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

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

A "hidden" cost us non-US players (hello from Canada!) need to deal with: shipping time.

This year, 2023 preorders were sent out around 18 November, but the last package didn't arrive until early January, almost two months later. I live in a large city right next to Toronto! It's not like I live in a cabin the middle of the woods with no major mailing centre nearby; I'm in a large city right next to the largest city in Canada!

For these preorders, this delay didn't matter, since we couldn't use those tokens until January 2023 anyway. However, it absolutely matters for the Safehold tokens: as per the rules, in order to use the associated tokens (Hirelings, Underlings, Followers, Tier 2 Mythic), we must show an appropriately levelled Safehold token to the Coach.

Which means, in 2024, I have a choice: do send in my Safehold IV on 02 July (right after the Canada Day holiday) and hope to get it back before Gen Con, or do I wait until the next odd-numbered month, September, to send it in? Will I get my tokens back before October ends to upgrade to Safehold III, or will I be delayed another two months and need to mail it in December alongside the holiday rush?

And again in 2025: send in a Safehold II on 02 July and hope to get it back in time to use Tier 2 Mythics at Gen Con (or RIP chance of high-tier runs), wait for Gen Con and transmute on the last day of July (and hope they haven't run out due to others looking to transmute in-person), or wait for September?

At least the Mythic Totem of Avarice is a Tier I Mythic, so I'm not going to lose treasure pulls due to being disallowed from equipping it due to logistics.

And this isn't even considering the duties (both ways!) and fees attached to international shipping, or the risk of losing a high-value token in the mail.

That said, it's a bit frustrating to hear now that a Safehold III may be offered via a Super Condensed pack, after the Safehold V (Under Construction) has been made available for multiple months. What do I do with my already-transmuted Safehold? Do I need to worry about a Safehold I ever be made available via the store? What's the plan for the next few years' condensed packs?

And yes, this logistical nightmare for international players has been raised multiple times during the initial design and cost threads.

Daniel White wrote:

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.

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply. Let me take a few days to think about your points. Thanks again.

Ho-Yi Fung wrote:

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

A "hidden" cost us non-US players (hello from Canada!) need to deal with: shipping time.

This year, 2023 preorders were sent out around 18 November, but the last package didn't arrive until early January, almost two months later. I live in a large city right next to Toronto! It's not like I live in a cabin the middle of the woods with no major mailing centre nearby; I'm in a large city right next to the largest city in Canada!

For these preorders, this delay didn't matter, since we couldn't use those tokens until January 2023 anyway. However, it absolutely matters for the Safehold tokens: as per the rules, in order to use the associated tokens (Hirelings, Underlings, Followers, Tier 2 Mythic), we must show an appropriately levelled Safehold token to the Coach.

Which means, in 2024, I have a choice: do send in my Safehold IV on 02 July (right after the Canada Day holiday) and hope to get it back before Gen Con, or do I wait until the next odd-numbered month, September, to send it in? Will I get my tokens back before October ends to upgrade to Safehold III, or will I be delayed another two months and need to mail it in December alongside the holiday rush?

And again in 2025: send in a Safehold II on 02 July and hope to get it back in time to use Tier 2 Mythics at Gen Con (or RIP chance of high-tier runs), wait for Gen Con and transmute on the last day of July (and hope they haven't run out due to others looking to transmute in-person), or wait for September?

At least the Mythic Totem of Avarice is a Tier I Mythic, so I'm not going to lose treasure pulls due to being disallowed from equipping it due to logistics.

And this isn't even considering the duties (both ways!) and fees attached to international shipping, or the risk of losing a high-value token in the mail.

That said, it's a bit frustrating to hear now that a Safehold III may be offered via a Super Condensed pack, after the Safehold V (Under Construction) has been made available for multiple months. What do I do with my already-transmuted Safehold? Do I need to worry about a Safehold I ever be made available via the store? What's the plan for the next few years' condensed packs?

And yes, this logistical nightmare for international players has been raised multiple times during the initial design and cost threads.

