiers.
Diablo (and similar games) would I think benefit from not increasing the new maximum, but adding to it. Gear randomization is so diverse that you could perpetually add new items, affixes and content where the only invalidation of prior content would be the fact that with more random items to pool from, there is more of a chance to have a better role on a "perfect" item (though it could also do the opposite).
I suppose only time will tell.
I actually stopped playing League in favor of the Dota 2 beta simply because, at least in my opinion, the game contains many, many more elements (making it more challenging to learn), but even with much higher complexity, it seems to be much more balanced. Though I've been quite impressed at how Riot has improved some of the more obvious issues, they still don't seem to quite have a handle on how to fix something. Well, besides hitting it with the nerf-hammer or throw in the occasional buff, both via a pile of community complaint as opposed to intuitive design and balance. The result of this is a fairly large pile of champions who have been sitting at the bottom for months upon months: champions who are completely outclassed by characters who can play the same role (with even similar abilities) in a much better way.
I do hope they continue their path of improvement in the game, however. The markets between League and Dota are different enough to allow both to thrive just fine (with apologies to HoN as probably not sustaining for a whole lot longer).
Might as well pulled a FOOTBALL reference.
(Though it does give a small impetus to learn it now)
Now take a look at Icefrog and what he did with DotA for years: introducing new heroes with really balanced abilities that changed the metagame completely without breaking it neither for public nor for professional gamers. And these new heroes found their spots in the competitve DotA, and on top of that, some of old 'unused' heroes tend to pop out as "unusual" picks. In Lol that's not the case (not to mention what S2 is doing with their HoN, that's just a joke).
Think about, for example, the difference between a Paladin and a Warrior tank in world of warcraft. Once blizzard finally got around to making Paladins a viable raid tank in Wrath of the Lich King, there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the two classes. They both had their own tools for pulling from range, holding AoE threat, buffing raid damage against the target, mitigating damage on a continual basis, avoiding large amounts of damage in an emergency, and so on. The two classes were comparable in their function as a tank, and as a result if one was able to do job X better, there was proof of it and there was a legitimate claim of imbalance.
Now try contrasting that same idea of a comparable class to Team Fortress 2. Which class is better at assassination, the spy or the sniper? Can't say, they specialize in different things. Who's better at base defense, demos or engineers? Again, can't say for certain, because they defend in different ways.
That's why I cringe whenever I hear about a new MMO that attempts to get around class imbalance by breaking down class barriers. They're only making them more comparable, and thus easier to find imbalance.
That's what an incomparable is, and League is incredibly good at introducing those. What most people complain about with power creep in LoL is that the champions are overpowered -on release- and then are nerfed two patches later after everyone has gotten super excited about them and spent the money. This happened with Darius and to a lesser degree Volibear (whose execute was sort of crazy awesome out-of-hand when he first launched).
I think THAT'S a fair complaint, but talking to some of the guys at PAX this year, it seems like they're working hard to be more aware of situations they might generate this way.
Things like enemies getting back up after being wounded (necrons) versus an entirely different system of moral (Tyranids) or extremely powerful but slow infantry (Chaos Warriors) versus extremely powerful artillery (Dwarfs).
The balance issues have always come from the underlying numbers game of point balance. In video game terms it would be comparable to the amount of time required to earn a certain item through different paths in a game. Sometimes a single path is out of balance with another. So, for instance it would be one army in Warhammer being cheaper for the same amount of damage compared to another, or a casual dungeon in an MMO earning better gear faster than a hardcore dungeon. It's the underlying numbers game of investment (be it time, points, or money) that tends to create imbalance
Actually, that could be interesting for WoW, since there's so many old dungeons & raids that never get run anymore. Have all the dungeons scale to the highest level of the players in the party, and instead of worrying about itemizing each & every boss, have the bosses give currency/JP/tokens for a level range that can be traded for gear for your level.
Maybe let the bosses drop their signature/unique-looking weapons & armor as cosmetic items you can transmog your current gear into.
Getting the numbers right for boss abilities & health would probably be the hardest part.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Yay first comment, don't know whys it took me so long to sign up, I love EC vids.
Keep up the good work,
Non-Troll commenting guy
So you can't play the storyline anymore because the storyline requires playing at your locked in mode. I'm not paying 25 cents per minute to play the game by constantly paying for revive tokens.
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In WoW, for example, the level cap was 60, a lot of people got to this level so it had to be increased to keep the progression. Thus more powerful weapons had to be created to be equipped by the now higher level characters, this is natural progression of levels. And shouldn't be considered a bad thing.
Where it usually goes wrong when it goes wrong is, when weapons more powerful are introduced for equally leveled people.
tl;dr: A weapon which gives +5 stats equipable by level 30+s, then a weapon is introduced which gives +7 stats equipable by level 40s, is a good thing.
While a weapon which gives +5 stats equipable by level 30+s, then weapons are introduced which give +7 stats equipable by level 30s and one which gives +9 stats equipable by 40s, is a bad thing.
Otherwise, good episode.