Are Reward Merits Working As Intended?

The Merit Rewards system is fairly well established at this point. It’s been around for over a year, and aside from a few reward payout adjustments, it has changed little since its release. The intent of the system was to replace the old, pre-I13 system of ‘one completed TF = one Pool C recipe’ with a system that more accurately rewarded players for the time invested in completing a task, dishing out Merit Rewards which the player can choose to spend on a number of different rewards according to his or her personal taste. The number of merits awarded was dependent on the average length of time for the task, with longer tasks yielding greater rewards.

The basic gist of the system is this, for those unaware:

Merits are awarded for Task Forces, Trials, and Story Arcs, and the rewards formula is designed to give players one merit for every 4 minutes spent running a TF, 3.5 minutes running a Trial, and 12 minutes running a story arc. These figures extend to 20, 24, and 8 merits per hour.

You get two merits for helping to defeat a Giant Monster.

You can redeem your merits for almost any of the game’s loot. A basic summary of prices:

Large inspiration: 1 merit.
SO: 8 merits.
Random rare salvage: 20 merits.
Random rare magic salvage: 30 merits.
Random rare tech salvage: 30 merits.
Common IO recipe: 12 merits.
Uncommon Enhancement Recipe: 50-75 merits.
Rare Enhancement Recipe: 125-275 merits.
Random Rare Recipe: 20 merits.

(Those numbers are pulled from the paragonwiki Merit Rewards page.)

Merits are not tradeable.

Discussion questions are these: Is the Reward Merits system working as intended? Is it even functional?

Reward Merits are not a viable alternative to the markets. Whether or not a ‘market alternative’ is the intended purpose of the system is not clear to me, but I think this basic point is beyond dispute.

In theory, you can kit out a character using nothing but Merit Rewards. In practice, the cost of doing so makes it basically impossible. Let me explain.

Merits are basically a measure of time. The whole purpose of the system was to provide rewards for in-game tasks that are proportionate to the time it takes to perform them. Not all Task Forces are created equal – some take significantly more time to complete than others. Merits even out the rewards, so that if you run a TF/SF takes hours and hours to complete on average, the payout will be a lot higher than one that only takes an hour. You get the idea.

So, assume that the time numbers above are correct – that it takes 4 minutes to earn a merit in a TF, 3.5 in a Trial, and 12 in a Story arc. As mentioned before, these extend to 20 merits per hour, 24 merits per hour, and 8 merits per hour respectively. Already we begin to see that it takes a huge amount of time to earn a single enhancement – if you wanted to earn a LotG: +Recharge recipe just using merits, you would have to spend 10 hours running task forces, 8.3 hours running trials, or 25 hours running story arcs to get it. Which is not a huge amount of time to spend earning one of the better enhancements in the game, really – over the course of a character’s journey to 50, you can expect to spend far more than 10 hours playing unless you powerlevel a lot.

But a character build requires more than just one enhancement. Let’s use an example:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Twisted Blaze: Level 50 Magic Blaster
Primary Power Set: Fire Blast
Secondary Power Set: Energy Manipulation
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Flame Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Flares -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(13), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37)
Level 1: Power Thrust -- KinCrsh-Dmg/KB(A), KinCrsh-Acc/KB(34), KinCrsh-Rchg/KB(46), KinCrsh-Rechg/EndRdx(48), KinCrsh-Dmg/EndRdx/KB(48), KinCrsh-Acc/Dmg/KB(50)
Level 2: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(13), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(27), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(36), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 4: Energy Punch -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(21), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(27)
Level 6: Fire Ball -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(7), Posi-Dmg/Rng(7), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), Posi-Dam%(40), RechRdx-I(46)
Level 8: Fire Breath -- Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(9), Posi-Dmg/Rng(9), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(17), Posi-Dam%(46), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 10: Bone Smasher -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(11), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(21), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 14: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(15), Rec'dRet-Pcptn(48)
Level 16: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(17)
Level 18: Blaze -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(19), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(29), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37)
Level 20: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 22: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(23), P'Shift-End%(37)
Level 24: Rain of Fire -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(25), Posi-Dmg/Rng(43), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43)
Level 26: Combat Jumping -- Krma-ResKB(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(40)
Level 28: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 30: Blazing Bolt -- Mantic-Acc/Dmg(A), Mantic-Dmg/EndRdx(31), Mantic-Dmg/ActRdx/Rchg(31), Mantic-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Mantic-Acc/ActRdx/Rng(45)
Level 32: Inferno -- Erad-Dmg(A), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Erad-Dmg/Rchg(33), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33)
Level 35: Boost Range -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36)
Level 38: Total Focus -- C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(39), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(39), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 41: Char -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(42), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(42), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(42), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(43)
Level 44: Fire Shield -- TtmC'tng-ResDam(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(45), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(45), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Bonfire -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Rise of the Phoenix -- RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 0: Ninja Run


This is my Fire/EM Blaster’s build (enhancement levels are approximate – I’m cheap and won’t shell out for max-level stuff if the slightly-lower stuff is much less expensive). I designed it to be a Budget Build by my standards – I spent 150-200M on her to obtain all of these enhancements, with the exception of the LotG: +Rech, which I purchased using the 200 merits that I earned playing normally from 1-41. There are no purples or PvP IOs, no expensive uniques, nothing like that – the priciest object on it is the LotG, which I purchased using merits.

