TOPIC: PART TWO: Possible New $8k Super Condensed Option? Trade 2 Option

After your great feedback, we have tweaked the OPTIONAL Trade 2 Option with the below numbers. Please see first post in original folder for more details. Thanks for all your help!

Thanks, Jeff!

I do like that Elven Bismuth and Oil of Enchantment will both go up the same amount, that should keep one of them from being the bottleneck.

I wonder if now Aragonite might become the Bottleneck. It wouldn't be bad though if that price were to increase, it is very low based on historical values.

Jeff Martin wrote: After your great feedback, we have tweaked the OPTIONAL Trade 2 Option with the below numbers. Please see first post in original folder for more details. Thanks for all your help!

I like it. Can I buy it yet?

I suspect Enchanted Munitions might turn out to be the real bottle neck, not Aragonite. Though just from a numbers perspective, this is giving up over 300 of various trade goods to gain 14 admittedly rare trade goods. I'm curious how auctions would adjust to having so much less quantities to bid on, especially with the perception that EB and OE is more common, and thus less valuable.

I feel like auctions will probably stick to the standard over this, but I can see groups or individuals going for the 2nd option.

Jeff, I like the idea of adding a Trade 2 option. I have an alternate proposal that uses the average of the 2025 and 2026 full-season auction prices for trade goods (source: td-auctions.com).

My concern is that the recent market has been unusually distorted by several overlapping factors:

Safehold I demand
People saving for the Coin of Wealth
Multiple multi-year transmutes hitting at once
RingCon
The collapse in Path Fragment value, pushing more of the $8K auction value into TGs

2026 pricing is an outlier in recent history. Moreover, because the $8K auction is essentially a balloon—the value gets squeezed somewhere—I’d be cautious about giving the recent Last 5 prices any weight.

2026 TG pressure seems likely to reverse when the new auction season begins, particularly with a strong multi-year transmute set and the Codex. The Codex could also generate unusually strong demand since some collectors may want two: one to keep and one to transmute.

My other concern is creating new bottlenecks. The proposed option helps Bismuth and Oil, but cuts several Trade 1s very sharply. Ink, Parchment, Steel, Hide, etc. are still required in meaningful quantities for the Mythic recipes.



My alternative is a somewhat gentler rebalance:

Bismuth and Oil: 20 (+7) each - I like your starting point
Aragonite: +4, bringing this to 15
Munition: unchanged at 20, since it is needed alongside Bismuth/Oil and is difficult to transmute
Ink/Parchment/Hide: roughly 40 each (leave Ink at 37)
Darkwood/Steel/Silk/Philosopher's Stone: 50 each

Using the two-year full-season averages, this comes out about $56 above the standard $8K option. If that needs to be tightened further, I'd probably take Steel down to 40–45.

I like the Trade 2 concept a lot. I’d just favor a less aggressive swing away from the Trade 1s, using a longer pricing window to smooth the unusual short-term pressures and, where possible, avoid creating the next set of bottlenecks.

The reasoning behind this proposal makes a lot of sense, due to the wild fluctuations that we dealt with in terms of the secondary market last year. It gives people the opportunity to get OE and EB while not nuking everything else from orbit. Not sure tying the original option 2 to the most recent auctions is a good idea, because we know that OE and EB aren't going to stay at their hyper inflated value due to the increased supply that will be coming out with the 2027 treasure mix.

I'll echo other posters' concerns about ensuring the recency bias is avoided by increasing the sample size/time of prior auctions considered for pricing. While I have no horse in the Safehold or Mythic races in particular, I do suspect that balancing too heavily toward the Trade 2 TGs could negatively affect players with lower transmute goals should they participate in an auction or group buy using the new proposed option.

Scott Kwiker wrote: Jeff, I like the idea of adding a Trade 2 option. I have an alternate proposal that uses the average of the 2025 and 2026 full-season auction prices for trade goods (source: td-auctions.com).

My concern is that the recent market has been unusually distorted by several overlapping factors:

Safehold I demand
People saving for the Coin of Wealth
Multiple multi-year transmutes hitting at once
RingCon
The collapse in Path Fragment value, pushing more of the $8K auction value into TGs

2026 pricing is an outlier in recent history. Moreover, because the $8K auction is essentially a balloon—the value gets squeezed somewhere—I’d be cautious about giving the recent Last 5 prices any weight.

