TOPIC: Please Read This - Jeff Talks About 2024 Recipes and Such

Rob F wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Rob F wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Rob F wrote:

Kusig wrote: Few things for you to consider.

1. We're seeing a lot more 8k auctions with plenty of incentives added which is putting downward pressure on the price of trade goods.

2. The number of VTDs in a year is increasing the amount of treasure and by extension the number of tokens being made into trade goods.

Both of these are dropping trade good prices. If you're basing the recipe for trade goods off the current prices of trade goods and not off the average number of runs it would take someone with max treasure enhancers who also buys a 1k / 2k / X number of 10 packs, doesn't that mean the community would be better off not having as many auctions or doing as many runs so we can get some relief on the price of these recipes? And with there being other more desirable tokens being added to 8ks this year the prices are just going to get worse.

Would you rather I play 1 more run in a weekend or take that $74 and go to the secondary market to buy trade goods instead?

Great points! Exactly why prices of trade goods have tanked. Too much supply in the market. Only way to offset this is by increasing demand (expanding the player base and/or cranking up transmute costs for relics, legendary, safeholds, etc.) Expanding the player base is always work in progress, one thing Jeff can do now is crank up the recipe costs. If he doesn't, prices will continue to tank. I see people on the forums arguing against more trade goods in recipes but at the same time they're concerned with how the costs of trade goods have decreased. Can't have it both ways. A Legendary is not a legendary if it doesn't cost much to make.

I have zero (yes zero) concern about the cost of trade goods. Auctions create a cap on prices, so no matter what the transmute cost is, the auctions will keep the TG max cost in check. As for the floor, i bought plank for 75 cents each in 2018. The prices are actually HIGHER than they used to be for some TG, so there is really no concern there - we aren’t talking about 10 cent plank and 25 cent steel.

I was around in 2018 and I don't recall any auctions with Plank at .75 cents. Maybe, but I don't recall it. If Jeff keeps transmute recipe costs where there at, continues with the same amount of VTD's next year, and doesn't stop juicing the treasure boxes Token prices including TG's are going to continue to dump and TD will have to continue to augment auctions to get them to fund. I bought UR's this year for $25, Relics for $100 and no one is selling Legendaries for more than $750 (except CoA). In fact, some are going for less than that. I predicted a while back Legendaries would be at $500. Prices have never been this low as long as I've been playing. Not good for the game IMO.

A couple 2018 samples with plank at $1. I may have to go to 2019 to find the 75 cent auctions.
truedungeon.com/forum?view=topic&catid=584&id=248428

truedungeon.com/forum?view=topic&catid=584&id=248423

You’ll notice that plank, silk, steel, hide, munitions, etc are all higher priced now than they used to be.

All I see here is a big nothing Burger.

Look at the prices of the PYP and the dragon orb, the auction wouldn't have funded if those prices would have been less. And no one is paying $120 for a PYP right now. So people got cheap trade goods because other prices were higher.

Hopefully your nothing burger is still tasty when your orange tokens are worth sub $500 because that day is coming if something doesn't change.

The patron pin in 2018 Auction went for… $2. How much do they go for now? The last path to enlightenment went for more than the referenced dragon orb by over $100 too. There is really nothing to see here.

As for the value of my current legends, I didn’t build and buy mine to worry about their value. But if people are looking to sell for $500 (they sure aren’t selling at that price on Trent or tdtavern), I’m in the market for a Boaz and I’ll even pay $550!

I've got a Ta Mor's I'd let go for sub 500.

In almost seriousness, the fleece comment is the one that resonates with me. Having the 8K safehold option means fleece don't get pulled out.

Maybe with the 4c transmute and reduced drop rate, that'll be enough.

My quick thoughts: for some of us the price dropping on many tokens actually encourages some of us to buy more. I know i've picked up my spending quite a bit in recent years because of stuff becoming more affordable to my budget on secondary market. That's money in the TD economy that would've previously been spent on other hobbies/vices. However The more stuff gets priced out (both in real costs and in transmute good costs) the more i lean as to why bother as i just see a unapproachable/unaffordable cliff.

