Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
The devs are limiting something that has made this game successful - customization. IO's were a GREAT idea, another way for players to customize their characters. WHY is 1/2 an hour too short a time to get a CHANCE at a SINGLE decent recipe? Hell, 90% of the time, you would get garbage from a katie run. The devs really need to rethink this stance that it's a good idea to make it so difficult for people to get IOs. I would make the katie run a base for merits, ie. 1/2 hour for enough merits for a random roll. I'd also pull out all the crap recipes from that pool so players are actually rewarded for play rather than kicked in the face with another trap of the hunter. Also, drops and merits are HORRIBLE on teams. Merits need to be awarded to everyone that contributes on a team, not just the person who's arc the team is playing.
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To the other players:
SUBJECTIVE: During the winter event, do the following: Get a team of 6-8 people, run around opening presents, kill Winter Lords. 20 merits in an hour, guaranteed. Bonus: Do this in Croatoa so you can respond to a Jack/Eocholai fight and get even more GM merits.
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Two things:
The Christmas event lasts what two weeks? What then, still be shortchanged at every turn?
Villains cannot get into Croatoa.
Villains need content. Have needed and asked for it since I-7. All of the pleas have fallen on deaf ears. It is really discouraging. 
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Villains have more story arcs than heroes. How long can we stand this injustice? Villains sf's are better written and quicker than tf's. Which means you can do more of them back to back without going [censored] crazy.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
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Objective: Villains have lower merit rewards across the board. Low level hero task forces have high merit rewards. People are massively fighting Winter Lords again. Level 50s who finished all their arcs still have the new arcs to do, and can also do all the old arcs in Ouroborus for merits. Soloing is more highly rewarded. Everyone underestimates the value of random rolls. Merits seem to work for some psychologies as excessive motivation and for others as demotivation.
Subjective: I've enjoyed merit rewards on my heroes. My villains haven't gotten much of anywhere with them. Villains need higher merit rewards for something, in particular for the unlockable contacts' arcs. The time needed to unlock the contact should be included in the value of the arc for merit purposes. The UI feedback for diminishing returns is also really desperately needed; you should see what TF/trial you are diminished on and how long till you can do it again. The UI for random rolls should also include the option to see the list of recipes the roll includes. Pooling merits per account sounds like a great idea to me, and I think the Vault should be usable for this. Send a character to the Vault to store merits there for all same side, same server, same account supers. Possibly eliminate the 'same server' requirement so you can have all your villains share and all your heroes share.
I don't think it's a good idea to pool merits across hero/villains because it would reduce the pressure to bring villain rewards up to measure and make it so people just played their heroes to outfit their villains which is really perverse.
There's also no reason to force the lower level characters to take recipes their level or lower as merit rewards. If you get 200 merits at level 20 you should be able to get a level 50 IO from that if you want.
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To the other players:
SUBJECTIVE: During the winter event, do the following: Get a team of 6-8 people, run around opening presents, kill Winter Lords. 20 merits in an hour, guaranteed. Bonus: Do this in Croatoa so you can respond to a Jack/Eocholai fight and get even more GM merits.
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Two things:
The Christmas event lasts what two weeks? What then, still be shortchanged at every turn?
Villains cannot get into Croatoa.
Villains need content. Have needed and asked for it since I-7. All of the pleas have fallen on deaf ears. It is really discouraging.
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Villains have more story arcs than heroes. How long can we stand this injustice? Villains sf's are better written and quicker than tf's. Which means you can do more of them back to back without going [censored] crazy.
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Do you realize that if you DID do every villain SF in a day, you end up with 160 merits. DO you realize that the Hardest SF/TF in the game gives out less merits than its heroic counterpart? Do you realize that Heroes can farm merits in said heroic counterpart? I guess not. Stay on topic. Talk to the Devs, not to me.
Do this. Create a new Hero, run the sewers to 10. Go run Positron, then run a couple of faultline arcs, then run synapse and tell me how many merits you get. (this is doable in a day)
Then create a Villain and slog through arc after arc to get to 15. Run Cap, slog through more arcs to get to 20 and then run Silver Mantis and tell me how many merits you have. I bet you the Hero comes out ahead. (good luck doing this in a day)
Story Arcs do not make up for the 500 + TF/SF merit discrepancy. The number of arcs thing is a load of malarkey since almost half of said story arcs are in the 40+ range in Grandville.