This $8K Super Safehold Condensed idea just occurred to me last week while working on the 2024 Token details. Believe me, I wish I would have thought about it last year, but I was still a few steps back at that time. And yes, the very first thing I thought of AFTER coming up with this Safehold Condensed idea was "Oh...but wait...the folks who already made Safehold V's might be mad about this."

It is a valid point.

We talked about it at length, but we felt the bonuses outweighed the risk of ill-will -- especially for overseas folks. What can you do with your current Safehold V token? I am hoping to can easily sell it or trade if for something else you need.

As far as worrying about a Safehold I showing up as a trade for all the Trade tokens in an $8K Super Condensed -- no worries. The cost of either a Safehold II or Safehold I should never be that low.

The safehold transmute process seems to reinforce the value of transmuting at cons. Usually we can (to some extent) and international players always can.

For GC, I could see the value of having transmuting open on Wednesday. I’d be happy to volunteer to help.

Jeff, thank you again for being willing to carefully consider feedback on these matters. Now that it's the weekend and I have a bit more time I'd like to circle back to the transmute costs and trade goods discussion.

First, some data, courtesy of Marc D's incredible chart: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o7tAWpTfxqziJz73Cmwl2CnU5TBm59alDY2GX1JDdw4/edit#gid=90113168

Compared to 2019, here are the relative price changes, on average, at auction:

AI: +122.86%
AP: -50%
AG: -56.67%
GP: -11.76%
DP: +27.78%
DS: +80.00%
EB: -55.00%
EM: +78.26%
MH: +252.17%
MS: +40%
OE: -57.89%
PS: +115.00%
UR: -15.83%
1k Bonus: +46.67%
2k Bonus: +175.86% (Teeth, Rings)
8k Bonus: +11.57% (Dragon Orbs, Path to Enlightenment)
Patron Pin: +438.48%
Wish Ring: -6.25%

I'm leaving out some of the other small items like condensed healing, AG badge and 3 star transmutes since their prices are relatively small, as well as preorder bonuses like treasure chips because they're not a part of all orders.

Here are some of the basic conclusions I draw from this data set:

1. The price of all TG have not gone down. Rather, the price of some TG have increased by 50% to a whopping 252% for minotaur hide. This is the result I anticipated in prior years due to the ratio of TG used in legendary transmutes for newer legendary items, like the outsized 25 dwarven steel required for Luna's and Muk's. In general, I think dramatic swings in the price of specific tokens in the secondary market are not good for trading, because they encourage hoarding and price-change profiteering over trading with other players.

Specifically, I observe:

A. The price of some TG, especially treasure box (treasure box because these are present in treasure at larger quantities than 10-packs by a large margin) TG such as AG, EB, OE, have gone down significantly.
B. The price of other TG, especially 10-pack TG, such as MH and DS, have skyrocketed.
C. The price of other TG, such as AI, AG, and PS, appear to have also gone through significant price swings. These price swings appear to me to be correlated with the amount required in 2020-2023 legendary recipes.
D. The price of Patron has increased over 400%. From an average of $71.10 to an average of $350.60, from 2019 to 2023. This is a consequence of the added value Patron now has with more TD weekends/year.
E. The price of the 2k bonus has increased almost 50%. This is a consequence of Ringcon/Skullcon's added value, I believe.
F. The added value to premium items necessarily drives the price of all other items in an 8k order down.

From these observations I can conclude:

1. There has not been an across-the-board fall in the price of TG. If TG price is a concern in and of itself, it does not make sense as a general goal, to try and increase the price of all TG across-the-board.
2. Even without accounting for "augmented" auctions, which I'll get to, the decrease in price of some TGs has been compensated for by an increase in price of others, and a significant increase in the price of premium rewards due to their added value. This makes sense because the 8k is a fixed price.

With that in mind, here is one easy recommendation, which I and others have made previously, but not in as much detail.

Recommendation 1: In preparing recipes for transmuted items, TDA should be mindful of which specific TG it is using to get to its desired price point, so as not to dramatically inflate or deflate the price of certain TG over others, as we've seen since 2019. If the concern truly is that VTD treasure are "watering down" the price of certain trade goods, then I submit that the recipes should be more closely tied to the TG which have had the greatest relative "increase" such as AG, EB and OE, rather than things like AI, DS, and MH.

