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Don't spend 220+ merits to bypass the game's random loot? The chance to get a non-random reward is a luxury. It costs significantly more.|
Originally Posted by Distiller
I've been thinking about this whole merits thing for awhile. I agree with with concept, that the merit system needs to be reworked. Most of the players are not starting oro farm teams for merits or tf teams etc etc to earn merits fast. And honestly, I wouldn't be too excited knowing how many times I'd have to run the same handful of tf/trials to get enough merits to earn one single recipe, let alone an entire set.. for one power... Yes I think this needs to be looked at.
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Random drop loot system is a pretty central conceit of the game. Avoiding it is going to cost something.
So don't do it. Take your TF Merit Farming group, farm up 40-60 merits, and then all go to the vendor and grab 2 or 3 random rolls. Now trade around your group (trade your scrapper's ranged drop to a blaster for their melee drop, for example.)
Just a thought for another way to do it.
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(Me, I've got a bunch of alts, which I play solo. I get my merits from story arcs and ouro. I then make 20 merit random rolls and spread the rewards around however is appropriate - give the melee stuff to the melees, the ranged stuff to the ranged, and the frickin' expensive stuff to the market. Thereby giving me 100's of millions of inf to use buying vast amounts of mid-range IOs to trick out *all* my heroes. Win-win.
)So, no.... I don't think the merit system needs much adjustment. And I certainly don't think that non-arc (either story or TF/SF) missions need merits.
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Also, remember - the prices listed in WW are the prices *paid*, not the prices asked. If you see 500mil.... that's because someone was willing to pay it. Don't blame the marketeers for seeing how far the silly and desperate will go. If the stuff didn't sell, they'd set their prices lower.
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Maybe a 10% chance per teammate, per mission, of getting a merit upon mission completion? For missions outside of the AE only, of course, and would not be awarded for TF or Trial missions either.|
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
/qr
I wouldn't argue about offering a merit for helping others complete their arcs. How to make it fair, though... it's hard to say. I'll have characters along helping others for multiple levels - missing my own arcs, because we're busy on theirs - then I'll look and realize I have very few merits. Given I've been doing everything but talking to the contact right alongside the others, this *can* be discouraging to teaming. (Yes, I know you can grab the same contact and simul-complete - if you have them, have the arc space, etc.) "Assistance merits" wouldn't hurt, IMHO. Not per-mission, I don't think, but something as a token for being there. |
This way, if you have a full team, you have a 70% chance of getting a merit upon mission completion. It's not a guaranteed chance, but it's a good chance. A duo would have a 10% chance each of getting a merit.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
I have to /sign this. I sometimes get disappointed when I complete a challenging mission/arc and end up with no merits.
My opinon is that merits are un-rewardered and Arch tickets are over-rewarded. I've probably made 1.5 billion in bronze rolls from tickets...and I barely even play the AE relative to my solo-mission content. Maybe 300 merits from my solo content that I've played? Which is barely enough for 1 good recipe.
Others experiences may vary, but thats what I've seen.
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On a full team you'd have a 70% chance to get a merit for each mission plus end of arc bonuses? It could easily end up doubling merit rewards. I'd personally love this, but it's hard to see this being agreed to by the devs. As described (as a bonus for teammates), it also punishes soloers. |
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Maybe a 10% chance per teammate, per mission, of getting a merit upon mission completion? For missions outside of the AE only, of course, and would not be awarded for TF or Trial missions either.
This way, if you have a full team, you have a 70% chance of getting a merit upon mission completion. It's not a guaranteed chance, but it's a good chance. A duo would have a 10% chance each of getting a merit. |
On the other hand I could see a flat 15% chance of getting a reward merit at mission completion. That way people who aren't the mission holder would have a chance of getting merits (a particular gripe of mine right now: only the arc holder gets merit rewards
). And on a full team you'd usually have someone getting a merit for every mission completed. And if you're soloing you'd get more merits than are currently rewarded but the difference wouldn't be so huge as to dramatically devalue merits.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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Originally Posted by Sardan
On a full team you'd have a 70% chance to get a merit for each mission plus end of arc bonuses? It could easily end up doubling merit rewards. I'd personally love this, but it's hard to see this being agreed to by the devs. As described (as a bonus for teammates), it also punishes soloers.
On the other hand I could see a flat 15% chance of getting a reward merit at mission completion. That way people who aren't the mission holder would have a chance of getting merits (a particular gripe of mine right now: only the arc holder gets merit rewards ). And on a full team you'd usually have someone getting a merit for every mission completed. And if you're soloing you'd get more merits than are currently rewarded but the difference wouldn't be so huge as to dramatically devalue merits. |
Well, the soloer tends to be able to do his own arcs more of the time. I believe that currently, the soloer tends to be ahead of the teamer in regards to merit earning. As such, creating a system where the teamers can catch up to the soloers a bit in terms of merit earning might not be so bad.
I also think that larger teams should get more rewards. It takes longer to recruit a full team (maybe not so much with the super-sidekicking feature coming) than to just keep going to your own missions solo. Doing a mission with a smaller team can mean less time spent searching for members. As such, the larger the team, the more likely you are to get a single merit for being on the team.
