TOPIC: Run Profit Calculator

Mike Steele wrote:

jedibcg wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: It sounds like the answer to your scenario is to just ban or put a low cap on loot for ghost players. It's a lot harder for someone to come up with multiple groups of people who aren't interested in True Dungeon but willing to waste hours of their valuable convention time just to get loot for the farmer.

Why do they have to be not interested in TD? I can guarantee you if you offer free tickets for True Dungeon at the 'cost' of all the loot you can get lots of interest for Gen Con. You likely could get a fair amount for Origins. I don't know about GHC. I know nothing about South Pax.

I don't see any problem at all with someone doing exactly that. You would be introducing lots of people to True Dungeon, some of whom might become token and ticket buyers. That's very different to me than empty ghost players taking slots away from actual people.

So the intent of people playing has relevance into if there is where there is a problem? Okay I can concede that (not that I am agreeing with it just will to concded it for sake of this discussion). What if those people are playing TD just to turn a profit? If there are a some number of people that are playing to turn a profit (however small or large) but that is the only reason they are playing, is that fine by you?

Mike Steele wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: It sounds like the answer to your scenario is to just ban or put a low cap on loot for ghost players.

That’s just a bandaid. So no, that’s not the answer.

Gamers game. It’s what we do. Any rule you make to try to prevent profiteering will have a loophole or workaround, or it will punish innocent players. It’s a variation of Goedel’s Theorem.

The only way to eliminate the symptom is to eliminate the cause: just ensure that max loot is never permitted to rise to the point where running is profitable. Anything short of that and we’ll be tweaking rules every year.

Just because you wouldn’t run to make a profit of a mere $5/10/50 an hour doesn’t mean other people won’t. And maybe they’d only do it one run, but 20 people taking an extra 10 or 20... that is a lot of tickets.

I once asked you what you thought the absolute cap on loot should be. I asked if you would concede that 1000 TC was too many and would break the game. You said “no.” I’m curious if that’s still your position, because if it is, there’s no point in talking any further about this.

I'd be all for doing a hard cap on loot for ghosts right now - that would permanently solve the problem you state of ghost players taking the spots of new players.

Regarding 1000 TCs, I don't recall the context of that talk. If they were all commons, it wouldn't break anything. Even all rares/uncommons/commons would only result in significantly more trade items in transmute recipes. I agree, if we had 1000 TCs today with the current treasure mix, there would be a lot of negative consequences.

It's been mentioned several times recently that if we were at max TCs in the 30's, that would be a serious issue. I'm not sure that's true, depending on how long we take to get there. Right now we're at 21 max, and we're only going up 1 TC per year. If we stayed at that pace, and got to 36 TC's 16 years from now (there's no increase next year, and then 1 per year for 15 years), I'm not sure at all that would be a problem, considering ticket prices are likely to be a lot higher in 15 years. Maybe it would actually be healthy for TD to have a gradual increase in the max, to help offset gradually higher ticket prices.

Maybe loot should never substantially offset ticket prices for the regular dungeon, so that way people are playing for the experience and not loot? For those who want to do runs for loot, create a specialized event?

Keep in mind, we do have a cap of ghosting 5 slots per player already since last year. Excepting GenCon, it is unlikely every slot will sell out at places like GHC and Origins. Selling those to people who might want to grind out a few runs does just generate revenue for TD (a good thing).

Ironically, I tried your spreadsheet and entered what I drew last year at Origins (admittedly, my best draws I've ever had), I would have made a profit of $4 for every $1 spent in ticket costs (I also drew something silly like 7% or 8% URs that I'll never see happen again) and $2 to $1 ROI if I had sold everything overall.

For now, letting people ghost to get more treasure is fine as long as runs aren't all sold out. Where they are, we should support even more limits. GenCon, for example, we should seriously look at only being able to ghost 2-3 slots (at most). I know the problem of organizing large runs comes up but if you have everyone on your friends list that you are running with, it can be done (and is actually more likely because you have more people with a chance at an early queue number).

Fred

Imo if treasure farming ever becomes a sufficiently serious problem to start locking newbies out there is a simple solution. TD has only to start selling virtual treasure only runs, just buy tickets & get treasure. People could buy as many as they wanted and not take up any real slots. They likely would because it would be more efficient then jumping between actual time slots.The secondary bonus would be that the glut of loot generated by virtual runs would likely drive down the resale prices of said loot until virtual runs were no longer profitable.

jedibcg wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

jedibcg wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: It sounds like the answer to your scenario is to just ban or put a low cap on loot for ghost players. It's a lot harder for someone to come up with multiple groups of people who aren't interested in True Dungeon but willing to waste hours of their valuable convention time just to get loot for the farmer.

Why do they have to be not interested in TD? I can guarantee you if you offer free tickets for True Dungeon at the 'cost' of all the loot you can get lots of interest for Gen Con. You likely could get a fair amount for Origins. I don't know about GHC. I know nothing about South Pax.

