Power Creep

I was reading about the level cap increasing from 60 to 70 in an online game, with many new possibilities/abilities. "How do people keep track of so many abilities at such high levels?" I thought. Then I realized yet another reason why I prefer simple games: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Another version, about Japanese gardening, is "Your garden is not complete until there is nothing else that you can remove."

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Games are sets of artificial (separated from the real world) constraints, even games as "loosey-goosey" in rules as RPGs. Players agree to use and abide by these constraints. The best players are usually those who cope best with those constraints.

"Power Creep virtually always leads to a Broken Base, with the most ‘conservative’ players stating that the new unbalanced content is an insult to the original game (which might be true or not, depending on the case)." --TV Tropes

Good play comes not from having lots of things you can do, many of them really “OP” (overpowered), but from making good use of what you've got. Another case of creativity benefitting from constraints.

Power creep is a common online (video) game problem that we can see in tabletop RPGs. The cause isn't online play, it's the frequent changes and additions to rules and to "content". New "stuff" is more attractive when it's better than the old stuff (duh!), so that's what the makers produce, and over time the entire game sees an increase in power, in what the players can do. (See “The Dilemma of the Simple RPG.”) This must be matched by an increase in the power of the opposition (more dangerous monsters) or the game becomes too easy. Some games handle the escalation better than others, but if the game was well-designed to begin with, power creep is likely to hurt the design.

Make no mistake, I like blowing things up with tac nukes - well, fireballs anyway - and megawatt lasers (lightning bolts). But when you get up into Timestops and other Immense Godlike Powers, I think the GAME suffers in favor of the POWER TRIP. And at the same time it becomes less skillful, less clever, and harder to GM.

I’ve often said, about 1e D&D, that the “sweet spot” for play was 3rd-9^th level. Early on players were too fragile (not a problem in recent editions), and later on the game couldn’t cope well with double-figure levels. It got to the point that (as in WW II armored battles) whoever fired first usually won, because the attack capabilities were so strong. This is especially obvious where surprise is involved. If a game then “power creeps” to where 9^th levels are as strong as 11^th used to be, the situation worsens.

Of course, many players and GMs don't care about skill or cleverness, they care about other things (among them, power trips). What I’ve said is descriptive, not prescriptive. I don't care how you run or play your game (unless I'm involved!).

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher

 

[Celebrim]

In the case of something like World of Warcraft, what you have is false leveling. After about level 20, your character never actually gains another level. The numbers go up, but your characters place in the world is unchanged. You'll be grinding your way through level 70 bears with basically the same techniques and difficulty you encountered when you grinded your way through level 20 bears. The obvious conclusion is that the numbers have no existence, even in the abstract, in the in game world. Your character has not really increased in power and prestige from the early days of your time as a character. Rather, the only purpose of the numbers is external to the game reality - for example, ensuring that you approach the story presented by the game in a linear manner, reliably going through the content in a predictable order. Or else, to ensure that going through the content requires a certain amount of in game time, so that you remain a customer for a longer period. But it's reasonable from most everything you observe (if you follow the game's expectations) that your character has been a mighty hero from pretty much the time you left your factions starter area and has not 'leveled up' meaningfully any time since that time.

The same is fundamentally true of a game like Skyrim or any of the other elder scroll games. Since the content levels up around you, the numbers exist only for the out of game experience. You aren't meaningfully getting more powerful. Rather the numbers are going up simply for the pleasure the player takes in getting bigger numbers. The only real meaningful increase in power is your power relative to your expected power for your level. In some versions of the Elder Scrolls, a true power gamer then would endeavor (if they could) not to level up at all, as the most powerful possible character would be a 1st level character (or similarly low level character) with massive advantages compared to the games expectations. This character's narrative would be the one of being the most powerful, experienced, and capable character despite in fact never leveling up at all.