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To the other players:
SUBJECTIVE: During the winter event, do the following: Get a team of 6-8 people, run around opening presents, kill Winter Lords. 20 merits in an hour, guaranteed. Bonus: Do this in Croatoa so you can respond to a Jack/Eocholai fight and get even more GM merits.
[/ QUOTE ]
Two things:
The Christmas event lasts what two weeks? What then, still be shortchanged at every turn?
Villains cannot get into Croatoa.
Villains need content. Have needed and asked for it since I-7. All of the pleas have fallen on deaf ears. It is really discouraging.
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Not completely true. The did add more stuff for villains to do via co-op. The issue NOW, is that we need more villside content and less co-op.
so it's technically not entirely true that we've been waiting since I-7.
If one feels that co-op railroads vills into acting heroic, that is a different argument to make.
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I am sorry, but I do not feel as if co-op content is Villain content. It is what it is called CO-OP. It is not Villainous
Objective: The 24 hour timer does suck. Unless you base it on the time you last STARTED a TF/SF it makes life too hard to keep track of what you are doing when you have to remember what you did last night and what time you finished. Make it 18 hours, same base effect but unlikely to have many people who ran a TF for over 6 hours last night wanting to do it again tonight lol.
Subjective: I like the idea of being able to get what you want OR get something that sells for piles of cash (if you prefer to outfit with cheaper IOs). Also like not having to do TF/SFs to get the best IOs. You can do lots of things and get merits. I closed out an old grey arc and got no experience and 5 merits for it. That was a nice surprise.
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You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
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I am sorry, but I do not feel as if co-op content is Villain content. It is what it is called CO-OP. It is not Villainous
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I don't feel that Positron's TF is worthwhile content, but it's still content. I'm sympathetic to the desire for more Villain only SFs, but just because you don't like the co-op ones does not invalidate them. They are still content added for villains. There's no guarantee that you'd like new villain exclusive content, either.
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
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Here's my two cents...
I started off with a negative impression of the merit system, mostly due to concerns about market availability, and feeling like we were getting nerfed due to the removal of the random roll.
However, after playing for a bit, I find myself forced to re-evaluate my position. I think the devs have overall done a good job with the system. The fact that I lost the random roll for running a KHTF, is far outweighed by the fact that when I run a longer TF I get a greater reward. Heck, a Positron run (which is not the nightmare that many think it is) is worth almost 3 random recipes now. That is awesome.
Add in the fact that now people with no time or inclination to run TF's also get merits, is just icing on the cake.
I think the only things the devs need to do at this point are the following:
* Reduce the merit reward DR timer from 24 hours to around 20. Much less hassle having to worry about exactly what time a TF was ended if a player wants to run another one the next night they are on.
* Buff redside rewards a bit. Too much of a disparity in overall rewards.
* Take a closer look at some of the merit prices for recipes. Much of it seems extremely arbitrary.
* DO NOT NERF MERIT REWARDS LIGHTLY! Please devs, do not start whacking merit rewards the moment average completion times for TF's start edging downwards. Simply because more players are running TF's that they used to avoid, times are going to go down. Don't punish players for being good!
Quick summary for those too lazy to read: Merits are good in my book. 
Subjective Feedback:
Some recipes seem quite over-priced for what they do. For instance, why is the Blessing of the Zephyr -kb recipe cost more than the other -kb recipes? 75 is a sizable amount, and works well for the other -kb recipes.
One other recipe I noted (since I want to get a few for a few of my heroes) as costing far too much was the Pounding Slugfest chance for stun. It costs 200 merits! A chance for stun is not THAT spectacular, and the set bonuses are not that high. It's not a unique recipe either, so the cost seems far out of whack from its benefit.
I think the same could be said for snipe recipes. I'm not sure how values were assigned to the various recipes, but some seem a little over the top.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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<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.
[/ QUOTE ] so just narrow narrow it down abit(ouroboros, defeats, pvp, accolades ,achievements accomplishments). as it stands now it is harder to get any 10 of those badges then to do a sf/tf wearth 10 merits. i left out black market, invention , explorations and event.
Okay. I posted in the i13 forums, and I'd like to repost much of what I had to say.
