Anyone who converts merits into inf (by buying a recipe and selling it on the market) is making a foolish choice IMO. Those merits are worth far more than influence/infamy because they're a currency that is much more restricted in supply, more insulated from loss of buying power (the devs would have to change merit vendor prices in a patch for them to go up) and are in fact more likely to rise than fall in value over time (because merit rewards are much much more likely to be lowered than raised).
Selling pool C recipes for influence looks to me like it's going to be a losing proposition, honestly. Even if you get something shiny from a random roll, you'll want to keep it because low supply situations encourage hoarding (because you can't be sure there'll be a supply of shinies tomorrow for you to buy at all if you sell your shiny today, let alone at the same price or less than you first sold it for).
In fact if you don't need any more recipes at all, you're better off just keeping the merits until you do, because that's a superior way of hoarding to buying a recipe and holding onto it - it's more flexible (you choose the recipe when you know what you need) and doesn't take up limited inventory space.
Bottom line? Inf's easier to get outside of taskforces and relies on other players wanting to sell things to you in order to actually have value... while merits are both more valuable and act to discourage people from creating things for sale in the first place.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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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.
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IMHO, better to break by some sort of theme because of the long-time goal of players making informed choices.
If you had a list of:
- Roll Group 1
- Roll Group 2
- Roll Group 3
what are you informed of? Particularly with the mix of levels in there.
Now consider at least knowing mechanically what you're getting:
- Buff IO
- Special IO (Proc, Globals, etc)
or split by set, so people without Mez powers don't get stuck with useless stuff:
- Damage IO
- Mez or Debuff IO
- Defense or Heal IO
or consider, with themes:
- Offensive IO (the 6 Damage types - Melee, Range, PBAOE, TAOE, Pet, Snipe - plus KB and End Drain)
- Buffing IO (Def, Res, Heal, Travel)
- Manipulation IO (Mez, Taunt and Debuff)
ok, play with it a bit. is End Drain a control effect? Maybe split Mez by itself?
But you get the idea.
This even reinforces roleplay immersion a little. At the very least, it can bring the amount of control-type Pool C drops in line with their desire relative to the other sets.
Heck, if you made like 5 roll categories, you could even overlap every IO set in 2 places, if things weren't random enough. Maybe too complex though for what it achieves.
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So you'll get your 100 merits, but miss other content along the way including the awesome Faultline arcs.
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So I'll get 100 merits and 9-10 levels of exp, at the cost of skipping arcs that I can go back and do for merits later and dealing with CoT, Vahz, and Clockwork - all of which are really fun to confuse?
I'm not seeing how gaining even more levels is a problem, here.
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Or You could run Posi, go to Faultline, then run Synapse.
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A: We will be monitoring this. We want to make sure that a villain doing missions from 1 to 50 will be earning roughly the same amount of merits a hero can earn. If we find a serious imbalance between heroes and villains in the number of earnable merits, well look at ways of improving this.
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Yo Synapse, no need to monitor. Heroes have a HUGE advantage.
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The villains need more sf's and the heroes need more short, quick arcs to equal the villains.
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
In the end, trying to balance the market is futile because you can't stop players from going online and purchasing influence with real money. This entire system has been so overdone and so overcomplicated now that it can only fail long term.
The good news is that short term as Dr_Toerag_UK points out, the people that care enough to waste their time will get rich while others will go on about their business of just selling to Wentworth's or the Black Market anything that happens to drop.
I had honestly hoped that a more creative solution would've surfaced than this ridiculous diminishing returns. You can't stop the exploitation of a game economy. It happens in every MMPORG. All you're going to accomplish is having people create another toon that they can run the TF's with and then pass the influence to all their alts.
I also have to note: the merit system probably won't make prices come down on anything in the long run. In the short run... possibly. In the long run, not a chance.
There will be a contraction in supply on everything in Pool C and D, resulting from a situation where 1 TF/trial run no longer directly equals 1 recipe caused by a combination of lowered rewards on short TFs and from the number of people saving up towards a deterministic choice instead of random-rolling as often as possible.
This contraction in supply will make it relatively simple for those with sufficient influence/infamy on hand to take control of the supplies that are available and set a price floor by buying up everything under price X and reposting it for price X + Y.
Lower supplies = easier arbitrage, and probably a higher profit margin (though probably also a lower overall profit due to the decrease in volume).
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.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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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 and that now story arcs give players a chance at earning rewards that might otherwise be unattainable.
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I might humbly suggest your view on this point does not match the players view, and thus your argument is unfortunately mostly inapplicable to the players' concern here.
