I see some adjustments have been made to merits.
Q. Why does it cost 20 merits for a random roll for a rare magic or tech salvage and 30 merits to choose one over the other?
Q. Why is the merit cost across the levels the same when they have wildly different values on the market?
Q. Why is the merit cost for SO's at level 25 the same 8 merits it costs for level 50's?
Q. Why is the merit cost of rare IO sets so high 125-250 merits and so outta whack with the market prices for the same receipes? Some of the recipes go for less than 10k-100k, the merit prices should reflect that. Merit cost is outta whack with market prices who would spend 250 merits for recipe that cost 10k on the market?
Q. Why have you increased many of the rare triple aspect recipes some to 250 merits above the best uniques in the game that are 240 merits? LOTG is 200 merits but the LOTG triple aspect is 250 merits! Kismet is 150 merits yet the Kismet triple aspect is 200 merits!
Its looks like the system still needs lots of tweaking before going live IMHO. Please shorten the 24hr clock to six hours. 3 was fine 24 is too long and punitive, doubling it to 6 is fair and strikes a good balance vs the heavy handed punitive nature of the current 24hr clock.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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As for Katie Hannon TF, they're giving 7 merits (that assumes the avergae 35 min KHTF), what did I say the average seemed like? 45-60 minutes, so all that does is increase the amount of merits to 9-12.
[/ QUOTE ]The 7 merits is what it's worth currently...not the "OMG lots of merits" you suggested the Katie be worth in your post.
...unless you were being sarcastic, in which case it flew right over my head.
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Q. Why does it cost 20 merits for a random roll for a rare magic or tech salvage and 30 merits to choose one over the other?
[/ QUOTE ]For the same reason the Trial pool is more expensive than the TF pool. It's smaller. And thus, you're more likely to get what you "want". (assuming you wanted one thing out of it.)
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My point is and was they have decided to fix what I believe is a non problem (People speeding through TFs for rewards)
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Fixed.
Because obviously the devs did think people speeding through the TFs for rewards was a problem.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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My point is and was they have decided to fix what I believe is a non problem (People speeding through TFs for rewards)
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Fixed.
Because obviously the devs did think people speeding through the TFs for rewards was a problem.
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If so, encouraging them to do it more, to more TFs, is a pretty bad way to go about solving it 
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
QUESTION: How will you be looking at merits for story arcs with PUG teams.
I'm worried about the effect on teaming with merits only going to the task holder (team leader probably).
With so many on them inloving touring all over the map, hunts etc it doesnt seem worth it risk/time vs reward to be doing other peoples arcs.
I'd suggest inflating the merits system, and enable a merit for all for each bit of any arc.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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QUESTION: How will you be looking at merits for story arcs with PUG teams.
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Can anyone explain to me how this is different than the current setup with the reward window and the arc bonus XP only going to the mission owner? This is what they made shared missions for. (now, some aspects of sharing mission completion don't work as well as they could, I'll grant you...)
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QUESTION: How will you be looking at merits for story arcs with PUG teams.
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Can anyone explain to me how this is different than the current setup with the reward window and the arc bonus XP only going to the mission owner? This is what they made shared missions for. (now, some aspects of sharing mission completion don't work as well as they could, I'll grant you...)
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It's not different other than the scope.
Merits have a defined value greater than the exp/inf bonus and possible choice of DO/SO due to the ability to accumulate them to purchase some of the most expensive IO recipes in the game.
So while many people won't care about someone getting a little extra experience since they'll catch up quickly enough by running the missions at one level higher while the mission holder is getting less proportional experience than they are, they may be upset if someone's only selecting their arcs so that they can get merits while the rest of the team gets nothing (barring simultaneous completions, which often has issues given the order that missions are given even from the same contact).
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Hi Synapse,
Didn't read the rest of the thread...I've got a busy life.
Anyway, why not have a 1 merit reward for each mission that's not in a story arc? This would also allow folks to enjoy playing solo instead of having to search out a PuG all the time.
Without that, you're going to see some people play less because they'll need to carve a block of time out of their schedule just so they can sit down and play because everyone is going to be wanting to start a TF for the merits. Out of frustration, some of these folks will join just so they can play and when their time is up, they'll quit the TF leaving the rest of the people on the team out in the cold.
I don't think that there are any "repeatable" missions out there that could exploit something like this other than the Oz missions; however, the Oz portal is on a five minute timer anyway. I can see some folks maybe getting 10 to 12 merits per hour out of this, but I don't see that as a problem.
Thoughts?
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QUESTION: How will you be looking at merits for story arcs with PUG teams.
