Purchasing with A-Merits 20 hour clock...
By
American_Angel,
Posted on: 2010-10-10 12:16 in Player Questions
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My bad, you're right. I searched and found the post I had read and I remembered incorrectly.
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Originally Posted by NordBlast
I heard that blue and red hami share the same timer, but RSF and STF are on separate timer.
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Global @StarGeek
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I think that throttling the spending of A Merits is too redundant. We can only earn them so fast anyway, when we can decide to spend them should not be up to the devs since we already took the time to earn them.
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.
I think it stinks too just like switching sides and how one can only do 5 tip missions a day. When you gotta gate content with timers it stinks of laziness. They coulda made it take way longer to get A-merits or switch side instead they decided lets put a timer on it cause then we don't have to think to hard duhhh.
Just read through this and find I'm not happy at all about it. I've been saving for those purples with the thought of waiting till I could by an entire set all at once, not to sell but to use. The idea of needing to take 6 days to make my purchases seems absolutely bloody ridiculousness.
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It's not about thinking hard, it's about a hypothetical detente between the hardcore, purpled-out farmer and the hypothetical "casual player." The way they've got it set up, they can slow the hardcore down to the same side-switching rate as a moderately casual player who can devote an hour a night for two nights. (And yeah, don't even ask me if "an hour a night" is still casual, or if a "casual player" can still bang out 5 tips and a morality in an hour with his badly slotted, badly built build. :P )|
Originally Posted by Lucky
I think it stinks too just like switching sides and how one can only do 5 tip missions a day. When you gotta gate content with timers it stinks of laziness. They coulda made it take way longer to get A-merits or switch side instead they decided lets put a timer on it cause then we don't have to think to hard duhhh.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I wonder what will happen down the road when enough people start doing what I'm doing.
I use hero merits to purchase the recipes I need from the merit contact, rather than purchasing from the market. It's still far, far more efficient for me to pay one or two hero merits for a rare thing I need, than to spend twenty million at the market....and have to fight other bidders for the privilege. Its slow going but very do-able. When I am done using hero merits for the smaller stuff, I will start saving for purples. Meanwhile my millions stay OFF the market, and its working well so far. |
Yeah, I'm kidding. It's downright INEFFICIENT for you to be hoarding merits so you can save 20 million merits, when you COULD blow two merits on something worth well over a HUNDRED million merits (maybe 150 million crafted) and IO out your toon in 20% of the time.
But by all means, have fun playing the game the way you want to -- it's your $14.95 a month. We'll be over here beating stuff up with our IO'd ALTS while you're in the middle of your "slow going" on your project.
PS -- "Fight other bidders for the privilege"?! Here's a protip: bid 21 million INF, or 20.2 million and cut straight to the head of the line of those people who are all bidding 20 million exactly.
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Originally Posted by Hube02
Just read through this and find I'm not happy at all about it. I've been saving for those purples with the thought of waiting till I could by an entire set all at once, not to sell but to use. The idea of needing to take 6 days to make my purchases seems absolutely bloody ridiculousness.
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"But it wasn't anything some purples and oranges and lots of screaming in fear couldn't handle." -- Werner
30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
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Most folks I've chatted with in game are only vaguely aware that Alignment Merits even exist, let alone what they're worth. Most think the only value of running tip missions is to switch sides. |
Originally Posted by Eldorado
People discovering this "news" 58 days after Issue 18 launched is kind of ridiculous to me.
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That said, I'm well aware of the rules and I still think the limits on how rapidly A-Merits can be cashed in are pointless. I can respect the design decision throttling the speed at which someone can change sides, but I don't see the benefit from limiting the rate of A-Merit conversion. If someone banked a bunch of them then wants to purple out a character all in one session, they should be allowed to do so.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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What were you doing with reward merits?
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I wonder what will happen down the road when enough people start doing what I'm doing.
