TOPIC: Safehold Rules Targeted Feedback on the Safehold V Recipe

Personally I think the new avarice should be on the tier 2 list instead of tier 1.

First the expectation was it to be reasonably attainable, so putting it as needing a safehold 2, requires 3 beads an avarice and a bunch of trade goods valued at $1000 is much more attainable and probably less likely to piss off the player base that isn’t represented on the forums.
2nd many of us are really only interested in getting the avarice and don’t see a need to go full mythic on everything. I can see the value at tier 2 but not at tier 1

The truth is I think avarice is the token that will drive the most division in the community.

Two thoughts I haven't seen expressed here yet:

• I like that at lower levels, the Safehold costs more to make than the benefit tokens, and at higher levels, the benefit tokens cost more than the Safehold. I've waffled back and forth on this a bit, because I think the key element here is lending, but I think that at lower levels, people are unlikely to craft a Safehold if they can't make at least one Hireling, especially newer players (who we're trying to make this more accessible to). At higher levels, people might've started in on their journey towards Mythic by making a Safehold II or I, but not yet have the stuff to make the Mythic, and they'd be able to borrow Mythics from people who have all the nice things.
• Coming back to accessibility to newer players, though, I feel like the costs for SH V are still too high. I could go into detail here, but I know that I'm in the minority on this. I'd like this to be something that people who just do one of each run at an in-person con can aspire to. I'm the only one in my friend group who got into VTD and started spending a lot, the rest just have their 10-packs and treasure pulls from 6 years of GenCon, and some odds and ends they've been gifted. I don't think that the entire group together could put together enough trade goods for even one Safehold, much less each person do their own. I'd love to see this closer to the $100 level for the Safehold, keeping the Hirelings at $50, and have it be something that someone who has been doing in-person TD for a number of years would be at least close to crafting, if not able to already do it with what they've got.

Jeff,

Looks good to me. I have no concerns with either the initial recipes, or the rising costs of the more powerful safeholds/tokens from them.

Thanks for allowing us to comment!

I am fine with the costs as presented, this looks more in line with what I expected. But I still think we should be discussing making the recipe more generic. One of the stated goals is for people to pull tokens out of their closets and try to reduce token hoards. The problem is the makeup of those hoards is random based on what people have received over the years and how they have been spent. One of contributing factors to building those hoards is the years of extremally specific recipes. Recipes that specify every single token contribute to the problem because the creation of trade goods will never match the usage. If the game had a larger variety of transmutes which had huge swings in the ingredients the problem might solve itself by giving people more options in how to spend their tokens, or if people don't like certain items it could make the problem worse, which is why generic recipes are almost a necessity.

Due to the differences in how trade goods were created and used, certain goods fell to basically nothing a few years ago. Maps helped fix this. Maps had a huge effect on the games economy that I personally considered positive. It made a price floor for trade goods, rarely do they go in auctions for less than $1 to $1.50 now. It made it much easier for auctions to happen giving value to tokens that had a hard time moving before the maps existed. I suspect overall token sales are up because of the maps.

I am not trying to lower the cost of these recipes. I just would like to see more generic recipes, it does not even have to be these recipes, but I have to go back to the stated goals which are for people to use some of what they have stashed away. I would really prefer to be able to just use what I already have and not some exact mix of tokens that will require me to buy or trade for. The cost of shipping and the limited numbers of in person cons make trading prohibitive.

I don't really care if the token recipe were to become point based or Trade 1, Trade 2, Golden Fleece based but I would really prefer SOME RECIPE(S) even if its not this recipe to be based on whatever we have laying around. It just feels like this is the right time. I will fully admit people are going to do whatever they can to just use the cheapest trade goods, but is that a bad thing? That means giant stacks of cheap trade goods get removed from hoards, it gives more value to cheap trade goods, and helps create a price floor for those tokens.

