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I can see why you are worried given their past track record on resolving issues. We still got missions that are bugged to this day even when we have sent bug reports on some stuff since like issue 6. So I dont see them fixing anything until about issue 20 or so. Good example is how long it took them to fix the LRSF first mission with the retarded tech. There is no reason this issue should have been broken for so long. It wasnt until we [censored] about having to soft load the first mission of the sf that it got fixed because they nerfed the softloading of tf/sfs. It should never have come to that.
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Just how long was it between ED and invention system again ?
Oh just as a note I am still not clear on why ED was needed to lay the groundwork for that. The two seem at best loosely coupled
Just to toss in some others for you
Doc Delilah
Seting waypoints in (Boomtown I think ? Its late)
Lady J in the midnighter arc
Unkillable/(target blocked) NPCs trapped in walls ?
The Markets UI ?
Some way to search for teams looking for more ?
ROFL the poison gas trap proc spawning ? (Btw are those corruptors going to be able to repick traps for something else ?)
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BUT in this new merit world will that LotG cost 50 mil (hero). If so many people
start making them with merits, there cost should fall, I wouldn't be surprized to
see LotG costs fall below 40 mil (villain side) and 30 mil (hero) so using that 50
mil price is only good for like 1 week, or two tops. Then you would have to re-
evaluate the "cost" as so much pricing will be moving in both C and D pools I'll
guess.
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I'd take the bet that the average price (over all the levels its available) of LOTG both sides goes up within a month of the merit introduction and that the price of purples on the markets goes up as well.
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A: This is probably the most complex part of the Merit Reward system. Different types of tasks have different diminishing rates.
-Story Arcs do not have diminishing returns.
-Task Forces without a second reward option will have their rewards reduced by 50% each time the task is completed within 24 hours. So if a task force gives 50 merits the first time done within 24 hours, then the second time will give 25, the third time will give 12, the fourth time 6. This is reset after 24 hours. Also, I wanted to remind players that the 24 hour diminishing returns set up that we currently have may be subject to change.
-Task Forces and Trials with unique rewards (respecs or unique enhancements) grant full merit rewards for the first completion within 24 hours and 50% merit rewards for each subsequent completion. So if the first run through a task gives 50 merits, each subsequent run through will give 25.
[/ QUOTE ]
Phew! I'm glad those Task Forces and Trials get 50% easier every time you run them in a 24 hour period. Otherwise, it would really screw up the risk vs reward thing you've got going there.
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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 only 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.
[/ QUOTE ]I'm sorry Synapse, but this is major spin and I'm not buying it. You know full well that the ones you reduced are the most frequently-run TFs, and net rewards to the players are diminished.
What's insulting about this is that you yourselves bring up the "big picture" of net rewards whenever anyone mentions being in a slow group. Then it's all about the common market. But when we say the rewards came down, then you start pointing to the corner cases.
Either frequency matters or it doesn't. Since it clearly does, I'd appreciate a little more respect than "hey, look over there!"
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Lets face it, we all know that about 80% of the pool C recipes are extremely limited in demand and utility (AkA, Junk). Sure theres a handful, maybe 5 or so that are worht Multi-Millions, and a slightly larger handful that are worth form 1 to 5, but the vast, vast majority of other Pool C drops go for under a Million.
[/ QUOTE ]Funny...I just looked at Wenty's...and 32 pool C recipes go for over a million. Most of them going for multiple millions.
Granted, this is out of all of them, so you're not able to pick from all of them out of each level range...but it's more than a "small handfull" of recipes that are actually worthwhile to get.
Even the so-called "Crap of the hunter" proc is worth a million at level 20. Since you can pick the level range you pick from, your odds can be pretty good with the random roll.
Add this to the fact that prices will possibly go up for less-desired recipes...and if you listen to the DOOOM patrol, they'll skyrocket...this makes the random roll even *more* lucrative.
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Even the so-called "Crap of the hunter" proc is worth a million at level 20. Since you can pick the level range you pick from, your odds can be pretty good with the random roll.
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That is because currently the only way to get that at that level for exemplaring/pvp is to offer enough to make a lowbie part with it. When you can get what you want at the level you want it, it will become something of a different matter.
