Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
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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
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You mean like the Respec trials? Maybe when they get around to nerfing the merits on the respec trials and the ITF they can slow katie down so it is worth a whole 10 merits. Before Issue 13 whenever I did a Respec trial the team and I would sit in the reactor room comparing the long delays to Katie and how we wished the waves came in faster. I think this "city of timeclock" metric needs to examined. It seems like every task force and trial I like is in danger of being nerfed with the taskforces left to do become increasingly uninteresting and archaic yawnfests.
Master Gabriel
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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
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Yeah. That's the worst part of the merit system as it's currently done...it rewards tedium and grind. The Shard TFs and most of the original 7 TFs have desperately need revamping since I3 when Hess showed what a fun TF could be--and it involve "OK, we can stretch this out by making the players do the same [censored] thing three, four, or five times in a row, with long travel times and huge defeat-all maps". But now, fixing them would be a nerf to player rewards.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
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Yeah. That's the worst part of the merit system as it's currently done...it rewards tedium and grind. The Shard TFs and most of the original 7 TFs have desperately need revamping since I3 when Hess showed what a fun TF could be
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You nailed that one. Back in I4 when I went through Hess for the first time I was blown away compared to all of the previous taskforces. Hess for its time was fun fast paced and interactive. Then Katie Hannon came out and the worst complaint about it is that players thought it was so fun it should be longer. As much as I love IO sets I almost wish we could go back to the days where taskforces were done for fun and no one tried to punish you for doing the fun, fast, taskforces.
Master Gabriel
I13 Lots of really great ideas poorly implemented.
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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.
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You know the devs did exactly that with an existing system, influence. They evidently decided that they wanted a different system with TF's and trials for rewards, possibly because the influence system disproportionally awards damage dealers.
I'm not all that fond of the merit system as implemented (though I can work with/around it) but your proposed solution is potentially worse.
Quaterfield isn't a boring snoozefest because of the number of defeat alls. Most if the defeat alls are on small maps and go quite quickly. In my experience Dr. Q TFs take longer to travel to the mission locations than it takes to complete the missions themselves. The first third of the TF is defeat 50 of X mob around point Y missions.
If Dr. Q was in any zone other than the Shadow Shard it would take less than half the average time.
-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
Hi:
I know, this may souond a bit odd, but why have these crazy pool choices. Why not? just have "white", "yellow", "orange" and "purple" drops, one big pool where anything can drop.
So regardless of what you doing, TFs, Threads, Killing stuff in the streets, or what not you coulod actually get any recipe in the game; its a matter of luck to receive which color, and then another random luck for which of all the ones in that color you get.
I think if we simplify the drop pool system we have now by ridding ourselves of pools, lots of problems would get fixed rather quickly.
Also remove any artificial measures on acquiring drops, such as certain AVs gives you nothing for your effort. I feel things need to be normalized, thus any AV has a much higher chance to drop a purple tha any other mob would have. The table, suggested, would offer for each type of mob the percent chance to get any colored recipe:
............None.....White..Yellow..Orange..Purple
AV...........0........ 40......30.........20.........10
GM.........20........ 32......24.........16...........8
EB..........40........ 24......18.........12.......... 6
Boss.......60........ 16......12...........8.......... 4
LT..........80...........8........6...........4... ....... 2
Minion....90...........4........3...........2..... ..... 1
This change will increase the supply across all types of recipes to be available in the market, thus restoring the market volumes. Also the table above, gives meaning to addressing tougher mobs. I always felt it was dumb that killing a minion would yield more loot than an AV.
Hugs
Stormy
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I know, this may souond a bit odd, but why have these crazy pool choices. Why not? just have "white", "yellow", "orange" and "purple" drops, one big pool where anything can drop.
So regardless of what you doing, TFs, Threads, Killing stuff in the streets, or what not you coulod actually get any recipe in the game; its a matter of luck to receive which color, and then another random luck for which of all the ones in that color you get.
