EvilGeko

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Not only that, a hero can run Positron TF at level 10 and get 55 merits. Then Synapse at 15 and get 45 for a total of 100 TF merits. A young villain has the opportunity to get a whopping 10 SF merits by level 15.

That is absurd.

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I agree with your basic point (heroes have more low level opportunities for big merits), but realistically with the way exp works now, doing Positron normally (i.e. in a group actually running the TF) will level you to 15 and doing Synapse will get you to 19-20.

So you'll get your 100 merits, but miss other content along the way including the awesome Faultline arcs.

All hail the Queen O' Maths!

Thanks!

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But respectfully, you didn't answer the questions. Do you care about people who play the market as part of their fun in the game?

[/ QUOTE ] How is that even remotely respectful? Seems pretty insulting to me. The answer is, of course, that they care about people who play the market as their fun. If they didn't, they would never have introduced the economy.

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What's disrespectful about it? That I presumed to ask the question?

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Geko, take it for what it is: the market is a competitive activity, and you've won. The flippers and the billionaire club have won so convincingly, toatally, and enduringly that the Devs have had to totally obliterate the previous equation of supply to end the stranglehold of those with the money to put out a few dozen 30m+ bids for recipies over those who can't but can afford a single finished IO for 60m.

You won. Grats. Now it's time for a new game, one in which people can in fact take their ball and go home and still occasionally end up with a numina or LotG. Find a new (lower - perhaps much, much lower) price range for your wares that doesn't make merit farming look like a superior option to paying out of every orafice and I'm sure the market will be back on at full steam.

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I don't trade in the high end market. I'm more concerned as a customer than as a seller about the supply.

The ways I make money in the market are unlikely to change at all. But now, I see myself having to grind for these darn things as supply drops into the toilet.

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Do you care about people who play the market as part of their fun in the game?

I hope not.

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You know, people assume I would be mad if the devs said they did not intend the market to be played as a game. I would not. But the market interface and system needs substantial changes if that is the case.

That's actually why I asked the question. Because where I point my feedback in the future is dependent on the answer. If the answer is that they want to encourage the "market PvP" then they need to encourage it. If the answer is no, then they need an overhaul of the system to make it a transparent, true consignment system.

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Hello again, Synapse here. I wanted to take a moment to answer a few more of your questions. I also wanted to address a few concerns I've heard in this thread repeatedly. I'd like to reiterate the fact that we have no intention of carelessly "nerfing" or "buffing" merit rewards. [u]Making any changes to the number of merits a task gives out will be done with very careful consideration, ample data and after exhausting our other options.[u]

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In light of the nerfing of the rewards of the KHTF, Cap SF and Eden Trial, how is this true?

The development team did not exhaust all its options here, instead nerfing the rewards rather than making the TFs longer. Your stated reason in the OP, is because you didn't have time to do it. However, you had time to create this merit system. You had time to change the reward screens. You had time to datamine. You had time to do a lot of things, but you CHOSE not to fix those things about the content you no longer deem worthy of a random roll.

If you're wondering why people are worried, consider this.

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They stated expressely that it was a goal of the market to serve as a mini-game.

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Where?

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Both here and on external sites during I9's beta. No I'm not going to go searching for a link. If you don't believe me, that's fine.

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Do you care about people who play the market as part of their fun in the game? Do you have a plan if you're wrong and the Pool C market dries up?

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While the likely possibility of market dry-up does bother me,
a LOT, I don't know why the developers would be obligated to
care about "playing the market." While it could be argued as a
perhaps-unavoidable side effect of having one, [u]I sincerely
doubt the market was ever intended to serve the function of
a mini-game.[u]



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They stated expressely that it was a goal of the market to serve as a mini-game.

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But respectfully, you didn't answer the questions. Do you care about people who play the market as part of their fun in the game?

[/ QUOTE ] How is that even remotely respectful? Seems pretty insulting to me. The answer is, of course, that they care about people who play the market as their fun. If they didn't, they would never have introduced the economy.