As a note before I start on a tirade, I'd like to say I've been a gamer and an MMO gamer for over 15 years, and I'd like to say that this is one of my three favorite games ever. I haven't posted much, but I like your game and got so addicted at one point I had to run the other way. Thank you for making something so enjoyable that has helped me through a fairly hard time in my life. That said..... Here come the nasty sucker punches.
I was looking forward to the merit system. I've always seen this game as one 'designed for fun' - it's not SUPPOSED to be a farmfest like most other MMO's; you just play it and have a good time with low time investment. If you're a super-heavy gamer, you end up with a PILE of characters that have level capped. It's awesome. I played a few months and had three, with one or two more on the way.
The merit system, from what I read about it pre-i13 beta, was supposed to enforce that. Want the uber stuff for your character without relying on brute force to court random chance? HERE! EARN IT! Earn it and have some fun! Unfortunately, this is not the approach the implementation took. Before I realized I was getting a free weekend, I resubscribed for just a month; after seeing the implementation, I'm a bit sorry I did.
The way I see it, there are four problems with the merit system as designed:
1. It's stingy. Katie Keeps Giving One Random Roll should have been a guideline. Katies were run so often because - news flash - a tiny time investment that everyone could get in on (even casual gamers) gave a nice reward. The idea, in my perception, was to expand that average 'casual gamer' group's task set beyond Katies. Reducing the reward on Katies doesn't give them incentive to try other stuff, it's just nerfing the crap out of what they were already doing. Frustrating, not productive. I'd suggest cutting the random roll prices in half as a QUICK fix, but there are better and more sweeping changes I'd prefer.
2. It's covering up larger issues. The reward pools were a fairly weird idea. "Everything drops out of the same pools, except when it's a really hard task. Then, it drops out of one of the really hard task pools. Except for the X and Y and Z items, which are indeed going to......." Complicated? Yeah. Rather than introduce the merit system, perhaps reorganizing the pools based upon what was expensive in the market might have been a good idea.
Note that there's no real logic to 'trial roll' and 'task force roll' now. You just threw the old pools into the merit system without thinking about what they were meant to represent. The really annoying thing about the old pools was that you put a huge amount of effort into, say, a Doctor Q, and at least half the time got something you couldn't use. This means that if you have a capped character, you have to be just playing a TF for the fun of bashing stuff to do it more than once. I'd suggest a more directed merit reward roll pool; something that had 10 IO's in it (one of which is a LoTG, one of which is a Numina's, one of which is a +rech / + recovery, etc. etc.) and cost 50 to roll on - or a Purple Pool that cost 300 to roll on, well, that would make more sense. But just inheriting the old pools made no sense at all.
3. It's designed to be gamed. The 'average run time' concept makes sense in the abstract. That said, in implementation, what happened was incentive for speed runs. Now, if it weren't so stingy (2x STF / RSF buys you almost anything, 5x Katie does as well would be my suggestion) noone would worry that much about it. They'd just set to running stuff fairly quickly and having fun. But since it's so bloody stingy with weird holes (the PB arc? 29? You're kidding me. You didn't look at that number and say, "Wait, this hasn't really been RUN MUCH since before IO sets, has it?") the first thing everyone did was try and find the holes. You're going to plug them, and noone will be happy. Lame. I like the idea of alternate builds - it's super cool. I was thinking about building all my characters out twice. In implementation, if the merit system had not been a bit tight-fisted, it would have doubled (and when you updated the system to have as many builds as tailor costumes, more than that) the amount of time I was willing to spend on my chars. Instead, it's disheartening how much stupid grinding I'd have to do to equip my characters.
4. Team / Paper missions don't give out merits. Hey, here's an idea: Reward People for playing how they want to play. Not running much content? Is there a reason for that? Hm. Well, maybe we should look into the reason and fix that.... If it's unfixable, maybe we should just reward people for doing it how they want to do it. Paper missions are awesome for low-organization play. People run them because they want to be casual gamers and just mess around for short periods. I can't believe you don't want to reward that; it's just such a good thing all around....?
Overall, yeah, the merit system is kinda cool. I mean, I can still roll for my random roll if I want it. But it definitely needs some tweaking. (Can you imagine a newbie trying to figure out the merit system? I mean, wtf? Task Force? Trial? Hello? What's this 'random drop', which pool is this 200 merit thingy in, etc. etc. etc....)
Anyways. That's my two cents. Have a good one, and hope it works out well.
