I've found some older posts about this, but I thought it was worth bringing up again to keep this idea in sight--
The non-boss tokens are supposed to drop randomly from treasure chests, but this "randomness" is highly skewed. I find Primal Sparks show up the vast majority of times on any given type of level, resulting in me having a glut of Primals but very few Forge or Grim Sparks. This is not very helpful when trying to buy items from Brinks, given that certain items can only be bought with certain tokens.
A concrete example of this: I'm going through the Crystal Bomb/Rock Salt upgrade path, and I have Primal Sparks out the wazoo (more than 20, last I checked). Buying the rock salt for both types of upgraded bomb is no problem. I will eventually need the Mug of Misery, which can only be bought with 10 Grim Sparks, of which I do not have nearly enough. By the time I'm able to collect enough Grim Sparks, I'll probably have another 20 primals.
Is this intentional by the developers? Are Primal Sparks the one-crown-coin equivalent of tokens?
If not, then one of two things should be adjusted. 1) The drop rates should be better equalized, or randomized as the case may be, or; 2) Certain level types should have certain token types. This way if I'm hunting for Grim Sparks I should, for example, focus on grey levels.
Any other thoughts?
I'm fairly certain that tokens drop chances are based on the level type. It's not 100/0/0% but probably something like 50/25/25%.
Since we have almost no fire levels in circulation forge tokens are quite rare. Meanwhile we have beast, jelly, and generic clockworks levels like they were on sale at Costco.