TOPIC: NO Legendary Transmute Recipes to be Altered EVER

Bryan/OddSquirrel wrote:
However.

Why are you making changes based on the secondary market? This is not a healthy approach to the game, or frankly, the business.

I don't agree.

By reference to Magic the Gathering, which is hugely successful as a business:

* They do consider and make changes to designs based on the secondary market.
* For example: after Wizard's of the Coast's design team puts together a set of cards or preconstructed deck that includes reprinted cards
* There is a different team within Wizards of people who evaluate the secondary market implications of the inclusion of those cards and adjust / provide feedback as to changes in order that certain business objectives are met.

It's easy to think of things TD could do that would be catastrophic for the business (and thereby eventually for the game), as a result of ignoring the secondary market.

For example, suppose one year TD wanted to have the theme be that the PCs are "legendary heroes of the realm fighting an evil demigod" and to do so in that set included common weapons with +10 to hit and damage, and rare tokens that let characters play as Level 11 PCs with a special character card.

Obviously TD shouldn't do that - and the reasons pertain to the secondary market - not because thematically having a high power heroes vs. high power villains for one year is a bad idea.

Rob F wrote: I'm still a bit confused as to why more CoA's within the player base is costly to True Dungeon. Is it because of all the shipping cost that they have to incur to ship out all the treasure pulls after the VTD events? Is it the time it takes for True Dungeon to do transmutes in general? Maybe both?

Probably also that the more treasure that gets generated, the lower the demand for first party token sales from TD is.

Wayne Rhodes wrote: I think the trade goods not being balanced based on what you can expect to get out of orders in the safehold program has led to trade goods being all out of wack.

It could be - however this is nothing new. For as long as I've been collecting the demand for ingredients shifts around year over year.

Sometimes Mystic Silk is expensive, sometimes it's cheap. Same with Dwarven Steel and Minotaur Hide, etc..

If TD was going to balance recipes to look like what gets created from condensed orders (and perhaps what gets generated in treasure) - they might as well do away with all the distinct transmute categories and just have everything convert to certain units "eldritch dust" and then have recipes only consume "eldrtich dust."

Making transmute ingredient requirements proportional to ingredient supply is just "eldrtich dust" with extra steps.

As it is, TD's approach rewards (potentially anyway) collectors who always retain a large stock of trade goods. Those people can benefit from swings in prices by selling things when they are in demand and restocking them when they are cheap.


Also - people should remember that OE and EB were going for ~3-5x their recent historical prices this winter next time TD proposes a recipe which includes roughly equal proportions of Enchanter's Munition and all the other Trade 1 items. EM is another typical pinch point in supply and demand due to its low supply relative to all the other Trade 1 items.

Endgame wrote: I feel like there is a fundamental misunderstanding about WHY URs have dropped in price.

It's not because there were bad URs in the set
it's not because URs have been getting worse over time.

It's because 8k auctions are Zero Sum. Every 8k auction on Trent's site (and most of the forum auctions) fund at 7,500.

When I started in 2015, Laz was selling PYPs on the forums for $100
In 2023, PYPs sold for a whole year average of 92.20.

That is very little movement in price over 8 years.

Then what happend in 2024?
The 2k Bonus (Marks of the Tenent were introduced) The 2k bonus item increased in value from $7 to $104.
-This means that other items in the 8k needed to drop in price by a total of $400 because the Tenents were soaking an extra $388 on average in value.

8k Bonus rewards (Path Fragments) doubled in price - from $541 average to $1049 in average.
-This means that the Path Fragments were soaking an extra $508 on average in value from the rest of the auction items.

Safe hold 4 was released. Almost every TG increased in average selling price
-It varies auction by auction, so for 2023 to 2024 let's say TG didn't affect the closing price of auctions. But it also means that the value soaked by Fragments and Tenets didn't affect TG.

The question is, what dropped by $896 on average in auctions to account for the higher prices of tenants and fragments?
-URs dropped in price roughly total $780 per auction. This is where the price drop occurred.

So what happened between 2024 and 2026?
-SH 3, 2, and 1 were released, one of every TG multi years were released. Both of these increased the pressure on trade goods, in particular OE and EB. OE and EB are up 250%, and it looks like both of those TG are going to get more expensive (they have sold for $70 each on Trent's site)
-Path Fragment went up up ANOTHER $500 average
-Rings and Tenants are soaking another $240 average from each auction
-On average, URs dropped $440 per auction - that offsets the increase from the path fragments


So what happens in 2027?
There will be no mulit year transmute
There will be no path fragments
There will be No tenets
there will be a New TE bead

This will completely rebalance auction values even if no changes are implemented. I expect URs will be at or above $100 due to this rebalance.

