Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Merit Reward System
By
1VB_FIST,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 18:56 in Developers' Corner
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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
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Which still makes little sense, since the recipes do the same exact thing.
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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 am sorry you feel that way but until COV content becomes profitable for the business COOP is the most cost effective answer from a business model.
Villain only content appeals only to a small select portion of the player base. Now I would like to see the Shadow Shard, Faultline, Striga and Croatoa opened up to villains as Recluse tries to widen the front of his attack on Paragon city. I do not advocate making them PVP zones but rather shared zones with different content for Heroes and Villains.
Master Gabriel
Wow wall of text I wanted to reply to more but I only have time right now to reply on one specific issue.
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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.
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I could not agree with you more on this point. Katie runs were the one taskforce it was easy to start up and run. Katie was the model to be used as a baseline in spirit for merit rewards as it was available for both casual players and hardcore TF runners.
Parts of it are too easy for specific teams but were PUGS. but can easily be fixed. These are my suggestions.
Mission 1 ten times the victor.
make this mission more of an endurance match that one you have defeated Mary 10 times and if the mission timer has been going less than 30 minutes add a mission objective to outlast Mary for 15 minutes as Mary and crew continuously respawn upon defeat or upon 3 minutes passing whichever comes first
Mission 2 Add a redcap Boss that can see through stealth effects same as Nemesis or Cray snipers?
Mission 3 change nothing
Mission 4 this is the big one
Ground bound Katie it is the fact that she can follow fliers that makes this mission too easy. Also make her escape cause a random mob on the map to aggro and attack her or the mission exit every couple minutes.
Master Gabriel
Gah, I know I've read it somewhere on these boards before, but the information I need has passed into the "assumed to be common knowledge" pool and cannot be found in the official FAQs on merit rewards. I've spent the last 35-40 minutes searching and reading and remain frustrated, so let me ask the question here:
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If I am a level 50 rolling on a level 41 random table, do I have a chance to pick up a recipe that caps at 40?
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Also, this information really needs to be put into the official merit system FAQ. If it's there and I'm dreadfully blind, I apologise. Otherwise, really, a clear explanation of how the random roll level slider works should be put in a prominent place.
I see a lot of people complaining that the supply of the valuable IOs has gone down. For those of us that didn't regularly run speed-katies and/or play the City of Stockbrokers the reduced market supply means nothing. We could never afford the best IOs before and the lack of market supply now means only that those people will who do put in the time to get them will simply have to do something different to get those IOs.
But now, people like me will actually have a chance to get some of the best IOs. That's a good thing.
However, story-arcs only awarding merits to the arc holder means that people who want merits will be soloing. Better would be a situation where any non-repeatable mission (i.e. non-scanner/newspaper Borea/Marcus Valerius mission) awards a single merit to everyone on the team. This would encourage people to team and to do something other than speed-TFs and scanner missions.
I don't like the idea of merits being awarded globally. All this will do is encourge the arrival of yet more Fire/Kin Farmers in Paragon City. Peregrine Island already runs multiple instances most of the time due to farmers as is, so do we really want to institute a system that will encourage even more people to farm? One could also argue that people that don't have the time to put into it shouldn't necessarily have access to the best gear. Better gear is the reward you get for putting more time into the game. The current system means that I'll be able to get merits and thus the best IOs for some of my characters and making a Fire/Kin Farmer isn't going to help me do that.
Right now I think the best way to tweak the merit system would be to award merits for non-repeatable missions to everyone on the team and then redesign the Task Forces that suck! Fix them so that they can't be speed-run. Fix them so that running them is actually fun and doesn't take 8 to 12 hours. Perhaps then less people will farm and more will simply play the game.
(Apologies to Peregrine_Falcon, usually we agree. 
Farmers aren't my concern, players are. )
I do like the idea of merits being awarded globally (with limitations, see summary). The reason is simply this: Alts.
For years we have been encourage to play alts. Alts were the solution to hitting 50 and wanting more content, the content was alternate ATs and powersets.
Now with merits, we are driven to play a single character to achieve enough merits to buy things. I now have to choose between my playstyle (alternating between many characters, on four servers) and merits.
Summary: At least make merits server and faction specific. That would go a long way to alleviating this problem, for most people it would be enough.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
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Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.
