EvilRyu

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Looking at how many merits I earn versus how many I need results in this opinion: Merits are worthless to me. I will just ignore the system.

I generally solo, but when I do team I've often been annoyed by team leaders who only do their own story arcs and no one else's. When I lead teams, I always try to do a "round robin" set of missions where everyone in the team who isn't sidekicked gets a mission done for them in turn. Now it's even worse, in that some team leaders aren't even considering doing anything besides their own story arcs in order to get the merits. This diminishes my ability to earn merits, so I will therefore ignore this system.

I don't know if this system will make certain IOs even more rare at WW than they already are, but that point is probably moot, since I could never make enough influence to afford even a couple of the most desirable IOs. Adding loot to the game has increased farming, as farming is the only way to earn enough Influence to afford the kind of IOs we all want. Because let's face it, most IOs are utterly useless.

So unless the merit system is changed to allow casual players who actually play the game as it's intended to get the IOs we need, then I'll reiterate merits are worthless to me. I will just ignore the system.

[/ QUOTE ]What you need to do is slightly adjust your playing habits. First off totally drop down the difficulty slider to the first level. Do as many arcs as you can. Once you are out of missions then you team or do a TF/SF. The thing is most folks want to do fast xp to level but you cant have merits and xp because you end up outleveling content. So what I been doing is getting the merits first then team. Honestly though the solution to all of this is have the devs to open Ouroboros as early as possible allow you to do the missions at the minimum arc level instead of the max arc lvl that way you still get xp. This allows people to only build for serious teams and not those who cant stay for long periods of time. If the leader goes then the star passes to someone else but you still can continue the arc without them.

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4550 merits to fully slot a character. One build on that character.

That is not reasonable. It's impossible to earn that many merits from 1-50 even if a player goes through all of the content once. It's not even feasible if a player runs TF/SF and trial content every day. This needs to be reduced to a manageable number. The current total to fully slot a character is equivalent to running a Dr. Quaterfield TF every day for 51 days.


[/ QUOTE ] First off you were never supposed to entirely IO out a toon just with merits. You are supposed to use the merit system and the market together to get things faster. Buy the cheaper stuff on the market and the expensive stuff with merits. Thats what I did for a ninja/pain mastermind. She is almost complete on her build. I just got 3 unique enhancements to get and her build is finished.

I would have to say the merit system is my favorite feature. I have had the worst luck with the random drops since issue 9 and things just progressively got worse for me. I was just about to give up on the invention system because it was just too much effort to IO a single toon without using market tricks and such. When the merit system was announced I was overjoyed. At that point I made various alts and planned so many more builds. All the system needs is a bit of tweaking and it will be the most perfect feature that CoX has ever had.

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Most of this I am sure you have read from my pervious posts on this subject.

Objective:

The time/reward initial pass certainly didn't get everything as close as it should. Posi and Doc Q are heavily over-rewarded for time. Doc Q especially with the extra travel options now available you should pretty much throw out any and all data times from early runs. Team recall + Eveyone able to have fly. O portals, SG base portals to get back to the city fast.
(Subjective:that said Im not in a hurry to do it again. 4 hours for 90 merits, I'd rather run Posi twice for 55+diminished 27 - its less painful)
A redside example of an over-reward is Breaking Knives (Arbiter Daos) 9 merits for 3 door missions (2 defeat all) 3 or 4 merits woudl be comprable to other arcs of that length and difficulty.

The new system is quite hard to pick-up. I have spent a lot of time chatting with my wife about it in person, and a lot of time on SG boards and in the SG globals trying to help people out. Better documentation on the website would help (in game the merit vendors/informers seem to be decent enough to me).

Running just a few characters through new zone arcs (striga, faultline and Croatoa) I have earnt several random rolls (not taken yet) without running a TF. Its has created a diversity of ways to get Pool C drops that was not there before.

Overall TF rewards are up assuming you didn't run one or two fast TFs constinuously. As a great fan of running different TFs this is a bonus for me.

Subjective:
Im loving the new system. The chnace to run some of the longer TFS and arcs and get significant rewards is great. We had an SG event for 45-50s running Heros Hero. 19 Merits is JUST shy of a TF random for it. It has increased the diversity of team events for me. Though part of that may just be a skewed perception as due to a family illness I have been very restricted in my teaming for a while.

