Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
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I don't really have much objective feedback.
Subjectively, I have lots to say, but I think I'll focus on something not many people have discussed.
Merits as presented in the game feel horribly "artificial". A "reward merit" is an awful, generic-feeling name in my opinion. I could stand that, indeed it might not even have dawned on me, except for "Merit Vendors". That is a really deeply immersion-breaking name and concept.
Whatever people think of merits functionally, I think there was a missed opportunity here to integrate them better into the ongoing theme of the game. For example, when Inventions were presented, there was a significant "roleplay" presentation by Dr. Brainstorm, describing the system in terms related to the powers origins system, and indeed to the AT/powerset system. Not everyone may have thought this was the best fictional effort, but at least it was an effort made. In contrast merits feel "cold".
Perhaps ironically, I think "brainstorms" would have been a great name for merits. Instead of being some bling that you get for doing stuff, they could have been presented as a sudden inspiration in figuring out how to create a recipie from scratch instead of just seemingly finding it on a foe or at the end of an adventure (mission/TF/SF/Trial).
Finally, I will touch subjectively on something mechanical about the system. I think the implementation you guys are using for figuring out how many merits content should be worth is terrible. Ultimately it focuses overly on how your powergamers are running the content and leaves the less-frequent players and less power-gaming-oriented with reduced reward. There are going to be flaws in any system of flat reward per content, because you're never going to be able to tweak it right for all comers. I'll just say that I think you need to come up with something more dynamic on how you reward content completion.
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These are very good points. I agree that "brainstorm" would have made a lot more sense and perhaps something like that (training? learning? elite experience?) would make the system more integrated. Seeing a merit vendor gives off a "this is a beta version system" vibe.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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One last thing for the love of gawd please reduce the diminishing returns timer down to 20 hour or even 22 hours. I am having all kinds of hell trying to remember what time I finished which tf with what character. It would just be better if If I could do it around the same time and not have to know the exact time.
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Yeah, seriously. Can we get some movement on this? Particularly since, in his first Q&A thread, Synapse said:
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Were aware of the issue and why this would be important to players. Well be looking at this and well try and find a fair solution in the near future. Reducing the timer to 18-20 hours does not sound unreasonable.
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I find there is an extremely disparaging difference in the way coh merit rewards were calculated compared to cov merit rewards. If the developers had offered some sort of overall cap there would not be any real problem, but I have noticed a drop in villainside gameplay availability (as in people willing to join or create a SF. even ITF.) because of the methods used to distribute merit rewards.
The highest villain merit reward is a Hamidon raid which rewards 40 merits. That aside the next highest choices are the Pirates of the Sky strike force from Silver Mantis for 35 merits or a co-op LGTF in RWZ.
Compare this to the 6 (!) 40+ merit reward TF which are purely heroside. Please use some perspective and put yourself in the shoes of an average player, devs. There is currently a 'bug' where diminishing returns are applied across all TF. Perhaps a more enthusastic player will pull off 3 TF in one day (or one Dr. Q) would you choose a paltry 25 or 35 merit TF in a coop zone or would you choose one of the 6 (!) strictly heroside TF that offer 40+ merits?
Do I think the heroside TF should be nerfed? No. I think villainside SF should be boosted to match the disparity or at the very minimum the co-op zones. If I only did one TF per day I know I wouldn't be wasting my time for 35 merits when I could get 50.
The mathematical system which the developers used to calculate time spent per TF created an end result which ignored a logical outcome. People will flock to where the merits are.
Is this thing of diminishing returns being applied accross different TFs intermittent or only applies to certain levels or other kinds of characters? I haven't run into it.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I was referring to this bug:
http://boards.cityofvillains.com/sho...age=0&vc=1
I understand, but I'm saying I haven't hit it, and I've run all kinds of different stuff on the same characters in succession and not had that happen.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
To the best of my knowledge, this "diminishing returns bug" seems limited to Positron---> Synapse. We know folks have run Synapse for full merits. I ran Positron and Synapse with in 12 hours and only got half my Synapse Merits. Despite running 10 TFs over the course of that weekend, it's the only time it occurred. I have not seen or heard anyone running a different TF (not Positron) and then encounter the problem with Synapse.