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(Apologies to Peregrine_Falcon, usually we agree. Farmers aren't my concern, players are. )
I do like the idea of merits being awarded globally (with limitations, see summary). The reason is simply this: Alts.
For years we have been encourage to play alts. Alts were the solution to hitting 50 and wanting more content, the content was alternate ATs and powersets.
Now with merits, we are driven to play a single character to achieve enough merits to buy things. I now have to choose between my playstyle (alternating between many characters, on four servers) and merits.
Summary: At least make merits server and faction specific. That would go a long way to alleviating this problem, for most people it would be enough.
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Instead of worrying about what the farmers are doing, the devs should be worrying about what the average coh player is doing. Is policing the farmers worth pissing off so many of your regular customers? The answer should be obvious.
The current system makes it even harder to use IO's, which are a huge positive aspect of this game. The current system discourages teaming. Much of this is due to the devs trying to stop farming, yet the farming continues, and farmers and regular players alike are agitated. That's not a good situation.
Actually, if any devs are reading this, there's one thing I would like out of the merits system: a couple "Complete Random Roll" buttons.
5 merits, at any level, buys you a shot at a random IO out of all the pools, including purple. 10% chance of common mish set, 32% chance of rare mish, 30% chance of trial, 25% TF, 3% Purple. This roll would have two settings : min level and max level, meaning you could roll for either the maximum level for that set (skill enh best) or the minimum level for that set (proc best)....
It's low investment, and would be fun.
Thanks for letting us know you're listening, Synapse. I applaud the idea and effort behind the merit system, but I have some concerns about its implementation. I'm echoing some of the other comments here, but I feel they're important enough to repeat.
Objective-ish:
1) The lack of strikeforces villainside compared to heroes limits my options for merit earning.
2) The timer on merit rewards for task forces and strike forces is too long. It should really be 18-20 hours I think to allow people to run the same TF every night in a row if they choose.
Subjective:
1) My biggest problem with the merit system is the reward pools. I understand by limiting certain recipes to drop less frequently and only after accomplishing certain tasks, you increase the value of that recipe. But I really, really don't understand why things like Malaise: Chance for Psi Damage ended up in the same pool as Miracle: Recovery. There are what, 3 powersets in the entire game that can make use of Confuse recipes? That does not create substantial demand.
I suggest that the pools be cleaned up, reworked, or eliminated completely with the Merit system. I would think Miracle: Recovery and Numina's: Regen/Recovery would cost the most since *everyone* can feasibly use them. But Glimpse of the Abyss? Not even close to the same level of demand. I can't tell you how frustrated I am that I've been waiting for weeks now to get a level 40 Malaise: Chance for Psi damage on one of my characters. I put the bid up on the market a few days before I13 launched and it's still sitting there. And I don't think it'll ever get filled.
2) Which brings me to my next point. I can understand why you don't want merits to be tradeable, which means it really makes the most sense to run merit-reward content on a single character. Which discourages me from playing alts. Which is one of CoH's most positive aspects in my opinion.
I'm not really sure how you could counter this problem other than to either a) just allow them to be tradeable and live with the consequences (something I'm sure a lot of people would be unhappy with) or b) implement some kind of system that allows the exchange of merits between characters on the same global account. But that's probably not in the scope of solutions either. (Sidenote: I'd still love a global mail/banking system that lets me trade influence, etc., between characters!)
3) Related to points 1 and 2 is the problem of supply on the markets. I haven't checked in a few days, but last time I looked there was exactly ONE Positron: Chance for Energy Damage for sale on Wentworth's. ONE. Are there enough people who will take random rolls to make up for this immediate shortage in supply? I don't know. Only time will tell, but from the sounds of it a lot of people are doing what I'm doing - playing one character to earn merits for specific recipes.
