What to do to avoid POWER-CREEP?!

Nobody have any feedback, comments or ideas they'd like to share???

I'm curious because many of you have a lot of Gaming Experience and I'm sure you all must have played 1 or 2 games in your lifetime that might have been affected with such an problem, no?!

Anyhow IF you have experienced this, what do you think are things that can help to mitigate against it...?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

No the area of play is 25 Tiles for 2-Players and 49 Tiles for 4-Players. And it's not as-if the Tiles can MOVE. So I guess having a Stronger Attack does not necessarily "interfere" with the other Tiles, only those that match the Attack Pattern.

I guess I could wait until the LAST "Chapter" to produce the "Orcs"... But because the Tiles don't move, each Tile has a "local effect" producing a form of "Area Control".

What I have done is set-up a NINE (9) Point System. Each Faction/Race gets to have "9" Points in their "configuration":

And for example the "Human" Race/Faction has the following Points:

Humans: Attack = 3, Defense = 2, Loot = 4.

So 3 + 2 + 4 = "9" Configuration Points. What this means is that this Race has a "Average" Attack (3) and has values between "3" and "7" (and in the middle "5"). But in terms of Defense, they have only "2" with values between "2" and "6" (and in the middle "4")...

This means that "YES", the Orcs will have more powerful Attack ("5"):

Orcs: Attack = 5, Defense = 3, Loot = 1.

They also make the LOOT "dropping" harder as they are "Greedy" Orcs too! LOL :-)

I'm going to see IF I can "tweak" this for the existing cards ... Because not all Cards obey this "Point Configuration" System.

Is it fair enough to say that from one aspect, a Race can BE stronger in one aspect of the STATS but weaker in another??? OR is this still some form of "POWER-CREEP"???

IDK TBH. In my interpretation, each Race has NINE (9) Points so it should be FAIR that the Races are distributed with the SAME Point Configuration.

Thoughts??? Am I making any false conclusions?? Is there something that I am missing in terms of a method to AVOID "strict" POWER-CREEP?

Please let me know... Regards.

Very true! It's for the time being the way that I structured my Chapter Decks in the hope that there is some EXCITEMENT for the "next batch".

Indeed... I did not know this was by design. I thought it was just NATURAL (but not recommended) to follow this trend. I have studied a bit the HISTORY behind Pokemon and how players in the first edition learned what were the "strongest" cards and built decks around those to beat their opponents.

But the thing with Pokemon is that POWER-CREEP is a "real-thing". The game during each new iteration has introduced stronger and stronger cards to the mix and the result is that if you want to stay COMPETITIVE, you need to buy newer packs and in many cases buy aftermarket singles.

Yes so do I. It's like people falling ill: people send them away sometimes never to come back home. Obsolescence is the after-effect of POWER-CREEP. That's kind of what I want to AVOID. Personally, I would prefer CONTRASTS to my Chapter Decks. It doesn't mean that because you have the most POWERFUL units that you will WIN the game. The Tactical Layer of movement and collection is a "secondary" layer which involves a certain amount of additional randomization: you may get the "crystals" YOU need and your opponents may NOT get the ones they are waiting on.

I think the "9" point configuration concept will ultimately bring SOME "balance" to the Chapters (Races/Factions). I'm not saying that there will NOT be any imbalances ... But that's obviously the thing with a GAME: it is never 100% done/perfect. It's like 95% and the last 5% is too demanding in terms of resources to complete.

So maybe even though there is a Real "Bad-Ass" "Red Dragon" in Chapter #9: Orcs ... It's a beast that doesn't have the most "flexible" Attack Pattern (as a Beast). But it CAN attack in 4-Directions two-spaces ahead (and that's the caveat!) You need cards in-between to allow this bad boy to attack... It may make one or maybe even two conquests to occur... But I would strongly doubt any additional conquests... Just not possible with the game. Even "2" is a lot but could occur in a 4-Player game.

You nailed it SPOT ON! Indeed... I didn't think POWER-CREEP was an option... I thought that many games that suffer from it DON'T do it "intentionally"!

Best.

