TOPIC: Is it time to take URs out of Treasure Boxes?

VTDs don't sell out. Still, let's say 100 URs are put into circulation every month.

Yes, that's different from the olden days.

Treasure dilutes itself. The more of anything that goes into circulation, higher supply, lower equilibrium price. Between TEs and more runs, treasure supply has skyrocketed.

But, as Matthew and Impy bring up, the token economy is just different. When players are running relics, Eldritch, Arcanum, and legendaries all over the place, why should URs be of interest to them? The core player base has just moved on past URs.

We can talk about converting more players from subUR to UR+ to create demand to absorb supply, but I just don't see how those numbers end up being that significant. Ever. Even if you somehow got enough people with the mentality to sink a bunch of money into the game, they can just buy what's already in circulation. I have plenty of URs to sell if people want them. So do a bunch of other people which is why we don't sell them.

Tokens compete with each other not just across rarities but within rarity. I used to like having close substitutes in my URs, sometimes more one attribute than another, sometimes more defense than offense. But, that's just not sustainable. I will run any of Stu's, Valhalla, Champion, Sweetwoods, but I'm not getting Folkvangr and don't see why anyone else who has a close substitute will bother - it's just not different enough.

To Matthew's other point: In reality, rarity doesn't matter to many a build. Cost of a token doesn't matter to many a build. There have been many collectors, but it's the players who are changing their builds. What matters to builds is largely just what the numbers or specials are on the token. So, if you could play Epic solo with uncommons, anything else is just a waste of plastic.

There are obvious reasons collectability of traditional higher end tokens has suffered. Thus how we get new stuff like Safeholds to get people to chase something, anything. Increased gated content like Fragment run.

So, let's say a far more severe change as I don't see how just pulling URs changes anything as the big treasure folks would still get relics or legendaries or whatever unless yanked those, too - reduce treasure to U/R/MB. Still get your 27 pulls per run and get nothing but mulch. What is the behavior at that point? Well, drop TEs as treasure average value goes to like $.25/pull. So, now no demand for new TEs or transmuting the One Slotless to rule them all. TG supply goes up by some trivial amount, but only way to get relics or whatever is transmuting. That's more akin to olden days, I suppose. I suppose it addresses specific interests in changing values of particular rarities.

I just don't think it's realistic to try to put the genie back in the bottle. It causes a massive change in the value of TEs, which might be a good thing, but it will go over very, very badly to existing players.

Why are you so intent to raise the price of URs? If anything should be removed from the treasure boxes, it should be the transmuted items (all levels). Replace them with new treasure box only items.
Then there would be distinct treasure pull items, distinct transmuted items, and the base set (which is also available in the treasure box...including URs).

This year so far I've personally had over 1500 draws. I've only managed to pull out a single relic, 2 rings of the 3rd circle and two URs.

If they removed URs I would expect higher relic drops or something to compensate - i do NOT support this idea just to increase pricing for 3rd party sellers. Sorry Mike, dont mess up the game for everyone just because values are dropping. Let the kids have fun.

I still love the occasional UR draw and find it special. Those only happy with relic or legendary have probably lost sight of what makes TD fun and are monetizing it. Give a deep thought on why you still play. Is it to make $ or is it to have fun?

As a filthy casual I would never get another UR if this happened. -1

kurtreznor wrote: Why are you so intent to raise the price of URs? If anything should be removed from the treasure boxes, it should be the transmuted items (all levels). Replace them with new treasure box only items.
Then there would be distinct treasure pull items, distinct transmuted items, and the base set (which is also available in the treasure box...including URs).

To me, I see the ongoing drop in value of URs as a danger sign of the health of TD in general. Ultra Rares (PYP and Random "00" URs) are a pretty big part of the $8K package, and if they drop in value too much, it might negatively impact token sales. I don't think True Dungeon can survive in it's current form without a significant amount of token sales. I think lower UR values already made it harder for $8K auctions to fund. We're well behind last year's pace, and I think the only $8K auctions that are currently running are on Trent's website.

And again - I'm not saying treasure boxes would revert just to U/R/MB tokens, I'm saying URs (and maybe Relics/Legendaries) would be replaced by Dungeon only tokens like the Idols of similar value.

I'm totally fine if TD doesn't want to move that direction, I'm just tossing the idea out there for consideration.

Mike Steele wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: Why are you so intent to raise the price of URs? If anything should be removed from the treasure boxes, it should be the transmuted items (all levels). Replace them with new treasure box only items.
Then there would be distinct treasure pull items, distinct transmuted items, and the base set (which is also available in the treasure box...including URs).

To me, I see the ongoing drop in value of URs as a danger sign of the health of TD in general. Ultra Rares (PYP and Random "00" URs) are a pretty big part of the $8K package, and if they drop in value too much, it might negatively impact token sales. I don't think True Dungeon can survive in it's current form without a significant amount of token sales. I think lower UR values already made it harder for $8K auctions to fund. We're well behind last year's pace, and I think the only $8K auctions that are currently running are on Trent's website.

And again - I'm not saying treasure boxes would revert just to U/R/MB tokens, I'm saying URs (and maybe Relics/Legendaries) would be replaced by Dungeon only tokens like the Idols of similar value.

I'm totally fine if TD doesn't want to move that direction, I'm just tossing the idea out there for consideration.