I would suggest taking no action on transmute recipes until the effect of multi years, path fragments, and tenets being out of the mix is understood. Waiting until Summer 27 is probably the best time to consider making changes.

I think this analysis is essentially correct - but let me add another factor:

Builds are getting clogged up with Relic+ Tokens. There are fewer viable slots for URs (especially non-Volunteer URs), and thus general organic demand for URs is also declining.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: Other Legendaries - The tone of my post was to let folks know we are changing the recipe for the CoA -- and MAYBE other Legendaries. I thought it would be worth taking a look at old Legendaries that were hardly NEVER (or completely never) made due to their low desireability and recipes. TaMor's +4 Mithral Bracers come to mind in this case, and maybe lowering it might be good so newer folks have a way to equip a Legendary. I can run a report to see what Legendaries were rarely made -- if at all, and see what we can do to make them more desireable by reducing the recipe for a 15 year old Legendary. Or, maybe we just leave them as is?

For my money: the reason why these don't get transmuted probably has little to do with the recipe, and more to do with alternative options being better for the slot.

For instance in the case of TaMor's - a lot of people would probably just rather run any of the various +2 rare damage bracers than TaMor's; to say nothing of the various slot expanding options or UR bracers.

I'd go a different direction: to keep the existing undesirable "legendary" tokens feeling "legendary" and desirable:
* Rather than change the recipe to be cheaper
* Change the effect to be better

This would be a welcome surprise to people who happen to have the old ones, and should make them more desirable.

For simplicity, I'd suggest any changes be:

* Limited to things that don't affect the party card, slots, set bonuses, or character level
* This will mean coaches and app builders don't have to know about/think about these changes
* Strictly additional to the printed function

I'm imagining stuff like

TaMor's Mithril Bracers:
* -2 from all damage
Or:
* In addition to its current effects, gains 1/game negate the damage or detrimental effect of any attack to it.

If desired, you could put 1 or 2 of the old legendaries who don't get made anymore into token design each year you want to do this so people could give feedback.

I think you're right that it's more that the tokens are now underpowered than to expensive as to why they aren't made often. However, It seems like starting to upgrade Legendaries by adding text in TokenDB might open the floodgates to people wanting to upgrade Legendaries, and also might make it harder to remember what they do since the additional stuff is not printed on the token. Maybe it's OK to make the recipes easier, but leave them mainly for people that are wanting them for a collection and not necessarily play value.

Marc D wrote: I thought the charts below might be of interest to this discussion, now that we're into "where does all the money go?" territory.

Back in 2020, URs accounted for almost exactly 50% of the value in an $8k auction. "Premium" items (patron pin, tokens for 8k, 2k, and 1k orders) made up 14%, and trade goods 33%. The rest was stuff like preorder bonuses, guild buttons and the 3* transmutes.

In 2026, URs are 26% compared to almost 46% for "Premium" items. Trade Goods are at ~25%.

In real numbers, URs represent ~$2000 in auction value in 2026 vs. ~$3800 in 2020. Premium items represent ~$3500 (2026) vs. ~$1000 (2020). Trade goods are somewhat stable: $2500 vs $2000.

The TG portion may seem surprising given that OE and EB are so far up, but consider that many other goods are down by 40% or more. Quantity makes a difference here.

Also consider that the patron pin has gone up significantly as well. It's one token, but about $400 in value .

Thank you for your work in maintaining this community data!

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Endgame wrote: I feel like there is a fundamental misunderstanding about WHY URs have dropped in price.

It's not because there were bad URs in the set
it's not because URs have been getting worse over time.

It's because 8k auctions are Zero Sum. Every 8k auction on Trent's site (and most of the forum auctions) fund at 7,500.

When I started in 2015, Laz was selling PYPs on the forums for $100
In 2023, PYPs sold for a whole year average of 92.20.

That is very little movement in price over 8 years.

Then what happend in 2024?
The 2k Bonus (Marks of the Tenent were introduced) The 2k bonus item increased in value from $7 to $104.
-This means that other items in the 8k needed to drop in price by a total of $400 because the Tenents were soaking an extra $388 on average in value.

