TOPIC: Should URs/Relics/Legendary Tokens be in Treasure Boxes Anymore?

One thought mentioned several times in a thread I started awhile back about Ultra-Rare values dropping recently is that there is a glut of UR tokens both from increased token sales and from all the treasure pulls from both regular and virtual runs.

Maybe the treasure boxes could have their own sets of URs/Treasure Box unique tokens instead of the same URs that are available as PYPs. Maybe in the token design process 30 URs could be designed instead of 10, with 10 of them becoming Treasure Box only and the other 20 being token packs/PYP only. Or maybe all 30 could be orderable as PYPs, but 20 of them would also be in treasure packs and 10 of them would also be in treasure boxes. That should help prevent the UR glut / lowering price situation.

Another possible solution would be to change the demand side instead of the supply side (or do both). If recipes required more URs, especially if they required more "any UR that had been a PYP" URs, that could also help. If excess URs were somehow transmutable into trade item tokens (at a high exchange rate), that would also help.

Of course, any changes involving additional URs wouldn't be able to be implemented until 2025 since the 2024 tokens are already ordered.

Treasure box unique things doesn't bother me. Tinker and Stalker both examples of what can be done through treasure.

The devaluation of UR+ isn't just that vastly greater treasure is doled out. It's also because every year new UR+ are made. They compete with each other, thus how we keep getting more slots so that can introduce new high end tokens that don't just fight with what preceded.

Adding more URs just means more competition in same slots. Note also how any new UR competes not just against prior URs in same slot but any relic, legendary, volunteer, Eldritch, Arcanum, whatever in that same slot people may have. New URs should really be for people who aren't already decked out in purple plus, but that runs into an obvious problem of lack of constant stream of players moving into purple builds.

The game is bloated. This is why it's getting hard to enthuse existing playerbase by any method other than unproductive power jumps. As I doubt set rotation will come about, power level will only increase. Sure, can create even more powerful tokens that consume obsoleted URs, relics, or whatever, but that doesn't solve related problems to the price level of URs.

Well my opinion is, cheaper URs mean that newer players aren't necessarily taken to the cleaners as they try to improve themselves and collect. If URs become SO out of reach you are going to lose that new player as they attempt to move up to more difficult play. And if you haven't noticed some of us are beginning to deal with the wonderful age creep, so new players are always what is needed in a game such as this. As it is the cost of playing is becoming quite prohibitive. I used to play up to 9 runs a Gen Con, now I am playing a third of that...this post is ALL about profit and not what is good for the player base. What is good is reducing the attendance cost to get new people to try the game and the URs staying the same.

UR and higher in treasure box is ok. But stop juicing the treasure boxes. The mix is way too rich. Relic and Legendary should hardly ever be pulled. Also include a random UR as a requirement in every Relic recipe. That would be a good start.

Why is the fact that UR values have dropped a bad thing? I am not sure it is. TD is selling lots of runs, both physical and virtual, and selling lots of tokens. My assumption is that from TD's perspective, things are working as intended.
What problem are we trying to solve? If it is purely to support the secondary market, then I agree with Ramsildor. Lower UR prices are good for newer players. When I first started buying tokens to improve my builds, I mostly looked for the bargain stuff. Are they best in slot? No. But they were better than what I had so I was happy to get them. I don't use many of them anymore but that is also ok. As Ian notes, it is the nature of any collectable game. For me, tokens are a hobby, not an investment.

I like the current mix of this years token plus the stalker set. That way anyone playing pulls from tokens and has the chance to get things they cant craft for what ever reason.

No reason to alter mix due to over abundance of auctions.

Rob F wrote: UR and higher in treasure box is ok. But stop juicing the treasure boxes. The mix is way too rich. Relic and Legendary should hardly ever be pulled. Also include a random UR as a requirement in every Relic recipe. That would be a good start.

