Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
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Worse still, there are particular pieces of Salvage that are more heavily used that others, which leads to a further imbalance, as prices are driven upward for those pieces (Alchemical Silver comes immediately to mind, though there are others).
It'd be nice if there was some way of "substituting" Salvage for other Salvage types. Maybe a 2-to-1 ratio of Salvage of the same rarity (for example, take 2 of any Common Salvage, and turn it into 1 of a particular Salvage). That would help stabilize the market, and make pieces like Regenerating Flesh actually worth something...
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The biggest reason why high level salvage is worth less is due to farming producing a lot of common salvage. I find it curious why with tools like Ouro portals and the ability to turn off xp we haven't seen low and mid range salvage farms.
I do however like the idea of salvage substitutions.
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im not saying your wrong, but how come there are diff amounts of items for sell on diff servers. On justice I can buy just about anything i want if i have the inf, but go to like pinn and if im lucky some of the stuff is avalable? And if it is just one market across all servers then its much worse than i thought it was
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I really have no clue why different servers are giving you different amounts available. Lag in the WW / BM database. Bids filling in transition between servers reducing supply. Faulty methods of comparison. I really don't know which if any of these are the reason why different amounts appear available to you on different servers but there is only 1 market hero side and 1 market villains side. So theoretically if 12 different players on 12 different servers are all looking at the same item at exactly the same time the amount available should be the same barring lag in the WW / BM database.
*cough* the 4 Euro Servers are connected to the same market as well.
@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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No Im not telling everyone to get a clue just one 
fyi last time i will answer one of your posts
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Fine with me.
As for this:
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m not saying your wrong, but how come there are diff amounts of items for sell on diff servers. On justice I can buy just about anything i want if i have the inf, but go to like pinn and if im lucky some of the stuff is avalable?
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We can't explain the apparent discrepancy without further details. Perhaps you were checking at different times of day, items in different level ranges, or perhaps villain vs hero (the hero and villain markets are separate). Rest assured, though, all the server markets ARE connected.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
I just posted this on my SG's internal forum where we are having a discussion about merits, and what could be done to improve the system.
Here's what I think might improve the merit system and the availability of recipes in general:
1) The devs need to take a serious look at IOs/sets that are under-used and buff those sets by changing the IOs themselves and/or the set bonuses. Specifically they should give us a reason to want to use things like snipe sets, and some of the lower level IO sets.
2) They should divide Pool C into several smaller pools and give people more choices. Just as an example, maybe give people a choice of one of three types of random rolls: attack, buff, debuff/control sets. Now this might not be the best grouping because the "big three" would all be under "buff," but there should still be some kind of grouping to aid people in getting closer to what they want.
3) They need to add a merit reward screen that appears at the end of a task force or story arc. It should have the merits you earned for the task, your total merits, and a button you can press to use some of your merits for a random roll *right here and now*. I think part of the problem, as others have said, is the lack of visibility for random rolls in general and the fact that you have to go to a merit vendor, whereas in the past you could just click a button at the end of a TF.
QR
Part of the problem with the random roll thing (from my perspective) is that not all task forces/strike forces award enough to get one. I know what they were trying to kill by doing this, but not everyone was running quick Katies/Caps. This system has reduced mid level market supply as more people bunch their random rolls up at 50, and in the case of Pool D, obliterated it almost completely. I like what they were trying to accomplish with Merits, I really do, I think they just overpriced most everything. And having 125 merit yellow recipes, popular/unique or not, completely breaks their pricing mold.
mission completion should award merits.story arcs need to award at least 20, all recipes need to be for sale for merits, 5-10 yellow , 10-15 orange, 15-20 purp. my opinion. haters will be ignored.
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
I am not happy about the Black Market drying up with no real inventory. If Merits truely are to blame for that, then something needs to be done to breathe some more life back into the BM. The black market is a life saver for casual players like myself who almost never have time to run Strike Forces. Driving the prices up and the inventory down has pretty much ruined that for me.
If it wasn't for the brainstorm idea stash we have in our SGs, I'd never get a recipe made.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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mission completion should award merits.story arcs need to award at least 20, all recipes need to be for sale for merits, 5-10 yellow , 10-15 orange, 15-20 purp. my opinion. haters will be ignored.
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Can we disagree without being a "hater"? Story arcs to award at least 20 merits and purples to cost 15-20 merits? You know that's ludicrous, right?