Second, I want to look closely at what Jeff said here:

Jeff Martin wrote: Thus, if we felt one Relic was not as desirable as another Relic, we made the less powerful token cost 20% less (in real dollar terms) than the other.

Per Marc D's chart, the average cost of building Boaz's Bead from TG would be $1,697.00, versus $1,713.00 for Vim's boots, which is a significantly less desirable token. Rather than be 20% lower, it is marginally higher. The average cost of transmuting the COA Recipe 3 would be $1,441, lower than both of those, for the most desirable token of the three.

Looking at 2022, the average cost of Greater Ring of Havoc was $606, Greater Charm Bracelets $549, and the +3 Turkey Leg was $476. So, it certainly seems like TDA tried a price reduction on the leg. On TDTavern, you can buy a +3 Turkey Leg for $60 (12.6% of TG cost that year), Greater Ring of Havoc for $315 (52% of TG cost that year), and Greater Charm Bracelets for $375 (68% of TG cost that year).

I believe it is not a desirable thing to have a substantial price gap between tokens of the same rarity, for the reason that it helps players learn the marketplace and not get ripped off by predatory traders when they're new.

From those observations and that desired outcome I draw the following conclusions:

1. A 20% reduction in crafting requirement is not an accurate "rule-of thumb" reduction for an undesirable transmute.
2. Either ( A ) TDA not an excellent predictor of what tokens will be undesirable (players repeatedly indicated that this token did not have a strong market), ( B ) failed to apply a 20% cost reduction to Vim's boosts or ( C ) did not accurately compute the 20% reduction.

I can then make the following recommendation:

Recommendation 2: Rather than try to reduce the price of relics or legendries deemed 'less desirable', it would be better to either put them in a different transmute category, or not produce them at all. A longer token development cycle may be necessary to achieve this goal.

Third, I want to carefully review the premise of TDA's analysis: why there should be concern about the price of some TG going down. Jeff has not said, specifically, why he considers this an issue. However, let's review some possible arguments for why the cost of certain TG going down would be a problem, and see if the data bears out.

Hypothesis 1: Reduced TG prices mean less 8k auctions funding per year and therefore less revenue for TDA

This would be a direct business reason, which as a former business owner, I'm also sympathetic to. This is what the data has to say. In 2019, Marc's chart shows 6 forum auctions. In 2020, 15. In 2021, 20. In 2022, 50(!). Year to Date we have had 51. I observe the following:

A. Year to date, we have had 8.5 times the number of auctions we had in 2019.
B. Despite the fall in the prices of certain TG, the number of auctions per year has been on a path of continual increase.
C. The additional number of auctions is another source of additional TG being added to the market beyond just additional VTD adventures.

I therefore conclude Hypothesis 1 is not supported by the data. Reduced TG prices do not appear to have resulted in a decrease in the number of auctions and therefore decreased revenue for TDA.

Hypothesis 2: TG prices are "too low" and need to be higher

I observe the following:

1. TG have one use, transmutation.
2. As previously mentioned, at their TD Tavern prices, Greater Ring of Havoc is selling for 52% of TG cost that year, and Greater Charm Bracelets is selling for 68% of TG cost that year. These are good, desirable relics.
2. In general, older legendary tokens require substantially less TG to transmute.
3. Trent's lowest price for Boaz's bead is $1,395, while his lowest price for Vim's (more expensive to transmute) is $850. Luna's is available for $990, about 53% of its $1,873.00 transmute cost in that year's trade goods. Muk's is available for $810, 41% of its staggering $1,976 cost in that year's trade goods.

I conclude:

• Even at current TG costs, it is not a good economic decision to transmute a relic or legendary versus liquidating the constituent trade goods. Anyone buying all the TG for this purpose is taking a substantial loss. This means that TG prices are already vastly inflated from what they should actually be worth.


