Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
After playing some more, my conclusion is still the same: no point in even worrying about merits, as I'll never earn enough to get anything I actually want.
When my characters hit 50, they get retired. So for any IOs (and therefore merits) to mean anything to me, I need to be able to get them by level 42. Don't really see that happening without being even more antisocial than I am.
Ran my Blaster with a team earlier in the evening for most of level 45 (8 bubbles worth), faced 3 AVs (Bobcat, Shadowhunter and one other I've forgotten) on someone else's arc. Got zero merits, of course. Total merits on that character: 4.
Kinda not seeing the value of this addition.
Love that I can turn Sprint off again, though. Thanks! (That's not facetious; I really do appreciate that fix. It was bugging me.)
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
I don't know what to say, in the end I just don't see the point of this system. What does it do for me? All you're doing is dangling shiny merits in my face to get me to grind task forces. I don't wanna. The fact that I might at some point get enough to get a recipe I want without having running for merits endlessly doesn't really help..that's just the same as it always was.
So what is the point of the system exactly?
I saw something about it making the people who were already grinding endlessly grinding many different things instead but..yeah..that didn't really work, did it?
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So what is the point of the system exactly?
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That's the real question, isn't it? Because of the effect it is having on the market, it's become replacement currency.....and I think what bugs people the most is, this new currency isn't always given out, whereas before, no matter what you did, you got influence/infamy.
It's like going to your job everyday, but only getting money on Tuesday. And what people are doing is, only coming to work on Tuesdays! But they finish tired, and bored, and unfulfilled.
The grind has merely shifted, and dare I say, become worse in the process. I would like to reiterate what someone else said above: Time for some feedback the other way. Very few are happy with this change. What is to be done, if anything, about it? Where does this, in the long term, benefit the player base?
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Peregrine Falcon, are you sure you don't just have the Hide Recipes Missing Ingredients box checked on the drop down at the vendor? I can pull up all the prices for every recipe out there with a toon that has exactly zero merits on them.
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Whoops. I just logged on and it looks like that's exactly what was happening. Thanks.
I withdrawn that objection, but now I have another.
Stuff costs WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too many merits. My Scrapper will be 50 before I have enough merits to get anything. You know, actually getting to use some of those set IOs would make the game a lot more fun than simply staring at them in the window.
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Luckily it's a Scrapper. You have a chance to get very large chunks of merits.
[/ QUOTE ]Scrappers and stalkers have the best setup for merits especially stalkers. Just skip to the end and do only minimum task to complete the missions.
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I meant the Scrapper could get more merits than a Brute or Stalker. Just run a couple of mid level TF's and poof! merit problem solved.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
I like the merit system, and I like it a lot! For starters it provides me a means to disregard the over-priced market, for quite some time I needed another means to get the recipe drops I simply do not get. Still I need the merit system to go one more step deeper, it needs to sell purple recipes!
If any modifications needs to be done to the merit system is the merit awards given for thread completion really needs to be increased, this may in fact decreease the pressure to do TFs one really do not want to do.
I recently completed the Unai Kaman thread and got the 16 merits. Frankly the effort that went into doing this thread is way too much for the meager 16 points awarded. The clockwork kill all at the factory, is insultingly boring and annoying, my Axe Tanker while all of her powers are knock "down" or "up" behaved as knock "way back" instead; thus I could not kill any of the clockwork with out chasing hem for stories as they always fell away. Since this cursed mission was a kill all, trying to keep up with them was a nightmare. This thread has a lot of kill all missions, and travel gallore that makes many TFs seem simple compared to this one.
In a nuthsell, please increase the thread award rewards to give players more real choices on how to go about getting them.
Stomry
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After playing some more, my conclusion is still the same: no point in even worrying about merits, as I'll never earn enough to get anything I actually want.
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Same here. Under the old system, the only way to get the rare recipes was to either grind task forces or play the market. Under the new system, since the Merit drops for storyarcs are so small, you still have to grind TFs or play the market. Only it takes longer thanks to diminishing returns.
This doesn't really impact me, since I was never getting the Super Shineys anyway. But I do kind of resent having this promise of Merits dangled in front of me, only to find out that it hasn't really changed anything.
99458: The Unbearable Being of Lightness
191775: How the Other Half Lives
My Webcomics
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After playing some more, my conclusion is still the same: no point in even worrying about merits, as I'll never earn enough to get anything I actually want.
