10 hours ago, Samea said:

You could just as well say that the card gets you +4 supplies with the opportunity to buy resource tokens for one of those supplies each. If you say that paying one resource for one supply is a rip-off, then getting one resource for one supply must be a steal, right?

Pedantic misunderstanding of basic economics aside, yes, you can look at it this way. Except that when you do, you have to compare it to other ways to gain resources. Which makes it a 3XP card that gives you +1 resource over the Level 0 Emergency Cache. I think that's a questionable value for an upgrade.

7 hours ago, CSerpent said:

Okay, I guess I get it for comparing a reload card versus another copy of a card it can reload. But it seems like a pretty useless, even harmful, measure for evaluating a card in general. You would have to assess anything that has two abilities as worse than something that only has one. All else being equal, there's no way anyone would prefer a card that does "X" over a card that does "X or take some resources instead".

When a card does multiple things, you need to consider each. There are two uses here: resources and supply recharge. The resource improvement alone probably isn't worth 3XP. The supply carries a large opportunity cost. Flexibility is always good, but a choice between two poor effects remains poor.

18 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

Pedantic misunderstanding of basic economics aside, yes, you can look at it this way. Except that when you do, you have to compare it to other ways to gain resources. Which makes it a 3XP card that gives you +1 resource over the Level 0 Emergency Cache. I think that's a questionable value for an upgrade.

When a card does multiple things, you need to consider each. There are two uses here: resources and supply recharge. The resource improvement alone probably isn't worth 3XP. The supply carries a large opportunity cost. Flexibility is always good, but a choice between two poor effects remains poor.

I'm still completely perplexed by your analysis, which requires you to consider the opportunity cost of a card *against itself*. The *value* of Emergency Cache (III) is that it is so flexible, allowing you to trade off between resources and supplies as needed. Sometimes resources will be more valuable, other times supplies, other times a mix will provide the overall greatest value for the group. The fact that you can freely convert resources into supplies is an advantage, not a cost. But I expect we will continue to talk past each other, so I will leave it there.

What if you only want one more Ichor supply? Now the cost for Ichor is 1:1 while EC3 puts you three resources in the black.

You didn't address this part, which I'm honestly interested in:

Quote

Anyway, I'd argue that the comparative opportunity cost is 4:5 versus 4:4. You're ignoring the fact that just by choosing the Ichor, you've cost yourself the 4 potential resources.
With the hypothetical card, you're at -4 resources as soon as you choose it, by that reasoning.

On 10/12/2017 at 0:10 PM, CSerpent said:

What if you only want one more Ichor supply? Now the cost for Ichor is 1:1 while EC3 puts you three resources in the black.

You didn't address this part, which I'm honestly interested in:

It doesn't change that the supply cost is still much higher than other resupply cards. Paying too much for one thing is still paying too much. Maybe more tolerable, but still not inherently good.

I don't really follow what you're trying to say with the quoted bit.

Here's the thing: If there was a 3xp, 0r card that just said "Add four supplies among assets at your location," plenty of people would be interested in it. A card that does that or can give you extra resources is not a bad card by any metric. At best, you can argue that the four resource effect is so powerful that nobody will ever use the supply effect, but that's simply not the case. There's currently only one other effect that can increase supplies, and that's the far less efficient Contraband. It's not like you can take those four resources and spend them on some other card that'll give you more Ichor (except another copy of Acidic Ichor, but you can't really rely on drawing both copies).

Is four resources better than four more uses of Flashlight? Probably not, outside of Rex+DoN shenanigans or a really nasty Chaos Bag.

Is four resources better than four more uses of Painkillers? Debatably, depending on the investigator. Mark certainly thinks so; four extra uses of Sophie is certainly better than two extra uses of Keen Eye.

Is four resources better than four more uses of Acidic Ichor? Hardly ever. You could be wasting your Ichor on rats, and you'd still be getting 2 resources' worth of Dig Deep for Minh or Rex (and neither really want to include Dig Deep if they can help it), and Daisy can't even boost Fight in the first place. Against monsters with 3+ health, the action efficiency you're getting for each supply is unparalleled.

Now, will there be builds that never touch this card? Of course; that's true for any card (except maybe Higher Education). Will there be times when you draw this card and decide you'd rather have the resources? Probably, but, again, that just makes the card more flexible, which is a point in its favor .

On 12-10-2017 at 7:35 AM, Buhallin said:

Let's propose a different wording:

Gain 4 resources. Then, spend up to 4 resources to place an equal number of supply tokens.

Same exact effect,

No, that’s not correct, as you could also distribute the resources to other investigators, not just the supplies.

No, you cannot distribute the resources to other players. Only the supplies can be distributed.

Whether or not the card is worth the XP is not only a function of the card itself but the deck construction of the investigator and the party as a whole. If the investigator has a number of cards using supply tokens it is very valuable. If an investigator is designed specifically in a support role to the other investigators and they also rely on a number of cards using supplies, it is even more valuable. One example is in a party that relies on flashlights for investigating. Not all cards are valuable for all players, some cards are only valuable for decks designed to function in a certain way and in a game like this, that's normal.