So what do you want to know about the new merits?

They just lifted the NDA.

I will be posting a copy from Zombie Man's guide on the new merits here in a moment.

From Zombie Man's guide in beta:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zombie Man 'Going Rogue' - The Alignment System Patch Notes 7/9 Alignment system Hero and Villain Lounges: Players who maintain either a Hero or Villain alignment will now find they are welcome to enter Fort Trident (Hero) or The Crucible (Villain). Located in Atlas Park and Cap au Diable, these zones allow the Hero or Villain to relax, meet well known signature characters, teleport to their Task Force/Strike Forces, and also purchase enhancements from special vendors. Info on the Alignment Clubs and Merits Finding the Clubs: Go to Trident Base in Atlas Park or The Crucible in Cap au Diable. Check your mini-map -- they're marked as a green dot (gate icon). Admittance: This is the reward for remaining (or becoming) a true Hero or Villain. The only toons excluded are those currently Vigilante or Rogue. Alignment Merits (A-Merits) Do not confuse them. They are a new type of Merits not to be confused with Reward Merits (completing arcs, Task Forces, Raids, killing Giant Monsters) or Vanguard Merits (killing Rikti once you've been initiated into the Vanguard). How to get A-Merits: Do a Morality Mission. A Hero Morality Mission will give you a Hero Merit and a Villain Morality Mission will give you a Villain Merit. The very first time, though, you will get 50 Reward Merits... after that, one A-Merit. Note that it takes 10 morality points to get a Morality Mission and you can only get 5 morality points per day, thus, you can only get an A-Merit reward this way once every other day. Note: Since Rogues and Vigilantes are not eligible for A-Merits, when they do a Rogue or Vigilante Morality Mission, they get 30 Reward Merits the first time they do a Rogue or Vigilante Morality Mission and then 60 Merits every time after that. Buy one. Go to the A-Merit Vendor in the Alignment Club and trade in 20,000,000 INF + 50 Reward Merits and buy one A-Merit. You can only do this once per day. A-Merit Vendors: Trident: See B.O.T.L.E.R. and click on the box next to him. Crucible: See the Trashman and click on the trash can next to him. What do Alignment Merits Buy? All IO Sets Most common to rare recipes are 1 A-Merit each recipe within the Set Unique and Special rare recipes are 2 A-Merits each Purple Ultra Rare recipes are 20 A-Merits each PvP Recipes: 25-35 A-Merits each Costume Pieces: 1 A-Merit (almost always more efficient to buy these on the Market) Respec Recipe: 10 A-Merits Reward Rolls Random Salvage Roll: Divided by Arcane v. Tech and two level ranges (10-25 v. 26-40). You get 8 pieces for 1 A-Merit Random Rare Recipe Roll: Divided into tiers of 5 levels (10-14; 15-19; etc...). You get 5 recipes for 1 A-Merit NPCs and Teleporters: The NPCs in the clubs have a portal that take you the Task/Strike force they or their sidekick gives out. Trident: The Freedom Phalanx take you to their respective TFs: Positron, Synapse, Sister Psyche, Citadel, Manticore, Numina, Statesman. Crucible: Recluse's Lieutenants don't have their own Strike Force, but they teleport you to their sidekick's or related NPC's Strike Force: Arbiter Rein -> Operative Renault (Sharkhead SF) Mako -> Barracuda Ghost Widow -> Lord Recluse Sirocco -> Ice Mistral Black Scorpion -> Silver Mantis

I have bugged that Steadfast Protection is missing 2 of the 3 recipes, Res/Def and KB Protection but found all the others I looked for.

Makes me wonder what'll be worth more: 1 Gladiator's Armor recipe, or 165 random recipes.

Well, it has been said that the devs aren't happy with some items going for over 2B. I think making them this kind of available will handle that issue without any need for policy changes or large system overhauls.

It's my belief that there are a lot of people that don't take the time to maximize their total converted income from the various currencies available. If that weren't true, margins in this market wouldn't be at the ridiculous level they are. With A Merits available at .5 a day from level 20 on, I can see a casual alt logging in, doing the bare minimum towards the merit that day, and logging out. They won't level fast in real time terms, but they'll amass quite a few A Merits per level.

I mean, I know what the marketeers will be doing with this currency. That's obvious. It's what the average joe who doesn't craft or flip will do that I'm most interested in. That average joe is the supplier of goods for a large portion of the money made by people in this forum.

I look foward to the changes in the market dynamic with this new currency.

Back on topic, it seems like this new currency will become the preferred way of getting recipes, if SwellGuy's numbers are right. Even at 90 min/AM, that's 3 hours for one of the high value uniques.

200-250 merits in 3 hours? Don't see how that's possible.

The conversion also establishes an interesting number - since 1 AM = 100 merits (for purposes of argument - it buys 5 random rolls, or half a 200 merit unique, etc).

1 AM also is 50 merits + 20,000,000 inf.

so if the value/merit exceeds 400,000 inf, it pays to convert merits to AM otherwise not.

Basically, these changes are going to cause the prices on pool C/D recipes to floor. Purples and PvP IOs will be largely unaffected. I'd say "start selling your rares" but I'm sure it's probably too late by this point.

I guess, at the very least, do the smart thing and pull all your market items and emails before this goes live. There was a test of the market merge on the beta server a while back, and while it went mostly okay, there were a few people who reported losing market items and almost everyone who had emails with attachments lost them also.

Oh, and to answer that nagging question: you will not lose inf if you have more than 2 billion locked up in bids.

If I was after a set of PVP recipes, the solution in my mind would be a pile of merit rewards, turn them to inf, buy the recipes off the market one by one. But if I'm after one specific PVP IO that has a huge queue associated with it - which I am - then well, it might just feel like more steady progress is made by buying it off the merit vendor.

As far as the usefulness of letting people buy costume peices go, some people just want to avoid using the market.

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