I use hero merits to purchase the recipes I need from the merit contact, rather than purchasing from the market. It's still far, far more efficient for me to pay one or two hero merits for a rare thing I need, than to spend twenty million at the market....and have to fight other bidders for the privilege. Its slow going but very do-able. When I am done using hero merits for the smaller stuff, I will start saving for purples. Meanwhile my millions stay OFF the market, and its working well so far. Flooding the market with rares will only drive down the price. This is a thing I dont mind - far from it - but I dont know how long the gravy train is going to last for people intent on doing this. |
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It's probably the inconsistency that is the issue. If they decided to throttle the speed at which you could spend reward merits and tickets, the resulting thunderous amount of complaints would have the devs taking the rate limiter off everything, so it would be same end result but a more tortuous route.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
Would you be happier if they went back and throttled how fast you could spend reward merits and tickets?
Or is your problem not actually the inconsistency but the limitation itself? |
What was the 2 for 1 bonus you were referring to?
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So... everyone is supposed to play exactly the same way you do? I should have spent my first alignment merit the moment I got it, rather than save it so I could get what I wanted with it rather than getting five randoms that could be completely useless to me?|
Originally Posted by Eldorado
People discovering this "news" 58 days after Issue 18 launched is kind of ridiculous to me. Perhaps if they hadn't been saving for those purples but instead had spent AN alignment merit they'd have seen the message in the vendor window, or I KNOW this information is in other threads here. No clue when it was announced in the open beta GR forums but I'm sure it was more than two months ago. "Informed buying decision" and all that good stuff....
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Yeah, a couple months after release to find this out might seem long to some people, but not everyone plays this game every single day, or wants to grind away tips missions to farm the a-merits. I consider myself to be somewhere between hardcore and casual players because I play fairly often, and farm on occasion. Not as much as the hypothetical hardcore player, but more than the hypothetical casual player. As I said in my OP, I had saved up 5 a-merits. That was due mainly to me mostly playing my main badger collector, who started as a hero, and gone vigilante, to villain, and is now sitting at rogue, he'll be a hero again shortly. So over the course of the last two months, no I didn't get a lot of A-Merits and spend them quickly, to find out about this limit of spending them until recently.
As for the "informed buying decision" line you gave us, as soon as GR went into it's "open" beta, where pre-purchasers were allowed into the beta, I read through the guides posted by people who were in beta, an no where did they mention the 20 hour clock on spending a-merits. I thought I had educated myself fairly well in this area. If B.O.L.T.E.R. does mention, then I missed it. My profound apologies sir! If it's been mentioned in other threads on the forum, again, I do apologize to you for not having read every thread posted on these forums.
I had a question if this was a bug, or WAI, so I asked in the forum for players to ask other players such a question. Since it's WAI, that's fine. Do I disagree with it? Yes. Am I ranting and raving over it? No. If fact I don't think anyone is ranting over it, just simply stating their disapproval of the limitation.
It's really not that ridiculous that not every single person knows about this limitation a couple months after the feature was added to the game.
There are 3 throttles to the process:
1. speed of earning A-merits (tied to changing side limit)
2. speed of converting merits to A-merits
3. speed of cashing in A-merits
#1 makes sense if they want to limit how much people can earn - it's really no different than the limit on running TFs over and over again. i wouldn't cry if it was gone, but I understand it.
#2 makes slightly less sense given that people have already had to do the work over a long period of time to gather the merits. The only good reason for the limit is because people have accumulated tons of merits over the years.
3. makes no sense at all. With the other two limits in place, you can only get one each day from missions and one from converting. All this stops you from doing is buying 2 recipes that cost 1 instead of 1 that costs 2 or from running alignment missions all weekend and cashing them in on the weekend. It's a stupid limitation that doesn't do anything but cause inconvenience.
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100 R-merits => 5 random rolls|
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
It's probably the inconsistency that is the issue. If they decided to throttle the speed at which you could spend reward merits and tickets, the resulting thunderous amount of complaints would have the devs taking the rate limiter off everything, so it would be same end result but a more tortuous route.