If an $8K funds with URs at $200 a piece, how much does TD make? $8K
If an $8K funds with URs at $20 a piece, how much does TD make? $8K

TD doesn't really care about the value of URs. Unless they are willing to start directly selling URs to the public and having control on the price the values will change. The only people who care are 3rd party vendors.

I don't know what is causing the values of many tokens, including URs, to drop. But it is definitely happening. And it doesn't just affect resellers like Mike (and me).

It also affects players looking to exit the game for one reason or another. There are builds that I might have purchased for $2k five years ago that I might offer $300 for today. For everybody here who, mostly, is not trying to liquidate their collection, imagine if your build that you spent $5k to $10k on is only worth $500-$1,000 in 5 years if you decide to stop playing.

And I understand that's a "future self" problem. But I think it can have an impact now. When I first got into collecting tokens, one of the ways I rationalized it was with the knowledge that I could recoup most of the money I spent if I ever needed to. I imagine that more players today have less confidence that tokens will maintain their value. I think that, for at least some people, that will limit or eliminate their interest in spending money on tokens today.

This of this another way. What if was impossible to ever sell tokens. Once you bought or otherwise obtained a token, you would never be able to sell it. How many players would have 10x Charms of Avarice? Builds full of legendaries? I imagine a lot fewer. The resale market matters to everybody. And, in my opinion, having a number of strong retailers who are willing and able to buy collections at reasonable prices is important. We may be on a path where that will no longer be the case.

I have no idea what impact, if any, treasure draws have on this, though.

Grizwald wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: Why are you so intent to raise the price of URs? If anything should be removed from the treasure boxes, it should be the transmuted items (all levels). Replace them with new treasure box only items.
Then there would be distinct treasure pull items, distinct transmuted items, and the base set (which is also available in the treasure box...including URs).

To me, I see the ongoing drop in value of URs as a danger sign of the health of TD in general. Ultra Rares (PYP and Random "00" URs) are a pretty big part of the $8K package, and if they drop in value too much, it might negatively impact token sales. I don't think True Dungeon can survive in it's current form without a significant amount of token sales. I think lower UR values already made it harder for $8K auctions to fund. We're well behind last year's pace, and I think the only $8K auctions that are currently running are on Trent's website.

And again - I'm not saying treasure boxes would revert just to U/R/MB tokens, I'm saying URs (and maybe Relics/Legendaries) would be replaced by Dungeon only tokens like the Idols of similar value.

I'm totally fine if TD doesn't want to move that direction, I'm just tossing the idea out there for consideration.

If an $8K funds with URs at $200 a piece, how much does TD make? $8K
If an $8K funds with URs at $20 a piece, how much does TD make? $8K

TD doesn't really care about the value of URs. Unless they are willing to start directly selling URs to the public and having control on the price the values will change. The only people who care are 3rd party vendors.

I think what matters to TD is how many $8K auctions fund (and the total token sales of course), and it looks like there are less funding this year than last, which would be a drop in revenue for TD if that trend continues.

More are funding than 3 years ago but less than last two years. Used to only 40 GT now there are 100 this years and last.

More money in for token orders means less for VTD tickets.

Mike Steele wrote: I think what matters to TD is how many $8K auctions fund (and the total token sales of course), and it looks like there are less funding this year than last, which would be a drop in revenue for TD if that trend continues.

Last year was a new TE. Last year was also the new CoA recipe. Last year was also also the highest number of public auctions.

Given all that, I'd expect this year to come in under last year's total auction number - that said, 2024 is already the 3rd most recorded and we're getting close to 2021+2022. Seems like auctions are doing fine.

You can estimate $8K orders by assuming (with rare exception) that each generates a patron code that is used in a patron run. Patron runs started at Origins in 2018.
2018 - 44 (Origins)
2019 - 50 (Origins)
2020 - 46 (Virtual)
2021 - 59 (Virtual)
2022 - 106/103 (Skull Con/Virtual)
2023 - 93/108 (Virtual/Virtual)
2024 - 65/ ?? (Virtual/Virtual)

I believe 2022 was primarily fueled by those people who really wanted to do the patron run at Skull Con.
I believe 2023 was primarily fueled by people who wanted to get the Bead of Bounty and/or take advantage of the new Charm of Avarice recipe that used the beads.
2024 - Appears to be settling down to a new normal, but is still above pre-Covid levels.
2025 - Unknown. The new treasure bead may help, but I think the majority of people who really want a Charm of Avarice now have one, so I don't expect the same bump as 2023. Maybe the new Safehold transmutes and (I think) more attractive transmutes for 2025 will pump up trade good value and help fund a few more. Total speculation.

I also want to drop this in here. Since I've played I've seen utterly massive collections go on to the resale market, well over a million Dollars of token value between Laz and Ed alone. Those fire sales saturated a limited market but introducing an unimaginable supply and a lot of people jumped rarity.

UR prices were very consistent until those two fire sales. It's a downside of having a small community, a single person can have an unimaginable effect on the secondary market.

I don't think limiting the supply will do much of anything, people have moved past the point of UR value. If anything the mythic tier should just consume a lot of URs in their transmutes if the super high end players feel this way. That way they can still find joy in obtaining URs they've grown past. And while I personally don't like the idea, I'm just not the mythic target audience.