Yet another currency type

I dislike all new currencies on principal.

I'm sure this reflex will be justified once they're implemented.

Now that the markets are going to be merged, can we please merge the currencies? Do we really need 6 different ways to buy things? Why can't everything be purchaseable with Inf?

I think I mentioned this on another thread.

Prestige was introduced as a base currency because they didn't want Heroes who've been sitting on 18 months of accumulating inf to out build villains. Makes sense when CoV came out and base raids were possible. This is currently not the case anymore. They got rid of base salvage, now it's time to get rid of prestige.

Merits were the "solution" to speed runs for TF/Trial recipe drops. Now merits drop for GMs and story arcs so dedicated TF/Trial players aren't the only ones who could get those drops.

AE Tickets were the designed solution to handle rewards in a system that may be (and was) exploitable over short (we wished) periods of time.

Now we are getting these Loyalty Merits but they will allow us to pick the exact recipe including purples.

I'm all for, and here I am trotting it out again, the ability to buy random rolls with inf. It destroys inf, removing it from the game and provides a new source of supply for the market. It's like buying from the off market vendors in Diablo II, sometimes it's useful, often you spent more than what you get by selling the item back. The trick is coming up with a fair cost that isn't too high so few use it or too low and totally devastate the market price.

Yeah, what I meant was kinda what Father Xmas just said.

The things you can use Vanguard Merits to buy are not purchaseable with Inf.

The things you use Prestige to buy are not purchaseable with Inf.

There is also a lot of mid-level recipes/IO's that are technically purchaseable on the market, but with no supply there (ie, Freebird Stealth) they aren't really purchaseable with Inf. (Although you can get them with Reward Merits or take a chance to get them with skeeball random rolls. Unless you're too high of a level.)

It shouldn't be that way. Everything should be purchaseable with Inf. Regardless of my level.

Or maybe a better solution would be: let the player choose which currency type he gets while adventuring. Sorta like Dev Choice AE arcs. You get the choice of earning skeeball tickets or earning normal inf/recipes/enhancement/salvage drops. Only let players do that everywhere. If you want to turn off Inf and just earn merits, do so.

Well I don't lump Vanguard Merits in with the rest because all you can get with them are a few temp powers and costume pieces. And the "currency" and items are tied to a particular activity, joining Vanguard and bashing Rikti scum. Now if they had Rikti War Zone/Vanguard only enhancement recipes I would reconsider.

And I'm all for buying random recipe rolls but I'm against buying specific recipes for inf, that's called a store.

I know what the devs are trying to do and I don't envy their task. On one hand they want encourage players to try all the various content in the game but on the other they don't want to penalize those players who aren't interested.

The problem is when the perceived benefit greatly exceeds the "cost" of participating.

Examples:
Not enough players were doing missions preferring street sweeping so they increased the mission bonus and halved the in mission debt and suddenly everyone does missions and few if any street sweep, except maybe toward a badge. Now we have zones that look and feel deserted.

Giant Monsters, while interesting at first quickly became "not worth the time". They now added a couple of merits to the reward. But even with that there are many times where GMs are simply left roaming about. Same could be said about zone events that lead to badges. Oh look Suppa Trolls. Oh look Steel is burning again. Oh look the Ghost Ship is stuck again. Oh look three Paladins in Kings Row. Lusca isn't a event, it's a tourist attraction.

With the introduction of the crafting system the devs divided the reward pool to encourage TF/Trial participation that was languishing. Sounds like a good idea but quickly had the side effect of only a few TF/Trials becoming popular due to being able to "speed run" them. The lack of a "speed run" SF/Trial on the CoV side quickly added yet another reason why some players believe that "Devs hate Villains". The "fix" for this was Merit Rewards.

Sorry to trot this out yet again but I would have only one alternate means other than random drops from critters to get recipes and salvage and that's through Merits.

I would pull the recipe/salvage ticket rewards out of AE and merge those types of random rolls with the Merit vendor and only have a AE Ticket to Merit conversion at the Ticket Vendor. I would have a Inf to Merit convertion added to the crafting tables. Merits can only be used for random rolls.

I would add finer targeting to the random rolls by allowing you to target a particular set type such as Melee Damage or Immobilize sets as well as level range. Because it's so much fun rolling a set recipe getting one only usable in powers you don't have. And yes it would be a premium to target this way.

The big trick, and it would take a bit of data mining and analysis about recipe popularity, inf generation vs drop rate, etc. would be setting the conversion rates of Inf to Merits and Merits to Recipe Roll. The wrong values would translate into either total disinterest or total collapse of the CH because it's easier to simply "buy" your desired recipe with random rolls.

I'm fine with multiple types of currency as long as the resulted purchases are sufficiently varied. I think the Vanguard Merits are a perfect example. Some unique Vanguard-only IOs or other enhancements would be a very cool addition to a future Issue. Or even an expansion on the temp powers.

Where I have a problem with currencies is when it works like Tickets and Merits, which give access to essentially the same thing. Comparing Gold ticket rolls (5400) to Merits rolls (20) you get an approximate conversion rate of 270 tickets = 1 merit. If they are insisting on adding new currency, at least let the store perform the conversion if there is no other significant difference.

Same old choices? Then there is already a currency that works, so use it please. New custom choices? I'm ok with a new currency.

I don't really see Prestige as a currency myself. I am all in favour of the Prestige conversion being lowered but beyond that I think it should be left alone.

You want to afford the fancy 1,000,000 Prestige Power Supply? Do what the rest of us have done. Give Fulmens a call.

... and be ready to fork over YOUR half of the money.