TOPIC: Power Creep Discussion

Brad Mortensen wrote: @Endgame - before the literal reprint of +1 Mighty Longbow, there was tokendb.com/token/2-keen-longbow/ and its transmutation path, which was supposed to fill the need for an awesome ranged alternative. Some people still weren’t satisfied until the literal reprint.

But you’re right, none of the replacements are exact reprints. There are trade-offs. But that’s kind of the point. There should be decisions to make between equally strong alternatives instead of just reprinting the same old stuff over and over.

Agree - variations are important, but I also think reprints are also important. Personally, having 5 reprints per year of tokens that are 5+ years old would be a good goal to shoot for. It leaves 15(!) tokens that are brand new, but also keeps some of the older staples accessible and those tokens never creep power.

Brad Mortensen wrote: Monks should prefer Brute over Mithral. One point of AC is IMO totally irrelevant, and they have evasion so -1REF isn’t that big a deal either.

If I'm a monk playing with the moonhide robe+, I'd hate to equip something that strips some of the dex bonus I paid to add. I might be strange that way though.

My points were:

1. You can’t achieve meaningful build variations if you keep reprinting staples. You can’t eat your cake and have it, too. You must pick one.

2. A two-fisted melee class should value STR above any and all other stats. For them, +1 STR is kind of like a +2 for anyone else.

Brad Mortensen wrote: My points were:

1. You can’t achieve meaningful build variations if you keep reprinting staples. You can’t eat your cake and have it, too. You must pick one.

You can achieve build variation if you pack the slots with meaningful choices. Gloves of Linked Fury, Mithral Gauntlets, Gloves of the Brute, and Gloves of Weapon Finess all provide very different build tracks to take at the glove slot.

Forcing build variety by not reprinting tokens just means that 1) you can tell where someone "onboarded" to TD by which tokens they have (they didn't have a choice due to unavailability of OOP tokens) 2) you didn't give meaningful choice in the first place, as meaningful choice is not tied to token availablity.

Brad Mortensen wrote: 2. A two-fisted melee class should value STR above any and all other stats. For them, +1 STR is kind of like a +2 for anyone else.

If I were playing monk, I'd want to have both my Str and my Dex high so I could throw 2 shurikens every round to not be out of luck for ranged combat, or I'd get gloves of the flying fist instead of gloves of the brute. Might just be me though.

Seth Murray wrote: Ultimately, I think TEs are fun and rewarding, but would like to see them further democratized so that it's less expensive to get up to, say. 6 pulls.

Hi. A new to the forums person here who just got up to 6 pulls fairly inexpensively, although it took some time/expense. It's possible with:
-Rare TE (crown/cloak/lens; +1)
-Charm of Treasure Boosting (+1, but lots of bits )
-Level benefit (+1)

It'd be nice if one of those options didn't take 5 years at 3 adventures/year. Perhaps a Rare-level item could offer 2 pulls with the no other enhancement restriction? If it goes into the neck "power slot", it would compete with Medallion of Focus for casters and the (hopefully finalized) Amulet of Vigor for melee characters.

Marcques Domask wrote: Perhaps a Rare-level item could offer 2 pulls with the no other enhancement restriction? If it goes into the neck "power slot", it would compete with Medallion of Focus for casters and the (hopefully finalized) Amulet of Vigor for melee characters.

I think this would be a cool token for a future year. I agree that if there was ever to be a 2 treasure chip enhancer at Rare level, it should take the neck slot!

Marcques Domask wrote:

Seth Murray wrote: Ultimately, I think TEs are fun and rewarding, but would like to see them further democratized so that it's less expensive to get up to, say. 6 pulls.

Hi. A new to the forums person here who just got up to 6 pulls fairly inexpensively, although it took some time/expense. It's possible with:
-Rare TE (crown/cloak/lens; +1)
-Charm of Treasure Boosting (+1, but lots of bits )
-Level benefit (+1)

It'd be nice if one of those options didn't take 5 years at 3 adventures/year. Perhaps a Rare-level item could offer 2 pulls with the no other enhancement restriction? If it goes into the neck "power slot", it would compete with Medallion of Focus for casters and the (hopefully finalized) Amulet of Vigor for melee characters.

I also like the two pulls in a power slot idea. My only concern is that at lower rarity levels, you need stats the most, and this encourages players to risk tanking their run for an extra pull. Maybe TEs that stipulate you can't have more than three, or a rare version of the CoGF that does +1, but allows you to break the normal rules and add other TEs if more members of your party have one equipped? For instance, if all 10 had one equipped, you could equip up to two other TEs, even if they said you couldn't have any other TEs? Might be too complicated.

Seth Murray wrote:

Marcques Domask wrote:

Seth Murray wrote: Ultimately, I think TEs are fun and rewarding, but would like to see them further democratized so that it's less expensive to get up to, say. 6 pulls.

Hi. A new to the forums person here who just got up to 6 pulls fairly inexpensively, although it took some time/expense. It's possible with:
-Rare TE (crown/cloak/lens; +1)
-Charm of Treasure Boosting (+1, but lots of bits )
-Level benefit (+1)

It'd be nice if one of those options didn't take 5 years at 3 adventures/year. Perhaps a Rare-level item could offer 2 pulls with the no other enhancement restriction? If it goes into the neck "power slot", it would compete with Medallion of Focus for casters and the (hopefully finalized) Amulet of Vigor for melee characters.

