Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
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my problem with this whole thing is that the only way you can acheive pool c and pool d recipees REQUIRE the use of merits.(yes i know you can buy them at wents)
What i mean is no matter what some one HAS to use merits to create the supply. Thats alot of merits needed to get those recipees. Right now on alot of the new recipees for i13 the pool c and pool d recipees are going for lotg and miracle/numina prices or more. And even if you have the cash there are 0 available. This forces you to solo your own arcs or speed run tf to get those. Castles definition of farming was repeating content solely for the rewards. Obtaining pool c and d recipees now require farming.
[/ QUOTE ]How is that any different than when we did tfs and trials for recipes? Its the same thing and in some cases you get more benefit thru merits because stuff isnt worth 1 recipe in some cases, its worth more than 1 recipe. The problem with the shortages is due to people having choice on the random rare. If they didnt have choice we would still be in the same setup as issue 12. Until they make the random roll on task forces worth it on the risk I dont see this changing much. 2 things need to happen, lvl 50s need a way to generate recipes lower than lvl 50 if they choose to by using random tf roll and some of the story arc rewards need to be boosted to make this work for everyone not just the tf grinders like myself.
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!!!!
I think something that no one has pointed out is that many of us are hording our drops. I know that everyone in our sg has stopped putting recipes even useless one for sale in WW and started just making them and storing them for that future toon. My lowest toon on my main account is a 36 and I have not made a new one since I13 came out as the new power sets just seem bland (IMHO) so I don't need much in the way of sets as most of my 50's have decent builds on them and since I don't PVP (as I always get PWND) I have no need to do the dual build thing. I do have a PB that just hit 47 and I may use some sets for her but in all reality I think I will just use a few KB procs as well as some of the lower sets that help reduce negative nrg dmg.
I don't think the market will clean up until I14 hits and ppl concentrate on the content rather than the loot. I would like to see them give the option for the random TF pool drop rather than merits as it always seemed to be a bit more exciting and all the merits I get I would just rather wait and buy the items I want then spend them on a random roll that may not produce anything usefull to me.
I don't know how to fix the system but its definitely not as much fun as it used to be! I have not even been to any of the PVP zones since the change as I was so discusted with the PVP changes and as an SG we have spent more time lately just doing AV mssions and the ocasional low end TF when someone needs the badge. Thie merits actualy had the reverse effect for our group, we used to do an average of 4 TF's a week and many times we would do a quick Katie after a normal TF just for the fun. Its like Merits just sucked all the fun out of the game.
While we are at it could one of you DEV's take a moment and give Katie back as a reward to the players that have already used her up? Never understood why she was taken away as its always good to have Katie on your side when you alone in the dark and need a friend!
Has anyone noted the number of ppl playing on the servers? It seems really small these days!
the problem is that people are now not just farming the katies and edens, they are farming their own story arcs and oro missions as well.
Not to mention that people feel the need to play obviously broken task forces like posi just for the merits.
thus creating more farming. The other draw back is that under the merit system the total number of recipees hitting the market has dropped. Before a steady supply was being made through those speed task forces. The merit system has done absolutely nothing to deter farming. They only changed the door locations of the farms.
Ok enough of my venting. Here is my solution. Get rid of merits for task forces or make them optional as a choice. Keep merits as a reward for story arcs and even radios for every mission completed(radios = less reward of course).
Make sure every member of a team get the same reward as the mission owner.
Make merits account wide or enable them to be transferable.
Objective
The black market's supply of low to mid-level Pool C and D recipes has dropped significantly.
I thought things were fine, but it seems previous supply was keeping it afloat for a few weeks, and now I'm having real trouble getting some lower level Pool C and D recipes. For example:
<ul type="square">[*]Impeded Swiftness Chance for Smashing - I see no sales in weeks.[*]Decimation Acc/Dam/Rech lvl 33 used to go for 12 - 20 million. The only sales recently were 5 of mine that I sold for 40 million apiece.[*]Kinetic Crash Knockback/Dam/Acc - I see very few going through.[*]Malaise's Illusion triple are abundant at level 50, but rare below level 40.[/list]I'm not sure if the playerbase will pick up the slack in this case. I don't play heroes, so can't compare with Wentworths, but I wonder if more merit generation opportunity is needed in the mid-levels to get people comfortable using that random-roll. (Another mid-range SF please!) Rolling and selling isn't much incentive if you can't use the inf to buy what you want.