People are complaining of an overall rewards reduction because the small amount of tasks that will be subject to a merit reduction currently represents an overwhelming majority of player-invested time, while the large amount of tasks that will be subject to a merit increase currently represents a whoppingly-tiny amount of player invested time.
For the moment assume that the merit changes will not cause any change in players' pattern of time-investment. It is therefore expectable that the rewards decrease for player's investments with i13 will be not just significant, but large. That forms the core of the players' complaints.
Make no mistake, the success of the devs' merit system hinges completely on players actually breaking out of their current time-investment patterns and actually switching to more diverse content. My personal guess so far is that not enough people will break their patterns in this way, but there's still a chance it could work out ok.
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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.
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Ok, that's certainly your plan A. Geko's question was more about if you have a plan B if plan A doesn't come to be as you expect.
I can't necessarily speak for anyone else, but I don't see how the system as described will entice me to spend merits on random drops. I get too much random drop garbage as it is now, and I only post less than 10% of that on the market (most of the time I just delete it, sometimes I sell to stores if there's one nearby). The process with i13 to invoke a random drop will be enough of a significant inconvenience that I might as well just let the merits build up. Except likely I'll still be just doing ITFs most of the time so I won't likely be building merits with any speed, so basically I don't see how I'm going to get much out of the system overall.
I don't expect most people to share my circumstances, but it does seem reasonable that if for any reason players don't diversify their time investments in the way devs are expecting, the market for C&D drops will dry up very quickly. Are the devs ready to react to a breaking market situation? That seems a fair question.
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Poster: TheWeaver
Q: That leads to my primary concern. If it turns out that what players do with their merits is save them so that they can buy exactly what they want, what will happen to the market for Pool C and Pool D recipes?
A: You can earn an infinite number of merits through Ouroboros by running your favorite story arcs over again. I don't suspect you'd be able to purchase all of those IOs by simply running through all the story arcs once. However, you might be able to spend some of those merits on random rolls and simply selling what you don't need on the market.
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To make the point again... Players might go for random rolls, which then probably (but perhaps not) would generate undesired recipes, which then the player might go through the hassle to post on the market, but there's no guarantee these items will get to market.
Are the devs ready to react if the worst-case scenario starts breaking the market? Because if not the players are going to be stuck in a poor position for at least a while, even if it is of their own making. If the players stubbornly refuse to play ball the way devs think they should, are the devs ready to deal with that?
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no one will wanna pay the huge prices on recipes, they will dry up and no one will want to waste merits on random rolls when they won't be able to sell them for high,
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Does anyone else see the fundamental contradiction here? I've seen many statements from people that "Pool C will shoot through the roof" and that "nobody will take random rolls because they are worthless".
Those things can't BOTH be true.
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Actually, yes they can. You just don't seem to understand why.
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The random rolls are just too crappy a chance for pool C to be worth it. Most of the pool ranges from so-so to crap. Hence people are going to buy the specific pool C stuff they want via merits.
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You just argued that prices for Pool C won't go up. Thus, they aren't both true. Thanks. 
Alternatively, if the supply of Trap of the Hunters goes to near ZERO, and somebody wants one, are you are saying they would rather spend 10 hours or so earning 250 merits then spend, say, $2M Inf to buy one? And if someone else looks at the market interface and sees the last five on Trap of the Hunter going for $2M or higher they won't take 10 random rolls when they hit 200 merits?
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If I spend 200 merits to get a LotG today, then sell it for 100M influence. What will I think if the LotG goes up on the market to 200M when I need a LotG? I'll think I'm a damned dolt and should have just held onto the merits for when I needed it. Merits are a medium of exchange immune to fluctuations of the market, and influence inflation. I'll sure as heck horde them instead of influence.
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And if I'm a speed merit farmer, I'll go out there and make 250 merits in 10 hours of play, get a LotG recipe, and sell it for 200M, netting 20M Inf/hour. Even the best Inf farming builds in Catwhoorghs thread couldn't break about 10M/hour.
Frankly, given the speeds I've seen speed TF runners post and the dedication farmers have to Inf farming, I'd be surprised if LotG doesn't end up closer to 20M heroside and 30-40M villianside, due to competition.
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And to people who are betting that LotG prices will go up from where they were before merits, I'd be happy to take that bet. I see no possible way prices on those would go up from where they are with a combination of some demand satisfied (buying with merits) and some increased supply (speed merit farmers reselling the most valuable recipes in the markets).
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Why would those speed merit farmers resell things? If I engage in speed merit farming, it will be solely to deck out my own alts. Also, why would those merit farmers not charge an arm and a leg if they did want to sell the recipes? They will control the supply. Demand will be set by the poor schleps who don't have time for TFs.