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
add it to the list of ludicrous things in this game then
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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mission completion should award merits.story arcs need to award at least 20, all recipes need to be for sale for merits, 5-10 yellow , 10-15 orange, 15-20 purp. my opinion. haters will be ignored.
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Rational people are "haters" now? My head hurts. I agree prices should be lowered across the board, but not nearly as much as you suggest. They're not supposed to be instantly accessible to everyone, they're meant to be a time sink. I'm sorry, you can keep thinking your suggestions are good ideas, but you're just flat-out wrong.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
I was really just speaking about the US as I have no idea what is happening with the Euro servers. I should have made that clear.
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mission completion should award merits.story arcs need to award at least 20, all recipes need to be for sale for merits, 5-10 yellow , 10-15 orange, 15-20 purp. my opinion. haters will be ignored.
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Consider me as one of the haters cuz thats CRAZY.
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I was really just speaking about the US as I have no idea what is happening with the Euro servers. I should have made that clear.
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The EU servers use the same markets as the US servers do, I believe.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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I was really just speaking about the US as I have no idea what is happening with the Euro servers. I should have made that clear.
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The EU servers use the same markets as the US servers do, I believe.
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They do.
Duel me.
I will work on my sig pic more when I have time.
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mission completion should award merits.story arcs need to award at least 20, all recipes need to be for sale for merits, 5-10 yellow , 10-15 orange, 15-20 purp. my opinion. haters will be ignored.
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Here's my main issue: just how rare do the devs think IOs should be? Should a single character be able to "IO-out"? How many common/uncommon/rare/purple IOs should a person playing 20 hrs a month be able to get, and in what timeframe?
Let me pose a related question - what if they just made it so you could get that -kb/+regen/+recovery for completing a certain TF/SF? Would it be game breaking?
The devs need to accept that people will lean towards w/e gives the max reward for the minimum time investment, and if option A is made undesirable, they will find options B or C.
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Worse still, there are particular pieces of Salvage that are more heavily used that others, which leads to a further imbalance, as prices are driven upward for those pieces (Alchemical Silver comes immediately to mind, though there are others).
It'd be nice if there was some way of "substituting" Salvage for other Salvage types. Maybe a 2-to-1 ratio of Salvage of the same rarity (for example, take 2 of any Common Salvage, and turn it into 1 of a particular Salvage). That would help stabilize the market, and make pieces like Regenerating Flesh actually worth something...
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The biggest reason why high level salvage is worth less is due to farming producing a lot of common salvage. I find it curious why with tools like Ouro portals and the ability to turn off xp we haven't seen low and mid range salvage farms.
I do however like the idea of salvage substitutions.
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there are very few mid low level range farms because they will not have a chance to drop a purple recipee. that and the tools necessary to farming arent available at lower levels without alot more work and is definately not as fast. Most i see if dark astoria runs
the other big problem is if I only have a few hours to play , do i do a ITF or story arc? one give 3-6 merits and the other 20+, i nned 200 for a recipe(example) not really a tough choice, but after my 4th day of switchig between itf and lg , I start to get burnt out by the grind.hey i got a great idea instead of 1 day before DR kicks in make it 1 week,I am sure that will go over like a lead balloon.
Fluffy Bunny 1 Person SG
Rabid Bunny 1 Person VG
Both on Pinnacle
Hobbit's Hole 1 Person SG
Spider's Web 1 Person VG
Both on Freedom
No these low level farms will not drop purples but they will drop things like kinetic combat, gift of the ancients etc.... If these mid range recipes are as rare as people say and a demand exists for them you could see niche farming for them. Will it happen? I guess if demand reaches that level it well. if it doesn't reach critical mass enough to be profitable it won't catch on. I don't expect to be as prevalent as high level farming. I expect to see niche marketeers acting in fewer or smaller groups to get mid level recipes and salvage.
I have to agree the only time I do my story arcs is when I can't find A TF or I just can't bear to run another respec trial or ITF. I really wish Ouro gave a better merit ratio since it follows all the same restrictions as a taskforce except the team may be of any size.
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The biggest reason why high level salvage is worth less is due to farming producing a lot of common salvage. I find it curious why with tools like Ouro portals and the ability to turn off xp we haven't seen low and mid range salvage farms.
