TOPIC: Feedback for Point Build Method

My play group is in the process of talking about ways to make runs more challenging. We normally do a run on Nightmare with all the best gear. Then we would do a red run, with only rare items and some extras like treasure enhancers and level adjusters. We've been finding that the red run builds are struggling at times on Hardcore. Trying to find a way to creating a different play experience while not restricting too many things. Or at least keeping the list simple.

You would get 75 points to build a character with. The point cost is:
Common = 0
Uncommon = 1
Rare & Transmute 3* = 2
Transmute 4* = 3
Ultra Rare = 4
Transmute Relic = 5
Eldritch & Legendary = 7
Treasure enhancers grant you an additional 2 points. (Example: Equipping three Nuggets would gain you 6 points instead of costing you 12)

I love it! It has an interesting twist that it makes slot expanders a lot more expensive once you populate the extra slots. I think for most groups, you won’t need to incentivize them to fit TEs, though. More than likely just setting TEs to 0 would work, or even leaving them full price to increase difficulty.

Grizwald wrote: My play group is in the process of talking about ways to make runs more challenging. We normally do a run on Nightmare with all the best gear. Then we would do a red run, with only rare items and some extras like treasure enhancers and level adjusters. We've been finding that the red run builds are struggling at times on Hardcore. Trying to find a way to creating a different play experience while not restricting too many things. Or at least keeping the list simple.

You would get 75 points to build a character with. The point cost is:
Common = 0
Uncommon = 1
Rare & Transmute 3* = 2
Transmute 4* = 3
Ultra Rare = 4
Transmute Relic = 5
Eldritch & Legendary = 7
Treasure enhancers grant you an additional 2 points. (Example: Equipping three Nuggets would gain you 6 points instead of costing you 12)

I like the idea of a point-buy system, but think it becomes pretty tricky pretty quickly. I want to make sure I properly understand your mechanics before I offer up much in the way of suggestion (though I do have one possible suggestion at the end).

So let's devise a couple reference points to make sure I've got the idea right in my head. (please correct me where I go astray)

A full build (not counting slotless and slot expanders) has 27-30 tokens (depending on what is in your hands).

An all-Rare build would then be 54-60 points.

Evenly distributing your 75 points across tokens then gets you to a build of Rare and 4* (or maybe just an all-Rare Bard with several instruments and slotless tokens).

Trying to spend as heavy as possible on the other hand, we'll use a CoA and nuggets for 8 points to get us to 83. That will buy us 11 Legendary/Eldritch (assuming your class can equip that many), with enough left over for a Relic and an Uncommon (or two 4*) and fill out the rest of the slots with commons.


Assuming I got all the above correct, I think you might want to consider increasing the top 3 costs and making it less linear. I'd start with UR at 5, Relic at 8, and 13 for the Eldritch/Legendary. That would mean your 83 points would only get you 6 Eldritch/Legendary plus a UR and some commons. As a piece of anecdote, there have been successful NM runs with a 7 token (not counting TEs) limit, so even those costs may be too low (but I liked them since they got us onto the Fibonacci sequence).

I agree with making TEs 0 for simplicity. And increase Eldritch/Legendary at least.

The problem I think is that calculating how many points you've spent might get annoying fast. I would probably just start with all rares (like a Bloody Nightmare build) and then add in the best "value" upgrades.

Interesting idea though for sure.

I'm all in favor of coherent point buy system.

I don't know that you need so many levels. If you want people to run commons, then, sure, commons can be worth something specific, but, if it's really just forcing people to run some rares and more common, then make commons/uncommons/rares all worth the same amount and have people mostly use rares in their low point slots.

As for challenge, I recommend running a token number restriction. 15 or less with the usual four TEs at NM, for instance. Now, it will lend itself heavily to using the same tokens over and over again, so it's hardly perfect for changing builds, but it's significantly more appealing when you go back to PTD - weight, simplicity.

Then, there is a CCG that restricts deck construction by rarity. White Belt Deck is two ultrarares, four rares, 10 uncommons, any number of commons. Principle would be sort of like Rainbow but more like Rainbow Pyramid, with like one dark green, one orange, one dark blue, two purple, two blue, four rare, any number of green or whatever seems interesting that is different from Rainbow.

I find this idea very interesting and appealing, but think it would still need some work.

I took a look at my first build and stopped counting when I exceeded 140 points (I wasn't done).
If I need to shed 60+ points from my build, then what? I can see the secondary market being flooded with legendary and relic tokens that are no longer considered BIS in a point capped system. This might not be considered bad by some people.
However, now consider token development. If you had to cap your build at 70 points (not counting the special run), would you have bothered to save the Teeth of Cavadar and transmute to the Skull? This could significantly impact token sales if some tokens aren't considered "worth their point value".

Then I considered what if build point values are capped based on the level of difficulty you play (i.e. normal difficulty caps at 60, hardcore at 75, nightmare at 90 and epic uncapped). That would make all tokens still desirable because you could play them at some level. However, this creates a whole new issue. You show up for a run with 90 point build ready for nightmare, but one player insists the difficulty be normal. Your build is now illegal for that level of difficulty.

Eventually, you may come up with a set of rules that accommodates most scenarios and makes a lot of people happy, but not all. Then what? Are we ok if some players quit the game over what could be considered a substantial change? I say this because I personally have abandoned games when they overhauled rules to "fix an apparent situation". It's a good break point for some to leave a game.

So, at this point I think its a great idea for a group of 10 players to limit themselves on a run, but would be difficult to pull off on a global scale. That's not to say I don't think the idea has merit. It certainly is a way to deal with power creep. There's just a lot of questions that would need to be worked out.

Dave wrote: So, at this point I think its a great idea for a group of 10 players to limit themselves on a run, but would be difficult to pull off on a global scale.

My interpretation of the original post was that it was just a group interested in setting up another challenge run format. Not attempting to set up something globally.

I believe that the idea is less than a “universally TD should adopt this “ and more “bloody nightmare doesn’t work with V4, so how can we change it to make things interesting”.

Fiddy wrote:

Dave wrote: So, at this point I think its a great idea for a group of 10 players to limit themselves on a run, but would be difficult to pull off on a global scale.

My interpretation of the original post was that it was just a group interested in setting up another challenge run format. Not attempting to set up something globally.

Sorry if I misinterpreted the intent. I think as a format for a group to use among themselves it is an excellent idea.

Dave wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Dave wrote: So, at this point I think its a great idea for a group of 10 players to limit themselves on a run, but would be difficult to pull off on a global scale.

My interpretation of the original post was that it was just a group interested in setting up another challenge run format. Not attempting to set up something globally.

Sorry if I misinterpreted the intent. I think as a format for a group to use among themselves it is an excellent idea.

I see a bid challenge forthcoming... my team can name that tune run that dungeon in 500 points...

Lequinian wrote:

Dave wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Dave wrote: So, at this point I think its a great idea for a group of 10 players to limit themselves on a run, but would be difficult to pull off on a global scale.

My interpretation of the original post was that it was just a group interested in setting up another challenge run format. Not attempting to set up something globally.

Sorry if I misinterpreted the intent. I think as a format for a group to use among themselves it is an excellent idea.

I see a bid challenge forthcoming... my team can name that tune run that dungeon in 500 points...

That’s an awesome idea!

Lequinian wrote:
I see a bid challenge forthcoming... my team can name that tune run that dungeon in 500 points...

Now that is something I didn't consider, having a point limit on the ten players. If I have a few extra points someone else could use them.