Warning: Wall of Text below.
Objective: Instanced missions do not give out merit rewards
Subjective: Merit rewards should be based on 1 merit per completed door mission for each player on team[/color]. This would exclude Talk to x, Defeat x, and newspaper/radio missions. Adjust rates accordingly to reflect the more frequent merit drops.
Solution: rescale merits early in the process and set the baseline to be 1 merit : 1 mission. Additional merit rewards for story arcs, etc, can still be given.
Objective: Heroes have more options for merits.
Subjective: This encourages me to continue to play CoH more than CoV. Which means, that if others do the same thing, the CoV playerbase will be smaller than the heroside because of skewed rewards.
Solution: The lack of villain content for merits that could be alleviated by more cooperative content, or port some of the content in hero TFs to villain SFs with minor tweaks (e.g., keep the same missions, tilesets, villains, but change the text, contacts, stated objectives, etc.).
Objective: I have lots of alts.
Subjective: Ideally, at some point, Id like to put IOs sets in my alts or at least something more than SOs and Common IOs. I feel this
Solution: Play a whole lot more to get my characters IO sets. Or adjust the design of this system to reflect the distorted player:character ratio, which is probably something like 1:10.
Objective: Merits do not give invention enhancements, they give recipes.
Subjective: If a character earned 250 merits, it should be for a completed item, like a crafted Enhancement, not a Recipe.
Solution: Convert recipes in merit vendors to enhancements. The worse alternative is to make even more expensive merit costs for completed enhancements.
Objective: Merits are not account specific or cannot be stored in account storage. They are character specific items.
Subjective: Merits should be able to be traded, sold, stored, and most importantly, stored on either a server or account level. If I earn say 5 merits on one character, I cant do anything with that until I reach a number where I can use a merit vendor. I cant auction them, I cant trade, gift, or sell them. And I also cant leverage other characters on my account. I can understand why penalizing low merit earners and compelling them to bargain on random recipes would be advantageous for the market, but I think it is too limiting, particularly because merits are so hard to come by for a casual player.
Solution: Allow storage, trading, selling of merits.
Objective: Merits were released with Issue 13.
Subjective: While I appreciate the direction merits are going, I think that introducing a brand new economy that is based on content and activities that have been around and developed from I1-I12 is frustrating. As a beta-era player, all of my past actions that today will reward merits have not been rewarded.
Solution: Give retroactive merits based on Souvenirs and Badges for merit level events (GMs, story arcs, task forces, badge missions).
Objective: Merit rewards for named recipes are noticeably more expensive than randoms.
Subjective: The basis for this is probably to encourage people to take a random roll rather than save up (12 randoms vs 1 specific is tempting). This in turn means that since most of the randoms will not be what someone wants, they get dumped on the market. This keeps the market alive for rares. The downside is that I think this will create a variety of deviant behavior, some of which I will probably participate in. Farming event GMs for lots of merits, even if that means hogging up a low level zone to do it (since the low zone is smaller and mobs are grey). TF events where characters who would actually earn xp in a TF are excluded because they slow the completion time. Veteran TF events that avoid new players or those that want to explore the content. OB arc repeatedly running, in particular if this is done solo, since other players cant opt into the content midstream. This might also reduce the normal, log on and play mentality that makes CoH/V so great.
Solution: Make merits reward for regular team missions or adjust pricing.
Objective: Merit costs for recipes of different levels are the same.
Subjective: I can see the value of static costs, but I think this is not like any other system in the game. If L25 SOs cost the same as L50 SOs this would be fine, or L25 Dam IO recipes cost the same as L50 Dam IO recipes. I also understand that there are some exceptions, like Chance for x or x Protection. I also understand that sometimes a lower IO is better because of its use when exemplaring.
Solution: Scale costs, even if trivially. For example maybe a L30 is 220 and a L50 is 250. Or worse solution, maybe the middle is 250 so a L30 is 240 and a L40 is 250 and a L50 is 260.
Objective: Lusca rewards only 2 merits.
Subjective: The effort is considerably more involved with Lusca
Solution: Reward more merits for Lusca. Create a villain-side Lusca for villain compatibility.
Objective: Pool recipes are still in place.
Subjective: I think the rare and pools should be reconsidered in light of this fundamental change to the system. Im ok with minion-only drops, common drops, mission completion drops. I think C/D should be merged. I also think that the crap rares should be removed, and I dont think its too hard to figure out what those are.
