Merits:- A bit arbitrary?
By
Archie Gremlin,
Posted on: 2008-12-08 14:32 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Giving 1 merit per mission might make it too easy to farm merits. Perhaps the best solution would be to give each team member the same number of merits as the arc owner. It could be scaled down for team members who were present for only some of the missions. e.g. 1/2 the merits for half the mishes.
This way it would work like task forces.
Currently, I'm just soloing a few flashbacks to play low level content that I've never played before on my character, whilst collecting influence (it's a long way to that next badge) and PVP-ing. Oh, and the odd Task Force. My view on merits, therefore, is 'blinkered', as I'm only seeing it from a 'level 50' perspective - and from that perspective, the system seems fine.
Not poo-pooing your comments - just saying that it works for 50's - perhaps biased in its design?
[B][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]@Winter Flare[/COLOR] - [url="http://sites.google.com/site/thenewguardians"] The New Guardians[/url] - [url="http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/view_player.php?id=339"] 1211 Badges [/url][/B]
Personally i would have preferred if they had went for a method similar to the vanguard Merits but with a lower drop rate. a bonus could still be given for completing TFs and taking down GMs
That way regardless of how you play you would still be able to collect merits.
Edit:- Replying to WinterFlare.
It's not a big deal for me either. For one thing, it only affects PUG's that want to do story arcs. I think it would just be a nice bit a icing if everyone shared the award for completing the arc.
Personally it's easier for me to get inf than merits so I won't be using them very often. Once nice thing about them though, is that they let you buy recipes at any level. This means I can buy stuff that just doesn't appear on the market. e.g. Lvl 10 Kismet +To Hit.
I agree that getting them like VG merits would suit me better. It would also remove the arguments about how many merits should be awarded per task force.
TBH for me I'm only ever going to actually look for merits when doing flash back missions.
1)I tend to play on level 50s, some of whom have no arcs left to complete (with the exception of anything added in i13).
2)I tend to duo and due to the game mechanics its practically impossible to get the same arc at the same time on two different characters unless you use the flash back system.
3)The most boring TFs/Trials have the best rewards merit wise, and if you stick to the good TFs you can only do one every 24 hours.
Flashbacks are the way to go, but TBH I'm fully expecting the devs to nerf repeat rewards from the same FB arc in the way they have TFs.
Though I fail to see what the issue is whether we farm them or not. If a mission takes ten minutes and earns one Merit/Character, I fail to see why doing that mission over and over is wrong. As long as I don't force anyone into doing that... 
After all all I'll be doing is doing A Heroes Hero once every two hours and earning 19 merits.
well i hope they change the tfs tbh more. but the arcs i havent done much to comment, however 1 down side is tht: they can be deleted. this needs to change or was so the case last week
over wise i13 ftw
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Though I fail to see what the issue is whether we farm them or not. If a mission takes ten minutes and earns one Merit/Character, I fail to see why doing that mission over and over is wrong. As long as I don't force anyone into doing that...
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I don't mind people farming content either. However, the dev's do. I'm sure there will be single missions that could be completed in 30 seconds or less. This would be break the dev's goal of 1 merit per x minutes of play. I was thinking of it from their point of view.
I don't enjoy speed running myself but I don't mind in the least if other people want to do it.
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Currently, I'm just soloing a few flashbacks to play low level content that I've never played before on my character
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I'm about to start that too - the lack of gold stars on the Ouroboros mission list challenges me 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Been playing for a while now and I have amassed a whopping 4 merits... joy. Could take a while to save up the 1100 I need for those harder-to-obtain IO's I've been after.
Characters:
The Heroic Mary Grace (50)
The Mystical Thunderspark (50)
The Candy-loving Little Jenny (50)
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I'm sure there will be single missions that could be completed in 30 seconds or less.