I think if we simplify the drop pool system we have now by ridding ourselves of pools, lots of problems would get fixed rather quickly.
Also remove any artificial measures on acquiring drops, such as certain AVs gives you nothing for your effort. I feel things need to be normalized, thus any AV has a much higher chance to drop a purple tha any other mob would have. The table, suggested, would offer for each type of mob the percent chance to get any colored recipe:
............None.....White..Yellow..Orange..Purple
AV...........0........ 40......30.........20.........10
GM.........20........ 32......24.........16...........8
EB..........40........ 24......18.........12.......... 6
Boss.......60........ 16......12...........8.......... 4
LT..........80...........8........6...........4... ....... 2
Minion....90...........4........3...........2..... ..... 1
This change will increase the supply across all types of recipes to be available in the market, thus restoring the market volumes. Also the table above, gives meaning to addressing tougher mobs. I always felt it was dumb that killing a minion would yield more loot than an AV.
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Hi Stormy,
In theory I like your idea since it allows everyone to play the way they want to play to achieve the rewards they want. we are still however comparing apples to oranges because it is not the rate of drop per classification that concerns me as much as the weight of drops within each classification. I mean on all of you characters on a server how many of them could not use a Numina's proc now compare that to how many could use a Call of the Sandmans chance for heal. Both of these are out of the rare drop pool but are obviously of two different values since so few toons proportionately can and do use the latter. yet in the current pool system and even in the mass pool you are proposing no consideration is given to the weight of recipes. In your pool system a farm team splattering demons now has a chance to get anything they want. Okay I guess that is good since it also means the guy running story arcs has a chance as well. but now that farm team or that guy running story arcs wants more Numinas, Call of the Sandmans, or interrupt recipes whatever it doesn't matter. To increase the production the players will have to grind more content and under an equal weight system such as we have now more waste recipes will be produced which flood the market and devalue specific use sellers such as call of the sandman. If the market could naturally correct itself by slackening production of specific recipes that are in over abundance the situation would correct itself. This correction is not possible under the current system since players have no choice in what they produce. The merit system was supposed to allow this but do to the spectacular overpricing of some recipes, the reduction in awards for some taskforces hero side and most villainside, and the stinginess of merit drops the problems have compounded. Now we have a famine of high weight recipes due to the lack of production which is causing prices to spike higher. low weight drops are still valueless, reducing the buying power of the character further. until their is a way to balance for weight of recipes the market and merits will be "Ebil"
to put this in real world application this is the same as a manufacturer upping production of a hundred products just because one product among a hundred is selling well. a lot of resources used to increase production is wasted producing unwanted goods. that situation was I12 farming now when we add I13 merits into the mix resources that were being used to keep everyone stocked in a desired good are rerouted to being able to pinpoint a desired good the market are now being horded. Shortage again.
Master Gabriel
Try buying some certain Positrons Blast and Sting of the Manticore IO's on the market right now. Both crafted and recipes are dry from lvl 35+.
My Archer is very sad.
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Try buying some certain Positrons Blast and Sting of the Manticore IO's on the market right now. Both crafted and recipes are dry from lvl 35+.
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I bet you can find plenty of glimpse of the abyss and malaise illusions though. My point exactly with merits allowing players to ignore the market and the market being inherently unbalanced under the current system shortages will increase in frequency and severity until something is done about the core problem with the market. The Players playing the market minigame need a way to target specific types of recipes to meet demand.
Master Gabriel
Issue 13 Lots of really great ideas poorly implemented.
Hi:
While its true that my proposal does not address the desirability of some recipes over another, at least it does allow for any recipe to drop, which at this time is not true for TFs and Trials no longer drop recipies but offer merit awards instead.
A possible suggestion would be to reclassy those obviously not useful rare ones such as Pacing of the Turthle, Trap of the Hunter, etc from "Orange" to yellow. Thus if my proposed drop system was to be used, then a higher use that a truly useful rare would be received.
Hugs
Stormy
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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.