Solution: If a recipe doesnt have a power-10 (acc, dam, end, etc) in it, it should never be rare. And more importantly, if the type of set it is a part of is a minor set in the playerbase, like certain mez-oriented sets in particular, they should be moved to mission completion or common drops.
A side note about mez sets in general. I believe that like HOs we should have a single Mez set. That set can have as many of these previous sets you want to put in there, but any character with an Immob should be able to slot any mez set, any set with Fear, etc. Remove the procs even if you have to. I think the idea was to complicate the whole list with lots of crap sets, just like Enh vendors have lots of TO/DO/SOs that are basically not worth slotting. But after years of this sort of implementation, I think its time to make a fundamental shift, along the lines of HO mez sets that were put in place years ago. That doesnt mean that mez effects should be standardized, you can still have Dis, Sleep, Hold, Fear, but make the sets compatible.
Random Subjective Observations: I do hear people talk about I did lots of TFs before but cant help that what they really mean, is I would get on quick Katies because it was really easy and fast and lots of people were farming them. And then I hear that were losing players, either because of PvP changes or Merits. I also hear that people think Merits or Merit vendors are immersion breaking and I agree with that. I think it would not have been too hard to make this something you could do in a Lab or Invention Table, instead of a specific vendor.
I feel like with the late introduction of both day jobs and merits, Im camping most of my characters offline and may never play them again unless forced to (need a rad, or an emp, or TF that just cant get a meat shield, etc.). So Ive become a reverse altaholic, which maybe really is a good thing. I had over 250 badges on every 50 hero at one point until I decided that I couldnt do it and just persisted with a single hero. Now I feel like I should avoid earning merits at all costs with other characters and focus on a single character because of the character-specific merit reward system. If theres a GM, TF, OB arc, whatever, Im logging my main merit earner.
I do feel like the merit system is good, despite the main flaws in its implementation (character specific, V/H rewards skewed, grinding, no retroactive reward for obviously verifiable accomplishments, really late introduction to a completely novel economy). I hope that there are ways being considered to make merits accessible to the casual player. I know its a participatory system, but I want to participate, I just cant recreate the last 4+ years of time Ive spent in this game to get there. Heck, Id subscribe up front for 4 more years if they retroactively rewarded me for my heroic (and villainous) efforts for the past 4+ years.
Finally, Im not sure how this will affect Issue 14. I think mission creation is a fantastic step in the right direction, but if merit farming is the standard, and mission creators Im pretty convinced wont have any say in whether their missions could reward merits, then I think I14 is going to be a big let down. Particularly for those that want to create new content. Because for most players theres probably not much reason to play content that is not rewarding.
To UnicyclePeon: Please dont require me to Defeat all to get a merit on a regular mission. I dont think Radio/News missions should give merits, but if they implement that, create a system to account for, say 50%+ of enemies defeated, but not necessarily 100%.
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Subjective Feedback:
Some recipes seem quite over-priced for what they do. For instance, why is the Blessing of the Zephyr -kb recipe cost more than the other -kb recipes? 75 is a sizable amount, and works well for the other -kb recipes.
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Because the other are Pool A rares, and that one is Pool C/D
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
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I believe it went something like switching the merit vendors to Hero Corps contacts (Blueside). I'd also add to that by changing the Merit Reward Salvage to something like Credits for heroes and Cash for Villains.
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I like this Idea
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I believe it went something like switching the merit vendors to Hero Corps contacts (Blueside). I'd also add to that by changing the Merit Reward Salvage to something like Credits for heroes and Cash for Villains.
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I like this Idea
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/Signed
Give people merits for doing other people's entire mission arc and I'll be a lot happier with it. I had aided a friend last week with about 20 levels. I completed the arcs right along with him. Then I realized that Iyiyiyiyi!!!!!! I've been gypped! He wanted to give me half, but alas, he couldn't. 
So after a nice week of teaming I am back to solo. SOLOnely.
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The devs really need to rethink this stance that it's a good idea to make it so difficult for people to get IOs. I would make the katie run a base for merits, ie. 1/2 hour for enough merits for a random roll.
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I agree with you, but the Devs dont. To me, Katie was the ONLY one worth the time vs the random roll shot. The others were all far sub par. Their new system hammers everything in line with their opposite view that the others were all fine. I feel the shortest TF (Katie, I think), should be the equivalent of one roll of the dice.
