PRAF68_EU

Given how long they take, they do not award the "best rewards".

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Probably ITF will be the new Katie Hannon substitute for grinding, since I can't see many people farming Positron (55 merits) or Dr. Quarterfield (90 merits)... unless some genius finds a way to finish Doc Q. in 1 hour or so...


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It will probably be LGTF first, I know a way to cheese at least one of the long missions, cutting the required time for the TF by about 20%.

But the prefered merit farming TF will simply be whichever gives the highest merits per hour, once you have cut the time to a minimum. It will probably take players a couple of weeks to figure out (if its not LGTF).

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What you have said is completely wrong, the merit vendor adds a vendor for things that need saving for, in some cases saving for an eternity if you dont get a lot of merits.

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And the AH is also a vendor for things that need saving for, in some cases saving for an eternity if you dont get a lot of inf.


I've news for you, most players don't go around with a couple of hundred million inf available in ready cash. I cetainly don't, I spend it as fast as it comes in.

Disclamers would be redundant. Everone knows what is said here is opinion.

You will find out soon emough that I am right about auction house prices.

Currently, the AH is a monopoly. If you want a lotg, you have to go to the AH. So sellers can ask whatever people can afford to pay.

Adding the merit vendor is like adding another shop selling the same thing next door. People will go to whichever they judge to be cheepest. Competition drives down prices. You don't need to be an economics genuis to understand that. Since the merit vendor can't change, it will drive down AH prices to be competitive with the Merit vendor (or in some cases drive up prices to be comparable to the merit vendor).

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These merrits are not going to cause a sudden glut of rares on the market. People will just sell drops as usual, i cant see many saving merrits to sell a recipe, and if they do it will be so few as wont matter.



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No, supply won't increase, in fact it will decrease, but the demand for anything hugely expensive will disapear completly.

Consider a new popular recipe. The price will rise on the market until such time as it is quicker to get it with merits from TFs than earning the inf. At which point people will use that method instead of buying it on the market.

Thus, the merit value of a recipe serves as a soft cap on the influence value.

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Question is, does this system make achieving your desired build a longer or a shorter grind?

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The recipes for you build should be much quicker, if you don't include any Purples. a Purpled build will take a lot longer.

However, the thing you really need to worry about is the price of salvage.

The changes to bases mean salvage racks can now hold 30 pieces of invention salvage. This means a lot of players will dump excess salvage in thier base, rather than on the market. There will also be a proliferation of single player bases containing nothing but salvage racks.

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God knows how you came to that conclusion. People will still sell salvage the way they do now.

And if they do dump 30 pieces of common salvage (cos lets be honest, no one is dumping rare salvage in the base for it to be stolen) that is going to effect salvage prices how?

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You can have 18 salvage racks in your base, thats 540 pieces of salvage. If it's a tight supergroop they won't worry about theft, they will share. People who don't care to much about thier SG will quit so they can have their own personal salvage racks, which you can be sure they will fill chock full of rare salvage.

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Question is, does this system make achieving your desired build a longer or a shorter grind?

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The recipes for you build should be much quicker, if you don't include any Purples. a Purpled build will take a lot longer.

However, the thing you really need to worry about is the price of salvage.

The changes to bases mean salvage racks can now hold 30 pieces of invention salvage. This means a lot of players will dump excess salvage in thier base, rather than on the market. There will also be a proliferation of single player bases containing nothing but salvage racks.

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I think you got that completely wrong, i dont think merits will effect prices 1 jot. Especially the expensive ones.

Because people will always want things now, and i doubt anyones saving merrits to get recipes to sell so supply aint going up.


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That's exactly why prices will fall. Most players don't go around with 50 million inf in thier back pockets, so "now" simply isn't an option. It becomes "as quickly as possible", and it is a lot quicker (and possibly more fun) to do a couple of Task Forces than to grind 50 million inf.

Soloing for gain will only be worthwhile at level 50, and then you will still need 7 people to fill, so as to max out the number of mobs in the mission. Purple IOs will be the only thing of significant value to the market.

It won't equilise at that.

They will probably level at 10-100 thousand per pop.

With purples from 50 million upwards.

Probably very wise.

Pretty soon, purples will be what is farmed for, so the farmers will be after inf, and killing as many level 50 mobs as possible, not merits.

It should level the prices out. At least that's the theory. Whatver is expensive in the AH, people will choose with merits, and demand will dry up.

The price of Purples will rise astronomiclly though, since you can't get them with merits.

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Can you see many people grinding merits for a, let's say LotG 7.5% for selling it afterwards at a low price?