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Objective Feedback:
IOs from the new sets in the TF Drop Pools are almost non-existant on the market.
Subjective analysis about that:
This indicates a serious lack of TF Drop Pool supply in general. Since merits are the only source of said recipes, it seems the system is not producing enough drops that make it to the Market.
This is probably true over all Pool C recipes, not just the new sets. The new sets are simply a lot easier to notice, and do not have the possibility that market activity may be using pre-existing Pool C's instead of new drops. I expect all Pool C recipes will be harder to find on the market now.
IMHO, TFs need to return to dropping random recipes. Merits should be applied on top of TF reward drops, so that people will over time get additional recipes, such as to offset bad luck on TF drops. (perhaps awarding fewer merits than currently, it doesn't have to directly merge the 2 amounts.) This will retain the pre-I13 supply of Pool Cs, and perhaps even increase the amount of supply of that pool on the market.
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THIS IS AN AMAZING IDEA AND DESERVES CAPS LOCK TO BRING NOTICE.
It rewards the casual and it can still be a metric to increase the rewards for difficult TFs!
Something definitely needs to be adjusted. Pool C & D recipes have virtually disappeared from CoV and the merit prices for these recipes just are too high. Couple ideas would be this:
1) Move the pool C & D recipes into the A & B drop tables. These would increase supply a bit.
2) Lower Merit Prices. I'd suggest Pool A- 50 merits, Pool B- 100, Pool C- 150 and Pool D 200. The really desirable recipes like the Uniques to 225.
3) Nearly double the # of Merit rewards. Honestly.. they are really too low. Example: Aurora Fades (CoV lvl 25-29 arc) has a defeat all, a mini hunt and an ELITE BOSS is worth 1 Merit??? But "Sold for a Song" with NO EBs, can be done almost as quickly is worth 6?? Sometyhing is out of whack here.
"Well, there's going to be some light music and a short note of apology saying, 'The universe ended last week, we're really sorry, we don't know what you're doing here, didn't you get the message?'"- Steve Moffat
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Castles definition of farming was repeating content solely for the rewards.
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isn't that why we play this game? for the rewards? whatever that may mean to the individual.
i had nothing against farming personally. i have nothing against the merit system (other than what has already been stated in this thread) either. farming will never go away, whether it be farming for infamy/drops or merits.
reward is why we play this game. whatever the "reward" is. for some it's simply the joy of the game. for others it's to be the best. and yet for others it's to chill with thier buds. this is comparing apples to apples (imo) when you get right down to it.
i had friends that could do the Cap TF in 22-30 mins for a rare at the end. now it's 10 merits.
ITF used to take those same friends 80-100 mins for a rare. now they've got it down to 40-55 mins for 25 merits. see where this is going?
no matter what the devs decide to implement as a reward system, they will ultimatly fail in thier root cause (sorry devs, i love ya but that's the truth as far as i can see it).
blanket solutions (again, imo) are only going to cause more work and more headaches. merits i think, fundamentally, are a good system. but call it what you will, at some point, we're all repeating content for the sole purpose of reward.
The validity of your statment does not increase in direct proportion with the frequency and volume at which you speak it.
Objective Feedback: The market is bleeding to death. Not only has the merit system as implemented reduced the total number of pool c and d recipes being generated (and merits for story arc content is not making up for it since few pugs run story arc content and only the arc holder gets merits) but since recipes can be self determined by spending a much larger amount of merits to get exactly what you want fewer of the pool c and d recipes are making it to the market.
Subjective Feedback: The merit system has changed my play style significantly. I do much more soloing now and only story arc content. Prior to I13 I PUG'd about 20% of the time. (PUGing is how I met most of the players on my friends list and I would bet that's the way it is for most folks too). When I am teaming it is now only for Flashbacks or TFs where all participants receive awards. My solo capable toons receive lots of merits from both TFs and story arc content. My support toons that have difficulty soloing at a decent speed only receive merits from teaming and the only teaming that awards merits is TFs, flashbacks, and GMs.
Wentworths is starting to see shortages of tier 2 common salvage. I doubt that this is due to base storage of salvage being added and believe that more likely people are soloing story arc content and stealthing all that they can to get the merits at the end rather than fighting and generating salvage drops.