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Same here. Under the old system, the only way to get the rare recipes was to either grind task forces or play the market. Under the new system, since the Merit drops for storyarcs are so small, you still have to grind TFs or play the market. Only it takes longer thanks to diminishing returns.
This doesn't really impact me, since I was never getting the Super Shineys anyway. But I do kind of resent having this promise of Merits dangled in front of me, only to find out that it hasn't really changed anything.
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I never expected merits to change anything for me. They were originally advertised as something new for TFs and trials, and I don't do those. Later I found out that they also replace the table awards for story arcs.
If I just use the merits to buy enhancements, that seems to average out to the same rewards as before, so I'm not losing anything. That works for me. Plus, instead of buying enhancements, I now have the option of saving up the merits to someday eventually maybe be able to buy a useful recipe. I'm not sure if that will ever really be useful, but it's an option that I didn't have before.
Since they didn't go in as advertised, replacing the TF/trial reward tables instead of adding to them, I don't see merits as a very useful addition. But I do see them as an extremely minor improvement over what I had before.
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Peregrine Falcon, are you sure you don't just have the Hide Recipes Missing Ingredients box checked on the drop down at the vendor? I can pull up all the prices for every recipe out there with a toon that has exactly zero merits on them.
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Whoops. I just logged on and it looks like that's exactly what was happening. Thanks.
I withdrawn that objection, but now I have another.
Stuff costs WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too many merits. My Scrapper will be 50 before I have enough merits to get anything. You know, actually getting to use some of those set IOs would make the game a lot more fun than simply staring at them in the window.
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Exactly. I have no idea why the devs think it's a good idea to make IO's, which are a great feature in this game that make the game far more interesting and fun, so damn cost prohibitive. It's not like the price/reward system is just a bit off, it's ridicu-off.
I think if a player does a 3-hour task force, they should get a tangible, and useful reward. As it is now, you can get a small, miniscule fraction of that by saving up for ONE recipe that will take you countless arcs or tf's to get enough merits to buy pretty much anything, much less anything decent, or you can take the merits and go for a random roll, and 99% of the time end up with a pretty worthless recipe.
I understand that it's not a good system to make getting 'loot' too easy, but as it stands right now, this system simply SUCKS. It's fine to keep the really high end stuff expensive, but only the really high end stuff like numina uniques should require extensive saving/effort. Most regular recipes should be attainable in exchange for an avg length task force or story arc. It's ONE recipe. Most players have multiple characters and each character will have countless slots to fill. And now we have dual builds. Why make is so damn hard, impossible really, to be able to fully enjoy using IO's on all their toons?
Hi:
I hear a lot of complaints about how long it takes to gain merit awards, and truly it is not that bad.
Considering that the best IO recipe cost 250 Merits, how long does it really take to get, if one is smart.
There are three different leveled re-speccs, each awards about 25 merits a piece and can be done within an hour (with a good group). Also Manticore awards about 25 Merits and can be done in an hour. So if you do these 4 TFs you get 100 merits, in just 4 hours, yuo can repeat this for the next two days and end up with 300 Merits!, that is 300 merits in 12 hours of play, that is not really bad, whn you think of it.
But I see a lot of pro market folks, slamming the merit system, do they have a conflict of interests? You bet they do.
Lets explore a Miracle +Recovery level 20, 250 award merits (10 hours of TF work) or 60 Million influence at the Market.
Lets see here, a good farm team can harvest 1 Million an hour, in general, Oh my did I say Farm? So at this increased level of earning versus doing threads, TFS, and zone hunting, it would take 60 hours to save the 60M influence. Frankly I take the 10 hours over the 60 hours hands down.
Hugs
Stormfront
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Ran my Blaster with a team earlier in the evening for most of level 45 (8 bubbles worth), faced 3 AVs (Bobcat, Shadowhunter and one other I've forgotten) on someone else's arc. Got zero merits, of course. Total merits on that character: 4.
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It occurs to me:
1) AV's drop an SO when you defeat them.
2) The merit vendor charges 8 merits for an SO.
3) Why don't AV's drop merits? Certainly 8 would be out of line (and an SO costing 8 merits is completely absurd anyway) but if GM's drop merits, why don't AV's drop any?
