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Definition of Power Creep


XRay
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Power Creep Definition  

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  1. 1. Is power creep an objective term?

    • Yes
      13
    • No
      9


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Is power creep an objective term? If so, would you assign your own definition to the term power creep or would you take the definition from professional game designers with lots of experience from the gaming industry?

Here are Extra Credits' videos explaining power creep:

Power Creep - The Trouble with Expansions and Time - Extra Credits

Power Creep in Hearthstone - What It Teaches Us About Games - Extra Credits

If you say it is not an objective term, why is that?

I would say yes, it is an objective term, and I would take the definition from Extra Credit since they are game designers and I am not.

Edited by XRay
Added the question "If you say it is not an objective term, why is that?"
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So I assume you're arguing something like Ayra isn't powercreep basically because Reinhardt exists.
I can dig it, question is does she become power creep when more skills or weapons or even seals get introduced to where good ole reinhardt might fall into line and then we have a subjectively better Red sword (minus Ryoma ) in most scenarios?

I understand the whole magma rager/ice rager argument, i remember it from back in the day because i do play hearthstone. Those were never meta shifting cards true, but i don't think Ayra is at the same power level as something like magma rager, where magma rager was never playable. And Ayra with a certain loadout can definitely be viable and will shine above a lot of other characters. She might not hit the ceiling, but for Red swords as a whole, her head is definitely close.

I think Ayra is just a trend setter, she basically sets the bar much higher than the rest in her category. It's inevitable that reinhardt and whatnot will receive some sort of nerfs in the forms of more counters or even straight up nerf bat (highly unlikely for the latter) and the meta will shift. That's where it will be hard to argue something like Ayra isn't powercreep. Reinhardt wasn't powercreep when SI wasn't a thing, infact most people called him garbage. 

Edited by Tsak
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1 hour ago, Tsak said:

Reinhardt wasn't powercreep when SI wasn't a thing, infact most people called him garbage. 

lolwhat, Reinhardt never needed SI to be amazingly good. Sure Death Blow does wonders for him, but pretty much every other tool he had was always at his disposal. +Atk Reinhardt has 44 Atk (+3 with Eirika, +4 with Nino/Olivia, +6 with Gunter), that's enough to OHKO most blues and colourless units already, along with virtually every red (remember that Takumi was one of the defining meta threats pre-SI, Reinhardt KOs him without any buffs at all). +Atk Olwen was my MVP before skill inheritance, and Reinhardt is better.

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I'm going to put a few points here for people to reference in case they're too lazy to watch the videos or prefer the content in writing.

Power creep is indicated by two things:

  1. An increase in the overall power of a player.
  2. Elements of the game added significantly above the existing power curve.

Both of these are effectively the same thing, but one may be easier to measure than the other in particular circumstances.

If you wanted the tl;dr, you can stop reading now.

Overall power

The first is pretty self-explanatory on the surface, but has nuances that need to be addressed. In particular, in Fire Emblem Heroes, the power of a player is determined by the power of a single four-unit team and not by the size of power of the player's entire box. I don't include the 28-unit team used in Arena Assault because counter-picking is possible, which means sub-optimal units are nearly as good as optimal units because they need to counter only the one threat they were picked to counter and not a range of potential threats.

This mirrors other game formats; for example, a player's power in a collectable card game is the power of the player's deck and not the power of the player's entire collection. A player's power in a real-time strategy game is the power of a faction's strongest unit composition and its accompanying tech trees that can be feasibly deployed in a single game and not the power of all of the faction's units and tech trees combined.

Power curve

The power curve is a plot of an element's power (on the y-axis, vertical for anyone who didn't do so well at graphing) against its cost (on the x-axis, horizontal).

By cost, we are specifically referring to the cost of deployment within gameplay and not the cost of acquisition outside of gameplay. For example, in the Pokemon TCG, the cost of a Stage 2 card is equal to the requirement of having the corresponding Basic and Stage 1 card deployed (or having a card or ability to allows you to skip earlier stages) and the cost of supplying the necessary Energy cards to use its attacks. In StarCraft, the cost of a unit is the resource cost of deploying the unit in a large enough force to be threatening in addition to the cost of researching the tech tree. In many RPGs, the cost of deploying equipment is the level requirement.

