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

I know TD sells packs for $8 each, but many of us only buy packs in multiples of 30 to get a PYP with them.

With a PYP at 100, that puts the value of a ten-pack at $5. I'd want at least 11 of them in exchange for my unused ticket or I'd feel I was losing too much.

I've been rolling the "Treasure Run" idea around in my head a bit more.

I think my main objection to it, when it really comes down to it, is that it makes my dungeon loot less valuable, because the big sellers will already be rolling in Monster Trophies, and in whatever cool Dungeon loot is available in Treasure Boxes that isn't in the main token collection.

Yeah, that's a pretty crass way to look at it. I could couch it in different words like, "I worked hard for my Treasure, and it bothers me that someone could buy their way to success without so much as lifting a finger" but what it really comes down to is that people with more money than me might get more stuff than me. (Shocking!)

Thing is, this is already true. People with more money can buy more tokens, have more PYPs, transmute more trade goods, and build more Relics&Legendaries. Such is life.

I'd want to keep some things sacred, like XP and Completion tokens.... but if (for example) TD offered "Dungeon Treasure Packs" containing the same mix of goods as the Treasure Boxes, I could probably live with it. Particularly if they removed Completion tokens from the mix, and kept those as something which could only be gained on a physical run; and then made a transmute (every few years?) like the Ring of Heroism, which used those Completion tokens? That would still feel like I was getting something for spending my 2 hours physically completing the dungeon.

I'd hope that these hypothetical packs would only be offered AT the Con, so people had to come in person to get them - not available as an online order. I'd hope people would have to show their TE tokens in person, so there would be a financial investment in order to get the full value of Treasure Tokens. And I hope that this would happen *after* the last run of the dungeon, so no one could complain that the Big Buyers bought out all the good Treasure before anyone else could get to it. (Plus, if for some reason TD managed to under-estimate how much Treasure was needed for the Dungeons, they wouldn't run out of In-Dungeon Treasure because they'd sold too many Treasure Runs too soon.)

I'd prefer a system like that to one where people fought to buy "bubble" slots, or lined up to buy empty/un-sold runs in order to ghost them for treasure. There's only so many bubbles & unsold runs, and there could be bad blood if certain folks were there to grab the lion's share, and other hadn't even heard that this possibility existed.

Brad Mortensen wrote: I know TD sells packs for $8 each, but many of us only buy packs in multiples of 30 to get a PYP with them.

With a PYP at 100, that puts the value of a ten-pack at $5. I'd want at least 11 of them in exchange for my unused ticket or I'd feel I was losing too much.

The fairest way, if we're giving packs, is to just treat the ticket as a gift certificate. Let people "buy" individual packs, or apply it to a PYP pack, or t-shirts, or whatever.

Raven wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I'm totally OK with Ghost Slots getting no completion tokens or treasure chips at all, and just getting 8 Token Bags to compensate for the ticket price (which I hear was the original plan for this year). That would be my preferred solution, and would completely solve any problem with token farming from ghost runs.

I disagree. it wouldn't solve problems with token farming from "ghost" runs.
It would reduce the amount of Treasure farming, but you still get tokens. In fact, you'd get approximately $56 of tokens (or actually $63.92, which is more than the price of a TD ticket!)

That makes it really tempting to buy out extra slots on any run I'm on, and then turn in that extra ticket for 8 packs of treasure. I get the 10 packs at a discount price, and I don't have to run with a full party of 10? Awesome! I've always felt that 7 players was the sweet spot, anyways. Later, I can sell those 10-packs - maybe for $7.50 each - and make a profit, while undercutting TD's sales.

The problem will still exist: I'm profiting from making fewer tickets available for others.

One other problem with your preferred solution, is that If you can't equip tokens on the non-existent players, then it's impossible to get Max Loot, because you won't have 10 CoGFs/CoAs equipped. That'll make a lot of players upset. Especially if it was unintentional that one ticket went unused.

Raven, I don't think most of the people that might consider token farming would be interested in doing that to get the packs, because they'd prefer to buy them in the $250 or higher lots to get the bonus items like PYPs, Tooth tokens, etc.

It's easily possible to still arrange for Charm of Synergy ability, you could say that you can outfit those ghost slots with CoA or CoS for the benefit of the players in the group. It could be just like it is now, except those ghost slots wouldn't be getting treasure coins or completion tokens.