D&D originally had the idea that levels were meaningful, and that reality didn't level up with you. Mighty heroes would eventually overcome all but the most mundane challenges and move on to new roles in the game universe - lords and perhaps even gods. But as the original article points out, older versions of D&D often had a hard time delivering the same level of interest in high level game play because offensive powers generally vastly outstripped defensive capabilities. Eventually, the initiative roll was the 'midpoint' of the combat, and most combats were meaningfully over by the end of the first round. Later editions have tried to balance the desire to have gameplay be interesting and yet still capture the 'zero to hero' and beyond gameplay that appeared to be D&D's intention and which has become its core 'story'. The result though is sometimes the experience that fighting Orcus is functionally identical to fighting a Bugbear chieftain, just with bigger numbers, making leveling less meaningful.

 

[Imaculata]

What Power Creep is, is when the addition of new powers/cards/abilities makes some of them dominant, while making others useless. This can be seen to some extent in Team Fortress 2, where the addition of some new weapons, made some weapons dominant, while making others look objectively worse. This is why all of a sudden you saw tons of Demomen running around with melee weapons, chopping off heads left and right, when this is exactly the opposite of what the backline grenade-lobbing class was designed to do.

It also happened in Guild Wars 1 and 2, in different ways. In Guild Wars 1 the level cap always remained at level 20, but they added new normal and elite skills, some of which were either way too powerful, or were like stronger versions of older skills. For example, the skill Pain Inverter was so powerful, that it was the default skill to bring against any boss, and that future bosses had to be specifically designed to cancel out this skill. The skill single handedly insta-killed the final boss of one of the expansions, it was that broken. Other skills were so underpowered, that they never really made it onto anyone's skillbar. Yes, you could bring them, but why would you, when all of the other skills are objectively better? Thats a classic example of Power Creep. As more skills are added, you'd think there would be more options, but in fact more options disappear.

This also happened with new classes, where one class would intrude on the area of expertise of another class. Why would you for example want to bring an assassin, when its basically a more squishy version of the warrior? And why would you bother bringing a warrior, when the assassin has a skill that makes them immune to everything, and they can keep active long enough to solo most end game content. Classic example of power creep.

With Guild Wars 2 they repeated the same mistake, by adding new Specialisations for classes. This basically meant that you had an optional redesigned version of your class that you could play, but only if you bought the new DLC. So instead of expanding what the class could do, they just redid the class. The real issue here is that in some cases this made a class not the broken mess that it was originally. And here we come to the central issue with Power Creep. Because one older version of the class is clearly inferior, people won't bother to play it any more, and the other becomes the dominant one. The older class is simply replaced, and problems with the original class aren't fixed/addressed. So if you want to still compete on the same level as other players, you must get this new specialisation, because no one wants your old broken class in their party. The old class still exists, but no one wants to play it, because a better alternative is now available.

They even made the same mistake with the skills, where once again some classes had a skill that made them completely invincible for a few seconds, while some other classes did not have such a skill at all. In a game where the pvp is so spam-heavy, not having a panic button is a handicap that no class can afford to have.

And this also happens in games like Magic the Gathering of course, where some cards are objectively better than others that pretty much do the same thing, but worse. And it also happens in D&D, when certain new feats are better versions of an older feat. Its not so much an issue of the new game-addition just being too powerful, but with them making another game element obsolete by comparison. Ideally in a game you want more options, and Power Creep removes options.

 

[EvilDwarf]

I've said for years--well, at least to my gaming group--that level increases are an illusion. My AC increases, Monster BAB increases. My BAB increases, Monster AC increases. My skill levels increase, DCs increase. It's all a wash. I've also wondered for years what a game would be like in which you entered a game world as a more or less static character, but the game world contained low "level" and high "level" Monsters. Say, maybe you'd enter the world at the equivalent of 5th level D&D, so there would be orcs and goblins, but also liches and ancient dragons.

