Repairing the merit system and the markets
By
Another_Fan,
Posted on: 2010-05-30 23:45 in The Market and Inventions
This looks a heck of a lot like a set of suggestions I've been schlepping around as of late, though having rolls accumulate points toward a non-random choice is a new twist and one that addresses the least popular aspect. I'm not clear on why the cost of a random roll needs to be boosted, unless you consider the extra 5 merits as being banked toward that non-random pick. And I'm also not clear on why gold rolls need to be removed, or why bronze roll prices need to be boosted - all you're really doing is making the pool C/D supply problem slightly worse there, while also reducing pool A supply. That there are a lot of pool A recipes is not, to my mind, a problem in and of itself.
Other than that, it's more or less what I've been saying, so yeah. I'd add in that merits should be pooled at the account rather than the character level, so there's fewer merits collecting dust on various alts. I'd also throw in the ability to bid across a range of levels while we're at it - it's not much use to increase the spread of levels a recipe is available at if you can't leave a bid up for exactly n recipes between x and y level.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
These suggestions would cause the price of some really desirable pool Cs to skyrocket (the ones that are currently merit bought).
My suggestion would be to do the following:
TFs and arcs awarding 14 merits or less: no change
TFs and arcs awarding 15-25 merits: Award one token, reduce merit award by 9
TFs and arcs awarding 26-50 merits: Award 2 tokens, reduce merit award by 17
TFs awarding 51+ merits: Award 3 tokens, reduce merit award by 24
2 tokens for a pool C completely random roll off a weighted table of all possible pool Cs, you choose level of IO up to your level +3 at redemption time. You may not hold more than 10 tokens.
This would have 2 consequences.
The useful low to mid level drops would turn up with reasonable frequency due to the random rolls.
If you want to merit buy stuff, it pays to do the longer TFs, as you get forced into less expenditure proportionally on the random rolls.
This would work very well for heroes, possibly slightly less so for vills. Vills could do with a longish 30-35 TF to really make this work or access to the shard.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
the simple more elegant solution is to undo the ***** up the devs made when they added merits to the system : all TFs that grant over 20 merits would be reduced by 20 merits and also grant a random roll just like they used to.
Merit costs would also be reduced some what to handle the decrease in merit generation.
The devs simply messed up when they created the merit system in the first place by removing random incidental supply. This wrecked havoc on the market supply.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
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I forget, was the random roll at your level or the level of the TF ?|
Originally Posted by Lohenien
the simple more elegant solution is to undo the ***** up the devs made when they added merits to the system : all TFs that grant over 20 merits would be reduced by 20 merits and also grant a random roll just like they used to.
Merit costs would also be reduced some what to handle the decrease in merit generation. The devs simply messed up when they created the merit system in the first place by removing random incidental supply. This wrecked havoc on the market supply. |
The token system I proposed would at least give you the chance to specify what level the IO you got was, while accomplishing essentially the same thing. Also the 19 merit TFs would become quite popular in your world.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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I'm confused on this part. If the issue is not enough random pool cs generated, wouldn't dropping the price of gold rolls increase the number available?
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Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
3) Mission Architect (diluting/skewing the rewards pool) Remove Gold rolls from the MA and make Merit content/boss defeats outside MA the only way to generate Pool Cs. Then increase the ticket cost for Bronze rolls by 25% |
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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Yes the extra merit cost is to accomodate the people that only save for a specific recipe. I doubt the devs will just make it free (I can hope, but all previous dev patterns concerned with the market have reduced the available Pool Cs at each and every step not increased them) but 20 rolls at 5 extra merits per roll is still less than saving 250 merits and it assures that there were 20 randoms generated geting there.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
This looks a heck of a lot like a set of suggestions I've been schlepping around as of late, though having rolls accumulate points toward a non-random choice is a new twist and one that addresses the least popular aspect. I'm not clear on why the cost of a random roll needs to be boosted, unless you consider the extra 5 merits as being banked toward that non-random pick. And I'm also not clear on why gold rolls need to be removed, or why bronze roll prices need to be boosted - all you're really doing is making the pool C/D supply problem slightly worse there, while also reducing pool A supply. That there are a lot of pool A recipes is not, to my mind, a problem in and of itself.