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What's disrespectful about it? That I presumed to ask the question?

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Poster: EvilGeko
Q: What about the market? Do you care about the players who enjoy that aspect of the game? Do you have any plans for how to address the supply issues in the market that this system will cause for Pool C and D drops?

A: We feel that players will take that chance on the random roll tables for that chance at the reward they want. There will always be that temptation to roll on the Pool C rewards 12 times instead of buying that one shiny IO. If a player doesn't get what they want, they can post these items on the markets. Also consider that before only players running Task Forces and Strike Forces were contributing Pool C and D items to the market, now even solo/casual players will be able to do so.



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I agree with Pool D. That's a rational decision. Pool C is a fool's errand and that will become clear to people soon.

But respectfully, you didn't answer the questions. Do you care about people who play the market as part of their fun in the game? Do you have a plan if you're wrong and the Pool C market dries up?

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Additionally, I've heard a number of players refer to the Merit Reward System as a reduction to rewards. I'd like to remind players that all but a handful of tasks in the game had their rewards reduced, however the majority of tasks in the game have had their rewards significantly increased and that now story arcs give players a chance at earning rewards that might otherwise be unattainable.

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Yes, you gave miniscule rewards on story arcs (only the owner), while making some of the main supply sources in the game worth less than a random roll.

People are saying that it's a reduction in rewards, because it is. Return the random roll as a choice to all TFs and watch people magically stop saying that.

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I would have much preferred a system that gave the one random roll PLUS some Merits to bring the longer TFs up to a baseline amount of reward per time. That removes the whole minority supplier factor, and merely adds the ability to buy what you may not find randomly, plus the ability to buy if you rack up from other sources like arcs or Monsters. fixing the drop rate for Katies is not a problem that needed to be addressed.

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Well said. If the devs had given Katie say a random roll and 0 merits and Dr. Q a random roll and 50-60 merits, the system would be much less likely to cause a disruption while still giving those people who want to avoid the market another option.

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Opportunity Cost. Spending those 20 merits on a random roll at Pool C is a bad bet if you're looking for something specific. The most you'll have to spend for a specific recipe is 250 merits. Or 12.5 random rolls. It's a bad gamble to take the roll. Before this, it wasn't a choice. You did a TF you got a roll, not skeeball tickets.

This isn't a problem with Pool D which is tiny and nearly everything it it is good.

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Agreed that if you want one specific thing, and anything else is basically worthless to you, then the random roll is a very poor deal.

If your needs/wants are a little more flexible, it becomes a better deal.

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As I said, it's never a good deal. Pool C has stuff that is so valuable that basically, there just isn't any reason not to save up for them. Numina's and LotGs and Miracle uniques will always be worth saving for.

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At any rate, what this line of reasoning seems to come down to is: by adding a second option that is better (at least in some common situations), they took the first option away. That still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. People talk about it as if the random roll option no longer even existed.

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You can't look at this in isolation. Yes they provide the option, but they provided another option that is so obviously better than it's foolish to take the first. Furthermore, they made the first option significantly more expensive than it was previously.

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Opportunity Cost. Spending those 20 merits on a random roll at Pool C is a bad bet if you're looking for something specific. The most you'll have to spend for a specific recipe is 250 merits. Or 12.5 random rolls. It's a bad gamble to take the roll. Before this, it wasn't a choice. You did a TF you got a roll, not skeeball tickets.

[/ QUOTE ]That's assuming you want one, and only one thing...and won't be satisfied with inf, either.

How many people will that actually be the case for?

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Even if you're looking for a range of products, you're still better off taking the roll because of the very large number of recipes in each band. It's still a bad bet because for the same reason gambling in Vegas is. The odds are stacked against you.

As I said, this is not true of Pool D and would not be true of Pool C at a merit cost around 10.

If you're looking for influence, you're betting off saving for a Numina's or a LoTG 7.5% and selling that. Taking the roll is still a bad move. Ironically, this result is what I'm hoping we see a lot of, people looking for influence and so saving up merits for high-priced stuff to sell.