It has already been stated these recipes could change based on market conditions, the more generic they are the easier they are to change and the less likely they will need to. People keep asking for the ability to transmute from one trade good to another, with a handful of generic recipes, or as in this program one giant generic sink, would people even need this?

If this were point based it will basically set an exchange price for goods, and that may or may not be a good thing. For instance if you make the recipe 200 points, and set Trade 1 as 1 point, trade 2 as 5 points, and Golden Fleece as 25 points, it will tie GF to the price of DS or MS. You set GF to 50, and I expect you would likely get a lot of GF but that would also have the effect of bringing up the price of monster bits and fleece will suddenly have a price floor. I will fully admit in a system with generic recipes people will game whatever the system is, but depending on how its handled that could be a good thing.

EDIT: Just to add, large price swings in the token prices based on production and use of trade goods really do no favors to anyone. Generic recipes will help bring stability to the game. Stability that likely will help sell more tokens, make it easier to trade tokens, and give value to tokens. It might bring down the cost of some trade goods, but I am also not asking for every recipe to be generic, but the game could really use some, and a giant sink like this is a fantastic place that might prevent the need for other giant sinks. Reducing the number of different trade goods, combining things together to just make the whole system simpler might also help, but my guess is for lore reasons there are a number of people who would prefer to keep the complex system that currently exists.

Fiddy wrote:

Rob F wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I also look at it like, as the power levels go up, the percentage of the player base that has them decreases.

*Nearly everyone has Rares and below in their builds.
*Fewer people have URs in their builds.
*Even fewer people have Relics in their builds.
*Far fewer people have multiple Legendary tokens in their builds.
*There should be fewer people that get Mythic tokens than have Legendary tokens. Not everyone that buys Legendary tokens can and/or will get Mythic tokens. If they are priced at the level that most people that have multiple Legendary tokens have Mythic tokens, they are probably underpriced.

I was just going to post this Mike. Not everyone that has a Legendary should have a Mythic, most shouldn't.

While I don't have a problem with this logic in general, the one concern I have with this logic is that the Mythic Charm of Avarice was previously presented as something that would be relatively obtainable (though costly) for players in 2026 without multiple levels of other prerequisites. Having to now build all 5 levels of Safehold before being able to obtain that token feels relatively yuck to me.

I'm not sure Jeff posted anywhere that the new Uber CoA would be "relatively obtainable". I just though he mentioned it would take an extremely large number of trade goods to make. Which would coincide with it being at a high Safehold level and since it's the most sought after Legendary I don't have a problem with it being at Safehold I.

The problem is, people over the last few years have been spoiled with the Nuggets and Beads and are used to getting a treasure bump every few years. That wasn't the case before then. It was six years after the CoGF came out that the Silver Nugget was launched. So for people to have to wait 4 or 5 years to work towards another treasure bump seems fine to me.

There's a lot of concern about the fluctuating ratios of trade goods year-to-year and the shortages and overages that accompany it.

What if the trade goods shipped with a super-condensed 8k were standardized (The same every year)? Better yet, make them all divisible by 8.

There would still be some fluctuation year-to year based on treasure boxes and non-condensed orders, but a large percentage of the trade goods entering the token economy would stabilize.

Benefits:
1. Reduced price fluctuation
2. Easier for Jeff and company to plan and balance transmute costs.
3. Easier split for group 8k purchases and auction planning
4. Easier for Jeff and company to plan for how many trade goods to order from the printer each year.
5. Possibly less record-keeping for TD?
6. Might open up the option for a Super-condensed 1k or 2k

Drawbacks?

Mike Steele wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: I really like the costs of the safeholds themselves. I think it is very solid. You can spend a total of $200, $600, $1200, $2000, or $3000 to get to each level. I think that's great.

As I think about it, I think the Follower is a tad too expensive, and perhaps should be just a bit lower like $500. I think Mythic I is too expensive and should be closer to $1,500. Remember, you spend $3,000 to be able to craft a Mythic I, so I think $2,000/ea on top of that is a bit steep.