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If I have 5 bins full of LotGs, that supply doesn't let me control the selling price. I can put them all up for 200M Inf, but I can't make anyone buy them for that. See above example for why speed merit farmers may use merits to buy overpriced recipes and resell them; if they can get more loot per time by doing that, they will. They are VERY good at that. . .
QR in regards to the market
I run TFs once, maybe twice a week since i9 has been live. I think 90% of my recipes received and sold on the market come from Pool A and Pool B drops. Rarely do I get a recipe from a TF that is worth my time to use and I end up placing on the market.
My point is, I see all recipes dwindling in supply some but it won't matter to the majority of the player base since they can now CHOOSE their reward rather then place another worthless recipe/IO (worthless to them) on the market.
Even though it's against Economics 101, I don't see prices "sky rocketing" even with Supply decreasing.
And to be honest, if it does then I'll just use my merits to obtain the Recipes/IOs I need from Pool C/D and continue to sell my Pool A/Bs. No DOOOOOOM. Just adaptation.
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]
IMHO, better to break by some sort of theme because of the long-time goal of players making informed choices.
*DETAILS*
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Hell yes. QFT.
@Shenalia
Triumph: Ion Force (SG)
Victory: Evil Triumphs (VG)
Proud member of the Triumphant Defenders Coalition.
Farmers won't be TFing for LOTGs, or if they do, it'll be because they're selling at higher prices than today, not lower ones.
Let's say you can reliably do a merit a minute TF times. An LOTG will cost 200 minutes - almost 3 and a half hours.
Let's further say you can farm 20 million inf an hour with your fire/kin or spines/fire or whatever. I can do over 10M/hour with my SS/WP brute on a generalist PvE build, solo, so I'd be surprised if actual 'chinese farmers' didn't do quite a bit better.
If you've got the choice between spending 200 minutes for an LOTG or 200 minutes just farming at 20M/hour, that LOTG had better be selling for about 75 million (don't forget you lose 10% in market fees) and it better sell fast, since as a chinese farmer your account's liable to get banned any minute. You literally can't afford to wait for things to clear through the market
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]It's only a reduction in rewards for Tarkoss, Katie, and Eden. All other non-Ouro TFs/SFs are worth at least the cost of a random roll...and in most cases, more. Thus, an increase in rewards.
If random rolls *were* for some reason returned, I can imagine it would be these three that they wouldn't be returned to.
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You ignore the reality of the situation, in that katies are a HUGE source of supply to the market right now. Take that away, and the market will be weakened, at the very least. The direction the devs seem to be taking in making it harder to IO up toons and in some cases making IO bonuses less useful (diminishing returns) is a very bad direction to go, imo.
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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.
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GREAT suggestions.
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no one will wanna pay the huge prices on recipes, they will dry up and no one will want to waste merits on random rolls when they won't be able to sell them for high,
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Does anyone else see the fundamental contradiction here? I've seen many statements from people that "Pool C will shoot through the roof" and that "nobody will take random rolls because they are worthless".
Those things can't BOTH be true.
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Actually, yes they can. You just don't seem to understand why.
[snip]
The random rolls are just too crappy a chance for pool C to be worth it. Most of the pool ranges from so-so to crap. Hence people are going to buy the specific pool C stuff they want via merits.
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You just argued that prices for Pool C won't go up. Thus, they aren't both true. Thanks.
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You appear to have mastered the art of obliviousness. You don't seem to be able to comprehend the simple at all. The fact that you claim such a nonsensical conclusion based on what I typed really makes me wonder why I bothered.
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Alternatively, if the supply of Trap of the Hunters goes to near ZERO, and somebody wants one, are you are saying they would rather spend 10 hours or so earning 250 merits then spend, say, $2M Inf to buy one? And if someone else looks at the market interface and sees the last five on Trap of the Hunter going for $2M or higher they won't take 10 random rolls when they hit 200 merits?
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Considering the frequency with which Trap of the Hunter is currently wanted, you are talking about an aberrant blip rather than a meaningful event. Such things will be so rare as to be irrelevant. Current prices on such recipes clearly demonstrate that.
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If I spend 200 merits to get a LotG today, then sell it for 100M influence. What will I think if the LotG goes up on the market to 200M when I need a LotG? I'll think I'm a damned dolt and should have just held onto the merits for when I needed it. Merits are a medium of exchange immune to fluctuations of the market, and influence inflation. I'll sure as heck horde them instead of influence.