Again, the Devs disagree, sadly.
That is why I support:
* Merit sharing on your own account only (encourages alts, relieves the feeling of grinding since you dont have to get merits only on one character)
* Newspaper/Scanner missions should reward 1 merit for everyone on the team IF you both complete the mission AND defeat all (encourages teaming, avoids ghosting abuses)
* Story Arcs should reward their merits for the whole team, not just the owner (rewards teaming)
Lewis
Random AT Generation!
"I remember... the Alamo." -- Pee-wee Herman
"Oh don't worry. I always leave things to the last moment." -- The Doctor
"Telescopes are time machines." -- Carl Sagan
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*wall of text*
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*starts a slow clap*
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
As someone pointed out earlier, those classifications were always a bit wonky. While my point WAS subjective (as I noted), I was trying to look at the recipes qualitatively. The Blessing of the Zephyr -KB recipe does the same as the other two, yet costs 50 merits more. That is off kilter.
And even looking at the set bonuses qualitatively, is Blessing of the Zephyr all that much better? I guess you could say it's a little better, but not everyone will want the +def from the set, and may find more health or recovery beneficial.
It just seems off track from the value of the other recipes. And the stun proc... way out of line. The Steadfast +def or -KB recipes cost much less, and offer consistent benefits. Sure, not everyone will want those, but nor will everyone want a melee stun proc.
And those were just a couple of examples. It looks to me like merit costs were looked at more with the idea of what pool they were in, as you did, rather than looking at the value of what the recipe does.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
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The devs really need to rethink this stance that it's a good idea to make it so difficult for people to get IOs. I would make the katie run a base for merits, ie. 1/2 hour for enough merits for a random roll.
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I agree with you, but the Devs dont. To me, Katie was the ONLY one worth the time vs the random roll shot. The others were all far sub par. Their new system hammers everything in line with their opposite view that the others were all fine. I feel the shortest TF (Katie, I think), should be the equivalent of one roll of the dice.
Again, the Devs disagree, sadly.
That is why I support:
* Merit sharing on your own account only (encourages alts, relieves the feeling of grinding since you dont have to get merits only on one character)
* Newspaper/Scanner missions should reward 1 merit for everyone on the team IF you both complete the mission AND defeat all (encourages teaming, avoids ghosting abuses)
* Story Arcs should reward their merits for the whole team, not just the owner (rewards teaming)
Lewis
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/signed
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..
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And those were just a couple of examples. It looks to me like merit costs were looked at more with the idea of what pool they were in, as you did, rather than looking at the value of what the recipe does.
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Actually I'm fairly sure that was -exactly- what was the sole and only deciding factor.
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
Pretty much a repeat of what everyone else has said. Give players reward merits for everything (ie. mission completion, story arc completion, Safeguard/Mayhem completion, etc.)
Another question/idea I have. Since we have moved to the merit system, why not move all the IO recipes to pool A? That way there is still a random chance of them dropping through regular play.
Most of this I am sure you have read from my pervious posts on this subject.
Objective:
The time/reward initial pass certainly didn't get everything as close as it should. Posi and Doc Q are heavily over-rewarded for time. Doc Q especially with the extra travel options now available you should pretty much throw out any and all data times from early runs. Team recall + Eveyone able to have fly. O portals, SG base portals to get back to the city fast.
(Subjective:that said Im not in a hurry to do it again. 4 hours for 90 merits, I'd rather run Posi twice for 55+diminished 27 - its less painful)
A redside example of an over-reward is Breaking Knives (Arbiter Daos) 9 merits for 3 door missions (2 defeat all) 3 or 4 merits woudl be comprable to other arcs of that length and difficulty.
The new system is quite hard to pick-up. I have spent a lot of time chatting with my wife about it in person, and a lot of time on SG boards and in the SG globals trying to help people out. Better documentation on the website would help (in game the merit vendors/informers seem to be decent enough to me).
Running just a few characters through new zone arcs (striga, faultline and Croatoa) I have earnt several random rolls (not taken yet) without running a TF. Its has created a diversity of ways to get Pool C drops that was not there before.
Overall TF rewards are up assuming you didn't run one or two fast TFs constinuously. As a great fan of running different TFs this is a bonus for me.