Ability to work deterministically is good

The fun of analysing and working out 'profitable' levels and numbers of random rolls appeals to the math nerd and gambler in me

Summary:
Im thoroughly enjoying the merits system right now.

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I am highly upset at this post that you of all people would advocate lowering merit rewards. You are the extreme example of how fast things can be done. The casual gamer and even the average gamer will never be able to finish stuff no where near as fast as you do. So how can you say what it needs to be?

Objective:

There is no way to know officially what pool a recipe is in. Sure there are player made guides and such but sometimes those have errors or they are incomplete. So how is it fair to expect someone to do a random roll but not know what exactly is in the pool that they are rolling for. There needs to be way to select the recipe level on a random roll. Currently the way the system works it forces lowbies to wait till they are 50 to cash in on random rolls because they want the highest level of the recipe. Likewise there is no way for a level 50 to make the recipes lower unless they outright purchase them for the exact level costing tons of merits. There should be a random roll for pool A and B as well but for fewer merits than the tf/trial rolls.

Subjective:
As the others have said before me its like the merit amounts were slanted to give heroes the advantage. In many cases where the mission setup for the arc is similar the hero would still come out ahead despite having an easier time with their missions in the arc. Task Forces Vs Strike Forces its the same thing. The statesman TF is way easier with a balanced team then say the LRSF with a balanced team. I know the devs had done their so called datamining but did they look at a few facts. Initially folks got so good at the LRSF because building a balanced team made it harder versus just going with several */rad corrupters and a single stone brute. If they did the dataming based on just balanced teams they would see where the disconnect here is. The statesman tf was designed so that having a balanced team made it easier where as the LRSF was no where close to that. Please keep that in mind when placing merits on future content. Hamidon is another example where there is a disconnect. Despite villains having their "empathy" powerset now they still do not have the tools within the powerset to make the raids easier because they dont get recovery aura. From what I seen players end up having to go to pvp zones to get warburg buffs to make up for what they should have gotten in their powerset. That extra setup time of having to go get the nukes isnt even taken into consideration. Villainside hami should give slightly more merits due to that.

Overall I like the set. My only dislikes are the lack of recovery aura and some of the buffs are whack. That there was a make or break deal that made me choose to do it as a mastermind instead of a corrupter. Recovery Aura was definately wanted because of hami raids for sure. What needs to be changed is the buff amount on enforce morale. I dont know who's bright idea was to have this power grant a 5% recharge buff. Seriously that isnt even noticeable in combat. You are looking at a power recharging in like .000005 seconds faster. I know the power is stackable but how can one be expected to stack this power 5 times and keep it on a full team? Thats just insane. There is also a bug with the power where it wont enhance recharge if you already have some +recharge buffs on you already. I say make the buff a flat 25% buff to recharge and remove the stacking. 25% isnt bad considering that speed boost is better in every way. Aside from that everything else is good about the set.

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I would imagine that for Corrupters that take this set they are often looked on like empath hero side, in that they "have" to take every pain power to be a good Heelxor and they should as little blasting as possible. I know that is often the role the healer has to take on but I dont think that has to be the case many times.

[/ QUOTE ] This is exactly why I did it as a mastermind instead of a corrupter. Corrupters level slower without a team. You cant get none of the +dam powers to work solo since most of the powers are team based. Even if you could the damage modifiers are so low and the self buffs are so low it might as well not even give a buff. I choose a mastermind so that I can at least solo when there is no one out there that wants to team. When I am able to team I am still able to contribute damage with ninja and have endurance for heals where as with a corrupter its harder to have endurance for heals and blasts. So even if corrupter numbers are better for the set you make up for it on a mastermind by the damage and aggro control you bring to a team. That being said I can easily see this set being ported back heroside but for controllers only as they would get more benefit out of it in the end game.

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Objective Feedback:
IOs from the new sets in the TF Drop Pools are almost non-existant on the market.


Subjective analysis about that:
This indicates a serious lack of TF Drop Pool supply in general. Since merits are the only source of said recipes, it seems the system is not producing enough drops that make it to the Market.
This is probably true over all Pool C recipes, not just the new sets. The new sets are simply a lot easier to notice, and do not have the possibility that market activity may be using pre-existing Pool C's instead of new drops. I expect all Pool C recipes will be harder to find on the market now.