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I think the fastest I've done one is under 5 seconds - about 10 if you include the time to zone, other than deliveries where I've had it when I've been talking to the contact I've had to deliver to. I've also had one where it was tell that guy 20 yards away such and such - you'd think she could have raised her voice a bit.
As it is the merits being awarded appear to be largely based on how popular the TF/SF is presumably as an incentive to run the less popular ones - seems to be working for Posi at least but then 55 merits for 2 hours is definitely a bit high. - The 90 for SSTF1 is probably about right though.
Mind of Gaia lvl 50 Defiant's first Mind/Storm 'troller.
Deadly Doc 50 Dark/Dark Corr
and lots more on Pinnacle,Union and Defiant
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Though I fail to see what the issue is whether we farm them or not. If a mission takes ten minutes and earns one Merit/Character, I fail to see why doing that mission over and over is wrong. As long as I don't force anyone into doing that...
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I don't mind people farming content either. However, the dev's do. I'm sure there will be single missions that could be completed in 30 seconds or less. This would be break the dev's goal of 1 merit per x minutes of play. I was thinking of it from their point of view.
I don't enjoy speed running myself but I don't mind in the least if other people want to do it.
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If the devs don't like farmers they have a funny way of showing it. Blizzard say they don't like Gold sellers but make everything worth having obscenely expensive which encourages Gold selling. Here the devs don't want farmers but then introduce a game mechanic that by its very nature encourages farming. Or if everyone refuses to farm them a mechanic that won't change a thing.
I like merits somewhat, it means i can get the recipies i want now. not necessarly dfaster but i can get them now at the level i want.
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I like merits somewhat
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I don't. So far all my toons between them have precisely three merits. Can't see the point of them myself, a hell of a lot of work for hardly anything.
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Currently, I'm just soloing a few flashbacks to play low level content that I've never played before on my character
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I'm about to start that too - the lack of gold stars on the Ouroboros mission list challenges me
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GG was PLed you say? Shocker! 
OT - I like merits, if only purely for the fact that it has fixed the terrible TF reward system - as for getting merits for story arcs, personally I don't see the fuss. Can't remember anyone complaining before i13 that only the arc owner was getting a DO/SO drop of choice.
One problem with merits I'm having is that, if like me you want to buy something with them specific, then you have to collect them on one toon as they are not transferable. This seems to be conflicting with the day jobs for me (because I play my main badger 'a lot'). 
I like merits.
Although spending my 1st lot on a random tf reward got me a [censored] of the hunter.....
I think I'll pick next time
As far as I'm concerned, merits are a nice little bonus that I get while doing what I'd normally be doing.
But then, I don't care about getting uber-setted.
However, it turned out that Smith was not a time-travelling Terminator
Merits = awesome addition imo. Actually makes me want to go through the content in the game not just radio missions.
Me and a supergroup member went through the Mender tf (the pb, cant remember the name) last night and since we were both in the level range we got xp/influence AND both of us got the 4 merits at the end. I never really had time to commit myself to a long period of time for tfs/trials but least now i can actually get the rare drops for myself 
Merits are so easy to comeby if you want them, especially via ouroboros. Think the best thing to do is either set up teams yourself and do story arcs or hunt down easy GMS for quick easy merits (lusca isnt an easy method for this ).
Already found a way for a whole team to get 20ish merits before theyr even level 15 so it is very easily done. Just dont expect merits to be falling from the sky
(side note, the 3 random rolls iv done so far have all been the new recipes which atm have next to no previous sale)
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
I just think its unfair atm. I've basically been duoing with a mate a lot since i13 started. His brute is a shade higher than my corr so we've been doing his mishes most. So far I've managed about 14 merits and he has FAR more. This is solely because the mishes belong to him.
As it stands merits are rewarded to all members of a TF (regardless of how few there are vill side but thats a side rant) is a fair system. Everyone works, everyone is rewarded. Currently the new merit system doesn't encourage people who want merits or to set out their chars to do PuGs as they will do their share of the work for NONE of the reward. Its been stated that mish owners get xp and drop bonuses from arcs anyway, so why do they get ALL the merit reward?