What was the 2 for 1 bonus you were referring to? |
50 R-merits + 20 million inf => 1 A-merit => 5 random rolls
If you want to dump dozens of rolls on the market at once, you still can- it's just half as efficient.
As for buying the full set of purples at once: That's ... what, 120 A-merits? More maybe? It'll take you three or four months to GET a "full set of purples" worth of A-merits. What's the big with taking a week to spend them? It's not like you're going to get to the end of the grind and be suddenly surprised that you've gotten to 120.
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@Boltcutter in game.
What the bleep is the point of limiting spending?
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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Obviously, everyone's gaming experience is different. I don't think I run with hardcore players myself; I think most of the people I team with range from "casual player" to "pretty serious but not rabid about it." And I read/skim parts of the forums regularly. Still, I was aware of Alignment Merits and their pitfalls early -- apparently I was just lucky.|
Originally Posted by Sardan
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Originally Posted by Sardan
That said, I'm well aware of the rules and I still think the limits on how rapidly A-Merits can be cashed in are pointless. I can respect the design decision throttling the speed at which someone can change sides, but I don't see the benefit from limiting the rate of A-Merit conversion. If someone banked a bunch of them then wants to purple out a character all in one session, they should be allowed to do so.
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(Of course, if you mean how fast someone could take a huge pile of "old" merits and convert them to A-merits, I'm only partly with you. I'm sure there was SOME sort of logic in place to prevent of flood of previously unbuyable purples and PvP IO's from appearing, but I'M not sure that the rate couldn't be somewhat higher. ONE alignment merit a day seems kind of low, when some regular recipes sell for two A-merits. Thirty alignment merits a day seems -- well, kind of high. I'd have expected somewhere between 2 and maybe 5 or 10, perhaps.)
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Originally Posted by Maniac_Raid
So... everyone is supposed to play exactly the same way you do? I should have spent my first alignment merit the moment I got it, rather than save it so I could get what I wanted with it rather than getting five randoms that could be completely useless to me?
Yeah, a couple months after release to find this out might seem long to some people, but not everyone plays this game every single day, or wants to grind away tips missions to farm the a-merits. I consider myself to be somewhere between hardcore and casual players because I play fairly often, and farm on occasion. Not as much as the hypothetical hardcore player, but more than the hypothetical casual player.... As for the "informed buying decision" line you gave us, as soon as GR went into it's "open" beta, where pre-purchasers were allowed into the beta, I read through the guides posted by people who were in beta, an no where did they mention the 20 hour clock on spending a-merits. I thought I had educated myself fairly well in this area. If B.O.L.T.E.R. does mention, then I missed it. My profound apologies sir! If it's been mentioned in other threads on the forum, again, I do apologize to you for not having read every thread posted on these forums. It's really not that ridiculous that not every single person knows about this limitation a couple months after the feature was added to the game. |
I also learn about stuff from reading the forums, global chat channels, and even Paragon Wiki. There's a nice succinct writeup on A-merits over at http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Alignment_Merit that includes the 20 hour timer info.
I'm not sure why you started in with the "profound apologies" since I certainly wasn't targeting YOU with a nice, vague, all-encompassing "they", which was meant to include ALL the people who've been suddenly surprised about this each and every day since Issue 18 and not just ones who were surprised on Day 58. Since you DID seem to take it personally, though, let ME apologize as well and reiterate that I was not attacking you as the OP. I'm not sure how many threads there have been, exactly, but I know there have been a few on the Market forum alone, which is only logical since the game got an added "currency" or way to get "stuff" -- and I'm sorry that you missed all of those threads.
That being said, I find that reading guides posted by people in beta as soon as the closed beta boards opened is somewhat akin to reading the shiny, picture-filled brochure the car dealer gives you when you go to look at the newly introduced model. They're both half-full of conjecture, "concept car" and "artist's conception" and "details not finalized." Reading other parts of the forums or other sites AFTER the new issue is released is more like reading Car and Driver's "First Drive Review" or Consumer Reports.
