Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
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THIS
As a player who's play style has never included running lots of TF/SF I have pretty much always relied on the market as my primary source of IOs. And that source appears to be drying up. We probably won't know the full impacts and where the new equilibriums lie for quite some time, but the current trends indicate a heck of a lot of hoarding going on - which is never good for any economy.
I think that part of the problem is the sheer complexity of the current system. How is the average player supposed to know what all those drop pools and level ranges mean when it comes to what they can expect to get? Better to just hold on to the merits and buy exactly what they want. The pool system might have kind of maybe made sense when it was a random reward at the end of a TF. For the current system is makes no sense whatsoever and just adds to the confusion and lack of immersion.
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This is something that I have said before, we the common players are all hording our merits to buy the shiney that we really want. I have looked at the merit system several times and I still don't get it, I even did a random roll once choosing the area below 45 for TF drops and it still have me a level 50! This tells me that I have no idea how the confounded thing works and I'm better off saving up to buy exactly what I want.
The real problem at this point is the market is so low that I cannot even begin to put sets on my new characters without farming!
So now I spend all my time running the same map over and over again with our 4 accounts logged in just looking for drops! I log all of my toons off in the O portal just to hopefully increase the chance to get better drops. I don't team with anyone other than SG members as It pisses me off when I have been farming for hours for drops someone new joins and 2 groups in they get a purple.
We made several new toons and used the pack system and continually put them in when we farm just to get them levels.
So now I have officially become a farmer because the merit system totally messed up the market! I have even used the secondary build on toons to make them just for running quicker TF's to get the merits and have been ignoring toons that need the badge as I want to build up and many merits as I can on those few toons!
You know, honestly WOW may be slow moving but what makes it fun for me is the loot, finding better and better items is way more fun than just grinding the same content over and over just to get the merits to buy the item!
Please I beg you give us our random drop option at the end of he TF, Hell The Respec TF sucks now if you ghave already done the thing and cant take the respec. I would rather get the random drop at the end than the merits and why the hell is the Eden trial worth so little!! Again I ask can we please have Mary back as a reward even though we have gotten her before!! Or make her a permanent temp that you can pull out every 30 min! Its bullcrap that when I do that TF more than once I no longer get her as a reward.
Stop sucking all the fun out of the game!!!
I like both systems, I think though that the drop at the end of the TF needs to be brought back, because sometimes I go through TF's and only get one or two drops, and having a decent drop at the end makes it all worth it, as far as the merits go, I like them because it's added incentive to make me want to repeat tasks that I already have done, which in turn helps replay value to me, I would like to see both in place.
"You aren't the sharpest tool in the shed, but you are a tool nonetheless."-American Demon.
The irony is that the merit system has basically strengthened all of those activities it set forth to fix in the first place.
There are 25 new IOs from I13 that are TF pool drops. (Per the Wiki.)
That means 25 pieces that can only be earned via the Merit store. I could gather data for other TF drop recipes, but it may include pieces generated before I13, so it may not be an accurate reflection of the Merit Vendor's usage.
I will ignore price for the moment. So no debate if a recipe is "purchasable". I don't care if someone listed one at 1 million or 300 million, I'm looking at what got listed.
This is the current market status of those 25 new recipes.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>None - Eradication Acc/Dam/Rech/End
None - Eradication Chance for Damage
One 50 - Obliteration Acc/Dam/Rech/End
One 50, One 34 - Obliteration Chance for Damage
None - Call to Arms End/Dam/Rech
None - Call to Arms Defense Aura
One 50, One 35 - Expedient Reinforcement End/Dam/Rech
Six 50 - Expedient Reinforcement Resist Aura
None - Thief of Essence Acc/End/Rech
None - Thief of Essence Chance for +End
None - Touch of the Nictus Acc/End/Rech
One 41, three 47, one 49, twenty 50 - Touch of the Nictus Chance for Damage
One 30 - Basilisk's Gaze Acc/End/Rech/Hold
None - Basilisk's Gaze Chance for -Rech
One each 43, 47, 48, 49, Three 50 - Lockdown Acc/End/Rech/Hold
One 40 and 45, Fifteen 50 - Lockdown Chance for Hold
None - Shield Breaker Acc/End/Rech
None - Shield Breaker Chance for Damage
One 38, four 50 Analyze Weakness Acc/End/Rech
One 36, one 49, nine 50 - Analyze Weakness Chance for ToHit
None - Cloud Senses Acc/End/Rech
None - Cloud Senses Chance for Damage
One each 32, 34, 41, Eleven 50 - Siphon Insight Acc/End/Rech
One each 35, 38, 45, 47, 49, Fifteen 50 - Siphon Insight Chance for ToHit
One 50 - Blessing of the Zephyr KB Protection
</pre><hr />
so of the 25 new pieces,
12 can't be found at all.
