City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

100 Merits a night

Ang_Rui_Shen

By Ang_Rui_Shen,
Posted on: 2010-10-10 01:10 in The Market and Inventions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Nelson View Post
On the servers where they are run with regularity, that's exactly what they are.
Yah, that's why I wrote the post in that specific manner. Not all servers and raiders can make Hami raids quick and easy. 14 min - 1 hour depending on server and raiders.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SwellGuy View Post
I could do 112 merits in 4 hours but I'd pull my hair out in bored frustration from repeating the same thing over and over. Usually I get to about 1 hour of it before I bail and do something else.
When I was doing my push to get those pvp recipes, I was averaging 56 merits in 72 minutes. 100 a night would take a little over two hours. The mind-numbing boredom of that would drive me to drink.

Be well, people of CoH.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
The mind-numbing boredom of that would drive me to drink.
This statement always makes me wonder how the rest of the game is so much different. Other than 'fer realz' PvP, the game is pretty much see target, kill target, move on...so doing tasks that will net you task force merits is pretty similar to getting tickets, Amerits or just plain old levelling.

Of course, special/zone events can be a little different, but I fail to see how it's that boring to get a set of teammates and zerg a TF or three or more each night. You can pretty much do whatever you want in between, including marketing, channel bombing or a quick duck into Virchoo Pocket D.

And there is nothing wrong with drinking while playing. Sometimes it might even lubricate your experience, especially in Pocket D.

 

Posted

I think a lot of it depends on how much you're doing literally the same task/mission/foes over and over. It's one reason that, since I16's difficulty settings, I rarely touch my honest to goodness farms. Even though it's still the same basic actions, different foes do call for slightly different tactics (especially if you're playing near the ragged edge of what you can handle, which I try to to). Switching it up a little among foes goes a long way in keeping me from getting bored really quickly.

Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by UberGuy View Post
I think a lot of it depends on how much you're doing literally the same task/mission/foes over and over. It's one reason that, since I16's difficulty settings, I rarely touch my honest to goodness farms. Even though it's still the same basic actions, different foes do call for slightly different tactics (especially if you're playing near the ragged edge of what you can handle, which I try to to). Switching it up a little among foes goes a long way in keeping me from getting bored really quickly.
yah, just running 'regular' stuff at X8 generates a goodly pile of loot without getting tedious.

It's not as ruthlessly efficient as just resetting the same map full of pushover enemies again and again, but it keeps things fresher.

The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.

My City Was Gone

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PumBumbler View Post
This statement always makes me wonder how the rest of the game is so much different. Other than 'fer realz' PvP, the game is pretty much see target, kill target, move on...so doing tasks that will net you task force merits is pretty similar to getting tickets, Amerits or just plain old levelling.

Of course, special/zone events can be a little different, but I fail to see how it's that boring to get a set of teammates and zerg a TF or three or more each night. You can pretty much do whatever you want in between, including marketing, channel bombing or a quick duck into Virchoo Pocket D.

And there is nothing wrong with drinking while playing. Sometimes it might even lubricate your experience, especially in Pocket D.
I was solo. I was running the same arc over and over and over again. Zone in, kill boss and spawn. Zone out. Zone in. Kill boss. Zone out. Zone in. Run lap killing all necessary. Zone out. Zone in. Fly to last section. Kill boss and spawn.

Repeat.

That is in NO way the same thing as: Zone in, clear map for the love of the killin, zone out.

And THAT is in no way the same for me as Bounce from map to map, enemy type to enemy type, run TF here and there, run some papers at +4/x8, run some AE maps at +0/x8 for tickets, hop from new lowbie to new lowbie, etc.

Be well, people of CoH.

 

Posted

Yeah, there's something to be said for running in a full group vs. running solo. I wouldn't want to be running the Freakshow War 3-4 times a night. Even when my SG runs Hess and Manti nearly every night, it's not that bad, and we often run other TFs -- we did Sara Moore this weekend. ^_^ I'd like to get more people to run Ouro arcs in a large group but not many people in my SG grasp that the difference between an Ouro arc and most TFs is not all that great.


my lil RWZ Challenge vid

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
I was solo. I was running the same arc over and over and over again. Zone in, kill boss and spawn. Zone out. Zone in. Kill boss. Zone out. Zone in. Run lap killing all necessary. Zone out. Zone in. Fly to last section. Kill boss and spawn.

