TOPIC: Build Diversity

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Josh EC wrote: This blog post about Yu-Gi-Oh vs magic and the different philosophies in the two systems about card retirements reminds me of this discussion: www.d20alameda.com/2018/06/19/so-why-is-yugioh-banned-at-d20-games-anway/ . What does a reprint really mean? The main premise is that it is necessary to retire things to really have a stable system.

Also, I love the backstory token idea.

Chess is >500 years old, and has not retired anything in that time, and is pretty stable. Just staying

The article is contemplating the dynamics of a collectible game system which release many new game pieces and rules on a regular basis.

It's not saying you have to obsolete pieces in hopscotch.

Exercise for the reader: is TD closer to chess or Magic in terms of the principles that may apply?

Fantasy based escape room feels closer to chess. Tokens feel more like magic. Without tokens, escape room still works. Not so much the other way around.

Possibly more expansive response later when not posting from my phone, but short version is that there is no reason to turn TD into the spend - creep - treadmill.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: You’re thinking in a vacuum.

Say our builds are identical, except for hands and one Ioun Stone.

I have Brute and use a Quicksilver Cube to make up for the lost DEX
Say you have Mithral and an Onyx Sphere to get to an odd STR.

Different tokens, but we both end up at +5 STR. What’s diverse about that?

(Half-baked example) Now let’s say we create a new path, beyond “bash them with brute strength.” Someone suggested a finesse weapon awhile back. DEX bonus to hit and damage, but in melee. First, it would need some balance, like no torso armor or shield (too restrictive for fencing) and new weapons like rapiers (maybe those have the armor restriction baked into them), and more ways to get DEX bonuses. People might ask for a Gloves of Dexterity reprint instead of Mithral Gauntlets... and we don’t have to change a thing on the character cards.

That’s what I mean by diversity.

This is still just tweaking +hit / + damage/ +AC / +Saves.

So my Fighter uses a Dex based Rapier and ends up at +20 hit and +25 damage.
Alternatively, my Fighter uses a conventional STR approach to obtain the same +20 hit and +25 damage.

In either case we landed on the same values, and we used different tokens to get there. Whether its gloves of dexterity with a Rapier, or Mithral Gauntlets with an Axe, or a Mace + Gloves of Glory to insert a + damage ring.

As long as the tokens are different, its variety, even if we land at the same values.

I agree, if all you do is replace one stat for another it doesn’t do much. You can’t stop there.

Fencing is different from bashing. You can add more things to round it out and make it different, like:

Charm of Disarm - on 19+, opponent loses one attack next round

Rapier of Bleeding - a finesse version of Rapier of Piercing

This was just an example on how you can start a new build path, and how reprinting current BiS only gets in the way and slows this down.

Maybe someone can start a thread about some specific alternative builds. Let’s not derail Raven’s topic hammering out one idea.

I would take just substituting one stat for the other right now. Choosing 20 strength or 19 strength and +2 damage just does not seem like enough questions. Strength or dex, melee or ranged, physical attacks or spell card, if these were legitimate questions and not deRanged (call-out) that might highlight token diversity.

I wonder if the bonanza of slot expanders might lead to some build diversity.

With Earcuff of Orbits fairly recently gettable (they are scarce nowadays), Charm Bracelets still around, and a whopping +2 Charm, +2 Ioun, Swap Charm for Ring, Swap Charm for Back all in print, players who've been around for a year or two now may have access to:

-1 ear, +2 charm
-1 ear, +2 ioun
-1 wrist, choice of +2 charm or +2 ioun
-1 charm, +1 ring
-1 charm, +1 back

That's a lot of different permutations one could run through. If one is building to an absolute goal, like highest spell bonus on the card, then there is only one correct answer, but I wonder if given all this variety people will begin to naturally fan out due to scarcity.

Not everyone can get the +2 and +1 STR Ioun and Charms, for example. There just aren't that many of them.

Matthew Hayward wrote: I wonder if the bonanza of slot expanders might lead to some build diversity.

With Earcuff of Orbits fairly recently gettable (they are scarce nowadays), Charm Bracelets still around, and a whopping +2 Charm, +2 Ioun, Swap Charm for Ring, Swap Charm for Back all in print, players who've been around for a year or two now may have access to:

-1 ear, +2 charm
-1 ear, +2 ioun
-1 wrist, choice of +2 charm or +2 ioun
-1 charm, +1 ring
-1 charm, +1 back

That's a lot of different permutations one could run through. If one is building to an absolute goal, like highest spell bonus on the card, then there is only one correct answer, but I wonder if given all this variety people will begin to naturally fan out due to scarcity.

Not everyone can get the +2 and +1 STR Ioun and Charms, for example. There just aren't that many of them.