That being said the only reason to convert merits into market marketable items is to exchange them for things merits can't buy. Just chew on the effects that is going to have on trade. If you didn't like cliquishness and clades that are doing things now you haven't seen nothing yet.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A: This is probably the most complex part of the Merit Reward system. Different types of tasks have different diminishing rates.
-Story Arcs do not have diminishing returns.
-Task Forces without a second reward option will have their rewards reduced by 50% each time the task is completed within 24 hours. So if a task force gives 50 merits the first time done within 24 hours, then the second time will give 25, the third time will give 12, the fourth time 6. This is reset after 24 hours. Also, I wanted to remind players that the 24 hour diminishing returns set up that we currently have may be subject to change.
-Task Forces and Trials with unique rewards (respecs or unique enhancements) grant full merit rewards for the first completion within 24 hours and 50% merit rewards for each subsequent completion. So if the first run through a task gives 50 merits, each subsequent run through will give 25.
[/ QUOTE ]
Phew! I'm glad those Task Forces and Trials get 50% easier every time you run them in a 24 hour period. Otherwise, it would really screw up the risk vs reward thing you've got going there.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah! 
Waitaminute...
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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A: You can earn an infinite number of merits through Ouroboros by running your favorite story arcs over again.
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Will these arcs get "nerfed" if it is determined later that people are just running the same arcs over and over for the non-diminishing merits?? Basically... will we get punished if we're operating within the current rules even if its not what you all intended for the system? 
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Yes.
See: KHTF, Eden Trial, Tarikoss SF.
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and oh yes, I really want to do the same arcs over and over and over again because the devs have decided that debugging existing content is not something they want to do. They set the schedule, yet some unknown force prevents them from actually scheduling work to fix old content.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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I'm sorry, but will you guys ever discuss the disparity? I'm hearing Dr Q is down to under an hour now.
[/ QUOTE ]
travel time is more than that.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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Since other reward choices are removed, can we at least have a reward window open with 2 choices:
- merits
- choose nothing
And the merit choice can show a warning that the reward will be diminished if it's chosen at that time. That way if you complete another ITF 23 hours and 15 minutes after the one the day before you're not penalized by diminished returns.
Why have diminished returns anyway? Who cares if people run 15 ITFs in a row. They're playing the game. You're already basing the # of merits on the results of whatever datamining you've done.
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We were told diminishing returns would not affect pve. obviously that statement was in error.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]
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.
And a small hint about what that pricing scheme might need to be. I'm a solo mission arc player. I get into TFs sometimes, but I don't organize them. That means by design my merit earnign power is roughly 5 per hour. I can also farm with my higher level toons at about 1 million influence an hour. That tells me a merit is worth about 200,000 influence to me. I'm gonna take the merit cost of a recipe and multiply that by 200,000 influence and that is the msot I will EVER pay for a recipe ever again, because I know I can get it myself in the same amount of time or less. That's right, there is NOTHING in the game worth more that 50,000,000 anymore. At least not to me. To people that do TFs regularly, I'm sure the soft cap is quite a bit lower.
Synapse? Small question:
Why are rolls on the "TF pool" and "trial pool" named that?
...Those rewards no longer have any relationships to TFs and Trials.
...In fact, under the new system I have no idea why they are on seperate tables at all except to give an adventage to people who go on line and look up pool content lists.
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Lets face it, we all know that about 80% of the pool C recipes are extremely limited in demand and utility (AkA, Junk). Sure theres a handful, maybe 5 or so that are worht Multi-Millions, and a slightly larger handful that are worth form 1 to 5, but the vast, vast majority of other Pool C drops go for under a Million.
[/ QUOTE ]Funny...I just looked at Wenty's...and 32 pool C recipes go for over a million. Most of them going for multiple millions.
Granted, this is out of all of them, so you're not able to pick from all of them out of each level range...but it's more than a "small handfull" of recipes that are actually worthwhile to get.
Even the so-called "Crap of the hunter" proc is worth a million at level 20. Since you can pick the level range you pick from, your odds can be pretty good with the random roll.
Add this to the fact that prices will possibly go up for less-desired recipes...and if you listen to the DOOOM patrol, they'll skyrocket...this makes the random roll even *more* lucrative.
