On the Topic of BUILD DIVERSITY
AKA "Give us Choices. No, Not Like That.*"
There's been a lot of discussion (as there always is around Token Development time) about build diversity, giving players hard choices to make, and preventing "Slot lock." Of course everyone - myself included - has ideas about how their favorite classes' tokens should work, but I've noticed certain themes come up, and wanted to make room for some discussion here, off the main token development threads.
Theme #1: Differing Build Paths
"Do I want a Ranged build or a Melee build?"
This seems to be one of the easiest ways to build diversity into builds. You provide competing tokens which support different build styles, and people collect down a certain path. Important factors to consider (in both token and dungeon design) is to make sure one approach is not inherently superior to the other. In other words, if dungeon design regularly nerfs melee fights but ranged always works, people will drift towards ranged builds. If STR tokens are king and there's no way for a ranged build to reach melee damage potential, then players will drift into melee builds. You've got to keep things balanced *and competitive* for this to work.
Good examples: Sniper Specs vs Goggles of Instant Analysis. They occupy the same slot, and support different build styles.
Bad examples: Gloves of the Flying Fist (best of both worlds!), Thor's Hammer, (and the previously proposed Rogue Legendary which gave Rogues both melee and ranged Sneak attack, as well as removing crit invulnerabilities.)
I hope that Jeff's announcement that he plans to use the Neck slot as a Class-defining slot will provide a number of interesting and conflicting build paths. Time will tell.
Theme #2: Avoiding Slot Lock
Slot Lock happens when there's only one token (or path of tokens) which are ideal for a certain class to put into a certain slot. For example, the Rogue's 1st Round Sneak Attack ability was locked into the boot slot for a long time. You could choose between the Rare Boots of Elvenkind, or UR Boots of the Underdark, but it didn't make sense for a Rogue to put anything else in their boot slot, or they loose a turn in combat just to use one of the abilities which makes them shine.
You also find Slot Lock when there's a clear BIS token. (Especially if its OOP, or a particularly expensive token.) Any attempts to provide a new token for the slot are met with resistance, and there's a lot of pressure to build something even "better than" the original, which compounds the problem.
Good Examples: Creating the Hood of ElvenKind to unlock the Boots slot for Rogues. Moving Treasure Enhancers to Charm and Ioun Stone slots, to unlock the Neck slot.
Bad Examples: High-end Strength Belts. Eldritch Boots. Potentially Eldritch Kilt.
#3: All-in-One Tokens
"It Slices! It Dices! It Juliennes Fries!"
One of the trends I've seen in token design, is people pushing to "free up slots" by putting all the cool effects into a single token. There's requests to have the Eldritch kilt give major stat boosts AND Free Movement. The previously proposed Rogue Legendary would have given 1st Round SA, and removed monster's crit immunity, and allowed Rogues to Sneak Attack at range.
The problem with that design, is that once you've got the all-in-one, there's no longer any push to have those special abilities available in other slots. Instead of advocating for another way to get Rogues their ranged Sneak Attack, high-end Rogue players would say, "We don't need that UR. Let's remove it from this year's line up in favor of something better."
Not to mention that if something potentially better did come along, you'd get people saying, "I couldn't possibly switch to that token, or I'd lose my X ability and Y ability too. I won't support this new design unless it also incorporates X and Y.
Good Examples: The way UR bard Instruments have been handled (You can swap 'em out, but you need to buy the individual instruments). The new Greaves. Io's Bow, which chose a different mechanic to be competitive with high-end melee builds. (Perhaps too competitive?)
Bad Examples: Thor's Hammer, which is +5, does some pretty wicked damage, has an extended crit range, AND functions as a ranged weapon. (Yes, it has a DEX requirement to make up for it... but for most classes, it's quite easy to meet that requirement. And getting easier.)
#4: Slotless tokens
Slotless tokens have really pushed the power creep, because they're automatically "BIS."
And once they're made, they can't be bumped out by another "better" token, so they're pretty much permanent.
This is a problem. I wish I knew how to fix it. (Without, ya know, giving up my Ro7P or Horns or Lamps, or...)
There's more I'd like to discuss, but I'm kinda drained from writing all this, and I don't want to build even more of a wall-o-text... so.... Any comments?
*hat tip to Brad Mortensen for the title inspiration.