Then the action would shift. Need to kill that high "level" ancient dragon that's awakened? Search for some lore, and/or search the sky-high Towers of the Dragon Riders for the weapon you need. I think it would be interesting to see how such a shift might encourage planning and strategy and adventuring to survive in such a world. Progress would be measured in something other than Levels. It might be measured in an Arrow of Dragon Slaying, or the Blessed Sword of Sir Gawain the Dragon Slayer.

I guess what might be missing would be a sense of achievement on the players' part? Maybe instead of "stronger" powers they would gain more powers/skills, could do more things, learn more "3rd level" spells, etc. Or you could invent a rewards system based on some in-world mechanic called Reputation or something.

Anyone ever tinker with or play a game like that?

 

[AriochQ]

MtG got it right when it comes to combating power creep IMHO. They did two things...

First, cards tend to 'sunset' and leave the standard rotation. Any unbalanced cards have an 'expiration date'. RPG's tend not to have that mechanic. Any new content stays around forever.

Second, they focused on interactions rather than base improvements. In most cases, when they add a 'superior' card, it comes with a drawback. That makes players spend a lot more time focusing on the synergy rather than the individual cards. RPG's have some of this, but nowhere near the extent of MtG.

Although bonus actions get some bad press, it is actually one of the better mechanics in 5e that prevent power creep. You only get one bonus action a round. That allows WotC to add any number of abilities utilizing the bonus action mechanic with minimal power creep since the PC is simply replacing one action. Any increase in power is incremental rather than multiplicative.

 

[Razjah]

I've said for years--well, at least to my gaming group--that level increases are an illusion. My AC increases, Monster BAB increases. My BAB increases, Monster AC increases. My skill levels increase, DCs increase. It's all a wash. I've also wondered for years what a game would be like in which you entered a game world as a more or less static character, but the game world contained low "level" and high "level" Monsters. Say, maybe you'd enter the world at the equivalent of 5th level D&D, so there would be orcs and goblins, but also liches and ancient dragons.

Then the action would shift. Need to kill that high "level" ancient dragon that's awakened? Search for some lore, and/or search the sky-high Towers of the Dragon Riders for the weapon you need. I think it would be interesting to see how such a shift might encourage planning and strategy and adventuring to survive in such a world. Progress would be measured in something other than Levels. It might be measured in an Arrow of Dragon Slaying, or the Blessed Sword of Sir Gawain the Dragon Slayer.

I guess what might be missing would be a sense of achievement on the players' part? Maybe instead of "stronger" powers they would gain more powers/skills, could do more things, learn more "3rd level" spells, etc. Or you could invent a rewards system based on some in-world mechanic called Reputation or something.

Anyone ever tinker with or play a game like that?

This is awfully close to E6. All levels cap at 6. So taking down a 10th level dragon means getting help, researching this species of dragon's weaknesses, finding the ingredients to make a necessary balm to apply to weapons to fight it. Fighting the tarrasque wouldn't be a battle. It would be a huge Shadow of the Colossus moment where the PCs have to climb the beast, fight some stuff on it (cultists or other monsters ridding it cloverfield style), stab it in the eye, then climb into it to find and destroy it's heart. Then while the beast lays temporarily dead, 20 mages perform a ritual to banish it while dozens of warriors continue hacking at the monster's vulnerable parts to keep it from regenerating enough to wake. It might even take siege equipment.

But on a game world side, I think the numbers treadmill are because many GMs are focusing on balanced encounters. Letting some 10th level PCs fight trolls or something they struggled against recently but can now easily handle is an amazing triumph. Finding random raiders in Fallout is an exercise in being a badass and wiping out a group of them solo. More of these moments make the other struggles better and let players celebrate their PCs gained abilities.

 

[Hussar]

Well, this is generally an issue in many RPG's, and particularly in any level based one. As you level your PC, you get more powerful at what you do, but, you don't, generally, do anything new. It's all height and no breadth.