I don't see any problem at all with someone doing exactly that. You would be introducing lots of people to True Dungeon, some of whom might become token and ticket buyers. That's very different to me than empty ghost players taking slots away from actual people.

So the intent of people playing has relevance into if there is where there is a problem? Okay I can concede that (not that I am agreeing with it just will to concded it for sake of this discussion). What if those people are playing TD just to turn a profit? If there are a some number of people that are playing to turn a profit (however small or large) but that is the only reason they are playing, is that fine by you?

In an ideal world of course I think people should play because they enjoy it. Do you really think there's anyone that is only playing True Dungeon because they want to turn a profit? I haven't seen or heard of that personally.

Picc wrote:

LOL!

jedibcg wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: I'm not sure what question you're trying to answer.

The profitability for TD for me. For me, if I did additional runs at GHC or Origins because I am already in the city seeing friends. Then I can make about $30 an hour if I find at least 4 other folks to go with me for free. I am including the cost of a badge as I might not get a badge to see friends since I can see them without a badge.

So in a nutshell if I have 3.5 hours to do nothing then I can make about $35 by playing TD. The 3.5 includes listing and shipping time using mostly your values. I imagine they would be alot lower, but I didn't drill into most of them. I made Charms of Transmorph $5 and monster bits $6. As I continue to do more runs though it increases as the cost of my badge is spread over the runs and my listing time is not increased much.

Got it - I guess I can't complain about the drive time one way or the other as your scenario would be the same if you lived there.

kurtreznor wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

jedibcg wrote: Since I am going to the cons to see my friends I don’t think I can full count my travel time as a cost.

You're free to do as you like - but if you're not attributing all the costs and effort of doing a run and liquidating the tokens, your number won't be comparable with other people's numbers.

I.e. you'll come up with some profit per hour (or loss) but since you're not counting your travel time your number will be higher than someone who follows the same procedure but count's their commute time as a cost.

I look at it this way :

Suppose I like TD so much I'd pay $100 to go on a TD run even if there was no treasure.

- I could fill out this sheet and set my my my ticket price as -$22 (e.g. TD pays me $22 for each run).

If I did that, the sheet might calculate for me in some sense the "value" I'm getting from a TD run in some sense.

But this calculation wouldn't shed light on whether or not someone could make money running TD.

Sorry, but that’s nonsense from a business analysis perspective.

Jedi is going to GC whether or not he farms. Travel, lodging, and badge costs are fixed. It makes no sense to attribute any of those costs to determining whether farming would be profitable.

Now, if the ONLY reason he went to the Con was to farm, then it would make sense to include all those expenses.

See prior post, I'm trying to answer the question of "Can one make money at TD if they treat it like a business or job."

You seem to be trying to answer some other question.

I'm not sure what question you're trying to answer.

But why are you trying to answer that question? I dont think it is helpful. Farming could be a problem LONG before this method would calculate a profit. The reason is exactly as other poster have stated. Think of it this way; we arent talking about someone who buys out 10 runs to farm treasure; we are talking about someone who buys out 10 runs INSTEAD OF ONLY 3! So, you have to calculate the difference in cost when you add those extra runs, thus that wont include any additional parking, hotel, or con badge costs. Yes yes, i know that isnt what you intended, but again, why does the total profit when including those costs matter? It isnt relevant to any real people.

A few reasons:

1. I find it interesting in the abstract.

2. I frequently see claims that I interpret to mean either:

- TD today can be run at a profit (as a business, consultant, or employee would construe profit).
- At treasure threshold X, we can expect that TD can be run at a profit (as a business, consultant, or employee would construe profit).

I'm interested to know if these claims are well supported.


I think one of the valuable things about this conversation so far for me is that it is highlighting that a lot of people who talk about "farming" don't mean "people who are running for profit and treating the activity like a business or job."


I think from your response perhaps you are making some assumptions about either my policy preferences, or what policies would follow from the conclusion that TD is, or isn't, able to be run for profit.

I'm not trying to establish or argue for a policy here.

Hopefully the discussion and analysis here could inform policy discussion elsewhere when they occur, and reduce the amount of talking past one another that goes on like:

Person A: Farming is a scourge on TD and harms new players! (By which I mean treasure stimulates demand among token-a-holics that takes away slots from new players).

Person B: No it's not, in fact there are no farmers! (By which I mean it's not profitable to run the dungeon as a business at cons that sell out)

And so on.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: I said before: you cannot include travel, lodging, or con badges in your “costs.” Those are “sunk costs,” whether you choose to farm or not. Farming is something you can do while at a Con. Nobody, least of all me, said anyone could make a living by going to GenCon specifically to farm.

If you don't like this way of calculating things I'm sure you can produce your own method and share it with us.