[/ QUOTE ]
First... at level 50, which is where most pool C recipes are generated, half of them aren't worth over a million each. Lower level ones, possibly, because those both A - have to be generated by lower level characters (reducing supply dramatically) and B - are more valuable because of the IO-level exemplaring rules (increasing demand). The merit system will actually put an end to point A, as 50s will be able to buy the lower-level enhancers via merits. There'll be much less of a price difference between low and high level IO prices as a result.
Second... something worth a million isn't a shiny. It's not even a 'somewhat polished.' It's nowhere near worth 100 minutes of game time. In 100 minutes of game time I could have generated many more millions of inf by farming for it. In fact that's pretty much what I do for my builds right now - running taskforces for valuable recipes on a random roll has given me such poor results that I stopped doing it. I farm for influence and buy my recipes from people who are either luckier, or dumber.
Now if crap of the hunter or sting of the manticore or lethargic repose start to be worth 15 million... we might be talking. But they won't ever be, because there's not enough demand for them. I would expect the price of level 35ish positron's blast and scirocco's dervish pool C's to go up to where LOTGs currently are, and 35ish LOTGs to go clear through the roof, by perhaps 3 weeks from release. Level 50 recipe prices will probably crash at the same time, as they're supplanted in both supply and demand by the exemping-friendlier 35ish ones.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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And a small hint about what that pricing scheme might need to be. I'm a solo mission arc player. I get into TFs sometimes, but I don't organize them. That means by design my merit earnign power is roughly 5 per hour. I can also farm with my higher level toons at about 1 million influence an hour. That tells me a merit is worth about 200,000 influence to me. I'm gonna take the merit cost of a recipe and multiply that by 200,000 influence and that is the msot I will EVER pay for a recipe ever again, because I know I can get it myself in the same amount of time or less. That's right, there is NOTHING in the game worth more that 50,000,000 anymore. At least not to me. To people that do TFs regularly, I'm sure the soft cap is quite a bit lower.
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If you can only farm 1 million an hour, you may need better farming characters
Not to single you out or say mean things about you, just that most of my level 50 characters (support builds aside) have well over 1 million/hour earning potential without farming (for example by soloing cimerora repeatable missions).
Taskforcing for the random roll would actually look better, if my earning power were less through other means. But time spent taskforcing is (mostly) mutually exclusive with time spent soloing or farming for inf.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]
What's disrespectful about it? That I presumed to ask the question?
[/ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
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.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
One thing I'd suggest is rejiggering the pools.
First, all the recipes that make most people go "Damn, I got a...", put those in Pool A or Pool B. Trap of the Hunter, etc.
Then, break up all the rest into three groups...useful to most, very useful to most, highly prized. Random rolls for useful to most stays at 20, very useful to most at 40, highly prized to 80.
That way, the not useful to most players stuff goes back to random drops and the market gets them, and there's a real incentve to take a random roll.
As an alternative...add some more random rolls, by type. No level breakout, but you can choose a melee damage roll, ranged damage, heal, etc. That way, while you may or may not be getting something highly valuable...you are guaranteed getting something you can use.
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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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.
[/ QUOTE ]
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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QFT.
Merits is gonna nuke the market, and y'all are gonna have to end up going back to retweak this anyway. Why not just do it now and save everyone the headache and bellyaching?
Basically too many 50's to count, but I'm generally a brute/scrapper/tank kind of guy.
[ QUOTE ]
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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This is my concern too - I'm not worried about how much money I'm making on the market, because I don't make alot of money on the market. I'm worried about being able to equip my future characters at what I consider a reasonable rate without being forced into meritfarming for it.
And in fact the people who do make money on the market, will make more money, more easily, in a lower-supply environment. It's much easier to control the prices for a small incoming supply of shinies than a large incoming supply of them.
But I'm also someone who likes doing taskforces for the group activity of working with people, and would prefer doing funner, newer, more challenging taskforces to older, grindier ones without being penalized in terms of reward.
It's ludicrous that TFs which are 4 years old and have at most 1 "boss fight" - with relatively weak and boring bosses, to boot - give as many as twice the merits compared TFs which have more, and much more strategic and challenging, boss fights.