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No, people will tend to buy what just want they want for themselves with merits, killing demand for the rare recipes.

At which point, if you want something to sell, you are better off taking a 25 merit gamble, since the resale value of other pool C/D recipes, like trap of the hunter, will have gone up.

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PRAF, 5 merits is 1.25 millioni inf. And thats with the most conservative estimate (i.e. complete at level 50 and a Miracle+Recovery is 50 million).


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That's because your calculations are based on current (hyper inflated) prices.

After issue 13, thier price will come down.

way way way down.

Remember what happened to the price of costume recipes with only a small increase in thier availability?

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I have a concern here. One of CoX's strengths has always been the laid-backness towards teams. You dont need to plan raids, be a certain AT / sets. You can just log on, join a PuG and have some(normally) freindly fun.

If merits are going to be dishes out for completing story arcs, I can see this coming under severe strain. Either people will choose just to solo, or people will start arguing about whose story arc to do.

I know that technically you could all agree to do simu-runs of story arcs, but in practice even with a regular team this is difficult.

Personally, I would plead for these rewards to be removed. It potentially threatens one of CoX's strengths, for scant benefit.

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I haven't read all the aggro, because we have had this before in another similar thread. But basically, all your concerns are based on a massive overvalution of what a merit is worth.

You have always got extra rewards for completing story arcs, and back when I first started playing, those SO where really worth something: it was rare to have a character fully SOed out before around level 35. However, it didn't have an adverse effect on teaming because the arc reward was small compared to all the xp you gain from defeating mobs.

This remains the case with merits. What is a single merit worth? 4% of a single random rare recipe. Completing any mission (including newspaper) gives you 10% of a random rare recipe (equivelent to 2.5 merits). The merit reward for sory arcs is insignificantly small.

The reason story arcs give merits at all, is it is simply impossible for some players to make the time commitments to do task forces, which reward merits at a far higher rate. It is just so these people are not left out of the system.

Currently some of the elemental shields are bugged, and not available on huge or female. There should also be another tec shield which isn't showing for anyone yet.

BAB made this post about animations:

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There are variations of the 'block' animation that incorporate the shield. Those are mixed in with the dodge animations for variety. Blocks and Dodges are fairly low on the totem pole in terms of priority, so they tend to only play when you're not attacking, getting hit, being held, moving around, etc.

As far as other visual FX go, we intentionally kept them subtle and brief so as to not interfere with any character concepts as much as possbile. A lesson that we've learned from complaints about the visual FX for powers like Super Strength, Regen, etc. and previously tried to implement for Willpower.

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Basically, there are animations for the Shield, but if you are doing anything else that uses animations, like attacking, they will be overridden and won't play. Another quirk of a badly written game engine.

Are you sure you actually bought both packs?

Also, did you apply both codes to your account? Do you have more than one account, including trials?

And doesn't keep up to date with the news either?

There what a patch hit the US test forum on Friday (after everyone here had gone to bed). Don't think it includes the changes to APPs though.

the respec applies to whichever build is currently active.

Some new news from the latest build:

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Phalanx Fighting now has (tank number) 5% defense to self, unenhanceable, and 3% enhanceable for up to 3 teammates in range. This is now not only a solo power, it's a pretty dang useful one. So that would be... 3.75% unenhanceable for scrappers and brutes, with 2.25% enhanceable for up to three teammates.


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Basically, +5% def unenhanceable to base def. Should make quite a difference, especially at low levels.

Now all I have to do is un-skip the power!

As for AAO, it appears to debuff damage by about 10%. The damage bonus is strange, it seems to self stack for a fraction of a second, causing the combat attributes to flick around. That makes it difficult to read, but it appears to be 15.5% for the first mob, and an additional 5.5% per mob. I haven't tested it up to 10, but the implication is it caps at +65%.

Soloing on tenacious without difficulty at the moment. Can defeat even con bosses without problem.

I would describe as playable, but unimpressive and rather dull. I have never felt invincible, but then I have havn't come across any mob types that really do you over either, like you do with some defense sets at low levels.

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1. except for Inv, it is equal yet stronger overal. Granite is cheap (kinda a exception), ice, fire and afaik dark have +end powers, WP has passive end recovery, did i forgot a set?

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Wasn't asking you, I know you know what you are talking about!

I've tried soloing a Shield/Mace tanker at low level now. No problem soloing 5 even con minions and lts. No problem with 2 +3 minions. Had trouble with a +3 lt. Haven't tried a boss yet. No end problems to report.

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presuming of course that the team is doing the leaders missions; after all he/she gets to choose them

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If the team leader only does thier own missions it is time to find a different team.