There were a lot of complaints about the markets in CoH before I13 went live, and the people who were complaining generally railed against the extremely high prices of certain items. They applauded the introduction of the merit system because it allows them to earn these fancy items without having to play the market. While I'm happy they can play how they want to now and earn the rewards they're most interested in, playing the game the way *I* want to is now much more difficult. I don't want to grind TF's every night to buy a Positron: Chance for Energy Damage. I don't want to play the same character over and over again because that's my "Merit Person." The supply on the market could possibly correct itself given enough time, but I'm very skeptical that some of the less flashy recipes will stabilize. (I'm thinking Celerity: Stealth for example.) I don't have a problem with making merits the only rewards given at the end of TFs, but there needs to be a more dynamic recipe-dropping system. Someone suggested earlier that *all* recipes get moved into the same pool and have a chance to drop from mobs. That's a pretty good idea. Perhaps there should be a few exceptions - Numina's Regen/Recovery for example would still only be available via the market or merits, but allowing even a small chance that recipes like Positron: Chance for Energy Damage would drop through non-TF gameplay seems to be a good alternative to compensate for the sharp reduction in supply.
Of course, I understand you probably wouldn't want to implement anything like that for a few months at least, but I hope it's something you would consider if the supply on the markets remains so limited. Because I really dread the idea of having to grind through TF's on a single character to get an IO for a character I won't be playing much...because I'll be grinding on my "Merit Person."
4) Which brings me to my next point. I find the merit vendor interface to be really confusing. Also, can I still not pick a Miracle: Recovery recipe when I'm level 50? Does that mean I *still* have to be the range of the recipe? While this wasn't a big deal with the random drop rewards, this is a huge problem with the new system. That means my "Merit Person" who is level 50 can't get recipes for my characters who want level 40 sets.
Waiting for someone to put the recipe on the market that I need - which probably won't be a Numina's or LoTG: Recharge - may mean I'll be waiting for what I want for a very, very, very long time. Or wait till my character hits 47 and buy that recipe with my "Merit Person." Only I like slotting IO sets between 35-40.
I really do applaud the effort and idea behind the merit system, but its current implementation could use some tweaking I think.
Thanks for listening! 
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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?
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EXACTLY!
*Using* a Shield Breaker Chance for Damage would be fun. Watching the market endlessly hoping for the chance to even bid on one is simply not fun.
Objective feedback: Many fewer Merits are being generated by characters acting the same as they did before the merit system started. If you play like I do with a new charactr it goes something like this:
Level 1-2 Outbreak - No Merits
Level 2-8 Sewers - No Merits
Level 8-12 KR missions and the first two bank missions to get both jetpacks - No merits
Lvl 12-15 Hollows - You often outlevel it before you can complete the fourth story arc, and since some of the story arcs are random, it is impossible for a group to follow along and all get the merits.
Most characters will have played maybe 6-10 hours to get to level 15, with very few merits to show for it.
Subjective feedback: I think that all missions should offer 1 merit upon completion to every player that gets the mission completion bonus. Give the arc holder a little bonus, as he or she is probably running the team, and that does take a bit of extra effort. But the team leader should not be the only one getting merits. That is silly.
If we keep the current system, please at least stop the random order of missions. This makes it imposiible for the other players to "Follow along" in the story. It also hurts them when they want to get the temp powers from the Arcs like Striga and Croatoa.
I like the Merit system, it just needs to be tweaked so that it is more fair.
I would split the power pools into at least three subcategories, and hand out one of the most valuable to each player after a TF that normally takes more than 3 hours, the middle section to ones that take 1-2.5 hours or so, and the cheapies to the Speed TFs, so that the recipies can still be bought at the market. Maybe for the real hard ones, one of each should drop. This is in addition to the Merits. A three to 6 hour TF like Positron (often takes teams I am with 5 hours) should have a very nce reward at the end, IMHO.
Often the longer TFs fall apart due to people having to stop playing, so maybe the completion percentage should be looked at as well as the length of time that the TF takes. Since the AV's were made tougher a few issues back, small teams just don't have the chance of taking them down like they used to.
Also, when people just log out and don't quit, the Team leader can't kick them, but the number of bad guys is still computed based on the number of players present plus those logged out. This also makes the longer ones hard to complete.
I just turned my exp off on my newest hero.. I havent gotten any exp for the winter event... but people think its wierd I have the Frostfire mission at lvl 6 
Want all those lowbie Merits? turn your exp off 
I totaled up the 97 Strike and Task Forces I ran this year before the merits system was introduced.
2265 merits would have been generated. An average of 23.35 merits per task/strike force.
(113 random rolls with change)
that Includes a Doc Q and an Eden or two whenever I had a character in the 39-41 range.
It also includes quite a lot of CaP runs as part of the BMLS.