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farmers like efficiency.
high level farms are much more efficient than lower level farms.
on topic comment on the merit system:
As a gamer with severe time constraints, merits are a huge drag with literally no up-side.
Prior to merits pool C drops were readily available at Wentworths. Now, supply has been greatly reduced.
The answer "well, just grind merits" isn't helpful, because I don't have the time for TFs or the inclination to play the same 'efficient' Oro story arcs over and over.
I've been dragging my namesake villain to 50 since returning to the game after a hiatus, playing through the high level villain story arcs. Yesterday he finally earned enough merits for a random roll (Ghost Widow Proc- joke's on me).
The merit system as implemented rewards one behavior- grinding merits. I see this as an unhealthy direction to take for a game that has historically avoided the usual MMO metric of "grind X hours for reward Y".
I could deal with the gutting of pool C's on the market if there was some faint hope of earning enough merits to buy what I wanted, or even accumulate enough random rolls to give myself a reasonable shot at something good.
Oh well.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
You know, it's strange, but the introduction of merits to missions has actually taken away much of my enjoyment of the game. In fact, for the first time in 3 years of CoX, I've started checking out other MMOs.
I tried out WoW over the weekend (yeah, only now!) and found that it has many gameplay mechanics that make it superior to CoX. But the community sucks big time: there is a surprising number of illiterate griefers there. "Duel plz i let u win." (Do they actually ever successfully trick anyone with that line?) Combat's not much fun either. I got sick of the game in just two days.
I'm now downloading LotRO and will try it out as soon as the patching completes. It looks promising and I am likely to go Lifetime if I like it.
Anyway, back to CoH. As mentioned in an earlier post, I no longer play in teams since only the mish owner gets merits. Cooperative PvE, however, is the main draw of CoX for me. And I like RP-while-mishing too, but you'll appreciate it's silly to RP solo.
Another issue I have is that only story arcs award merits, making it painful for me to do a mish that is not part of an arc. I end up spending time searching for arcs to do rather than just enjoying whatever comes along. I wonder if I'm alone in this?
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Anyway, back to CoH. As mentioned in an earlier post, I no longer play in teams since only the mish owner gets merits. Cooperative PvE, however, is the main draw of CoX for me. And I like RP-while-mishing too, but you'll appreciate it's silly to RP solo.
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I agree totally. On mission teams anyone doing the arc should get the merits and they should be awarded at the end of each mission. Coop PVe is a strength of this game and thi measure hurts that strength.
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I'm now downloading LotRO and will try it out as soon as the patching completes. It looks promising and I am likely to go Lifetime if I like it.
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I did the same, in November.
My opinion (I'm not stating this for anyone except myself):
At the time the promise of the Merit System and the way it would be brought about instead (merits replacing end of TF recipes instead of being an option) and watching half my global friends list cancel their accounts depressed me enough to seriously look at another game since the first time since Everquest.
Watching all the chickens come home to roost (Super-speed TFs, PuGs that exist to get the mission holder's arcs done, empty PvP zones, unobtainable or extreme scarcity of recipes on the market, rising prices) is still depressing.
This is still my favorite game of all time, just not for PuGing anymore. The patch on Test is an improvement. More needs to be done.
Sidenote: The "speed LGTF" I was on this weekend (I didn't realize just how speedy) was as about as fun as eating dirty socks. I already knew run of the mill speed TFs weren't my cup of tea, this made me want to swear off the TF outside of my SG forever. The "speed ITF" isn't as bad because there are objectives that have to be achieved inside at least the first mission. Earlier TFs like Positron, Hess, Dr Q at least have some defeat alls or other objectives. However, by and large, except for a "no stealth" TF marathon I joined or TFs I have personally run, nearly every TF I've joined since I-13 has been "speed" and it sucks. Merits have turned this into "City of Farming" and it was alarmingly predictable.
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OMG! Are you saying the person telling us to get a clue doesn't know how the markets work??? Doom!
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No Im not telling everyone to get a clue just one
fyi last time i will answer one of your posts
Broomhilda BS/Regen/BM Scrapper, Fiddle Faddle Shield/ElecM/BM Tank,
And many others..
Dev's With all the Great new content, Please!! dont forget to fix the bugs with the old content. There is a storm a brewing because they are not getting fixed. If its a problem that no one is reporting them? Well Maybe you need to look at your tech support then..