Power Creep video

I'm sure you and I can go into a long discussion about modern Magic, it's game balance, interactivity, it's power creep (or lack of) but this isn't the place to do so per forum rules. I don't want to go off on a long rant about another game. But in terms of the subject of power creep, look at the current block of cards, then go back another block, and then another, and another, and what I see is steady increase in power as you move forward to today. Magic is too big to look at in terms of set to set, you have to look at it in terms of block to block or year to year.

I think the second paragraph contradicts the first one somewhat, at least by the definitions of power creep employed by the video. A critical symptom of power creep is not just added power, if that were the case then every time the devs add anything of value power-wise that would automatically be power creep. Its that the added power moots prior power. Level shifts are powerful, and they can be essential to complete high difficulty trials, but they don't invalidate older builds because the incarnate system is orthogonal to the invention system. You might have to *stack* incarnate powers onto your ultra expensive high-powered build, but you don't generally *throw away* your ultra expensive high-powered build in lieu of incarnate power.

That acts to reduce the negative effects of adding hierarchical power on top of the invention system. The incarnate system may have other issues separate from that, but one issue it does not have is that it does not make older builds obsolete.

The notion that my super expensive invention build that could take on the world no longer than cruise through everything with the introduction of incarnate class difficulty isn't really a power creep issue: its the more general issue of the MMO treadmill: no matter what you have, the devs will always add more, and you'll never have it all or be able to do it all without continuing to accumulate more power to deal with advancing threats.

In some MMOs, the two issues are inextricably linked, because there is no "more" you can get: you can only get better, by replacing what you have with something else. In City of Heroes, we have four largely independent ways to improve power: with actual powers, with slotting, with different kinds of enhancements particularly inventions, and with incarnate powers. Since each adds to the previous ones without replacing them, it gives us a hedge against the treadmill amplifying power creep. That's almost certainly why the incarnate system was created in the first place, and why I conjectured it was created. To extend without replacing.

That doesn't mean we've been immune to power creep. The invention system itself was a form of power creep, at least when it was introduced. It mooted older slotting, and even heavily devalued the previously best gear in the game: Hamidon enhancements. Introducing purples was also a form of power creep of sorts, as are the ATIOs and the store-bought attuned inventions. Fortunately, the level of power creep we've had in the game since launch has been fairly low in my opinion, or at least its impact has been relatively low, relative to other games. A person with a non-ED compliant SO build from launch could still play most of the content in this game without an overwhelming penalty, and actually most players still level up alts in this game with a level of power comparable to what we had in Issue 1, all the way up to the level cap. That suggests power creep's deleterious effects have been fairly low.

I can assure you, I am familiar with the entirety of Magic's history, and more than capable of making judgments based on the span of multiple blocks. I just don't agree that Magic suffers from power creep. I think they make fewer obviously terrible and worthless cards these days, but they also manage to produce far fewer broken, overpowered cards that warp entire tournament formats. Basically, most of the cards produced these days are at least playable, and most are actually good in the right situations, as opposed to the more "Jekyl and Hyde" feeling older sets, which were full of total garbage that hid the occasional game-breaking bomb.

I don't see that as power creep, for the same reason Arcanaville doesn't see the Incarnate system as power creep: it didn't obsolete anything. The most powerful and expensive cards in Magic are all still from the first set: Alpha. The majority of the most powerful and dangerous decks in Vintage are based around old cards. Heck, they even created an entirely new tournament format, Modern, just to exclude the broken old cards that made play balance too challenging. Newer sets are better balanced, but for the most part, they merely allow additional options, without making old stuff any less valuable (except in specific cases such as newer creature cards, as I mentioned previously).

I personally think that including an outside example like Magic makes for a more interesting discussion of power creep, but if people want to stick specifically to CoH, I totally understand and will stop.

(Mods feel free to jump in if I get too far off topic.)

I'll first start off by saying I do not believe Magic is a balanced game at the tournament level. In my experience one deck usually dominates for a period of time, then sets rotate out in favor of the most newly printed cards and cycle repeats. I can only recall a few times where there was a diverse field of archetypes in an tournament settings of the past. I remember years by decks Rebels, U/G Madness, Psychatog, Tinker, Astral Slide, Affinity, Faeries, Caw-Blade, Delver. Nothing changes only the deck.

The deck to play.

New mechanics come they often breed new thing not previously done in the past. But Wizards fails to test how they cause non-interactivity, balance issues, or weaken the viablity of older cards. Examples like Storm, Infect, Hexproof, Equipment and Phyrexian mana are examples overpowered abilities that weaken contemporary strategies. Storm...its something players wish Wizards would just dis-invent. It creates non-interactive games where you play a bunch of spells ending with the card with the Storm mechanic...and then the opponent loses. Infect effectively cuts your opponent's starting life total in half where creatures with Infect deal damage in posion counters. Ten poison counters is lethal, a far cry from the poison counter effect from way back in the day dealing one poison counter at a time. Creatures with the Hexproof mechanic make creatures with Shroud mechanic obsolete. Equipment cards are far better than Auras. Phyrexian mana breaks the color pie allowing any deck no matter what color they use, to use cards with Phyrexian mana in their costs. The "best" deck is usually the deck that finds the most synergy with the newest mechanic than the rest of the decks in the field. You see this deck in multiples of the top 8's of tournament reports and they become copied and played by everyone else. This how it goes.