I'm a long invested player (and volunteer) but never a big token spender ($1k a year ish on tickets vs $2-300 ish a year on tokens for reference. Stuff like story relics are my emotional hey i'm rewarded for all the times i've played and saved/collected/traded tokens vs just going out and spending on trade goods and big token orders. So seeing stuff get priced out long past what recipes have historically been hurts some far as hey do i bother or not.

Rob F wrote: Look at the prices of the PYP and the dragon orb, the auction wouldn't have funded if those prices would have been less. And no one is paying $120 for a PYP right now. So people got cheap trade goods because other prices were higher.

Hopefully your nothing burger is still tasty when your orange tokens are worth sub $500 because that day is coming if something doesn't change.

I am genuinely confused by your statements here. The price of an 8k Auction has not changed, and serves as a floor for the market. Year by year, we do not see decreases but market adjustments as demand for various parts of the 8k change. It is not as if people are needing to supplement the value of 8ks by thousands of dollars to get them funding, they appear to be doing just fine with a few items added to make up for the lost value of patron pins later in the year.

Prices of TGs are not in free fall, we have seen auctions serve as a floor for the prices not a ceiling for them with the exception of big collectors leaving the game. But even with the incredible pressure of Laz and MasterEd offloading their collections, the price of TGs in auctions and the secondary market outside of them has remained on a upward trajectory over the year.

Older UR and Legendary Prices certainly have gone down, but that doesn't have any connection to current TG prices, as we should have seen a drop in them in Marc's Spreadsheet and we simply don't. I have no data for this, but I still think its very much due to the previously mentioned big collectors flooding the market with hundreds of thousands of dollars of tokens suddenly. But this is also likely temporary, so long as we do our best to grow the game and our community. The one way to make this market crash is to gatekeep new people, price them out and have our playerbase start to shrink.

Thank you Jeff for sharing your reasoning, I really appreciate it, and while people may not agree always with either the goals or the approach to the goals, I think having some knowledge of how TPTB are thinking about these things is very good.

Jeff Martin wrote: The two main reasons I wanted to offer the $8K Super Safehold Condensed option are these:
1) Non-USA collectors have long wanted an even more Condensed version that would skip the Trade tokens since they find transmuting difficult. We did not have any way to do that in previous years until we launched the Safehold program. Additionally, these non-USA folks were heavily burdened with shipping costs inside the standard Safehold program, so some asked if a more efficient method could be made available.
2) Some USA collectors have also long commented that a non-Trade token $8K Super Condensed Pack would work great for them – as they don’t like transmuting. So, for these folks who have no use for Trade tokens, this is a good option for them.

I'm still lost on the reasoning for the instant Safehold III condensed version.

It sounds like this is for Non-USA and some USA collectors that do want to be troubled with transmuting.
How would this help them?

If they ordered this 8k version for themselves without an auction there's still...
44k GP ($500+)
Wish Ring ($180+)
Path to Enlightenment Fragment ($500)
Ring of the Nth Circle ($100?)
...all transmutable items which they are not interested in still in the order.

If they do not like transmuting then why offer them a transmuted item already completed?
If they are interested in transmuted items and just don't want to do the transmuting portion at all which it sounds like as the reason for removing the trade items then they are likely already buying relic & legendary items off of players on the forum or the big website sellers in which case...why not just allow them to pick up the safehold this way as well?

I am not trying to be difficult, but if someone else can provide the angle I am missing I am honestly curious.

Krym wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: The two main reasons I wanted to offer the $8K Super Safehold Condensed option are these:
1) Non-USA collectors have long wanted an even more Condensed version that would skip the Trade tokens since they find transmuting difficult. We did not have any way to do that in previous years until we launched the Safehold program. Additionally, these non-USA folks were heavily burdened with shipping costs inside the standard Safehold program, so some asked if a more efficient method could be made available.
2) Some USA collectors have also long commented that a non-Trade token $8K Super Condensed Pack would work great for them – as they don’t like transmuting. So, for these folks who have no use for Trade tokens, this is a good option for them.

I'm still lost on the reasoning for the instant Safehold III condensed version.

It sounds like this is for Non-USA and some USA collectors that do want to be troubled with transmuting.
How would this help them?