In Heroes, there is only one cost of deployment: the number of slots taken on your team, which is almost always one (it might be slightly greater than one if the unit requires support). This basically means that every character sits on a single vertical line with different power, but the same cost.

What this actually means is that it's difficult to use the power curve as a measuring stick in Heroes, so you should probably go back to using "overall power" as your measuring stick instead.

 

EDIT:

43 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

lolwhat, Reinhardt never needed SI to be amazingly good. Sure Death Blow does wonders for him, but pretty much every other tool he had was always at his disposal. +Atk Reinhardt has 44 Atk (+3 with Eirika, +4 with Nino/Olivia, +6 with Gunter), that's enough to OHKO most blues and colourless units already, along with virtually every red (remember that Takumi was one of the defining meta threats pre-SI, Reinhardt KOs him without any buffs at all). +Atk Olwen was my MVP before skill inheritance, and Reinhardt is better.

Reinhardt was considered trash before Skill Inheritance (and before the Arena rework) because his stat total was garbage (Dire Thunder is a total of +4 to stats, which is absolutely pathetic compared to the +12 from Fury 3 and +16 from any legendary weapon), Arena score was based entirely off of stat total, and Arena rewards were based on overall ranking instead of the current tier system. Sure, he would win you every match, but you'd end up with a pretty miserable score.

Edited by Ice Dragon
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2 hours ago, Tsak said:

So I assume you're arguing something like Ayra isn't powercreep basically because Reinhardt exists.

And Brave Bow archers like BH!Lyn, BB!Cordelia, Takumi, Innes, Jeorge, Klein, and YS!Gaius.

And Blade mages like Olwen, Ursula, Cecilia, Leo, SF!Camilla, NS!Corrin, TOD!Nowi, Nino, Tailtiu, Tharja, Linde, Delthea, NS!Elise, Katarina, Celica, Soren, Mae, Sonya, BB!Caeda, SF!Lucina, and probably TOD!Henry. Olwen, Celica, and Sonya generally run their default tomes since they are more cost effective and are equally as powerful.

2 hours ago, Tsak said:

I can dig it, question is does she become power creep when more skills or weapons or even seals get introduced to where good ole reinhardt might fall into line and then we have a subjectively better Red sword (minus Ryoma ) in most scenarios?

That is definitely possible. Wind Sword (Rng 2. Unit becomes green.) and Infantry Movement +1 would definitely make Ayra very powerful. They can even neuter Reinhardt and BH!Lyn today with Bravebreaker with something like "During combat, weapons that attack twice when initiating can only attack once and will deal half the damage it would have dealt." I would love to see them release something like on Christmas.

3 hours ago, Tsak said:

And Ayra with a certain loadout can definitely be viable and will shine above a lot of other characters. She might not hit the ceiling, but for Red swords as a whole, her head is definitely close.

Practically any unit is viable. My core Arena offense team consists of only three members so I can even run Fir on the fourth slot if I wanted.

Ayra maybe the best sword infantry, but sword infantry is one of the worst classes in the game, so she is far from being anywhere close the ceiling. Just being a melee unit is a huge disadvantage, and with only 2 movement, her weapon reach problem becomes even worse. Having good combat performance does not matter if she cannot reach the opponent and get out safely.

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7 hours ago, XRay said:

And Brave Bow archers like BH!Lyn, BB!Cordelia, Takumi, Innes, Jeorge, Klein, and YS!Gaius.

And Blade mages like Olwen, Ursula, Cecilia, Leo, SF!Camilla, NS!Corrin, TOD!Nowi, Nino, Tailtiu, Tharja, Linde, Delthea, NS!Elise, Katarina, Celica, Soren, Mae, Sonya, BB!Caeda, SF!Lucina, and probably TOD!Henry. Olwen, Celica, and Sonya generally run their default tomes since they are more cost effective and are equally as powerful.

