Power Creep - The Trouble with Expansions and Time - Extra Credits
Why Game Development Stack Exchange recommends it
Game Development Stack Exchange answerers link it when discussing power creep in card games and in-game economies, as a clear explanation of the problem and its commercial trade-offs.
Recommended by 0 people across 0 different months, 2016 to 2018.
What it is
An Extra Credits episode explaining power creep, where new game content gets steadily stronger than old content, and why it becomes economically and design-wise unsustainable if not planned for upfront. It covers expansions, time, and the artificial limits designers can use. Presented in the channel's usual animated explainer style.
What people said
Cites starikcetin · 2016-07 · Game Development Stack Exchange · on “Card game design, converting cards back into gold”
In game economy management, you should be looking for to "destroy" currencies. Because if your destroy rate falls behind the rate players earn currency (which is called inflation in the real world), at some point your players will be distinctively seperated like "OP players" and "new players". (Check this video of Extra Credits [LINK] to find more about inflation in games.) That is where things start to fall apart, because you then would have only three options to keep your game alive: Power-creep: [this video] Adding new content constantly that is more powerful than previous ones, rendering previous content useless. This will force all players to spend their currencies to keep being "OP". Allowi
Cites Philipp · 2017-09 · Game Development Stack Exchange · on “How to make old cards still usable to players in CCG games?”
From a commercial point of view, a bit of power creep can actually be good. It forces your players to buy the new cards when you release an update in order to stay competitive. But when you exploit this too much, players will notice, call you out on your obvious cash-grabbing and abandon your game. So you need to be careful to not become too greedy here. Methods you can use to prevent power creep: Make sure your game mechanics have the proper tools to allow you to balance cards against each other. In the idealized case, every single card you release and will ever release in the future would be equally good. Not equally good in every possible situation, but all cards should have a justificati
Cites Theraot · 2018-03 · Game Development Stack Exchange · on “Level playing field: Punish the better player or enhance the worse player?”
Match making If you can keep updated skill metrics on the players, then you are able to create a system that can peer people of similar skill. Granted, this could lead to starvation (and by that I mean players unable to play because there is no match availed) and will not fly on couch gaming. I believe this will not solve your particular case, so I will not elaborate any futher. Handicaps I would complain on any handicap system based on the skill of the players. I believe Bálint expressed the issue better than I could . With that said, handicaps in either direction are viable if they are on player volition. That is, if the players go to a menu where they select what handicap they want and th