[/ QUOTE ]Good idea but I see one problem with this. You go from ghosting optimize teams to steam rolling aoe devastation teams. Basically it would alienate the single target specialist like stalkers and energy blasters. My suggestion is to add some elite boss versions of some of the critters to the spawns similar to how it is on the ITF so the single target people will have something to do aside from slowing the team down. Just dont make them have some retarded level of smashing lethal resistance and it will work out fine.
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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The table, suggested, would offer for each type of mob the percent chance to get any colored recipe:
............None.....White..Yellow..Orange..Purple
AV...........0........ 40......30.........20.........10
GM.........20........ 32......24.........16...........8
EB..........40........ 24......18.........12.......... 6
Boss.......60........ 16......12...........8.......... 4
LT..........80...........8........6...........4... ....... 2
Minion....90...........4........3...........2..... ..... 1
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Do you have the mathematics of the spawn code that determines how many minion/lt/boss are in each mob based on the size of the team?
I keep trying to find that and it never seems to be documented anywhere.
I ask because whatever table you make, it needs to balance the same odds regardless of team size (ie: normalized to the spawn distribution formula).
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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
[/ QUOTE ]The problem isnt the first mission but the last 3 missions. They need to pad those out more. Like have the second mission kill all and the last mission take away katie's flying ability and damage, make her a regular hostage. Also make it where you have to save the other witches as well. Make it where you have to defeat x number of redcaps and then it spawns snaptooth as an av.
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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...
The table, suggested, would offer for each type of mob the percent chance to get any colored recipe:
............None.....White..Yellow..Orange..Purple
AV...........0........ 40......30.........20.........10
GM.........20........ 32......24.........16...........8
EB..........40........ 24......18.........12.......... 6
Boss.......60........ 16......12...........8.......... 4
LT..........80...........8........6...........4... ....... 2
Minion....90...........4........3...........2..... ..... 1
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Do you have the mathematics of the spawn code that determines how many minion/lt/boss are in each mob based on the size of the team?
I keep trying to find that and it never seems to be documented anywhere.
I ask because whatever table you make, it needs to balance the same odds regardless of team size (ie: normalized to the spawn distribution formula).
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As far as I can tell, all of you out there please feel free to educate me on this one, I believe that the chances of getting a recipe is calcualted individually for each player in the team, thus potentially all 8 members could get a purple drop from the very same mob. This is opposed to, the recipe is determined from the mob, and then randomly awarded to a member of the team.
As I said, I am not sure of the process the game is using. But my impression is the one all gets a chance up front.
With regards to the mix of bosses, lts, etc. I understand is based on both the level of complexity of the mission primarely and the number of players.
When solo, you have to go the third level of difficulty to see bosses, and fifth level to see EBs. The second and fourth is just an increase in numbers of spawns. Do note when you go from second to third level of difficulty, the level of monsters go up, but the numbers regress to same as you had in the first level. Also third and fifth levels of difficulties increases the level of mobs by 1 incrementally.
With numbers of players, I am not precisely certain; and varies from mission to mission. with 6 players an EB will become an Archvillain, but will remainan EB at 5. Maybe someone can publish the breakpoints for us.
But as per my suggestion, I did not take into account spawn rate of what levels, for they are not really of great consequence. All I was seeking a fixed percent chance to get a recipe regardles of what and how you fought. I was seeking the freedom to street hunt, do threads, TFs, and Trials and not be penalized by artificial limitations of what I could get.
In the words of Wallace in Braveheart.... FREEDOM!
Hugs
Stormy
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But as per my suggestion, I did not take into account spawn rate of what levels, for they are not really of great consequence. All I was seeking a fixed percent chance to get a recipe regardles of what and how you fought. I was seeking the freedom to street hunt, do threads, TFs, and Trials and not be penalized by artificial limitations of what I could get.
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Your table has a doubling of the chance from minion to Lt and Lt to boss.