The data from the shared draws sheet is a good representative sample of overall draws. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rI4ARi3g6nsIyN_jzLuljiYKgiVwotZQaANvq0GbL9Q/edit#gid=1921643014

UR drop rate has come down pretty dramatically over the past 4-5 years. We went from closer to 1.5% UR drop rate down to the most recent 1% drop rate (V15.) With that said, the 1.09% is the highest I recall seeing in the past 3 years - normally, it is closer to 0.7% to 0.8%. Relics come in at about 0.1% and legendaries (for 2023) are higher than we've seen in the past few years but still only 5 out of the most recent 20,000 draws in the sample set (0.02%.)

I disagree that URs from treasure boxes has had a massive impact on the reseller market. I agree with prior comments that power creep making prior URs not the strongest for the slot is having a big impact on reduction in value of those URs. By comparison, TE's are still holding value pretty well - even current in-print ones. Another factor impacting UR+ token value is Ed and Chad selling their collections - that is a HUGE amount of tokens unleashed on the market. Last, there are still a significant number of auctions each year. Realistically, I think we can establish PYP values are currently about $80-$85 for tokens that are either part of BiS or part of related transmutes.

New players getting introduced to URs through the boxes likely drives some interest from them in higher level tokens beyond common-rares so I'm not sure it helps the game to lose that.

I do love seeing some treasure items appearing that are only in the treasure boxes. The ones to complete sets have been fun and, I think, valuable to newer players.

An alternate idea to prop up the value of UR's would be to have UR's count towards point totals needed for Safehold 4 or 3. That is, part of the transmute would be 20 points (example points here are just a placeholder) of UR+'s with UR's counting as 2 points, Relics as 4 points, and legendaries as 10 points. Essentially create a transmute sink for out of date sub-optimal URs and Relics (maybe lengendaries as well like Tamor's Bracers.)

Fred

Ramsildor wrote: Well my opinion is, cheaper URs mean that newer players aren't necessarily taken to the cleaners as they try to improve themselves and collect. If URs become SO out of reach you are going to lose that new player as they attempt to move up to more difficult play. And if you haven't noticed some of us are beginning to deal with the wonderful age creep, so new players are always what is needed in a game such as this. As it is the cost of playing is becoming quite prohibitive. I used to play up to 9 runs a Gen Con, now I am playing a third of that...this post is ALL about profit and not what is good for the player base. What is good is reducing the attendance cost to get new people to try the game and the URs staying the same.

My original post actually isn't about profit at all. PYPs are selling in the $85-$90 range usually, sometimes higher. If UR Secondary market values average well below that, as many URs from this year already are, how will that impact PYP and overall token sales. Will people buy fewer URs if they become worth significantly less than they paid pretty quickly? Will fewer $8K auctions fund (it seems like that may already be happening).

Mike Steele wrote:

Ramsildor wrote: Well my opinion is, cheaper URs mean that newer players aren't necessarily taken to the cleaners as they try to improve themselves and collect. If URs become SO out of reach you are going to lose that new player as they attempt to move up to more difficult play. And if you haven't noticed some of us are beginning to deal with the wonderful age creep, so new players are always what is needed in a game such as this. As it is the cost of playing is becoming quite prohibitive. I used to play up to 9 runs a Gen Con, now I am playing a third of that...this post is ALL about profit and not what is good for the player base. What is good is reducing the attendance cost to get new people to try the game and the URs staying the same.

My original post actually isn't about profit at all. PYPs are selling in the $85-$90 range usually, sometimes higher. If UR Secondary market values average well below that, as many URs from this year already are, how will that impact PYP and overall token sales. Will people buy fewer URs if they become worth significantly less than they paid pretty quickly? Will fewer $8K auctions fund (it seems like that may already be happening).

The only reason 8K auctions have been funding recently is because Grunnel is juicing them with favor scrolls or props, or the auctioneer is adding additional Tokens.. Without that they wouldn't be funding. The existing player base is tapped out, we need more players. Hoping Gen Con pulls some new ones in.