Completely meaningless in terms of the behaviour of the whole game population, but it it piqued my interest and I thought I would share.
@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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I totaled up the 97 Strike and Task Forces I ran this year before the merits system was introduced.
2265 merits would have been generated. An average of 23.35 merits per task/strike force.
(113 random rolls with change)
that Includes a Doc Q and an Eden or two whenever I had a character in the 39-41 range.
It also includes quite a lot of CaP runs as part of the BMLS.
Completely meaningless in terms of the behaviour of the whole game population, but it it piqued my interest and I thought I would share.
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It would be nice for all the people that have been here since Issue 3 and 4 to get a Merit bonus for all the TF's and Story Arc's that have been done already Pre I-13 But Kinda looks like that will never happen. 
Just my 2 cents
My input from this tiny corner of the planet: the only downside to the merit system for a player like me (more on this in a sec!) is that it is harder to find regular teams than it used to be for many reasons already mentioned. Even ppl that I regularly teamed with prior to I13 are more interested in getting merits than running arcs or doing stuff as a team. Now this could be that i13 is still fresh and shiny so ppl flock to it, I could be a horrible teammate and ppl finally found an excuse to not have to team wtih me, or that having a new goal to align their toons with is attractive.
A player like me: I have never made a habit of running a lot of TF/SF's in the past so the change in offering merits instead of rare IO drops is not that painful. IO drops still happen as they used to so no complaints on that. However, if merits are here to stay it would be nice to see them parceled out to teammates who stick it out with the mish holder throughout the arc.
I only fear that, as others have mentioned, a lot of energy is being directed towards How To Get My Shiny and not towards the type of team play that is what makes Cox better than most other MMO's (my opinion only so shush).
Loyalist *chokes on it* ... scum!
Objective Feedback: I've spent the last couple of weeks examining the system as a whole, how it's beneficial, how it can be detrimental, how it works, etc. On the surface, it's a step in the right direction. It moves the reward for playing away from farming and toward experiencing content, and that reward also no longer requires either vast sums of inf* or forces players to team when they cannot or chose not to. It rewards teaming more than soloing, appropriately.
However, the system itself is not without flaw. Task/Strike Force merit rewards are granted at a rate of one merit earned for every five minutes the Task/Strike Force is expected (by the developers) to take. The longer the Task/Strike Force, the greater the reward.
Story arcs, however, appear to have a much simpler rule applied, one merit rewarded for each door mission, 2-3 hunt missions or 2-3 FedEx missions. Neither the difficulty nor the basic requirements of the story arcs themselves are taken into account when rewards are determined.
Example: The Library of Souls story arc grants 11 merits upon completion. All but three of the missions in this story arc can be "ghosted" and require no combat whatsoever. Of the three missions which require combat in order to be completed, none of them require more than one spawn or one room to be cleared.
In contrast, the To Save a Soul story arc has two "defeat all" missions, requires combat to complete all of the door missions, and forces the player to fight an Elite Boss or Archvillain (an EB/AV which some players simply cannot defeat without a team, it should be noted), and yet this story arc, which can take significantly more time and effort to complete, offers no more reward than the Library of Souls story arc, 11 merits.
Therefore, under the current system, it behooves players as a whole to pursue the "easiest" story arcs and bypass any which have a significant number of "defeat all" missions, and avoid story arcs with EB/AV class foes, because they simply do not reward the player any more than the "easy" arcs which players can breeze through with very little effort.
Objectively, I find the reward determination for story arcs to be counter to the goal of coaxing players to run the "harder" story arcs and experience more of the content in the game. Story arc rewards should be determined based on the difficulty of the foes faced, the lengths of the missions and amount of travel required, in the same manner that TF/SF rewards are determined.
Note that simply reducing the rewards on "easier" story arcs may not be the most appropriate solution. It may discourage players from running those arcs instead of other arcs, but it also might discourage players from running those arcs at all. Improving the rewards for completing the more difficult or lengthy story arcs would encourage players to run those story arcs and maintain a relative balance to the reward structure.
Subjective Feedback: Subjectively, I like the new reward system. It's easier to acquire some recipes and salvage without spending inordinate amounts of time grinding or "farming". However, I am concerned by two things.