4 can't be found below their maximum level. If you're a level 40 and want an Obliteration A/D/R/E, will it be faster to wait for a low one on the market, or faster to hit level 47?
For the 9 that do show up below their max level, there are a total of 24 listings, compared to 79 listings at level 50. Unless someone wants to make a claim the market is endgame content, this is imbalanced.
Clearly, the Merit Vendor is not producing a sufficient supply of these new recipes.
That is objective feedback, any player can see the lack of market supply.
My opinion on how best to fix that: restore drops at the end of a TF, in addition to Merits, but have TFs drop at the content level not the character level. So Cap farmers generate 20, Shark gives 30, LGTF is "special" since it can give 50s.
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Clearly, the Merit Vendor is not producing a sufficient supply of these new recipes.
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The "problem" is that the newly created difficulty in getting the right sets may be "working as intended".
@Mindshadow
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Clearly, the Merit Vendor is not producing a sufficient supply of these new recipes.
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The "problem" is that the newly created difficulty in getting the right sets may be "working as intended".
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Are you saying it's balance that Shield Breaker's Chance for Damage is so much more rare than Lady Grey's? Does this balance carry thru to the effects of that IO? Does the less abundant, more expensive one do more damage?
Why design something no one can get? Didn't they just gut the entire long-term aspects of base buidling in order to make everything easily accessible??
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Clearly, the Merit Vendor is not producing a sufficient supply of these new recipes.
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The "problem" is that the newly created difficulty in getting the right sets may be "working as intended".
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Are you saying it's balance that Shield Breaker's Chance for Damage is so much more rare than Lady Grey's? Does this balance carry thru to the effects of that IO? Does the less abundant, more expensive one do more damage?
Why design something no one can get? Didn't they just gut the entire long-term aspects of base building in order to make everything easily accessible??
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I'm just saying that Pool C recipe availability may have been higher than intended. Wether that makes sense or not is beside the point; there are a lot of things in this game that don't necessarily make sense. The fact that you may now have to do dozens of regular length TFs to get your shinies may be an intended 'feature'.
@Mindshadow
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I'm just saying that Pool C recipe availability may have been higher than intended. Wether that makes sense or not is beside the point; there are a lot of things in this game that don't necessarily make sense. The fact that you may now have to do dozens of regular length TFs to get your shinies may be an intended 'feature'.
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It maybe be working as intended, but if so it's a lousy feature. I'm not doing dozens of task forces per character to get the recipes I need, i would rather play another game with sufficient loot drops appropriate to character level. And yes, such games do exist. I play one now.
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Mad - go back and look at the last 5 sales for each of those.
Just because there isn't inventory at the second you looked, doesn't mean there are not sales passing through.
I know for a fact I have bought and sold some of those at non-50 levels
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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The irony is that the merit system has basically strengthened all of those activities it set forth to fix in the first place.
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Could you explain what these are? Cause I'm confused as since I13 hit I have a harder time finding teams and unless I spend huge hours running TF's I can't get the drops that I want.
In effect most of our SG has lost interest in the game! We used to play 20+ hours a week now we play less than 8! I spend more time on other games and watching TV then I do on COH and when I do get on COH the only thing we generally do is PL. Heck we just setup a bunch of Packs just to PL toons to 50 this weekend but still we have no real interest in playing the game other than leveling the characters!
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Cause I'm confused as since I13 hit I have a harder time finding teams and unless I spend huge hours running TF's I can't get the drops that I want.
In effect most of our SG has lost interest in the game!