I also like the two pulls in a power slot idea. My only concern is that at lower rarity levels, you need stats the most, and this encourages players to risk tanking their run for an extra pull. Maybe TEs that stipulate you can't have more than three, or a rare version of the CoGF that does +1, but allows you to break the normal rules and add other TEs if more members of your party have one equipped? For instance, if all 10 had one equipped, you could equip up to two other TEs, even if they said you couldn't have any other TEs? Might be too complicated.

With the neck slot, my thought was that all the current Rare TE have some major stat trade offs already:
Cloak of Many Pockets: +1-3 saves, with some other effects
Lenses of Fortune: Focus effect, +1 melee hit/damage (and see invisible), some other effects
Crown of Fortune: Lots of good effects, including full Defender set bonus

So, a neck item that makes you choose between the following wouldn't be out of line:
Caster: Focus effect or recast first-level spells; both have good potential damage/heal increases throughout dungeon
Melee: Assuming Vigor doesn't get nerfed, +1 hit/damage and +5 HP

The CoGF effect sounds complicated and would probably require clarification online. I like the idea of breaking the rules on rare-level enhancers... maybe another 4* transmute TE? Neck slot -> charm: +1 (or 2) treasure, may equip 1 other TE of Rare or lower even if otherwise prohibited. Maybe work in the CoGF progression (1/2/2+1 for 1-5, 6-9, 10)?

Clarification: my comment on old TEs out of evergreen run type was for simplicity sake only (e.g. only past 3 years). I assumed the only reason to do sancationed evergreen (as opposed to player just deciding to do so) was unique reward, scenario, difficulty, or TE number or whatever which would counter balance. (And thanks for the history and MTG analogy.)

As to TEs... I think the rares and the CoTB help pulls for lower level players. It’d just be great if rare TEs only were limited if higher level TEs are equipped (so several rare TEs can be equipped) but I doubt anything can be done that doesn’t hurt the current high end TE market (or just raise the upper limit rather than creating a ramp). Personally I just bit the bullet for nuggets as I hope they should retain value.

Question - why did the CoA receipe consume all of the other TEs? Seems like it was a no brainer to upgrade which lessened the TE downside (namely a ring, neck, charm slot used up for max treasure).

And... i’d love to see a CoA 4th receipe, but I get the disruption to the market.

A lot of people are opposed to adding any more sanctioned formats that add any rewards beyond what are already given out. It is not IMO in TD’s interest to bribe players to play in any particular ways. If people want to do something different because they are bored, want a challenge, or for any other reason, then they should. I think TD has enough on its plate.

Lequinian wrote: Question - why did the CoA receipe consume all of the other TEs? Seems like it was a no brainer to upgrade which lessened the TE downside (namely a ring, neck, charm slot used up for max treasure).

CoA combines the effects of the three tokens, so the first recipe literally combined them all. And for 6000gp a lot of people agreed, it was a no-brained.

But I have two more I could make, and I don’t have the heart to mulch some of the few remaining HoPs when they’re only getting rarer. It feels like shooting the last dodo to stuff it and put it in a museum. But I look at things kind of weird.

Speaking of which, I agree on a fourth recipe. I have a thing about endless loot escalation, so a new CoA recipe might stem the tide and keep the max loot in the twenties. I’m not holding out any hopes.

Brad Mortensen wrote: A lot of people are opposed to adding any more sanctioned formats that add any rewards beyond what are already given out. It is not IMO in TD’s interest to bribe players to play in any particular ways. If people want to do something different because they are bored, want a challenge, or for any other reason, then they should. I think TD has enough on its plate.

I disagree with this line of thinking. That's simply not human nature. People will take the easiest path possible, and if they find that their $60+ price of admission is "boring", they'll just sell off their tokens and quit. Case in point, we've barely got Epic difficulty out of the gate and people are already talking about Epic+. At some point, there will be 10 levels of difficulty, which also puts a lot on TD's plate in terms of balancing. And at some point (Hell+ difficulty with a +10 sword), people will consider the game ridiculous and just move on.

As another example, if you went to an escape room, selected the most difficult room and paid $40 for an hour of escape time and had it beat in 5 minutes, would you do it again next weekend and do it with one hand tied behind your back? No, you'd find a different escape room, or just conclude that this is a boring activity and find something else to spend your money on.

Also, to be fair, you're not bribing people to play limited, you're punishing people for playing non-limited. Not sure if that matters to what you're saying, but I'm not advocating flooding the market with treasure tokens like that artifact year. And, in my opinion, it is absolutely in TD's interest to get players to switch to a cycling format for the reasons mentioned above. I'd say just offer it alongside the other mode, but, as I said before, nobody is going to do that willingly. I admit that there are sealed runs currently, but those are a very, very small portion of the community and only for one or two of their runs per year, and even quite a few of those have gone to greedy sealed runs so they don't miss out on pulls. In fact, I think sealed runs are a bad sign for TD, as it means the game and tokens as they stand are not satisfying a certain percentage of the hardcore player base.