Aren't you basically then pricing each Mythic I at about the cost of a Legendary (which I believe average about $1,500 to transmute)? Breaking the $3000 Stronghold cost down by the 10 Mythic tokens you can make just adds $300 each to them. That seems way too low to me. It seems like the starting point of a Mythic Recipe should be a Legendary token, and then add TG and GP on top of that.

Mike - why would 2x the cost of a legendary be too low? We're not talking about 2X the power level - we're talking about a small incremental bump of about 10%. A barbarian at +70 damage, can change out tokens to increase by about +6 to +8 through mythic. That's lower than the barbarian legendary. Same is true of monk, rogue, wizards, and cleric. Assuming BiS continues with volunteer tokens and then move to bead slots, a +15 might be possible. That would only be a slight increase versus the legendaries.

Any increases beyond the current proposed cost increases (in percentage terms), my guess is more than half the buyers would bail. If this were 25% lower for Tier 1, I could see doing more than 1.

For Tier 5, I strongly recommend making it highly approachable for newer player. As is, this would mean them choosing this over a relic which I'm not sure they'd do.

Mechanically, I also recommend using 10x tokens where possible to make the shipping easier (it 10 rather than 12 or 8 in recipes) in all recipes.

Dergidan wrote: There's a lot of concern about the fluctuating ratios of trade goods year-to-year and the shortages and overages that accompany it.

What if the trade goods shipped with a super-condensed 8k were standardized (The same every year)? Better yet, make them all divisible by 8.

There would still be some fluctuation year-to year based on treasure boxes and non-condensed orders, but a large percentage of the trade goods entering the token economy would stabilize.

Benefits:
1. Reduced price fluctuation
2. Easier for Jeff and company to plan and balance transmute costs.
3. Easier split for group 8k purchases and auction planning
4. Easier for Jeff and company to plan for how many trade goods to order from the printer each year.
5. Possibly less record-keeping for TD?
6. Might open up the option for a Super-condensed 1k or 2k

Drawbacks?

Definitely +1 here.

Fred K wrote:

Mike Steele wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: I really like the costs of the safeholds themselves. I think it is very solid. You can spend a total of $200, $600, $1200, $2000, or $3000 to get to each level. I think that's great.

As I think about it, I think the Follower is a tad too expensive, and perhaps should be just a bit lower like $500. I think Mythic I is too expensive and should be closer to $1,500. Remember, you spend $3,000 to be able to craft a Mythic I, so I think $2,000/ea on top of that is a bit steep.

Aren't you basically then pricing each Mythic I at about the cost of a Legendary (which I believe average about $1,500 to transmute)? Breaking the $3000 Stronghold cost down by the 10 Mythic tokens you can make just adds $300 each to them. That seems way too low to me. It seems like the starting point of a Mythic Recipe should be a Legendary token, and then add TG and GP on top of that.

Mike - why would 2x the cost of a legendary be too low? We're not talking about 2X the power level - we're talking about a small incremental bump of about 10%. A barbarian at +70 damage, can change out tokens to increase by about +6 to +8 through mythic. That's lower than the barbarian legendary. Same is true of monk, rogue, wizards, and cleric. Assuming BiS continues with volunteer tokens and then move to bead slots, a +15 might be possible. That would only be a slight increase versus the legendaries.

Any increases beyond the current proposed cost increases (in percentage terms), my guess is more than half the buyers would bail. If this were 25% lower for Tier 1, I could see doing more than 1.

For Tier 5, I strongly recommend making it highly approachable for newer player. As is, this would mean them choosing this over a relic which I'm not sure they'd do.

Mechanically, I also recommend using 10x tokens where possible to make the shipping easier (it 10 rather than 12 or 8 in recipes) in all recipes.

What I'm proposing is consistent with the existing power tiers in TD. Relics are an incremental increase from URs, but cost significantly more than twice a UR. Legendary Tokens for the most part are incremental increases from Relics but cost significantly more than twice a Relic. Tier II Mythic tokens are apparently an incremental increase from Legendary tokens, so should cost significantly more than twice a Legendary Token. And I'm talking about the transmute cost of a Legendary (around $1,500), not the secondary market average of around $1,000.

