What is POWER CREEP? (And How to AVOID IT!) | Game Design

this video was sponsored by legacy's allure a fantasy war game in need of your playtesting help to start its power levels off right thanks to keith and stay tuned for how you can get involved okay next video last one didn't do too well really need a good one this time next youtube game design video easy peasy i do this all the time i am out of ideas oh no oh no no no no no i can't be out of ideas if i'm out of ideas all this work goes down the toilet the grind i've been on raising the channel up is over the community i've been building dies and all those horrid voices in my head that tell me i'm not good enough are to be right and i can't no comment oh yeah let's talk about power creep most players and designers have heard the term power creep it's the boogie man the monster under the bed that can destroy an unsuspecting game if it isn't accounted for but what it is why it happens and how to avoid it are often less discussed we're going to clear up any misconceptions about what power creep is and chat about how we can avoid it today on draw 5 move 5. [Music] hey everyone and welcome to the table my name is gabe and this is draw five move five the show we draw connections between the mechanics behind our favorite games it is not lost on me the irony of a yu-gi-oh player running a game design channel yu-gi-oh is frankly a hot mess it's not especially well balanced and though i adore it it isn't always the best example for game design because of how different it is from other games how often it completely breaks standard design convention and makes mistakes that you figure konami would have a handle on by now many people call this game too overpowered and say that power crepe has completely ruined it to that i say you are mostly right i don't think the game is ruined it has a specific and dedicated audience that enjoys it for the monstrosity it is today but it is a great example of how power creep can drastically affect how a game plays and who makes up its audience so today we're going to discuss what power creep is why it occurs and ways to avoid it let's be candid you like new things i like new things and developers know that we all like new things to keep the game from getting stale then the most logical solution is to give us new things if done well this can draw in new players incentivize old ones to return and get current players to keep enjoying the game it's a dream effects a flawless perfect solution that is if you ignore power creep power creep is the concept that over time new content in a game will be more powerful than the previous content as power steadily increases old material becomes irrelevant and the game can irrevocably change as yugi's rather dramatic and unstable mutations over the years have shown in order to make new fun stuff actually new and fun rather than just a reskin of another game piece designers will tweak them to make them functionally different increasing or decreasing stats changing costs providing new abilities and so on all of these alterations however run the risk of taking a game piece off curve and inciting power creep every game has something called a power curve each piece has a cost and a respective power and the average of those two elements can be plotted on a curve like so things that require minimal cost to play generally fall at the bottom of the curve with low power while pieces with a greater cost receive more powerful stats and effects looking at early yugioh for example monsters like urbi with his fast feet and skull red bird with its knife starring wings oligie was weird guys had the highest power for a low cost to play in legend of blue eyes the game's first set the release of the yugi and kaipa starter decks a few weeks later immediately saw attackers at the same cost but with a higher power legend the mystical meaning of a genie and his fellow buffed out buffoons were significantly off curve or stronger than their cost should allow while powerful pieces like these are cool they also present a game design problem why should the player use the factually worse pieces they already have when these new ones are better in every case this is where power creep comes from to get players using other game pieces again the designers either need to reduce the power of the new pieces through errata or countering them or they need to release more content with similar power and cost the latter is often the go-to answer and the resulting mass of high power low cost game pieces encroaches on what makes the higher cost pieces special why spend an extra card to play succubus knight other than the multi-armed goth queen aesthetic when legend can tire in a knot without the added cost as a result the same process we saw with the low-cost cards ripples up the power curve and stronger high-cost cards like summon skull are created to ensure the pieces in more costly slots are worth playing eventually a full cycle is completed correcting the shape of the power curve while the curves shape is back to normal the baseline has irrevocably changed what players perceive as good fine and bad is now different cards like skull red bird and herbie which were good before are now just fine you might play them if you want more of the 9 or 10 attackers in your deck but that's about it sorry irby your fast feet don't cut it anymore bud the cards that were fine like celtic guardian and with the phantom are now bad and the cards that were bad rarely have ever played before basic insect and company can buzz off they're not worth discussing yu-gi-oh has done a few things to try and correct this but for the large part it kind of embraces power creep for better or worse nowadays every card has several effects and most either boost consistency by finding other cards or interact with the opponent to reduce their plays and pave a path to victory i wonder if the people who designed irb ever dreamed they'd see a monster like soul eating overraptor fast feet got nothing on gross teeth now that we have a good grasp of what power creep is and how it occurs is there any way to mitigate or avoid its effects thankfully yes the most effective method of avoiding power creep is not to make any new content for a game ever simple thank you so much for watching you have my humble and eternal great okay okay i'm kidding mostly the idea of expansion packs and supplemental material didn't start until the 1970s with tabletop rpgs like dungeons and dragons introducing additional books for players and game masters for a very long time games didn't have supplemental material of any kind and plenty still don't introduce additional material to drive interest for example chess is one of the oldest best known and most played games in the world yet since the modern version of the game took shape in the 1800s it hasn't introduced any new pieces no archers that can attack from a distance but the game is just as fun some rules variants have arisen but none as popular as the standard version oh and if you do enjoy chess but one version with more options and cool fantasy theming look no further than today's sponsor legacies allure which is a