Well Deflect Missile/Raven tomes really help against most of those brave bow archers, Though i feel like most people aren't prioritizing that because of stuff like Reinhardt. I have deflect missile 1 and i can bait basically any Brave Bow archer with my arena team. Though its not a defense thing of course, idk how those are going. I'm still winning a few but i feel like a fully upgraded Deflect Missile will be pretty strong. Blade Tomes are another thing, while only a few counters in place (like Brave Lyn). I feel as though ploys do a nice job, Panic ploy is helpful as well. The way IS seems to be rolling with the punches i feel another hard counter will come soon. (Sigurd's weapon already halves damage so I'm sure its just a matter of time)

7 hours ago, XRay said:

That is definitely possible. Wind Sword (Rng 2. Unit becomes green.) and Infantry Movement +1 would definitely make Ayra very powerful. They can even neuter Reinhardt and BH!Lyn today with Bravebreaker with something like "During combat, weapons that attack twice when initiating can only attack once and will deal half the damage it would have dealt." I would love to see them release something like on Christmas.

I don't think you'd have to make them Green units to deal with the counters. I feel as though giving them extra range already makes them threatening enough. Stuff like Ryoma is still quite strong with the right setup. We will just have to see how they will make this meta shift. My biggest problem is if they keep releasing counters to said options, It's going to swing heavily in the favor of the other side with a few key skills or units. Then stuff like Ayra who just has inflated stats for no reason will become a problem.

Quote

Practically any unit is viable. My core Arena offense team consists of only three members so I can even run Fir on the fourth slot if I wanted.

Ayra maybe the best sword infantry, but sword infantry is one of the worst classes in the game, so she is far from being anywhere close the ceiling. Just being a melee unit is a huge disadvantage, and with only 2 movement, her weapon reach problem becomes even worse. Having good combat performance does not matter if she cannot reach the opponent and get out safely.

Sure any unit is viable with like summoner support etc (heck my Lloyd is at like 198 Rating lol)
Using hearthstone as an example, remember when Priest was the worst class in the game? Now it completely dominates the meta because Jade druid got too many counters and got nerfed a tad. They kept adding decently powerful cards set after set. Now you have Razakus Priest and it completely craps on pretty much every other deck in the game. Now when Raza the chained was released, He was a powerful card sure. But Priest was garbage, and no one really cared that much. It was still better to run Renolock. I know im sort of glazing over some other things, but i could definitely see how Ayra could potentially be Raza in the future. It all really depends on how IS deals with the situation. They could further increase the gap between say Lonqu and Ayra and make units just objectively better than them even.

Edited by Tsak
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Tobin had Total 163 before it was cool, he just does not have a fancy weapon and bad stat spread =/.
But yes, I also think powercreep is an objective term. I also play Tales of Link alongside FE heroes (Damn I dislike the banner rush in this game).
And in Tales of link some units who were good at the beginning are pretty bad now.

The only thing I hope for Fire emblem is that certain units don't become totally obsolete.
With Skill inheritance we have an opportunity to draw potential from some units who would have been unusable without it.

 

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1 hour ago, Tsak said:

Well Deflect Missile/Raven tomes really help against most of those brave bow archers, Though i feel like most people aren't prioritizing that because of stuff like Reinhardt. I have deflect missile 1 and i can bait basically any Brave Bow archer with my arena team. Though its not a defense thing of course, idk how those are going. I'm still winning a few but i feel like a fully upgraded Deflect Missile will be pretty strong. Blade Tomes are another thing, while only a few counters in place (like Brave Lyn). I feel as though ploys do a nice job, Panic ploy is helpful as well. The way IS seems to be rolling with the punches i feel another hard counter will come soon. (Sigurd's weapon already halves damage so I'm sure its just a matter of time)

Those are counters, and if you have access to Reinhardt and BH!Lyn or their substitutes, there is no reason to run meta counters on your team. Counters can complement nukes, but they cannot replace nukes.

1 hour ago, Tsak said:

I don't think you'd have to make them Green units to deal with the counters. I feel as though giving them extra range already makes them threatening enough. Stuff like Ryoma is still quite strong with the right setup. We will just have to see how they will make this meta shift. My biggest problem is if they keep releasing counters to said options, It's going to swing heavily in the favor of the other side with a few key skills or units. Then stuff like Ayra who just has inflated stats for no reason will become a problem.