If they ordered this 8k version for themselves without an auction there's still...
44k GP ($500+)
Wish Ring ($180+)
Path to Enlightenment Fragment ($500)
Ring of the Nth Circle ($100?)
...all transmutable items which they are not interested in still in the order.

If they do not like transmuting then why offer them a transmuted item already completed?
If they are interested in transmuted items and just don't want to do the transmuting portion at all which it sounds like as the reason for removing the trade items then they are likely already buying relic & legendary items off of players on the forum or the big website sellers in which case...why not just allow them to pick up the safehold this way as well?

I am not trying to be difficult, but if someone else can provide the angle I am missing I am honestly curious.

I think the point is that it can cost people quite a bit every time they ship tokens to/from the USA and their country. The current method requires them to send tokens for transmuting six times to get up to Safehold III. This would enable them to get Safehold III without sending any tokens in for transmuting, and only paying for one shipment from TD. Perhaps it also saves TD a lot of money, I'm not sure how much (if any) of the shipping costs from TD to other countries comes out of TD's pocket.

Krym wrote: I am not trying to be difficult, but if someone else can provide the angle I am missing I am honestly curious.

From what I understand, there are two separate issues being addressed with this.

Basic assumption: The journey from no Safehold to Safehold III is as follows: nothing -> SF5 (UC), SF5 (UC) -> SF5, SF5 -> SF4 (UC), SF4 (UC) -> SF4, SF4 -> SF3 (UC), SF3 (UC) -> SF3
UC = Unconstructed

All told, that's 6 boxes sent and received from TDA, or 12 shipping instances total

Issue 1: Non-USA
International package shipping is slow and expensive. A rough estimate for a small flat rate equivalent to/from Canada would be $35 each way for 5 pounds or $50 for 10 pounds. So, $450-$600 just in shipping costs both ways. That's a lot of payment for "nothing", plus the associated risk of shipping that much internationally. Prices go up for UK, Australia, or other places. So, I see the value in minimizing shipping in these instances, especially since the at-con transmute times can conflict with runs or other events.

Issue 2: Non-Trade Items Super-Condensed
I'm also a bit puzzled on this one, as the remnants of the $8k order are all transmutable items, as you note. And the multi-year items (Paths, Marks, Rings, etc.) will eventually require trade goods. But the Ultra Rares are still there.

Best I can figure is that people are willing to pay a ~$1000 "premium" to avoid all the hassle of transmuting. Then they have the other tokens in the order to trade, sell whatever for their transmuted items.

Edit: redid the math slightly.

Edit 2: It was pointed out to me that my $1000 premium estimate was just the difference between the average value trade goods add to an auction and the average cost of trade goods to make it all the way to Safehold III. But there's another consideration that you don't spend any Golden Fleece and you don't pay the GP cost for the Safeholds. Those to things are about $500 in "value", so the premium may actually be about $500 (not $1k).

Daniel White wrote: Jeff, first, thank you very much for this level of transparency. It is much appreciated and lets us give a feedback which I hope will be a lot more useful to you, rather than giving feedback based on guesswork. I have detailed thoughts on the other areas which I'll try and get to later tonight, but wanted to hit this one first.

Jeff Martin wrote: But wait…you said the Safehold is all about waiting for your Safehold to be made? Why are you letting people transmute instantly?
That is a fair point…and one that I carefully considered. But in the end, this new idea does not give anyone early access to any tokens that matter – the Hirelings, Underlings and Followers. Anyone who takes this option still must wait until January to make Underlings, and they must wait until July to make Followers. I guess technically this option gives folks who take the $8K Super Safehold Condensed Pack about a one-week head start since you don’t have to, for instance, transmute a Safehold III (Under Construction) on July 1st before you can then transmute for a Follower. If people really are hung up on that one-week head start, we can hold, for instance, all Follower transmutes until after July 8th.

So, I think there is some misunderstanding here. I don't think anyone is really bothered by that one-week head start, or thinks that folks who might buy this $8k would get access to stat-boosting tokens before others. I think your judgment on those items is completely on-point.