Other than that, it's more or less what I've been saying, so yeah. I'd add in that merits should be pooled at the account rather than the character level, so there's fewer merits collecting dust on various alts. I'd also throw in the ability to bid across a range of levels while we're at it - it's not much use to increase the spread of levels a recipe is available at if you can't leave a bid up for exactly n recipes between x and y level. |
Adding 5 to the random roll accounts for this. Right now there are 3 possibly 4 schools of thought.
1) A player rolls only random rolls with merits. Frequently these players will store up to the maximum possible to hold and then roll them at 50. That has caused a dearth of supply in the lower levels.
2) A player hates the market and only saves up to buy specific rolls. This player is essentially screwing the market and all the other players out of 11 recipes that otherwise may have made it to the market.
3) A player rolls randomly until they get almost all the recipes they want for a build and then saves up for the specific ones they need. Not as bad as 2 but still extremely wasteful.
4) A player is a fully IOd out level 50. No need to spend merits so they accumulate waiting for the next merit shiney to be released so that they can "buy it nao" with the accumulated merits as soon as it is released.
All these things reduce (some times drastically reduce) the supply of pool Cs reaching the market. The rolls under my proposed solution don't "really" cost anything extra (and the freebie only costs 100 merits now instead of 250). What it does is make all players roll randomly without removing self determination from the mix.
As far as the MA. Let's be honest. The MA over rewards, period. Mainly because of a higher level of self determination that isn't available in dev created content. Tickets concentrate your earning potential and skew the rewards produced.
In the time it takes me to generate enough merits to roll a Pool C in dev created content, I can make far far more inf rolling bronze from the amount of tickets earned in the same amount of time (and have done so frequently)
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
I'm positive that the same perception issue that affected TF rolls affects random merit rolls, i/e Evil Ryu's insistence that he "always" got a Crap of the Hunter (at least until he started that thread to track TF rolls and suddenly started getting good stuff too *rolleyes*).
For someone who's positive they'll get junk rolling random and who has the time to grind out a meaningful supply of merits, of course they're going to save up for the 'sure thing'.
Merits also created a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy by vastly increasing supply at the level cap.
More action = more buyers = better returns = people willing to roll random waiting until 50 because that's where the money is
The system needs some sort of mechanism for forcing rolls.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Rolling Gold is generally a waste of tickets because it takes too many tickets comparatively to create a gold roll. All those tickets spent on a gold also means that Pool A's, Pool B's, and salvage that would have been generated from dev created content and sold on the market don't exist. That decreases supply and raises prices.|
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
I'm confused on this part. If the issue is not enough random pool cs generated, wouldn't dropping the price of gold rolls increase the number available?
|
Running story arc/TF content not only results in the creation of pool Cs but at the same time creates, Pool A's, Pool B's, and salvage. If run at level 50ish it can also result in the creation of purple recipes.
The real problem with the market at the moment is that the devs went overboard on self determination to apease the market haters. My suggestion merely seeks to restore the balance with out removing self determination.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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No. PERIOD.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Increase the merit cost of a random roll by *5 merits (to 25) [bear with me and don't freak out there's a reason].
Eliminate hoarding by causing a recipe to be rolled everytime 25 merits (or a multiple thereof) are earned. This will increase the supply of low - mid level pool C recipes. |
One of the benefits of Merits is it allows one to spec-buy IOs for themselves.
You completely destroy this ability while only flooding the economy with more vendor trash.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Bulldinky.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
2) A player hates the market and only saves up to buy specific rolls. This player is essentially screwing the market and all the other players out of 21 recipes that otherwise may have made it to the market.
|
Those players are not owed the fruits of said player's labor. What if the player used them on his own (or other) toons? What if the player hated the market so much he just vendored them?
Oh yes and what if they were crap rolls nobody wants anyhow?