The Attack = 3, the Defense can be either 2 or 3 (depending on the path chosen) and if Defense = 2, Loot = 3 OR if Defense = 3, Loot = 5.

The extra BONUS +2 Attack can be upgraded and this results in a BONUS +1 Defense. So by choosing to upgrade the Attack, you additionally get the upgrade to the Defense too.

The Left-most side presents the "Attack Pattern"... How a Tile can conquer opposing Game Tiles in the area of play.

And so you can see, there is not much room for more "abilities", "options", "mechanics", etc. The Game Tiles are very "to-the-point".

The other ALTERNATIVE is "Penalties" (like a -2 Attack for a +1 Defense)... That could be a real possibility that some Races/Faction have more careful "choices" to make: "You want better Defense, it's going to cost you some of your Attack." Something like that could be reasonable.

I don't mind sharing this Game Tile, because it is in the Gamebook (aka Rulebook) too... So it's not revealing any additional content that has not already been shared.

So there is no room for an ABILITY. The Game Tiles are pretty functional ... But are already brimming with content and STATS.

I was thinking that maybe some STATS could rely on a DIE roll. So 1 to 6. IDK about this idea... The cards are fairly small and writing on the legibly may not be the more convincing option. Unless maybe I include a BLACK Dry Erase Marker too... IDK. Need to think about this further.

But if you have any comments or feedback concerning the Game Tiles ... I'm open to suggestions.

Sincerely.

Note #1: Another IDEA would be playing a Ex-P Crystal ("Orange") on an opponent's Game Tile, especially if there is a NEGATIVE result which can cause stronger units to be weakened. That too sounds a bit neat and is a bit different than the other ideas that I presented above.

Having a HIGHER "Attack" doesn't really matter if you have WEAKER "Defense" Tiles and what this means is that some conquests are like "Overkill" like:

6 Attack vs. 4 Defense or 8 Attack vs. 5 Defense...

And it's not as if Tiles MOVE. They are fixed in place once a player puts them into the Area of Play. So in reality MOST Tiles will only COMBAT ONE (1) other Game Tile.

Having a STRONGER "Attack" means very little (as I have seen from my own analysis)... If the Average "Defense" is small in comparison... Well the higher rate of Attack doesn't mean much but simply that IF the "Attack Pattern" is satisfied... In most cases, an overkill unit will defeat the opposing Tile.

Anyhow for the moment, neither here-nor-there ... But I'm thinking that maybe there could be different "Abilities" (other than Attack, Defense and Loot)...

We'll see... Thank you for your feedback, I do appreciate it!

The game is EXPANDABLE, one "Chapter" at a time in the "evolution" of the game. So initially the 1st Chapter will focus on cards from Humans (primarily), High-Elves (Secondary) and a single Wood Elf. Those "Decks" are NOT random, they are preset with twelve (12) cards each since there are twelve (12) Rounds in the game. So yes, "Chapters" are FUTURE "expansions" of the game.

Well that's sorta my "angle". I was concerned a bit about HOW to HANDLE stronger cards later in say the 7th, 8th or 9th Chapter (Expansions). But I have some newer ideas now (in the last couple months now) which will probably work.

To explain, you can use "Ex-P" Crystals to give a "Bonus" to a Hero/Tile. And you would do so to your OWN Heroes/Tiles. But I came up with the idea that the OPPONENT could use "Ex-P" Crystals AGAINST you by "Cursing" a Hero/Tile with a NEGATIVE PENALTY (Say something like "-2 Defense & +1 Loot" as an example).

So it's a bit different, in that you can "Buff your own Heroes/Tiles" and "Curse your opponent's Heroes/Tiles"...! So this is a WAY to BALANCE the "power creep" in the game in Future Chapters. And this makes sense because all the later Races/Factions are "Evil" by Nature and so "Cursing" them sounds reasonable too...

Thanks for commenting and posting a few replies and suggestions. Hope you return to BGDF.com and that you share with us some more of your wisdom and experience in TableTop Gaming!

Always cool to have a NEW member who might become a regular!

Cheers.