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You can't find a team even among your SG? Burnout happens, but I don't see the causality between this and the introduction of merits.
Traditional mission-based PL is even less efficient in terms of getting what you want than before. You'll get to 50 all right, but with no merits.
@Mindshadow
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You can't find a team even among your SG? Burnout happens, but I don't see the causality between this and the introduction of merits.
Traditional mission-based PL is even less efficient in terms of getting what you want than before. You'll get to 50 all right, but with no merits.
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You got it wrong we team all the time, we even do TF's once or twice a week. The issue is that we were happy with the way the old system worked! We had fun running a Synaps or Numina then running a quick Katie after. When the shiny became more like a Job then a what did you get at the end of the TF it just sucked the life out of us! I have 4 toons that have anywhere from 50 to 200 merits on them right now so its not like we don't run TF's we just don't get excited about them like we used to.
You know when I think about it the only thing I like about the merit system is the ability to eventually buy what I want. The reality is that that most of he people I know that have been playing this game since the begging were more disappointed with this release then any other change in the game as all it did was create a secondary monetary system and made the game more like a job than a fun time
I also should not have to run solo content to get merits! This just spits in the face of every player that has been here more than a year as many many changes were made over the years in the name of Team playing and the want of the Devs to force teaming on the masses.
Warning: possible TLDR material.
Not sure what type of opinion I'm giving here XD it's best for me not to guess.
I feel that Merits are a good idea. However I do feel that they should be able to be given to your other characters on the same server and only the same side (hero to hero / villain to villain) and not givable to other people at all. I do not think it is a good idea to make it global account based as it will mess up hero/villain side merit gaining. If kept hero to hero and villain to villain I don't think it'd be a problem but it sounds like it'd be overly hard to code. Maybe sometime in the future this could be implemented but it is not the biggest concern I have about them.
In fact, my concern is actually about costs.
I do hope that through monitoring what people are buying, that some of the merit items could get severely lowered or removed completely
The basic IO recipes for damage and accuacy, etc. This I feel is a waste of data as one would not want to spend their long time earned merits just to get a IO recipe that can be bought from a workbench. Reducing the cost to 1 or 2 MIGHT be worth it if you were given the actual IO enhancement, although I vote to remove it completely.
SOs: I feel the same way about the IOs although I think completely removing them would be 100% better than lowering their cost.
Random Rare Salvage roll for 20-30 merits: Way too expensive. It is more worth rolling a random 20-30 recipe. Based on playing the game, players find more rare salvage than I have worthwhile rare recipes. This is obvious because of the market having a lot of rare salvage for sale. Which can run for several million. But certain rare recipe procs can net 50+ millions. And this is also obvious because playing the game I have found a lot more worthy rare salvage than I have ever found worthy rare recipes. I would say even at its current cost, choosing which exact salvage you want, to me, would still not be worth it. I would suggest the random roll to go for around 3-5 merits. Which sounds low... but since you only get a few merits per arc AND there is a decent chance you would probably wind up with that expensive rare salvage you need, the low cost for this wouldn't seem broken at all.
Level should affect cost for non-proc IO recipes: This has been stated on the boards before so I won't go over it again.
Some IO set recipes just plain out need lowered: For instance. The highest merit reward recipe I saw was a sniper shot one at around 275. I'm taking a wild guess here, but I would say that If I had that many merits I'd be going for one of the big proc IOs that go for 50million+ that costs less merits. Like Miracle +recovery for 220.
Also some of the more useless sets should be lowered appropriately as well unless they are planning on being adjusted to actually be equally worth the other sets.
Now on a good note: I feel that merits should be slightly increased in some manner. Not dramatically of course, but just by a little bit. Yes doing TFs over and over every couple days would be a good grind to get them. I say to leave those alone. Giant Monsters? Yes 2 is fair as well I think. But a good bit of regular story arcs I think they ought to be boosted by one or two. For instance: lower exp enemy arcs like straight council missions.
That's the end of my two cents XD. I apologize if I said anything that was overly repeated here.
