TOPIC: Con Expansion == Swimming in Fleece?

Brad Mortensen wrote: Not every trophy ends up as Fleece, so while it's an interesting datapoint, I think it's a mistake to focus on just that part of the equation. I'm wondering how many bits are spent on 3- and 4-point and Icecrag-like transmutes compared to Fleece.

With recipes saying one trophy = 300 GP, and at $20/1kGP, there is support for Fleece at $60. I've always opted to use gold vs trophies in transmutes. If Fleece consistently sell for $50 or less, then a lot of people (like me) are going to make a lot fewer Fleece as they put their bits into other recipes.

The point is, I don't think we need to worry about legendaries to keep the price of Fleece from dropping that far; not in the long term, anyway. Newbies are much more likely to use their bits in place of 300gp for a few low-level transmutes than to start cranking out legendaries.

Fleece are just one of 12 trade goods. Prices on all of them have fluctuated a lot over the years, with the high sometimes being four to five times the low. Gold has dropped from $30 to $20/1k in the last six years. I'm just not sure why we're so worried about one trade good and ignoring the rest - and it's the one trade good that has support at 3000 GP that will keep it from becoming next year's Plank.

Fleece/Monster Bits are different from all the other trade goods, because production of them is going up much more than production of all the other trade categories.

That is because all the other trade categories scale with the number of tokens sold, whereas fleece/monster bits scale with the number of treasure pulls awarded.

The number of treasure pulls awarded is up maybe 50% in one year. There is no reason to think the number of token sales is up anything like that.

So - what is happening with fleece/monster bits is unique and different from every other trade good, and warrants consideration as a unique phenomena.

You are neglecting the rares and uncommons that can be mulched into trade goods. Here is my estimate for 100 pulls assuming "perfect" distribution.

15 trophies
40 rares. (12 of which go towards Aragonite)
40 uncommons (6 towards Oil and 6 towards Bismuth)
5 "special "

It would yield enough to make a number of other trade tokens which I'm not going to calculate at his late hour.

You may say that this still over produces fleece. And it could, but some of those bits are going to be saved for a 3c or 4c.

So one fleece, a set towards a combo, half an Aragonite, a quarter of Oil and Bismuth and several of others.

So the supply of other trade goods goes up as well. And since legendaries also consume certain URs, some of the "specials" could be transmute material.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Fleece/Monster Bits are different from all the other trade goods, because production of them is going up much more than production of all the other trade categories.

That is conjecture.

The number of treasure pulls awarded is up maybe 50% in one year. There is no reason to think the number of token sales is up anything like that.

Yes, there is: the average number of GT per Onyx order has plummeted over the last couple of years. With a fixed 40, that can only happen if sales have gone way up. My estimate is a 300% increase over the last five years.

So - what is happening with fleece/monster bits is unique

I'm saying it's not.

and different from every other trade good, and warrants consideration as a unique phenomena.

There is not enough evidence to support that conclusion, IMO. Especially since you don't seem to have taken the alleged fourfold increase in token sales into account.

Nor the increase in Rares and Commons pulled from the box.

Harlax wrote: You are neglecting the rares and uncommons that can be mulched into trade goods. Here is my estimate for 100 pulls assuming "perfect" distribution.

15 trophies
40 rares. (12 of which go towards Aragonite)
40 uncommons (6 towards Oil and 6 towards Bismuth)
5 "special "

It would yield enough to make a number of other trade tokens which I'm not going to calculate at his late hour.

You may say that this still over produces fleece. And it could, but some of those bits are going to be saved for a 3c or 4c.

So one fleece, a set towards a combo, half an Aragonite, a quarter of Oil and Bismuth and several of others.

So the supply of other trade goods goes up as well. And since legendaries also consume certain URs, some of the "specials" could be transmute material.

No, I'm not neglecting that, the math is earlier on the thread.

All other trade goods come from:

Sold tokens, dungeon run 10 packs, and treasure pulls.

Monster trophies come from:

Treasure pulls.


Treasure pulls are up say 50%.

Dungeon 10 packs are up a similar amount.

Sold tokens are not up by 50%. We don't know how much they are up (or down) but it strains credulity that the figure could exceed even 25%.


Therefore the increase on monster trophies will be higher than the increase of other items.

My sales so far this year are decently lower than last year. I suspect it is because of TDC. My theory is that a lot more people joined together to pre-order directly from Jeff in order to get into the patron events at TDC. And a lot more people purchased tokens earlier rather than later, meaning they don't need as many tokens now and/or they don't have budget for them.

It is clear to me that Jeff got significantly more $8k pre-orders than he normally does, so that's what my theory is based on.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Treasure pulls are up say 50%.

Maybe. Maybe much less.

Sold tokens are not up by 50%. We don't know how much they are up (or down) but it strains credulity that the figure could exceed even 25%.

Maybe it strains yours. Not mine.

Based on an admittedly limited sample, five years ago GTs averaged about one per $5-6k in purchases

Now, it's more like one per $20k

THAT is the part of the equation you're ignoring. Based on those estimates, token sales are up an average of 30% PER YEAR for the last five years. You're focused on a one-time spike of MAYBE 50% (total guess) which is swamped by five years of continuous growth in online sales (another guess.)

If anything, the increase in trophy pulling is a move towards restoring the historical balance between all 12 trade goods.