But then with influence, I'm not convinced that people will value influence as highly unless purples get completely out of control, which they may.

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Two questions. One, why do people see merits as a replacement rather than an option? If you want the random roll option, you can use the random roll option. The only difference is that you have to go to a merit vendor to do it rather then rolling on the spot. Okay, and that some TF's will give you less than one random roll (while others will give you more.) But it is still an option. It hasn't disappeared.

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Opportunity Cost. Spending those 20 merits on a random roll at Pool C is a bad bet if you're looking for something specific. The most you'll have to spend for a specific recipe is 250 merits. Or 12.5 random rolls. It's a bad gamble to take the roll. Before this, it wasn't a choice. You did a TF you got a roll, not skeeball tickets.

This isn't a problem with Pool D which is tiny and nearly everything it it is good.

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Two, why not buy the -KB IO with inf instead? You don't have to rely on merits to get it. Did I miss something and something is going to happen to Pool A drops? If not, the supply will be more or less the same.

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Agreed. The -KB IOs should be extraordinarily cheap depending on where the Universal Travel ones drop.

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But it seems, the dev's have to accually SEE it happen before they'll consider doing anything about it. So, just push I13 live already so we can get the ball rolling and see who's right. I'd love to be proven totally wrong on my view of the upcomming change, BELIVE ME. But i don't think i am.



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This is exactly how I feel. I would seriously love to be proven wrong, but the devs don't care about theorycraft.

What's funny is that when the markets first opened, many posters, including myself told them if they had a sealed bid auction system instead of a transparent market that it would be gamed, manipulated and people would hate it.

The devs then said they liked the "market PvP" aspect. So they went live with it. And people complained to high heaven (and Positron's inbox), then merits.

You would think that just once they would try to listen to some theorycraft.

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For a grand total of 2770 Merits 2770/55 (Posi Run Hero Side) = 51 times WITH THE SAME GUY. Times 200 minutes (less than your data mine at current) = 10200 mins (170 hours or 7.1 days). The 3 hour break for claiming Merits would be absorbed into the next running of Posi, so 7.1 days of back to back Posi would get 1 character their Merits.


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Please note, that somewhere in the middle of that they'll do a datamine and nerf the rewards of the TFs people are currently running, requiring you to find a new farm target.

This is not just me being pissy (although I am being pissy admittedly), Synapse was upfront. They will nerf the rewards of the TFs that people get significantly better at.

The only hope that grinding will not take forever as you opined is if people get fed up and start taking the random roll. And I don't think that will happen for Pool C until the roll rate is 10 or below.

QR

I've very thankful for the feedback, but I still feel that the devs have still danced around the market effects of this decision. Further, they've made it clear that they will nerf rewards based on players getting better at content.

That's very disheartening. I'll wait and see how it turns out.

But I'm going to ask again:

What about the market? Do you care about the players who enjoy that aspect of the game? Do you have any plans for how to address the supply issues in the market that this system will cause for Pool C and D drops?

Good luck Alex!

QR

I would do two things:

1) Change the order of powers to move True Grit earlier. Here's my suggested order -

Deflection
Battle Agility
True Grit
Active Defenses
Against all Odds
Phalanx Fighting
Grant Cover
Shield Charge
One with the Shield

Personal defenses will be pretty much done by 20. The health boost will be frontloaded where it can be a major part of the character's defenses while leveling.

2) Remove the SM, LE resists from Deflection, add them to True Grit, up the values [only the Sm, Le] to 1.0 (10% Tankers/7.5% Scrapper/Brute)

This pretty much doubles the resists, but between the health and the resists, it should allow a Shield Tanker to feel more "sturdy" taking alphas, especially with the Tough and Weave that many will wind up taking. And in One with the Shield, the character should feel quite strong.


That seems roughly fair to me, without overpowering the set.