It would be nice to see a system where you branch out further and further "sideways" rather than upwards. Imagine a D&D level system where you only gain HD every three levels (forex) and attack bonuses and damage don't really change very much. Small, incremental increases once in a while.

But, instead, you gain all sorts of "first level" powers

The only problem with that is, everyone's character winds up being pretty much identical after enough time. Everyone has the same stuff, even if they started from different points.

It's a very hard thing to design around.

 

[Jhaelen]

In the case of something like World of Warcraft, what you have is false leveling. After about level 20, your character never actually gains another level. The numbers go up, but your characters place in the world is unchanged.

The same is fundamentally true of a game like Skyrim or any of the other elder scroll games. Since the content levels up around you, the numbers exist only for the out of game experience.

Well, I'm not a WoW player, but iirc, you're wrong about WoW having 'false leveling'. The game's divided into 'zones' meant for different level ranges. But there's nothing preventing you from visiting zones that aren't appropriate for your level. If your character is level 50 and you enter a zone intended for level 10, all monsters will appear 'grey' to you, indicating you won't get any xp for killing them. If you enter a level 80 zone, all monsters will appear 'purple' to you, indicating the monsters are extremely likely to kill you without taking a sweat.
This isn't much different from your typical D&D (sandbox) game: The areas around the PCs home base will usually be populated by low-level threats, and the farther you travel into the wild, the tougher they get. For 'epic' level threats you journey into the outer planes.

You're definitely right about Skyrim, though. It's one of the reasons I don't particularly enjoy the Elder Scrolls games: Since everything around you is leveling up whenever your character does, you're encouraged to avoid leveling as much as possible in order to have an easier time to solve the overarching quest line. If you don't make attempts to slow down your character's progression, you end up with a ridiculous game environment where liches and vampire lords prowl the city streets at night and every farmer's root cellar houses an ancient red dragon with a bunch of iron golem bodyguards...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I've said for years--well, at least to my gaming group--that level increases are an illusion. My AC increases, Monster BAB increases. My BAB increases, Monster AC increases. My skill levels increase, DCs increase. It's all a wash.

That doesn't sound right. The stats on a goblin, ogre, or dragon aren't supposed to change as the PCs get stronger. If an ogre presents a tough challenge when you're level three, it doesn't stay a tough challenge when you're level five; it gets way easier, because your numbers go up while their numbers stay the same.

Or what, do you just stop fighting level 4 green ogres and start fighting level 6 red ogres?

 

[Lylandra]

Well, I'm not a WoW player, but iirc, you're wrong about WoW having 'false leveling'. The game's divided into 'zones' meant for different level ranges. But there's nothing preventing you from visiting zones that aren't appropriate for your level. If your character is level 50 and you enter a zone intended for level 10, all monsters will appear 'grey' to you, indicating you won't get any xp for killing them. If you enter a level 80 zone, all monsters will appear 'purple' to you, indicating the monsters are extremely likely to kill you without taking a sweat.
This isn't much different from your typical D&D (sandbox) game: The areas around the PCs home base will usually be populated by low-level threats, and the farther you travel into the wild, the tougher they get. For 'epic' level threats you journey into the outer planes.

I can give you a bit insight on this. You are basically right. This is how zoning works and it feels usually like progress. Sometimes you could even see a dragon from a nearby high level zone patrolling at the borders of your level 15-20 zone and you get utterly terrified. And yes, you'll generally encounter high level threats (like dragons or big demons or Liches) only in high level zones. Unless you are in a dungeon where one of these creepers can be a mid level boss. NPC enemies can appear everywhere though, so you'll likely encounter orcs or murlocs or furbolg from level 10 to level 110.

What can make this level experience a bit awkward is expansion scaling. Every expansion offers a new threat, so you'll start a bit "smaller" at the beginning of every expansion story, but end much higher at the end. This also means that once you go back "in time" to revisit the old threats, you'll most likely oneshot the Lich King who has been the big bad 4 expansions ago. But that's because he's not really there anymore (as you already defeated him in the past... or so.)

Also, you will get more abilities and greater influence as you progress. Right now, you acquire a legendary artifact at the beginning of the new story and gain new powers as you empower the weapon. And the levels at which you'll get your class abilities change every expansion. Again, this can lead to awkward situations for characters who are neither max level nor starting new (like having some abilities removed from your table only to regain them later).

From a narrative perspective, the player characters "ended" as powerful warriors who were part of elite teams (guilds) in the original game. They were really not on par with the most powerful humanoid NPC out there . The enemies they faced were mostly dragons, undead sergeants of the Lich King or proxies of the Old Gods (some Cthuluesque beings). Then they traveled the planes to fight Illidan's ragtag team who had concquered Outland (some of the more powerful NPC). And they faced a pit lord. And helped out some powerful NPC and their armies in a timey wimey rehash of the demonic Legion Invasion. Then they fought back the Lich King and one weakened Old God, plus his titan watcher wardens, and killed the maddened dragon aspect of magic. Then the apocalypse happened (sort of) when Deathwing, the most powerful (and crazy) dragon aspect returned. The heroes fought his minions and worshippers, rescued one major powerful NPC and killed the aspect in a 2 stage fight. Then Mists happened which resulted basically in a civil war because some bad leadership decisions and a power hungry Warchief. The rest were basically powerful corrupted emotion-beings and one ancient wannabe tyrant who got the powers of the titans.
After that, the player characters really gained a leadership position when they were hurled to an alternative universe version of the orc's planet of the past (yep, it is that ridiculous^^) and had to manage a base of their own. They were promoted commander of the alliance/horde forces and fought the "new horde" threat and their demonic masters, including one of the two demonic leaders. And right now, the power position continues as you became basically the leader of your own class' "coven", working together with the other covens to push back the 3rd demonic invasion of your planet and bring the fight to the demon's home turf to maybe finish them off for ever. Which is something an entire army of light enfused beings has tried to do for millennia. Oh and you found aforementioned artifact along the way.

I've said for years--well, at least to my gaming group--that level increases are an illusion. My AC increases, Monster BAB increases. My BAB increases, Monster AC increases. My skill levels increase, DCs increase. It's all a wash. I've also wondered for years what a game would be like in which you entered a game world as a more or less static character, but the game world contained low "level" and high "level" Monsters. Say, maybe you'd enter the world at the equivalent of 5th level D&D, so there would be orcs and goblins, but also liches and ancient dragons.

But the DC for a given non-opposed task should stay the same? Jumping over a canyon doesn't suddenly bacome harder just because you gained a level. What does increase is the NPC's opposing skill level when they are at the same level of a PC. But then again, seducing a dragon should be harder than seducing a waiter

An organic game world will always include threats that are too hard or too easy for the players. My level 2 PCs wouldn't have dared to attack the ancient red dragon who devastated their city. But they managed to kill him once they came back at level 16. Also, their reputation is now able to intimidate lesser goons who don't want to be killed in a single stroke.

 

[Imaculata]

It would be nice to see a system where you branch out further and further "sideways" rather than upwards. Imagine a D&D level system where you only gain HD every three levels (forex) and attack bonuses and damage don't really change very much. Small, incremental increases once in a while.

An interesting idea, but I think this would also undermine the feeling of a power curve, which many players are fond of in RPG's. Then again, it would be interesting if the power curve is represented by skill, rather than just raw numbers. Guild Wars 1 achieved this to some degree, where the players were only as strong as the skill combinations they made with their limited bar of 8 skills, and the way they used those skills. The sideways progression in this case, is all about obtaining more powers that you can mix and match.

It would be interesting for a game like D&D to not have certain level spells become completely useless after a particular level this way. Just an increasing pool of options to mix and match, and the players are only as strong as they are resourceful.