Power Creep. What it is and why it's bad.

Today we will be talking about power creep.

(Very official sounding.) Anyway power creep is a major factor in any ongoing game, and a huge problem many designers face when making games like, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, or Destiny. In my opinion only one of these games got it right. But how and why? In order to answer that let's have a chat with the beast himself.

Say Hi to Power creep.

What? Oh don't him fool you. Oh sure he looks cute and innocent now, but that is how is starts out. When designing updates to a game it can be tempting to just add better gear with better numbers. Or maybe a stronger character, or faster ways to obtain items. But this is one of the worst game decisions you can make. 

POWER CREEP IS EVIL! Just look at him!

Let's say in the base version of your game there is a sword, not just any sword, the best sword in the game. It takes dozens of hours of grinding and leveling to obtain it, but when you do, you feel accomplished. UNTIL the next update rolls out and the weakest weapon you can get in the update is stronger than that sword you worked so hard to get. The player feels cheated, tricked, maybe even insutled. The problem only grows worse if people stop playing the game, then later try to come back and play it again. At this point any gear that they grinded and worked for is outdated and useless, and now they must start again from ground zero. The problem is when a player gets something new and shiny, if it outclasses the old gear even by a little, the player will switch no questions asked. 

Please don't mistake me, ongoing games are great! Constantly putting more work into a game that you know people love is one of the greatest advancements in gaming in my opinion. However it is now becoming a way for companies to make a quick cash grab. And......... 

Wait, are you wearing a monocle now? And a top hat?  How did you afford?... Oh wait was that from.. Har, Har, moving on.

Let's take a look at Destiny.

Destiny had a rocky launch to say the least, the base game shipped with barely any content with the rest of the game chopped up into DLC (Downloadable Content.) which costed more money. However the game revitalized itself about a year later with, "The Taken King." expansion which updated just about everything. Better PvP, more story missions expanding the mythos and world, more weapons, new gear, new classes. Just a whole lot of new. The game was now great! Except for one problem. All of the old gear became useless. Players were too swept up the engaging narrative to notice their old gear being made irrelevant, and having to level up again before being able to take on the bigger challenges. This is a prime example of Power Creep. Bungie came so close to having the perfect answer to their ailing game, but couldn't solve the issue of power creep. They saw the old content as bad and ignored it all together. Which got me thinking about other games with content updates, do all of them do this?

On to World on Warcraft.

The year was 2004, internet was becoming more and more accessible and a game took the attention of the world.

World of Warcraft has arguably been one of the most successful games ever made. While not the first MMO ever made, World of Warcraft delivered on a scale never before executed properly. It brought players together, and formed a tightly knit community. With a staggering amount things to do, vistas to find, and loot to obtain, players were sucked in for hours on end. At it's height World of Warcraft had almost 12.5 millions subscribers playing every month. However it was not to last, while WoW is still massively played, it's numbers of players have steadily dropped over the last few years due to different factors. One of the major reasons is Power Creep. Now on it's sixth expansion WoW, has suffered massive Power Creep over the years mostly due to it's......

Sigh, please go away and let me do my job?.. Anyway with all of the expansions, the focus has been on the new. New loot, new areas, new look, new... well everything. This wouldn't be a problem if the new equipment was handled in a way that made it on a equal power level with the old equipment, but with different attributes. Instead of doing all that work, they simply moved the numbers to be more powerful on the new things. Thus making the old gear useless. If only there was an example of introducing the New without make the old useless.

Finally, League of Legends.

Now, finally a game that flies in the face of Power creep.  

League of Legends was released October 27, 2009, and still has a large player base today. In fact it has the largest player base of any game to date. Why is it still so popular? Well one factor has to due with perfect imbalance, but that's a subject i'm saving a full article for later. League of Legends had five brand new champions released this year. But if their are new characters to play as you may ask.,"Aren't they better than the old ones?" Short answer, no. Every character in the game has a balance of things they can and can't do, thus balancing each other out. And while it's inevitable that some are better than others, considering there are 123 of them. No matter how powerful they are, another character can counter them. Which is the simplicity and beauty of it all. The game has a system of checks and balances build into the framework of the game to even out old and new content, to make sure that the dreaded Power Creep isn't an issue. And while new characters are exciting and bring a breath of fresh air to the game, it's always comforting to go back and play an old favorite that you will always love., thus preventing Power Creep.

Going back and looking at these games, none of them are actually bad games. They just suffer from the same system that has been holding them back, with not a lot people truly knowing why they felt sad or left out when a new update was rolled out. But now that you know just what Power Creep is, start speaking up about it. Tell your friends, impress them with your new found knowledge. The point of this article is not to disparage against Wow, or Destiny, but rather to shed light on some of the flaws in the systems so that people can recognize Power Creep and trend away from games that use it to keep players invested. It's a terrible practice, and only us the consumers can let companies know that we don't want it. So if you see and online game that deals with the issue and has a balanced environment for everyone, show them some love and give them some money. No I'm not crazy nor was I payed to say that. As consumers money is the most powerful tool we have at our disposal, and who knows? Maybe if we start putting money away from the Power Creep companies will listen.

Thanks for your time, and I hoped you learned something!