Let me take some random spawn code and apply your chances to it:
solo - 1 minion, 1 lt => 4 + 8 % chances
2-character team = 2 minion, 1 lt => 4 + 4 + 8 % chances
3-character team = 1 minion, 1 boss -or- 3 minion, 1 lt => 4 + 16 or 4 + 4 + 4 + 8
So if the chance in your table is per teammate independently, you can see that clearing a mission spawned for 3 gives you a better chance of drops.
If the chance is per team as a whole, so you divide the duo chances by 2, divide the trio by 3, then you are going to get better drops as a soloist.
Either way, since the table of odds is not normalized against the spawn code, you have a very noticeable problem: you may not be telling players which content they should run to optimize their loot, but you'll end up telling them how many people they should have on a team! This is the very problem you argue against, just transitioned to a different game mechanic.
(though it's worth pointing out that the current drop rates don't resolve that problem, either. which is one reason I keep looking for hard numbers on the spawn algorithm to better illustrate that....)
(and without hard numbers of drops per mob so we can actually evaluate the recipe-generation system as a whole entity, I'm not sure this theoretical idea has much to do with the merit system itself.)
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...
The table, suggested, would offer for each type of mob the percent chance to get any colored recipe:
............None.....White..Yellow..Orange..Purple
AV...........0........ 40......30.........20.........10
GM.........20........ 32......24.........16...........8
EB..........40........ 24......18.........12.......... 6
Boss.......60........ 16......12...........8.......... 4
LT..........80...........8........6...........4... ....... 2
Minion....90...........4........3...........2..... ..... 1
[/ QUOTE ]
Do you have the mathematics of the spawn code that determines how many minion/lt/boss are in each mob based on the size of the team?
I keep trying to find that and it never seems to be documented anywhere.
I ask because whatever table you make, it needs to balance the same odds regardless of team size (ie: normalized to the spawn distribution formula).
[/ QUOTE ]
As far as I can tell, all of you out there please feel free to educate me on this one, I believe that the chances of getting a recipe is calcualted individually for each player in the team, thus potentially all 8 members could get a purple drop from the very same mob. This is opposed to, the recipe is determined from the mob, and then randomly awarded to a member of the team.
As I said, I am not sure of the process the game is using. But my impression is the one all gets a chance up front.
With regards to the mix of bosses, lts, etc. I understand is based on both the level of complexity of the mission primarely and the number of players.
When solo, you have to go the third level of difficulty to see bosses, and fifth level to see EBs. The second and fourth is just an increase in numbers of spawns. Do note when you go from second to third level of difficulty, the level of monsters go up, but the numbers regress to same as you had in the first level. Also third and fifth levels of difficulties increases the level of mobs by 1 incrementally.
With numbers of players, I am not precisely certain; and varies from mission to mission. with 6 players an EB will become an Archvillain, but will remainan EB at 5. Maybe someone can publish the breakpoints for us.
But as per my suggestion, I did not take into account spawn rate of what levels, for they are not really of great consequence. All I was seeking a fixed percent chance to get a recipe regardles of what and how you fought. I was seeking the freedom to street hunt, do threads, TFs, and Trials and not be penalized by artificial limitations of what I could get.
In the words of Wallace in Braveheart.... FREEDOM!
Hugs
Stormy
[/ QUOTE ]Only one person will get the drop unless its something like an AV or GM. It use to be that everyone got drops but it got to be very excessive and lead to you having to sell like every freaking mission so it was changed.
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!!!!
[ QUOTE ]
Hi:
While its true that my proposal does not address the desirability of some recipes over another, at least it does allow for any recipe to drop, which at this time is not true for TFs and Trials no longer drop recipies but offer merit awards instead.
A possible suggestion would be to reclassy those obviously not useful rare ones such as Pacing of the Turthle, Trap of the Hunter, etc from "Orange" to yellow. Thus if my proposed drop system was to be used, then a higher use that a truly useful rare would be received.