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Ex:
When a Cap SF is completed, how come the normal allotted amount of merits isnt even enough to purchase a reward from the Merit Vendor, when in the past completing such a task would at least reward the player with a recipe at the end? It would take 2 Cap SF runs to equal the purchasing power at a Merit Vendor. This is clearly NOT a selling point at all.
Secondly, I would point out that since you (and by 'you' i mean the development staff in general) have turned off the ability to execute 'quick' Cap(s) or Katies, the amount of chatter on coalition chats has been reduced to a trickle (and that is being generous). The quick Cap/Katies were great for getting coalitions active and talkative and fostering at least a sense of community. Sadly, that has appeared to have gone to the wayside.
Death by a thousand cuts is what i call the past two release issues.
Has anyone pointed out that this kills all reason to team except for TF's! When I'm doing story arcs its easier to do them alone, less guys = less time spent to get to the merit at the end of the arc.
I think its really funny that not long ago we were told that you would not fix content like the sewer trial as it was old end of game content and TF's were never meant to be the main content of the game. Well now here we are and TF's are the only content that really gives merits which we need to get the shiny stuff we so crave.
So not only dose this new setup promote one type of team playing (tf") but it also promotes solo play for story arcs and forces people to play on the same toon all the time as to get the bigger shiny stuff you need more merits and they are not transferable.
This setup needs some serious thought and I have to also agree that a good part of the fun many of our sg used to have was just doing a quick katie after a longer tf, now none of us seem to even care we just solo until we have the 6 hours to put in for the 90 merit TF.
Hell my wife and I used to play together all the time, now we are continually running solo just to get merits!
I say give us back the option for the random recipe but still allow us to take merits if we prefer. This will bring the fun back into teaming.
I don't have any use for the merit system it just seems like an odd add on . I don't do Trials or task forces or Strike forces . I do like fighting Giant Monsters but some of them seem hardly worth the effort reward wise. so for me the merit sytem is just flat.
You will find the devs answered a simular question to your first one over here.
Answers to Merrit system.
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Q: What is the intent and purpose of the merit system? Originally it seemed intended to be an alternate, additional, avenue for those who did not wish to use the market, or for a deterministic way to get a recipe you wanted. Now it seems like it's replacing the current system instead of adding onto it.
A: The basic intent for the Merit Reward system is to more accurately reward players for their time invested doing missions. Ultimately, what it came down to is that not all Task Forces and Strike Forces were created equal. Some take 30 minutes, some can take upwards of 10 hours. The fact that all of these Task Forces had been granting the same reward made us realize we needed to incorporate time into the reward equation. That's essentially where Merits came in.
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When a Cap SF is completed, how come the normal allotted amount of merits isnt even enough to purchase a reward from the Merit Vendor, when in the past completing such a task would at least reward the player with a recipe at the end? It would take 2 Cap SF runs to equal the purchasing power at a Merit Vendor. This is clearly NOT a selling point at all.
Secondly, I would point out that since you (and by 'you' i mean the development staff in general) have turned off the ability to execute 'quick' Cap(s) or Katies, the amount of chatter on coalition chats has been reduced to a trickle (and that is being generous). The quick Cap/Katies were great for getting coalitions active and talkative and fostering at least a sense of community. Sadly, that has appeared to have gone to the wayside.
Death by a thousand cuts is what i call the past two release issues.
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HP Lovecat
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To the best of my knowledge, this "diminishing returns bug" seems limited to Positron---> Synapse. We know folks have run Synapse for full merits. I ran Positron and Synapse with in 12 hours and only got half my Synapse Merits. Despite running 10 TFs over the course of that weekend, it's the only time it occurred. I have not seen or heard anyone running a different TF (not Positron) and then encounter the problem with Synapse.
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I'd like to point out that even though this is an acknowledged and reproducible bug in the game, if you get hit with it and are ganked out of half your merit award for the Synapse TF, as I was today, you are screwed. Petitions to be reimbursed for your earned merits will be denied. Basically the devs have admitted their fault, knew about it before-hand, pushed it live, and, when people get hit by the bug, they shrug their shoulders and say "Tough Luck." The devs seriously dropped the ball on this by not building a back-door mechanic into the system for correcting wrong merit awards.
Merit Feedback
(Objective)
<ul type="square"> [*] The 24 hour timer on TF, Trial, etc. - I understand the reason for it. You obviously don't want people doing the same thing every day, farmer or no. You apparently want people to vary up their content. Understandable, but if this is what you're going to do, then I would suggest a UI improvement. Other games (which have even more draconian lockout timers) give you an indication that you're locked out of a particular instance and for how long. We need that here. Just some UI indication of what's going on.