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Hi:
I hear a lot of complaints about how long it takes to gain merit awards, and truly it is not that bad.
Considering that the best IO recipe cost 250 Merits, how long does it really take to get, if one is smart.
There are three different leveled re-speccs, each awards about 25 merits a piece and can be done within an hour (with a good group). Also Manticore awards about 25 Merits and can be done in an hour. So if you do these 4 TFs you get 100 merits, in just 4 hours, yuo can repeat this for the next two days and end up with 300 Merits!, that is 300 merits in 12 hours of play, that is not really bad, whn you think of it.
But I see a lot of pro market folks, slamming the merit system, do they have a conflict of interests? You bet they do.
Lets explore a Miracle +Recovery level 20, 250 award merits (10 hours of TF work) or 60 Million influence at the Market.
Lets see here, a good farm team can harvest 1 Million an hour, in general, Oh my did I say Farm? So at this increased level of earning versus doing threads, TFS, and zone hunting, it would take 60 hours to save the 60M influence. Frankly I take the 10 hours over the 60 hours hands down.
Hugs
Stormfront
[/ QUOTE ]The problem for many of the players is they have this misconception that all tfs take 3 to 4 hours to do and were use to doing stuff like katie. Many tfs can be done shorter than that even if the team isnt spec for it. You just dont blast the difficulty to the max and you ghost whenever possible. So alot of the time complaints just really arent valid. If you got at least 1 hours playing time you can do tfs just dont join a team where they want to stop and smell the roses on every mission.
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!!!!
Just for fun I actually looked at a merit vendor a little while ago with a level 18 character. I can only see recipes up to level 18. I didn't see any way to select "all recipes" to show me other levels.
How would I know what to work for, if I actually wanted to work for something? Am I doing something wrong or is this another hole in the system? If the latter, didn't anyone mention that in testing? Because it seems a rather obvious oversight.
I think that, like 90% of the recipes, merits are a good idea that are badly executed. They need to just be removed from the game entirely or substantially altered into an actually usable format.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Lets explore a Miracle +Recovery level 20, 250 award merits (10 hours of TF work) or 60 Million influence at the Market.
Lets see here, a good farm team can harvest 1 Million an hour, in general, Oh my did I say Farm? So at this increased level of earning versus doing threads, TFS, and zone hunting, it would take 60 hours to save the 60M influence. Frankly I take the 10 hours over the 60 hours hands down.
Hugs
Stormfront
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If you consider 1 million per hour good, I really don't think you've seen a good farmer. I zone hunt in the RWZ solo and can generally make around 5-7 million an hour depending on what levels spawn and that is not including drops. To me it is a total wash. I've finally gotten enough merits on this same brute who I zone hunt with to buy a Miracle +Recovery. It took a few weeks, since there are really no big payout story arcs on the red side (did a few ITF's, a few of the 3 mission KoA arcs at 9 each, and a few Von Grund's Redemptions at 12 merits each). It just seems that the Merits roll in a lot faster on the hero side, and I'm not out there running the Kheld Arc, I think I did it once. I've done a few duo Positrons and hunt the GM's when they pop, and have managed to earn enough to buy 4 Miracles. I don't know, maybe it the maps (I hate the arachnos lab, hell any mission that has it should reward a merit), maybe it is the lower population, it just seems hard to get a TF/SF going unless red side unless it is an ITF or LGTF.
My issue with the merit system (as it stands) is that, It's ALL ABOUT curtailing/curbing/reducing "Farming" & preventing farmers/players from "Exploiting" the system at all costs.
Meanwhile, back at the batcave:
Everyone else got thrown under the bus!, so to speak...
I understand the issue of trying to stop exploits & some players getting "too much stuff, too quickly".
I don't understand the need for this concern to seriously outweigh the "Fun Factor"/general enjoyment of the system for everyone else.
The long drawn out explanations along the lines of...
"Well, see this is how you can play and still get a decent amount (aka worthwhile number) of merits in a reasonable amount of time". That is of course, IF you spend all that time on ONE character.
But, If you have alt-itis?
Well, just forget about Merits and one day (someday?) you may login, accidentally stumble by the Merit Vendor and realize you have enough to actually buy 1 recipe on that Character!
I'm happy that I actually have a possibility of getting Pool C recipes - outside of trying to do (uninterrupted by RL concerns) TF's, or blowing a Toon's entire bankroll on one at the market - seriously I am.