ANY sort of merit sharing just went out the window with adding merits to the veteran rewards. And once that goes live there is no going back, as they won't even try to bear the outrage for reversing THAT decision.
them recipes need to be around 5 merits, not 50-545i4594564954y65i45456469598. as a lowbie u can run thru a story arc on lowest diff and get what...2 merits? thats not worth the time. make it so its worth the time. make it cook breakfast.
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
Only really awesome things cook breakfast. make the merit system that awesome and it would fix alot of problems. dont like farming? make things more obtainable and there wont be any need for farming. make it so 50's can purp out themselves without the need of teams. make it so that the lowbies can get tricked out at a low lvl. make it as awesome as something that would cook breakfast. im hawngry.
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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The basic IO recipes for damage and accuacy, etc. This I feel is a waste of data as one would not want to spend their long time earned merits just to get a IO recipe that can be bought from a workbench. Reducing the cost to 1 or 2 MIGHT be worth it if you were given the actual IO enhancement, although I vote to remove it completely.
SOs: I feel the same way about the IOs although I think completely removing them would be 100% better than lowering their cost.
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I believe the idea here is that players not interested either in sets (in the first case) or in IOs at all (in the second) will still get something out of the merit system.
However, you are right that all these options clutter up the interface and would more sensibly be compressed into a single "convert merits to influence/infamy" option.
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Only really awesome things cook breakfast. make the merit system that awesome and it would fix alot of problems. dont like farming? make things more obtainable and there wont be any need for farming. make it so 50's can purp out themselves without the need of teams. make it so that the lowbies can get tricked out at a low lvl. make it as awesome as something that would cook breakfast. im hawngry.
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Subjective: Face it its become City of Farming more and more. With the addition of the merit system which I thought I would like my ability to particpate in the Invention system has been severly reduced. I have run a few new characters through what I would call a fairly normal leveling progress. Focusing on doing Arc's for rewards and have concluded I should have my first randon TF roll in the early 20's.
Due to the time of night I normally play and for how long I usually do not get on TF/SF teams. Which cuts my options way off. I either play the current alt I have been leveling or I farm. I cannot play the character I want to level and expect to earn enough merit to be useful.
While my SG has figured out how to make a merit a minute it requires playing the same character over and over and over doing the same thing over and over and over.
While I had hoped to use this system to get the few recipes I could not get in the Red side market (that one Kinetic combat or Imperium Armor) due to lack of sales. I now realise I cannot compete and it will take a lot of careful farming to get the few things I really want on one or two characters. The time sink for me at least doubled.
While I can figure out ways to get Merits to get the few hard to find items it takes the fun right out of it for me.
Pinnacle
Arch light L50 INV/SS
Psiberia L50 Kin/Psi
Screaming Mentallica L50 Sonic/MM
Infinity
Arc Voltinator L50 SS/Elec
Mind Fire Kinesis L50 Fire/Kin
Flaming Screamer L50 Fire/Sonic
From what I have seen post I13, is that there are less Strike Forces and Co-Op Task Forces going on these days. I miss the days of nearly daily ITF's. Less SF's means less merits...
Now I want to get merits. I really do. But I hate grinding out flashback missions over and over again for a relatively small amount of merits ---> compared to the cost of recipes that I want. I only play about 1 to 2, maybe 3 hours a night, at a rate of maybe 5 nights a week. It takes nearly a month to get ONE freaking recipe. Not to mention the addition getting the salvage which has become ridiculously overpriced on the black market. So far I say the Merit system is a bust, and needs refinement.
Either the cost of the recipes and random rolls as to be cut. Like 75% OR increase the amount of merits we get in story arcs and strike forces. It is such an utter grind that takes the enjoyment out of this game... It's too daunting getting 1000+ merits for one rare IO set.
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From what I have seen post I13, is that there are less Strike Forces and Co-Op Task Forces going on these days. I miss the days of nearly daily ITF's. Less SF's means less merits...
Now I want to get merits. I really do. But I hate grinding out flashback missions over and over again for a relatively small amount of merits ---> compared to the cost of recipes that I want. I only play about 1 to 2, maybe 3 hours a night, at a rate of maybe 5 nights a week. It takes nearly a month to get ONE freaking recipe. Not to mention the addition getting the salvage which has become ridiculously overpriced on the black market. So far I say the Merit system is a bust, and needs refinement.