• Currently, the "optimal" approach to the market (ignoring effort and transaction costs) would simply be to sell all your TG and buy any relics or legendries you need.


• Anyone who is transmuting legendries or relics is doing it for fun, for convenience, because they have so many TG that they can't effectively liquidate all of them (perhaps a handful of people fall into the latter category), or in the worst case, they are doing it because they don't understand the market, think it's a good idea, and are losing ~50% of their value immediately without realizing.


• The substantial gap between the extremely high TG prices to actually transmute a Relic or Legendary and the relatively low cost to buy one on the marketplace creates a "trap for the unwary" where someone who does not understand the market is likely to lose money by using the transmute system.


• If one of the purposes of the relic and legendary transmutation system is to create a thriving secondary market and keep people engaged with the game, it is lower, not higher, relic and legendary requirements may better serve that purpose.


• "Keeping the pace" between the increasing number of TG introduced by auction and the TG requirements for legendary tokens is a positive feedback loop which will ultimately discourage all but the very biggest spenders to stop or limit spending or outright leave the game.


• Increasing TG costs for transmutes discourages folks from buying more tickets to "build up" to a transmute.


• Trying to artificially inflate the price of TG favors one category of players (those who have amassed large stores of unsold TG previously, because they've been unable to sell them at their asking price and chose not to take a loss on transmutation) over all others (i.e. those who buy only what they need in a given year, or try to play the game to work towards transmutes as a goal).


• As 8ks are a "fixed price" order, increased TG price would lead to even cheaper URs, which are already at historic lows.

Since TG prices are already vastly inflated, by as much as 50%, from their true value (as determined by a simple comparison of the cost to transmute a relic or legendary versus what it actually sells for), there is no need to artificially try and keep TG prices increased further. They are already twice as expensive as the only thing they can be used for. I conclude hypothesis 2 is not borne out by the data.

As you can see, after looking at it closely, I just can't see a good reason why TDA should try to keep the price of TG up artificially rather than stay the course and just let the market do its thing.

Recommendation 3: Stop trying to adjust the price of TG in the market. Keep transmutes at a baseline (I'd suggest 2019 requirements), and let the market do its thing. TG prices may go down, but that's probably a good thing. They are already substantially overvalued.

Fred K wrote: For GC, I could see the value of having transmuting open on Wednesday. I’d be happy to volunteer to help.

That would be great, especially since Gen Con Wednesday is 7/31/2024 and the Safehold III (UC) starts in July. Unless an exception is made to allow Safehold III (UC) to be transmuted in August at Gen Con.

Great post by Daniel, I agree with those findings. For years a lot of us TD vets have been telling new people it’s not worth it to transmute relics and legendaries and just buy them on the secondary market. Your numbers prove all of that; why would anyone craft a 2022 or 2023 relic or legendary? The prices have gotten so high that you are better off selling everything and just buying a legendary for $800 from someone who pulls it to sell.

Let’s not even talk about Vims lol.

Daniel White wrote: Recommendation 3: Stop trying to adjust the price of TG in the market. Keep transmutes at a baseline (I'd suggest 2019 requirements), and let the market do its thing. TG prices may go down, but that's probably a good thing. They are already substantially overvalued.

This 1000%.

Daniel White wrote: Jeff, thank you again for being willing to carefully consider feedback on these matters. Now that it's the weekend and I have a bit more time I'd like to circle back to the transmute costs and trade goods discussion.

First, some data, courtesy of Marc D's incredible chart: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o7tAWpTfxqziJz73Cmwl2CnU5TBm59alDY2GX1JDdw4/edit#gid=90113168

Compared to 2019, here are the relative price changes, on average, at auction:

AI: +122.86%
AP: -50%
AG: -56.67%
GP: -11.76%
DP: +27.78%
DS: +80.00%
EB: -55.00%
EM: +78.26%
MH: +252.17%
MS: +40%
OE: -57.89%
PS: +115.00%
UR: -15.83%
1k Bonus: +46.67%
2k Bonus: +175.86% (Teeth, Rings)
8k Bonus: +11.57% (Dragon Orbs, Path to Enlightenment)
Patron Pin: +438.48%
Wish Ring: -6.25%

I'm leaving out some of the other small items like condensed healing, AG badge and 3 star transmutes since their prices are relatively small, as well as preorder bonuses like treasure chips because they're not a part of all orders.

