Why were the new Merits made to decrease TF Recipe prices and increase Purple prices?

I still don't get the "Prices are too high thing"

I went from Zero (I did have 2 purpled toons to use to generate income/stuff to sell) cash to 3 additional fully purpled toons in 3 months.

Yeah I am an experienced Marketer, but are things really that bad?

It was more that I didn't have time to level the toons.

I usually had my banker alts filled to the brim with Sets waiting for the target toon to hit 50.

I just can't do the marathon leveling sessions I used to.

I do think it's way too soon to tell. Also I19 is going to throw another huge monkeywrench into the markets (with everyone playing their 50s even more and the resultant influx of Purples, INF and recipes) which means they will not settle for a while.

Me? I just casually do my Paper missions till I get 3-5 tips a night. I run at 0/0 level (thinking about changing that to -1/8) and kill everything in the mish- more chance to get purples that way. It usually takes me 100-120 minutes a night. Every time I get 2 HVMs I get a LoTG 7.5 & sell it. I've made 600+ mill including purples doing this. That is on top of using HVMS to IO out 3 toons totally.

The HVMs DO give you a path to getting purples and PVP IOs. Not by gathering up HVMs for them (though you certainly can) but by opening up your revenue stream to allow you to AFFORD to buy what you need!

Players can quickly figure out which rewards give the most bang for their buck. I don't expect people to use a-merits to purchase purples until the value of doing so matches or exceeds the value in using a-merits to purchase other rewards. The devs should have realized this immediately. I don't know if they think that purples are grossly undervalued, or if they just don't understand basic economics.

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Originally Posted by Test_Rat I still don't get the "Prices are too high thing" I went from Zero (I did have 2 purpled toons to use to generate income/stuff to sell) cash to 3 additional fully purpled toons in 3 months. Yeah I am an experienced Marketer, but are things really that bad?

How many of those purples did you purchase using a-merits?

Zero. Either windfalls or bought off the market.

I am farming A-merits but for a rainy day (I guess).

I didn't even use A-merits for the standard IO sets I needed. Found it was faster to just market my way there.

I haven't used any of my Alignment Merits yet, and I only have two. If I were to seriously farm for A-merits, I'd probably buy PvP IO's and flip instead of purples. Purples as far easier to acquire the PvP IO's, (at least for me since I do not PvP...) For me it's more profitable to farm the Council map for purples and also farm tickets in the AE. I try to diversify by selling Kinetic Combats, Reactive Armors, Rectified Reticles, Regenerative Tissue: +Regen, etc., along with any purples I drop.

Although lately the market has been pretty cold. Only thing I've noticed thats selling is salvage.

Pure speculation, but since i19 is coming soon, the market will probably pick up, so the price of purples could go up more.

With the market being cold and i19 on the horizion... it's why I'm holding onto my purples...for now.

10 alignment (tip) missions + 1 morality missions = 1 alignment merit. After doing an alignment mission you lock one of your 5 progress slots for 20 hours, so you can only earn approximately one alignment merit per edit:two calendar days. You can also buy a merit outright for 20M inf and 50 Reward Merits, and I believe that's also on its own 20 hour cooldown timer (one purchase per 20 hours).

11 Tips for 1 Alignment Merit spread over two days.

I'll go with a) intention.

Purples are by definition ultra-rare. Which is more rare than "rare". So, purples were very likely originally intended to be more rare and more costly than pool c/d recipes.

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This is only my play experience, but I started out playing my toons from 1-50, then once they reached 50 I would basically shelve them and work on lower toons.

Eventually, I noticed that between the opportunity to get purple drops and the fact that on a 50 I could earn inf and merits faster, I had more incentive to play my 50s more. I was leveling new toons less (and producing lower level goods less). If I needed stuff for my lowbies, it was more efficient to buy that stuff with my 50.

Then A-merits came along. Earning A-merits was just as easy on my lower level toons as it was for my 50s. They even had the benefit of rolling lower level recipes (which some, including myself, do want). Playing a self-sustaining lower-level character became a lot more viable again from an earning standpoint. It wouldn't rake in quite the same inf as a 50, but it does relatively ok. You may not make quite as much on one LoTG or Numina, but the volume of random rolls makes up for it.

PumBumbler: At this point, I'm not sure we can ignore the "20M inf" in "50 merits+ 20M inf".Not when a typical "nice" Pool C is going for around 50M, crafted, and an LoTG is going for around 100M [or 100 merits and 40M, setting the price of "100 merits" at 60 M].

EDIT: I don't know what the price is for a min-level LoTG; I have only been watching the level 50's. It may still be 150M for a level 30, in which case "100 merits" is a much more significant 110M inf.

Chriffer: You managed to understate the number of AM's it takes for an LoTG by a factor of 2, AND understate the number of missions for an AM by a factor of 2.2 . Factor of 4.5 total. So, yeah, 22 missions over 2 days to equal 7 ITFs [presumably over 7 days] is still favoring the AMs, but not quite by the ratio you were suggesting.

Last I bought LoTGs at 25 I got them in the 110M-120M range I think (wasn't much difference crafted or not). That was a couple weeks ago though. Worked nicely rolling them on my 50 and using the market to essentially swap down (been lucky - had a couple toons roll where 2 of the 5 recipes were LoTG...I need to do some leveling on a few toons to actually be able to slot the ones I have floating around).