[*] Pool C and D - There is no longer anything other than an artificial differentiation among these pools. Trials and TFs both give merits. It is confusing for people who were not frequent market watchers to even know what is in each pool. To correct this I would suggest that you:
1) Create one random drop pool that cost 20 merits to roll. Yes, this screws people on Pool D, see below.
2) Add information to the Merit vendors about what recipes are in the random pool.
[*]SOs and Common IOs - I really don't see why you're charging so much for SOs., but 8/12 merits is literally criminal. That's not subjective. The in game value of these recipes is very low compared to the value of merits.
It appears that you are pricing these to be consistent with the old ability to get a SO from a TF or Trial, but that was never a good deal.
[*]Supply issues - It's already starting, but even though more people that I would have expected are taking the random roll, the supply is starting to dry up. To correct this I would suggest adding Pool C and D to the enemy drop tables as a separate pool (like the costume drops). Since costumes only drop off minions, you might consider having these recipes only drop from Lts. or above. This would increase supply and insure that the market remains an alternative for those who don't want to have to use merits for everything.[/list]
(Subjective)
Merits' feel - This is subjective, but to me merits feel like a grind, even though I have to admit objectively for me they are much easier than the old system. I run TFs quite frequently and already have earned a recipe I probably would have had to pay 50+ million on Wentworth's (Level 20 Miracle Unique). But at the same time, I feel that TFs have lost that "loot" feel.
I don't care what you think. Moving the point of randomness changes the feel of it. ROLLING AT THE VENDOR IS NOT THE SAME! You have created an opportunity cost, where none existed before. I don't have a quarrel with merits as a reward, but there needs to be that opportunity for a TF or Trial to give you the big win.
Hamidon and the other HO reward content still has that potential. And I think you can bring that back.
At the end of ALL TFs I would offer a random roll, but not on just the TFs pool. ON EVERYTHING! You might get a piece of common salvage. You might get a costume drop. You might get LoTG +recharge. The only thing I would keep out are purples and HOs.
This gives TFs and trials that little bit of extra reward that's not dependent on Skeeball tickets.
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Objective: 600 +reward merits are available Hero side without repeat. A little over 130 Strike force merits are available Villain side with out repeat.
The Merits awarded in the Statesman task force need to be looked at CLOSELY.
Silver Mantis should be accessible to everyone, not only people with an SG computer.
The system is really lopsided in favor of heroes.
Subjective: Villains should have had the content gap reduced before this system was put into place. As it stands now, I can create a new Hero, and by level 15 have over 100 merits without ever touching a story arc. Villains have no such mechanism. This system was implemented way too soon.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
This comes out of a discussion I've had with others, and it's less about earning merits than it is about the system as a whole.
For 4+ years, this game has encouraged alting. Make more alts, see more of the game. One character can't do it all. Experience more of the content with more alts. The game as a whole has been very alt-friendly. Even the other things released with i13 have been alt-friendly. Dual builds encourage the player to make characters that play in multiple ways. New powersets equal new alts. The leveling pact, of course, encourage new alts to play with friends.
The whole merit system, on the other hand, goes entirely contrary to the alt system. It seems to discourage the use of alts - use one character, a merit character, to run the merit content, gather up all the little tokens. That way, you will know how many merits you have available when you want something; the tokens are all available on one person. They're not hard to get, no, but if one alt has six and another alt has 22 and a third alt has 183, and a fourth alt has 59 and the fifth alt has 120 - but you want a Miracle and a LOTG 7.5 for a sixth alt who has all of 12, it's a pain, because you can't combine those dribs and drabs and none of them alone can get anything. Easier by far to only have one with 402 that can look at the price for the two needed, then just run a TF and a short Ouro arc for the last 38 needed for those two recipes.
It doesn't make sense. It's out of place.
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I think when you do ANY contact from the beginning to the end, you should get Merits...
And I think it should be like this:
You should get 1/2 a Merit for each actual door mission the contact gives.
So if the contact only has 4 door missions, you get 2 Merits... If a contact has 3 door missions, then you should get 1.5 merits 
I agree, but it should be based on the completion of every mission. I have noticed that the dev are really stingy when it comes giving thing away other than Glimpse of the Abyess.