But the total number of Merits I've seen so far on ALL my alts - spread across several servers - just MIGHT be enough to buy 1 nifty recipe or maybe 2 really "cheap" ones.
It's looking really disappointing so far. 
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.
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My issue with the merit system (as it stands) is that, It's ALL ABOUT curtailing/curbing/reducing "Farming" & preventing farmers/players from "Exploiting" the system at all costs.
Meanwhile, back at the batcave:
Everyone else got thrown under the bus!, so to speak...
I understand the issue of trying to stop exploits & some players getting "too much stuff, too quickly".
I don't understand the need for this concern to seriously outweigh the "Fun Factor"/general enjoyment of the system for everyone else.
The long drawn out explanations along the lines of...
"Well, see this is how you can play and still get a decent amount (aka worthwhile number) of merits in a reasonable amount of time". That is of course, IF you spend all that time on ONE character.
But, If you have alt-itis?
Well, just forget about Merits and one day (someday?) you may login, accidentally stumble by the Merit Vendor and realize you have enough to actually buy 1 recipe on that Character!
I'm happy that I actually have a possibility of getting Pool C recipes - outside of trying to do (uninterrupted by RL concerns) TF's, or blowing a Toon's entire bankroll on one at the market - seriously I am.
But the total number of Merits I've seen so far on ALL my alts - spread across several servers - just MIGHT be enough to buy 1 nifty recipe or maybe 2 really "cheap" ones.
It's looking really disappointing so far.
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Dude, all you have to do is farm one of the respec tf's on a leet team and you could be pulling in 2 or 3 recipes per week! But only play one character...
I think you are over stating the ease at which merits can be obtained. Though I do support your thesis of merits V. farming I think the numbers for Merits are overstated.
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There are three different leveled re-speccs, each awards about 25 merits a piece and can be done within an hour (with a good group). Also Manticore awards about 25 Merits and can be done in an hour. So if you do these 4 TFs you get 100 merits, in just 4 hours, yuo can repeat this for the next two days and end up with 300 Merits!, that is 300 merits in 12 hours of play, that is not really bad, whn you think of it.
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I run the three respecs a lot and my best times are 1.25 hrs (1 hr 15 min) with most running 1.65 (1hr 40 min) hrs. I have never gotten one done in under an hour and I do believe you are unintentionally exaggerating your times on a Respec TF. I am not intending to slight you in any way. I merely believe that you are rounding to the time that supports your conclusion.
I have not done a Manticore TF run in a long time so I am unable to present sufficient testimony to refute that statement. I do however believe that time is also unintentionally exaggerated.
I do not farm so I cannot disagree with your farming numbers. The numbers do seem reasonably accurate. I will use your rate of 1 Million influence per hour.
However even given my averages times of say 4.5 hrs for the 3 respec trials and a Manticore run of say 1.75 hrs (1hr 45 min) your method is still better than farming merits by a large percentage margin 18.75 hrs for merit method V. 60 hrs for farming.
oh and with your theory of repeating the Respec Trifecta and Manticore every day for three days diminishing returns could be a problem since you may accidentally finish one or more within 24 hours of the last run which will cut your merit rate in half.
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But I see a lot of pro market folks, slamming the merit system, do they have a conflict of interests? You bet they do.
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Actually I see a lot of Pro Merit folks exhibiting the same behavior and since they have decided the "Market is Evil" they also have a bias. Pro-Meriteers have just as much a conflict of interest as Marketeers as they both have a bias. Both sides biases however are not enough to invalidate the truth in their statements.
I believe it is not the Devs intent to replace the markets with Merits but rather that the two supplement each other.
Master Gabriel
Subjective Feedback: Stepping back, I find that merits have improved my game experience. This is because a much wider range of activities are actually worthwhile since they have merit rewards attached. Some activities are still better ROI, but the discrepancy is much less now.
I agree that only mission owners getting rewards for story arcs is bad, and that something needs to be done about that.
I agree that it's frustrating that merit rewards are limited to a single character, but I don't think that needs to be changed. The random recipe roll is quite achievable at 20 merits, and is a valid option to take, and I expect that we will get used to the restriction.