In this case, the new A-merits and the limit on how fast you can SPEND them seems a lot like the "finely tuned, sexy roadster with attention to detail everywhere except in the plastic-y dashboard, with a steering wheel they must have stolen from an '86 Yugo."
"But it wasn't anything some purples and oranges and lots of screaming in fear couldn't handle." -- Werner
30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
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I wasn't putting words in your mouth, those were actually rhetorical questions, meant to point out that you saying if everyone simply spent AN a-merit when they got it, would know about the spending limit in a timely manner, which is not viable to the player base at large. Not everyone will do that, and they shouldn't be expected to.|
Originally Posted by Eldorado
Starting off by putting words in my mouth just hurts the rest of your post. At no point did I say "everyone is supposed to play exactly the same way" that I do, and a lot of people would probably get bored if they tried. There's often a lot of (too much?) standing around and talking about all sorts of things, but that's also where I learn about some in-game "stuff", as mentioned further above.
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| I also learn about stuff from reading the forums, global chat channels, and even Paragon Wiki. There's a nice succinct writeup on A-merits over at http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Alignment_Merit that includes the 20 hour timer info. |
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| I'm not sure why you started in with the "profound apologies" since I certainly wasn't targeting YOU with a nice, vague, all-encompassing "they", which was meant to include ALL the people who've been suddenly surprised about this each and every day since Issue 18 and not just ones who were surprised on Day 58. Since you DID seem to take it personally, though, let ME apologize as well and reiterate that I was not attacking you as the OP. I'm not sure how many threads there have been, exactly, but I know there have been a few on the Market forum alone, which is only logical since the game got an added "currency" or way to get "stuff" -- and I'm sorry that you missed all of those threads. |
As for the threads posted in the market forum, I wish I'd caught them too, but the market forum is not one I visit. That's an aspect of the game, and therefore the forum, that I don't derive fun from, so I... wouldn't say "avoid" but that's kind of the best term I can think of at the moment. I use the markets, of course, but it's not something I spend my time on, so it's not a forum I go to. To me, spending a-merits doesn't automatically link to 'if I'm curious about how this works, I should check the markets forum', it links to 'read the guides, and the wiki, and check player questions'. Different people have different perspectives, and will arrive at different conclusions.Quote:
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That being said, I find that reading guides posted by people in beta as soon as the closed beta boards opened is somewhat akin to reading the shiny, picture-filled brochure the car dealer gives you when you go to look at the newly introduced model. They're both half-full of conjecture, "concept car" and "artist's conception" and "details not finalized." Reading other parts of the forums or other sites AFTER the new issue is released is more like reading Car and Driver's "First Drive Review" or Consumer Reports. In this case, the new A-merits and the limit on how fast you can SPEND them seems a lot like the "finely tuned, sexy roadster with attention to detail everywhere except in the plastic-y dashboard, with a steering wheel they must have stolen from an '86 Yugo." |
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If you wish to waste your A-merits, feel free to do so. You'd be much better spending 2 A-merits and buying something that sells for 150M then buying 6 or 7 of your 20M recipes rather than wasting 6-12 A-merits on them. Unless there is absolutely no supply of what you want, you will be better doing this, even if you have to seriously overpay.|
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
I wonder what will happen down the road when enough people start doing what I'm doing.
I use hero merits to purchase the recipes I need from the merit contact, rather than purchasing from the market. It's still far, far more efficient for me to pay one or two hero merits for a rare thing I need, than to spend twenty million at the market....and have to fight other bidders for the privilege. Its slow going but very do-able. When I am done using hero merits for the smaller stuff, I will start saving for purples. Meanwhile my millions stay OFF the market, and its working well so far. Flooding the market with rares will only drive down the price. This is a thing I dont mind - far from it - but I dont know how long the gravy train is going to last for people intent on doing this. |
And don't even think of buying purples with A-merits. If you're going to do that sort of thing either spend 20 A-merits on 10 2 merit drops, sell them for 1.5BN, buy several purples, or go all the way and save up 30 for a PvP 3%def, sell it off market for 3BN and buy even more purples.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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Thanks. I would pos rep you but somehow that button has disappeared.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
100 R-merits => 5 random rolls
50 R-merits + 20 million inf => 1 A-merit => 5 random rolls If you want to dump dozens of rolls on the market at once, you still can- it's just half as efficient. |
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Rep was removed months ago.
