If only we could trade them in for Merits 
Thems would be the hoots 
Just got to this
Really great stuff!!! thanks for your efforts
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The main thrust of my point was that even if this hypothetical player never does TFs, he'll still get merits through the normal course of play.
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How? My understanding is that you get merits for completing arcs THAT YOU OWN. Whenever I'm on, I almost always play with my buddies. They play more often than I do, and eventually it gets to a point (pretty early on) where they're a higher level than me. So I take a mentor/boss and we go and have fun. So I am almost always running someone else's story arcs. Often, we run radios. Either way, I don't get merits. In nearly four years, I've run ONE STF and ten or less KHTFs. How am I going to get Merits?
Thats the point mate, they are presenting you with a choice of playing your way and getting no merits or playing the way they want you to, and getting merits. Ain't it great?
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Thats the point mate, they are presenting you with a choice of playing your way and getting no merits or playing the way they want you to, and getting merits. Ain't it great?
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Ah but merits are great for the TF runners who hate the market. All 4 of them.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Thats the point mate, they are presenting you with a choice of playing your way and getting no merits or playing the way they want you to, and getting merits. Ain't it great?
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Yeah, it sure is. Who's got the KY Jelly? 
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The main thrust of my point was that even if this hypothetical player never does TFs, he'll still get merits through the normal course of play.
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How? My understanding is that you get merits for completing arcs THAT YOU OWN. Whenever I'm on, I almost always play with my buddies. They play more often than I do, and eventually it gets to a point (pretty early on) where they're a higher level than me. So I take a mentor/boss and we go and have fun. So I am almost always running someone else's story arcs. Often, we run radios. Either way, I don't get merits. In nearly four years, I've run ONE STF and ten or less KHTFs. How am I going to get Merits?
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So...basically, nothing's going to change for you. What's your problem with the new system, again?
Current system:
If you run TFs/trials, you can get Pools C and D.
If you do your own story arcs, you get nothing from C and D.
If you do other people's story arcs, you get nothing from C and D.
Merit system:
If you run TFs/trials, you can get Pools C and D.
If you do your own story arcs, you can get Pools C and D.
If you do other people's story arcs, you get nothing from C and D.
The market itself isn't going to change as drastically as people fear. You should still be able to get recipes that way. Supply will be lower, but there will also be lower demand. Effectively, nothing will really change for you if you don't TF and don't do your own story arcs.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Thats the point mate, they are presenting you with a choice of playing your way and getting no merits or playing the way they want you to, and getting merits. Ain't it great?
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Also, you realize merits are totally optional, right? Just like IOs? If you decide you have to have IOs, you already have to play the way the devs want you to in order to get them.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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You should still be able to get recipes that way. Supply will be lower, but there will also be lower demand.
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This is just my opinion of how it will work, but I believe that the bolded part to be incorrect. I believe that there will actually be a higher demand for those. Look at it like this:
Each TF in the past gave 1 recipe per run per person, keeping supply high. The new system will make it so that many Tf's will need to be run before even qualifying for a random roll, bringing the supply down as you indicated. Couple that with people earning merits for the sure things rather than the random merit roll decreases the number further.
The deviation with your statement is that there are people who don't purple out their toons but would still use Trap of the Hunter or Pacing of the Turtle on their toons. You don't really hear that here, true, but forumites are a pretty small percentage of actual players if I recall correctly.
As someone who actually has some alts slotted with these cheap, admittedly lesser desired sets, I would hate prices would skyrocket because no one is earning them anymore.
Just my opinion. I could be wrong and I hope that I am. I don't think I am though
When I wrote that, I was thinking more of the high demand recipes like LotG and Numina. Those will be in lower demand because the people who save will most likely be saving for those and so they won't have as great an effect on the market.
I expect Traps and Pacing and the like to rise in price, but not astronomically. They'll probably wind up selling for 1-2 mil or so instead of the, what, <500k they go for now? Really, what I expect out of merits is that the 2/3 that folks here deride as crap will actually become worthwhile recipes to have, and a random roll won't be 2/3 chance of getting a 10k recipe and 1/3 chance of getting a 50 mil.
The notion that some recipes are inherently more valuable is bupkis. There's only supply and demand. LotGs and Numinas command the price they do because there's moderate to low supply and exceedingly high demand, while Traps and Pacing are cheap because there's high supply (all the recipes generated by people hunting for an LotG) and low demand. If Traps were as rare as purples, they'd easily be worth a couple mil or more, and if LotG 7.5% was an uncommon enemy drop, it wouldn't ever really be worth more than 10-20 mil, instead of the 60-100 mil we're seeing now.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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I guess what bothers me the most about the merit system is that for a casual player (i.e. someone who has limited time on any given night to play due to Real Life) will mostly go virtually unrewarded for many things that they do.
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Why...why, why, why do you people think grinding is the only way to go?
Casual player. Solos, mostly. Takes his time leveling up. Does the contacts and the story arcs because they provide a nice XP bonus at the end. Doesn't do TFs because he doesn't have the time/doesn't particularly want to group.
Under the current system, he'd get no pool C drops at all. He'd be lucky to get anything decent from regular enemy drops, and he surely wouldn't have the inf to buy anything beyond SOs until he gets into the 40s-50s.
Under the merit system, he'll steadily accumulate merits through story arcs, and will be able to trade them in relatively quickly for random recipes or save them up for better stuff in the high levels.
I really think the story arcs are getting underestimated here. All y'all can think about is how grinding is going to be hurt and somehow that affects the casual player's ability to get decent stuff. The casual player doesn't give a crap about grinding, but he will be able to accumulate merits naturally over the course of his character's career.
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You read my mind here. Your first paragraph described my playing exactly. I do go through periods when I'm playing more and teaming more, but in general, I'm playing for an hour or two at a time and soloing for a good part of it, noodling my way through my contact missions. I do a TF probably about every four or five weeks on average.
It looks to me like I'll now have a far greater opportunity to get Pool C/D recipes than I ever did before, because I'll be getting merits from the arcs.
Only part I don't agree is with the not being able to buy anything above SO's until the 40's or 50's. Not really true. I Frankenslot the cheap sets, easily affordable just by salvage sales most of the time. And if I do happen to get a Numina's or something? I sell it and the proceeds are enough to take care of all my inf needs for the life of the character. The only high-price recipe/enhancement I've ever purchased for myself is a -KB IO, because those are sweet.
Now a "casual" player who also wants all the high-end stuff may or may not be hurt by this system. It'll depend on how the market interacts with the merit system. But it won't hurt me at all, I don't think. I expect it to help, if anything.
Edit: although the real question is, can I still sell that Numina's and take care of all my inf needs for the life of the character? Possibly not. OTOH, if other prices go up I'll at least break even, since I'm a net seller to the market. But that's where it'll hurt me if it does.
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Only part I don't agree is with the not being able to buy anything above SO's until the 40's or 50's. Not really true. I Frankenslot the cheap sets, easily affordable just by salvage sales most of the time.
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Yeah, this is the part a friend who read this post disagreed with as well. I definitely exaggerated here, but the overall point remains the same. Thanks. 
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Unbounded Leap Stealth: 240 Merits
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that seems high, was hoping stealths would be less...can we expect the run and fly stealth cost to be similar?
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Merit system:
If you do your own story arcs, you can get Pools C and D.
If you do other people's story arcs, you get nothing from C and D.
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hmmm I didn't know this...suddenly everyone is going to want the star, and their arcs done! :0
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Trap of the Hunter Accuracy/End: 150 Merits
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I'm rich!