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| 3) A player rolls randomly until they get almost all the recipes they want for a build and then saves up for the specific ones they need. Not as bad as 2 but still extremely wasteful. |
Please note, I'm displeased with the effects the Merit System has had on the market as well. But if you're going to be awarding points to someone instead of a true random drop at the outset, I believe it's up to the player to determine how they spend their own currency. Jacking it around until it's nearly identical to the old system of automatic awards (by way of Rube Goldberg) is Just Plain Awful.
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| As far as the MA. Let's be honest. The MA over rewards, period. Mainly because of a higher level of self determination that isn't available in dev created content. Tickets concentrate your earning potential and skew the rewards produced. |
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| In the time it takes me to generate enough merits to roll a Pool C in dev created content, I can make far far more inf rolling bronze from the amount of tickets earned in the same amount of time (and have done so frequently) |
In an equivalent time, how many tickets could you rack up? Now how long does it take to actually PROCESS all those recipes generated? And if 99% of them are vendor trash?
I'd like to repair the market. But I don't think this is the way.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Adding merits in the first place "told people how they should play the game", i/e relentlessly grind certain TFs that reward merits efficiently.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
This is dangerously close to telling these people how they should play the game and what they should do with the fruits of their own labor.
|
Players like myself who don't have the time for that sort of gameplay were cut completely out of the system.
The real solution for merits is to delete them from the game, but alas that'll never happen.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Every reward system, including the one we had before merits, "tells people how to play the game." Or don't we talk about KHTF/Speeden?|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Adding merits in the first place "told people how they should play the game", i/e relentlessly grind certain TFs that reward merits efficiently.
|
Merits were specifically created with the intent of lessening the reward system's influence on play choices. Needless to say, it hasn't been an unmitigated success, but the intent was pretty clear.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
Quote:
Which is my point.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Every reward system, including the one we had before merits, "tells people how to play the game."
|
Disparaging a proposed system for 'telling people how to play the game' ignores the fact that EVERY change to game balance does the same thing.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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... what recipe costs 440 merits?
| 2) A player hates the market and only saves up to buy specific rolls. This player is essentially screwing the market and all the other players out of 21 recipes that otherwise may have made it to the market. |
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
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@Boltcutter in game.
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I've been tempted to run AE to roll Gold in the 10-14 range; I've been rolling those on the toon I'm leveling anyway (I need a handful of Basilisk's quads) and they're only 3000 tickets. It's a question of if I can get 3000 tickets in the time I could run something like the Library of Souls.|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
Rolling Gold is generally a waste of tickets because it takes too many tickets comparatively to create a gold roll. All those tickets spent on a gold also means that Pool A's, Pool B's, and salvage that would have been generated from dev created content and sold on the market don't exist. That decreases supply and raises prices.
Running story arc/TF content not only results in the creation of pool Cs but at the same time creates, Pool A's, Pool B's, and salvage. If run at level 50ish it can also result in the creation of purple recipes. The real problem with the market at the moment is that the devs went overboard on self determination to apease the market haters. My suggestion merely seeks to restore the balance with out removing self determination. |
I still think lower level characters should be able to roll for less than 20 merits to encourage earlier rolling (see sig), but that overall didn't go over well.
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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Uhm. No. They were given a choice to do things with merits (and later, tickets), or to acquire what they wanted randomly through drops, or through the market.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Adding merits in the first place "told people how they should play the game", i/e relentlessly grind certain TFs that reward merits efficiently.
|
Essentially auto-rolling a person's merits for them is not the answer.
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| Players like myself who don't have the time for that sort of gameplay were cut completely out of the system. |
Or, as noted, you can opt to work outside of the merit system and still rack up the stuff you want.
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| The real solution for merits is to delete them from the game, but alas that'll never happen. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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However, my point was that instead of simply giving someone rewards, when you have a currently free-choice system in place, you're essentially telling someone that they now cannot save up for a specific purchase and MUST take whatever gets doled out to them when they get X number of merits and trigger a roll.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Which is my point.
Disparaging a proposed system for 'telling people how to play the game' ignores the fact that EVERY change to game balance does the same thing. |
Also, what happens if their recipe list is full when this happens? They get auto-rolled, get a "full" message and get nothing?
