TOPIC: Safehold Program Details - Feedback Please!

It might also be good to get a clear understanding from TPTB whether this is a conscious decision to have an insurmountable gap in power level between those who invest in safeholds and those who don't, since that's most certainly what the outcome will be of the program currently proposed. +1 to having a very general idea of the costs of the higher level safeholds, it's hard to have a concrete view on this without that knowledge.

David Zych wrote:

Rob F wrote: I think many other high end players are in the same boat in terms of wanting to play a harder difficulty level even beyond Epic. It would be nice if there was a way for TD to capture a parties stats before they entered the dungeon and then customize the difficulty level based on those stats. Pigs might be flying first though...

Slightly off-topic for this thread, but the other (I think logistically easier) way to approach that idea is for TPTB to determine a set of player stats that they target for each difficulty level when designing dungeons, and publish what those target stats are... sort of like "recommended system specifications" for running a piece of software on your PC. Then prearranged groups can choose to regain some challenge by curtailing your builds to only (roughly) those stats, or to a modest amount above them. (and PUG runs on Normal can have hard maximum stat caps to help reduce bad feeling resulting from overgeared players who need strong guidance on how to play nicely with others)

Is it too late to put Safehold on ice and work on this (and character cards) instead?

Oohhh...great idea! A minimum stat recommendation for each level of difficulty would be great.

Rob F wrote:

David Zych wrote:

Rob F wrote: I think many other high end players are in the same boat in terms of wanting to play a harder difficulty level even beyond Epic. It would be nice if there was a way for TD to capture a parties stats before they entered the dungeon and then customize the difficulty level based on those stats. Pigs might be flying first though...

Slightly off-topic for this thread, but the other (I think logistically easier) way to approach that idea is for TPTB to determine a set of player stats that they target for each difficulty level when designing dungeons, and publish what those target stats are... sort of like "recommended system specifications" for running a piece of software on your PC. Then prearranged groups can choose to regain some challenge by curtailing your builds to only (roughly) those stats, or to a modest amount above them. (and PUG runs on Normal can have hard maximum stat caps to help reduce bad feeling resulting from overgeared players who need strong guidance on how to play nicely with others)

Is it too late to put Safehold on ice and work on this (and character cards) instead?

Oohhh...great idea! A minimum stat recommendation for each level of difficulty would be great.

With Int/Wis/Cha likely having a in-game effect with the new class cards, I don't think this is possible right now. What I would expect is that we will see some fundamental gear shift as we go into the class cards and a new balance level for each tier would be established.

If anyone played WoW and remembers that shift from Vanilla to Burning Crusade I would expect something similar (that was primarily driven by the stat cost of stamina being 1/2 in burning crusade). With more focus available from Int/Wis/Cha caster power will come up and an adjustment for melee classes will need to be found. This is why in part I am not so worried about Safehold adding +hit and +damage. The game will need more melee stats for balance.

Player level 5 grants the title “lord or lady”. I think it would be cool if this interacted with the safehold in some way. In addition to adding to the theme of becoming a noble of a land and building a home, level 5 seems like an appropriate time to nudge players into looking at building a safe hold/investing in higher end transmutes.

BeLinda Mathie wrote:

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: I don't envy TPTB their task here, amd I do appreciate the way they listen to feedback so well.

Thank you for all the work you've done thus far, and will most certainly continue to do.

I want to echo Wade here and say (a) I am excited about the possibility of the Safehold program, and (b) I can only begin to imagine how complicated it is to design and implement. I want it to be as good as it can be for both the players and the long-term health of the game. I appreciate all the work Jeff and others have put into this concept.

I'm in this group too...super excited about Safehold overall. A little concern it's just the next layer of power creep. Hard to design something like this with out allowing some creep though. But how much is okay?

Also agree with OrionW that Apprentice is perhaps a better name than Underling...which feels kind of weird to me.