A far better system would be to reward half the merits that the mish owner is awarded to the rest of the team rounding down to a minimum of 1 merit.
Another way of doing this could be to tie it to the completion of the arc to inhibit an area of exploitation - if the arc is available in ouro and you have out leveled it you cannot get the merits unless its your mish. This would be flaggable and mean people could not farm them anymore than they can now (like everyone on a team keep doing the last mish say rather than auto complete to get everyone merits would be an exploit method via what i propose). Same for badges, you could tie arcs also into badges from those arcs so if a teammate has the badge they have done the arc and are exempt from the bonus ally merits.
This would allow a far fairer distribution of merits and mean people who enjoy lots of PuGs wouldn't lose out. As it stands at the moment there'll be lots of "lets do my mishes" calls so people can get merits for themselves - bit detrimental to being able to do a nice relaxed PuG eh?
So lets hope theres a serious review of how teammates are rewarded with merits rather than being shafted as they are atm. Lets face it - not everyone has enough hours in their life to replay ALL the content again just do get merits for themselves.
Don't get me wrong I think merits are a very good idea, I just think they need to be rethought in how they are distributed as atm it doesn't work in practice.
Why not do some of your own mission if your mate is only a bit higher than you he'll get XP and if he's to high to get XP you could LK him which would give him some nice Inf and would let you catch up a bit.
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As far as I'm concerned, merits are a nice little bonus that I get while doing what I'd normally be doing.
But then, I don't care about getting uber-setted.
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yip, much the same i'm happy to make do with what ever comes my way
@Snow.
Defiant: Snow + many other alts
Arc ID 61069
it comes down to grind, grinding keeps people in the game longer and by the time they amassed what they wanted for one character they start doing for another, it's a form of brainwashing
The thing to remember with merits is if you gave out 1 merit per person, it would be exploited.
Anyone seen that crazy 8 man synchronised fire / kin team on Union?
All are the same player, on the same machine. He would be getting silly amounts of merits for every mission he does.
Dual accounts were the way foward for most pvpers at one stage, and it would become the same again.
My suggestion for those people in a "regular" team where you always do their missions is : try setting up your own teams once in a while, it's fun and you will get to meet more people ingame.
I know its hard to do, but just a thought
It's a badge thing.......
One thing I _really_ like about merits is that you get them instead of single origin enhancements for completing arcs. SO's seemed desperately lame as a reward; particularly at high levels.
Having been playing for a bit now i was wondering what people thought about the distribution rate of merits. I've been soloing for the last couple of days on my new baby hero and have reached the stellar level 17. In that time i have done 3 story arcs and gained 20 merits. The first 2 gave me 7 merits each and the third gave me 3.
the weird thing is they each took roughly the same amount of time but the third one was the first faultline and had EBs in it. The first 2 were slightly easier than the third but ultimately gave more "reward" than the last one.
Now I was a bit wary about the way merits were awarded when they were first mooted as only the story arc owner gets them, but it does look as if they picked the most awkward unweildy way of earning them that they could possibly have chosen. I have read the arguments about the fact that the arc owner gets xp and SO's that the team don't, but merits are different. You can buy SO's, you can earn xp, but merits are only awarded under very specific circumstances. I can be playing in a team for hours and not have any chance at all of earning any. In my experience, teams do the missions that give the best xp whether it is the highest level member of the team, or an AV mission. I haven't been in a highish level team since issue 13's release so don't know if any problems have developed but I'd quite like some merits now and again myself.
My solution for this would be to give 1 merit per mission to every member of the team, plus a small merit bonus to the arc owner based on the number of missions in the arc. It's simple, easy to implement and doesn't cause arguments. Everyone gets something and we can get on with playing instead of arguing. Not all of us have the time to farm TF/SFs. Some of us just want an hour or two of teaming with the chance for a reward at the end of it