First, that the random roll feature is still tied directly to Security Level, not Combat Level. The most fundamental theory behind the Invention system is that players are forced to choose between maximizing the attributes of a power by using the strongest enhancements they can get, and thereby sacrificing set bonuses when exemplaring, or using lower level enhancements instead and sacrificing maximal power effectiveness in favor of set bonuses that remain when exemplared. Linking the random roll feature to Security Level works contrary to that design goal because it forces players who have moved beyond a "preferred" level to seek out other players/use the market to acquire the recipes or enhancements that they want, or to "game" the system by keeping a character at a lower level, and not advancing that character, simply for the purpose of acquiring recipes and enhancements at that level. It discourages players from actually playing.
Granted, it is possible to acquire specific recipes by spending merits to purchase them directly. But even this is prohibitive due to the merit costs of most of the recipes. In order to place five set IOs of a specific level into a single power, a player is required to spend a minimum of 250 merits. Slotting an entire character, just one build, becomes ridiculously expensive in terms of merit cost. As a result, many players feel encouraged to "park" a character at a lower level and use that character to generate recipes and IOs at that level, or to attempt to "farm" merits.
Now, if Combat Level were used when rolling for random recipes, players would at least have a chance to acquire "rare" recipes without being forced to "park" or "farm". Simply by exemplaring via Ouroboros or a teammate, a player could gamble on random rolls and receive recipes at the desired level. This in turn could potentially reduce the total merit cost for slotting a build and bring more traffic to the markets.
My second concern is something I touched on already, the cost of slotting an entire character's build. By level 50, a character has 94 slots to fill. Some of those slots can be left empty, in powers like Rest or Brawl, but the vast majority will require enhancements. Presuming a player wished to use invention sets for everything except Sprint, Rest and Brawl, that leaves 91 slots to fill. The "cheapest" recipes are 50 merits, so if a player decides to use "cheap" set IOs in every slot, that player will require 4550 merits.
4550 merits to fully slot a character. One build on that character.
That is not reasonable. It's impossible to earn that many merits from 1-50 even if a player goes through all of the content once. It's not even feasible if a player runs TF/SF and trial content every day. This needs to be reduced to a manageable number. The current total to fully slot a character is equivalent to running a Dr. Quaterfield TF every day for 51 days.
And, because random rolls are currently linked to Security Level, a player can't even rely on those random rolls to reduce the overall cost. The only alternatives are hoping someone else puts up some wanted recipes at the market, or to find ways to cheat or beat the system, like "parking" and "farming".
Change the random rolls to use Combat Level. Reduce the merit costs on all recipes or increase merit rewards for all content. Encourage players to use the system and play the game, not to abuse or ignore it.
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First, that the random roll feature is still tied directly to Security Level, not Combat Level. (...) This in turn could potentially reduce the total merit cost for slotting a build and bring more traffic to the markets.
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My main concern exactly, by worded so much better.
What shall claim a Sky Kings' Ransom?
PPD & Resistance Epic Archetypes
Wow, I already loved Luminara for the pointy sticks guides but that was a great review.
Moving to my not quite as well organized thoughts and experiences regarding the merit system. First, the Objective. I play probably about 15 to 20 hours per week; 2 or 3 hours a night 2 or 3 weeknights plus 4 to 6 hours a day on the weekends (provided my scheduling allows). Since I13 released I have approximately 40 to 50 merits collected on all my characters combined. Thus, I can't really comment on the rewards, largely because I can't afford them.
This leads to the more Subjective part of my response. First, I really like the idea of the merit system. Actually being able to target recipes that I want rather than running endless Katies to get the same crap again and again while hoping for a decent drop is a good thing in my opinion. Second, the downside is, the prices are too high for my playstyle. To outfit my characters within my typical playing time with the IOs that I want I'll have to essentially run a minimum of 2 hours of TFs every night that I'm on for months to outfit even one character.
This leads to the third part of the subjective response. Prior to I13, running the odd TF or SF was fun or in the case of Katie, at least over quickly. Now, with the markets almost dried up, to actually get what I'd want, I need to make TFs my job. I work 40 hours a week at a job that pays me, I don't want to come home and PAY to play a second job. I'd rather team with a few friends than go hunting for open slots on a TF that I've already run far more than I ever want to.
