I mainly wanted trinkets to accomplish two goals:

• provide a bit more run to run variance by being a sort of utiltiy item that modifies game properties or adds light new mechanics, rather than being a direct buff like other equipment.
• Encourage more use of the alchemy system via their crafting and upgrade mechanics.

I’m still not 100% happy with where trinkets are, there are still a few balance outliers and I would like to add more of them, but I do think they’re doing this job fairly well. Alchemy system usage is up across the board, and players are definitely not dieing a lot more or less with trinkets overall. It’s worth noting though that I don’t balance based on gameplay data from new players, as those numbers aren’t particular representative of how actually powerful items are. I look at data from players who have 1+ wins.

Trinkets are also designed to be flexible, it’s perfectly valid to keep them at 0 or +1 for a milder effect, if you’d prefer to not mix up your run too much.

I would prefer more just beneficial stuff having a similar survival mindset. Some trade offs I am ok with like Mimic tooth is dangerous but fun. More like that would be good.

I definitely just assumed they were supposed to be beneficial and didn’t think much of it until I lost a run because I upgraded the vial of blood to +3. Now I often don’t use them, or consider energizing it if I don’t get one I think will be useful.

I’ve noticed it too. Most trinkets are definitely a beginner trap as you’ve said, they need to spend energy on alchemy recipes instead of using all their energy on “just for fun” trinkets. For advanced players, energy economy becomes very important with challenges, I squeeze every energy I get from profitless items like stone of intuition’s second use, detect magic, certain seeds. There’s no room for +3 trinket energy, I often keep them at +0 and energize it later, or immediately throw it away if it’s harmful.

I’m a beginner (played before but getting back into the game)

They either seem really minor (Vial of Blood ime) or run defining (Eye of Newt was great on Assassin)

Alchemy was a pretty intimidating system to get into, but Trinkets, because they’re self contained and seemed to promise a minor effect, were a fun, low resource cost way to experiment.

I usually just make whatever seems fun and discard it if it proves harmful or if I need the inventory space. Upgrading them doesn’t seem worth it, but I dump excess energy into them if I have redundant consumables in the Caves.

I love the fact that they can be discarded when needed, so their effects could totally be made riskier imo, but that could make them tedious to manage.

My current run has a +3 Exotic Crystals, which I took because I’m less familiar with exotic pops, and while I didn’t like what I was getting, I kept it because I knew I could throw it away if I got low on regular stuff. This led to a fun encounter where I got surrounded, and popped a Purity potion followed by a Corrosion potion. I would never have made a Corrosion pot, but now I have a good reason to thanks to the Trinket :)