I completely agree with those saying that the possibility of newer players draw a good token helps to get people more invested in continuing to play. Unfortunately, the people who would most benefit from drawing a UR from the box are also the least likely to do so. A new player gets three draws, while a fully-decked out player gets 25 draws. A new player is probably doing 1-3 runs at Gen Con (one of each, perhaps), a hardcore player might do a lot more, let's say 8-10. So a new player is getting 3-9 draws, while the hardcore player is getting 200-250. Who do you think is drawing the URs?

Using myself as an example: I played for 5 years as a casual player at Gen Con with a group of friends, and none of us ever drew anything better than a rare. I was always feeling underpowered as a wizard compared to my melee friends, and really wanted better gear, so I spent $115 (!!!) on a Ring of Fateful Heroism so I could be 5th level. Then Covid hit, and I got into VTD, decked myself out, and since then I've gotten a couple of URs and a relic, along with a few other decent things. Of all the UR+ tokens I've drawn, I've equipped zero of them, either because I already had them or didn't need them.

I also agree with those who have pointed out that the price of runs at Gen Con is becoming prohibitive for new players. To that I'll add that we really need to lure in new players at in-person events, because people are much less likely to discover VTD on their own than to discover TD at a con they're going to and browsing the event catalog for. I'm very curious how the cost breaks down for TD at Gen Con - how much goes to props, settings, people, event space, etc. Where is there an opportunity to bring the cost down?

Zorblak wrote: I completely agree with those saying that the possibility of newer players draw a good token helps to get people more invested in continuing to play. Unfortunately, the people who would most benefit from drawing a UR from the box are also the least likely to do so. A new player gets three draws, while a fully-decked out player gets 25 draws. A new player is probably doing 1-3 runs at Gen Con (one of each, perhaps), a hardcore player might do a lot more, let's say 8-10. So a new player is getting 3-9 draws, while the hardcore player is getting 200-250. Who do you think is drawing the URs?

Using myself as an example: I played for 5 years as a casual player at Gen Con with a group of friends, and none of us ever drew anything better than a rare. I was always feeling underpowered as a wizard compared to my melee friends, and really wanted better gear, so I spent $115 (!!!) on a Ring of Fateful Heroism so I could be 5th level. Then Covid hit, and I got into VTD, decked myself out, and since then I've gotten a couple of URs and a relic, along with a few other decent things. Of all the UR+ tokens I've drawn, I've equipped zero of them, either because I already had them or didn't need them.

I also agree with those who have pointed out that the price of runs at Gen Con is becoming prohibitive for new players. To that I'll add that we really need to lure in new players at in-person events, because people are much less likely to discover VTD on their own than to discover TD at a con they're going to and browsing the event catalog for. I'm very curious how the cost breaks down for TD at Gen Con - how much goes to props, settings, people, event space, etc. Where is there an opportunity to bring the cost down?

Although TD is not an inexpensive event, the fact that zero tickets are available at Gencon goes to it not pricing players out. The majority of GC runs are newer players. Somehow adding more runs would help but that is logistically challenging with downstairs of lucas being full.

You are falling for a fallacy about new players not drawing URs. There are 6,000 slots for runs at gencon. Assume 60% are normal to HC runs (it is actually higher than 60%.) Assuming 3 draws each (a low estimate since even a +1 rare treasure enhancer is easy to get), you get 10,000 draws. Based on sampling data from last year, that tells us newbies drew approximately 80 UR and 10 more Relics or Legendaries. I’ve seen first time players draw skulls, Elder dragon orbs, legendaries, etc.. It definitely happens and is usually exciting to see.

I can attest that my very first run, I drew an UR at Gencon. That UR now has quite a bit of company 10 years later : ) I didn’t draw another UR at GC for 6-7 years even with max treasure draws from years 5 and later. My draw luck has improved since but GC has never been my best treasure draws.

If anything, I would love for newbies (verified by NOT having the extra draw from leveling bonus) who have no more than 4 draws be able to pull from a juiced treasure box with closer to 2% URs.

Why are you assuming that everyone who plays Normal or Hardcore is a newbie?