IMHO, TFs need to return to dropping random recipes. Merits should be applied on top of TF reward drops, so that people will over time get additional recipes, such as to offset bad luck on TF drops. (perhaps awarding fewer merits than currently, it doesn't have to directly merge the 2 amounts.) This will retain the pre-I13 supply of Pool Cs, and perhaps even increase the amount of supply of that pool on the market.

[/ QUOTE ]No thanks I want to keep my merits for tfs. No sense in decreasing my merits since I know I will be getting garbage random drops anyways in pool C. I would rather have my full merits.

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For the first time ever... I have slowed down.

I made a new hero and a new villain.

I am trying to get as many Merits as possible, while at the same time doing all the TF/SF and doing all of the badge contact story arcs.

This may sound fine and good to some of you, but this is kinda sucky for me. But its one of my new personal goals. I have to TURN OFF my exp like every level now. So I dont out level anything.

The thing I hate the most is doing contacts and getting no merits for sludging through it. Only to unlock the contact I actually wanted/needed to do.

I really hope you guys find a way to give merits for every single contact in the game. A contact like Crimson, should give like 50 Merits, if you do the whole arc. A contact like the "TV" should give 50 Merits as well, lol it would encourage people to stop farming that 1 mission... and play through the game etc.

I have now encountered several Contacts and did all their missions that dont give merits. Please change this.

[/ QUOTE ]Here is my advice to you Perfect Pain. Look up all the contacts on City of Data and Paragon Wiki. Plan your missions that way. Its kind of easy to avoid some of those mission you dont want by going to another contact. Alot of those missions are shared on heroside so all you have to do is get that hunt mission or out of the way mission from another contact and then go to the contact you really want to do. Then just drop the mission from the contact you dont want. Also for the turning off xp thing I only do it on the last bubble of a lvl that ends in 4 or 9 so that I can still keep getting the missions from contacts. Villainside its much easier to get around this but we still have to waste time on mayhems to unlock some of the contacts. Also keep in mind some contact villainside are only unlockable if you have certain badges so make sure you are getting those too so you get maximum payout.

The seperate enhancement thing I have no problem with. Its the timer thats my issue. Having to wait 15 minutes is way too long and its even worse to make a team wait that long. Time is money in this game many people can only afford to play this game for an hour a day because they have no time, it is awful that it gets cut down to 45 minutes all because of the switching of builds. Also the level in which this start is kind of late. I was hoping you can do this switching at lvl 1 instead of 10. I understand you devs dont want to confuse people but honestly how stupid do you think your players are? We will figure it out no need to delay this feature to level 10.

One last thing for the love of gawd please reduce the diminishing returns timer down to 20 hour or even 22 hours. I am having all kinds of hell trying to remember what time I finished which tf with what character. It would just be better if If I could do it around the same time and not have to know the exact time.

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Subjective Feedback:

Day Jobs give me a reason to log out in certain areas, but I feel that the bonuses aren't really worth it. I had a character logged out for three days in Ouroborus and that charged the Day Job power just enough to last through a single mission. That's not really that impressive. Furthermore it's annoying that I have no idea when my Day Job bonus expires. It just disappears at some point.

To be honest, I'd prefer to build up "charges" on powers where it would make sense. So instead of getting random recipes for the next 30 minutes or how long it was for Ouroborus, I'd get a recipe for my next mission, be it 10 minutes or 3 hours from log in. Same with other powers.

But as designed, it seems to be working pretty well, and I do like the Patrol XP. Just, when is that color change for us colorblinds mentioned during Open Beta coming? It's still difficult to see the difference between the blue and the pink.

[/ QUOTE ]This is pretty much my concern as well. The timers just dont work to well with the way alot of us play. Also some of the bonuses should flatout be perma once you have the badge. The prestige badge for instance, that should be perma. I see no reason to make that one a charge up or timer. Same goes for the salvage and recipe bonuses. What they give is so minor it might as well be perma to make the badge worth while.

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Objectively, there are more Task Forces heroside than there are Strike Forces, villainside.

There are more merit-earning opportunities heroside than there are villainside, too.

Will this be addressed in the future with villain-specific content?

[/ QUOTE ]So far everything has been great for me. As the person I quoted mentioned it really makes getting merits on villains alot harder to do because they have way fewer options. I dont see them ever making any more villain specific content anytime soon so to me the best option at this point is to make merits account based so even if you hero tfs you could use the merits on villains. Otherwise it gets old really fast. I cant count how many times I done the LRSF and Silver Mantis tfs ever since issue 13 came out.

