TOPIC: "Ghosting" a run for Treasure - Changed at GenCon?

Brad Mortensen wrote:

jedibcg wrote: Makes sense to me. I would buy zero of those tickets but there are those that would. I don't know if that is good or bad. I am reserving judgement.

Since we sell out every year anyway, it makes sense to me to draw any farmers away from slots that "real" players would actually use.

What do you have against farmers?

Haven't you ever played FarmVille? Or Agricola?

Go join a 4-H Club or something!

Or maybe it is time we do the "American thing" and pass a "farm subsidy" bill....

Rob F wrote: I ghosted one player slot twice for two different runs. Both on Saturday. The first time I was told that i could either keep the treasure pulls at the end, or receive 8 ten packs. I chose the 8 ten packs and was given 8 packs that came from what looked like a partially opened shrink wrapped master pack case of 10 ten packs. I was also given another pack that was housed in the common little dice bags. So 9 total ten packs. The second time I received a total of 8 ten packs. All of these were in individual little dice bags and the person pulled them from a large tub. So one time I got 9, the other time I received 8.

Thank you for the data point Rob, and also KurtReznor, and anyone else who commented on their experience (holy smokes there's a lot of replies on this thread!)

Raven wrote:

Rob F wrote: I ghosted one player slot twice for two different runs. Both on Saturday. The first time I was told that i could either keep the treasure pulls at the end, or receive 8 ten packs. I chose the 8 ten packs and was given 8 packs that came from what looked like a partially opened shrink wrapped master pack case of 10 ten packs. I was also given another pack that was housed in the common little dice bags. So 9 total ten packs. The second time I received a total of 8 ten packs. All of these were in individual little dice bags and the person pulled them from a large tub. So one time I got 9, the other time I received 8.

Thank you for the data point Rob, and also KurtReznor, and anyone else who commented on their experience (holy smokes there's a lot of replies on this thread!)

I definitely ghosted two no shows on Sunday morning. I got treasure for them (only 16 instead of 17 but I had enough treasure not to argue). I heard nothing about alternate vhosting options. If I ghosted another day it also wad do to a no show and I would have gotten treasure sinxe I never heard anything else.

My take-aways from this discussion so far:

* The Retainer/Ghost policy is poorly communicated, and needs to be documented and disseminated properly before the next (major?) event - especially if there will be multiple individuals working the Registration desk.

* It is undesirable - on multiple levels - to make a policy which would encourage people to buy tickets solely for the treasure gain.

* At the same time, there are many reasons people might choose to run with a Retainer/Ghost (for the challenge / inability to fill a last-minute cancellation / not wanting rando's joining the run / controlling the difficulty level (eg. Nightmare) etc.) and those players should not be unduly penalized for this choice.

* Capping the rewards for Retainers may provide a partial solution to the problem.

* The idea of "Treasure runs" may provide a partial solution to the problem. Concerns needing to be addressed include:
- How many 'runs' could be purchased for treasure?
- Who gets to buy those runs if # of runs < than the number of players who want to buy them.
- How to control the use / sharing of TE tokens?
- Would these runs receive the same mix of treasure as the general population, or a unique mix?
- Will the increase in Treasure tokens affect the overall value of Treasure (diluting the value for everyone)?

* Any solutions or policies put into place will have to apply equally to all players. We can't install a mind-reading device to determine, "You chose to run with only 9 players in order to keep the extra treasure for yourself!" vs "Your friend Joe didn't show, and you'd like to get the treasure to off-set the price of his ticket"

bpsymington wrote:

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

bpsymington wrote: I don't really have an opinion on this, other than I really like the double-down runs I have done. Never going to dio a solo run.

Sorry, bur what is a double down run?

Five person run, each person with one ghost/retainer (I like that term, Raven!).

Thx, Brian.

I'm hoping that if/when an official policy is made, it will use the term "Retainer"so as not to create dangerous confusion at the XP/Treasure Desk.

I can just imagine a newbie dying in room 6 and being told, "I'm sorry, but the policy is that Ghosts can't gain XP or completion tokens for their run, and only get max 3 Treasure tokens. I learned that while I was working Registration!"

Raven wrote: My take-aways from this discussion so far:

* The Retainer/Ghost policy is poorly communicated, and needs to be documented and disseminated properly before the next (major?) event - especially if there will be multiple individuals working the Registration desk.

* It is undesirable - on multiple levels - to make a policy which would encourage people to buy tickets solely for the treasure gain.

* At the same time, there are many reasons people might choose to run with a Retainer/Ghost (for the challenge / inability to fill a last-minute cancellation / not wanting rando's joining the run / controlling the difficulty level (eg. Nightmare) etc.) and those players should not be unduly penalized for this choice.

* Capping the rewards for Retainers may provide a partial solution to the problem.

* The idea of "Treasure runs" may provide a partial solution to the problem. Concerns needing to be addressed include:
- How many 'runs' could be purchased for treasure?
- Who gets to buy those runs if # of runs < than the number of players who want to buy them.
- How to control the use / sharing of TE tokens?
- Would these runs receive the same mix of treasure as the general population, or a unique mix?
- Will the increase in Treasure tokens affect the overall value of Treasure (diluting the value for everyone)?

* Any solutions or policies put into place will have to apply equally to all players. We can't install a mind-reading device to determine, "You chose to run with only 9 players in order to keep the extra treasure for yourself!" vs "Your friend Joe didn't show, and you'd like to get the treasure to off-set the price of his ticket"

Thanks Raven for compiling. I would like to add one bullet. The proposed policy should also not impact the desire of someone willing to buy an unsold empty run. That does happen at the sub-cons and if the policy is very prohibitive TD would suffer a small loss of revenue.