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Can anyone explain to me how this is different than the current setup with the reward window and the arc bonus XP only going to the mission owner? This is what they made shared missions for. (now, some aspects of sharing mission completion don't work as well as they could, I'll grant you...)
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Merits are better than XP, or harder to achieve anyway.
If devs are expecting players to acheive x amounts of merits by 50, by being the story arc holder x amount of times or running taskforces where as many of my characters have leveled a lot without doing story arcs. Those characters under merits would of been better off soloing.
It really seems a no brainer, run your own story arc and get merits or run someone elses and they get XP boost and merits. In terms of time for reward, why excatly does the mission holder 'merit' the extras.
When you get raptor pack, or other safeguard/mayhem powers, you get it from being a part of the team, not just mission holder. I bet there would be a lot less people running others bank missions if that was the case. Merits are going to be perceived as more important than a jetpack for a while imo.
Shared missions dont really work in PUG world. Different contacts, different level ranges etc etc. Trying to do shared midnight arcs is enough a pain in [censored]. At least thats been my experience.
I think (that is without serious consideration to flaws as yet) inflate merits (eg x10 for current rewards or similar) then giving 1 per part of mission arc for each player would be fine.
If its meant to be time for reward, then reward time played!
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
I still say the simplest way to solve this merit team issue is to open up ouroboros alot earlier, like lvl 1 early. Also make it so that you can start the ourboro arc so long as your the minimum lvl of the arc that way folks can still get xp for it, instead of having to be 1 level over the arc to start it. They dont have to worry about folks leaving (mission owner) because it will just pass the start if they leave the team so the ouroboros tf still continues. The only disadvantage is that sidekicks cant join in on this unless they are the minimum lvl of the arc.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
That really does not make sense, but whatever.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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QUESTION: How will you be looking at merits for story arcs with PUG teams.
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Can anyone explain to me how this is different than the current setup with the reward window and the arc bonus XP only going to the mission owner? This is what they made shared missions for. (now, some aspects of sharing mission completion don't work as well as they could, I'll grant you...)
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Becase arcs give a minor amount of additional exp and a So currently. Not enough to waste your time worrying over. People WILL care about merits. Can you imagine trying to run a PUG task force where only the mission holder got the merits at the end? Its the same boat.
Have the merit rewards for the entire Peacebringer and Warshade arcs been calculated? I don't recall seeing those.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
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So now, we are punished from playing the fun TFs by receiving no reward to speak off,
[/ QUOTE ]That's only true if the only TFs you consider to be fun are Eden and Katie.
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They're two of my favorites, so yes. I expect every other TF in the game to be nerfed when they reevaluate, since the farmers are being forced to range afield. And they will.
If I can run a 4 hr Invinc Dr Q TF, and I'm not a farmer, I bet they can do it in 3. I know what the fast times are for 'fast players' (not farmers) on my servers, the farmers will be faster. This isn't going to be pretty.
Milk and cookies anyone? Not right now, anyway. Maybe after we clean out the fridge.
The dialogue with Positron and Sunstorm gives me hope. I played this game tonight for the first time in 3 weeks. And I enjoyed it.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
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QUESTION: How will you be looking at merits for story arcs with PUG teams.
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Can anyone explain to me how this is different than the current setup with the reward window and the arc bonus XP only going to the mission owner? This is what they made shared missions for. (now, some aspects of sharing mission completion don't work as well as they could, I'll grant you...)
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Look at it this way. Let's say your boss said, "Complete this goal and I will give you..."
If the bonus was a McDonald's Happy Meal, you wouldn't mind helping your coworker so that he got the bonus rather than you because, dude, it's a cheeseburger.
If the bonus was coupons towards, say, diamond jewelry and you could add up enough coupons to get something free, would you be as quick to give up your time to let someone else get the goodies instead of you?
"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
Yes...
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Have the merit rewards for the entire Peacebringer and Warshade arcs been calculated? I don't recall seeing those.
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In the measurement thread I think we have them all. Im breaking the HEAT and VEAT arcs out on my copy of the data down here for clarity this morning as well as checking for completeness.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
Going back to basics:
Time to complete TF is an invalid metric as greater portion to determine awards, plain an simple. Challenge and risk should be truly significant valid metrics for merit compensation.
I sense from reading many posters, that there is an innate jealosy of those who can complete TFs very efficiently. That is sad that those who can not join others and learn from them, much rather see those who use good leadership practices, team compositions, strategies, and combat tactics punished, by having them receive less value from their success.
With regards to farming, farming is here because the prices of IOs are too high. Purple IOs are a tremendous temptation for those who PvP; for the better equipped you are, the better the chance for you winning an engagement. From a PvE perspective, the better equipped you are, the more mighty you will feel.