Thats like the best video they have done since the VEAT thing and it was way better than some of their previous stuff. I liked it.

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1st Theory vs Reality.
Your statement seems fine on paper. The problem is that every successful MMOG lets people get around the character = distinct individual idea. Matter of fact so does life. I observe the worlds oldest and most durable profession is based on giving people what they want when they want it and how they want it.

[/ QUOTE ] I loled and almost passed out when I read the last part. Kudos to you for making my day with comparing MMOs to that. You have a point and its true.

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Why? Nice statments but where is the explanation? What's wrong with the way i currently do things? What am I exploiting? And where have the dev's said as much?

Allowing characters owned by the same player to interact results in pathological behavior. Every character in any RPG is supposed to earn its own progress. That's the ideal. That ideal can't be reached in an MMO, even with draconian measures that are worse than the problem itself. SWG originally allowed only a single character per server, which even the designer had to admit wouldn't stop anyone willing to pay for multiple accounts. That does not, however, mean it is OK to just say "to hell with it" and make self-twinking easy. It can, and should, be made arbitrarily difficult. That won't eliminate the damage but it will contain it.

Under i13 rules you can earn merits on one character until you get the desired reward, whether that's a roll or a specific recipe, then craft that recipe, leave the IO on a base rack and have another character pick it up, or get a friend to help you trade it over. It shouldn't be any easier than that. Making merits tradeable would mean they could be bartered for cash, which would essentially make them the same as cash. Part of the reason for introducing merits is that the cash economy in this game is beyond salvage by any means the developers would even consider implementing (we need a cash wipe, but that's not going to happen). Making them account based would mean either throwing out the diminished returns rule or applying that as account-based as well, which may not even be possible with their current architecture. I have 13 heroes on Virtue, e.g., meaning given RL time constraints I could run the same TF with them all as much as I wanted and pool all those merits instantly. Not just no, but HELL no.

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A small observation here, most of the people playing this game don't seem to enjoy it in the manner you described. As it stands many are even willing to have extra accounts even though they don't really need them in the game. Some even play multiple accounts at the same time.

Perhaps just perhaps there is something in the game that they enjoy and you just aren't getting.

Now here is the kicker just why should these customers be treated shabbily and be forced to play your way instead of the way they currently do ?

[/ QUOTE ]I dont think he gets it. I know if I wasnt able to twink I would have given up on this game ages ago. I would never have started playing stuff other than scrapper/tankers if I wasnt able to twink. I damn sure wouldnt be able to play something like dark armor or ninjutsu if I wasnt able to twink to get the knockback protection enhancements. True enough folks play those sets like that everyday but to me those sets just arent playable in my eyes without being twinked out. To me there is nothing wrong with wanting to run at peak performance in this game considering how we just use enhancements and not real armor like the other games. I think the developers overstate the usefulness of enhancements and inspirations in this game. They make it seem they are the uber armor you see in fantasy MMOs when its so far from it because the overall benefits are so small. I feel that we should have account based merits as it would be the first step towards equalizing the hero/villain markets before the merger.

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But the 2 merit Eden trial worries me, as it's an example of a trend.

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It can't possibly be a trend, because they would have had to repeatedly nerf merit awards due to datamined speeds. It's happened at one point in time (one point in time = not a trend) on multiple TFs, and they've said that they want to fix the content but that this was the easier solution if they wanted to get the merit system live.

[/ QUOTE ]Here is my prediction. They will be much screaming and moaning the first time these rewards gets nerfed. Depending on how vocal we all are about this they will end up changing what they are using for reward measurements instead of rewarding us just strictly based on time. It will end up being time and something else equals merits otherwise it will only get worse from here. I cant see them changing rewards for the better until that happens.

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If it were I13, i'd prolly have enough merits to buy 2 LOTG IO's, but COULDN'T because the merits have been spread out over a dozen different heros.

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Pre I13 you would not be able to buy a LOTG with merits. You would have to hope you got the drop you wanted. If you like the pre I13 method you can still choose to take a random drop (In reality you buy a random drop) after completing most of the TFs. With the exception of those TFs that were heavily farmed you are no worse off now then before. Each of your alts can take a random drop, and with some of the TFs 2 or 3 random drops.

