TOPIC: Speculation on Bead of the Lucky Traveler / Monster Bit Scarcity

I wonder what will be the limiting factor on Bead of the Lucky Traveler production, among:

2016 Monster Trophies
2017 Monster Trophies
2018 Monster Trophies
2019 Monster Trophies?

It seems to me it would either be 2016 sets of 4, or 2019 sets of 6 - however I wonder...

Given how good Blessed Tempest Gloves is, and its recipe requiring 2 specific 2017 trophies, maybe 2017 could be the bottleneck?

Or also, given how good Enchanter's Whetstone is, and potentially a high demand for Charm of Treasure Boosting or FoP: Dog, maybe 2018 could be the bottleneck?


Speaking for myself, I am limited currently by 2017 complete sets, with 27 - and I'm liable to break up some of those sets for more Blessed Tempest Gloves.

Matthew Hayward wrote: I wonder what will be the limiting factor on Bead of the Lucky Traveler production, among:

2016 Monster Trophies
2017 Monster Trophies
2018 Monster Trophies
2019 Monster Trophies?

It seems to me it would either be 2016 sets of 4, or 2019 sets of 6 - however I wonder...

Given how good Blessed Tempest Gloves is, and its recipe requiring 2 specific 2017 trophies, maybe 2017 could be the bottleneck?

Or also, given how good Enchanter's Whetstone is, and potentially a high demand for Charm of Treasure Boosting or FoP: Dog, maybe 2018 could be the bottleneck?


Speaking for myself, I am limited currently by 2017 complete sets, with 27 - and I'm liable to break up some of those sets for more Blessed Tempest Gloves.

I need to double-check, but I think 2017 is my limiting factor as well. Despite going on several more runs (more conventions) in 2017 than 2016, and not making any of the Gloves.

I think there’s a good chance it will be the 2019s. You’ll need 50% more of them, and we don’t even know what transmutes will be competing for them yet.

That’s why I chose to dump some of my older ones, I’m not even going to try to make as many beads as I’d planned.

So, I have had to pare down what I was planning on making due to increased requirements for fleece as well.

I would say that 2016s are my rate limiting step, but I also have as many as I want to make anyhow.

I don't know how 2019 will go, but whether there are the same number of bits (and therefore less of each individual bit) or the same percentage of each bit, I'm not worried about finding enough of those.

Brad Mortensen wrote: I think there’s a good chance it will be the 2019s. You’ll need 50% more of them, and we don’t even know what transmutes will be competing for them yet.

That’s why I chose to dump some of my older ones, I’m not even going to try to make as many beads as I’d planned.

That's a good point (re: maybe 2020's might have some great intro transmutes that eat 2019 monster bits).

It seems possible to me there will be 50% more treasure draws in 2020:

2020 will have 4 cons and ISSN and ISGN active.
2016 had what con-wise? I think it was 3: Gen Con, WYC, and GHC? Maybe only 2?

Of course, we also don't know the treasure mix. Also a lot of treasure pulls will never circulate - it's not clear if the circulating supply of monster bits could increase 50% even if treasure pulls do.

You’re not accounting for increased demand from new players and older newbies moving up the collector ladder.

Sure, more 2019s, but spread around more people. And many of those people will feel the missed the Bead Boat and just use their bits on 3 and 4 stars, and won’t even try for the Bead.

So who knows.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: I think there’s a good chance it will be the 2019s. You’ll need 50% more of them, and we don’t even know what transmutes will be competing for them yet.

That’s why I chose to dump some of my older ones, I’m not even going to try to make as many beads as I’d planned.

That's a good point (re: maybe 2020's might have some great intro transmutes that eat 2019 monster bits).

It seems possible to me there will be 50% more treasure draws in 2020:

2020 will have 4 cons and ISSN and ISGN active.
2016 had what con-wise? I think it was 3: Gen Con, WYC, and GHC? Maybe only 2?

Of course, we also don't know the treasure mix. Also a lot of treasure pulls will never circulate - it's not clear if the circulating supply of monster bits could increase 50% even if treasure pulls do.

Right now I have 10 full sets of 16, 17, and 18. And enough extras to make a fleece.

My limiters:
I don’t project getting 10 sets of 19s.
Also I only have 5 beads of Firehold at the moment. I imagine I will get two or so from treasure pulls and 10 packs.

Overall I’m guessing 6 or 7 will be what I can make. I had hoped for a full set of 10 to outfit my sons group, but I’m not going out of my way to get there.

I will be making 10 beads. Everything minus the 2019 are already ziplocked up. I sat aside another 10 sets of 2016, 2017, and 2018 just in case. If I for some reason beyond that I wanted to make more it currently would be 2016's that I would need more of. I didn't trade for any monster bits. I even used a bunch in recipes and a bunch of 2018's became Golden Fleeces. My 2017 are heavy on Draccus and Holly because thought there would be more desire for those because of the transmutes.

So I am answering right now 2019's, just because we don't know. I cannot remember or find what exactly Jeff said about monster bits for 2019. Where he said there would be 6 instead of 4 to see if it sounded like we would remain at the same overall percentages in the boxes (about 22-23% for 2018). So chance of getting each one were ~5.6%. If the overall percentage stays the same (22-23) chances for getting any particular 1 becomes 3.75%. Previously you needed to get about 18 pulls to get 4 (any 4 not a full set). To get get that extra 2 you need another 9 pulls. So 1 run previously should get you 4 (if you had full TE). Now it will take an additional part of a run with more pulls (assuming you have full TE). SOMEONE SHOULD DEFINITELY CHECK MY MATH ON THIS.

If you are only pulling 3 then I think it will take you 9 dungeons to get 6 when it only took 6 dungeons to get the 4 from last year. Again someone should check my math.

So I think for most of those on the forums is unlikely to be an issue to get the 6 you need. You may have to trade 1:1. That said it will require more pulls to get a set. I think most on the forums are pulling more than 3 and are running more than once.

I don't plan on doing a monster bits bank at Gen Con, but if you run into me I pretty confident about being able to 1:1 any 2019 bits any needs to balance themselves out.

My limiting factor currently is 2016 tokens, but my real limiting factor will probably be needing to transmute monster tokens for Fleece to transmute Kilts (I'm not sure yet how many Kilts I will transmute). I'm tentatively planning on transmuting 25 Beads, but that could go down if I need more Fleece, or maybe go up a little bit if I'm able to buy more Golden Fleece.

I have all the sets I need to make what I want to make plus extra. And I'm guessing I'll have enough 2019 sets as well. I think there's going to be a lot of these Beads out on the market. Time will tell.

Rob F wrote: I have all the sets I need to make what I want to make plus extra. And I'm guessing I'll have enough 2019 sets as well. I think there's going to be a lot of these Beads out on the market. Time will tell.

I agree with Rob on this. I think initially they will be like icecrag. You will be tripping over them. They will be pulled out of the boxes like crazy. Then over time they will start to dry up.

jedibcg wrote:

Rob F wrote: I have all the sets I need to make what I want to make plus extra. And I'm guessing I'll have enough 2019 sets as well. I think there's going to be a lot of these Beads out on the market. Time will tell.

I agree with Rob on this. I think initially they will be like icecrag. You will be tripping over them. They will be pulled out of the boxes like crazy. Then over time they will start to dry up.

I think they will be crafted everywhere. I do not think they will be in the boxes like Icecrag were. The mix is different, and the bead is still a relic. I dont expect to see substantially more beads than other relics. I would expect them to remain at the same level as the other relic tokens.

I have no secret insight, it's just what I expect.