One reason that I am saving merits for specific recipes rather than taking the random roll is the ability to determine exact level for purchased recipes. My IO builds are designed to exemplar (I PvP only a little and not at all since the PvP changes have been implemented) but I do exemplar down to join my wife's toons and coalition and global channel folks. This means that I have to either park a toon at the level I wish to exemplar and attempt to get what I want through random rolls or to save far too many merits to buy the specific recipe I want at the level I want it with toons that have leveled beyond that point. Both of these are annoying rather than fun.
Proposed solutions: Rejuvenate the markets. To do this here are some ideas.
Story arc content needs to reward all players merits not just the mission holder. To do this and prevent gaming the system a couple things may need to be done.
1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.
2) Break down the arcs into smaller merits reward "chunks" each mission in a story arc would then award merits at its completion to all players.
A potential way to award them would be [*] 0 merits for delivery, talk to, patrol and hunt missions.[*] 2 merits for defeat alls[*] 1 merits for all other door missions.
Story arcs would need to be examined again to make sure the break down worked properly and didn't award too many merits or rewards and costs could both be upped across the board so that a finer break down could be implemented.
3) Award merits to players for paper/radio missions. No I don't mean give away the store. Players should receive 1 merit when they turn in their completed (non-failed) bank mission. A mechanic to do this would be the detective progress bar.
a) Disable auto complete.
b) Detective bar fills up.
c) Complete bank mission.[*] Failure empties the bar[*] Success leaves the bar filled.
d) turn in bank mission.[*] if progress bar is full it empties and awards 1 merit.[*] if progress bar is empty it clears the failed mission and does not award a merit.
4) Increase the market supply of pool c and d recipes. By doing one or more of the following.
a) Decrease the merit costs for random rolls and increase the merit cost of buying specific recipes by as much as 25%. This makes it less attractive to save though still viable. Here's how I would implement it.[*] merge pool c and pool d into a single merit pool.[*] 10 merits for a random roll on this pool. This functions exactly as it does now. You specify a level range and get the recipe at the level of your character or max level for that recipe set.[*] 20 merits for a random roll on this pool. The level of the recipe rolled is the exact level specified by the player. Recipes that can not be generated at this level (be they too high or too low) can not be obtained using this method. Only recipes that actually exist at the specified level can be generated.
-----OR------
b) Weigh the drop pools. Place all pool C and D recipes into a single merit pool and weigh them according to the number of powers in the game that actually use those sets. To keep from skewing the tables too badly add extra weight to commonly taken pool powers.
Almost everyone takes a travel power. Weight it based on actual pool break downs so that more of the most common travel type powers are awarded than the less common travel powers. Weight the universal set at the lowest of the travel powers.
Add weight to heal and end mod sets based on the number of players taking the fitness pool. (I'm guessing most people do take it. After all how many non-physically fit super heroes are there in the comic books? And of those few how many are not mentally fit to make up for it?)
Option B would mean that the recipes being generated would more closely match the number and type of powers that could slot the given recipe.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.
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Sorry, but no. Definitely not. Auto complete is great. If I have a mission that's too hard for me to do solo, and someone else is doing it in a team, I can join the team and get credit that way.
Now, if you want to say "no merit award when a mission is auto completed" (or when dropped), I can agree with that. But turning off this great feature just to ensure that someone somewhere isn't *OMG* getting more merits than they should get, that's the same sort of paranoia and bad choice that the developers have been doing, that have nerfed Katie to the point where few people want to do this fun TF because now it's all about the reward.
I do like the idea of merits for successful mayhems or safeguards, those are reasonably challenging and fun--and gives a reason for groups doing paper missions to actually keep going.
One thing, I don't see your solution doing, though, is fixing the problem you talk about, the market dying. It just is about getting more merits to avoid the market.
So, here's my suggestion...every time a TF or SF or trial is finished, a random roll recipe is added to the appropriate market. So people finish a Positron, a recipe is added to Wentworths from the 10-14 pool. It's priced at what a vendor would pay for the recipe. Level of the recipe is the top of the TF range.
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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1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.
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Sorry, but no. Definitely not. Auto complete is great. If I have a mission that's too hard for me to do solo, and someone else is doing it in a team, I can join the team and get credit that way.