Hugs
Stormy
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Freedom is one thing Stormy, but deregulation is not freedom. If everything came down to a flat drop chance off of enemies then farming would be the most efficient way to get drops and drop rates would have to be adjusted around that high end abuse of the system. everything would come down to how to get the most chances the fastest. Unless taskforces gave a ridiculous number of drops there would be no reason to do one. Drops per critter should be the least effective way to get drops because they require no prep or investment. Story arcs and taskforces require a bit more investment and should be rewarded commensurately.
The reclassification of limited use recipes will help to bring down the price of good shinies since supply has increased. however by moving them to the uncommon pool prices for multipurpose uncommons would go up as supply is decreased due to the greater diffusion of drops over a wider pool. It also does nothing to make these other limited use recipes valuable as more of them would be dropping. I think your idea is better than the status quo in regard to this concern but can be improved upon.
Master Gabriel
I13 a lot of really great ideas implemented poorly
Mmm...
By having standard percent of a recipe drop per mob class, and have it were any recipe could be obtained; it gives the freedom to do anything you want and still have the opportunity to acquire it. Granted that since there are so many recipies the odds are againt you getting the very one you want, yet you do get a chance, which at this time you can't unless you do specific type of activities, and now with merits, there are pool choices you can't even get now outside of using merits.
So I still propose get rid of the multi-pool concept in favor of a single pool approach. Normalize the drops among mobs types, so there is a clear advantage of taking on tougher mobs, otherwise, folks would set missions to avoid AVs, EBs, Bosses for they are, at this time, not worth the effort for the meager reward they offer. By normalizing, then folks would have the freedom to set missions at any difficulty, enjoy the game in its many variations, with out the temptation to min/max.
Hugs
Stormy
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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
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You mean like the Respec trials? Maybe when they get around to nerfing the merits on the respec trials and the ITF they can slow katie down so it is worth a whole 10 merits. Before Issue 13 whenever I did a Respec trial the team and I would sit in the reactor room comparing the long delays to Katie and how we wished the waves came in faster. I think this "city of timeclock" metric needs to examined. It seems like every task force and trial I like is in danger of being nerfed with the taskforces left to do become increasingly uninteresting and archaic yawnfests.
Master Gabriel
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agreed. The devs have become fixated on rewards, forgetting there should be a little content to go along with reward management systems. They put loot in the game and touted it as conent. When the players pursue that "content", they suddenly consider that broken. Some people do TF's for the story, I have 15 50's, I have seen that storyline so many times I probably recite it in my sleep.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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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
[/ QUOTE ]The problem isnt the first mission but the last 3 missions. They need to pad those out more. Like have the second mission kill all and the last mission take away katie's flying ability and damage, make her a regular hostage. Also make it where you have to save the other witches as well. Make it where you have to defeat x number of redcaps and then it spawns snaptooth as an av.
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The difficulty of the tf is fine, it is just frontloaded. a tf like you are suggesting would be tedious and boring, not to mention worth at least 20 merits. AV's should give merits. If they go your way, they need to cut out 3 to 5 av's from mission 1 and cap them at lvl 35. Since you seem to see tf's as an excuse to slaughter everything in sight, not accomplish certain tasks.
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
i havent actually bought anything with reward merits yet. i'm just sort of hording them away until i'm sure i want to get something. I also haven't run many TF/SFs since issue 13 went live, so I don't have many to start with.
The one character i've been working on that has a lot of merits is one i've solo'd all the way to the mid-30's so far. I'm enjoying running mission arcs and collecting merits, but if i was to team at all, i would be missing a lot of content by leveling "too fast."
There are two issues i have with the merit system. The first one is the outrageous cost of the Blessing of the Zephyr Knockback Protection recipe when compared to the Karma and Steadfast Protection variants. I'd like to know what justifies the difference.
The other issue i have is that story arcs just don't give enough reward. I've been playing this toon nearly everyday for weeks and only have a little more than 100 merits, but if i was to take a couple hours a night and run task forces, i would easily match that in a week. It's a very skewed system.
