By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2010-04-22 13:38 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
Not everyone has time to do TFs.
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Thought: Make merits an account based thing. I hate that if I'm going for a certain reward, I'm limited to one character, instead of the one that best suits my team.
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
2) In some cases, I want it at a particular level. This is why all of my toons blow all merits on random rolls when they are in the mid 30's and I have a blaster at 37 with XP turned off. But if I have to have a LotG at level 25, then I buy it.
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Originally Posted by Psara
Wait a sec. Between the level slider and brackets for recipe rolls what is it you can't get? I'm missing something :/
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
If you are level 50 and you roll on the 30-34 track and get an Luck of the Gambler piece, that recipe will be level 50, not level 30. The desired affect is to roll as if your level was X, rather than your real level, allowing you to gain level 30 (or whatever) recipes of sets that extend all the way to 50.
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Originally Posted by Psara
But if you drop the slider to 30 it still shows up as 50?
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Yes.
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I think merit rewards should be increased by a MINIMUM 200%.
The payoff now is ok and all. But merits were created to reward those who didn't have time to chain-run-farm task forces and such.
Good idea overall, but needs a huge boost to really accomplish its intent.
I wouldnt support a unilateral forcing of rolls, because we need the ability to save up for those spoecific big ticket items. I would however, support a split system, on any TF that gives more merits than a random roll costs, havi it auto-roll once, and give the remainder in merits. That gives a random roll feeding the market pool, AND the ability to save up, even though it takes a bit longer.
And I can't stress enough how much we need to be able to determine the actual level of our random rolls- or, as someone else suggested, a way to craft any recipie at the level we desire.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Yes.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I just get irritable when people say 'can't be done' when they mean 'will take longer than I want it to'.
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Originally Posted by JohnX
The payoff now is ok and all. But merits were created to reward those who didn't have time to chain-run-farm task forces and such.
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I was hoping that the merit system would make more people want to fight GMs (especially the badgeless Paladin), but the count is so small it never happened. 
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Originally Posted by macskull
One of the nice things about merits is that not only can you get them from TFs/SFs, but you can get them through Ouroboros flashbacks and regular story arcs (assuming you're the mission holder), which you can complete at your leisure. Don't have time to run task forces a lot? Okay, run some Ouro arcs or maybe a few regular contact arcs. Sure, the merit gain won't be as high as someone who runs a lot of TFs, but it isn't supposed to be.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
That's not really a nice thing. A nice thing would be if they were accumulated doing any given non-AE PuG content.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
In these sorts of discussions, I find that 'longer than I want' may as well be 'an infinite amount of time.' In general, they're both equally out of reach.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
In these sorts of discussions, I find that 'longer than I want' may as well be 'an infinite amount of time.' In general, they're both equally out of reach.
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Originally Posted by Mnemnosyne
Or at least if others besides the mission holder got merits when doing regular story arcs.
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QR, not read every reply here but I have a couple of thoughts
Good OP - but I think it's worth remembering that previous rewards didn't work as well. Many got farmed - Katie Hannon was a classic for that - and there were issues with the rewards
I believe that merits are an adjunct to the reward system. I think some people have already said you get inf by doing missions plus random recipe drops too - which can often be much better than the merits for the TF/Arc that's being run.
The big advantage with merits is that you can use them to get exactly what you want - and I'd guess people choose the stuff that's expensive in the markets... the heal uniques, the LotG +7 etc...
I also think that it's important to take Merits in the round combined with other rewards - for example Architect Tickets - which works excellently as a compliment. Run a few MA arcs, swap your tickets for a couple of random Bronze rolls or some super-rare salvage and you will probably have a goodly amount of cash to spend in the AH on the other stuff you want.
Yes, Merits on their own suck at their current level - but whilst I think they could do with a small boost* - they work very well with the other rewards in game and give you an opportunity to get the build you want - and a reason to continue playing a character after it's hit the big 50
*especially for the GMs - 2 merits for them is derisory and it'd be good to see GMs worth hunting again.
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Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
* 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. |
qr
Rewards for various activities in the game, performed by different ATs/powersets, are completely unbalanced all around. In this case I'm defining rewards as "anything which can be used to get IOs," including recipes(either used directly or sold), inf(used to buy recipes to make or crafted enhancements) and salvage(sold or used to make enhancements). This assumes usage of the market but not necessarily any kind of marketeering.
IMO there are two main types of activity in the game, as far as rewards are concerned. Solo farming on a character who is very good at it, and everything else. If I am really wanting to earn rewards, I will solo farm. There is no comparison between the rate at which I can earn purple drops(and the subsequent inf they will sell for) versus earning merits. What's the best-case scenario for merit earning, like one per minute or slightly higher?
Merits used for rolls (as opposed to buying recipes outright) can result in a higher earning rate than farming, but it's much more random. Buying recipes outright is extremely inefficient from an earning standpoint with only one advantage, it guarantees you can get what you want. As a rule I do not consider this advantage worth the tradeoff.
So I have a choice, content that is more fun and engaging(TFs/arcs, team play) or solo farming for purples. Also, the fact that desirable recipes cost so many merits runs counter to weighted drops. I wish this weren't the case. I prefer doing team-oriented content with as much variety as this game can muster. So I have to decide which is more important at any given time, my ability to improve characters(for future fun), or my current fun.
Obviously if the devs wanted to correct this, they have two choices, both of which are probably pretty bad and/or impossible to get right. Increase rewards for "normal" activity to make it competitive with farming, or nerf rewards for farming. This is not a new thought or argument at all, but from my perspective the entire question of merit rewards is immaterial if there exists another activity which blows it out of the water.
I think the point is to have the choice.
Regardless of whether or not you are 'right' in preferring a certain activity, the alternative is provided for others who prefer it.
I just feel sorry for those who spend Merits on large inspirations and SOs. Won't someone please think of the n00bs? 
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Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
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. ... |
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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
Fine, so that begs the question:
How long do you want it to take? Starting from scratch at level 50, how long should it take to IO out? Starting from scratch at level 1, how long should it take to IO out? How many KHTFs should it take to get an LotG from Merits alone? You get the idea. Feel free to assume 4 hours of play per day as a general figure, running nothing but back to back TFs, just to get a base on some numbers. Sure, nothing may come of it (since IOs are optional content) but I'm just curious as to the thought process behind any figures that may materialize. |
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
Well, to start with I don't think you should have to do TFs at all. Nor do I think one should have to play for a significant time on a daily basis to have a chance at getting them in a timely fashion. I would say that 8 hours of play should easily be enough to acquire at least one full set (that's one set, not one character's worth of sets) of any level-appropriate non-purple IOs. And that's doing any non-AE missions, not just TFs and story arcs.
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