Merits Redside vs Blueside Arcs.

After taking toons 1-50 recently, both Red & Blue.

I was tallying merits I achieved both sides, The difference is not very good for Redside. Im sure other folks have done this & posted, but I figured I should post my findings as well.

Blueside, I took toon that only did this: Atlas to The Hollows to Faultline to Striga to Croatoa to RWZ. Doing the 2 story arcs for Tina McIntyre & Maria Jenkins., Subtract the 1 Ernesto Hess & 1 Moonfire TF I did(50 total Merits). 347 Merits mins 50, 297 Merits total.

Redside, 1-50, 142 Merits total. This doing every contact I could do(Each team was both 8 man teams) Thus I would out lvl some contacts, move on to another. I did no Strikeforces.

So, total difference between the 2 are 105 Merit Difference. That a huge difference in my opinion(could also explain some market issues, though no where close all).


Either we need some more zone specifics like Hollows/Faultline/Striga/Croatoa into RWZ(since both get RWZ) or the Story arc's need the merits beefed up some?

What do ya'll think?


JJ

Arcs are balanced by median time taken. (determined by datamining)

Redside arcs tend to be shorter, so lower merits per arc. But there are more arcs available redside.

Can't be totally right though Cat.

Faultline & Striga alone, I was raking in Merits. While around those lvls(redside), I was lucky to see any merits.

I think they need to go through the system again or add some redside zone's like a Faultline or a Striga that can award around the same merits.


JJ

Both done after i16


JJ

Don't forget that the devs hate Villains too.

Redside arcs tend to be more concisely written without needlessly extending arcs (blueside has a lot of errands) or making you travel across several zones for no good reason. Accordingly, it's more efficient, and in the way that merits are designed, you're punished for it.

Once I hit level 25, I do all my arcs via Ouroboros. That way I only get the story arcs that award merits and not the filler missions.

Not sure if CoV as a bunch of filler missions or not. I tend to rake in merits on both sides using this technique.

I think the theory is that while you get less merits redside (overall) it takes less time so technically you should be able to run more arcs in the same amount of time/levels and make roughly the same amount of merits. The problem is that even if you DO run all the arcs available redside you won't get the same amount of merits because there simply are not all that much available. I have run multiple characters from 1-30ish on both sides carefully running all the best arcs I could (and in some cases simply running ALL the arcs available) and where I have hit well above 300 merits blueside by L30 the best I have managed is about 200 by the low 30's villainside - and that is only after the last round of increases in redside merit awards (i15 i think?) - prior to that it wasn't worth trying to run all the arcs, you just didn't get enough merits to justify it. Please note - in both cases my goal was to see how well I could earn merits without having to turn off XP, to sort of chart what a soloist who mostly never ran taskforces could do to earn merits. I did end up running a couple of TF's on either side because I got invites and was in the mood but i figure the TF awards balanced out.

Now, things aren't as bad now with the changes to sidekicking that allow you to both get XP while doing oroborous missions and to keep 5 levels worth of powers, so you can repeat the 'good' arcs redside, but the fact remains that no matter how much time you have villains simply don't have as much opportunity to earn merits as heroes. In fact, it gets worse at higher levels, after about level 30 there are very few villain arcs that give more than 10 merits where most hero arcs give 20+ at those levels. Another factor that makes it hard villainside is that you have to 'earn' your contacts through mayhem missions which generally means you have to do 3 mayhem missions per zone as well as 3 full sets of paper missions, which adds up quite a bit after level 20. You don't get ANY merits for that. Once again, orobourous somewhat helps you work around this but I don't like having to go back and 'grind' things in order to get the same thing I can heroside just by levelling my character at a normal pace.