Being red is not ideal when Reinhardt is still around. Ryoma is still pretty weak; non-dragon melee units like him are pathetic with BH!Lyn around.

Releasing more and more counters is not going to usurp the ranged cavalry meta until they give melee units Player Phase ranged Weapons like the Javelin (assuming those Weapons do not suck) and infantry units a skill exclusive to them that permanently increases their movement by 1 when equipped. Or, they can give future melee infantry a stat boost so huge that it offsets their lack of range and mobility; I personally dislike this method but it is the simplest one to implement in game.

2 hours ago, Tsak said:

Using hearthstone as an example, remember when Priest was the worst class in the game? Now it completely dominates the meta because Jade druid got too many counters and got nerfed a tad. They kept adding decently powerful cards set after set. Now you have Razakus Priest and it completely craps on pretty much every other deck in the game. Now when Raza the chained was released, He was a powerful card sure. But Priest was garbage, and no one really cared that much. It was still better to run Renolock. I know im sort of glazing over some other things, but i could definitely see how Ayra could potentially be Raza in the future. It all really depends on how IS deals with the situation. They could further increase the gap between say Lonqu and Ayra and make units just objectively better than them even.

I have not played Hearth Stone. Unless they give melee infantry units a huge stat boost and/or the skills to be relevant in the meta, making slightly better melee infantry units that outclass old ones is not going to tip the meta any time soon.

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21 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'm going to put a few points here for people to reference in case they're too lazy to watch the videos or prefer the content in writing.

Power creep is indicated by two things:

  1. An increase in the overall power of a player.
  2. Elements of the game added significantly above the existing power curve.

Both of these are effectively the same thing, but one may be easier to measure than the other in particular circumstances.

So, to be clear, under this criterion, the main power creeps of Heroes so far are 1) Skill Inheritance; 2) the introduction of Sacred Seals; 3) Supports; and 4) the Sacred Seal Forge?

(Also BH!Lyn, with her then-unprecedented increased BST plus super-legendary weapon plus high-Res build with a unique skill blocking people from using anything but bows to counter-attack against her Def instead plus being a cavalier, right?)

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11 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

So, to be clear, under this criterion, the main power creeps of Heroes so far are 1) Skill Inheritance; 2) the introduction of Sacred Seals; 3) Supports; and 4) the Sacred Seal Forge?

Look closely:

21 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Overall power

The first is pretty self-explanatory on the surface, but has nuances that need to be addressed. In particular, in Fire Emblem Heroes, the power of a player is determined by the power of a single four-unit team and not by the size of power of the player's entire box.

This mirrors other game formats; for example, a player's power in a collectable card game is the power of the player's deck and not the power of the player's entire collection. A player's power in a real-time strategy game is the power of a faction's strongest unit composition and its accompanying tech trees that can be feasibly deployed in a single game and not the power of all of the faction's units and tech trees combined.

Power creep doesn’t exactly mean an expansion of player resources or an overall increase in player strength (i.e. “Player’s entire box”) but rather the introduction of units that utilize those resources better than their competition. Units like Reinhardt and Brave Lyn make better use of those resources—from inheriting skills onto them over other units to deploying them onto a map, taking a slot that another unit competed for. That is powercreep.

Seals and supports give more options to the player, but they themselves aren’t meta-defining, unless you talk about seals based off of skills with high SP costs like Panic Ploy, which can improve your arena score.

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47 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Look closely:

Power creep doesn’t exactly mean an expansion of player resources or an overall increase in player strength (i.e. “Player’s entire box”) but rather the introduction of units that utilize those resources better than their competition. Units like Reinhardt and Brave Lyn make better use of those resources—from inheriting skills onto them over other units to deploying them onto a map, taking a slot that another unit competed for. That is powercreep.

Seals and supports give more options to the player, but they themselves aren’t meta-defining, unless you talk about seals based off of skills with high SP costs like Panic Ploy, which can improve your arena score.

"The power of a player is determined by the power of a single four-unit team."

Unless you're arguing that a pre-Si team is less powerful than the same team fully inherited, I think that the introduction of SI fulfills this criterion pretty well. Same for each of the other things I listed. If Ice Dragon's summary is flawed, do correct it.