I like Brad's idea as well, if the logistics could be worked out, where you get the equivalent of a gift certificate to spend at the True Dungeon store for the appropriate amount.

I wonder if giving out 8 token packs is really such a good thing for TD. I doubt hey get to keep the full ticket price. Based on my experience runnng my own events, GenCon is getting a cut. So is giving out tokens of equal value such a great thing?

They don't cost TD retail value si yeah they probably still doing alright.

What if made this real simple I know I will get some push back on this but throwing out there none the less. For each ticket max number of ghosts is one at Gen Con. WYC & GHC have enough tickets at this time to allow less than 5. It would still allow double down runs but would end solo, 2, 3 and 4 man runs at Gen Con. Thoughts?

jedibcg wrote: They don't cost TD retail value si yeah they probably still doing alright.

What if made this real simple I know I will get some push back on this but throwing out there none the less. For each ticket max number of ghosts is one at Gen Con. WYC & GHC have enough tickets at this time to allow less than 5. It would still allow double down runs but would end solo, 2, 3 and 4 man runs at Gen Con. Thoughts?

Why does this need to be done?

What does it hurt the game for an occasional person or group to run a solo/2/3/4 man run?

And to that point what happens if you have a group attending at GenCon and have 2 players who oversleep an early game time? Do you only get the treasure from 1 of them? Are you required to fill the second spot with a wait lister? Can they force you to drop the run to Normal even tho you bought out a full run specifically to do nightmare?

Unintended consequences abound.

jedibcg wrote: They don't cost TD retail value si yeah they probably still doing alright.

What if made this real simple I know I will get some push back on this but throwing out there none the less. For each ticket max number of ghosts is one at Gen Con. WYC & GHC have enough tickets at this time to allow less than 5. It would still allow double down runs but would end solo, 2, 3 and 4 man runs at Gen Con. Thoughts?

I think it's better for everyone to make it simple. Any number of Ghost players, X number of sealed token bags for each ghost player.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

jedibcg wrote: They don't cost TD retail value si yeah they probably still doing alright.

What if made this real simple I know I will get some push back on this but throwing out there none the less. For each ticket max number of ghosts is one at Gen Con. WYC & GHC have enough tickets at this time to allow less than 5. It would still allow double down runs but would end solo, 2, 3 and 4 man runs at Gen Con. Thoughts?

Why does this need to be done?

Giving an alternate suggesting to a ghosting problem. Limit the number of ghost. I personally like it better than Mike's suggestion.

Mike Steele wrote:

jedibcg wrote: They don't cost TD retail value si yeah they probably still doing alright.

What if made this real simple I know I will get some push back on this but throwing out there none the less. For each ticket max number of ghosts is one at Gen Con. WYC & GHC have enough tickets at this time to allow less than 5. It would still allow double down runs but would end solo, 2, 3 and 4 man runs at Gen Con. Thoughts?

I think it's better for everyone to make it simple. Any number of Ghost players, X number of sealed token bags for each ghost player.

That doesn't solve the issue of preventing someone from buying lots of tickets and ghosting them all and thus preventing them from getting in the hands of real players.

So what problem are you attempting to 'solve,' Mike?

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: What does it hurt the game for an occasional person or group to run a solo/2/3/4 man run?

And to that point what happens if you have a group attending at GenCon and have 2 players who oversleep an early game time? Do you only get the treasure from 1 of them? Are you required to fill the second spot with a wait lister? Can they force you to drop the run to Normal even tho you bought out a full run specifically to do nightmare?

Unintended consequences abound.

Agreed, it has to be done carefully. And I don't think it is a problem for an occasional solo/2/3/4/5-man run, as long as it remains occasional.

But I do think something has to be done. With the new silver nugget, if ticket prices and treasure mix stays the same at GenCon 2017, for $560 I could get 190 treasure draws plus 20 completion tokens. Ignoring the completion tokens that's $3 per treasure draw. If treasure remains at say $5/ea then that's a $380 profit for two hours of your time. But if you did it just for the treasure then there are 9 people who didn't get to play and have fun (arguably 10 since you probably didn't really have fun at that point either).

Are we worried about treasure or tickets?