Here is the issue which bothers me, and I think others, which I don't think has been considered:

Despite quite a lot of negative feedback, you had insisted very strongly during the design process on making us go through a very laborious "construction" process, including making us send in the for an "under construction" version in certain months, and then send that version back in for a constructed version in later months. Even if someone had all of the trade goods lying around to go straight to Safehold III, they would not be able to make one in a single transmute. Instead, it would take six: (1) Safehold V under construction, (2) Safehold V, (3) Safehold IV Under Construction, (4) Safehold IV, (5) Safehold III under construction, (6) Safehold III.

That's six separate transmutes, done in six separate boxes, with six separate shipping costs and trips to the post office. We'd given what I thought was resounding feedback that this was not desirable, but you had insisted it was important for theme.

In reliance on your firmness in that regard, most folks who were planning on participating in the Safehold program have already started transmuting their Safehold V(s). Some of those folks are now in the awkward position of: wait, if I buy this, will I be able to sell my partially built-Safehold V? That's kind of awkward.

Worse, with this announced proposal, which would permit folks to skip having to do this six times, makes those of us who aren't going to put down for an $8k on our own seem like second class citizens. We aren't willing to shell out $8k, so we have to go to the post office 5 more times to redeem the same item. Put colloquially: feels bad man.

I know some folks will say, "well, how is that different from patron or GT?" Patron and GT are opportunities to pay more money to get access to a cool extra event. This is an opportunity to pay money to avoid an inconvenience that TDA artificially created.

Finally, one of the benefits of the program was that it provided a sink for golden fleece, I think most folks agree are a bit too abundant right now. Reducing that sink seems like an odd choice, although I understand the math behind how it came out.

Daniel,

Thank you for your considered and well-written reply. It is much appreciated. I see your point, but I think it is worthy to point out this. It has been a long transmuting tradition that making Transmute tokens can take several steps. For instance, to start any transmuting process (to obtain brown Trade tokens) folks have to send in normal tokens to get Trade tokens. This applies to GP as well. Then, folks have to send those in together with other tokens to make a Relic. After that, you then have to send in more normal tokens to get more brown Trade tokens. Then you have to send all those new brown Trade tokens in with the Relic you just made to make a Legendary token.

I do see how the Safehold program uses that multi-step practice and takes it even further. And I apologize if that seems too onerous to some folks. I guess, for me, one of the big reasons that I wanted to give making a Safehold take some time and effort is so it would be something extra special to have a Safehold I. If some new hot token collector comes on to the scene, it will still take her some time to obtain a Safehold I.

Thank you again for your thoughts.

Mike Steele wrote: Hi Jeff!

Thanks for the very detailed explanations, I appreciate it! I think your approach is a very reasonable one.

I have one question. You said "Also, we used these calculations to set the values of the Omni Orb and Omni Cube by making sure the dollar amount assigned to them was not lower than current market prices for the tokens that they can replace." I had though the Omni tokens were going to be more expensive than the tokens they were replacing. Is the goal now to make their value about even, or is it to make them more expensive? Although, if you are pricing them at the price point of the most valuable token they can replace, that seems like a good solution.

Thanks!
Mike

We set it at roughly equal to the value of the more expensive token it would replace.

Krym wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: The two main reasons I wanted to offer the $8K Super Safehold Condensed option are these:
1) Non-USA collectors have long wanted an even more Condensed version that would skip the Trade tokens since they find transmuting difficult. We did not have any way to do that in previous years until we launched the Safehold program. Additionally, these non-USA folks were heavily burdened with shipping costs inside the standard Safehold program, so some asked if a more efficient method could be made available.
2) Some USA collectors have also long commented that a non-Trade token $8K Super Condensed Pack would work great for them – as they don’t like transmuting. So, for these folks who have no use for Trade tokens, this is a good option for them.

I'm still lost on the reasoning for the instant Safehold III condensed version.

It sounds like this is for Non-USA and some USA collectors that do want to be troubled with transmuting.
How would this help them?

If they ordered this 8k version for themselves without an auction there's still...
44k GP ($500+)
Wish Ring ($180+)
Path to Enlightenment Fragment ($500)
Ring of the Nth Circle ($100?)
...all transmutable items which they are not interested in still in the order.