Either the cost of the recipes and random rolls as to be cut. Like 75% OR increase the amount of merits we get in story arcs and strike forces. It is such an utter grind that takes the enjoyment out of this game... It's too daunting getting 1000+ merits for one rare IO set.
[/ QUOTE ]I'd rather specific recipes cost half the current amount, and fully crafted ones only cost 125 or so merits. For some people, that's longer than usual, for other's it's much quicker.
Global - @Proton Sentinel
Jack Devon Crab Spider VEAT; Virtue
Mordigen Earth/Storm on Liberty and Virtue
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50s: Zul Vakirol Thugs/Poison; Virtue. Kiyujin Katana/SR
I don't think any recipe should be more than 100 merits. I should mention, I only play redside and it's hard and very boring getting merits. I can see certain proc' or enhancements that offer set bonuses (LoTG for example) that obviously should be alot, but c'mon 200?, 250?!?
What I think it should be, [u]based on the merits redside.[u]
1) Common IO set recipes 25 each.
2) Rare IO set recipes 50 each.
3) Proc's and other uniques 75 to 100 each.
And give us an option to select a specific salvage piece we want instead of random rolls.
I like incentives to complete story arcs or defeating important characters.
Since badges seem to be attached to those criteria rather randomly, I appreciate merits.
The Merit Vendors though... they are spamming. I mean it.
(Given the IO recipes cost in the hundreds of merits, it will take you how long until you need to go to one of them? There wont be more turning in of merits than turning in of candy canes during the winter event, and for that one single guy is sufficient too.
Now its OK to rub it into players faces while the feature is new, but in the long run, I think the streets can go with half the abundance of merit-vendors easily, given how rarely you need one.)
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Hi:
I hear a lot of complaints about how long it takes to gain merit awards, and truly it is not that bad.
Considering that the best IO recipe cost 250 Merits, how long does it really take to get, if one is smart.
There are three different leveled re-speccs, each awards about 25 merits a piece and can be done within an hour (with a good group). Also Manticore awards about 25 Merits and can be done in an hour. So if you do these 4 TFs you get 100 merits, in just 4 hours, yuo can repeat this for the next two days and end up with 300 Merits!, that is 300 merits in 12 hours of play, that is not really bad, whn you think of it.
But I see a lot of pro market folks, slamming the merit system, do they have a conflict of interests? You bet they do.
Lets explore a Miracle +Recovery level 20, 250 award merits (10 hours of TF work) or 60 Million influence at the Market.
Lets see here, a good farm team can harvest 1 Million an hour, in general, Oh my did I say Farm? So at this increased level of earning versus doing threads, TFS, and zone hunting, it would take 60 hours to save the 60M influence. Frankly I take the 10 hours over the 60 hours hands down.
Hugs
Stormfront
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Your 1 million an hour is way low.
Farmers are asking for 2-4 million blue side for perma 46 farms. During x2XP weekend that number doubled.
The invent of level pact and perma 46 have pushed the numbers way up.
So if Farmer A has 3 perma 46 thats about 10 million a run (1 for the 50 3 on average for each 46); 4 runs an hour so 40 mill + drops. Lot easier to to earn inf than merits.
I hate the merit system...there are fewer sfs on villains so we have to do the same ones over and over, gets boring and no recipe drops has destroyed the market...it is next to impossible to find recipes on the market these days, even if you can afford them, they just simply are not available. Makes it very discouraging for me 
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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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THIS
As a player who's play style has never included running lots of TF/SF I have pretty much always relied on the market as my primary source of IOs. And that source appears to be drying up. We probably won't know the full impacts and where the new equilibriums lie for quite some time, but the current trends indicate a heck of a lot of hoarding going on - which is never good for any economy.
I think that part of the problem is the sheer complexity of the current system. How is the average player supposed to know what all those drop pools and level ranges mean when it comes to what they can expect to get? Better to just hold on to the merits and buy exactly what they want. The pool system might have kind of maybe made sense when it was a random reward at the end of a TF. For the current system is makes no sense whatsoever and just adds to the confusion and lack of immersion.