The merit rewards system has the numbers inverted, and that's pretty much all there is to it. Positron should be giving 25 merits, and the LGTF should be giving 45. Synapse should be giving 20 and the STF and LRSF should be giving 55. The way this is set up encourages people to avoid challenges and embrace grinds.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
Is there someday going to be a balance in the number of Strikeforces compared to Task Forces?
Villains have 10 SF and the 3 Respec Trials compared to 19 TF and 3 Trials (Eden, Sewer & Cavern of Trancendence) and 3 Respec Trials for Heroes
With these totals, my opinion is that Villains have less a chance for Merits since most the Villain ones are Fairly Short, and now they will have a 24 hour diminishing returns rather than the current 3 hour that is on most.
Come on 13 total compared to 25.
Are the Mendor TF/SF in Oro going to give merits? They currently do not give a reward option or a badge?
I have two questions and a comment.
1. Why would a TF that takes an average of 30 minutes give more reward than a Story Arc that takes an average of 60 minutes? This seems like a flaw.
2. I get the same amount of merits wether I do a TF on the easiest difficulty or the hardest. This seems like a flaw. If my team is willing to take on more of a challenge, shouldn't we get a bigger reward?
3. I know it has been brought up already, but the fact that only the mission owner can get merits for a story arc is horrible. Fixing this needs to be your number one concern.
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.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
I thought I was done.
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Story Arcs award players with roughly 4-6 merits per hour
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Really? All the story arcs I have done on test have given me 1 or 2 merits upon completion. So by you numbers, I should be able to do 2 or 3 story arcs per hour? Even if I charge to the end of each mish and ghost everything, I don't think 2-3 story arcs in an hour is very feasible.
Also, Mayhems need to give one or two merits, and not just to the owner.
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is my concern too - I'm not worried about how much money I'm making on the market, because I don't make alot of money on the market. I'm worried about being able to equip my future characters at what I consider a reasonable rate without being forced into meritfarming for it.
And in fact the people who do make money on the market, will make more money, more easily, in a lower-supply environment. It's much easier to control the prices for a small incoming supply of shinies than a large incoming supply of them.
But I'm also someone who likes doing taskforces for the group activity of working with people, and would prefer doing funner, newer, more challenging taskforces to older, grindier ones without being penalized in terms of reward.
It's ludicrous that TFs which are 4 years old and have at most 1 "boss fight" - with relatively weak and boring bosses, to boot - give as many as twice the merits compared TFs which have more, and much more strategic and challenging, boss fights.
The merit rewards system has the numbers inverted, and that's pretty much all there is to it. Positron should be giving 25 merits, and the LGTF should be giving 45. Synapse should be giving 20 and the STF and LRSF should be giving 55. The way this is set up encourages people to avoid challenges and embrace grinds.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is the pretty simple truth of the matter. Instead of trying to make the old TFs appealing to play by making them fun, they try to bribe us into playing them. I'm sorry, but you can't bribe me enough to bother with a Citadel or Positron TF. Those are pure tedium. I play the game to have fun.
Anyone with a lick of sense can see how this merit system will screw up the market royally. Pool C items are simply going to either vanish from the market or have their prices skyrocket. I have to imagine that either the devs are fooling themselves about what will happen, or they want to bork the market. As I mentioned in a general post, this system will be a strong push towards building superish teams to speed the content even faster for the rewards. As it is, I do TFs because I enjoy them. The chance of getting something decent is a extra bit of polish. I end up saving up for the selection of specific shinies I need to round out builds (and TFs give me a decent amount of influence). With the merit system, saving up will be pretty much hopeless, so I will be inclined to speed run a new selection of TFs to get my shinies. To do this I will need to build buff/debuff alts (well, in my case just use those I have), and find people who have like builds to trivialize the content for quick reward.
Too many alts to list.
Since other reward choices are removed, can we at least have a reward window open with 2 choices:
- merits
- choose nothing
And the merit choice can show a warning that the reward will be diminished if it's chosen at that time. That way if you complete another ITF 23 hours and 15 minutes after the one the day before you're not penalized by diminished returns.
Why have diminished returns anyway? Who cares if people run 15 ITFs in a row. They're playing the game. You're already basing the # of merits on the results of whatever datamining you've done.