Repeat.

That is in NO way the same thing as: Zone in, clear map for the love of the killin, zone out.

And THAT is in no way the same for me as Bounce from map to map, enemy type to enemy type, run TF here and there, run some papers at +4/x8, run some AE maps at +0/x8 for tickets, hop from new lowbie to new lowbie, etc.
Ugh... Man, you need to introduce some variety into your runs.

I still want to puke, every time I remember running countless back-to-back "Insurection Of Nictus" during 1st week of merits introduction. Even though, it was worth 203 merits per run on 8 man team back then.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba View Post
I was solo. I was running the same arc over and over and over again. Zone in, kill boss and spawn. Zone out. Zone in. Kill boss. Zone out. Zone in. Run lap killing all necessary. Zone out. Zone in. Fly to last section. Kill boss and spawn.

Repeat.

That is in NO way the same thing as: Zone in, clear map for the love of the killin, zone out.

And THAT is in no way the same for me as Bounce from map to map, enemy type to enemy type, run TF here and there, run some papers at +4/x8, run some AE maps at +0/x8 for tickets, hop from new lowbie to new lowbie, etc.
If that's your bag, then I guess that's what you wanna do...but teaming and zerging TFs isn't that far behind in overall efficiency (more merits but fewer purple drops) and you won't go batcrap insane from the monotony. If you did anything identically over and over again it would cease to be fun and become work.

I guess you like to solo lots so there's fewer options than teaming in this game.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by NordBlast View Post
Ugh... Man, you need to introduce some variety into your runs.

I still want to puke, every time I remember running countless back-to-back "Insurection Of Nictus" during 1st week of merits introduction. Even though, it was worth 203 merits per run on 8 man team back then.
That was fun!

 

Posted

To each his own, I guess.

I've never really tracked how many merits I've earned altogether; I play many alts and keeping track would drive me bonkers. I do occasionally log into a toon and find 4000 merits just sitting there. Per evening, I don't know, but I do know I've done Hess/Hami/ITF/LGTF/STF/Manti in one evening. I don't know the merit counts on those offhand, but it's lots.

I find the most fun way to earn merits is rapid-fire TFs. I'm usually the weak link on the team and I have a blast trying to keep up.

This is where this game mirrors life. Play with people better than you and the rewards are great, just as in real life you should always hang out with people smarter than you. All the good stuff dribbles down to you. The seagulls flying over the city dump are the same that fly over AT&T park after a game, but those seagulls are eating garlic fries and $16 crab sandwich scraps.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this... but as a general rule, if you want lots of rewards quickly, use SS/CJ/Hurdle with a stealth IO, hand out the buffs and debuffs liberally, and play with Pum.

Never argue with stupid people. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

@vanda1 and @nakoa2

 

Posted

Heh. Running with MG is very similar, although I like to imagine I'm not one of the weak links. But the TFs we ran last night, I found that more than half the team could stealth and recall friend as well as MG or I... and they already knew where all the static mission doors were... making me feel just a bit less essential, lol. Darn people for learning how to zerg TFs properly!


my lil RWZ Challenge vid

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Organica View Post
Heh. Running with MG is very similar, although I like to imagine I'm not one of the weak links. But the TFs we ran last night, I found that more than half the team could stealth and recall friend as well as MG or I... and they already knew where all the static mission doors were... making me feel just a bit less essential, lol. Darn people for learning how to zerg TFs properly!

I'm sure if there is a weak link, it is usually me! Also, as far as the Oro arcs instead of TFs, that is a great idea and I would join in on those anytime.

 

Posted

(Long Story Time)

Sunday I only earned 85 merits. This worried me as the weekends are my best time to rack up extra merits, to cover those days during the week when I fail to reach my goal of 100 a day. Plus I'm on a static team that runs Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7-10 PM, so that limits my ability to earn merits on those days. Worse, I dramatically screwed up my hero merit roll for a second time Sunday by clicking on "roll for low level rare salvage" instead of for recipes. I was very bummed.