Since one can not afford IO recipes at 40M or more a recipe, one has to do it the old fashioned way: Earn it; or cheat and buy influence from the everyday spammer.
I find it ironinc, that the merit system does not provide for purple IO recipes, I am truly disappointed in this. So in order to get those purples you want, you have to kill, kill, kill and oh yes kill again. Thus you will farm in some fashion or another to get that purple you want.
Think of this, in the 6 hours of doing a Positron and get a handfull of merits, a reasonable farmer will get more orange recipe drops than what you could buy from the Positron merit awards and oh yes! You arelikely to get a purple drop as well. Frankly, I see little practical use in the merit system, when you do the math.
Perhaps an interesting metric to use, based on time and other factors equally, could be based on how many orange recipes a player would get during a normal period of time just doing missions, and thus set the number of merits a TF would award be set based on that. Say that the average player, gets 2 orange recipies and hour (quite common) doing missions, and the average orange recipe cost in merits is say 50 merits, thus each TF should award 100 merits and hour. Thus Positron and its 6 hours would be worth 600 merits. Now take this base and have a merit multiplier based on difficulty. Since positron is basically tedium, no challenge, it has a multiplier of 1. Take the real hard TFs such as Statesman, it would have a multiplier of say 10, so while Stateman could be done in half an hour, and worth 50 merits base, after the x10 difficulty it would be worth 500 merits. Take ITF which can be done in half hour, thus worth 50 merits, but since its not as hard as Statesman, but it is significantly hard, it would be worth say a x7 multiplier; thus becoming 350 merits worth. Katie, having to beat an AV 10 times and each time its harder, may be worth a x5 difficulty and thus worth 250 merits. Thus the real challenge would be to agree: 1. How many Orange drops a player gets per hour doing missions; 2) official average time it takes to complete a TF (don't base time on the most efficient group solely) or the most incompetent); and 3) determine the difficulty level of each TF. I would also add to the effective difficulty level of all TFs, by +1 to the multiplier for each difficulty level setting increase of the TF (heoric, invincible etc.), thus doing say Statesman at highest level would result (based on my example) a x(10+4) or x14.
Note that this suggestion, does not penalyze good practices, and offers choice. I can do a Positron take my sweet time, have little risk and get a good number of merits; or do something very intense for a short time and get a good number of merits; best of both worlds.
hugs
Stormy
Let me ask this, has it been said if they gave a reason as to why the contacts dont display how many merits their arc/tf is going to give? That would have made making this list alot easier.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
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Let me ask this, has it been said if they gave a reason as to why the contacts dont display how many merits their arc/tf is going to give? That would have made making this list alot easier.
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I would guess the answer to this is so that they can change them whenever they feel like it.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
There are lots of things that make up speed runs that are just good strategy. For a common example...the citywide hunt in Numina, an effective team puts people in each zone ready to take down their hunt. Good strategy should be praised and rewarded, you're playing better.
Then there's the use of exploits, how speed edens used to involve flying through holes in the walls. (I have to think that much of the dev's 10 minute average goes back to those.) Exploits are cheating, you'll get no kudos from me for abusing a flaw.
Then there's the areas in between...either having a perfect team (so if you don't have what they want, you're out) or taking shortcuts that bypass all the content. I can appreciate the desire to see "how fast can I get this done" as a challenge, the problem is when people are farming it. But in any case...it's not the way I choose to play.
And that's where those grey areas should stay, it's not the way I choose to play. The problem is that the devs want to discourage it, and the way they discourage it affects me. People farmed the Katie AV fights...so the rewards got nerfect. People speed-ran Eden, so it's now 2 merits for (when I do it) a 90 minute TF. And so while I shouldn't care if you're running Eden in 10 minutes for kicks or even farming the hell out of it for recipes, under the merit system I have to care. If you find a way to do the ITF in under 30 minutes consistently, and farm the hell out of it, you'll be cutting down on my rewards.
It's not jealousy. It's different views of fun, and it's your view of fun affecting our rewards.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
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Then there's the use of exploits, how speed edens used to involve flying through holes in the walls. (I have to think that much of the dev's 10 minute average goes back to those.) Exploits are cheating, you'll get no kudos from me for abusing a flaw.
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If there are exploits being used they need to be fixed. You don't warp the entire game to enshrine them.
must agree that speed farming and what not, should not be used as a justification to penalize the casual player.
Exploiting game coding defects are bad, but shame on the developers for not fixing them after a few weeks, and thus should not be valid justification to penalize the casual player.