Now, if you want to say "no merit award when a mission is auto completed" (or when dropped), I can agree with that. But turning off this great feature just to ensure that someone somewhere isn't *OMG* getting more merits than they should get, that's the same sort of paranoia and bad choice that the developers have been doing, that have nerfed Katie to the point where few people want to do this fun TF because now it's all about the reward.
I do like the idea of merits for successful mayhems or safeguards, those are reasonably challenging and fun--and gives a reason for groups doing paper missions to actually keep going.
One thing, I don't see your solution doing, though, is fixing the problem you talk about, the market dying. It just is about getting more merits to avoid the market.
So, here's my suggestion...every time a TF or SF or trial is finished, a random roll recipe is added to the appropriate market. So people finish a Positron, a recipe is added to Wentworths from the 10-14 pool. It's priced at what a vendor would pay for the recipe. Level of the recipe is the top of the TF range.
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The market needs to stay player controlled. Making the random roll more attractive will incentivise players that may not have used the market to do so (the market haters will still avoid it though no change there). Cutting the price of a random roll in half will double the supply of pool c and d recipes. Allowing the random roll to be at exact level for current merit price will allow more recipes in other level ranges.
As far as disabling the auto complete?
Why did you pick up a mission that was too hard for you to solo on a toon that can't solo? If your mission awards merits to all, then teams would be much more willing to help you complete them and you are much more likely to get a team with rewards going to all, with out the risk of too many merits being added to the system.
That aside if you really get a mission you can't complete solo and you absolutely can't find a team you can still use the mission drop feature every 3 days.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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One thing, I don't see your solution doing, though, is fixing the problem you talk about, the market dying. It just is about getting more merits to avoid the market.
So, here's my suggestion...every time a TF or SF or trial is finished, a random roll recipe is added to the appropriate market. So people finish a Positron, a recipe is added to Wentworths from the 10-14 pool. It's priced at what a vendor would pay for the recipe. Level of the recipe is the top of the TF range.
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O.O
That's a novel idea. All the people 'grinding' TF's for merits will simultaneously be adding to the market volume even if they don't sell anything directly. I don't see any method for exploiting this, either, since the drop goes to the market.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Why did you pick up a mission that was too hard for you to solo on a toon that can't solo?
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Um...because it was in a story arc? In this case, it was the last mission in Serpent Drummer's arc, and I just can't handle the Rikti Heavy ambush while attacking Hro'Dhotz. And believe it or not, it's not "oh, wow, I really want those merits"--I like the content, I do arcs I enjoy.
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If your mission awards merits to all, then teams would be much more willing to help you complete them and you are much more likely to get a team with rewards going to all, with out the risk of too many merits being added to the system.
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That wasn't my experience from before merits were added to the game and from before auto-complete was added to the game. Having just done the mission once, saying "You know, I've got this mission too, can we do my copy now" was rarely if ever done. And, to be fair, if I were on a team, I really don't want to do the same mission eight times, one for each person. It's BORING.
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That aside if you really get a mission you can't complete solo and you absolutely can't find a team you can still use the mission drop feature every 3 days.
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Why is the drop mechanism so much better than auto-complete?
Given my choice, between losing auto-complete and losing inventions, invention salvage, and merits--my preference would be dropping the invention system. Auto-complete is huge, and I just wished the minor problems with it (where getting the same mission from different contacts won't give you the auto-complete option) was fixed.
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
I think it'd be pretty cool if you could earn a small number of merits through doing mayhem and safeguard missions.
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1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.
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Sorry, but no. Definitely not. Auto complete is great. If I have a mission that's too hard for me to do solo, and someone else is doing it in a team, I can join the team and get credit that way.
Now, if you want to say "no merit award when a mission is auto completed" (or when dropped), I can agree with that. But turning off this great feature just to ensure that someone somewhere isn't *OMG* getting more merits than they should get, that's the same sort of paranoia and bad choice that the developers have been doing, that have nerfed Katie to the point where few people want to do this fun TF because now it's all about the reward.
I do like the idea of merits for successful mayhems or safeguards, those are reasonably challenging and fun--and gives a reason for groups doing paper missions to actually keep going.
One thing, I don't see your solution doing, though, is fixing the problem you talk about, the market dying. It just is about getting more merits to avoid the market.