Perhaps rewarding 3-5 merits every time you fill a contact/broker bar would make running missions a little more worth it. Yes, that includes running paper/radio missions with a team.
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There are two issues i have with the merit system. The first one is the outrageous cost of the Blessing of the Zephyr Knockback Protection recipe when compared to the Karma and Steadfast Protection variants. I'd like to know what justifies the difference.
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Blessing of the Zephyr knock back is more valuable because:
1. It is part of a Universal Travel set and therefore available to more powersets.
2. It is a rare set after all. Karma and Steadfast are uncommons and available from uncommon drops in the right level range and therefore easily farmable through Ouro or by turning off XP. Blesing is a pool C.
Hope that helps.
Master Gabriel
With the merit system, I find that the following things have improved in the games
1. More TFs and respecs are starting up and not just the higher level ones like LGTF and ITF. This gives toons of all levels a chance for a TF.
2. More are willing to help take down a GM. I remember the days when I had to beg for help with Babbage and no one would respond. Just recently, I rushed to 2 teams requesting for help only to find that whole crowds have gathered to take him out.
And Merits aren't all that bad. Because of merits, I have been able to get my first Numina's unique, after only a few weeks and 2 TFs and 1 respec, one of them benig Katie's.
This is not direct feedback on the merit system but just to mention the indirect benefits of the system.
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There are two issues i have with the merit system. The first one is the outrageous cost of the Blessing of the Zephyr Knockback Protection recipe when compared to the Karma and Steadfast Protection variants. I'd like to know what justifies the difference.
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Blessing of the Zephyr knock back is more valuable because:
1. It is part of a Universal Travel set and therefore available to more powersets.
2. It is a rare set after all. Karma and Steadfast are uncommons and available from uncommon drops in the right level range and therefore easily farmable through Ouro or by turning off XP. Blesing is a pool C.
Hope that helps.
Master Gabriel
[/ QUOTE ]Even still I dont think it justfies the cost merit wise for this enhancement. I could see if it worked the same as the stealth enhancements where they work regardless of the level so long as you have the power but with these if you go more than 3 levels it cuts off. That in itself greatly reduces overall value to a lvl 50 who the merit system is mainly targeted for.
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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Blessing of the Zephyr knock back is more valuable because:
1. It is part of a Universal Travel set and therefore available to more powersets.
2. It is a rare set after all. Karma and Steadfast are uncommons and available from uncommon drops in the right level range and therefore easily farmable through Ouro or by turning off XP. Blesing is a pool C.
Hope that helps.
Master Gabriel
Even still I don't think it justifies the cost merit wise for this enhancement. I could see if it worked the same as the stealth enhancements where they work regardless of the level so long as you have the power but with these if you go more than 3 levels it cuts off. That in itself greatly reduces overall value to a lvl 50 who the merit system is mainly targeted for.
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There are a lot of rare recipes whose cost in merits far outweighs their usefulness across AT. Many of those recipes are far less valuable than Blessing of the Zephyr. I can agree that all of the rare recipes that are over priced simply for being rare should be reevaluated. I am not sure that the Merit system is meant to be utilized only by level 50's I think the merit system just has its greatest advantage to level 50's who can outfit themselves via merits in an endgame fashion.
Master Gabriel
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1) Rework the TFs/SFs ...
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you can probably stop right there. the devs have never seemed willing to rework TFs no matter what logical reasons are presented. Look at how long people have been intentionally failing the third LGTF mission and they've not done anything to improve that, let alone "fix" it.
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2) Reward Merits based on the number of foes defeated in the TF.
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That sounds like it would lead to a lot of fussing over what the plan is for a TF.
"No, keep killing inside this mission, I need more merits" vs "can we just move on with this? I'd like to wrap up the rest of this TF before bedtime."
TF rewards should remain fixed on a specific goal, not nitpicked based on individual behavior.
That said, they could add bonus rewards for missions that have multiple options. Maybe the fix to that LGTF mission is to award a merit if it's completed, and no merits if its failed.