While Wizards does have the power to ban cards deemed too strong for the metagame in an effort to breed diversity, they have taken this act very often in recent memory across several formats not just Standard. You've also mentioned the Modern format. How many cards were banned after the first professional Modern format tournament, hmm? And those broken cards you are alluding to from Alpha were indeed strong, but here's the thing: They did not become broken until years later when the "modern" game developed. The faster, non-interactive games of Type 1/Vintage only developed when cards like Tolarian Academy, Yangmoth's Bargain, Goblin Welder, Oath of Druids, and Tendrils of Agony existed to break those cards you allude to. Cards that were printed years after the ones in Alpha were printed.

This is the part where design fails to breed diversity, and that why I don't believe balance truly exists in the game. But in fairness Wizards cannot truly fix older eternal formats with such large card pools to build from so I can only fault them for Standard, Modern, and Extended (a format that is practically dead).

This does prove however that new cards do make old ones better, not outdating them as you say, but overall Magic being balanced? I disagree. Diversity to me is the better sign of balance. Having options other than, "Play this deck" or "meta against it" don't breed healthy formats. But where does the game fall victim to power creep? Go back to 2008.

For those that do not know, Mythic Rares are rarer than Rares in booster packs. You are guaranteed a Rare in every pack, but Mythics only appear at ratio of 8:1 in booster packs. Many mythic rares are so strong that they defined tournament metagames. While not all Mythics are good or even playable, but some do break the game. They are far stronger than what is or what was legal to play in tournament format settings depending on the format.

Standard used to be and affordable format to play. There were only a few chase rares to get and the average price of a competetive deck for Standard was far less that what they cost today. Not that is game was ever cheap to play, a hundred or two would get you there, nowadays five hundred dollars...easy. A year or two ago, one deck was over a grand. This what Mythic Rares have done to the game. They've elevated the cost to play and inadvertingly raised the price of the normal rares, even commons can cost a dollar each and uncommons can cost over five. Inflation, inflation, inflation as far the eye can see...and it all began to happen when they started making Mythic Rares. Since Magic is a collectible game and thus it is subject to secondary markets...they are very expensive, which makes the packs more valuable. What Wizards did was find a way to generate more cash and inadvertingly inflate the secondary market that surrounds the game increasing the value of the better cards.

This is power creep.

An inability to break into a format and be sucessful due the constraints of money and a lack power in card availibility. I have a full time job, with the normal bills and payments we all face. I could not afford to play Standard if I wanted to. Cards in the Standard and even the Modern format eventually rotate out, reducing the value of most of the cards overtime. Why would I invest in a format where 90% of the cards I invest in lose value, unless the get reprinted (knowledge I wont have until later...) B) The immediate expense. I could just buy the cards I need, but then you are buying power and an advantage over those who cannot afford them or who aren't lucky enough to open them in their packs.

If they had not added a new rarity of cards. This would all be a mute point, then the money factor would not be strong. There wouldn't be such a disparity in power due to the cost/value of the more powerful cards.

The only comparison that I can make between Magic and CoH would be Mythic Rares in Magic and Incarnate Powers in CoH. Compared to CoH, design-wise some of Magic's Mythic Rares are creatures and spells that are at an Incarnate level-like strength. They do absurd things in a game. Give me a deck with the right Mythics against one without and I have a large advantage. It would be similar to running non-incarnate story arcs or missions with them, they just aren't as challenging.

(Example: Griselbrand compared to Yawgmoth's Bargain. Take a broken enchantment that net's you large amounts of card advantage at the cost of your own life points, then, make it a creature, give it wings, lifelink, a 7/7 power and toughness, and that Mythic rare status.)

I will stipulate not all Mythic Rares break the game, just the really good ones. (The one's you see one every tournament report, if you follow Magic)

The video specifically stated the Standard format, which is where I strongly disagree. I don't think there is a single format for Paper Magic (at least that I've played) where Magic is no affected by power creep. Magic's: Duel of the Planeswalkers online card game might have been the better choice to describe a game where power creep isn't a factor.

Yes, the Magic tournament scene is dominated by meta-gaming, but WoTC has stated that their primary goal is to make sure that individual decks do not dominate the format. They don't always succeed, but they do their best. This really has nothing to do with power creep, though. Standard is a rotating format, so only the two most recent blocks are legal for play, which rather eliminates power creep as an issue. Modern is an eternal format, with every block after Mirrodin being legal and no rotation. That format has a very heathy metagame right now, with many viable decks. Currently, Legacy also has a variety of decks to choose from, with no clear winner among them. Many of those Legacy decks have been contenders for over a decade, showing little effect of power creep.