So for Monday I went hami raiding, for the first time in a couple of months. Two blueside raids -- 106 merits, in a little over 2 hours all told. I had run through a Freakshow War arc early in the morning, so that put me at 139 merits on the day already. Life was good! Got in 30 minutes of exercise, and then we ran a Manticore TF before joining our static team. I felt great -- 171 merits on the evening! Of course, only 32 of those were on Alting (locked at level 33), so that left me some 14 merits short of 50 for Tuesday's merit conversion/roll. But my Monday roll was pretty good, so I was mostly able to forget my Sunday disaster.

For Tuesday I wanted to join a redside hami raid. I'd never done that. I have a 50 brute, but I always figured she wasn't ideal for hami raids. But I now have three level 50 vigilantes including Mouse Police, my best hami raid toon (katana/regen). I also wanted to earn merits on Alting of course, and get in some exercise, and be ready for another static team run at 7 PM. Hami raids usually start early and go quickly, so no problem, right? It's only one raid, and I'll have time for maybe two TFs before 7:00!

Only... redside raids are nothing like blueside raids. The Abyss doesn't fill up quickly, and people don't start 2 hours earlier than the official schedule. When I arrived at 3:30 PM there were only 4 people. It was going to be a long wait.

Time for plan B! Using my 2nd (slow) computer and my 2nd account, I logged in Alting, hit Ouroboros, and headed to Striga to run through the Hear and Now arc. 16 merits, last two missions are quite stealthable, though there's a kill all before that and an annoying hunt in the Bog where every group is 8-10 enemies and at least your level if not higher, and often there's a vampire boss. I keep checking on Mouse, but nothing's happening very fast there. I work through the entire Hear and Now arc, park Alting (now with over 50 merits) in Ouroboros and pay full attention to the Abyss, where teams are finally starting to form. That's one problem solved. Success!

The Hami raid starts at about 5:30 PM. Things go really fast after that though -- yellow mitos are being obliterated almost instantly! So much damage! Is this how redside hami raids always work? After one mito bloom, they call for a push at 50%. Blueside raids often fight through the last mito bloom at 25%, but I've never been on one that tried it at 50%. But I knew they'd done it before, so I wasn't worried.

Things go horribly wrong. It almost works, but the push fails. Once we pull back, I find out we now have a double mito spawn. I had no idea that was even possible. It's not quite like the epic mito spawns of ye Olden Days, but it's no longer an easy raid. People are short of EoEs too -- the monster hunt had only lasted for about 8 monster kills before hami spawned.

We buff up, run in, kill a few yellow mitos, and then everyone evacs after 1 minute has elapsed. Port corpses out, rez, rinse and repeat. After 4 or 5 of these runs all of the yellows are down, and then it's just a doubly-long session of blue mito and green mito killing. By the time hami goes down, it's about 6:40 PM.

So much for my 1 hour hami raid followed by some TF's plan. Now I'll be late for the static team at 7 PM. This annoys me -- I want to run arcs with the team so that I get credit and merits. But exercise is important, I'm not going to skip that. I'm also looking at the prospect of starting Wednesday night at nearly zero merits on Alting. First though, I log Alting for my daily merit conversion and roll, and get my first really good news of the night. One of the recipes that comes up on my roll is a Numina's unique!

I only spend 20 minutes on the treadmill, but something is better than nothing, as they say. By then it's just a little after 7:00. I'm only a little late, so far as I know.

On Monday we'd finished the first hunt and mission of Gordon Bower's Croatoa arc. A second hunt was next. I figure I'll log in just slightly late, do my hunt real quick, and join the team before the end of the following misison. But when I log in, there's a zombie invasion in Croatoa. Grrr. No hunt for you! At this point I'm thinking, "Why does the world hate me so?" But as it happened, the static team hadn't even formed yet.