Subjective:
Im loving the new system. The chnace to run some of the longer TFS and arcs and get significant rewards is great. We had an SG event for 45-50s running Heros Hero. 19 Merits is JUST shy of a TF random for it. It has increased the diversity of team events for me. Though part of that may just be a skewed perception as due to a family illness I have been very restricted in my teaming for a while.
Ability to work deterministically is good
The fun of analysing and working out 'profitable' levels and numbers of random rolls appeals to the math nerd and gambler in me
Summary:
Im thoroughly enjoying the merits system right now.
@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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Subjective Feedback:
Some recipes seem quite over-priced for what they do. For instance, why is the Blessing of the Zephyr -kb recipe cost more than the other -kb recipes? 75 is a sizable amount, and works well for the other -kb recipes.
One other recipe I noted (since I want to get a few for a few of my heroes) as costing far too much was the Pounding Slugfest chance for stun. It costs 200 merits! A chance for stun is not THAT spectacular, and the set bonuses are not that high. It's not a unique recipe either, so the cost seems far out of whack from its benefit.
I think the same could be said for snipe recipes. I'm not sure how values were assigned to the various recipes, but some seem a little over the top.
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I've been playing every day since i13 came out for 2-4 hours each day, and if I pooled together all the merits I've gotten (yeah, I know that's not possible), I could afford ONE pounding slugfest chance for stun, and a single random recipe roll.... wow.
I primarily team and did several ITF's, a manticore and a shard tf. I end up with a pounding slugfest chance for stun and most likely a trap of the hunter or pacing of the turtle. Awesome. (Actually, I'm not sure I have enough for the random roll, lol.)
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Most of this I am sure you have read from my pervious posts on this subject.
Objective:
The time/reward initial pass certainly didn't get everything as close as it should. Posi and Doc Q are heavily over-rewarded for time. Doc Q especially with the extra travel options now available you should pretty much throw out any and all data times from early runs. Team recall + Eveyone able to have fly. O portals, SG base portals to get back to the city fast.
(Subjective:that said Im not in a hurry to do it again. 4 hours for 90 merits, I'd rather run Posi twice for 55+diminished 27 - its less painful)
A redside example of an over-reward is Breaking Knives (Arbiter Daos) 9 merits for 3 door missions (2 defeat all) 3 or 4 merits woudl be comprable to other arcs of that length and difficulty.
The new system is quite hard to pick-up. I have spent a lot of time chatting with my wife about it in person, and a lot of time on SG boards and in the SG globals trying to help people out. Better documentation on the website would help (in game the merit vendors/informers seem to be decent enough to me).
Running just a few characters through new zone arcs (striga, faultline and Croatoa) I have earnt several random rolls (not taken yet) without running a TF. Its has created a diversity of ways to get Pool C drops that was not there before.
Overall TF rewards are up assuming you didn't run one or two fast TFs constinuously. As a great fan of running different TFs this is a bonus for me.
Subjective:
Im loving the new system. The chnace to run some of the longer TFS and arcs and get significant rewards is great. We had an SG event for 45-50s running Heros Hero. 19 Merits is JUST shy of a TF random for it. It has increased the diversity of team events for me. Though part of that may just be a skewed perception as due to a family illness I have been very restricted in my teaming for a while.
Ability to work deterministically is good
The fun of analysing and working out 'profitable' levels and numbers of random rolls appeals to the math nerd and gambler in me
Summary:
Im thoroughly enjoying the merits system right now.
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I am highly upset at this post that you of all people would advocate lowering merit rewards. You are the extreme example of how fast things can be done. The casual gamer and even the average gamer will never be able to finish stuff no where near as fast as you do. So how can you say what it needs to be?
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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Oh, and lets teach contacts to always give their arc in order and make it easier for anyone on the team to "step into" a contact with an eligible teamate so that they can get the merits to. This is an MMO, not solo-for-profit.
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This would be good, but it still suffers from the problem that different players can be at different points in the arc.
I'd like to suggest that any player with a fresh contact be able to start that arc as a TF. It would be essentially the same as running an Ouroboros TF, only you don't need access to Ouroboros or a base with the crystal. The option to start a TF would appear for the contact only if you are the leader and you haven't done any of the missions.
While it's true you can use Ouroboros to do this, you have to be at least level 25. It also means that the person taking the mission can't get any experience.