*wanders off to watch the videos*

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2 hours ago, Seafarer said:

So, to be clear, under this criterion, the main power creeps of Heroes so far are 1) Skill Inheritance; 2) the introduction of Sacred Seals; 3) Supports; and 4) the Sacred Seal Forge?

In the context of the Arena, I'd actually argue them to be

  1. The Arena overhaul, which was what made Reinhardt the monster that he now is.
  2. The introduction of Bride Cordelia.
  3. The introduction of Brave Lyn.
  4. The introduction of supports.

The reason why the other three you mentioned are not as large as these four is because they gave both you and your opponent a similar boost to power (your opponent becoming more powerful is equivalent to the player becoming less powerful), at least when talking about the Arena. Anything you could do with Skill Inheritance, Sacred Seals, or the Sacred Seal Forge, your opponent can do also. The only place where these systems gave benefits primarily to the player and not the opponent were in PvE settings, either due to enemies having fixed stats or due to the fact that Skill Inheritance was already a thing for enemies in the Training Tower.

Characters

Reinhardt, Bride Cordelia, and Brave Lyn (who replaced Bride Cordelia) are considered because they are the most threatening units in the game (the Arena overhaul is when Reinhardt became relevant by making his score contribution into something that wasn't complete trash). Their presence significantly boosts the performance of Arena defense teams they are a part of, and they are significantly better than their alternatives in Arena offense, as well. With the exception of attempting to push up your score by using units having higher stat totals, these are the benchmarks that any unit being considered for a team need to be compared to.

Supports

Supports is an interesting topic because while the system does raise the power of every unit in the game (and only affects the player and not the opponent), it actually shrinks the gap between the top and the bottom by benefiting enemy-phase units and weaker units more than stronger, player-phase units.

Summoner support notably increases not only the four combat stats, but also the HP stat and by a significant amount. +5 HP and +2 Spd, Def, and Res makes a bigger impact to enemy-phase units than to the +2 Atk and Spd that player-phase units are more greatly affected by. Not only does it make it harder to double attack a unit (Spd), damage a unit (Def and Res), and kill a unit (HP), the unit also has a larger HP buffer for keeping Quick Riposte, Wary Fighter, and Weaponbreaker skills active.

Absolute bonuses affecting Atk are more effective the lower a unit's Atk is to being with. Increasing your damage dealt from 8 per hit to 10 per hit is more meaningful than increasing your damage dealt from 32 per hit to 34 per hit. In the same manner, but reversed, absolute bonuses affecting Def and Res are more effective the higher a unit's Def or Res is to begin with. Lowering an opponent's damage from 10 to 8 per hit is more meaningful than lowering an opponent's damage from 34 to 32 per hit.

Finally, player-phase units are far more likely to be moving away from allies to attack, making it more difficult to set up ally support bonuses while attacking. In contrast, enemy-phase units tend to stick together when engaging in combat because they end their turn in close proximity to maintain their buffs and engage opponents on enemy phase when they cannot move out of proximity.

Edited by Ice Dragon
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@Ice Dragon Hmmm... what do you mean by "power" in the context of the Arena? When you're speaking of Reinhardt, it looks like you're referring to scoring potential, but with Cordelia and Lyn, you seem to be talking about ability to win Arena matches, both offence and defence. Is that down to the difference in the Arena at the different times? Because, if so, I'd argue that SI caused a pretty big jump, since it increased the scoring potential of every unit in the game - I remember when you had to run Fury 3 on every unit to rank near the top.

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If you have to ask people if they think something is objective, it's not.

And also something something the evolution of language and blah blah blah blah it's usually those internet whiners who make a big deal about blah blah blah

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5 hours ago, Johann said:

If you have to ask people if they think something is objective, it's not.

And also something something the evolution of language and blah blah blah blah it's usually those internet whiners who make a big deal about blah blah blah

Just because I am asking it does not mean it is not objective. I can ask the whether net profit is an objective term, and some people will probably say it is not. That does not make those people right because net profit is an objective term with a specific meaning in business.

This has nothing to do with the evolution of language. It is about the term power creep in the context of gaming in the present day. This is not some debate whether decimate means killing one-tenth of something or massacring something without any contextual situation or time frame.