Fourth, what I'd like to see changed. I think that the first thing is at least a 30% reduction in merit reward prices. The other change, which is the one that would make me happiest, is to make every door mission in a story arc worth a minimum of 1 merit to every person on a team that was on long enough to qualify for the end of mission xp reward. This would make doing arcs beneficial to every person in a team and while still not as lucrative as a TF on a per-minute basis, at least it would be a step away from the possibility of endless TF grinding. That change would be nice for villains who have fewer SFs available to them.
Please make it possible to choose a recipe lower than our level.
Ex. invention sets for when we exemp down for all these TFs.
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4550 merits to fully slot a character. One build on that character.
That is not reasonable. It's impossible to earn that many merits from 1-50 even if a player goes through all of the content once. It's not even feasible if a player runs TF/SF and trial content every day. This needs to be reduced to a manageable number. The current total to fully slot a character is equivalent to running a Dr. Quaterfield TF every day for 51 days.
[/ QUOTE ] First off you were never supposed to entirely IO out a toon just with merits. You are supposed to use the merit system and the market together to get things faster. Buy the cheaper stuff on the market and the expensive stuff with merits. Thats what I did for a ninja/pain mastermind. She is almost complete on her build. I just got 3 unique enhancements to get and her build is finished.
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!!!!
Looking at how many merits I earn versus how many I need results in this opinion: Merits are worthless to me. I will just ignore the system.
I generally solo, but when I do team I've often been annoyed by team leaders who only do their own story arcs and no one else's. When I lead teams, I always try to do a "round robin" set of missions where everyone in the team who isn't sidekicked gets a mission done for them in turn. Now it's even worse, in that some team leaders aren't even considering doing anything besides their own story arcs in order to get the merits. This diminishes my ability to earn merits, so I will therefore ignore this system.
I don't know if this system will make certain IOs even more rare at WW than they already are, but that point is probably moot, since I could never make enough influence to afford even a couple of the most desirable IOs. Adding loot to the game has increased farming, as farming is the only way to earn enough Influence to afford the kind of IOs we all want. Because let's face it, most IOs are utterly useless.
So unless the merit system is changed to allow casual players who actually play the game as it's intended to get the IOs we need, then I'll reiterate merits are worthless to me. I will just ignore the system.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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My second concern is something I touched on already, the cost of slotting an entire character's build. By level 50, a character has 94 slots to fill. Some of those slots can be left empty, in powers like Rest or Brawl, but the vast majority will require enhancements. Presuming a player wished to use invention sets for everything except Sprint, Rest and Brawl, that leaves 91 slots to fill. The "cheapest" recipes are 50 merits, so if a player decides to use "cheap" set IOs in every slot, that player will require 4550 merits.
4550 merits to fully slot a character. One build on that character.
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Merits are not intended to be used to outfit a character. Random recipe drops and the market should be used to fill the vast majority of your slots, just as they were before merits were introduced.
The question is: does the merit system put reasonable rewards within the reach of average players while keeping the game fun? I don't think so: I think the rewards come far too slowly and painfully to give the average player a sense that they're worth it. Here's some analysis.
Really, the only thing merits are needed for is purchasing recipes that dropped from TFs and Trials. That means a maximum of two recipes out of each rare set. If your character doesn't slot any rare sets, then your merits will all be gravy and can be used to slot some of the pricey uncommons.
My guess is that the average sophisticated player slots a few rare sets, say, 2-5, which means you'll probably need between 2-10 of the Pool C and D recipes, which means you'll need between 450 and 2500 merits.
If you need more than that, you're probably a voracious power gamer and you're probably going to be slotting several purple sets as well (which you don't need merits for). Which means you're probably running tons of TFs or farming constantly. We don't need to worry about that end of the spectrum; they'll do whatever it takes to get what they need.
If you use 2-5 of the Pool C and D recipes per character, so that means you'll need between 500 and 1000 merits. That means running Positron 10-20 times, or 100-200 regular arcs.
With the current setup, it's basically impossible to run regular arcs on teams and get merits. That means that you either solo your arcs, or you have to do TFs or Ouroboros missions for merits (which means not earning experience, for the most part). That means that you have to decide up-front that it's about merits. That means you're more likely to want to just crank through the missions as fast as possible. That means it all becomes a grind.
The problem with the merit reward system is that it's static. It pays no heed to what is actually happening, and doesn't actually reward meritorious behavior on the part of characters. You can have one character ghost TFs and Ouroboros missions and have everyone else sit at the door and everyone earns the same number of merits.