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And if I'm a speed merit farmer, I'll go out there and make 250 merits in 10 hours of play, get a LotG recipe, and sell it for 200M, netting 20M Inf/hour. Even the best Inf farming builds in Catwhoorghs thread couldn't break about 10M/hour.
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If you are talking about an influence peddler, they don't exactly work in large groups, as in what a TF requires. I suppose it could occur in the future, but I consider that unlikely. A player who farms influence for their builds is a different matter.
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Frankly, given the speeds I've seen speed TF runners post and the dedication farmers have to Inf farming, I'd be surprised if LotG doesn't end up closer to 20M heroside and 30-40M villianside, due to competition.
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Of course you miss the point on influence farming. Given that the existence of merits means that there's a new more useful currency, why would anyone in their right mind convert anything into influence? Of course I explained this last post, but your obliviousness filter screened it out.
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And to people who are betting that LotG prices will go up from where they were before merits, I'd be happy to take that bet. I see no possible way prices on those would go up from where they are with a combination of some demand satisfied (buying with merits) and some increased supply (speed merit farmers reselling the most valuable recipes in the markets).
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Why would those speed merit farmers resell things? If I engage in speed merit farming, it will be solely to deck out my own alts. Also, why would those merit farmers not charge an arm and a leg if they did want to sell the recipes? They will control the supply. Demand will be set by the poor schleps who don't have time for TFs.
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If I have 5 bins full of LotGs, that supply doesn't let me control the selling price. I can put them all up for 200M Inf, but I can't make anyone buy them for that. See above example for why speed merit farmers may use merits to buy overpriced recipes and resell them; if they can get more loot per time by doing that, they will. They are VERY good at that. . .
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What will they do with that influence? Sit on it? Shine the individual bits so they are pretty? You don't grasp that the economy is going to be drastically changed by the introduction of a new alternate currency which enjoys a fixed priced market with no transferability. Hoarding of merits is inevitable. Influence is going to become pretty worthless. This will be especially true if they make purples available via merits. At the moment, those are the only excuse to gather influence.
Too many alts to list.
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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.
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travel time is more than that.
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With Oroboros and other teleportation powers? I think not.
Too many alts to list.
Ouro works to get around in the Shard?
Who knew...
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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.
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!!!!
Oroboros gets you back to the normal zones and to PI without going through Talos. There are portals for all the further shard zones at firebase Zulu. Any other questions or do you have any other ways of displaying your ignorance?
Too many alts to list.
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Oroboros gets you back to the normal zones and to PI without going through Talos. There are portals for all the further shard zones at firebase Zulu. Any other questions or do you have any other ways of displaying your ignorance?
[/ QUOTE ]You still have to traverse PI from one end to the other several times, which takes at least a minute or so with the fastest travel time...all the travel time in each of the different Paragon City zones...and even if you can get to the different shard zones, they're still insanely massive, so getting to those missions can take quite a while. Then getting *back*, so you can go to a different shard zone for your next mission.
Now, do you have any other ways to display your misplaced arrogance?
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If you can only farm 1 million an hour, you may need better farming characters 
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Clearly. I have a 50 Empathy/Energy Defender and a 50 Ice/Ice Dominator. Silly me, I made characters to have fun playing with my friends who have all left the game instead of rolling clouds of DPS, which is the only activity this game rewards in solo play. My bad 
.
(I still consider the mere existance of the 5 level difficulty scheme a sign the Devs have utterly failed to provide AT balance)
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Oroboros gets you back to the normal zones and to PI without going through Talos. There are portals for all the further shard zones at firebase Zulu. Any other questions or do you have any other ways of displaying your ignorance?
[/ QUOTE ]You still have to traverse PI from one end to the other several times, which takes at least a minute or so with the fastest travel time...all the travel time in each of the different Paragon City zones...and even if you can get to the different shard zones, they're still insanely massive, so getting to those missions can take quite a while. Then getting *back*, so you can go to a different shard zone for your next mission.
Now, do you have any other ways to display your misplaced arrogance?
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If you think a speed team can't deal with a lot of what you bring up, well I'll cite ignorance again. The TF doesn't make you face a slew of AVs so you can afford to have people act at taxis to speed things up. Base teleporters and the veteran base TP power will also help. Travel in the shard is about the only issue at hand, since the stuff in Paragon can be easily minimized. For traversing PI, just leave someone with recall at the FBZ portal while the rest do the mission.
I'd bet a 1 hour Dr. Q is possible if people plant it out right.
Too many alts to list.
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.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Would it be better if the reward of merits we're timeX spent on said TF,
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I think a measurement method that would solve all the problems is base the reward on tasks completed and mobs & mob types defeated during the TF. Since the devs want us to do the content vs. ghosting it, rewarding for what is actually done during the TF sounds like the ideal method. Then the merit reward could be calculated off of what is actually DONE, and not time (exploitable) or estimated time (extremely flawed).