Time cost to me was minimal. It wasn’t nonexistent – I had to use the market intelligently, be patient in selling my drops for the best possible price, use any tickets I had well, exercise extreme patience with low-ball bids, that sort of thing. I started leveling the character with this build in mind and spent her career working on it, but the point is that I had all of her enhancements just before I hit level 50 by using the market and using my non-market resources (merits and tickets) wisely.

The merit cost of the recipes needed for this build is 7560 – an absurd sum. Remember the intended time cost of Reward Merits – the cost of this build in Time, assuming the above numbers are correct (4 merits/minute for TFs, 3.5 m/m for Trials, 12 m/m for Story Arcs) are as follows:

504 Hours spent running TFs.
441 Hours spent running Trials.
1512 Hours spent running Story arcs.

Wow. You would have to spend 21 days running back-to-back Task Forces to get all of these recipes just relying on the Reward Merits system. Can’t find a team? You could spend 2 months and 3 days in Ouroboros instead, running story arcs. No sleeping allowed, slacker. Alternatively, I suppose you could hunt down and kill 3780 Giant Monsters…

Remember, only TFs, Trials, Story Arcs, and Giant Monsters count – if you want to PvP, Badge hunt, design/play AE missions, street sweep, run newspaper missions or anything like that, you’re out of luck.

I’d be willing to bet that I haven’t spent 504 hours running TFs in total, across all of my characters on both sides of the game, throughout my entire career playing this game – and I’m a 75 Month veteran.

This also does not take into account the 680 merits worth of rare salvage you’d need to craft all those recipes, but don’t worry. It’s only another 45 hours spent TFing.

If you want to get those Common IOs, you’ll need another 156 merits. Just ten hours to go and the build is done.

(This is a fairly conservative build, too. I used a lot of Uncommon sets like Thunderstrike and Crushing Impact. Imagine how much worse it’d be if I used more Rare sets, which can be up to four times the price of Uncommons!)

Now, obviously, this example has reached the point of being ridiculous. I can’t imagine even the most diehard anti-market players would spend that much time farming just to avoid market PvP. Indeed, while running 504 hours of TFs, you’d probably amass the price tag necessary to buy this build at Wentworths several times over with enemy-kill infamy and drops.

But that’s sort of my point. Reward Merits are simply not an alternative to the markets – not a viable one, at least. I might as well claim that a teaspoon is a viable alternative to a steam shovel.

In practice, you have to either use the markets or forget about planning your character around IO sets at all.

Is this working as intended?

Maybe. If the intended purpose of the Merits system is to provide players with an alternative to the markets, then it’s clearly flawed. But this isn’t necessarily the intended purpose of the system – when I started writing this post, I was convinced that Synapse directly stated this when I13 was in its early days, but I can’t find the post to prove it. It was either mentioned in the now-defunct beta forums, it got lost after the forums were upgraded, or it was never said at all and I imagined it – I’m not perfect, and stranger things have happened.

Perhaps an ‘alternative to the markets’ was never the point of the system at all, then. In that case, the Reward Merits system may be working as intended, as it certainly does a better job at providing fair, proportional rewards for the lengthier tasks in the game than the pre-I13 system. I find that most people just random-roll away their merits, finding little point in saving them for specific purchases, because the cost of a specific purchase can be up to ten times the cost of a random roll. The overall effect of the system on the markets has been positive, in my opinion – you can get random rolls while soloing, now, and you can get multiple rolls for certain long TFs. It means a larger supply of the rare recipes heading to the market, which is, in my opinion, good. But if the intention is to make the purchase of specific IOs so expensive as to be completely unattractive to players so they’ll random-roll with their merits, why give them the choice at all?

While I do obviously have an opinion, I’ll concede that I might not be seeing the whole picture here. I would really like to hear what others think.

Thoughts?

(Apologies if this has gone up in the wrong forum.)

I have not, to this day, redeemed a single reward merit. So I guess I can't answer the question. Next!

--NT

If you use Merits, you will guaranteed get what you want eventually.

If you use the market, you may not ever see what you want to bid on at any price.

Merits provide a direct relationship between time spent playing and benefit received.

The market is a gamble; you could get what you want now or never, for 5 inf or a billion.

I don't think Merits significantly reduce the supply to the market; there is no guarantee the drops that would have fallen instead of would not have simply been deleted for room (and I beleive that one of the complaints that led to the markets was due to certain drops being common as dirt and clogging inventory).

I beleive Reward Merits are WAI: they allow you to know exactly what is going to 'drop' at the end of a given arc.