Sorry. As much as I dislike the effect merits have had on the game, I can't get behind such a setup. Because, at that point, it's taking everything that sucked about the original system and everything that sucks about the merit and ticket systems and giving us the amalgamated suck while throwing out the best features of each of the systems.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I personally wish you got an "opt-out" system to roll 20 of your new merits when you finished a 20+ merit TF (it pops up a screen saying "Do you want to roll a rare recipe?" immediately), because the system imposes penalties of convenience and knowledge on any action other than hoarding merits. If ignorant people* rolled half the time, it would put an enormous amount of lower-level rolls on the market compared to what we have now.
* I wish I could find a term less insulting-sounding. What I mean is, ignorance can be cured, and we were all ignorant once.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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I don't see a problem there.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
However, my point was that instead of simply giving someone rewards, when you have a currently free-choice system in place, you're essentially telling someone that they now cannot save up for a specific purchase and MUST take whatever gets doled out to them when they get X number of merits and trigger a roll.
|
Of course, I don't think people should be able to hoard merits to buy specific pieces of loot so we're probably dealing with an unbridgeable philosophical chasm.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I'm part of the contingent that is better able to participate in the market because of merits. Because I seldom run TF but usually run arc content, merits let me bring something to the market other than inf (well, and A/B recipes for what they're worth).
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Honestly, merits HAVE hurt the market. However, there's enough of a contingent that wants to be able to operate independently of the market (and other players) that removing merits and AE tickets is about as likely as a black hole opening up spontaneously and swallowing the earth...yesterday.
|
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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Lots of hyperbole there.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
No. PERIOD.
One of the benefits of Merits is it allows one to spec-buy IOs for themselves. You completely destroy this ability while only flooding the economy with more vendor trash. |
One of the probems with market supply is that people can (and do) WASTE 230 merits buying a single recipe.
The ability to do so isn't being destroyed (hyperbole again on your part) it is simply being streamlined so that the ability is still there. You forget that in the 20 rolls required to generate the freebie that the IO that they seek is likely to have been generated.
As far as "flooding the market" (more hyperbole) with vendor trash what's the real difference between 30, level 50, Numina End/Rech that only sell for 1000 or 300 (oh, look, I can do hyperbole too), level 50, Numina End/Rech that sell for 1000? Trash is still trash whether it's a flood or a trickle. At least this way low level abitraguers can still buy stuff cheap at the market and run it to the vendors for starting cash. (not only that but I have yet to see a thread complaining about too much supply on the market. It is invariably that prices are too high which is directly related to supply being too small)
If you really want the devs to eliminate vendor trash ask them to BALANCE the reward tables rather than merely weight them. Balancing them will make it so that the average number of each type recipe demanded is equal to the average number of each type recipe supplied. After all that's exactly what they keep doing with the number of merits awarded based on time anyway. They keep balancing it on the mean time to run x content. (By the way good luck with that dream.)
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
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How is a player getting the exact receipe they want at the exact level they want a waste of their earned merits?
| One of the probems with market supply is that people can (and do) WASTE 230 merits buying a single recipe. |
"I accidently killed Synapse, do we need to restart the mission?" - The Oldest One on Lord Recluses Strike Force
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Man do you love hyperbole. Not anywhere in my post have I ever said that anyone is owed the fruits of someone else's labor. If the player hates the market so much then this solution has absolutely nothing to do with them as it won't impact them one bit. (except perhaps to teach them a bit of prob and stat). If they really hate the market that much that they just vendor stuff anyway no solution to the problem will do a thing for them or us. It's a null sum that has no bearing what so ever on this discussion.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Bulldinky.
Those players are not owed the fruits of said player's labor. What if the player used them on his own (or other) toons? What if the player hated the market so much he just vendored them? |
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| Oh yes and what if they were crap rolls nobody wants anyhow? |
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| See above. This is dangerously close to telling these people how they should play the game and what they should do with the fruits of their own labor. |
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| Please note, I'm displeased with the effects the Merit System has had on the market as well. But if you're going to be awarding points to someone instead of a true random drop at the outset, I believe it's up to the player to determine how they spend their own currency. Jacking it around until it's nearly identical to the old system of automatic awards (by way of Rube Goldberg) is Just Plain Awful. |
By the way with the exception of MA tickets (which are also part of the problem) EVERY other crafting related reward in the game IS STILL ON the automatic system of rewards (Pool A's, Pool B's, Pool E's, salvage, even Pool C boss drops) Merits and tickets break the system because they don't award automatically. They attempt to circumvent the system which is why there is a supply problem.
