How will you handle the new Merit System
By
Blue Rabbit,
Posted on: 2008-11-06 17:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
There's something that came to mind while chatting earlier on in game.
This is a game, a game should be fun and good things should be obtained through fun, if the best rewards are achieved through the two most tedious, boring, flawed and long TF's in game, then something is surely wrong.
And no, none of you will convince me that Positron and Dr. Quaterfield are only boring and tedious "in my opinion", no Sir!
Given how long they take, they do not award the "best rewards".
I really should do something about this signature.
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There's something that came to mind while chatting earlier on in game.
This is a game, a game should be fun and good things should be obtained through fun, if the best rewards are achieved through the two most tedious, boring, flawed and long TF's in game, then something is surely wrong.
And no, none of you will convince me that Positron and Dr. Quaterfield are only boring and tedious "in my opinion", no Sir!
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Well actually... 
I did have a pleasant Posi TF before, but that's because there were only 3 of us doing it and we spent most of the time chatting.
I can't remember what wonderful reward it gave me, I bet it was something pants though (probably a Snipe set, I seem to specialise in earning them).
Not falling into technicalities of merits per minute and all that [censored] mate, this game could go a way better without so many technicalities and more fun.
Unfortunately the devs have missed the point where a game should feel like a game or like a job, as now stands, you do your TF with a bunch of mates, have fun and if you get a good recipe, perfect, but if you don't, well, better luck next time or at least closer in inf.
They way this seems to head to is too close to making numbers at the end of the month irl.
And no, the argument "Invention System is not needed" is not a valid argument for me, for that matter, the game itself is not needed either.
And to every Captain Obvious around, yes, I am perfectly aware I can quit anytime I wish.
Edit: If I rephrase to "the game gives the highest numerical rewards for doing the most boring and annoying content" will be more correct?
Geez
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I did have a pleasant Posi TF before, but that's because there were only 3 of us doing it and we spent most of the time chatting.
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Would you repeat it often to get merits for your recipes? With different people? on an eight man random PuG?
I also had a pleasant one once doing Posi with a couple of mates, that doesn't make Positron TF a fun TF to do, it is bad enough Positron is a must for TF Commander Accolade (and yes, Accolades are not needed in game, before anyone jumps to the obvious)
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I did have a pleasant Posi TF before, but that's because there were only 3 of us doing it and we spent most of the time chatting.
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Would you repeat it often to get merits for your recipes? With different people? on an eight man random PuG?
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Dear gods no. But then I won't be doing any TF in order to earn merits, its not how I play.
That's my point, I do TF's primarily for fun PLUS I like to set up my builds so I have a fair chance of a good recipe drop, while Merit System will make TF's the only source of C and D pool recipes (imho, yet to be proven, but there's a high chance to that) and the best TF's don't give the highest rewards.
I am quite confident that a certain consensus could be achieved toward that, I mean, there are many better and funnier TF's than Positron, Doc Q and Synapse even...
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fair chance of a good recipe drop
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Sure, if you call Call of the Sandman a good recipe drop.
But if randrom drops are your thing, Positron now gives you 4.5 random pool C recipes.
I really should do something about this signature.
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fair chance of a good recipe drop
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Sure, if you call Call of the Sandman a good recipe drop.
But if randrom drops are your thing, Positron now gives you 4.5 random pool C recipes.
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Ah yes, but the fun TFs tend to give less than 1 random reward now. I think maybe you aren't allowed to have fun and get rewarded for it.
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
You seem to have a rather narrow definition of fun here.
It appears to be: Fun TF: A TF that can be completed in 20 minutes or less.
I really should do something about this signature.
I wouldn't say Hess and Moonfire were that short if you were PUG'ing them and playing for enjoyment. They're my favourite TFs (other than STF which I will just be playing through as normal) but now the incentive is down. They dont go towards TF comander, they dont give random recipes, they just give fun. OK I'll still want to do them, will others?
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Those two do seem a little odd, I don't recall them being much, if any, quicker than ITF and LGTF, which both give full rewards.
I really should do something about this signature.
Moonfire is about 2 hours on a normal PuG, or was for me when I ran it, it doesn't look particularly exploitable either (first few missions are Defeat All).