Lets say you specifically want a LotG. I know I can get one by running 10 hours of TFs. In that time, if you got a random drop at the end of a TF instead, how likely is it that one would be an LotG?

I think merits, especially getting them for running story arcs, was a huge boon to players like me that don't run a lot of TF's. I can now get the specialty IO's I could never have afforded in the past. True I can't afford a full build but that isn't something I've ever wanted to do anyway, at least for the present. I just wanted KB protection and maybe a Regen/Recovery ... stuff like that.

I don't feel like I'm affecting the market at all since the 1 or 2 recipes I earned pre-i13 wasn't adding to the recipe supply anyway. That plus the merits I'm spending now are earned in a way that wouldn't have given a reward under the old system at all.

I've redeemed merits for random recipe rolls, and gotten mostly junk. The rare few that were useful I slotted myself, the others were put on the market (for 5) for a couple of days, then removed and sold to a store. I don't recall a single one selling.

I've gotten far more use out of the random recipe drops than anything Merit-related, and supplied the market more too. I'm not one to run a lot of TFs so I don't see much need in trying to build up 275 for the top-end stuff. I wouldn't earn that many over 10 characters.

While you can turn off exp gain, I don't think you can turn off Inf gain. This is important to note because you do not get either Merits or Inf. You get both at the same time, provided that you are on Merit rewarding content.

Stuff that I don't feel are reasonable prices I tend to buy with Merits. Stuff that is, I buy with Inf. This has worked incredibly well for my characters since the system was introduced. It saves me time, it lets me work my way towards something, and it tossed out "chancing my progress." This is not so much an alternative to the market as it is an additive to the ways we can get goodies.

Whatever the intention, it has and is doing an excellent job of making the game more fun for me.

Here are some changes that could be made to Reward Merits to cause more of them to be turned into recipes, in order of expected popularity from most to least.

* Make merits mailable between your own characters.
Good for: altoholics.
Objection: merits are something the characters are supposed to accrue through their own actions.
Rebuttal: so is influence, and we pass that stuff around all the time.

* Make merits a single account-wide pool.
Good for: altoholics, villains (who can mooch off their rich hero co-alts).
Objection: violates hero/villain separation.
Rebuttal: so do tickets earned through MA ratings.

* Allow players to set the level at which they want to roll merit rewards (for instance, if you roll in the 30-34 range with level set to 43, you will receive a recipe that could be generated at levels 30-34, and it will either be level 43 or max level if that is below 43).
Good for: people who want sets at particular levels for exemping or other purposes, marketeers.
Objection: technically, this can be done already by leveling to the desired level and then locking XP while running TFs.
Rebuttal: nobody but the most bloody-minded optimizer does that.

* Remove non-random rolls entirely. Force a random roll immediately whenever enough merits have been accumulated.
Good for: marketeers, people who don't know what to do with merits.
Objection: removes path to earn specific items without resorting the market, you evil marketeer person.
Rebuttal: I care more about whether the market is useful than whether it can be circumvented, because I'm an evil marketeer person.

I don't run a lot of TFs or anything, so I don't earn all that many merits. I am basically indifferent to them.

Awhile back, I decided I wanted to be able to play around with IOs, so I learned how to use the market to make money. Now, with a little patience, I can buy most anything I want. I don't really feel any need for merits.

It seems to me that the problem of merits concentrating recipes at 50 could be solved with a new crafting function that lets you "rework" the recipe level down to either your present level, or the lowest possible level for the IO.

The only problem I have with merits is how they've dried up the mid-level supply. Allowing people to set the maximum level of their roll would be the perfect solution in my mind.

Other than that I do enjoy merits quite a bit more than random drops. I don't like being subject to the fluctuations of the market, and find it much more enjoyable to earn 200 merits for something rare than to play the market for the influence needed.

Great OP.

As a question, what is the inf equivalent of a merit based on those specified times? How much inf would I earn on average on a lvl 50 TF per hour that would earn me 20 merits?

Ultimately merits might be a 'cheaper' way of earning particular in-game rewards, but it has had the impact of creating supply issues through the reduced generation of particular items. Personally I believed that both systems - random rolls AND merits - should have been implemented, so that players had a choice and the overall supply of recipes into the economy was maintained (or even increased).

As an alternative to the market merits are valid.

Not for getting everything as you suggest (what about drops when earning that merit load you posted).

However, specifically for high inf items, you can relatively easily earn the merits to direct buy the recipe, that's the 'alternative to the market'.

In addition they provide scaled rewards reflecting the time and to some extend the difficulty of tasks. Much better than 1 recipe per TF no matter what.

So yes they are very much working as intended in most ways, though there are a few consequences which I think are unintended (the recipes drying up below level cap)

It's probably memory exaggeration, but it seemed like I never got anything but useless pet recipe drops from those, anyway. Ah, such are the vagaries of "random".

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

They fairly recently (Issue 14) added weighting to the Merit Random Rolls.

Makes that choice even better value.