Tier I Mythic tokens are far more than an incremental increase, they are game-altering tokens. The three mentioned so far I think are the best TE token ever, a +1 Level token to allow 6th level character cards, and some sort of super slot expander combining many into one. I think those should be at least twice the cost of a Tier II Mythic.

For Tier 2 Mythic tokens, a logical recipe to me would be the corresponding Legendary token plus significantly more Trade Goods and GP than a Legendary recipe.

Dergidan wrote: There's a lot of concern about the fluctuating ratios of trade goods year-to-year and the shortages and overages that accompany it.

What if the trade goods shipped with a super-condensed 8k were standardized (The same every year)? Better yet, make them all divisible by 8.

There would still be some fluctuation year-to year based on treasure boxes and non-condensed orders, but a large percentage of the trade goods entering the token economy would stabilize.

Benefits:
1. Reduced price fluctuation
2. Easier for Jeff and company to plan and balance transmute costs.
3. Easier split for group 8k purchases and auction planning
4. Easier for Jeff and company to plan for how many trade goods to order from the printer each year.
5. Possibly less record-keeping for TD?
6. Might open up the option for a Super-condensed 1k or 2k

Drawbacks?

I actually think standardizing the 8k package, and making it divisible by 8 is actually decent idea. But I do not believe it will have the benefits you list. First it does not help remove what already exists. Trade Goods also come from treasure and transmuting, those will throw off generation.

Unless recipes are standardized and every recipe uses the same ratios the differences in usage of trade goods due to different people having different priorities will destroy any balance. If your going to standardize the recipes just reduce the types of trade goods, there is zero point to having so many at that point.

Overall I do not believe standardizing the 8k pack year to year will do much for price fluctuations, or balancing the transmutes.

It would help make super-condensed 1k and 2k packs, but with how many auctions are occurring, what percentage of the token sales are 1k and 2k orders today? The amount of value in the extra tokens you get with an 8k package appears to me at least to have killed smaller token purchases.

Kenban wrote:

Dergidan wrote: There's a lot of concern about the fluctuating ratios of trade goods year-to-year and the shortages and overages that accompany it.

What if the trade goods shipped with a super-condensed 8k were standardized (The same every year)? Better yet, make them all divisible by 8.

There would still be some fluctuation year-to year based on treasure boxes and non-condensed orders, but a large percentage of the trade goods entering the token economy would stabilize.

Benefits:
1. Reduced price fluctuation
2. Easier for Jeff and company to plan and balance transmute costs.
3. Easier split for group 8k purchases and auction planning
4. Easier for Jeff and company to plan for how many trade goods to order from the printer each year.
5. Possibly less record-keeping for TD?
6. Might open up the option for a Super-condensed 1k or 2k

Drawbacks?

I actually think standardizing the 8k package, and making it divisible by 8 is actually decent idea. But I do not believe it will have the benefits you list. First it does not help remove what already exists. Trade Goods also come from treasure and transmuting, those will throw off generation.

Unless recipes are standardized and every recipe uses the same ratios the differences in usage of trade goods due to different people having different priorities will destroy any balance. If your going to standardize the recipes just reduce the types of trade goods, there is zero point to having so many at that point.

Overall I do not believe standardizing the 8k pack year to year will do much for price fluctuations, or balancing the transmutes.

It would help make super-condensed 1k and 2k packs, but with how many auctions are occurring, what percentage of the token sales are 1k and 2k orders today? The amount of value in the extra tokens you get with an 8k package appears to me at least to have killed smaller token purchases.

I propose all non-Fleece, non-GP trade goods get condensed into a single Grunnel Snacks trade good.

I'm also not a fan of the Uber Avarice being tied to Safehold I and the new mythic system. Could there be a level of tokens between legendary and mythic?