So, here's my suggestion...every time a TF or SF or trial is finished, a random roll recipe is added to the appropriate market. So people finish a Positron, a recipe is added to Wentworths from the 10-14 pool. It's priced at what a vendor would pay for the recipe. Level of the recipe is the top of the TF range.
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The market needs to stay player controlled. Making the random roll more attractive will incentivise players that may not have used the market to do so (the market haters will still avoid it though no change there). Cutting the price of a random roll in half will double the supply of pool c and d recipes. Allowing the random roll to be at exact level for current merit price will allow more recipes in other level ranges.
As far as disabling the auto complete?
Why did you pick up a mission that was too hard for you to solo on a toon that can't solo? If your mission awards merits to all, then teams would be much more willing to help you complete them and you are much more likely to get a team with rewards going to all, with out the risk of too many merits being added to the system.
That aside if you really get a mission you can't complete solo and you absolutely can't find a team you can still use the mission drop feature every 3 days.
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I agree with Miladys. As a more casual player, merits have all but stalled my IO progression. I have to play 10-12 TFs to get ONE IO that I need without having to spend 10-12 Mil influence at WW. For a casual player who only gets to play 2-3 times a week and may get in a TF or two it does make things a lot harder than it was before.
I like the idea of reducing the cost of IOs because it would stimulate the market more and give the casual players a better shot at making the builds they want.
/endwhine
@Radmind - Justice Server
ClintarCOH - Twitter
ClintarCOH - Twitter
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I agree with Miladys. As a more casual player, merits have all but stalled my IO progression. I have to play 10-12 TFs to get ONE IO that I need without having to spend 10-12 Mil influence at WW. For a casual player who only gets to play 2-3 times a week and may get in a TF or two it does make things a lot harder than it was before.
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I see a lot of comments like this but I don't see how you draw these conclusions. Previously, you would get random recipe drops. Now, you can buy random drops. Unless you were speed-running Katie or Eden, there hasn't been some massive nerf to the rate of obtaining random recipes.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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I agree with Miladys. As a more casual player, merits have all but stalled my IO progression. I have to play 10-12 TFs to get ONE IO that I need without having to spend 10-12 Mil influence at WW. For a casual player who only gets to play 2-3 times a week and may get in a TF or two it does make things a lot harder than it was before.
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I see a lot of comments like this but I don't see how you draw these conclusions. Previously, you would get random recipe drops. Now, you can buy random drops. Unless you were speed-running Katie or Eden, there hasn't been some massive nerf to the rate of obtaining random recipes.
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The problem is that most drops people get, aren't something they need. In part because most of the drops are worth almost nothing, but even the prized drops aren't useful to everyone. (If my willpower scrapper got a recipe to protect from knockback, I have no interest in it.) These unneeded drops were fed to the market.
Because there is so much unmitigated garbage in the C pool (and some in the D pool as well), most people I speak to are saving their merits for specific recipes they need (personally or for an alt). So while TF running is probably up, recipes going into the market are down.
So how to fix it?
(1) Give up on the market. Players who want a Pool C or Pool D recipe will have to get it with merits (the pain of which can be ameliorated by boosting the rate people earn merits and/or reducing costs)
(2) Feed the market automatically. In one way or another, programatically add recipes to the markets (question is how and how many how fast to add them).
(3) Make the Random Rolls a better chance. Remove some of the garbage so our odds are reasonable of, if not getting a recipe we can use, at least one that someone will want and we can sell on the market.
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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I agree with Miladys. As a more casual player, merits have all but stalled my IO progression. I have to play 10-12 TFs to get ONE IO that I need without having to spend 10-12 Mil influence at WW. For a casual player who only gets to play 2-3 times a week and may get in a TF or two it does make things a lot harder than it was before.
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I see a lot of comments like this but I don't see how you draw these conclusions. Previously, you would get random recipe drops. Now, you can buy random drops. Unless you were speed-running Katie or Eden, there hasn't been some massive nerf to the rate of obtaining random recipes.
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The problem is that most drops people get, aren't something they need. In part because most of the drops are worth almost nothing, but even the prized drops aren't useful to everyone. (If my willpower scrapper got a recipe to protect from knockback, I have no interest in it.) These unneeded drops were fed to the market.
Because there is so much unmitigated garbage in the C pool (and some in the D pool as well), most people I speak to are saving their merits for specific recipes they need (personally or for an alt). So while TF running is probably up, recipes going into the market are down.