All that is really required is a small tracker during the TF (if one doesnt already exist). And of course properly balancing the merit reward based defeats and whats accomplished over the TF.
Boom - all issues solved. You get rewarded for what you do.
I lurk a lot
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Poster: Wuigly_Squigly
Q: Would it be better if the reward of merits we're timeX spent on said TF, instead of the current: This tf is long, this tf is medium-long, this tf is short, categorizing? For example, you finish a 20 min katie or w/e and get 5 merits or something, whereas you finish that same katie but take an hour you'd get 15 merits, essentially the longer a tf takes, the more merits you get?
A: Well, this would leave a lot of room for exploitation. Players could complete all but the last objective in 20 minutes. Sit around for an hour and 40 minutes and then finish to get the additional merits for doing nothing. So there has to be other factors other than how much time you've spent doing the TF.
I hope this clears up some of your additional questions and concerns.
Best Regards,
Synapse
EDITED: Due to horrible typo.
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Why not use a combined system of the fixed merit reward based on the datamined expected run time, but with a limited but diminished returns merit reward, based on run times over the expected time with a total limit allowed? Sounds confusing, but let me try to break down my thoughts.
Currently, any TF has its fixed rewards. These rewards were based on a formula that took into account median run times, challenges and whatever else (magic 8 ball and other forms of divination. I kid. I kid). However, this fixed reward doesn't allow for variability of actual team play. If a TF is set for an expected runtime of 2 hours, the reality is some teams make take 2.5, 3 or 1.5 hours. Why not allow for some of this variability by putting in a diminishing reward formula that also is based on time? So a TF that is based on 5 min = 1 merit goes to 10 min = 1 merit once it has reached it's expected runtime (2 hours in this case) up to an additional 30 minutes or an additional 3 merits. These numbers are just examples.
This allows for some variability without penalizing those teams that just, for whatever reason, take longer. Can it be exploited? I guess so. A speed team could just wait it out up to that additional time limit before they don't earn additional merits, but it seems that they would find it more lucrative to go do something else.
I really think the fixed reward can be unduly harsh for teams that are not efficient or have problems, etc. I have done 3 Eden trials in the last week and they all took over an hour counting the initial hunt. It would be a shame to have only earned two merits. If there is a formula that would have allowed for this extra time beyond the expected 10 min (what percentage of players can actually do that?) then a minimal boost to the merits would be earned.
So maybe a compromise is to allow some variability in time to reward with a fixed limit put into place.
Just a thought
Its a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs. - Jack Handy.
Proud member of:
Gunstar Heroes (Protector)
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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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The problem is, doing it with merits will take alot longer for most people than I think a lot of pro-merits posters really realize.
At 1 merit per minute - five times the devs' intended rate - it's over 3 hours of TF time to get a shiny. At the intended rate, it's about 16 hours of TF time. If you do one to two TFs a week like a lot of casual players do (if that... many I know do maybe 2 TFs a month), at the intended rate you're going to take 4 to 6 weeks to save enough merits for that shiny... unless you actually want to have fun on your TFs and focus on the newer ones (ITF, LGTF, etc) or are a villain, in which cases it will take 8 to 10 weeks.
So I think a lot of people will either end up paying whatever the market wants since it's easier for the casual player to get influence than it is for them to get merits, or they won't get their shinies for a very long time.
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
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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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I think this would be a good opportunity to rework the pools completely. That may help balance the random drops if the randomness was a little more logical.
For example, make 2 new random roll categories from the old C and D...
3-buff IOs (this would encompass all of Pool D and about 40% of C)
2-buff IOs and Special IOs (Numina Heal/Rech, Lady Grey Rech/End, Gift of Anchients Def/Run, plus Procs)
or simply 2 groups: Buffing IOs and Special IOs.
Then, yes, there is better odds of a Numina Unique from the "specials" category, but you could up the price of that category all by itself. Maybe lower the price of the first category so a Cap SF is still worth one roll, if you choose the right type of roll. I'd spend 50 on a random damage proc instead of 20 on damage procs mixed with stuff I'll never slot.
They've said the 20-cost pool is cheaper because of the odds. Well, more like because of the amount of duds. That is flat out terrible for players making decisions - these should be rewards, not lottery tickets. Reduce the randomness a bit and balance out by cost, not by so much luck.
Face it, there is no single cost that is fair for getting a Numina Unique one time and a Turle End/Rech/Slow the next time. Split those in different rolls with costs appropriate.