2026 TG pressure seems likely to reverse when the new auction season begins, particularly with a strong multi-year transmute set and the Codex. The Codex could also generate unusually strong demand since some collectors may want two: one to keep and one to transmute.

My other concern is creating new bottlenecks. The proposed option helps Bismuth and Oil, but cuts several Trade 1s very sharply. Ink, Parchment, Steel, Hide, etc. are still required in meaningful quantities for the Mythic recipes.



My alternative is a somewhat gentler rebalance:

Bismuth and Oil: 20 (+7) each - I like your starting point
Aragonite: +4, bringing this to 15
Munition: unchanged at 20, since it is needed alongside Bismuth/Oil and is difficult to transmute
Ink/Parchment/Hide: roughly 40 each (leave Ink at 37)
Darkwood/Steel/Silk/Philosopher's Stone: 50 each

Using the two-year full-season averages, this comes out about $56 above the standard $8K option. If that needs to be tightened further, I'd probably take Steel down to 40–45.

I like the Trade 2 concept a lot. I’d just favor a less aggressive swing away from the Trade 1s, using a longer pricing window to smooth the unusual short-term pressures and, where possible, avoid creating the next set of bottlenecks.

Well thought out. I'm against this new 8K option in general, but if something is going to be done I like this proposal better.

Balloon - good analogy. With the Codex and TE Bead we're going to see lots of downward price pressure on all TG's as it is.

I certainly am not a customer on this plan, after making safehold 1 and setting things aside for the coin of wealth most of my trade goods have been exhausted.

I think the Symmetry of the safehold related recipes has been the biggest part of the shortage of trade 2 trade goods.

To go from safehold 5 to safehold 1 took 25 bismuth and 21 oils.

Coin another 10 of each.

2 hirelings, 2 underlings, 1 follower, and 1 sidekick would suck up another 16 oils and bismuth
So basically to add all the lower tokens, safehold 1 and a coin we are looking at 51 bismuth and 47 oils.

Back to symmetry there are just as many alchemists ink as there are oil of enchantment in most of the add on recipes, see sidekick down below as an example of what I mean.
Sidekick
___
• Sidekick Steward
• 5× Alchemist’s Ink
• 5× Alchemist’s Parchment
• 5× Aragonite
• 10× Darkwood Plank
• 5× Dwarven Steel
• 5× Elven Bismuth
• 5× Enchanter’s Munition
• 4× Golden Fleece
• 5× Minotaur Hide
• 10× Mystic Silk
• 5× Oil of Enchantment
• 10× Philosopher’s Stone
• 5,000 GP in Reserve Bars

Also as another issue for the last few years I just have not been excited about the sets, next year is the first set in years I have seen more than 2 tokens I wanted at UR in about 3 years, so I just have not been ordering for that reason specifically.

Good afternoon all,

As someone who coordinated 4 x $8k orders last year, and over 10 x $8k orders in the last few years, I will throw my input into the arena.

I am hoping that Jeff/TD will help bring some order and price fluxations in check for OE as due to it's lack of availablity. This has drastically skewed prices and transmutes.

I agree with Scott's comments that we should be looking at an average (could be across 1 to 5 years) and should not be using figures for a "Crazy" inflation year (like OEs have been 2025/2026) because of shortages. I would expect trade goods to remain in a more constant pricing range as they are needed in almost everything for transmute and I know that TD is really trying to encourage transmutting.

I would expect to see OE's back to their regular pricing (pre-shortage) or atleast similiar to AG and EB. '

Jeff/TD you can help this happen to bring these crazed inflation costs back in check without causing shortages in other trade goods by just using an average costing model across multiple years that would then maybe offer a better option on $8k orders where more OE are included with a better pricing/quantity.

As long as multiple configurations exist and you can either get “classic” or “OE / EB heavy” I don’t see a problem.

Transmute recipes to convert TG 1 to TG2 and reverse would be best, but multiple 8k options is a nice second place.