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Thanks. I would pos rep you but somehow that button has disappeared.
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Global @StarGeek
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It did not include the info until just a few days ago *points up to earlier in the thread*
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Originally Posted by Eldorado
I also learn about stuff from reading the forums, global chat channels, and even Paragon Wiki. There's a nice succinct writeup on A-merits over at http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Alignment_Merit that includes the 20 hour timer info.
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Global @StarGeek
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You know, last night after posting that comment I thought of exactly this situation. There simply is no way that I'm going to do that many tip/morality missions with a single character. With that said, there is really no point in trying to save them.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
As for buying the full set of purples at once: That's ... what, 120 A-merits? More maybe?...
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The better option is to use them to buy something that will sell high on the market and then use the inf I get from there to buy the things that I really want.
With the 1 A-merit every 2 days running tips and the 1 per day form the conversions (if you can actually afford to make that many conversions, and if you can then you should already be able to afford anything you want to buy) the minimum time to get a full set with A-Merits is what 40 days of grinding + converting. But since I can't afford the conversion, for me it would be 1 every 2 days => ~240 days => ~8 months to a set. Not likely to ever happen.
This puts things into perspective making the only use for these Merits, at least for me, is to use them up and sell whatever I manage to get.
At this point, the spend rate doesn't really bother me. Having said that, I can see how it would be frustrating to someone that has saved up their A-m's to purchase a set, but can't do so in one set. We are after all, an immediate society....
What does bother me is the 5 mishes per 20 hrs. It would be nice if you could do all 10, however, this is not a game breaker for me.
I have decided to spend my A-m's on 5 rares, cash them in, buy what I want for my toons AND to support my other alts. I'm too lazy to play the market like some to make millions for my low lvl toons, so having a few banks really makes life easier.
ymmv
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How is spending two hero merits on a Miracle +Recovery a "waste"? I got an extremely rare recipe selling for tens of millions [or hundreds... have not checked the price on that lately] for.... running twenty missions total. No big deal. I'd have run those missions anyways. My point being, that I completely avoided spending influence, and running the missions generated a lot of influence and prestige for me. | Minotaur: If you wish to waste your A-merits, feel free to do so. |
If I make 150 million off the market and immediately have to turn around and give it right back to someone else for a recipe I need... yuk.
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| Bumbler: What were you doing with reward merits? |
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Sorry, that was in the context of where I thought you were saying you were going to save A-merits for purples, if you're buying 1 and 2 merit recipes, selling them and saving inf for purples, that's the right way to do it.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
How is spending two hero merits on a Miracle +Recovery a "waste"? I got an extremely rare recipe selling for tens of millions [or hundreds... have not checked the price on that lately] for.... running twenty missions total. No big deal. I'd have run those missions anyways. My point being, that I completely avoided spending influence, and running the missions generated a lot of influence and prestige for me.
If I make 150 million off the market and immediately have to turn around and give it right back to someone else for a recipe I need... yuk. |
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
I'll agree that Citadel is a particularly bad example of a TF. If I don't need it for,say, 5% more HP, I'll avoid it like it has cooties.
At least Freaks, I kind of like beating for their own sake.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Would love to see the spending clock go away. Even if I were to spend a ton of merits to flood the market, all that would do is lower the prices. How is that bad for everyone? I am currently slowly saving up for Gladiator armor +3 def. If I get close to that and one happens to drop or actually show up on the market, there I am with a bunch of merits that will take me weeks to spend. More freedom is always better.
You can still spend Reward Merits as fast as you like, but if you want the 2-for-1 bonus, you have to pay a little inf and jump through a few hoops.
*shrug*
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.