The question I am trying to answer here is: "Can one make money running TD, if they treat it like a business or job."

To answer that question it is necessary to consider all relevant costs - including the costs above you designate as 'sunk costs.'


I am a bit curious about what you think about farming now. Based on your past statements I had thought you believed that:

a. Farming is a bad thing, to be avoided.
b. Farming is either on the rise now, or will rise in the future with more TEs.
c. Farming, whatever its particulars, involves buying tickets in TD one wouldn't have bought otherwise in order to make profit (actual, real profit as if one were running a business or working a job).

What do you mean when you say farming?

Farming = “playing for profit.” Buying tickets and playing because the material rewards exceed to cost.

If I’m at Origins, and I have an hour or two to kill, and I decide to spend $348 on tickets and ghost five because I can expect a more than $100 profit (with both Nuggets) then that’s farming

And if I do it with premeditation, I shut out six newbies who just wanted to play for fun.

I’m thinking of farming as a part-time job. Your analysis is treating it like a full-time job. And I only think it’s bad as it affects other players who just want to play for fun, not profit.

Are you seated? Good.

I basically agree with you.

The words: farm, farmer, farming do not occur in my calculator, the title of the thread, or my first note.

I'm happy to interpret "farming" with the definition you give above. And with that definition I agree that:

a. My calculator includes costs irrelevant to the farmer.
b. Farming in large quantities is something likely to have bad consequences for TD and the community, and perhaps should be regulated (possibly eliminated).


Did you actually fill in values to get to $100 profit on 6 tickets - or was that just an example?

Picc wrote: Imo if treasure farming ever becomes a sufficiently serious problem to start locking newbies out there is a simple solution. TD has only to start selling virtual treasure only runs, just buy tickets & get treasure. People could buy as many as they wanted and not take up any real slots. They likely would because it would be more efficient then jumping between actual time slots.The secondary bonus would be that the glut of loot generated by virtual runs would likely drive down the resale prices of said loot until virtual runs were no longer profitable.

This seems like a good idea to me.

On the flip side this would virtually ensure no one could make a profit at grinding the dungeon - as if you could then you'd just buy more tokens, leading to higher supply, leading to lower prices, until things stabilized.

Just my personal opinion and I'll admit I'm not a smart guy when it comes to business or profit making; when it comes to games, I just wanna see people have a good time.

TD at GenCon and selling out within hours I think they need to look at how tickets are sold. Not saying they need to ban ghosting, I'll get to that shortly. But I think they need to limit how tickets are available for purchased. I believe it would be best for the game to only allow people to buy tickets for others on their friend list.

Why?

Have a guild run? I'm pretty certain they will have badges by the time events go on sale so just click the box of buy for said person on your wish list so won't effect those situations. I mean a guild, a collection of like mind individuals..pretty sure you have each other friended on GenCon system by now.... thinking to bypass this system by recruiting "friends"..,.,are going to trust said "friend" not to mess up your wishlist with crazy stuff you don't know about till tickets are purchased? Or will said friend show up for run for"free". Buyer beware.....more hassle then it's worth.

Want to ghost and get a lot of treasure or do special themed run with 5 friends. Then you HAVE to create multiple accounts for GenCon, buy badges for the "ghosting" ghosts, create friends between those accounts AND now you can ghost run. Pain in the @$$? Yup. But if you want to run with only a few people then it is worth it to you maybe.

Want to "introduce" players to the game for a reduced cost by buying all the tickets to a run, lending TE and politely requesting the extra loot beyond the normal 3? Isn't that what the sealed runs are for? Just asking...

If not? Then run with a pug. Help them out, be an ambassador for TD and get more people involved in the game. Help TD expand from 8000 tickets at GenCon to 10000 or more tickets and double their foot print eventually. The stadium is a big place. Sure with enough interest, TD can take over the field if they wanted.

Now we get to something that maybe only started this year, I don't know. The "draw" for pre-purchase of TD tickets at GenCon. Based on preorders of tokens. Won't quote the preorder rules cuz im lazy but goes something like this. For each 10 pack you're entered into a drawing. So many people will be selected and they can pick one run to buy tickets for, all 10 or just a few. For the true diehard token purchasers that is your way to do ghost runs as well without worrying about friends list at GenCon. Maybe tie it to the Patron button that is normally at origins and remove the random draw feature for the patron holders. And no I'm not that big of Token buyer to qualify for that perk.

Overall change how tickets are sold at GenCon for a year or two and if they continue to sell out then we know the demand is there.

On a side note, allow TEs in truegrind and increase the ticket price to those events at GenCon and see what happens.

And yes, may have had a whiskey or two while typing this out. Cuz, well.....whiskey.

Maybe that should a future slot less rare TE token.

Glass of whiskey.... +1 treasure if no other TE equip. Well cuz, Whiskey 🥃