And I'd have to double check but with the new Ring of Wonder worn I think you will get two head slots this year.

Hawk Fingle wrote: Raven, you raise some excellent questions, and I think that TD is such a unique and niche beast that in order to encourage build diversity according to your definition would require absolute retirement of tokens from certain years, in order to make the token design process more lateral and less hierarchical.

By permanently retiring set years, players become forced to make revisions to ensure they keep reaching their end build results from year to year, and side effect buy current year tokens needed to maintain their builds.

Allowing every token ever made has generated 16 years of token bloat, and as you say, diversity comes of restricting choices. Eliminating a large portion of the bloat would ease many design issues on all ends and generate the diversity you define.

I think that it would make reprints that much more special as their powers become dungeon legal again for another X years. Legendaries should naturally be exempt. Possibly Relics as well. Unless the future Legendaries and Relics had their recipes reduced drastically to allow them to be made more frequently. That doesn't seem to be Jeff's way of looking at those tokens, though. He wants them to feel like a quest that takes some effort to achieve.

But good luck flying that major change in the TD community winds. And making such a change could impact many other parts of TD that we couldn't possibly anticipate.

My point being, if build diversity by your definition, were made out as the number one approach when considering token design, then the entire game would likely change into a different beast altogether, and I'm not sure if that would necessarily solve more problems than it would cause.

I don't have any real problem with builds looking the same. Each player plays TD how they want to play it. And while offering multiple ways to reach the same build goals seems like a great idea, I'm not sure if that's what the player base at large really wants. Games are ultimately exercises in behavior modification in order to reach the objective efficiently and decisively, wrapped in packaging that is entertaining to the players. In order to encourage your build diversity, you have to modify player behavior to make them want to explore multiple paths by changing the win condition(s) of the game. Not sure how that can be done with TD since the win condition is not easily defined. "Survive seven fantasy themed mini-escape rooms" is the closest I've been able to explain what a player is trying to do in TD to someone who has never played before.

After someone has played for a few years, they learn what is important and what is not so important to have in their build, and party card stats seem to matter most for combat rooms while high hp and healing matters more for puzzle rooms. Yes, puzzle rooms require thought and are fun to solve, but by and large tokens do not help solve puzzle rooms and as such have little if any direct bearing on build diversity beyond having enough hp and healing to overcome puzzle trial and error/push damage.

The win condition of "Survive seven rooms" is too limiting IMO, and having the game so driven by party card stats along with a vast library of every token ever made being legal along with the power of the token to affect the game mechanics tied to a hierarchical rarity structure means the most obvious token choices to make for a given build are the BiS tokens that the player can afford.

Which is exactly what is happening in TD today. BiS tokens are locked in because they directly impact the player's behavior towards the win condition.

Change the win conditions, limit the token library, and focus on supporting multiple build structures instead of a power hierarchy, you'll end up seeing more diversity by your definition.

At the same time, though, TD becomes a different game altogether, and the players who spent a lot of time and money on their build as well as the secondary market sellers and major token buyers would probably riot, and with TD being dependent upon token sales to make TD happen, well...

Like I said. Unique and niche beast. Increasing build diversity within token design as you define it would require changing a lot of gears in the complex TD machine, from what I can tell. So many unintended consequences remain unaccountable, too.

Yeah.

TL, DR: I like pie.

+1. Think you've nailed some things here Hawk. Agree with this whole post.

Rob F wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: I wonder if the bonanza of slot expanders might lead to some build diversity.

With Earcuff of Orbits fairly recently gettable (they are scarce nowadays), Charm Bracelets still around, and a whopping +2 Charm, +2 Ioun, Swap Charm for Ring, Swap Charm for Back all in print, players who've been around for a year or two now may have access to:

-1 ear, +2 charm
-1 ear, +2 ioun
-1 wrist, choice of +2 charm or +2 ioun
-1 charm, +1 ring
-1 charm, +1 back

That's a lot of different permutations one could run through. If one is building to an absolute goal, like highest spell bonus on the card, then there is only one correct answer, but I wonder if given all this variety people will begin to naturally fan out due to scarcity.

Not everyone can get the +2 and +1 STR Ioun and Charms, for example. There just aren't that many of them.

And I'd have to double check but with the new Ring of Wonder worn I think you will get two head slots this year.

PAX South may be the only opportunity to use the Ring with the current Wonder effect, depending on timing of token shipments. Theoretically, Origins next year is the full kickoff for the season, so would start a new Wonder effect.

Fiddy wrote:

Rob F wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: I wonder if the bonanza of slot expanders might lead to some build diversity.

