Adjust rewards for Giant Monsters

I know this topic has been brought up before, especially when I get to the increased merits part of it, but please bear with me.

GMs as it stands now, seems to be lackluster... don't get me wrong. I LOVE finding GMs in their zones, and getting groups together to take them down, regardless of if I've taken them down before, and already got the badge they award. Recently, I was on a Synapse task force, and when we exited the mission that spawns Babbage, one of the team members, asked if we could skip Babbage. No one else wanted to, we put out the call for assistance, and fought him, save for the one who wanted to skip him. They went on to the last mission, and waited, saying they didn't sign up for pointless side missions.

I won't go into the discussion that took place during the last mission, but since that happened, it's gnawed at me a bit. This happened on Virtue, which as we all(or at least most) know is the unofficial RP server. We're playing heroes who's goal is to defeat evil, and keep the city safe, but here was a hero who had no interest in stopping a giant robot from tearing up a large portion of the city. Maybe this hero will turn vigilante or evil into a villain come GRs release, maybe not. But similar sentiments are had with other GMs.

Lusca is constantly ignored, Adamaster is barely heard from, same with Jurassik in Crey's, and when Babbage spawns in Boomtown... well, I've NEVER heard anyone calling out in global channels asking for help to take him down.

So I propose the following changes, in order to help make GMs more drawing of interest.

1: Increase the Merit award.
--You all knew this was coming, so I'm getting it out of the way first. 2 merits, as has been said many many times before is not enough of a reward for taking down these massive threats to our fair city. I think increasing the merit reward to 5 would be sufficient. Why 5? Any more than that, and I think it would be too much of a reward. 5 merits by themselves aren't so grand that they'd make taking down GMs so important that people would try to farm for them. 5 merits is also a bit of a standard reward for non-TF/SFs or story arc missions. 5 merits is a vet reward, and with the exploration accolades, you get 5 merits for finding all the badges in those certain zones.

2: Add in a chance for a Random Rare Recipe Drop.
--When I say a chance, I mean a small chance. Like.. 2%, that only 1 person of all the possible teams fighting the GM gets a Random Rare Drop. I believe it's called Pool C.. not positive, but from the same pool that you get your random merit rolls from. Then there is standard that they could get any possible recipe from this pool, and it would be from the level range of that particular GM. Like Kraken I believe is assumed to be a level 19 GM, so that recipe drop would be from the 10-19 range. Though if the character that gets the recipe is over the GM level, then the recipe would be at their level, or the highest it goes.

For instance, Jimmy Thorn, a level 35 spines/regen scrapper joins a team to take down Kraken, and he gets the recipe drop. It's a Shield Breaker: Chance for Lethal Damage. That is a recipe that can be obtained in the 10-14 and 15-19 random rolls, but it maxes out at lvl 30. Since Jimmy is 35, the recipe would be at 30. If Jimmy was lvl 28, the recipe is at 28. If Jimmy is lvl 16, the recipe is at 16.

3: Add 1 A-Merit...
--Now this one I just thought of as I was typing this post, but it makes sense when you think about it. You see Paladin tooling around King's Row, and decide to take him down, that's heroic! If you just walk on by saying "Meh." then you're not quite the hero you should be! If you're running around Cap and see Deathsurge, and you think to yourself "Hey, this is my town to destroy and terrorize" and take him down, you're being a true villain. If you just run past him and wave "Have a good time!" then you're just a jerk.

This would have to be something that would have to be limited. Vigilantes and Rogues would not be able to earn them, obviously, and to prevent farming, limit it the same way buying them are. You can only earn 1 a-merit a day from defeating GMs.

4: Change a few things with them...
4.1With Paladin, have him award a badge when he's defeated. Not just with the stopping of his construction. Call it "2nd time's a charm" with the text reading "Well you weren't able to stop this monster from being created, but you were determined and put a stop his terror."

4.2With Paladin's construction event, add the merit rewards for completing this event. You stopped the Clockworks from creating it, and that should merit a proper reward(Pun intended)

4.3With Lusca, I would say increase the merit award to 8, though I doubt this would happen. Since you have to take down the tentacles before being able to attack the head, Lusca is a bit of a pain. I wouldn't go so far as to say, the merit increase of 5, per tentacle + the head, as that would be far more reward vs risk, but the standard merit reward for this non-standard GM doesn't seem right.

4.4Have Boomtown Babbage, and Synapse TF Babbage award different badges. Boomtown Babbage gets no play, because Boomtown is very rarely visited. If they awarded different badges, then there would be reason for both of them to be taken down. Synapse TF Babbage, because he's in a populated zone, and is attacking the people trying to stop his boss The Clockwork King.

4.5For red side GM's.. not sure what improvements could be made, as Deathsurge is the only one I've ever seen taken down before. Yes, I'm mainly blue side, so any suggestions like these for the redside GMs would be welcome.