I complete my hunt. I wait. I decide to trick or treat a little. I get two of the costumes I want the most -- the harlequin one, and malta gunslinger (absolutely required as I'm dual pistols). I also get a tip. Hmmm... I should have time to run that, right?

I zerg the Halloween mission, pick the rare recipe option, and am rewarded with a level 28 Miracle unique! Wait -- Numina and Miracle uniques in the same night? RNG loves meh!

Right after that our static team forms. We finished the Bower arc, which is 16 merits, and much of the following arc (Skipper LeGrange). We decide to stop at that point. It's 10 PM. MG wants to run a Hessicore though. Hmmm... get to bed early, or get my 50 merits for Alting for tomorrow night's roll? I stayed up late, of course. ^_^

So that's 171 merits on Monday, 136 merits on Tuesday, and a Numina and Miracle unique dropped into my lap. I'm not sure I could have asked for things to go any better than that! ^_^


my lil RWZ Challenge vid

 

Posted

A friend and I used to double dual-box a redside Respecathon. That's 4 chars (2 each) doing all 3 Respecs. That was 90 merits in about 45 minutes. The merits have gone down a bit, but it's still the best merit/minute activity I know of. If you have enough chars, you can do 2 or more sets per night.

Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
I've moved on to Diablo 3, TopDoc-1304

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TopDoc View Post
A friend and I used to double dual-box a redside Respecathon. That's 4 chars (2 each) doing all 3 Respecs. That was 90 merits in about 45 minutes. The merits have gone down a bit, but it's still the best merit/minute activity I know of. If you have enough chars, you can do 2 or more sets per night.
I did that before too. I remember it being quite fun.

 

Posted

2 hami raids tonight blueside, we pushed through at 50% both times. ^_^

That's a bit like gambling I think. Faster raid or much longer raid if you fail! I like it.


my lil RWZ Challenge vid

 

Posted

100 Merits a night, that's a good goal. Good to see there is a nice variety of things to earn that with.

I can see people doing 4 ITFs in a row and calling it a night but I would quickly get burned out of the game if I did that.

I think if I average 50 a night I'm happy.

H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD

 

Posted

I could run 20 ITFs in a row and never use the same character. >.>

Person in my SG last night was telling me she had more than 75 level 50s. There's always someone to make me feel like I'm not really as addicted to the game as I think.


my lil RWZ Challenge vid

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fulmens View Post
You can't do that for full benefits- at least not four on the same character.
I could easily pull up 4 different 50s and get full Merit rewards. Heck, I could run 12 ITFs in a row for full merit rewards.

There are a few TFs in the game that even a 2nd run is still worth it. That would be derailing the thread. However, when I said 4 it was assumed it was 4 different characters since if I ran 4 with the same one it would not total 100. (104 if you care to nitpick)

H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD

 

Posted

Still think this is awesome!

Couple questions for you Organica:

Which server are you running these on? (Virtue? Freedom?)
What time do you usually run your tf's?

and lastly

Any room on your team?

Currently Playing:

A bunch of toons! (Freedom, Virtue, and a few on Infinity)

 

Posted

I never run the same TF twice on the same character. ^_^ I wants me merits!

Monday I ran Hamidon on Organica, then on Nina Ballerina.
Tuesday I ran Hamidon on Mouse Police.
Wednesday I ran Hamidon on Mouse Police and then Nina Ballerina.

My main reason for rotating those three is that they are regen or willpower scrappers, and they can fly. I have also done Hami on two other scrappers, two different tanks and a blaster... never a defender or troller or any other AT. As a tank I know how to taunt yellow mitos, that's about it. ^_^


my lil RWZ Challenge vid

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Archantos View Post
Still think this is awesome!

Couple questions for you Organica:

Which server are you running these on? (Virtue? Freedom?)
What time do you usually run your tf's?

and lastly

Any room on your team?
A) Virtue

B) As early as 4 PM PST, as late as 10 or 11 PM PST.

C) Usually teams are formed by MG, and draw from our SG first and then from several global channels and local broadcast. I'm not actually sure which global channels she uses (other than the one for our SG), they're not the ones I'm in (VirtueUnited, VirtueBadges09, The Market of course). I have a sneaking suspicion that she's in several "uber player" channels that I've never been invited to.