Cards from Alpha have been broken since Alpha was released, it didn't take any newer cards to break them. The entire Power Nine are banned in every format except Vintage, and rightly so. Even the slightly less abusive cards like Sol Ring and the Dual Lands tend to show up in literally every deck that can play them. Then you have other game breakers from early sets, stuff like Mana Drain, Necropotence, and Survival of the Fittest (and that isn't even talking about Urza block). Those cards are just broken, by themselves. You can look as hard as you like, and you will not find recent cards at similar power levels, because WotC has gotten better at their jobs, and doesn't (usually) print stuff like that anymore. Of course they occasionally make mistakes, but they're human and that will happen.

Mythic rares have actually had the effect of lowering the prices of normal rares on the secondary market. According to most of the research I have read, the overall price of a top-tier Standard deck, when adjusted for inflation, really hasn't changed all that much. The difference is that the cost is consolidated more into a smaller set of cards (mythic rares). So rather than buying a bunch of rares for $10-$25 each, you buy a some rares for $5-$10 each, and a few mythics for $25-$50. I agree that mythics cost way too much, but that is the secondary market, which WotC has no control over, and from which they derive no profits. Also, keep in mind that Magic has gotten a LOT more popular over the past 5 years or so, which means that prices for popular cards will be higher.

Overall, though, I don't see any Mythic rares that are more powerful than the broken rares of yesteryear, they're mostly just undercosted creatures. The minority of mythics do tend to show up heavily in Standard play, but that's true for any card that is good, regardless of its rarity. Heck, in Standard right now, there is a top-tier deck based around a common, just because it happens to work particularly well with the strategy.

So...unless Wizards does it's job, Standard might be a healthy format?

No it doesn't. Cards may change, but there is always be chase rares and now mythic rares that cost the most and dominate the format. Then when those cards rotate out, they lose their value in favor of new content. That is power creep according to the definition in the video. A loss of playability in favor of new content.

Modern is dying format that no one plays. It was a last ditch effort from Wizards to create something for the Extended format players who were angry when Wizards destroyed that format with faster rotation cycles. Wizards failed. Now the only viable options are Standard or Legacy. And Legacy is even more broken than Standard. Meanwhile, Vintage is expensive, and barely anyone plays it these days. There is not one single healthy format! Despite whatever the Wizards and anyone who writes about Standard will tell you...one deck...does not...make a healthy format. When more than half the field is Delver, can you honestly say it's a healthy format!?!

So because nothing because nothing matches the power of nine restricted card, in dead format have been printed, there's no power creep in this game? That's your argument?

An argument often posed from people who sell cards a business. I've heard Ben Bleiweiss from StarCityGames make the same point as well as other writer whom he pays to write on his website make the same claim. So I question the source of the argument. But C'mon... 1 and 2 dollar rares are that price, because no one plays them in Standard. And the reason why cards the cost the way they do is because Wizards offers no other legitimate option for constructed play other than Standard!

Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Baneslayer Angel, Griselbrand, Batterskull, Sword of War and Peace, Sword of Feast and Famine, All is Dust, Blightsteel Colossus, Progenitus, Bonfire of the Damned, Huntmaster of the Fells, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Karn Liberated, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Liliana of the Veil, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Mindbreak Trap, Mox Opal, Temporal Mastery, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Vengevine, Wurmcoil Engine, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

All of the these were printed recently. All of which you needed to have an answer for. If you didn't, you lose. Never in history of this game has there been a multitude of cards printed in such a small window of time that these cards shook the formats in which they were played and not just in tournament settings. Power crept into into the basic styles of "Johnny" type Magic players. I can't walk ten feet without running into a 10 year old who asks, "Do you have an Enrakul?" The casual game suffers because of Mythic rares.

I honestly wish it were five years ago, when there wasn't this broken crap running rampant in the game.

Based on my level of knowledge of the game i cannot argue with that.

Minor quibble : There's still some functionally direct interaction. Since the incarnate powers and IOs often act on the same underlying values, the power of either can modify the other.

Take the impossibly oversimplified example of a character with six SOs slotted in each attack power; three damage, one accuracy, one recharge, and one endurance reduction. Slotting a final-tier Support Hybrid could allow them to drop the endurance reduction for recharge reduction, and slotting a Musculature Alpha could let them swap one damage for an additional accuracy.

I realize even this simple example is problematic. Still, I think a look over the build forums will yield several practical cases. I raise this quibble only because

is truthy but not actually true. What you want to say is that unlike ATOs or the Universal Damage set, it doesn't make older enhancements obsolete.

Of course, ATOs and the UDEs(?) are inherently limited to mitigate their power creep-iness.

Some of those second ATO sets they're rolling out look pretty spiffy, wouldn't you say? I can't wait to get one for my Brute.

Five (at least). Skill, Arcana. (ex: placement.) You're such an engineer.