I don't understand the rolls and can't find a faq

Hi Posty,

In answer to some of your questions, both explicit and implied...

1. No, cashing out reward merits isn't the most optimal way of making influence. Midlevel Crisis and it's villain counterpart is really about making stuff available. Self enrichment is sort of a by product. With that said, both my hero and villain both stand at 200M+ without doing any type of serious marketing and only selling reward drops or drops during missions. If I were set out to just make inf, I wouldn't bother level locking, grabbing merits, etc. Instead I'd farm AE tickets, craft and play the market.

2. We're level locking largely because while some recipes are plentiful at level 50, they're rare at the midlevels (25-40). Take a look at a set like Scirocco's Dervish. Try to find a Acc/Dmg/End recipe that's in the 30s right now. Chances are, you won't find it. And if there is one, it won't stay on the market for long. Our SG's mission is to help alleviate this shortage somewhat.

3. We talk about random rolls because from a statical standpoint that's the best way to spend reward merits. When you have a stack of reward merits, you can a) buy a common recipe, inspiration or salvage (most people don't use merits for this); b) use the merits for a specific set IO recipe at the level of your choice; or c) do random rolls, which gives you a pool C (taskforce reward) recipe at your character's level.

Choice b) buying a specific set IO is probably the worst and most expensive choice you can make, since most desirable set recipes cost in the order of 200 - 240 merits or the equivalent of 10 - 12 random rolls. In 10 random rolls, your chances are very good that at least 2 or 3 of the recipes you roll will be good enough to offset the 7 or 8 mediocre or bad ones. You can in turn sell off the 2 or 3 good ones to buy what you really want, or possibly one of the good ones may be the recipe you've been after all along.

Actually someone did an analysis on this I think early last year. At the time, using merits to buy an LotG:7.5% was on average as effective as random rolls in the 35-39 level range. The LotG was worth about 400k Inf/merit spent, while random rolls were in the same range. The level range was important as it's really the exceptions that bring the average up. If you stick to 45-50 you miss Miracles, Touch of Death, Decimation, Kinetic Combat, etc. Fortunately the devs started applying weightings to drops to reduce the number of bad recipes. Unfortunately they didn't tell us what those weightings are. So we can't really compute the average value now of a random roll. But I expect it has gone up somewhat, as the Devs likely increased the chance of high demand things, but I don't think there has been a corresponding drop in prices.

I will definitely agree that using Merits to buy something like a Crushing Impact recipe is a waste of merits. On the other hand, using merits to buy something specific and then selling it on the Market for 100+M may be better than random rolls. That figure of 400k Inf/merit is probably a good general guideline.

But if you're talking Mid-level Crisis, then the whole object is to generate lots of drops. That means using random rolls.

That's interesting, so if LoTG +recharges were selling for 80M or more, it's a better rate of return if you go and buy a LoTG and sell it as opposed to doing 10 random rolls. Of course, that's under the old unweighted system.

Many someones as a particular someone, who remembers that well. The original random roll was worth slightly less on average by a factor of a couple thousand inf/merit. So you were in effect paying the house to take a random roll.


That number was considering only pool C recipes. Someone else pointed out that direct purchase and craft of rare pool A/B recipes that were not in the gold roll pool could yield even more profit.

The optimum situation would have to have merits traded on wentworths. I have to say it was funny as all heck to see the same people who had vapor locked to the developers posteriors saying that this wasn't needed prior to I13 do a 180 when the problems with merits raised their ugly heads. Then again they probably had hoped to reap large profits buying recipes from people who couldnt properly value them, the lack of supply and narrowing of the price ranges must have been a nasty surprise.

Huh. This passage appears to contain many false statements. I remember lots of marketeer complaining about developers when the plan for merits was introduced, with such people predicting what some of the drawbacks of merits might be, including lack of supply at mid-levels as well as an overall reduction of pool 'C's. So I don't think this was a surprise to the readership here. In addition, I remember people bragging that they'd make a windfall no matter what the changes, and probably most earners kept on earnin'.