(Aside -- I got invited to such a channel *once* last Spring when I was on a hami raid on Freedom. Some guy was ******** in broadcast because he'd showed up late when raid was already going, asked for a team, and didn't get a response in a whole 60 seconds or whatever, so he started cussing people out. Real mature. I pointed out that I'd been on the raid the previous evening as a level 46 scrapper without a team, and guess what? I did just fine! I guess someone liked my response, because I got invited to a global channel that I guess was Leandro and the people he ran with on Freedom, hami raiders and high level TF runners. I ran one ITF with them that day, but since I mostly play on Virtue, the channel didn't benefit me much, and one day someone asked who I was and if I was part of their group and I said, "Not really -- go ahead and kick me!" Lol.)


my lil RWZ Challenge vid

 

Posted

I started off Sunday by only earning 85 merits even though it was a weekend day, and then I screwed up my nightly hero merit roll by accidentally rolling for salvage -- again. But as you will notice, the week got much better after that.

Sunday Oct 24
Arcs/TFs: Deathsurge/Eochai/Peregrine Island Explore/Jack in Irons/Hess/Manticore/Freakshow War
Merits: 2/2/5/2/19/32/33 = 85 merits

(screwed up my hero merit roll, rolled low level rare salvage again)

Monday Oct 25
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War/Hamidon/Hamidon/Manticore/Jack in Irons
Merits: 33/53/53/32/2 = 173 merits

Hero Merit Roll
Numina's Convalescense end/heal/rech
Guassian's Syncronized Fire-Control rech/end reduction
Lockdown chance for +2 mag hold
Positron's Blast dam/acc/end
Force Feedback rech/end

Tuesday Oct 26
Arcs/TFs: Hamidon/Hear and Now/Gordon Bower/Manticore/Hess
Merits: 53/16/16/32/19 = 136 merits

Hero Merit Roll
Numina's Convalescense +ren +recovery
Mako's Bite Chance for Lethal Damage
Gift of the Ancients +7.5% run speed
Devestation acc/dam/rech
Ghost Widow's Embrace acc/hold/rech

(also scored a Miracle +recovery level 28 on a Halloween tip mission)

Wednesday Oct 27
Arcs/TFs: Hamidon/Hamidon/Synapse (no babbage due to banner event)
Merits: 53/53/58 = 164 merits

Hero Merit Roll
Aegis end/rech
Aegis end/rech
Glimpse of the Abyss chance for psionic damage
Luck of the Gambler def/end/rech
Scirocco's Dervice chance for lethal damage

Thursday Oct 28
Arcs/TFs: Croatoa Explore/Skipper LeGrange/Manticore/Hess
Merits: 5/10/32/19 = 66 merits

Hero Merit Roll
Obliteration acc/dam/rech/end
Luck of the Gambler def/end/rech
Unbounded Leap +stealth
Lockdown acc/end/rech/hold
Stupefy acc/stun/rech

Friday Oct 29
Arcs/TFs: Hess/Manticore/Sister Psyche/Citadel/Moonfire
Merits: 19/32/50/40/32 = 173 merits

Hero Merit Roll
Numina's Convalescense +recovery and +regeneration
Sovereign RIght acc/end
Positron's Blast dam/acc/end
Numina's Convaescense heal/rech
Stupefy chance for knockback

Saturday Oct 30
Arcs/TFs: Manticore/Jack in Irons/Hess/Katie/Babbage
Merits: 32/2/19/11/2 = 66 merits

Hero Merit Roll
Numina's Convalescense +recovery and +regeneration
Numina's Convalescense +recovery and +regeneration
Scirocco's Dervis dam/acc/end
Obliteration chance for smashing damage
Aegis +psionic mez resist

(absolutely awesome roll! Caps a week of great rolls. I'm now convinced more than ever that rolling above 30 was the right move to make. 4 Numina uniques this week!)

Weekly total: 793 merits, 113.285 merits/day
27 day total: 2890 merits, 107.03 merits/day


my lil RWZ Challenge vid