5 merits per completed normal mission is a good start. That way the dev's can spend more time on creating new mission instead of foucing thier time on stoping players from farming, by way of reducing reciepi drops.
I think that if I run someone's entire mission arc with them that I should get SOME form of Merit reward.
Subjective:
Merits feel like a grind.
Let me emphasize that, A GRIND.
Before Issue 13, even before it went live, when the Merit System was revealed for what it was, my interest in playing the game dwindled. I lost heart.
Under the old system: Finish Task Force: Oooh, I get a shiny! Maybe it would be something good or useful to that character or that could be shared, or maybe it wouldnt, but there was instant gratification to this.
Under the new system: Finish Task Force: Oh, gee, um, merits. Kind of dry, tastes like cardboard. Gee, how many more TFs do I have to do to get my shiny? No instant gratification. Even if the task force was long enough to meet the 20 merit goal of being worthy of a random roll, the player still has to make a trip to turn them in. Theres no excitement to this.
I understand the goals, both stated and unstated, behind the Merit System. I like the OPTION to save merits to purchase a desired item, to no longer be reliant on market flippers.
What I dont like is that the zest of doing Task Forces is gone. The excitement of a reward at the end is gone. Comparing and trading rewards with your teammates is gone. I think you have underestimated the importance of this.
My experience:
I just dont feel like doing Task Forces anymore, where I used to do 5 or 6 a week. Why bother? Where I had a chance at the end of each for something great (or maybe useful to my SG or vendor fodder) I now can save up box tops for the eventual day I can buy ONE enhancement. Just ONE. Or I can invest considerably more time than I used to have to in order to obtain a random roll that I have to visit a vendor to get, also not inspiring.
I also dont like that 10 or so of the people I did Task Forces with regularly have quit the game. If I actually wanted to Task Force, most of the people I did so with on my main server Liberty are gone. The only suggestion I have for that is to have another Reactivation Weekend soon and hope some of them come back.
I haven't given up on this game, I still play, I still love my friends and family whom I play with here. I have played COH/V for 4 1/2 years and I very much disagree with the attitude that "people that leave are accounts you would have lost anyway". That is simply not true.
Look at my signature. Its there for a reason. I bought a Lifetime Account on LOTRO a month ago. Issue 13 swept me off to Middle Earth. I play both games now.
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when you get a badge you do not get a merit to go along with the badge, this brings me sadness for i think it would be a nice little bonus for badge hunters
<QR>
Merits for badges would seriously mess up the economy. I can see it being abused easily. People make new characters, then use Recall Friend on other toons to get them around Paragon City, getting all the exploration badges. It wouldn't take long, and it's an easy TF/Trial roll. Then they'd just make a new character and do it again. The market would be destroyed.
It's still FAR too difficult to IO out toons, which is a shame because the IO system is one of the best things you've added to the game recently. You should be trying to make that more accessible to the masses, not less.
First of all, the current merit system discourages regular teaming. You need to work something out where each mission rewards a merit, or even a fraction of a merit, to each team-member.
Secondly, either the pools need to be reworked so that random rolls guaranteed a decent recipe reward, or the amount of merits being awarded for each task should be increased.
And finally, as other posters have noted, merits should be exchangeable between characters. Why discourage players from playing multiple toons? This leads to players using the same toon over and over again to gather merits which leads to boredom and frustration.
Since the i13 changes, I feel my ability to IO out my toons has become more difficult, and that definitely is not a good thing.
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Subjective:
Merits feel like a grind.
Let me emphasize that, A GRIND.
Before Issue 13, even before it went live, when the Merit System was revealed for what it was, my interest in playing the game dwindled. I lost heart.
Under the old system: Finish Task Force: Oooh, I get a shiny! Maybe it would be something good or useful to that character or that could be shared, or maybe it wouldnt, but there was instant gratification to this.
Under the new system: Finish Task Force: Oh, gee, um, merits. Kind of dry, tastes like cardboard. Gee, how many more TFs do I have to do to get my shiny? No instant gratification. Even if the task force was long enough to meet the 20 merit goal of being worthy of a random roll, the player still has to make a trip to turn them in. Theres no excitement to this.
I understand the goals, both stated and unstated, behind the Merit System. I like the OPTION to save merits to purchase a desired item, to no longer be reliant on market flippers.