QR

Good lord, this system is so poorly thought out. I'm not going to preach doom, but this is going to hurt teaming. It's also going to make gaining Inventions a terrible grind without those "COOL" moments when you get something good unexpectedly.

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I love this system! I love the Accolades, I love the double XP, I love that it encourages alts and I love that you can't have every Day Job there is inside of a couple of months (thereby trivializing it).

Oh, and it'll let me get a Web Grenade back on my Weapons Scrapper.

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Agree. Even with giving the man back his webnade.

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They all got looked at by Posi, Castle, [u]and minion. [u]

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Poor nameless minion. I hope he gets promoted to a named Lt. at some point.

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The thought that Brutes may get Focused Accuracy makes me giggle with delight.

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Agreed, but Arcanaville's long quest to nerf FA might have born fruit with this Issue. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. If the power's to-hit buff were cut in half, but the power cost were cut by that much or more, that would not be a bad thing. If it's nerfed, but no power cost reduction, I'll be an unhappy Geko.

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Everyone says capt america.....other than Cap, there's like what? Maybe 10 obscure comic book charcters that use a shield?

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I could say the same thing about Ice Blasts. Other than Iceman who does this?

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Blizzard, Ice, SubZero, Kopaka, Capt Cold, Storm, Sylar, Ice MAiden, Frost, Tempest, Yamir, Killer Frost, Celsius, Katara, Aspen, Capt. Planet, Mr. Freeze, Avatar Roku, Coldsnap, Frostbite and like a million more here.

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*clicks link*
*reads list*

WTF? Donald Duck is on this list!
No kidding! Look and see.

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Yup. There's others on that list that only marginally have Ice Control. But Donald Duck being on the list, means the list is BS and Jacobi fails the internets today.

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Who said they won't all cost a ridiculous amount of merits? Let's say it takes [arbitrary number] or merits to get any specific Pool C recipe. That number of merits can be earned by doing the:

KHTF - 50 times
ITF - 30 Times
Positron - 15 Times
Shard TF - 5 times

Then that would mean that for most Pool C recipes, you'll be better off either just trying to win them or buying them off the market. Because less recipes will be generated after this change (because presumably people will be taking merits as a reward), the costs for the cheaper recipes might rise a bit, the crap ones will still be super cheap, and the super expensive ones will stay super expensive because in the time you can earn one with merits you can earn the money to buy one.

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I guess we'll see, but those requirements are not very casual friendly and that seems to be what they are attempting to address because casuals don't like to play the market games and can't farm TF's.

If it costs 25hrs of total TF time to purchase a recipe that isn't very casual friendly (30 mins/ katie x 50) + you have to factor in the manditory 3hr wait which would be anywhere from an additional 15hrs (5 shard tfs) to 150hrs (katies).

I'm interested to see how they will balance this out so hardcores aren't able to abuse the system, but still make IO's easier for casuals (which seems to be what they are attempting).

I personally see more value in this system red side where even with funds some recipes just aren't available, but then again way less SF's are run to earn the merits...

I actually hope it drives prices way down, I'm not a fan of purple gear in this game.

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I don't necessarily see that they are trying to target casual gamers specifically. It seems to me this system is more a way to deal with the constant complaints about the fairness of Pool C.

See the devs probably don't want to get into the game where they say, "Numina's are more important than Trap of the Hunter." Sure the vast majority of people would probably agree with that, but the devs don't want to be seen as manipulating the market.

So they can't just remove the "crap" recipes in Pool C.

In addition, they can't just up the drop rate. The TF pool requires completing a TF. In addition, I have to believe that they don't want to make rare loot like the costume pieces (i.e. near worthless).

But what they probably DO want to do is ameliorate some of the unfairness that Lady Luck sometimes imposes. Taking your chances is still there for the gamblers. But for someone who's been trying for a long time to IO out a character, they'll have a way to get what they want. This is probably more important now that they'll be adding even more IO recipes to the game, diluting Pool C even more.

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*idley wonders what the benefits would be for logging out at Monkey Fight Club*

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There would probably be a couple of rules against talking about it.