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On 11/8/2017 at 11:07 PM, Ice Dragon said:

Reinhardt was considered trash before Skill Inheritance (and before the Arena rework) because his stat total was garbage (Dire Thunder is a total of +4 to stats, which is absolutely pathetic compared to the +12 from Fury 3 and +16 from any legendary weapon), Arena score was based entirely off of stat total, and Arena rewards were based on overall ranking instead of the current tier system. Sure, he would win you every match, but you'd end up with a pretty miserable score.

A few things:

1. The comment I replied to implied it was SI that made Reinhardt good, rather than the arena score adjustment. The latter is a reasonable argument, the former is not.

2. The arena isn't the only aspect of the game. If you want to call a unit trash in the arena specifically, you should say so. Saying a unit is "trash" without further elaboration implies they are bad in most/all settings (e.g. Henry).

2. Even strictly talking about the arena, though, I don't agree. You've no doubt been focused at the whale levels of play where everyone has every good unit they could want and thus scoring differences were all that mattered in the early days of arena (which sounds like an awful metagame to me, but I suppose that's why they reworked it). For anyone who was just trying to win 7 matches deathless, units like Reinhardt were immediately a huge help. His stat total isn't grossly inferior to that of a dancer, who were also recommended arena units for folks just trying to reach that benchmark. At the very least, a statement that Reinhardt was trash in the arena needs to be tempered, as you did, with explaining in what situation he is trash (i.e. you can already get 7-deathless streaks with worse units and are looking for ways to improve your arena score further) and in what situations he is not (i.e. literally everything else you might want to do in FEH).

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9 hours ago, Seafarer said:

@Ice Dragon Hmmm... what do you mean by "power" in the context of the Arena? When you're speaking of Reinhardt, it looks like you're referring to scoring potential, but with Cordelia and Lyn, you seem to be talking about ability to win Arena matches, both offence and defence. Is that down to the difference in the Arena at the different times? Because, if so, I'd argue that SI caused a pretty big jump, since it increased the scoring potential of every unit in the game - I remember when you had to run Fury 3 on every unit to rank near the top.

Yeah, I'm willing to argue that the Arena valued different things before and after the overhaul, which is why the Arena overhaul is when Reinhardt became popular.

Skill Inheritance didn't create a big jump because even though you scored higher in every match, so did everyone else.

 

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

For anyone who was just trying to win 7 matches deathless, units like Reinhardt were immediately a huge help.

I'm going to argue that power creep isn't something that significantly affects players that are struggling to get by or not playing at a "competitive level".

In Heroes (and collectible card games), this manifests as the fact that which characters a player has managed to acquire is the determining factor of the player's power and not how strong the power ceiling is. Adding a new powerful character doesn't make a large difference to that player's power because the player doesn't have said new powerful character.

Reinhardt couldn't have "immediately been a huge help" if the player didn't get lucky enough to pull a copy of him.

 

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

His stat total isn't grossly inferior to that of a dancer, who were also recommended arena units for folks just trying to reach that benchmark.

Reinhardt's rating before the Arena overhaul was a mere 149 with Dire Thunder equipped.

In comparison Azura's rating was 149 without any skills equipped, and Olivia's rating was 150 without any skills equipped. Vanilla Azura had 164 (Sapphire Lance+ and Speed +3), and vanilla Olivia had 165 (Silver Sword+).

The difference in stats between Reinhardt and a dancer (12-15) is roughly double the difference in stats between a dancer and a standard melee infantry unit (5-8).

Heck, infantry tome users had a rating between 147 and 149 without any skills equipped and typically between 160 and 162 with only a weapon equipped, meaning dancers were even a better choice for scoring than ranged infantry.

Edited by Ice Dragon
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5 hours ago, XRay said:

Just because I am asking it does not mean it is not objective. I can ask the whether net profit is an objective term, and some people will probably say it is not. That does not make those people right because net profit is an objective term with a specific meaning in business.

This has nothing to do with the evolution of language. It is about the term power creep in the context of gaming in the present day. This is not some debate whether decimate means killing one-tenth of something or massacring something without any contextual situation or time frame.