Here are some of the basic conclusions I draw from this data set:

1. The price of all TG have not gone down. Rather, the price of some TG have increased by 50% to a whopping 252% for minotaur hide. This is the result I anticipated in prior years due to the ratio of TG used in legendary transmutes for newer legendary items, like the outsized 25 dwarven steel required for Luna's and Muk's. In general, I think dramatic swings in the price of specific tokens in the secondary market are not good for trading, because they encourage hoarding and price-change profiteering over trading with other players.

Specifically, I observe:

A. The price of some TG, especially treasure box (treasure box because these are present in treasure at larger quantities than 10-packs by a large margin) TG such as AG, EB, OE, have gone down significantly.
B. The price of other TG, especially 10-pack TG, such as MH and DS, have skyrocketed.
C. The price of other TG, such as AI, AG, and PS, appear to have also gone through significant price swings. These price swings appear to me to be correlated with the amount required in 2020-2023 legendary recipes.
D. The price of Patron has increased over 400%. From an average of $71.10 to an average of $350.60, from 2019 to 2023. This is a consequence of the added value Patron now has with more TD weekends/year.
E. The price of the 2k bonus has increased almost 50%. This is a consequence of Ringcon/Skullcon's added value, I believe.
F. The added value to premium items necessarily drives the price of all other items in an 8k order down.

From these observations I can conclude:

1. There has not been an across-the-board fall in the price of TG. If TG price is a concern in and of itself, it does not make sense as a general goal, to try and increase the price of all TG across-the-board.
2. Even without accounting for "augmented" auctions, which I'll get to, the decrease in price of some TGs has been compensated for by an increase in price of others, and a significant increase in the price of premium rewards due to their added value. This makes sense because the 8k is a fixed price.

With that in mind, here is one easy recommendation, which I and others have made previously, but not in as much detail.

Recommendation 1: In preparing recipes for transmuted items, TDA should be mindful of which specific TG it is using to get to its desired price point, so as not to dramatically inflate or deflate the price of certain TG over others, as we've seen since 2019. If the concern truly is that VTD treasure are "watering down" the price of certain trade goods, then I submit that the recipes should be more closely tied to the TG which have had the greatest relative "increase" such as AG, EB and OE, rather than things like AI, DS, and MH.

Second, I want to look closely at what Jeff said here:

Jeff Martin wrote: Thus, if we felt one Relic was not as desirable as another Relic, we made the less powerful token cost 20% less (in real dollar terms) than the other.

Per Marc D's chart, the average cost of building Boaz's Bead from TG would be $1,697.00, versus $1,713.00 for Vim's boots, which is a significantly less desirable token. Rather than be 20% lower, it is marginally higher. The average cost of transmuting the COA Recipe 3 would be $1,441, lower than both of those, for the most desirable token of the three.

Looking at 2022, the average cost of Greater Ring of Havoc was $606, Greater Charm Bracelets $549, and the +3 Turkey Leg was $476. So, it certainly seems like TDA tried a price reduction on the leg. On TDTavern, you can buy a +3 Turkey Leg for $60 (12.6% of TG cost that year), Greater Ring of Havoc for $315 (52% of TG cost that year), and Greater Charm Bracelets for $375 (68% of TG cost that year).

I believe it is not a desirable thing to have a substantial price gap between tokens of the same rarity, for the reason that it helps players learn the marketplace and not get ripped off by predatory traders when they're new.

From those observations and that desired outcome I draw the following conclusions:

1. A 20% reduction in crafting requirement is not an accurate "rule-of thumb" reduction for an undesirable transmute.
2. Either ( A ) TDA not an excellent predictor of what tokens will be undesirable (players repeatedly indicated that this token did not have a strong market), ( B ) failed to apply a 20% cost reduction to Vim's boosts or ( C ) did not accurately compute the 20% reduction.

