Just a quick background: I have been CoH since beta, and CoV at launch. I don't really consider myself a hardcore gamer, maybe the occasional all day session on the odd weekend, and like many others I have a full compliment of alts. I've played most ATs, and have a couple of 50s. Most are lower though.
When Issue 13 launched, I was initially excited about the system. The notion of being able to pic up something rare like a Numina's Convalescence +Regen +Recovery without having to pony up 50 million or so seemed like a pretty cool idea. At least that was the system I thought I was getting (perhaps it's my fault for not reading the release notes closely enough).
When the Merit system launched, I was surprised, even shocked, at how much things would cost and the number of merits you would receive from a task force, trial, or story arc. A quick overview of costs for one of my level 50s:
8 merits buys you a SO enhancement
12 merits buys you a standard IO recipe
250 merits buys you the really cool stuff
25 or 30 merits buys you a trial or task force random roll
I want to break down each one of these objectively:
1. 8 merits buys you a SO
At level 50, the cheapest SO is the knockback at 19,800 infamy.
The most expensive is the Damage or Health at 60,000.
Killing a level 50 minion nets you 1945 infamy.
Killing a level 50 lieutenant nets you 6669 infamy.
Killing a level 50 boss nets you 29,179 infamy.
That means that 8 merits is worth:
Between 0.67 and 2 bosses
or
Between 3 and 9 lieutenants
or
Between 10 and 31 minions
Alternatively, 1 merit is worth between 2475 and 7500 infamy. The math here is way, way, way out of whack. There is simply no way that a single origin enhancement should cost 8 merits. No way at all.
2. 12 Merits buys a standard IO recipe
This seems like more of a value. The "list price" of recipes at level 50 ranges from 153,300 for a knockback recipe or 464,400 for a damage recipe.
Here, the math works out to a merit being worth between 12,775 and 38,700 infamy per merit. Definitely a better deal than the SO prices, but given that the "market price" of a recipe is quite a bit lower (i.e. around 100,000 for a damage and 25,000 for a knockback), perhaps this isn't such a great deal after all.
It's kind of hard to bring market prices into this in an objective way, but perhaps a more fair way of awarding the merit for this choice would be to award a completed enhancement to the player. If I was to calculate the market price of the components required to craft the enhancements, the value of the IO recipe bought using a merit decreases even more.
3. Between 50 to 250 merits buys an IO set recipe.
Some truly awful set recipes can be had for as low as 50 merits, and some really outstanding ones can be had for 250. However, there are plenty of sets selling for 250 or close to it that sell for an absolute pittance on the market. For example: Time & Space Manipulation: +Stealth which can be had for 240 merits is currently selling for about 1000 on the villain side. Meanwhile, a level 50 Numina's Convalescence +Recovery +Regen is selling for about 70,000,000 and can be had for 250 merits. That's a mighty-wide gap. It would be more helpful if some sort of "maximum merit price" was established, and then everything scaled down from there according to relative demand. In other words, keep the Numina's Convalescence at 250 but sell the Time & Space manipulation one for wayyyyy less.
Closing Remarks
It's the disparity here that needs to be addressed. Clearly there are some recipes worth a lot of merits. Clearly there is a lot of junk that isn't worth the merit it's printed on. I still can't get over the fact that someone had the unmitigated gall to think a level 50 Single Origin enhancement was worth 8 merits. If nothing else, the very fact that you can buy one from a Quartermaster devalues the heck out of this choice.
Considering that you get 25-35 merits for the average task force or strike force, that means unless you know some way to game the system, powerlevel, or farm, you pretty much need to resign yourself that you are not likely to ever get any of the really cool stuff.
Under the old system, I was always excited to see if I would get something cool when I completed a TF. I ran the Cimerora TF a couple of times and once got an Absolute Amazement drop from it. I felt pretty lucky then. But you can't even buy purple recipes like that from the Merit vendor at any price, and the odds of me seeing one of those is close to nil anyway.
Anyway I just wanted to throw this out there from the perspective of a casual gamer. I run task forces every once in a while, but mostly I just join pick-up groups that run newspaper missions or maybe Praetorian AV missions if I'm on the Hero side with one of my level 50s.
From my perspective, I rarely ever see a merit at all, let alone enough to actually buy something good. I make more money selling the drops I get than I'll ever see the equivalent of through the merit system. I think if the cost of things you can buy with merits was re-scaled they could be worth chasing though.