Net profits are an exact measurement and nobody is contesting it's meaning. Power creep is contextual and ambiguous, and depends on your definition of "power" and other variables. The fact that there's even a disagreement over its meaning makes any use of it subjective.

All language is subject to the potential for change, no matter how old or new. That a large number of people have a different interpretation of a term shows that there's a need for an alternate way of expressing that idea (ie: more terms). Some guy on Youtube who has experience designing games is using what very well may be the proto-definition, but he can't do anything about people who collectively either misconstrue that explanation, or come in to the conversation with an alternate understanding. You can argue that someone is "wrong" if you want, but then you're not addressing the that person's point, which matters more than the semantics.

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Hard to define.

Different thought: Powercreep is actually essential and needed for this game. Lets face it, part of the fun is to collect units and build them. So if there is a metachanging new unit like Lyn who has been given out for free, suddenly different skills and units might become interesting. Building and adjusting units is part of the game. So maybe people are right in their assessment only rein and lyn are powercreepes units.

On the other hand, I think new and better units are just better at times. Think about pa azura - if you give her a hone skill, a fortify seal and buff and dance a blade tome user - thats like 20atk added. Thats quite useful if done well. Wouldnt call it powercreep,  but its certainly better than just regular Olivia or azura in this regard.

Objectively/subjectively I would rather come up with the idea of a powercreep continuum. Some units are just plain powercreep - you need to readjust strategy, units and skills to have a chance for bait and counter - a massive threat. Then there are units with either top tier skills which are just better than what came before - subtle powercreep. And then there are units which have unique skills that can really give an edge.

Units have to become better. Otherwise the game would become stale and people would complain about new units being actually old units with new paint.

 

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I feel like this is becoming a dictionary dispute rather than a discussion around the impact behind it. Shouldn't we talk about the implication of everything happening now for us going forwards? If we take Rein as a fact, PA Azura as a fact, Ayra as a fact, what can an average player expect and what action should they take in the future?

Edited by Okigen
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2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Yeah, I'm willing to argue that the Arena valued different things before and after the overhaul, which is why the Arena overhaul is when Reinhardt became popular.

Skill Inheritance didn't create a big jump because even though you scored higher in every match, so did everyone else.

Okay, I'm really confused now. You're saying that SI doesn't count as power creep because your opponents can use it too? Well, your opponents can use Reinhardt/BB!Cordelia/BH!Lyn, too, so why do they count? And, while opponents can't make use of supports when controlled by the AI, they can when it comes to getting their own scores, so you seem to be drawing a pretty arbitrary line.

The feeling I got from watching the videos was that power creep refers to absolute power, not relative power, so I also don't agree that your opponent becoming more powerful is equivalent to you becoming less powerful in this context.

I guess I see SI as a bigger deal than you do. I feel like Horse Emblem - whose extreme power is a direct consequence of SI - represented a jump above the power curve which still hasn't really been corrected, despite IntSys's best efforts, and is thus a textbook example of power creep.

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19 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

Okay, I'm really confused now. You're saying that SI doesn't count as power creep because your opponents can use it too? Well, your opponents can use Reinhardt/BB!Cordelia/BH!Lyn, too, so why do they count? And, while opponents can't make use of supports when controlled by the AI, they can when it comes to getting their own scores, so you seem to be drawing a pretty arbitrary line.

The feeling I got from watching the videos was that power creep refers to absolute power, not relative power, so I also don't agree that your opponent becoming more powerful is equivalent to you becoming less powerful in this context.

I guess I see SI as a bigger deal than you do. I feel like Horse Emblem - whose extreme power is a direct consequence of SI - represented a jump above the power curve which still hasn't really been corrected, despite IntSys's best efforts, and is thus a textbook example of power creep.

There is no absolute power. Rein and Lyn can be baited and countered easily. It just forces you to have said counter on your team. Aa requires to have more counters at hand but even without counters its possible to beat them - just much harder. 

Horse emblem with the right buffs and tomes is crazy - but also possible to conquer. Thats the game - and what makes it great imo. Dont be afraid of powercreep - just go with the flow.