I can then make the following recommendation:

Recommendation 2: Rather than try to reduce the price of relics or legendries deemed 'less desirable', it would be better to either put them in a different transmute category, or not produce them at all. A longer token development cycle may be necessary to achieve this goal.

Third, I want to carefully review the premise of TDA's analysis: why there should be concern about the price of some TG going down. Jeff has not said, specifically, why he considers this an issue. However, let's review some possible arguments for why the cost of certain TG going down would be a problem, and see if the data bears out.

Hypothesis 1: Reduced TG prices mean less 8k auctions funding per year and therefore less revenue for TDA

This would be a direct business reason, which as a former business owner, I'm also sympathetic to. This is what the data has to say. In 2019, Marc's chart shows 6 forum auctions. In 2020, 15. In 2021, 20. In 2022, 50(!). Year to Date we have had 51. I observe the following:

A. Year to date, we have had 8.5 times the number of auctions we had in 2019.
B. Despite the fall in the prices of certain TG, the number of auctions per year has been on a path of continual increase.
C. The additional number of auctions is another source of additional TG being added to the market beyond just additional VTD adventures.

I therefore conclude Hypothesis 1 is not supported by the data. Reduced TG prices do not appear to have resulted in a decrease in the number of auctions and therefore decreased revenue for TDA.

Hypothesis 2: TG prices are "too low" and need to be higher

I observe the following:

1. TG have one use, transmutation.
2. As previously mentioned, at their TD Tavern prices, Greater Ring of Havoc is selling for 52% of TG cost that year, and Greater Charm Bracelets is selling for 68% of TG cost that year. These are good, desirable relics.
2. In general, older legendary tokens require substantially less TG to transmute.
3. Trent's lowest price for Boaz's bead is $1,395, while his lowest price for Vim's (more expensive to transmute) is $850. Luna's is available for $990, about 53% of its $1,873.00 transmute cost in that year's trade goods. Muk's is available for $810, 41% of its staggering $1,976 cost in that year's trade goods.

I conclude:

• Even at current TG costs, it is not a good economic decision to transmute a relic or legendary versus liquidating the constituent trade goods. Anyone buying all the TG for this purpose is taking a substantial loss. This means that TG prices are already vastly inflated from what they should actually be worth.


• Currently, the "optimal" approach to the market (ignoring effort and transaction costs) would simply be to sell all your TG and buy any relics or legendries you need.


• Anyone who is transmuting legendries or relics is doing it for fun, for convenience, because they have so many TG that they can't effectively liquidate all of them (perhaps a handful of people fall into the latter category), or in the worst case, they are doing it because they don't understand the market, think it's a good idea, and are losing ~50% of their value immediately without realizing.


• The substantial gap between the extremely high TG prices to actually transmute a Relic or Legendary and the relatively low cost to buy one on the marketplace creates a "trap for the unwary" where someone who does not understand the market is likely to lose money by using the transmute system.


• If one of the purposes of the relic and legendary transmutation system is to create a thriving secondary market and keep people engaged with the game, it is lower, not higher, relic and legendary requirements may better serve that purpose.


• "Keeping the pace" between the increasing number of TG introduced by auction and the TG requirements for legendary tokens is a positive feedback loop which will ultimately discourage all but the very biggest spenders to stop or limit spending or outright leave the game.


• Increasing TG costs for transmutes discourages folks from buying more tickets to "build up" to a transmute.


• Trying to artificially inflate the price of TG favors one category of players (those who have amassed large stores of unsold TG previously, because they've been unable to sell them at their asking price and chose not to take a loss on transmutation) over all others (i.e. those who buy only what they need in a given year, or try to play the game to work towards transmutes as a goal).


• As 8ks are a "fixed price" order, increased TG price would lead to even cheaper URs, which are already at historic lows.

Since TG prices are already vastly inflated, by as much as 50%, from their true value (as determined by a simple comparison of the cost to transmute a relic or legendary versus what it actually sells for), there is no need to artificially try and keep TG prices increased further. They are already twice as expensive as the only thing they can be used for. I conclude hypothesis 2 is not borne out by the data.