HP Lovecat

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Your somewhat right, and that's why i'm soften to merits, but I can still do what i do now, and right now, i'm dependent on the MARKET to get 90% of the stuff i need. I don't MIND how things are now, but if the MAJORITY of people hord merits like i think they will, the supply at the market will dry up, leaving ME high and dry. Or prices will rocket up even more then they are now. If i'm WRONG. No harm no foul. But i don't think i am and thus, i'm voicing my concern.

and if i'm right, it leaves me at a disatvantage simply because of my current play style, a style i figured this game above all promots, alting. I mean.. we get what, a dozen slots per sever to make people... can buy up to 32... an amazing Char creations system and quick leveling... but this new system "encourges" just the opsite. Pick one main, and run all your tf's with him.

Ok, i can see a proble with merits being sellable. But what's the problem with tradable inbetween heros/villians on the same account? that's be SOMETHING at least. I'd still be tied to mainly ONE of my two accounts for TFing, but it's be easier to built up merits when they are cut in half as apposed to cut between about 20+ ACTIVE alts...

[/ QUOTE ]I still say all merits should be account base that would make the whole system easier to work with. What I intend to do is stick with 2 characters per server till I get all the alts on that server IOed out and then play them later. Any merits used after the toon has been IOed out would go towards random rare on salvage if the prices get out of hand again or just plain old random rare recipes because at that point I would have everything I need.

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If it were I13, i'd prolly have enough merits to buy 2 LOTG IO's, but COULDN'T because the merits have been spread out over a dozen different heros...

That's the way it's supposed to be.

All the money and resipies i got over this last week have been realocauited to alts that need it, and to my INF "bank". (my current active alt is the bank.)

That's not the way it's supposed to be.

If you at least make the merits tradeable and sellable... it won't be AS bad IMO. if not...

That would be bad.

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Why? Nice statments but where is the explanation? What's wrong with the way i currently do things? What am I exploiting? And where have the dev's said as much?

[/ QUOTE ]He's just being difficult. He has this thing against twinking like its the worst thing to ever happen in an MMO. I think twinking is fine because it promotes the creation of more alts. I know for me since the Invention System came out there are powerset and power combinations I would never have dreamed of playing because IOs help those sets out so much that I could never played them with just SOs.

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I need a clarification, if you all would:

I understand diminishing returns is 50% of the previous award cummulative from the first instance of a TF and reset after 24 hours.

If I do say Positron TF, I would get the full merit award; but say after Positron I go to Synapse; will my Synapse merit award be subject to a diminishing return? or if I was to repeat Positron a second time within 24 hours, it would be subject to diminishing returns?

Hugs

Stormy

Ps: I think I13 has a lot of promise to evolve into, like all new things, it will have rough spots, but time tends to polish those rough spots. I still wish, that superior teamsmanship, leadership be truly rewarded as opposed to penalized.

[/ QUOTE ]Its only if you do Positron more than once in 24 hours. You can do all the tfs once per 24 hours without losing merits.

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I just love when people assume that forum reg dates are the same as when someone started the game...

That aside, you're still wrong. Stalkers, for example were never nerfed "way back when". But they were buffed...and rather well, at that.

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IIRC they came in underpowered.

If you want a recent example of the bias PGT villainside.

Not only was it a rapid and major nerf, there was no thought to the need to either rebalance the set or allow people to respec.( Most would probably want to respec out of traps and would probably just delete the chars in disgust, but the principle is the same)

[/ QUOTE ]First things first you are right about how they were underpowered in pve. All the villains ATs came out pre-nerfed when compared to the hero counterparts. Masterminds were the only exception because there were no hero AT equal to them. Aside from stalkers stacking stealth there just really wasnt a single thing that villains did that heroes couldnt do better out of the box. The villain inherrents were tacked on to not make the pre-nerf look so bad. Heroes were all fine without their inherrents villains should have been that way too. If I had done villains I would have made corrupters have way better debuffs than defenders but much weaker buffs and heals. Doms would have had way better control than controllers without domination. Brutes would be alot more tankerish than they are, stalkers would be what they are now and masterminds would have had their epics taliored to fit the their pets. They all would have had a way to combine their pets like voltron or the constructicons.

Now about the PGT, seriously people need to chill with this. That proc thing on PGT was horribly broken and folks need to admit this. I hardly ever talk about saying something needs to be nerfed. I am in fact very anti-nerf, but the PGT thing was insane. Traps is fine after this. The range thing on the trip mines was a bug and is fixed now no one needs to be [censored] about traps.