What I dont like is that the zest of doing Task Forces is gone. The excitement of a reward at the end is gone. Comparing and trading rewards with your teammates is gone. I think you have underestimated the importance of this.
My experience:
I just dont feel like doing Task Forces anymore, where I used to do 5 or 6 a week. Why bother? Where I had a chance at the end of each for something great (or maybe useful to my SG or vendor fodder) I now can save up box tops for the eventual day I can buy ONE enhancement. Just ONE. Or I can invest considerably more time than I used to have to in order to obtain a random roll that I have to visit a vendor to get, also not inspiring.
I also dont like that 10 or so of the people I did Task Forces with regularly have quit the game. If I actually wanted to Task Force, most of the people I did so with on my main server Liberty are gone. The only suggestion I have for that is to have another Reactivation Weekend soon and hope some of them come back.
I haven't given up on this game, I still play, I still love my friends and family whom I play with here. I have played COH/V for 4 1/2 years and I very much disagree with the attitude that "people that leave are accounts you would have lost anyway". That is simply not true.
Look at my signature. Its there for a reason. I bought a Lifetime Account on LOTRO a month ago. Issue 13 swept me off to Middle Earth. I play both games now.
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Nailed it.
Objective Feedback 1: When teaming with my friends Monday nights on Villain side, great care must be taken to properly co-ordinate our story arcs, so that no one person gets slighted. Too often, we still end up with one person not getting merits during play. This is a regular group of real life friends, playing connected to Teamspeak - and even then we have troubles. I can only imagine what the average player on a pickup group might go through.
Objective Feedback 2: Hero side, My level 50 has NO story arcs left He's been done with them for a year now. His potential Merit Gains? Few.
*Task Forces that people might want to run over the course of a few nights, or late on Fri/Sat night .. in other words, Nearly None. I've managed to get on One TF like this since the new issue released.
*Giant Monsters: If I can find teams that want me along, I might manage to get a few Merits this way, but they are few and far between. And I can't go to Monster Island, because those are worth Nothing. Nice choice you made there. And the GM's I can get Merits from? In no way are the rewards balanced. Oh look, Lusca is being ignored again, because he's basically, what? 9 GM's in one? And you only get Merits for the last one? You put this content in the game, and then you purposely go out and find ways to DISCOURAGE people from doing it.
I can't team with Pick Up Groups, since I won't share their Merit rewards. I can't get any in Paper missions, I have none of my own left any more, and I am having a LOT of trouble getting into a TF that people will a) LET me join (i.e. I'm not an Earth Tank) or b) can be finished over the course of a few hours, or that people are willing to split up over 2 nights.
Solution: Provide more merit rewards for non-story arc, non-newspaper missions, and allow the whole team to gain them, either partially, or in full. Balance out the GM rewards a bit better. Make even the Monster Island creatures have a CHANCE at providing one. Lower the timer on Diminishing returns. Finally - Make Merits Transferable, tradable - like you should have from the start (Vanguard Merits too, dangit).
Subjective Feedback: How it Feels? It feels really disheartening and discouraging, actually. I feel as if I have little to no chance to ever gain any of the more desirable inventions. It feels as if I've been punished for actually playing the content previously. It honestly feels as if the only factor that was considered was "This Group of People are getting these recipes too Fast!", and instead of Fixing the Problem, you Butchered the system and put in a new one, with limits designed to specifically affect those individuals that were 'Too Fast', without a thought in the world about how it would change things for the Casual Player.
Heck. I can't even SELL or TRADE the stupid things. All I can do is just go about playing, and hope that I someday get something I can use out of the system. Currently, that 'feels' like it will be NEVER.
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
Objective ::
Having 2 Merits for all Giant Monsters really doesn't make sense. All Giant Monsters are not created equal.
I did some Giant Monster hunting this morning. Taking out Paladin in Kings Row is much easier than taking out Lusca.
Subjective ::
I think the Merits for taking out Lusca should be raised to at least 3 merits. I'm hesitant to go as high as 5, but I think the team I was on could have easily took out 5 Paladins in the time it took us to take out Lusca.
I think we easily took out two Paladins in the time it took to take out a Lusca tentacle. It was a 6-8 player team versus the Paladins, and there were about 11-14 total fighting with Lusca.
I haven't run a safeguard/mayhem since the merit system started, so maybe you do get merits for that. If not, was it done intentionally to try to stop police mission teams?