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9 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

Okay, I'm really confused now. You're saying that SI doesn't count as power creep because your opponents can use it too? Well, your opponents can use Reinhardt/BB!Cordelia/BH!Lyn, too, so why do they count? And, while opponents can't make use of supports when controlled by the AI, they can when it comes to getting their own scores, so you seem to be drawing a pretty arbitrary line.

Skill Inheritance affects players and opponents in virtually the exact same way. Any gains the player has from access to skill inheritance is balanced by the loss of effectiveness due to the increased strength of the opponent.

Reinhardt and Brave Lyn, on the other hand, do not serve the same purpose when controlled by the player and controlled by the opponent, and therefore do not counter-act each other's effects. Using Reinhardt on a player-controlled team increases the overall power of the player's team because Reinhardt is "stronger" than other options. The prevalence of Reinhardt on enemy teams increases the power of Reinhardt's counters that are owned by the player without significantly affecting the value of other units because as long as the player has a counter, the other units don't care all that much about Reinhardt's presence.

 

22 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

The feeling I got from watching the videos was that power creep refers to absolute power, not relative power, so I also don't agree that your opponent becoming more powerful is equivalent to you becoming less powerful in this context.

The enemy becoming more powerful as a whole is identically the same as the player becoming less powerful. In the Arena, which is where I'm restricting all of my arguments to, there is no static content that can be used as a benchmark for power, meaning there is no such thing as "absolute power". Power must always be relative to some benchmark or measuring stick. When static content exists, that can be used as the measuring stick (e.g. in a typical MMORPG, "performance against a particular boss" can be a measuring stick assuming that that boss does not receive updates to keep up with player strength), but when static content does not exist, a dynamic benchmark needs to be found. In this case, average enemy strength is one possible benchmark. Another possibility is a player's equilibrium Arena Tier as pseudo-static benchmark, but that is actually virtually interchangeable with enemy strength (because the average enemy strength that needs to be encountered to maintain the same equilibrium Arena Tier as time progresses slowly increases).

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1 hour ago, Johann said:

Net profits are an exact measurement and nobody is contesting it's meaning. Power creep is contextual and ambiguous, and depends on your definition of "power" and other variables. The fact that there's even a disagreement over its meaning makes any use of it subjective.

All language is subject to the potential for change, no matter how old or new. That a large number of people have a different interpretation of a term shows that there's a need for an alternate way of expressing that idea (ie: more terms). Some guy on Youtube who has experience designing games is using what very well may be the proto-definition, but he can't do anything about people who collectively either misconstrue that explanation, or come in to the conversation with an alternate understanding. You can argue that someone is "wrong" if you want, but then you're not addressing the that person's point, which matters more than the semantics.

That is like saying because a lot of people do not believe in vaccines, vaccines are therefore useless even though professional doctors say the exact opposite. A large number of people using the term wrong means that we need to educate people more.

Those are not just some guys. James, the writer from Extra Credits, has 10 years of experience in the gaming industry and Daniel, the narrator, has 7 years. The amount of their experience in the industry alone means their definition holds more weight than the belief of a bunch of people who have no experience in game design.

17 minutes ago, Okigen said:

I feel like this is becoming a dictionary dispute rather than a discussion around the impact behind it. Shouldn't we talk about the implication of everything happening now for us going forwards? If we take Rein as a fact, PA Azura as a fact, Ayra as a fact, what can an average player expect and what action should they take in the future?

I created this thread for the purpose of dictionary dispute. There are quite a few threads discussing the impact, but the dictionary dispute took up a part of those discussions.

To summarize, we all agree that unchecked power creep is bad. I think having limited, occasional power creep to celebrate something special is fine, like the Choose Your Legend event. Most or all of the veteran players here have no problem with Sigurd, Ayra, TODD!Jakob, and TOD!Henry themselves getting a stat boost since melee and armor units are pretty underwhelming to begin with. However, some of us, myself included, do not like the fact that they got a stat boost because it sets a precedent for unchecked power creep.

I personally prefer they address the meta through new skills and character stat distribution alone. Giving a straight up stat boost seems inelegant and lazy. I think from Ayra onward, they might change up the formula and give all melee and armor units a stat boost since they are so under powered, but I need to see a few more banners to confirm whether the new pattern is the new norm.

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