TOPIC: Feedback for Point Build Method

Grizwald wrote:

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.

Including a Monk or Ranger costs 20 points each.
Including a Bard gives you back 20 points, but each additional class costs you 5 (meaning a group of ten with a Bard the Bard costs 25).
Including a Fighter gives you back 20 points.

Fiddy wrote:

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).

Your understanding lines up with what I was thinking. This is really the first draft, so the numbers could easily be tweaked to work better. Slotless items have the potential to eat up a ton of points. I'm not sure how to cost Rod Segments or Teeth. But that's part of the reason I shared it was to get other people's help.

Fiddy wrote:

Grizwald wrote:

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.

Including a Monk or Ranger costs 20 points each.
Including a Bard gives you back 20 points, but each additional class costs you 5 (meaning a group of ten with a Bard the Bard costs 25).
Including a Fighter gives you back 20 points.

All the fighters in the room say “Wha?”


And then shrug and go back to drinking...

I think eldrich should probably cost more than legendary. In some cases they are similar benefit (+5 ring of focus vs Boots of the 4 winds to a wizard), but 2 eldrich gets you a free level (worth at least a UR), as well as +4 Healing and +1 damage.

I would probably put eldrich at 15 and legendary at 11.

UR feels right at 4 - a very large number of URs are just an incremental upgrade over rare, ranging from 2 damage (greater Holly ring -> ring of the eel) to 1 Str, to 1 focus.

Most relics are probably not worth 8 but I don’t think you can drop them much due to class neck items. Since most relics are incremental over UR, I’d propose 7.


I would probably put both common and uncommon at 0. If you have to drop to uncommon somewhere in your build, it costs your build almost nothing in real effect to drop to common. There are a few outliers (boots of the bold), but for the most part, I think you wouldn’t ever pay the point over the common.

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

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.

If this was something that TD was going to officially adopt, I agree the number need some work. But if they did use it as a gauge of difficulty, that might work. Using your example numbers, let's say a party average is 65. Hardcore might be a challenge for them, but normal should be fine. But also, if you as a player are trying to figure out what difficulty you can handle, this would be a way to figure that out.

Would it make a difference if equipping a common token gained you points?

You might even make it less mathy and do something like

Common Uncommon Rare 1/2* Relic UR/3-4* Relic Legendary Eldritch
-3 -1 0 1 2 3 4
TEs are also zero points.

Set a token limit of, say, 18 tokens + TEs and they have to end up at zero points in the end. You can easily tweak the format to test or modify the difficulty by changing the number of tokens allowed and/or how many points (positive or negative) you have at the end. 10 tokens needing to end at -2 points is a whole world harder than 25 tokens ending at +3.

Endgame wrote: 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”.

Following as while i'm no stranger to dying in Bloody Nightmare i do like the possibility of survival and or something to change up how I tackle the challenge.

Not one on math but my interest in this does drop to zero if i'm running without URTEs/CoA or have a build cost (besides the actual in game slots) to use them. Love the game but I do want the loot as it helps justify the costs to me.