Basically yeah, the Villains are screwed merits wise JJ.
The time spent on them looks to be a fairly weak excuse to me, lets take the Positron or Synapse TF's for example, a good team takes how long to finish these, 2 or 3 hours? For a 50-60-ish merits reward? (can't be bothered to look up the exact number )
Now compare that to the Cap SF that's worth 12 merits (13 since i16?), which probably can be run in an hour with a decent team (yes, speedrunners probably do it in half an hour or less, but they probably do the other two faster than 2 or 3 hours as well).
Even if you were to run it six times in the same time it takes one Posi/Synapse you wouldn't have the same amount of merits thanks to the diminishing returns (and even without them, barely), although i doubt it could be run six times in the timeframe it takes to do one Posi.
Story arcs are much better designed redside though, and filler missions from contacts aren't nearly as common as they are on Blue.
TF wise the only ones with a decent reward that villainside gets are the ones they have to share with the heroes
But ah well, on with the show /rant

I would kill for something with positron-level merits redside.

I have a similar experience as the OP. Justice Fencer blue-side at 37 and Agent Burns red-side at 36 are worlds apart.

I'm not sure on Fencer's history but I know of 17 arcs she's completed for a total of 222 merits. She has run a grand total of 3 radios and 1 safeguard but does join big teams as often as possible which is also merit-less.

Burns' history is easy to trace. Burke, Creed, Radio, McKnight (both), Brass (first), Marino, Wade, Dubrowski, Cage (both), Maros, Kirkland, Demitrovich, Sheldon, Rutger (both), Mu'Drakhan (running but assuming both). 15 contacts, approximately 19 arcs for 129 merits. He has run untold numbers of newspapers with multiple mahem missions but very little teaming.

The number of contacts is very similar, with slightly more arcs red-side. But the average for Fencer is 13 merits per arc while it is only 8 for Burns.

The real difference has been in the last 10 levels hero-side. With arcs that give 34 (Freaklympics), 26 (Unity Plague), and 27 (Path into Darkness) giving Fencer a huge boost over Burns who was lucky to get 15 from each of his last two contacts.

Note that I was not trying to maximize merits in either case. I just ran whatever sounded interesting for whatever contacts were available in the normal course of play. I knew there was a big gulf between them but hadn't really thought about it before I read this thread.

TBH, I think Redside Merit Rewards are gimped. After doing a VEAT Arc which was three parts, I only got one merit. That wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't a level 30 Crab Spider trying to defeat Back Alley Brawler, who can make even Masterminds run from his damage. If I did something similar Blueside I'd probably get 5 merits :S

Redside sucks. This is news?

If you like Brutes, Corruptors, and the like, just wait for Going Rogue and you'll never have to see that hellish dystopia again.

A couple questions:

1) what was your team size like overall between blue/red. I couldn't tell if your statement about being on a full 8 man team most of the time referred to only your villain, or to both your hero and villain. Being on a bigger team redside more often would cut into your merits per XP ratio.

2) How often did you have to do radios/paper chains to get your next contact. It could be as simple as blueside has a lot more chained contacts and contacts you can just go straight to (hollows, faultline), where redside, you have to do a paper chain for every new contact almost, which cuts into your merits per XP ratio.

If you know me, know of me on Virtue

You Know I run full 8s, 24-7 Folks love my XP'ing, so at times, I have wait lists to get into the team.

Both sides where 8 man, as for Radio, I did 1 I think on Blueside, as a filler, as I went to get some SOs, in middle of XPing, which I missed that most that mish.


As for Red, I would say 5, cuz I did 1 Mayhem Mish. Beyond that, was snagging every possible contact that was coming up for us.


JJ

The whole system needs to be scrapped because it isnt fair. At this point in the game they can not use travel time as an excuse because we get teleporters to every freaking zone just about and a power to teleport you directly to the mission. Not to mention multiple travel powers starting at level 4. It needs to be done based on map size,faction of the critters, total critters killed, critters level and if other objectives being completed like glowies, also modified by AT and powerset. If this was done we would have a better view on how the rewards need to be balanced. Meaning if you are a fire/kin setting the mission for +4 set for 8 you are going to get less than an empath doing it set for -1 set for just them.