So how to fix it?
(1) Give up on the market. Players who want a Pool C or Pool D recipe will have to get it with merits (the pain of which can be ameliorated by boosting the rate people earn merits and/or reducing costs)
(2) Feed the market automatically. In one way or another, programatically add recipes to the markets (question is how and how many how fast to add them).
(3) Make the Random Rolls a better chance. Remove some of the garbage so our odds are reasonable of, if not getting a recipe we can use, at least one that someone will want and we can sell on the market.
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GagetDon summed up what I was thinking better than I could have worded it.
I can see the individual IO's remaining at the price they are, but lower the random rolls to the same amount of merits that a Katie TF would give.
That way the players that want to stock up on merits for the IOs they want, but also help the market by lowering the cost of the random rolls.
@Radmind - Justice Server
ClintarCOH - Twitter
ClintarCOH - Twitter
[/center]
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(3) Make the Random Rolls a better chance. Remove some of the garbage so our odds are reasonable of, if not getting a recipe we can use, at least one that someone will want and we can sell on the market.
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In my opinion, this is all that was needed in the first place.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
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I can see the individual IO's remaining at the price they are, but lower the random rolls to the same amount of merits that a Katie TF would give.
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I am no merit system cheerleader but I have to disagree with this one. Katie is too quick for a full drop. Sorry, I hate saying it because I love that taskforce and it was the best choice for a taskforce where the casual and the hardcore player could get together and enjoy themselves. I think Hess at 15 would be a better standard for the taskforce random roll. this would open it up to villains who have very few taskforces above 15 merits as well as revitalize the market.
I think this measure would help fix the problems with the merit system but it would not be a complete cure as much as a way to stem the bleeding.
Master Gabriel
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(3) Make the Random Rolls a better chance. Remove some of the garbage so our odds are reasonable of, if not getting a recipe we can use, at least one that someone will want and we can sell on the market.
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I could not agree more the Pools are outdated, antiquated, and frankly filled with useless crap. One of the problems with the drop system is we have too many Malaise dropping and not enough Numina's just but powers available to archetypes certain sets are going to be more popular than others. I think the Pool C and D should just be combined and placed at 15 merits per roll and other pools should be added.
Here are my suggestions
The pools I would go with would be
Procs
contains all procs including Numina, celerity, etc...
cost 30 merits
offensive
contains melee damage, range damage, targeted AOE, PBAOE, Pet Damage, Sniper attacks
Cost 28 merits
Defensive / debuff
Contains healing, Accurate healing, damage resist, defense,
cost 30 merits
Debuff and control
to hit debuff, defense debuff, endurance modification, taunt
cost 20 merits
Mez effects
Confuse, Sleep, Slow, Immobilize, Holds, fears, stuns, Knockback
Cost 15 merits
And for goodness sakes just award 1 merit per mission on story arcs to ALL team members dispensed at the end of each mission.
Master Gabriel
Overall I love the new merit system. I'm sure everyone has their own way of utilizing it and mine is Tier 3 Inspirations. I am quickly filling the inpsiration collectors at my SG with them as I complete TFs, Trials, Story Arcs, etc. I saw it mentioned earlier and I agree there do seem to be a lot more TFs running at every level. It's even a lot easier to find a team to take on a Giant Moster these days thanks to the system.