I posted this on page two of the thread, but I can lay it out better:

Using the Diablo II mercenary as an example, I want to suggestion having a cool single lackey that gets better as safeholds get better, instead of bringing the whole Monty Python entourage with me on my adventure (sorry Patsy).


For example, I propose that Safehold V comes with 10 initiate tokens. A fighter, rogue, cleric, ranger, (etc, one for every TD class).

For the purpose of this example, lets say I pick Cleric to be my companion. At the initiate level, for my cleric, I can choose:

Safehold V
Initiate Cleric
Damage wheel
1-2-3-4-5-6

Always Hits on a slid 15+

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless


He can cast Bless in one room as an instant action (roughly UR power level), or heal 8 points of damage. Only 1 check box, so he is out of special abilities after using 1.

My initiate has a damage wheel, and can be slid in my puck (Similar to a spirit pet). He always hits on a 15+, as he is still learning, but since we are working on a team, he can hit even high AC if I'm distracting the monster.


Safehold IV
Now that I've upgraded to safehold IV, I can transmute my Cleric to an apprentice.

Apprentice Cleric
Damage wheel
2-3-4-5-6-7

Always Hits on a slid 14+

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless

[ ]
Heal 12 points of Damage
Restore Spell (as scroll)

My Apprentice, like a Diablo II follower, has leveled up, can hit a little harder with a little more accuracy, and has gained a new ability tier. He can heal more damage, or restore a spell (similar to Carter's tome).


Safehold III
Now that I've upgraded to safehold III, I can again transmute my Cleric to a Journeyman, OR I could directly transmute him from an initiate at a higher materials cost (and save myself some back and forth shipping)

Apprentice Cleric
Damage wheel
3-4-5-6-7-8

Player Character gains +1 hit (full time hit buff to me. Let's say the Cleric is casting guidance or something similar on me every combat)

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless

[ ]
Heal 12 points of Damage
Restore Spell (as scroll)

[ ]
Smite (add character +melee damage to Journeyman attack)
Prayer (as spell)
Divine Assistance (turn damage wheel to max after sliding)


I'm not set on the powers or anything, but this is an example of a kind of system would be much more interesting to me, and it would be dramatically less balance warping than lots of bigger numbers.

Endgame wrote: I posted this on page two of the thread, but I can lay it out better:

Using the Diablo II mercenary as an example, I want to suggestion having a cool single lackey that gets better as safeholds get better, instead of bringing the whole Monty Python entourage with me on my adventure (sorry Patsy).


For example, I propose that Safehold V comes with 10 initiate tokens. A fighter, rogue, cleric, ranger, (etc, one for every TD class).

For the purpose of this example, lets say I pick Cleric to be my companion. At the initiate level, for my cleric, I can choose:

Safehold V
Initiate Cleric
Damage wheel
1-2-3-4-5-6

Always Hits on a slid 15+

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless


He can cast Bless in one room as an instant action (roughly UR power level), or heal 8 points of damage. Only 1 check box, so he is out of special abilities after using 1.

My initiate has a damage wheel, and can be slid in my puck (Similar to a spirit pet). He always hits on a 15+, as he is still learning, but since we are working on a team, he can hit even high AC if I'm distracting the monster.


Safehold IV
Now that I've upgraded to safehold IV, I can transmute my Cleric to an apprentice.

Apprentice Cleric
Damage wheel
2-3-4-5-6-7

Always Hits on a slid 14+

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless

[ ]
Heal 12 points of Damage
Restore Spell (as scroll)

My Apprentice, like a Diablo II follower, has leveled up, can hit a little harder with a little more accuracy, and has gained a new ability tier. He can heal more damage, or restore a spell (similar to Carter's tome).