I've experienced cultural clashes between speed-runners and regular players and I worry that merits will worsen this problem by pushing the speed-runners out of their niches. I'd love to see the merit system used to disincentivize speed-running. Linking merits rewarded to mobs defeated on instanced maps was suggested earlier.
I haven't perceived any large negative impact on the black market. Perhaps a slight reduction in mid-range Pool C recipes, but nothing dramatic yet.
Objective Feedback: The Merit Vendor UI is by far the slowest one in the game.
The distinction between Pool C and Pool D drops is now irrelevant.
The difficulty slider and SF restrictions are not in any way linked to merit rewards.
To the players: Rather than quoting and responding to multiple posts, I'll put in a few general remarks here.
By and large merits have added rewards/options to the game. Most SFs and TFs give more rewards than previously. Story arcs and flashback now give rewards. We can now save up for recipes instead of being forced to roll randomly.
You're right that merits have not replaced the market, and I'm sure that wasn't their intention. Perhaps some help text needs to be added about merits to align expectations. "Merit rewards are just the sugar coating for your character. The bulk of your enhancements will come from regular vendors, IO tables or purchased through the market."
Merits have negatively impacted the heavy farming of the quick SFs, Trials and TFs. I have no doubt that this was intentional, and I don't think the devs will roll that back. Having the playerbase focussed on just a few activities is bad for the game. People tend to gravitate to what others are doing and some will get bored quickly and possibly leave the game due to the perception that there's nothing else to do.
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You just dont blast the difficulty to the max and you ghost whenever possible. So alot of the time complaints just really arent valid.
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Unless of course, you find this an incredibly dull way to play.
There is nothing more grinding than grinding without even "playing" the game. It's like uber-grinding!!
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You just dont blast the difficulty to the max and you ghost whenever possible. So alot of the time complaints just really arent valid.
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Unless of course, you find this an incredibly dull way to play.
There is nothing more grinding than grinding without even "playing" the game. It's like uber-grinding!!
[/ QUOTE ]I never said it was fun. You just cant expect to do this and have fun at the same time. The two are almost mutually exclusive.
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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To the players: Rather than quoting and responding to multiple posts, I'll put in a few general remarks here.
By and large merits have added rewards/options to the game. Most SFs and TFs give more rewards than previously. Story arcs and flashback now give rewards. We can now save up for recipes instead of being forced to roll randomly.
You're right that merits have not replaced the market, and I'm sure that wasn't their intention. Perhaps some help text needs to be added about merits to align expectations. "Merit rewards are just the sugar coating for your character. The bulk of your enhancements will come from regular vendors, IO tables or purchased through the market."
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I cannot agree more with the above comments. The naysayers need to take a step back and realize that merits have given them something they did not have before. The merit system has not taken anything away.
Before: Player does not run TF's, gets nothing, zero, zip, nada. No chance for a rare recipe reward ever.
Now: Player does not run TF's, gets multiple merits simply by completing story arcs, maybe with a few GM kills thrown in. Gets several random rare recipe rewards they never had the opportunity to get before.
Before: Player runs TF's other than quick Katie and Speeden. After hours of effort, gets nothing more than those running the quickies.
Now: Player runs those other TF's, gets a reward possibly several times greater than they ever could have gotten before.
Before: Nearly every IO set recipe a player might want could be purchased through the markets (granted WW has an advantage over BM here). Only a few, select, highly desirable recipes were priced potentially out of reach.
Now: Hmmm.... Market is, so far, just the same. Just about every IO set recipe can still be purchased at the market, same as before. Except now, a player can target specific highly priced recipes to purchase with merits.
Overall, seems like a huge WIN to me for the players.
Merits were NEVER supposed to replace the other standard ways of obtaining items in-game. It is NOT supposed to be easy to IO out every single character a player has, or even to IO out one character. Invention sets are not out of reach either for normal players. My first level 50, by the time I got him to 50, had a good half of his powers slotted with full IO sets. All done simply by playing the game with friends, running lots of different TF's, story arcs, etc. No farming, no grinding, no Katie over & over again. They were obtainable to anyone who wanted them before merits, and they are MORE obtainable now that mertis have been implemented.
Reality is, not every player can obtain every shiny in this game (or any other MMO), nor should they be able to. And they don't need to either. I have many toons that have only basic common IO's or SO's slotted and they do just fine.