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| MA also doesn't allow you to spec-buy recipes. |
Why is that a problem you may ask? Well because all of the other things that would have been generated (pool As, pool Es, and common, uncommon salvage, and the 5 other types of rare salvage) were never created and never hit the market. That reduces supply and raises prices. High prices are pretty universal complaint around here.
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How long does it take to run say, 5 Synapse TFs to get up the 240 merits for the most desireable recipes? And if said recipe is going for multiple hundreds of millions? In an equivalent time, how many tickets could you rack up? Now how long does it take to actually PROCESS all those recipes generated? And if 99% of them are vendor trash? |
In that amount of time in the MA without even trying hard (I can design content specifically geared to be easy for a specific AoE heavy toon) I can easily generate 45,000 tickets. Oddly enough I won't be doing it all in 1 play session which is the best way to market things.
How long does it take to process all that? it depends on what I'm going to do. Some I'll craft and slot, some I'll craft and store for my or my Wife's alts. If I want to maximize my gains I'll craft and sell the good ones at very near to the going rate. If I want to push them through quickly I'll offer them at 80% of going rate.
If I have alot of duplicate mid value recipes I'll leave them as recipes (they'll all be the same level) and set them in Wents in stacks instead of singles. If I'm not in a hurry I'll list them at going rate if I am in a hurry I'll list them at 80% of going rate.
6000 - 9000 tickets in Bronze rolls will fill up all my market slots (deleting recipes I know to be junk on the spot). On my field crafter I can process that many tickets in 5-10 minutes. On blue side it will all sell over night expecially on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
And I have never, ever, ever, gotten 99% junk or even close to 99% even once.
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| I'd like to repair the market. But I don't think this is the way. |
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
Repaired that typo, thanks for the catch, hit 2 and 1 instead of 1 and 1.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
... what recipe costs 440 merits?
|
250 merits generates 12 recipes or it can be spent on a single one. 11 recipes therefore never exist.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Yep, it's broken and here's why:
1) Lack of low - mid level pool c supply (because you can hoard merits.)
2) The ability to waste multiple random rolls worth of merits on a single IO (self determination)
3) Mission Architect (diluting/skewing the rewards pool)
4) XP smoothing.
5) Repair of the inf exemplar "bug" (50s generating yet more inf)
We really need a repair for issue 1, 2, and 3 to solve the problem.
The solution -
Increase the merit cost of a random roll by *5 merits (to 25) [bear with me and don't freak out there's a reason].
Eliminate hoarding by causing a recipe to be rolled everytime 25 merits (or a multiple thereof) are earned. This will increase the supply of low - mid level pool C recipes.
Introduce a slider on the "merit ticker" that allows you to select any level between +3 to your current level (because that's what you can slot) all the way down to level 10. When the merit ticker reaches 25 a random Pool C is generated at the level the slider is set at.
* once 20 Pool C recipes have been generated (either by that toon or account wide. It doesn't really matter since we can email things to our other characters now [provided they are in the same faction, a notion that still strikes me as patently ridiculous, the Pope could easily buy things from Osama Bin Laden on Ebay and neither one would have to know who sold or bought it]) give the character/account a "token" that can be redeemed at the merit vendor for any 1 Pool C recipe of any level desired.
Remove Gold rolls from the MA and make Merit content/boss defeats outside MA the only way to generate Pool Cs. Then increase the ticket cost for Bronze rolls by 25%
Poof, all of our current woes are lessened or eliminated.
We retain self determination for the market whiners, increase the level spread of generated Pool Cs and the number since fewer merits are consistantly wasted/remain unspent, and remove one of the most annoying problems created by MA.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson