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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7724964" data-attributes="member: 4937">We are getting hung up on terminology, and I will attempt to explain why.&nbsp;&nbsp; I would like to apply the term &quot;power creep&quot; in a negative manner to refer to something specific.&nbsp;&nbsp; But if we apply the term &quot;power creep&quot; as you here define it, as something that applies to individual elements only, then it applies to both acts of balancing and unbalancing our content, or to acts which increase or reduce gameplay.&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus I define power creep differently.&nbsp; &quot;Power creep&quot; only applies to situations where an existing balanced and viable choice is made slightly better through some process.&nbsp; Very often you see power creep arrive in the form of &quot;wish lists&quot; where designers who wish to introduce new content cram in all the things that they wish something could do because they have a very idealized notion of the thing being designed.&nbsp; This can happen even when the intention is to add flavor, resulting in a class that has extra abilities to capture flavor compared to a generic class that had no specific abilities.&nbsp;&nbsp; Another example is power creep as a form of marketing, where the power curve is crept forward specifically to excite power gamers and encourage them to buy the new content.&nbsp;&nbsp; In both cases, gameplay tends to suffer as a result.&nbsp;&nbsp; 3.5 edition in particular can be considered one long unending case of power creep specifically to help market the content.&nbsp; You are going to cite Bo9S and you don't imagine that you are going to spark controversy.&nbsp;&nbsp; Even though I know where you are coming from here, the problem with Bo9S is that example is so complex that it's impossible to address all the factors that could influence the perception of power creep.&nbsp; Some factors you have to consider is that the fighter really was underpowered to the extent of being unable to fulfill even its stated role in the game.&nbsp; Another issue is that by the time Bo9S came along, they'd introduced so much unbalanced content that many 3.5 advocates and the publishers themselves seem to have adopted an approach of, &quot;Since everything is broken, then nothing is.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; After all, regardless of how unbalancing something might be, you could also cite some other equally or even more unbalancing combination.&nbsp;&nbsp; Finally, these is the question of whether Bo9S was too radical in what it provided, so that it was overpowered against some reference standard of 'good balance' (whatever that may be) and could not justify itself as a merely better fighter, but actually better than the vast majority of existing options (short of an optimized tier 1 full caster).&nbsp;&nbsp; The problem with this definition is that there are many ways balance of individual elements might change, that we wouldn't normally call power creep.&nbsp; We'd just call it balancing the game.&nbsp;&nbsp; Think for example on tweaking the balance of a game during beta testing.&nbsp; If some class was performing subpar, we wouldn't think of it as 'power creep' to alter the class to make it more formidable or attractive to play.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's only power creep as the term is normally used if after having done so, we did something that increased the power of the same class yet again.&nbsp;&nbsp; This suggests that power creep is actually tied to the result of changing the meta in some way, and changing the overall balance of the game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7724964, member: 4937"] We are getting hung up on terminology, and I will attempt to explain why. I would like to apply the term "power creep" in a negative manner to refer to something specific. But if we apply the term "power creep" as you here define it, as something that applies to individual elements only, then it applies to both acts of balancing and unbalancing our content, or to acts which increase or reduce gameplay. Thus I define power creep differently. "Power creep" only applies to situations where an existing balanced and viable choice is made slightly better through some process. Very often you see power creep arrive in the form of "wish lists" where designers who wish to introduce new content cram in all the things that they wish something could do because they have a very idealized notion of the thing being designed. This can happen even when the intention is to add flavor, resulting in a class that has extra abilities to capture flavor compared to a generic class that had no specific abilities. Another example is power creep as a form of marketing, where the power curve is crept forward specifically to excite power gamers and encourage them to buy the new content. In both cases, gameplay tends to suffer as a result. 3.5 edition in particular can be considered one long unending case of power creep specifically to help market the content. You are going to cite Bo9S and you don't imagine that you are going to spark controversy. Even though I know where you are coming from here, the problem with Bo9S is that example is so complex that it's impossible to address all the factors that could influence the perception of power creep. Some factors you have to consider is that the fighter really was underpowered to the extent of being unable to fulfill even its stated role in the game. Another issue is that by the time Bo9S came along, they'd introduced so much unbalanced content that many 3.5 advocates and the publishers themselves seem to have adopted an approach of, "Since everything is broken, then nothing is." After all, regardless of how unbalancing something might be, you could also cite some other equally or even more unbalancing combination. Finally, these is the question of whether Bo9S was too radical in what it provided, so that it was overpowered against some reference standard of 'good balance' (whatever that may be) and could not justify itself as a merely better fighter, but actually better than the vast majority of existing options (short of an optimized tier 1 full caster). The problem with this definition is that there are many ways balance of individual elements might change, that we wouldn't normally call power creep. We'd just call it balancing the game. Think for example on tweaking the balance of a game during beta testing. If some class was performing subpar, we wouldn't think of it as 'power creep' to alter the class to make it more formidable or attractive to play. It's only power creep as the term is normally used if after having done so, we did something that increased the power of the same class yet again. This suggests that power creep is actually tied to the result of changing the meta in some way, and changing the overall balance of the game. [/QUOTE]

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