Hell a Stealthing & TPing char running Posi could ghost more missions (first 8 of them) and just take out the boss.
the real problem is the huge difference in time between a team who are doing a TF for fun, and a team who are doing it for the reward, and know all the tricks and short cuts.
However, I don't see any possible solution to this problem, there are always going to be people who get their fun from exploting the system rather than playing the game as intended.
And there is no such thing as a system that can't be exploited, merits, random drops, it makes no difference.
Only thing to do is to play with like minded friends.
I really should do something about this signature.
Am pretty sure most Moonfires I've been on have run as long as ITFs, have done Hess fast once on a TF race at Brighton but even then it wasn't much shorter than an ITF.
LGTF for me has never been that fast cause of Hami, am sure if I do enough of them it will get shorter.
Seems particularly harsh on the excellent Striga content not to incentify it
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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fair chance of a good recipe drop
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Sure, if you call Call of the Sandman a good recipe drop.
But if randrom drops are your thing, Positron now gives you 4.5 random pool C recipes.
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In which world is Positron fun?
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Ah yes, but the fun TFs tend to give less than 1 random reward now.
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Add the new 24 hour reward timer as per what I've read in US forums so we find that devs are not rewarding fun, but we're are rewarded by doing boring TF's and by not logging our chars 
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fair chance of a good recipe drop
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Sure, if you call Call of the Sandman a good recipe drop.
But if randrom drops are your thing, Positron now gives you 4.5 random pool C recipes.
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In which world is Positron fun?
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The point is, it doesn't matter which TF you do, you will simply be rewarded in proportion to the time spent doing it.
Clearly some of the weighting is wrong, but that is fixable with the ajustmant of a single number in a spreadsheet.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Ah yes, but the fun TFs tend to give less than 1 random reward now.
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Add the new 24 hour reward timer as per what I've read in US forums so we find that devs are not rewarding fun, but we're are rewarded by doing boring TF's and by not logging our chars
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In what world is doing the same TF more than once in 24 hours "fun"?!
I really should do something about this signature.
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In what world is doing the same TF more than once in 24 hours "fun"?!
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It's a 24 reward timer substituting the current 3 hour one and as it seems, it's for all TF's on same char.
Hope I'm wrong, but so far seems what is intended, I like doing more than 1 TF a day on weekends and having the choice of keeping same toon or change, so far seems it won't be possible now if I also want a reward, which I do.
There you go.
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The point is, it doesn't matter which TF you do, you will simply be rewarded in proportion to the time spent doing it.
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Then in my opinion the point is wrong, fun should be incentivated as a priority followed by challenge (probably fun and challenge are tied). A STF is shorter and far more challenging than Doc Q, Doc Q gives more than double merits for lots more time of boredom and if you want to do another TF, wait 24 hours (granted I'd do so or even more after a Doc Q if finished in one day) or swap char.
People who run speed TF's will continue to do so, they'll just swap the TF to speed, while everyone else gets penalized for that and not fixed.
Proof
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fair chance of a good recipe drop
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Sure, if you call Call of the Sandman a good recipe drop.
But if randrom drops are your thing, Positron now gives you 4.5 random pool C recipes.
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In which world is Positron fun?
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The point is, it doesn't matter which TF you do, you will simply be rewarded in proportion to the time spent doing it.
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No. You're awarded by the minimum amount of time a MinMaxing run can finish a TF, which is different.
Someone had an idea earlier that the Merits for the 1st time you do a TF should be a decent amount, which seems like a great idea to me. That way you can properly reward people doing their first Katie or Eden without leaving it really open to mass exploitation.
I still think it should be a random drop, and then also some merits (less than current) this means that if your random drops are bad you can still save towards a good drop, the market will still get randoms, the boring TFs will still be more rewarding for people that prefer suffering to luck and farmers dont drastically drop the amount of merits for each TF within the first few months. STF can be done in an hour, ITF 25 minutes this is already proving those two are way out of synch
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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Very carefully and/or probably with tongs and gloves.
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Maybe just a cloth to wrap it up in?
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Judging from the two or three threads on the subject atm, Id say a coffin