Okay Now for my negative comments. I understand merit awards were based on time involved doing a TF. But there has got to be a bit more thought put into some awards. I did the Statesman TF the other day and as I was in IP waiting on the team to arrive a number of players were finishing up an attack on Lusca. The comment was made about it awarding only 2 merits and tonight I joined a Lusca team and got exactly that .. 2 MERITS. Earlier I had helped defeat Jack and Eochia in Croatoa .. 2 Merits each. Okay fine but battling Lusca involves taking out 8 tentacles (each a GM in itself almost) and then the head. That's nine battles and nine opportunities to incur debt for the same amount of merits I got for Defeating Jack in Irons earlier. 2 Merits for one battle vs 2 merits for 9 seperate battles hardly seems equitable. I think a bit more thought needs to go into that award set up
On to the TFS .. I did the Katie Hannon TF last weekend and forget exactly how many merits it paid off but due to the constant speed TFs it has always spawned it wasn't much (I am almost sure THAT was 2 merits as well). Prior to that I'd completed the first story arc in Croatoa and got 7 merits (or maybe 8) for it. Yes I understand everyone stealths KHTF but in that FIRST mission you have to defeat Mary 10 times. That's 10 AVs that gradually get higher in level until your battling a 37 level AV by the 10th time. Somehow getting 2 merits for defeating 10 Arch villians just doesn't seem quite right when I can get 7 or 8 for a couple of hunts and a few door missions. Heck Dave Wincott's arc in the Hollows pays out 2 merits and its 4 missions long (2 hunts and 2 doors). Okay so Katie doesn't rate 40 or 50 merits like some of the longer TFs but for goodness sake ... 10 Arch Villians in one mission rates a little higher than 2! Can we do a bit of re-evaluating there as well please? LOL
I'm not even sure the Statesman TF is paying off well enough. Like I said we did it over the weekend and yes its not a really long one but there are AVs in every single mission. We did a quick tally and I think it was a total of 16 in all. 30 merits? That doesn't even work out to 2 per Villian! We did pretty well until the last mission and ended up taking over 5 hours to complete it. In that time the Arachnos Flyer respawned numerous times and we defeated it 5 times.. we got 2 merits each time we took it down. So we got 30 merits for defeating 16 Arch villians and TEN for taking down the Flyer 5 times? Adjust a bit there as well please that just doesn't seem right LOL
Okay done griping .. like I said overall I like the system. At present I have almost 600 inspirations in 8 collectors and half are Tier 3 from merits. That will certainly come in handy on any TF, Trial, or whatever the members need them for to complete in the future. 
�We�re always the good guys. In D&D, we�re lawful good. In City of Heroes we�re the heroes. In Grand Theft Auto we pay the prostitutes promptly and never hit them with a bat.� � Leonard
�Those women are prostitutes? You said they were raising money for stem cell research!� � Sheldon
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On to the TFS .. I did the Katie Hannon TF last weekend and forget exactly how many merits it paid off but due to the constant speed TFs it has always spawned it wasn't much (I am almost sure THAT was 2 merits as well). Prior to that I'd completed the first story arc in Croatoa and got 7 merits (or maybe 8) for it. Yes I understand everyone stealths KHTF but in that FIRST mission you have to defeat Mary 10 times. That's 10 AVs that gradually get higher in level until your battling a 37 level AV by the 10th time. Somehow getting 2 merits for defeating 10 Arch villians just doesn't seem quite right when I can get 7 or 8 for a couple of hunts and a few door missions. Heck Dave Wincott's arc in the Hollows pays out 2 merits and its 4 missions long (2 hunts and 2 doors). Okay so Katie doesn't rate 40 or 50 merits like some of the longer TFs but for goodness sake ... 10 Arch Villians in one mission rates a little higher than 2! Can we do a bit of re-evaluating there as well please? LOL
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The Katie TF awards 7 merits and it can easily be done in 35 minutes. That award is right on target, based on their stated guidelines.
I agree Lusca is broken and some of the 'marquee' TFs are awarding too little.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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1) Disable the auto complete function. This would prevent people from "syncing up" their story arcs to get more merits than the system is intended to allow.
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Sorry, but no. Definitely not. Auto complete is great. If I have a mission that's too hard for me to do solo, and someone else is doing it in a team, I can join the team and get credit that way.
Now, if you want to say "no merit award when a mission is auto completed" (or when dropped), I can agree with that. But turning off this great feature just to ensure that someone somewhere isn't *OMG* getting more merits than they should get, that's the same sort of paranoia and bad choice that the developers have been doing, that have nerfed Katie to the point where few people want to do this fun TF because now it's all about the reward.
I do like the idea of merits for successful mayhems or safeguards, those are reasonably challenging and fun--and gives a reason for groups doing paper missions to actually keep going.
One thing, I don't see your solution doing, though, is fixing the problem you talk about, the market dying. It just is about getting more merits to avoid the market.
So, here's my suggestion...every time a TF or SF or trial is finished, a random roll recipe is added to the appropriate market. So people finish a Positron, a recipe is added to Wentworths from the 10-14 pool. It's priced at what a vendor would pay for the recipe. Level of the recipe is the top of the TF range.