However, this could mean double merits for the arc holder. So maybe the arc holder would not be eliigible for the merit rewards? Not sure what to do about that one, but it would make it so these merits were for helping, and not for doing, if that makes sense (as the doer already gets merits).
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
You make good points, Aett. Basically I'm in favor of any tweaks to merits that will allow teammates of the arc holder to get them. I have thought it was unfair since day one that the merit system punishes those who team and help with other people's missions.
My big concerns are 1) it has to be reasonable in magnitude, since any proposal that ends up doling out dramatically more merits probably won't have a chance of being implemented, and 2) it shouldn't swing from a system now that favors soloers over teamers to one that favors teamers over soloers.
Right now I mainly generate merits via task forces, but I'd love a system that allowed me to team and do other people's missions and not feel like I'm being penalized. 
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
So I was mulling on this, and decided to send a PM to Synapse. He's the dev in charge of rewards, and (IMO) an all around good guy. Here's what I wrote:
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In terms of expectations please keep in mind that a) Synapse might simply not agree this is worth pursuing, and b) even if he does like this idea, it would have to find its way onto the development calendar. They work out issue contents up to a year in advance. Plus, while this might seem simple to us players it might not be such a small programming task. As such, even if Synapse liked it and Posi approved it, it might take a very long time to find its way into the game.
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I mainly generate merits by doing TFs. But with Going Rogue's new content on the horizon, it reminded me that right now the merit system isn't really ideal in terms of how it allocates rewards. I'm referring to the "arc holder gets all rewards, teammates get none" problem. It penalizes those of us that like to team but are perfectly happy doing other people's arcs. To my way of thinking, an MMO should have reward mechanics that don't punish those who team but the current merit system inadvertantly does (with the exception of TFs). I'm aware that you don't want a system that's gameable or that will inadvertantly create new methods for merit farming. So with those caveats out of the way, my proposal: 1) Teammates other than the mission owner have a 33% chance of getting a reward merit on mission completion. 2) This would not apply to AE, newspaper, scanner, or TF missions.
As always, thanks for your consideration! |
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
I would be of the opinion that Arcs should be examined for example:
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Flux#Flux_the_Outcast
flux the outcast's mission with Frostfire at the end awards 7 merits.
this should be broken down and re-arranged so all team members get rewarded for completion.
Flux the outcast's arc is:
Souvenir: Flux the Outcast Contact: Flux Summary: 3 Door Missions (1 Defeat All), 1 Hunts Elite Boss: Frostfire
so, merits should be set at
1 per door mission
1 for defeat all mission
2 for the EB
1 for mission holder for completion
this works out at:
stop the outcast raid (1 merit)
Rescue the cops (defeat all) ( 2 merit)
Hit the streets (0 merits)
Take out frostfire (1 merit + 2 for eb = 3 merits)
mission holder +1 merit on completion
obviously something would have to be done for ouro missions or people would cherry pick arcs to amass huge amounts of Merits.
as another example (redside):
Breakout at the Zig : no merits listed on cohtitan...
3 door mission , 1 is defeat all:
no EB
steal the transfer list: 1 merit
Break prisoners out of the zig: 1 merit
Defeat the retrieval team: 2 merits (defeat all)
+ 1 for the mission owner
total: 5 merits
etc. that would be fair to all players and still reward the arc holder slightly more. as the merit amounts go up, the leftovers from missions goes as a reward to the owner and this gets larger but its still worthwhile helping out and its worthwhile joining halfway through an arc.
as an addendum to that: the same system for tf rewards (dimininshing returns) would have to be in place to stop a team of 8 just running frostfire 8 times and scooping up a massive 49 merits for one , quite short, arc.
I'm not sure every mission needs merits (coming from someone who 90% solos regular mission content, and was VERY happy when merits replaced el-cheapo SOs at the end of arcs), so I'm not really for that.
What *could* be done though is a reorganization of missions in the 1-20 or 1-30 game so that more contacts had tasks resembling arcs. Blue-side anyway, as Red-side was designed with smaller, more frequent arcs in mind. Of course a revamp of the early game has been requested for ages, so this isn't really a new idea and I wouldn't think it would be the highest priority. But at least content has been made since (Faultline) to help with this.
Merits for teaming...yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing something here. I'm in the early stages of leveling up a duo with my son, and I feel a little guilty if I run any of my contacts over his (though I guess we're still at a level where most missions aren't in arcs anyway). It would be nice if we could get merits for doing each other's arcs.
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
Adding merits to every mission would basically be feeding the "gimme NOW!" mentality that has been cropping up more and more often of late.
You aren't SUPPOSED to be able to trick out your character with the best stuff that easily. Why do you think AV soloing scrappers are a relative rarity? Because it is expensive and time consuming to build one to that level.
Most normal content is pretty trivial to a character that is IOed as much as it can possibly be. I kind of doubt the devs want people to be able to trivialize content with ease. It is possible to do currently, but you have to work at it.
Also, why would the devs implement something to fix a percieved problem with the markets....which they have no control over? It is not the devs job to give you a way of avoiding something that was blown out of whack by your fellow player.
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.