Safehold III
Now that I've upgraded to safehold III, I can again transmute my Cleric to a Journeyman, OR I could directly transmute him from an initiate at a higher materials cost (and save myself some back and forth shipping)

Apprentice Cleric
Damage wheel
3-4-5-6-7-8

Player Character gains +1 hit (full time hit buff to me. Let's say the Cleric is casting guidance or something similar on me every combat)

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless

[ ]
Heal 12 points of Damage
Restore Spell (as scroll)

[ ]
Smite (add character +melee damage to Journeyman attack)
Prayer (as spell)
Divine Assistance (turn damage wheel to max after sliding)


I'm not set on the powers or anything, but this is an example of a kind of system would be much more interesting to me, and it would be dramatically less balance warping than lots of bigger numbers.

I like were you are going with this, Endgame. Only thing that seems a problem is how does the use of the ability gets checked off? Something that is easy to implement and doesn't add significantly to time in the dungeon. Honor system would be one way, but some might take advantage of that I guess. So is there any easy way to check off the used ability with some level of accountability.

While flat numbers could lead to power creep, they are also far less to keep track of than a whole system that levels up with you, which I like.

David Harris wrote:

Endgame wrote: I posted this on page two of the thread, but I can lay it out better:

Using the Diablo II mercenary as an example, I want to suggestion having a cool single lackey that gets better as safeholds get better, instead of bringing the whole Monty Python entourage with me on my adventure (sorry Patsy).


For example, I propose that Safehold V comes with 10 initiate tokens. A fighter, rogue, cleric, ranger, (etc, one for every TD class).

For the purpose of this example, lets say I pick Cleric to be my companion. At the initiate level, for my cleric, I can choose:

Safehold V
Initiate Cleric
Damage wheel
1-2-3-4-5-6

Always Hits on a slid 15+

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless


He can cast Bless in one room as an instant action (roughly UR power level), or heal 8 points of damage. Only 1 check box, so he is out of special abilities after using 1.

My initiate has a damage wheel, and can be slid in my puck (Similar to a spirit pet). He always hits on a 15+, as he is still learning, but since we are working on a team, he can hit even high AC if I'm distracting the monster.


Safehold IV
Now that I've upgraded to safehold IV, I can transmute my Cleric to an apprentice.

Apprentice Cleric
Damage wheel
2-3-4-5-6-7

Always Hits on a slid 14+

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless

[ ]
Heal 12 points of Damage
Restore Spell (as scroll)

My Apprentice, like a Diablo II follower, has leveled up, can hit a little harder with a little more accuracy, and has gained a new ability tier. He can heal more damage, or restore a spell (similar to Carter's tome).


Safehold III
Now that I've upgraded to safehold III, I can again transmute my Cleric to a Journeyman, OR I could directly transmute him from an initiate at a higher materials cost (and save myself some back and forth shipping)

Apprentice Cleric
Damage wheel
3-4-5-6-7-8

Player Character gains +1 hit (full time hit buff to me. Let's say the Cleric is casting guidance or something similar on me every combat)

Abilities:
[ ]
Heal 8 points of Damage
Cast Bless

[ ]
Heal 12 points of Damage
Restore Spell (as scroll)

[ ]
Smite (add character +melee damage to Journeyman attack)
Prayer (as spell)
Divine Assistance (turn damage wheel to max after sliding)


I'm not set on the powers or anything, but this is an example of a kind of system would be much more interesting to me, and it would be dramatically less balance warping than lots of bigger numbers.

I like were you are going with this, Endgame. Only thing that seems a problem is how does the use of the ability gets checked off? Something that is easy to implement and doesn't add significantly to time in the dungeon. Honor system would be one way, but some might take advantage of that I guess. So is there any easy way to check off the used ability with some level of accountability.

Once again, taking from shadowrun:crossfire, the use of stickers that are applied creates the “sub card” for the player. As abilities are increased, the number of stickers are applied when in coaching. I have heard the complaints about too much on coaches, it really isn’t because at this level of play, everyone is already done with their builds and sitting around for 24 minutes is pointless banter.