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Ouro works to get around in the Shard?

Who knew...

[/ QUOTE ]Pretty soon we will have the temp power for sale that tps you directly to the mission then we will see 1 hour dr. q's.

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it doesnt cross zone boundaries.

[/ QUOTE ]So you have tried the new power already? I didnt know it was out yet, I thought it was going to come with the mac version right when it launches.

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And people who aren't willing to pay above the arbitragers's price floor? They'll have to get it from merits, or else won't get their shinies until they change their mind.

Right, people will, when faced with absurd prices, tell the flippers to go do something biologically impossible and get what they want from merits.

I'm sure our cafeteria capitalists won't mind a little competition.

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Strong hatred is in this one.

Soon he will turn to the darkside ?

Seriously You think 120 million inf is absurd compared to running 5 positrons ?

I bet there are people that would gladly part with a lotg if they could have gotten TF commander without positron.

[/ QUOTE ]Its easier just to do 8 ITFs to get it. And no I wouldnt give up a LoTG for a badge.

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QR (I'z hates the pyramids)

I hate to say it but your just going to have to juggle something around to get more play time if your truely want the rewards, other wise just take the random roll. The thing is you cant lower the merit cost too much or give way too many merits per task otherwise you would just end up making them free because we would have way too many of the items out there. I think what they have now is about where things need to be. The only thing we need is HOs and purples and the system will be perfect for the most part.

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That's not the way Synapse has been framing it. The merit system is supposed to be *additive* for a player like me. A way to get the occasional high level IO that I just can't today. That's what he keeps saying in pretty much every response.

That can only be true if the market for mid-level Pool C recipes remains pretty much just as it is now or if some other, non merit based method of obtaining them is added. Otherwise as you state I'm not going to be able to obtain even the modest level of reward that I do today.

I know that lots of people hate the markets and want nothing to do with them. I'm just trying to point out that there is a segment of the player base that relies on them - not as a means for evil flipping or being a billionaire - but just to add some flavor to my toons. I'd hate to see that destroyed in this process.

[/ QUOTE ]For people who can not play as much this system really doesnt help much or hurt you much either way. The thing is you will eventually get something were as before you had a snowballs chance in hell at a good drop. Its all going to be about a playstyle change. I know for me I will be doing tfs and such for the first 2 to 3 months with my 50s getting builds ready for the lowbies to respec into. In the time I am not playing the lowbies they will be getting the badges for day jobs so basically its full of win for me either way. I plan on having every proc or special IO for each toon at the earlies possible level so they can slot it and it work for them all the way to lvl 50. It will take some time, but when I can set it up I can use the lowbies on the TFs as they level. I dont intend to do story arcs at all on my support toons. They will be TF only. I just think you need to plan a system out where you get max merits over time using multiple characters.

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Seriously I dont think its going to be 1 merit for 5 minutes. If it is taking that long on alot of those task then you are just doing it wrong. I am looking at doing 90 minute ITFs. Thats about 10 to get what you want, which would be closer to 15 hours of game time per IO. It cant be any worse than it is now. Seriously dude I started a toon a few months back and did all the heroside tfs except the shard tfs and didnt get [censored] that was useable for that character. It was either snipes, confuses, and other various trash drops. Many of those TFs I ran multiple times. Given the total time I put into it I would say its way more 16 hours per recipe. I think the problem you are seeing is that folks wont put much time into the tfs. I think people will be more willing to put time into tfs after the changes. So that 3 hour per week could end up being 10 to 15 hours per week

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Unfortunately the devs have stated their intention to nerf rewards if the playerbase at large beats the 1 merit per 5 minutes metric by enough. So if you do better, they'll try to stop you.

Expect it in I14. I do, and I'll be behaving accordingly during I13.

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I bet the devs will be changing that metric on how they award merits soon after issue 13. The reason I say that is because merits over time just will not work well in this game and be fair to everyone. In the case of the Eden trial i still dont see how anyone manages to do it in 10 minutes. Hell It takes me 15 minutes to navigate to the first wall because of all the freaking holes keep looping you back to the begining. I see them changing it to a checkpoint system where if certain task get met they will award merits accordingly, time will only factor in the undesirable tfs like Posi and Dr. Q, because they will have to make those worth the time.