With Earcuff of Orbits fairly recently gettable (they are scarce nowadays), Charm Bracelets still around, and a whopping +2 Charm, +2 Ioun, Swap Charm for Ring, Swap Charm for Back all in print, players who've been around for a year or two now may have access to:

-1 ear, +2 charm
-1 ear, +2 ioun
-1 wrist, choice of +2 charm or +2 ioun
-1 charm, +1 ring
-1 charm, +1 back

That's a lot of different permutations one could run through. If one is building to an absolute goal, like highest spell bonus on the card, then there is only one correct answer, but I wonder if given all this variety people will begin to naturally fan out due to scarcity.

Not everyone can get the +2 and +1 STR Ioun and Charms, for example. There just aren't that many of them.

And I'd have to double check but with the new Ring of Wonder worn I think you will get two head slots this year.

PAX South may be the only opportunity to use the Ring with the current Wonder effect, depending on timing of token shipments. Theoretically, Origins next year is the full kickoff for the season, so would start a new Wonder effect.

Good point

To keep diversity, create a set for the wonder items.

1 piece, get current year.
2 pieces, get this year and last year

This probably just has odd min Max situations, but they would cycle in and out of builds

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Josh EC wrote: This blog post about Yu-Gi-Oh vs magic and the different philosophies in the two systems about card retirements reminds me of this discussion: www.d20alameda.com/2018/06/19/so-why-is-yugioh-banned-at-d20-games-anway/ . What does a reprint really mean? The main premise is that it is necessary to retire things to really have a stable system.

Also, I love the backstory token idea.

Chess is >500 years old, and has not retired anything in that time, and is pretty stable. Just staying

The article is contemplating the dynamics of a collectible game system which release many new game pieces and rules on a regular basis.

It's not saying you have to obsolete pieces in hopscotch.

Exercise for the reader: is TD closer to chess or Magic in terms of the principles that may apply?

Fantasy based escape room feels closer to chess. Tokens feel more like magic. Without tokens, escape room still works. Not so much the other way around.

Possibly more expansive response later when not posting from my phone, but short version is that there is no reason to turn TD into the spend - creep - treadmill.

A longer response, though still limited due to phone posting.

I see TD diversity working best as a cross between running URs in the living card game model, and the old Disney video vault.

There are a good number of items that create diversity Already created, just unavailable. I can provide actual build samples by using gloves of linked fury vs gloves of weapon finesse vs gloves of glory if you want, but I think it's unnecessary.

In the living card game model, you would just pyp any existing UR ever created. This keeps every token available and you'll naturally get decent diversity outside of a few slots where there are clear winners in slot. The down side is that printing tokens is likely not conducive to a living ur model.

The Disney vault used to be that video X, such as Sleeping Beauty, is available for a limited time, then goes back into the vault for a number of years. In TD terms, this would be like a mandatory rest window of 5 years before reprinting a token. It's not a guarantee that a specific token will be reprinted after 5 years, just that it will be oop at least that long.

As the number of URS grows, the reprint percentage can slowly grow as well, keeping creep and development time in check.

As time passes, the player base will grow as TD grows to more cons. The number of older tokens compared to the size of the player base will shrink until the reprint, and the cycle continues.

Remember Thor’s?

I was struck at Horde last year when almost 20 people stepped up to swing in round 1, and almost all of them were Thor’s. It’s BiS for almost every melee or ranged class, and it showed.

I envision the same dynamic with any BiS token reprint. Raven said diversity is driven by choices. Diversity happens today because people who can’t afford them have to work around them, and make substitutions. They make choices. You might not like the fact that part of that decision is based on budget, but at least there are decisions to make.

Reprint the BiS, and that’s the end of that. Everyone grabs the reprint and every build ends up the same.

Because that’s what happened when the BiS was a legendary. It won’t be any better when the BiS is a mere PYP. Just like they do with every reprint, like CoS, Tulz, RFB, etc

So, again, promoting a reprint plan without a strategy for alternative builds is only going to make it harder to actually get away from cookie-cutter characters.

I'm afraid I can't quite follow your BiS examples, because I'm not sure what CoS and RFB are.

Isn't Tulz slotless? No choice to make there, so of course everyone will have them.

Also, which gloves option is BiS? I'm not sure any single one would be in every build if they were all available.

Edit : if it's really broken, nerf on reprint like LoDS?

Endgame wrote: I'm afraid I can't quite follow your BiS examples, because I'm not sure what CoS and RFB are.

Isn't Tulz slotless? No choice to make there, so of course everyone will have them.

Also, which gloves option is BiS? I'm not sure any single one would be in every build if they were all available.

Edit : if it's really broken, nerf on reprint like LoDS?

CoS = Charm of Synergy
RFB = Runestone Fitting Base