In collectible games, powercreep is where newer sets make the older ones obsolete.

There's a myriad of reasons of why it happens, but unfortunately, the biggest reason is money. The companies want people to buy the latest sets, and if most of the stuff in set 1 can beat the stuff in set 2, why would people buy set 2?

Eventually though, you hit a wall where everything tends to get completely over powered and the game can't progress any further without a massive reboot (Decipher's Star Trek and Star Wars CCGs come to mind here as do the shows Dragonball Z and Gurren Lagann). Some games like Magic and Pokemon get around this with set rotations, but that opens up another set of problems.

Still, power creep can be a good thing, especially when done to help balance things out. For SWM, the best example would be the Jedi Weapons Master. WotC had forgot to recost him as he was originally going to be a Unique, so when he released, he was so undercosted that he was pretty much the best melee unit in the game. However, this became a good thing as it wound up bringing melee units back into the game. Before the JWM, melee units typically had a hard time fighting as they couldn't withstand the barrage of blaster fire trying to get across the board and thus tended to be primarily used as meatshields. After the JWM, all future melee units had to be priced and stated compared to the JWM. This in turn, helped close the massive gap in power between melee and non-melee units.

Ah, ok, see what you mean. Good point, I concede the issue.

am I the only one who has no idea what you mean by power creep?

You have to remember, the Rebels were THE top faction for years, so obviously they weren't going to be getting a lot of help.

I can see how it may have happened. The powerpieces became the main standard, even on pieces not necessarily for top tier play. I think part of it is due to a large, large focus on "building to the meta" in design. But on the other hand, how much critique would happen if pieces were not powerful enough. I think the OR pieces in V3 got plenty of flack, as well as the Wookiee Jedi. Look at Masters of the Force. How well was that set recieved, and how many power pieces are in that set?

In the end, I don't think the game is ruined. A lot of WOTC pieces are still playable, especially after V4 and V5. And yes, there has not been nearly a focus on bringing old pieces out of the bin of darkness as I would like in previous sets. And hopefully, a few of my ideas aren't rejected, just because they aren't complete yet.

you are confusing the concentration of competitive pieces with power creep.

There has been a shift in design philosophy with the vsets. WotC was a buisness that wanted to make money off a collectable game. In order to do that they release a lot of crap with good commons that you need a lot of, good uncommons that you need a lot of (uggies, mice, r7s etc) and hidden rares and gems that you have to buy a lot of packs to get.
The vsets are not constrained to a money making model. the design is more about picking desired pieces and creating/redoing a useful piece that will see play.

The important phrase is "will see play". there is a huge dearth of strength between the crap that WotC produced and playable/competitive pieces. Basically, many of WotC pieces were just unusable (ever use a sith enforcer?) but with Vsets that trend has been avoided. So pieces are designed as t2.5 and up. When you look at t2.5 from WotC days you see a lot of twin and a lot of power but compared to the number of other pieces WotC produced they are relatively low.

With the Vsets the number of playable pieces has shot up but very rarely have they exceeded the strength of the BEST figs that WotC made. That is the distinction.

I define Powercreep as the best pieces getting better for cost essentially moving the power ceiling up.

Whereas I'm not so naive as to state that this hasn't happened in the Vsets, it has happened a lot less than you suggest above.





This is a good point. Great factions have gotten pieces that have clearly elevated their game and this IS an indication of power creep. The original intent of vsets was to better the weak factions but it basically only lasted for DotF.
However, its still difficult to highlight the pieces that have done this without looking at the competitive sphere. There are certain figures that have added presidents to the game.

Bastilla, Kuhn ghost and Atris introduced force abilities. AOE force powers with duration effects. Bastilla and Kuhn gets a bit of a pass because its sith and OR but Atris is fringe and that matters.
Lord Kaan introduced the 1st indefensible force power. A small but resonating introduction.
SI maul increased the individual power ceiling no piece could do more than 120 on its own without synergy. Maul increased this.
Crit Windu put triple damage crits and flurry together with the lowest crit chance of any figure. Any 2 combinations of these would have been a president, the 3 together is an undeniable increasing of power limits.
Naboo Troopers in BoT introduced the lowest costing 30hp shooter. 30 hp for 7 points. The nearest to this was the probe droid with a large difference in stats for one point more (it also a droid and large).

However, none of these precedents have dominated the game even if Mace did win gen con but it is up to the designers to be aware of the limits and try and keep them in check.

There is balance creep, and then there is resetting the bar. It is very similar, and very tough to predict. When a piece is designed, it will be compared to a piece to determine how good it is. It's one thing to keep the majority of things within the lines of the 1.5 stuff. It's another to keep comparing to the power pieces. Should all Imperial Melee pieces be comparable or better than Jerec or Carnor Jax? Or is it better to aim along the lines of Kir Kanos or Antares Draco?

Yes, there should be key pieces that break the boundries of power. And should certain individual pieces be allowed to push the boundries further? It is always something to be aware of. Designers will always have a little voice in the back of their head urging them to make a piece that sees play.

I'm sure some adjusting needs to be made, as a larger percentage of figures are made playable per set, thus affecting what is played faster.

See, the Yammosk is completely in line with Mas Amedda. I'm not entirely sure what the major issues are, since the CE stealing is rather situational. The Vong abilities are something to keep an eye on, sure. But most of those came from WOTC pieces.

Bastilla is another situation. I'm fine with her as is, but I think she could've been better. I think there is enough antecodal evidence to say she was a detriment to less casual stuff. Not overpowered or broken, but it took away some of the fun of lesser builds. That is honestly something that cannot be predicted with playtests.

Just looking at the results is really tough. Just the squads don't tell the whole story.

Take 05. Do you know what was played? Geonosis Arena. It was a very nasty set up. R2 towing Boba, shooting for a quick kill, then locking doors. You could never get to Boba. Similar to 07-08. There were some very shooter friendly maps available, and shooters tended to be Rebels.

I think the designers have done well so far in keeping the Old Republic faction in check with the damage boost given by Bastilla. No peices really stand out to me as broken. Good yes, broken no. People complain a lot about Atton Jaq Rand and say he's broken. He's not. Really good? Yes. And he should be for 36pts. Sith are a different beast. Now with Darth Wrylock in this next set, Darth Bandon's CE now is everywhere and if you though Lord Kaan running up to your beatstick and doing 60 dmg was bad, wait till you see him do 80 dmg, and then blow up for at least 40 dmg to 80 dmg more. Revan was definitively a necessary piece to have for the faction, and so is Bandon and Wrylock. It is just that they work so extremely well with balance creep pieces made that those peices that were intended to balance the faction become abusive to an extraordinary degree. Who honestly likes to go against Lord Kaan? He is a NPE in a nutshell.

Edit: I mistakenly had Revan, Bandon and Wrylock written as unessesary. They are completely nessesary. That was a typo on my part. I had to type fast since I was on my 15 minute break at work.

Revan is the piece that makes the sith competitive, i don't see how you can say he was unnecessary.