Ed

Brad Mortensen wrote:

jedibcg wrote: Makes sense to me. I would buy zero of those tickets but there are those that would. I don't know if that is good or bad. I am reserving judgement.

Since we sell out every year anyway, it makes sense to me to draw any farmers away from slots that "real" players would actually use.

I absolutely agree!

Brad wrote:

MasterED wrote:

Brad wrote:

MasterED wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: Finally, I think True Dungeon should sell "treasure runs" at the same place they sell tokens. You pay the current ticket price (e.g. $56) and you receive a 10-pack and whatever treasure draws you have tokens for, but no completion tokens.

I agree with this because it basically resolves the farming question.

Ed

I see the following happening.


Player 1 : hey can I borrow your charm of avarice for 5 minutes?
Player 2 : sure, for 10 bucks

It would be unwise for Player 1 to do so - it hurts them. They invested all that effort and money to "loan" it out for $10. Certainly people will continue to be unwise. But is this better or worse then the same Player 2 buying out a run and new players can't get in?

Make the minimum at least 5 runs so you are talking $280. Because anyone that is willing to spend $280 would also likely spend $560 to buy out a run.

Ed

10 bucks was just an example, how about you can borrow it for 5 treasure chips, or 50 bucks or what ever.

at least when tokens are loaned on a run, they are generally out of circulation for 2+ hours during the run. This way someone could theoretically reuse the same tokens over and over a dozen times in the same time period.

you wouldn't even have to loan it out.

player 1 (without the CoA) - "hey, player 1, here is $56 (or $560, or $5600...), go buy me a treasure run with your CoA please.
player 2 (with the CoA) - "sure thing, give me $10 (or $100, or $1000...)"
player 1 - "sounds good!"

MasterED wrote: Thanks Raven for compiling. I would like to add one bullet. The proposed policy should also not impact the desire of someone willing to buy an unsold empty run. That does happen at the sub-cons and if the policy is very prohibitive TD would suffer a small loss of revenue.

Hmmm. I see what you're saying, but I'm leery of how people might interpret "unsold empty run."

When does a run qualify as "unsold?" Is it when...
- It's 2 days after GenCon events go live, and there's a whole run still unsold?
- It's a month after Events went live, and someone refunds a whole block of tix?
- It's been sitting on the Con site for over a week? (Many GH runs qualify for that right now.)
- It's 3 days before the Con? (But what about people who buy their tix on-site?)
- There's 10 minutes before the run goes into Coaching? (But what about the folks on the Wait List?)
- There's 2 mins left before the run goes into Coaching? (And I cleverly refund all my tix, creating an empty run which I can then do it as a treasure run, for full Treasure Chips?)

And if someone does buy out a Unsold Empty Run, will they be prevented from going on any runs for the next 2 hours, so their Treasure Enhancers aren't "going through the dungeon" on multiple runs at the same time?

There's so many ways that people could manipulate it to their advantage.

I'm wondering if maybe - for smaller Cons at least - TD could tally up the number of runs/slots which weren't used, and offer them as Treasure Runs after the fact? But then, we'd run into the same problem of what to do if more people wanted to buy them, than there were runs available.

Raven wrote: - There's 2 mins left before the run goes into Coaching? (And I cleverly refund all my tix, creating an empty run which I can then do it as a treasure run, for full Treasure Chips?)

What class do you play again? Wait - let me guess - it's Rogue, right?

Raven wrote:

MasterED wrote: Thanks Raven for compiling. I would like to add one bullet. The proposed policy should also not impact the desire of someone willing to buy an unsold empty run. That does happen at the sub-cons and if the policy is very prohibitive TD would suffer a small loss of revenue.

Hmmm. I see what you're saying, but I'm leery of how people might interpret "unsold empty run."

When does a run qualify as "unsold?" Is it when...
- It's 2 days after GenCon events go live, and there's a whole run still unsold?
- It's a month after Events went live, and someone refunds a whole block of tix?
- It's been sitting on the Con site for over a week? (Many GH runs qualify for that right now.)
- It's 3 days before the Con? (But what about people who buy their tix on-site?)
- There's 10 minutes before the run goes into Coaching? (But what about the folks on the Wait List?)
- There's 2 mins left before the run goes into Coaching? (And I cleverly refund all my tix, creating an empty run which I can then do it as a treasure run, for full Treasure Chips?)

And if someone does buy out a Unsold Empty Run, will they be prevented from going on any runs for the next 2 hours, so their Treasure Enhancers aren't "going through the dungeon" on multiple runs at the same time?

There's so many ways that people could manipulate it to their advantage.

I'm wondering if maybe - for smaller Cons at least - TD could tally up the number of runs/slots which weren't used, and offer them as Treasure Runs after the fact? But then, we'd run into the same problem of what to do if more people wanted to buy them, than there were runs available.

An unsold run as I have seen it is when no one has checked in for the run at the time the run moves to the coaching room. Hence it will be a loss for TD.

Ed

MasterED wrote: An unsold run as I have seen it is when no one has checked in for the run at the time the run moves to the coaching room. Hence it will be a loss for TD.

That makes sense. (In fact, that's how I did my first Solo Run, back in the day) but there's still the question of people manipulating this to their advantage. And whether you can use your TE's for another run within that 2h time frame.

I'm all for TD getting the max value from their runs, but it's effectively the same thing as selling one of the (hypothetical) Treasure Runs. I'm not saying that's bad - just that hanging around by the front desk waiting for a run to go unsold is like spending Time to invest in a personal Treasure Run.

Or perhaps other people see it differently than I do.