As you can see, after looking at it closely, I just can't see a good reason why TDA should try to keep the price of TG up artificially rather than stay the course and just let the market do its thing.

Recommendation 3: Stop trying to adjust the price of TG in the market. Keep transmutes at a baseline (I'd suggest 2019 requirements), and let the market do its thing. TG prices may go down, but that's probably a good thing. They are already substantially overvalued.

Trent's and Kirk's store front pricing is not what Tokens normally sell for. Just because one of them has a Vim's Boot (or any other Token) listed for a certain amount, doesn't mean it's going to sell at that amount. In fact, the prices on the store fronts are usually the ceilings, my experience is that if you take the time to look you can usually find a better deal.
Unless you can somehow track all secondary sales (which is impossible) it's impossible to know what the average sales prices of a Token was over the course of a year. So comparing a store front price (which may not be the market price) to what it costs to transmute that item won't be accurate. I've picked up a few nice Legendaries this year for a bit above $500 and I've never seen them listed that low on one of the storefronts.

Same goes for TG's. Auction prices are not what TG's always sell for on the secondary market. I loaded up on a bunch of Hide and Steel at prices way less than any of the auctions this year.

Rob F wrote:

Daniel White wrote: Since TG prices are already vastly inflated, by as much as 50%, from their true value (as determined by a simple comparison of the cost to transmute a relic or legendary versus what it actually sells for), there is no need to artificially try and keep TG prices increased further. They are already twice as expensive as the only thing they can be used for.

Trent's and Kirk's store front pricing is not what Tokens normally sell for. Just because one of them has a Vim's Boot (or any other Token) listed for a certain amount, doesn't mean it's going to sell at that amount. In fact, the prices on the store fronts are usually the ceilings, my experience is that if you take the time to look you can usually find a better deal.

You're absolutely right about this, Rob, but that just emphasizes Dan's point even more. If you can buy a legendary for $500 instead of $1000, that makes it even less worthwhile to consider crafting your own from TGs instead.

Same goes for TG's. Auction prices are not what TG's always sell for on the secondary market. I loaded up on a bunch of Hide and Steel at prices way less than any of the auctions this year.

Yes and no. You might occasionally get TGs for less, but we do know that a large quantity of TGs actually changed hands at those auction prices, so it's at least a pretty close approximation of true market value.

David Zych wrote:

Rob F wrote:

Daniel White wrote: Since TG prices are already vastly inflated, by as much as 50%, from their true value (as determined by a simple comparison of the cost to transmute a relic or legendary versus what it actually sells for), there is no need to artificially try and keep TG prices increased further. They are already twice as expensive as the only thing they can be used for.

Trent's and Kirk's store front pricing is not what Tokens normally sell for. Just because one of them has a Vim's Boot (or any other Token) listed for a certain amount, doesn't mean it's going to sell at that amount. In fact, the prices on the store fronts are usually the ceilings, my experience is that if you take the time to look you can usually find a better deal.

You're absolutely right about this, Rob, but that just emphasizes Dan's point even more. If you can buy a legendary for $500 instead of $1000, that makes it even less worthwhile to consider crafting your own from TGs instead.

Same goes for TG's. Auction prices are not what TG's always sell for on the secondary market. I loaded up on a bunch of Hide and Steel at prices way less than any of the auctions this year.

Yes and no. You might occasionally get TGs for less, but we do know that a large quantity of TGs actually changed hands at those auction prices, so it's at least a pretty close approximation of true market value.

I'm not refuting what he's saying, I'd have to look at my past purchases but it's been a long time since the cost to transmute vs. the cost to buy has been more equal. Years ago you couldn't find a Legendary for under 1K. Now, most of them are. And TD loading up the treasure boxes just makes it worse. Especially for the ones that aren't that desirable. Dump a bunch of Relic Boots into the boxes and it only devalues them further, etc.

Rob, I agree with you on that last point. It's been a long time since legendary and TG prices have been close. That's how long TG prices have been out of whack for.