There were some people vehemently against having merits traded that later went on to do a 180 on this. Funny to watch I still don't know whether to credit chutzpah or Altzheimers. One of them did a giant spreadsheet which is still online purportedly showing it was advantageous to take the random roll. The funny thing was if you bought the lotg @ lvl 25 that you came out 2k ahead of the unweighted random roll.

I believe you are referring to a different argument and I am pretty certain the people who were wrong are still sensitive about it. It isn't surprising you are exploiting volatility and then go around promoting a strategy that promotes volatility and conveniently overlook the downside.

Its a real shame, merits have some big flaws they might have been able to be fixed or at least gotten some work arounds before I13 if there was a more unified player response.

Interesting.

Skimmed this earlier.

Just as a note and a caveat emptor to anyone reading. Seeing as it can take a fair chunk of time to accumulate the merits, anyone contemplating the random roll might want to go over to test take the few minutes to roll randomly and see how what they get plays out. And do that several times.

The weighting has made certain that more useful recipes are more likely to drop but it has also increased their supply greatly.

Would anyone like a positrons proc ?

And please all that matters is the recipe price. If you want to compete in the crafted market its much easier and efficient to just start bidding for the recipes of people that were unable for whatever reason to craft. Craft them yourself and list them at a healthy markup for yourself and a healthy discount to where the current 5 are. That way you can at least understand what is going on, and not get fleeced by people who have made a study of it.

...which would accomplish exactly nothing no matter how many times you did it, as odds are fairly good that the rolls you end up getting on live will not be close to what you get on test. Might you get some IOs common between your rolls? Sure. Is it a good indicator of what you'll likely get? Not even close.

That's like saying "go online and play craps there, so you know what you'll get when you go to the casino and do it for real." Sorry, doesn't work that way.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

It will give them an idea of just how badly they can do.

And you are wrong about the no matter how many times but that is a matter far beyond just casual observation and would require effort to record and analyze the results, and is something that if you have many merits you might want to take the trouble to do.

Or you could just take the word of people that profit from your mistakes. Why not ?

Ah heck I am feeling charitable.

Just so you might understand in real life many people come up with systems for all kinds of things. Before Edward Thorpe people with systems for blackjack were the bread and butter of casinos. People with systems for baccarat, slot machines, craps, roulette still by and large are (Roulette can be beatable but the only way to check is against the wheel you will be playing against and you have to hope the casino doesnt re-balance daily). Anyway if you have a system for casino games, the stock market, or rolling merits it behooves you to check it.

I've given out all my secrets, and all my techniques, repeatedly on this board and to anyone who asks. I can still go into Wentworth's or the Black Market and find fifteen ways to make ten million inf per transaction.

Why SHOULDN'T I give away my secrets? There's billions of inf out there for anyone who wants it. I destroyed (at this point) something like thirteen billion inf, on purpose, and the amount in the game is still growing.

If I had a card counting system that worked, I'd keep THAT secret, because there's actual scarce money to be made from that.

You see its not that 90 Hours its that 5 minutes to check and do things wisely that's the killer.

The card counting system ? You'd be better off letting everyone know, That was Dr. Thorps strategy he became quite the celebrity for awhile , has a best selling book (Beat the dealer) and operates a hedgefund these days.

Hmmmm I wonder if 20K qualifies.

And to be nice the conclusion was the best use of merits was to buy things you can't get with inf.

This is true, but you'd need a very large sample to a good idea of what the weightings are.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Oh sure - it would be a large undertaking, but it might be worth it to some to pin down. I don't know if A_F's number of 20k would suffice (don't feel like doing math...), but that's a pretty fair chunk.

in my experience, this is what I've found to be true. LoTG+7.5s have been going for 100+mil for a while now. I tried doing the random roll thing for 400 merits, but found my results to come up to 60mil at absolute best. Plus the added annoyance of having to craft, list, n wait. I went back to buy the one recipe n get big chunk o money.