You should only get rewards if you take some risk. That is, you should only get merits (and experience and influence!) if you DO something. (This is a tricky decision because of buffers and debuffers, but it seems to me that if you're doing something that gets you checked for attracting aggro -- and that includes healing and just standing close enough to mobs -- you're at least staying with the group and risking getting attacked.)
If the devs can figure out how to make this judgment in TFs and reward merits based on meritorious behavior, then they can make that same judgment in regular missions, and give character merits for regular missions without having to run your own arcs. I'm fine with having those rewards be lower than for TFs.
But you have to make the rewards seem more achievable. If the Merit Mountain is so high you can't possibly see the top, you'll stop trying to climb it. And quit the game.
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Looking at how many merits I earn versus how many I need results in this opinion: Merits are worthless to me. I will just ignore the system.
I generally solo, but when I do team I've often been annoyed by team leaders who only do their own story arcs and no one else's. When I lead teams, I always try to do a "round robin" set of missions where everyone in the team who isn't sidekicked gets a mission done for them in turn. Now it's even worse, in that some team leaders aren't even considering doing anything besides their own story arcs in order to get the merits. This diminishes my ability to earn merits, so I will therefore ignore this system.
I don't know if this system will make certain IOs even more rare at WW than they already are, but that point is probably moot, since I could never make enough influence to afford even a couple of the most desirable IOs. Adding loot to the game has increased farming, as farming is the only way to earn enough Influence to afford the kind of IOs we all want. Because let's face it, most IOs are utterly useless.
So unless the merit system is changed to allow casual players who actually play the game as it's intended to get the IOs we need, then I'll reiterate merits are worthless to me. I will just ignore the system.
[/ QUOTE ]What you need to do is slightly adjust your playing habits. First off totally drop down the difficulty slider to the first level. Do as many arcs as you can. Once you are out of missions then you team or do a TF/SF. The thing is most folks want to do fast xp to level but you cant have merits and xp because you end up outleveling content. So what I been doing is getting the merits first then team. Honestly though the solution to all of this is have the devs to open Ouroboros as early as possible allow you to do the missions at the minimum arc level instead of the max arc lvl that way you still get xp. This allows people to only build for serious teams and not those who cant stay for long periods of time. If the leader goes then the star passes to someone else but you still can continue the arc without them.
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Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
Subjective
I think the merits are great idea or at least a start. The diminishing returns are counter productive to what seems to be a reasonable way to obtain enhancements at a faster rate. If I run an ITF and finish it at 11:30pm and come home the next day and run it again, finish at 10:30 or 11, I feel like I'm being punished because of 2 things, ITF is the FOTM for TF's and I am having fun playing a particular toon. I'm not sure why the "Cannot choose reward for at least 3 hours" rule was changed to 24 hours, but it's very frustrating. I know that there are plenty of TF's to do, but you have a larger pool of people to play with when deciding to run ITFs and/or LGTFs. On a side note, why narrow that pool by "fixing LGTFs?"
Merits and recipes should be selectable rewards just like on a STF or LRSF. Pick which you would rather have, and if everyone is so worried about KTF farms then make that one the exception. 24 hours per TF per Toon is not fun either. I don't like having to swap toons because I won't get the proper reward if I want to run that same TF later that day or night.
Finally, don't bribe us with merit rewards for TFs that are long and boring. Lets face it the Shard and Posi TFs weren't being avoided because they were so fun. That's something data mining won't tell you. There isn't anything about them that's appealing and slapping a big reward for them at the end isn't going to change the amount of fun being had on them. The only reason I have fun doing them is because of the people I'm with, certainly not the intriguing story or the great defeat all annoyingly over powered foes.
Other wise great idea, just needs some tweeking. I'm curios to how much purple sets will be if they are ever added.
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* Story Arcs should reward their merits for the whole team, not just the owner (rewards teaming)
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I agree that the current system is a problem in that it discourages teaming. However, the apparent simple fix is not the answer as it would be easily abused as follows:
A group of friends all get the same arc and solo it to the last mission. Then they cycle thru each persons final mission and collect the arc bonus repeatedly. I think the solution would be to scatter the merit rewards throughout the arc, rather than in a pile at the end.
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