Kusig wrote:

Fiddy wrote:
As someone that tends to loan out those same tokens quite a bit, this has been in the back of my mind a lot when reading about the plans from Jeff. But with the Mythic CoA basically just duplicating the CoA + Nuggets (+1), I decided that I'm fine with just creating a single Mythic CoA for myself and continuing to keep my other sets of TEs separate for lending purposes. I can continue to offer those no problem.

Mythic CoA replaces Beads not Nuggets right?

Yep. I posted before my coffee kicked in. Same basic idea, just wrong tokens

Add me to the camp that loves the concept of Safeholds, but isn't excited about this implementation. It's hard for me to go back through 150 messages to pick out quotes from everyone, but a few thoughts to build on what's already been said:

• I agree with those who said that this doesn't feel accessible to newer players, especially those who only play in-person. I'd be more OK with that if not for the fact that it's been repeatedly said that SH V and SH IV were intended to be more accessible, with SH III and above being more for hardcore players. I'd like to see the cost for SH V come way down, and if that means making the hirelings less powerful, I'm all for it.
  
  I also especially liked the suggestion that someone (I'm sorry I didn't copy the post or name when I read it) made that SH V costs could be tied to player level. Thematically this might not make sense, but it definitely would open it up more to people who are only playing once a year and would love to get in on a little bit of that action.
• I'm also in agreement with those concerned about the power creep, and who would love to see these powers be more like things we don't see normally on tokens, rather than just more stats boosts. I know it's hard to come up with a lot of creative new effects, though, so I get why this hasn't gone that direction.
• I do like the suggestion (from Endgame and others) of having one follower of a class who gains in power as you upgrade your safehold, rather than stacking lots of slotless tokens. It feels more in line with the thematic idea, and limits the power creep a bit more.
• And last, I echo the sentiment that I know this is hard for TPTB, and I appreciate the effort that goes into keeping the game fresh and challenging.

Fiddy wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: I would prefer that no Mythic tokens makes existing Legendary or Eldritch Relic tokens obsolete, with the exception of Treasure Enhancers, and potentially mainhand/offhand items.

By obsolete I mean there is no reason to equip the existing Legendary/Eldrtich token any longer, given the existence of the new Mythic token.

For example, the proposed Mythic +10 STR waist slot item will make Legendary Surtr's Girdle of Fire Giant Strength obsolete, since there is no reason to equip Surtr's Girdle if you can equip a mythic +10 STR belt.

To avoid this outcome, there are only a few slots to be concerned about: waist, neck, torso, finger, feet or wrist slot.

Every other slot either has no Legendary / Eldritch Token, or has/will have a way to equip a Mythic as well as every existing Legendary / Eldritch Relic tokens.

I'd focus Mythics on slots that either have less contention, or do not currently have a contested Legendary or Eldritch Relic token, e.g.:

First go after Mythics in these slots: Back, Bead, Charm, Ear, Eyes, Figurine, Hands, Ioun Stone, Shins.

Then go after: Head, Legs, Shirt (which will all gain the capacity to have a free slot with the Safehold program).

For instance, I believe a +7 STR gloves Mythic would be about as desirable as a +10 STR waist Mythic, and wouldn't have the side effect of obsoleting a Legendary token.

I'd actually argue the opposite. In my opinion there should be no Mythics created in slots that don't yet have Legendaries. Placing a Mythic into a slot before a Legendary exists in that slot can lead to oddities in trying to place Legendaries in later on on the balance scale. Kinda like when we got a Relic Bead when no UR beads yet existed and few Rare and lower beads existed for establishing the expected power level of the slot. Also, if the Mythic is first, it will be tougher to get players with those to later build a Legendary for that slot.

Just add Legendaries and their Mythic counterparts to new slots at the same time.

This year Gloves.

Next year Lenses.

The year after that an Ioun.

The year after that a Charm.

This could go on for quite a while before making choices that kick existing $500-1000 tokens out of builds while also devaluing them to the benefit of... who exactly?