card-based war game with no randomness you'll select what units you want to accompany your hero on the battlefield and fight for control of the map's center the basic gameplay loop is clean and simple just like in chess and the card interactions and variable setup provide tremendous depth and replayability i've played a few games with the lead designer keith rice and it's honestly been a blast reminds me of my olden days teaching chefs at summer camp with a much improved level of depth and far more orcs keith needs clever play testers to try and break the game's basic factions and he is running tournaments with prizing all you need to do to help out is have a copy of tabletop simulator on your computer and follow the link in the description to join the legacies of lore discord community i hope to see you there now if you actually do want to introduce new pieces to a game and still avoid power creeping out your old content there are still quite a few options at your disposal the first is something we mentioned a bit earlier providing counters if powerful elements get introduced to the game they're too strong for their cost introducing pieces that punish or negate their strengths can bring them back in line yu-gi-oh has been doing this a lot over the years especially since they hit a critical mass of hand traps in 2017. these cards are specifically designed to negate or interact with the opponent's plays even if you have no cards on your own field creating counters is a very precise balancing act because by their inclusion in a game the next new content may be designed to overcome them thus accelerating power creep honestly i think that all of the hand traps may have had that effect in yu-gi-oh most meta decks in this day and age are able to assemble a competent board through two interactions of this kind something they weren't able to do when hand traps were on the rise second designers can artificially cut off pushed content like amputating a bad limb this can be done through a ban list which is yugioh's bread and butter disposal bin for cards that were always a bad idea or by creating multiple formats with different restrictions to the cards available magic to gathering pokemon and hearthstone do this with their standard formats only allowing a certain amount of the most recent sets to be played in tournaments and allow much more of their cards and history to be usable in another format such as modern expanded and wild respectively this allows problematic game pieces to cycle out of the tournament heavy formats while still being legal to play in other ways keeping the power level of the highest competitive play manageable and allowing a high powered environment with more pieces to exist for those who want it the third and final method is to use incomparables it's a lot easier for power creep to occur when the only thing that's changed on a new piece is number if it's higher it's better end of story by giving different pieces mechanically diverse tool sets as long as none are strictly and clearly more powerful than the others players can discuss the pros and cons of each to their heart's content without any of them ever really causing power creep in magic gathering doomscar and descend upon the sinful both serve similar functions of removing all creatures from the board but go about it a little differently one destroys one exiles and each has an additional upside there are reasons to consider one over the other in a given deck if both are playable choices similarly in yu-gi-oh cards like pot of extravagance and pile of prosperity both allow the player to draw cards but the way each does so is different as are the costs of doing so one offers more cards but they're random the other offers a single card but it's the most useful one from the top few these incomparables are powerful but not overly so and it's a calculated choice whether to include these cards based on which options best fit your needs rather than having to include them because of how much better they are than other game pieces for the same cost and comparables also have the benefit of being combinable to solve problems presented when power crept pieces rear their ugly heads having multiple kinds of creature removal can deal with a tricky board state and using a draw card can find your answers to specific situations faster power creep is a lot like entropy it's always there slowly influencing a game over time it's frankly impossible outrun but when you know what you're fighting it's a lot easier to avoid it to plan around it with a solid understanding that power creep comes from individually overpowered content rippling outward and affecting a game's power curve we can craft measures like counters ban lists alternative formats and then comparables to put this content in check before it starts pumping the gas you're in the driver's seat and your game's power and speed are entirely under your control as long as you keep an eye on power creep in the rear view mirror thank you so much for watching you have my humble and eternal gratitude what did you think of the conversation did this exploration of power creeps solidify what it is and how it occurs are there any preventative measures i haven't covered and what games do you think keep power creep in check well or have managed to get a power creep issue back under control i'd love to hear your thoughts so let's keep this discussion rolling down in the comments if you enjoyed the conversation subscribe we're around 800 subs at the time of recording and i would love to hit 1k by the channel's anniversary in may if you guys can help me make that happen i'd really appreciate it especially if you enjoyed the content and you haven't subbed yet unfortunately i do have to take the rest of april off to work on a few sound design projects so the next video will be up on june 7th in the meantime i'm curious what topics everyone here wants to discuss this video was actually a suggestion by lost geass gaming as you saw in the intro skit anyway dingling that notification bell so you never miss an update i'm putting out new videos and games and gaming mechanics on the first monday of each month and dropping a like lets me know that you want to see more you can follow the channel on twitter and facebook at draw5move5 it's the best way to find any important announcements get hyped for new videos and see any other useful game design content i've come across my name is gabe this is draw 5 move 5. until next time go have a good game [Music] you

Channel: Draw 5 Move 5

Views: 22,178

Keywords: what is power creep? (and how to avoid it!), what is and how to avoid power creep, trading card game design for beginners, draw 5 move 5, trading card game design, game design for beginners, learning game design, yugioh trading card game, how to make a trading card game, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon trading card game, How to Avoid power creep, Legacys Allure, planning ahead in game design, souleating oviraptor, TCG game design, Dungeons & Dragons, Common game design issues

Id: F-bzVV7st2g

Length: 13min 43sec (823 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021