Still despite of it all, while 1) time to do a TF should be "a" consideration,not "the" consideration; the game needs to make 2) challenge/risk "a" consideration; 3) mission difficulty "a" consideration; 4) team size "a" consideration, and 5) organization requirement should be "a" consideration. With all considerations being nearly equally important.
Reviewing the considerations:
1) Time to do mission: We get paid by the hour in real life, so I would imagine time on the job should be paid for.
2) Challenge: Doing a bunch of repetitive missions leading to a single AV is not much of a challenge, and risk is very limited (only when you fight the AV), versus fighting a whole bunch of AVs at the same time is an entirely different story. While Katie is highly maligned by many, do note that in the execution of the kill ten times the AV lots of players do die, there is challenge in that. ITF at times does fail, because of lack of leadership, group mix, etc. Just because a few can do this well, they don't always do it well, and always succeed.
3) Mission Difficulty: If you set mission at lowest difficulty, your team will face reduced number of opponents and levels from those set at higher difficulties; it almost falls under the challenge type of consideration, but it is unique enough to deserve a category of its own.
4) Team size: Small teams, no bosses, large teams can get EBs; big difference here, merit awards needs to consider this.
5) Organization: Lets face it, some TFs are entirely dependent on this consideration. Hamidon comes to mind as the best example of this category. To do this right and successful you need much more than 8 people to do this. You really have to choreograph everybody's roles, you have to figure what your role is and understand the flow. Hamidon is binary in nature, you either succeed or fail. If you succeed it will happen quickly, because you did it right. There is no such thing as success after six hours, likely after 2 hours people gave up on it after many deaths.
So we have 5 considerations, and all quite important. So I am ok as using time to do a mission as a baseline to set merit rewards, but I am not ok on how the other considerations are used to modify this baseline; they strike me as being way too trivialized. Thus some of this consideration can be addittive to the baseline, others can be multiplicative of the baseline.
Challenge: Multiplicative from a range of 1 to 10, would be my suggestion, the more AVs at a time you have to engage the more valuable. If you have to fight 8 AVs at a time, you get a X8 multiplier, if you do it multiple times, add a +1 to that multiplier for each time you have to do this. In the case of Katie, in which you have to fight an increased in level and support group each pass of the ten defeat the AV, is not quite as bad as fighting 8 AVs at a time, but fighting an AV supported by half a dozen bosses is no walk at the park either; suggest a multiplier of x3. In ITF at the end you fight Rommie and 3 other AVs clearly supporting each other (heal, etc) thus should be a x4 minum but because they are self supported and have ambushes spawning in the middle of the fight often, I recommend a x5.
Mission Difficulty: Its additive to the multiplier, after all think of the dramatic change in environment the difficulty setting does enact. Since there are only 5 difficulty levels and the first is baseline, doing the highest level should be +4 to the challenge multiplier.
Team Size: Another multiplier addition, as I recall, the nature of the mission environment changes at 3,5,7 sized groups, thus when a mission or TF is done with 3 to 4 players a +1 is added to the multiplier; 5-6 receives a +2 to the multiplier, and finally 7-8 gets a +3 multiplier.
Organization: Some TFs can be done by any mix and number of players, thus they do not require much for leadership. Yet others are extremely dependent on leadership and planning skills. hamidon being the greatest challenge, LRGF, STF being mid challenges; ITF, Katie being small challenge, and Positron being no challenge from this consideration. I would make the organizational modifier a + to multiplier as well, with Hamidon a +3, LRGF a +2, ITF a +1 as a suggestion.
So when the final consideration to how much to award, is a mix of the above 5 considerations.
Hugs
Stormy
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Poster: _Synchotron_
Q: Why are merits untradable/unsellable? All the rewards they're replacing had no such restrictions, why these? If they have to be untradable/unsellable, why aren't they account-based, rather than character-based? If you run more than a couple characters at a time, this will fragment your merit pools and dramatically reduce the value of the merits you earn. If its a reward for time played, why should the particular hero I play matter?
A: Merits were designed to represent an individual characters accomplishments and time invested doing missions. Thus, untradeable and unsellable.
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By doing this, you are simply creating a hassle for players and not achieving your intention. What this will do is force players to have only one character as the main 'merit achiever'. Then that character will hoard merits and when one of his alts needs a rare recipe, that character will buy it with merits and then trade it to that alt. This effectively creates an end-run around the untradeable merits goal, and forces a hassle upon the player.
In the end, the receiving alt character will get, with merits, something they did not earn, changing only what was handed over from one char to another.
Yeah someone already mentioned this issue before where good soloer's like scrappers have an advantage.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.