Now, looking back I look at all these proposed changes, and compare them to what we have now and I'm thinking... maybe it's too much? So I'm also open to the idea of give and take. Think merit increase is all that's needed? Fine by me! Think that the current standard of 2 merits + 1 A-Merit sounds like a good trade off? I won't argue with you!

In this line of thought I'd even be open to the idea of a reward selection menu popping up, giving you the option to choose between receiving 5 merits, or 1 A-Merit. If you'd already chosen to receive an A-Merit in that day, then the only choice would be the regular merits.

So please, share your thoughts on my proposal!

Ok.. lots of people looking, but not commenting... thinking maybe a tl;dr version is needed.

1: Increase merit reward to 5
2: Give a small chance that a recipe from the random rolls drops
3: 1 Alignment Merit
4: Various changes to make them more appealing. IE: More badges

Also willing to give and take. Make selectable rewards between 1 and 3. Only making one of these suggestions into the game(Devs choice in the end of course, but feedback is wanted) rather than all of them, so as not to destroy risk vs reward.

I think ppl aren't replying bc you can't really troll someone who is so open to other ppls ideas . Seriously tho I think everyone would agree that more reason to take down these unique critters would be a big plus. I doubt merits and especially a merits would be the way the devs did it tho. Something more unique is called for but I haz no ideaz.

Not so big on the alignment merits.

A small tweak (I think 5's actually too big *in most cases*) to merits wouldn't be bad, but they really don't take much effort. I hopped on a PUG at one point that took down four of them in about 15 minutes. (Wasn't even a full team, as I recall.) Jurassik, Eochai, Jack in Irons (Eo twice, actually, once solo and once at "the war,") and one other. (Might have been a Babbage team.) I wouldn't nudge them over 3. They just go down too fast.

The rare recipe drop could help. (Let them drop purples for the 47-50s as well.)

I tend to agree with the specifics for these GMs you brought out, as well.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Badges are cool, but that doesn't fix the 'problem'.

Badges cause people to do things one time and then never again. That doesn't increase the rate things over any real length of time.

I agree they are easy enough that they aren't worth too much in merits. SO here's another idea: Why not make some of them harder, or introduce some new, more difficult GMs?

I want epic battles. I want to see multiple teams called in to squelch one threat. Or maybe a small group of like three GMs at once, supporting ecah other and adding to the challenge? Why do we call them giant monsters when most aren't really that big? I play redside almost exclusively, and none of the GMs over there are impressive at all. In fact, it feels like they were put in the game solely to prevent us from whining (Because Devs hate villians).

All I know is, GMs need luvin'. And by luvin' I mean plasma beams to the face.

I hate that GM are just left to their own devices. Seriously, what is the point in playing City of Heroes if you're not being, you know, an actual HERO? And Villains have 5 GM's. Four of which require you to do some extra form of summoning. Makes it kinda sad.

I do agree that the Giant monster reward merit is suffice, it really does only takes about 5 minutes to take them down. I will argue that there should be a large purple drop chance when fighting them, and I'm willing to bet the number of players willing to fight them will skyrocket. Also, there'd need to be some sort of limitation on this as only named GMs give these drops, or else everyone would be farming Monster Island.

One more thing I'd like to add is to make the GMs spawn in more popular zones like talos and Peregrine Island, running around terrorizing fellow heroes. If that's not enough to give players that "Call of Duty" feel, than I don't know what is.

Ok, so a general consensus from the replies so far is that the merit increase is not necessary. Ok. Just personally I see it being more of a risk to take down the giant monsters than it is to collect exploration badges. But, I'm willing to let that go.

I still think the Alignment Merit makes sense, and to say it again, a selectable reward between 2 Reward Merits, and 1 Alignment Merit makes the most sense to me. Maybe the devs think an A-Merit would be too much of a reward (A conclusion I came to on my own based on the way A-Merits will be earned once GR/I18 drops).

As for purple recipes... I doubt this could happen, and not sure I'd like to see it happen. Purples are already going to be more accessable with the A-Merits, and to add something like this to GMs, might make them loose their ultra-rarity. If you DO get the single A-Merit from killing GMs, then it will still take some work to be able to turn them in for purple recipes.

And for clarification, no, the Monster Island DE Monsters wouldn't count towards these changes, for the very purpose that they would be farmed.

Agree they need to increase the drops of merits.

In general I agree that Gm's could use some sprucing. Not sure what a good increase would be althoug hI do like the chance for a random recipe.

As for the A-Merit idea. No. it's a bad idea for two reasons
first- one A merit is equivalent to 50 reward merits and 20M Inf, which is ridiculously high for a GM

second- A-Merits are a reward for some that stays true to either the Hero or Villain alignments.As a zone event, GM's that do get taken down will very likely be taken down by mixed alignments. Since Vigilante's and Rogues can't use A MErits it's a bad idea to include them as a reward for content Vigilante's and Rogues will be participating in.

I think that the GMs should actually be doing things. For instance, Lusca's tentacles are smashing buildings are flinging civilians around. Something that actually puts the city in danger instead of just sitting there.