If they do not like transmuting then why offer them a transmuted item already completed?
If they are interested in transmuted items and just don't want to do the transmuting portion at all which it sounds like as the reason for removing the trade items then they are likely already buying relic & legendary items off of players on the forum or the big website sellers in which case...why not just allow them to pick up the safehold this way as well?

I am not trying to be difficult, but if someone else can provide the angle I am missing I am honestly curious.

Sorry...my post was poorly worded. I should have said "They don't like the normal transmuting fun." The items you mention that would be left over from a Super Safehold Condensed Pack would be special case stuff (in most cases) as they allows them to go to RingCon. The Wish Ring is an awesome token to use during an event. The only strictly traditional item left is the 44,000 GP in Trade tokens. I suppose that gold might even be useful for trading with other players for tokens -- which has nothing to do with the Trade token program.

Jeff Martin wrote: [
Daniel,

Thank you for your considered and well-written reply. It is much appreciated. I see your point, but I think it is worthy to point out this. It has been a long transmuting tradition that making Transmute tokens can take several steps. For instance, to start any transmuting process (to obtain brown Trade tokens) folks have to send in normal tokens to get Trade tokens. This applies to GP as well. Then, folks have to send those in together with other tokens to make a Relic. After that, you then have to send in more normal tokens to get more brown Trade tokens. Then you have to send all those new brown Trade tokens in with the Relic you just made to make a Legendary token.

I do see how the Safehold program uses that multi-step practice and takes it even further. And I apologize if that seems too onerous to some folks. I guess, for me, one of the big reasons that I wanted to give making a Safehold take some time and effort is so it would be something extra special to have a Safehold I. If some new hot token collector comes on to the scene, it will still take her some time to obtain a Safehold I.

Thank you again for your thoughts.

Jeff, very kind of you to take the time to reply directly. While I do appreciate you addressing the comments I've made here, and in prior threads about my dislike of the lengthy transmute times in the Safehold program in general, I don't think anything you've said addresses the concern about the new proposed Safehold Super Condensed I was expressing.

I believe you are trying hard to understand and address the concerns I'm voicing, so to summarize that problem: Allowing folks to straight up buy a Safehold III as part of an 8k order undercuts everything you've just said about how important it is to you for the lengthy transmutation process being a way to work up to one.

I do also want to single out the idea you've expressed that "If some new hot token collector comes on to the scene, it will still take her some time to obtain a Safehold I." First, in a vacuum, I would not be bothered at all, if some new token collector came onto the scene and immediately had a Safehold I. However, the disparity in treatment in the new condensed between long term collectors who have started working on this, and new buy ins, which concerns me. Favoring new buy ins by letting them skip 6 months of transmuting for cash does not make me feel very valued as long term player.

Second, I want to point out to you that the proposed Safehold Super Condensed allows what you've expressed concern about to happen: some new collector to come in, drop a sack of cash, and end up with a Safehold III immediately, while long-term players who had accumulated tokens, were required to take at least six months to build it. So, if you do really want having one of these to feel "extra special" and be more than something you can just throw money at, the proposed Safehold Super Condensed severely undermines that goal and should be reconsidered.

Third, without some significant changes to the program, eventually, exactly that scenario will happen. There is no limit on the number of Saleholds an individual can transmute. It has been stated elsewhere that because tracking Safeholds would be impractical for logistic concerns (to which I am very sympathetic!), they will be tradeable between players. However, the fact that these are tradeable means that eventually Safehold Is will simply appear on the market for purchase, and the hypothetical hotshot new collector will be able to just buy one. It is probably reasonable to assume that the biggest collectors have already started transmuting some extras for that purpose. My personal view is that unless TDA is willing to go through the effort of making Safeholds player-bound (which would have unfortunate consequences for anyone who had started along the path of transmuting these for sale), the goal of making these something more than "what money can buy" is not achievable, and should be discarded.

To summarize: the proposed Safehold Super Condensed reveals and exacerbates a tension which has already existed in the Safehold program. Are Safeholds "more than money can buy" and something you must work towards, or are they just another item? Proceeding firmly in either direction would be significantly preferable to the awkward middle ground we are currently in.