8k Bonus rewards (Path Fragments) doubled in price - from $541 average to $1049 in average.
-This means that the Path Fragments were soaking an extra $508 on average in value from the rest of the auction items.

Safe hold 4 was released. Almost every TG increased in average selling price
-It varies auction by auction, so for 2023 to 2024 let's say TG didn't affect the closing price of auctions. But it also means that the value soaked by Fragments and Tenets didn't affect TG.

The question is, what dropped by $896 on average in auctions to account for the higher prices of tenants and fragments?
-URs dropped in price roughly total $780 per auction. This is where the price drop occurred.

So what happened between 2024 and 2026?
-SH 3, 2, and 1 were released, one of every TG multi years were released. Both of these increased the pressure on trade goods, in particular OE and EB. OE and EB are up 250%, and it looks like both of those TG are going to get more expensive (they have sold for $70 each on Trent's site)
-Path Fragment went up up ANOTHER $500 average
-Rings and Tenants are soaking another $240 average from each auction
-On average, URs dropped $440 per auction - that offsets the increase from the path fragments


So what happens in 2027?
There will be no mulit year transmute
There will be no path fragments
There will be No tenets
there will be a New TE bead

This will completely rebalance auction values even if no changes are implemented. I expect URs will be at or above $100 due to this rebalance.

I would suggest taking no action on transmute recipes until the effect of multi years, path fragments, and tenets being out of the mix is understood. Waiting until Summer 27 is probably the best time to consider making changes.

I think this analysis is essentially correct - but let me add another factor:

Builds are getting clogged up with Relic+ Tokens. There are fewer viable slots for URs (especially non-Volunteer URs), and thus general organic demand for URs is also declining.

Relic and legendary tokens also use URs in their creation, so it should be a wash unless you’re expecting UR churn to drive sales. Continuous creep and spend treadmilling is also terrible for a game

I say leave the recipes alone. Make the underpowered Legendaries ingredients for Mythic items.

So what happens in 2027?
There will be no mulit year transmute
There will be no path fragments
There will be No tenets
there will be a New TE bead

Has that been stated somewhere by TD? I would be surprised if there isn't another multi-year transmute starting in 2027. And although there won't be fragments or tenets, again I'd be surprised if there isn't something different offered that's similar. Those types of tokens drive the 8k sales and auctions.

But I agree with your analysis as to why the UR prices dropped. I just don't see TD not having any multi-year transmutes starting in 2027.

Rob F wrote: I say leave the recipes alone. Make the underpowered Legendaries ingredients for Mythic items.

That could put us right back where we are today with this conversation about moving the goalposts, if it is an alternative recipe it would be fine, but I would rather see these high level recipes that will take all but the very top 1% of players years to make remain static.

Manimal wrote:

So what happens in 2027?
There will be no mulit year transmute
There will be no path fragments
There will be No tenets
there will be a New TE bead

Has that been stated somewhere by TD? I would be surprised if there isn't another multi-year transmute starting in 2027. And although there won't be fragments or tenets, again I'd be surprised if there isn't something different offered that's similar. Those types of tokens drive the 8k sales and auctions.

But I agree with your analysis as to why the UR prices dropped. I just don't see TD not having any multi-year transmutes starting in 2027.

There will be multi year ingredients released in 2027. There will be No multi year transmutes soaking trade goods.

Right now sacred circle, death ward. EGG, SH1, and Mythic tokens are all competing for TG, and people want to get those transmutes done well before ring con. That TG crunch should stop post ring con. Given this, I expect the amount of money generated by TG in auctions to decline. I expect URs to make up some (all?) of that gap.

There will be multi year ingredients released in 2027. There will be No multi year transmutes soaking trade goods.

Right now sacred circle, death ward. EGG, SH1, and Mythic tokens are all competing for TG, and people want to get those transmutes done well before ring con. That TG crunch should stop post ring con. Given this, I expect the amount of money generated by TG in auctions to decline. I expect URs to make up some (all?) of that gap.

I see your point now. Probably post-Ring Con (and probably a couple of months before) there will be a crash in the auction prices. I suppose there will be some that are not going to Ring Con that are waiting to get a Fragment 4, Ring of the 1st Circle, etc. afterwards when the prices are lower to transmute. But without those driving the auction, those that wanted a UR having picked them up cheap, and no time crunch to pick up Trade Goods, it will be interesting to see if the auctions even fund post-Ring Con absent supplementing with other tokens.