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IMHO the whole problem lies in the TFs/SFs themselves and the way Merit rewards are calculated. I have never been on a TF where missions weren't ghosted, the content sped through or shortcuts taken. I've never been on a TF where a mission to defeat X critters didn't come up and the team leader said 'great we can find greys in Y zone', So off we go to waste 5-10 minutes and gain no exp defeating 40 greys we wouldn't normally waste our time on.
My proposed solution is simple and (IMHO) fair to everyone:
1) Rework the TFs/SFs to remove all of the Talking To missions and Hunt X portions. Any game content/story line that would be lost can be added as a Clue or as briefing/debriefing along the way. This way new players to the TF can read the background and experienced one can click OK and move on. This would speed up ALL of the TFs and make playing them more palatable and less tedious.
2) Reward Merits based on the number of foes defeated in the TF. This one is tougher because in some cases you're fighting hundreds of enemies and in some cases (Quarterfield) I would guess the number goes into the thousands. I can't think of anyone who would want to stay through ALL of those baddies but those that wish to can do so and get more Merits for their time. Those that wish to ghost through the TF (and who are likely the ones who blow the curve/datamine of 'average time spent') can continue to do so but will receive fewer Merits in doing so.
In order to do this Merits would be awarded at the end of the TF based on how many foes were defeated by the team. Each Minion would be worth (these numbers are completely pulled out of the air and just for example) 0.1 Merits, Lts 0.2 Merits and bosses 0.5 Merits each. Thus if the team plows through a total of 100 Minions, 25 Lts and 10 Bosses they get 20 merits.
If they chose the Devs could work it on a sliding scale where the team's levels could play a factor since an 8-man team of lvl 15s will take longer to defeat a typical spawn than an 8-man team of 35s.
Despite what others may say this is not some form of punishment for speeders...merely a way by which the Devs can finally balance the rewards given for ALL of the TFs. I don't want any of the content nerfed but if the players continue to farm Merits by speeding through content then the Devs may feel compelled to do so. Katie and Eden are prime examples.
I do NOT make this suggestion because I think that every mission in every TF should be a kill-all. But how on earth can the Devs ever come up with a average benchmark for how long it takes a team to complete anything, and thus a fair number of Merits to award, when there is simply no way to calculate how many players are going to ghost the content?
IMHO the only way to balance things is based on accomplishment, not time.
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"
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On to the TFS .. I did the Katie Hannon TF last weekend and forget exactly how many merits it paid off but due to the constant speed TFs it has always spawned it wasn't much (I am almost sure THAT was 2 merits as well). Prior to that I'd completed the first story arc in Croatoa and got 7 merits (or maybe 8) for it. Yes I understand everyone stealths KHTF but in that FIRST mission you have to defeat Mary 10 times. That's 10 AVs that gradually get higher in level until your battling a 37 level AV by the 10th time. Somehow getting 2 merits for defeating 10 Arch villians just doesn't seem quite right when I can get 7 or 8 for a couple of hunts and a few door missions. Heck Dave Wincott's arc in the Hollows pays out 2 merits and its 4 missions long (2 hunts and 2 doors). Okay so Katie doesn't rate 40 or 50 merits like some of the longer TFs but for goodness sake ... 10 Arch Villians in one mission rates a little higher than 2! Can we do a bit of re-evaluating there as well please? LOL
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The Katie TF awards 7 merits and it can easily be done in 35 minutes. That award is right on target, based on their stated guidelines.
I agree Lusca is broken and some of the 'marquee' TFs are awarding too little.
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They either need to convert half of the av's to Ebs or add a 2 min delay between mary's. The only reason it is so fast is that they force feed you av's. The speed of the tf is dictated by the design. A 2 min delay would add 18 min base to the tf. all of a sudden your 40 min tf becomes 1 hour. I happen to like the fast paced respawn, tedium does not make for fun. Welcome to city of timeclock
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
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You are in a maze of twisty little passages
my problem with this whole thing is that the only way you can acheive pool c and pool d recipees REQUIRE the use of merits.(yes i know you can buy them at wents)
What i mean is no matter what some one HAS to use merits to create the supply. Thats alot of merits needed to get those recipees. Right now on alot of the new recipees for i13 the pool c and pool d recipees are going for lotg and miracle/numina prices or more. And even if you have the cash there are 0 available. This forces you to solo your own arcs or speed run tf to get those. Castles definition of farming was repeating content solely for the rewards. Obtaining pool c and d recipees now require farming.