As you say, it's all based on wild guesses. One guy knows for sure which of us is closer to being correct, and he's not talking.

jedibcg wrote: Next month I will finish my circut of TD runs across all the cons that featured full dungeons.

Gen Con; Game Hole Con; True Dungeon Celebration and Origins. I can say I am not yet swimming in Fleece. I have 1 and have 11 loose monster bits. I have been able to trade away most of my extra monster bits so there seems to still be demand for them. We will see after Origins if I am able to move any 2016 MB.


So currently I am agreeing with Brad that we shall see what the extra cons do to the token economy.

Just because there are more cons with TD does not mean more fleece. I would not recommend including fleece in anything else.

Kaledor wrote:

jedibcg wrote: Next month I will finish my circut of TD runs across all the cons that featured full dungeons.

Gen Con; Game Hole Con; True Dungeon Celebration and Origins. I can say I am not yet swimming in Fleece. I have 1 and have 11 loose monster bits. I have been able to trade away most of my extra monster bits so there seems to still be demand for them. We will see after Origins if I am able to move any 2016 MB.


So currently I am agreeing with Brad that we shall see what the extra cons do to the token economy.

Just because there are more cons with TD does not mean more fleece. I would not recommend including fleece in anything else.

I think more conventions with True Dungeon does mean more Monster Ingredient Token if the treasure mix is consistent. It's debatable how many more though.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: Treasure pulls are up say 50%.

Maybe. Maybe much less.

Sold tokens are not up by 50%. We don't know how much they are up (or down) but it strains credulity that the figure could exceed even 25%.

Maybe it strains yours. Not mine.

Based on an admittedly limited sample, five years ago GTs averaged about one per $5-6k in purchases

Now, it's more like one per $20k

THAT is the part of the equation you're ignoring. Based on those estimates, token sales are up an average of 30% PER YEAR for the last five years. You're focused on a one-time spike of MAYBE 50% (total guess) which is swamped by five years of continuous growth in online sales (another guess.)

If anything, the increase in trophy pulling is a move towards restoring the historical balance between all 12 trade goods.

As you say, it's all based on wild guesses. One guy knows for sure which of us is closer to being correct, and he's not talking.

I'm talking about the last year or two, not a 5 year horizon, over which time I'd agree I don't think we know enough about pulls versus treasure token sales.

But, here are facts, no conjecture:

1. Recently Fleece has been selling on the open market for $50. This is an unprecedentedly low price.

2. Monster Trophies are only available in treasure pulls.

3. Here is the trajectory of available treasure pulls for the last few years:

* 2014 - Gen Con only.

* 2015 - Gen Con and extremely limited presentation at WYC. Amulet of Treasure Finding and Charm of Avarice Introduced.

* 2016 - Gen Con, WYC, and GHC

* 2017 - TDC, Gen Con, and GHC. Ioun Stone Silver Nugget introduced.

So, in 3 years we've seen TD treasure pulls go from 1 presentation a year to 3, we've seen AoTF, CoA (granting HoP effect to those who didn't have them), and ISSN come online as treasure boosters.

4. In terms of recipes for monster bits, Ring of Heroism was in print and transmutable from 2015-May 2017, was transmuted in such quantities that TD ran out, and is no longer around to soak up Monster bits/fleece.



You can feel free to dispute that validity of my model (that fleece supply is growing faster than other trade goods).

To do so you must believe, as a matter of mathematical necessity, that the ratio of tokens sold in 2017 versus that in 2015 is greater than the ratio of monster bits pulled from treasure in 2017 versus 2015. To me that is pretty wild.


But! No matter what you assume in that regard, the fact remains that the market price of Fleece has tanked to unprecedentedly low levels, and that my model both explains this, and predicted the drop in prices.

I'm curious what your account of why fleece is selling at it's lowest price in the history of True Dungeon would be?

Matthew Hayward wrote: 2017 - TDC, Gen Con, and GHC. Ioun Stone Silver Nugget introduced.

And you forgot Origins in 2017.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Ring of Heroism was in print and transmutable from 2015-May 2017, was transmuted in such quantities that TD ran out, and is no longer around to soak up Monster bits/fleece.

I agree that the Rings of Heroism likely soaked up a ton of Golden Fleece. At one point I was selling my last one or two at almost $100/ea because I just couldn't get them.

Just to tack on to my return from Origins and having done the full circuit last season. I am calling it seasons until it catches on.

I don't know that I pulled more tokens than anyone last season because not everyone contributed to the google doc (shameless plug for it), but I know I had more more on the doc than anyone else over the 4 cons. I think MasterEd actually passed me but his Origins and TDC pulls aren't there. That said. I pulled 1460 total over the 4 cons and 269 Monster bits and 3 full fleeces. I kept 20 of each of the MB's. That is 189 MB's I had available for trade. I have currently I have either 2 fleeces and 12 MB's left over (not count the 80 in reserve) or 1 fleece and 22 BM's. I was able to trade over 150 MB's to folks that wanted them. Draw whatever you want from the data, but that is the data I have.

Matthew Hayward wrote:
1. Recently Fleece has been selling on the open market for $50. This is an unprecedentedly low price.

That unprecedentedly low price is on $5 to $10 lower than its previous low point. That seem on par with the swings we have seen with other trade goods, imo.