Allow the player to choose the level range of ACTUAL RECIPE on the merit roll, NOT just the level range of the sets rolled against.
If a 50 wants level 30 IOs so he/she can exemp down and still get the set bonuses, they CAN NOT do so. The player cannot even park an alt at the desired level and transfer merits from another character on the same account.
Low and mid level recipes for many sets are rapidly disappearing as pre-Issue 13 stock is depleted. This is hurting more than it is helping.
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You just dont blast the difficulty to the max and you ghost whenever possible. So alot of the time complaints just really arent valid.
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Unless of course, you find this an incredibly dull way to play.
There is nothing more grinding than grinding without even "playing" the game. It's like uber-grinding!!
[/ QUOTE ]I never said it was fun. You just cant expect to do this and have fun at the same time. The two are almost mutually exclusive.
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So why not reward us for playing the game? Why the complicated anti-exploit shenanigans?
Complete a mission, merit. Complete a short story arc, two merits. Complete a long story arc, five merits. Beat up a GM, two merits. Beat up an Event GM, three merits. Beat up an AV, two merits. Complete a TF/SF, whatever it is now. (I haven't done a TF in 3+ years.) Get an easy defeat badge, merit. Get a hard defeat badge, three merits. Get all the exploration badges in a zone, merit.
How would that break the game?
Right now you have people like me who have gotten something like two dozen merits across 50 characters. Even when I sit down and play one toon for a weekend, as I did last weekend, I only get 4 or 6 merits. So I look at the merit system and just think, "Meh, pointless." And yet we still have jerks and exploiters, they're just exploiting slightly different things now.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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You just dont blast the difficulty to the max and you ghost whenever possible. So alot of the time complaints just really arent valid.
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Unless of course, you find this an incredibly dull way to play.
There is nothing more grinding than grinding without even "playing" the game. It's like uber-grinding!!
[/ QUOTE ]I never said it was fun. You just cant expect to do this and have fun at the same time. The two are almost mutually exclusive.
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So why not reward us for playing the game? Why the complicated anti-exploit shenanigans?
Complete a mission, merit. Complete a short story arc, two merits. Complete a long story arc, five merits. Beat up a GM, two merits. Beat up an Event GM, three merits. Beat up an AV, two merits. Complete a TF/SF, whatever it is now. (I haven't done a TF in 3+ years.) Get an easy defeat badge, merit. Get a hard defeat badge, three merits. Get all the exploration badges in a zone, merit.
How would that break the game?
Right now you have people like me who have gotten something like two dozen merits across 50 characters. Even when I sit down and play one toon for a weekend, as I did last weekend, I only get 4 or 6 merits. So I look at the merit system and just think, "Meh, pointless." And yet we still have jerks and exploiters, they're just exploiting slightly different things now.
[/ QUOTE ]Those are good suggestions and thats how I would have set it up. I would have made arc missions give merits, tfs, gms, completing badges, badge sets like accolades as well. That way you get badges for playing thru content and finishing it. The only thing I wouldnt give merits for is papers but I would put the merits you would have gotten from papers inside the mayhem missions for completing the side tasks. Reputation difficulty would also give additional merits for missions as well as TF/SF challenges like no deaths or no temp powers used. The amount of critters killed past a certain point would give additional merits, kill all missions would give additional merits. That way we are truely rewarded for playing the game as a completist. It would hurt your more to speed thru the content then it would to take your time and kill everything.
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!!!!
During testing I was not sure how the merits would work out. So I did not say anything. Now that its weeks out and i have had a chance to play a new character up to L37 I can say. I feel left behind. Merit costs on recipes are so high compared to my earning capacity.
My main problem is to afford anything specific I need to have a dedicated Merit Farmer. Because merit rewards cannot be shared I need one respository of merit. At a made up rate of 25 merit per hour it will take some time to earn anything fancy. I have also compared my INF earning rates and my Merit earning rates.
Previously if I wanted an expensive reward I could "CHOOSE" to pool all my INF on one character to afford the market price. Plus people were selling drops they could not use.
Pinnacle
Arch light L50 INV/SS
Psiberia L50 Kin/Psi
Screaming Mentallica L50 Sonic/MM
Infinity
Arc Voltinator L50 SS/Elec
Mind Fire Kinesis L50 Fire/Kin
Flaming Screamer L50 Fire/Sonic