Risk VS Reward

[Ukase]

There's probably some perspectives I've not considered,but I believe that there's a problem with the way Reward merits are currently awarded. 

If I complete a task force on a team of 8, and we run the content at +4/8, I get the same reward merits as another team that ran it at -1/8. Why is that? Clearly one is easier than the other. 

If I finish a task force in 10 minutes, I get the same merits as someone that took 4 hours. Why is that? (I can kind of get that, as I often solo the shard tfs and take lunch. I'd likely get irritable if it cost me merits) Still, some folks are working harder than others and not being rewarded appropriately. 

I've no idea what the solution is - or if there is one - but I think if you finish LRSF in 10 minutes, you should get MORE merits than what's given now. Give folks something beyond a badge, as 1) for many players badges are meaningless 2) Awarding a badge for some insanely fast times would require more effort than I want to invest for EVERY task force. Or even some task forces.  But merits...those are quite useful. 

[Erydanus]

Merit rewards were established based on typical time to complete a task.  If you can do it faster than at par, then you can turn around and use your time to do something else and get other merit rewards. I don't think difficulty settings are factored in or should be. You are getting the reward for doing X goal where X is completing the TF. If you want to make it harder for yourself, that's your option; your compensation for doing missions on harder settings is that you'll collect more drops and xp and influence in the process. But that's not what the merit reward is for.

 

The flip side to the argument would be, what if someone turns down the difficulty, or more extremely, stealths every possible mission and avoids as much combat as possible. Shouldn't they be penalized for fighting easier mobs or even not fighting trash mobs at all? What if they set the difficulty to +4 x8 and then proceed to still stealth every mission possible? Should they get more reward because the difficulty is high even though they actually didn't experience difficulty, or should they get less because they only fought a handful of mobs?

 

Ultimately the reward is for the clear and it's not coupled to how you get the clear. And I think that's good.  I think if people were stealthing missions enough to speed through them then it should affect the reward. Look at the Eden Trial. It's got very low payout and that's because that's exactly what most people do, skip thru it really fast. It's unfortunate that if you do the mission the "legit" way you don't get much for it other than XP but it's still balanced for the typical player experience and I think that's ok.

 

[Ukase]

Hey, I appreciate your thoughts. I figured there were some aspects I hadn't considered. I still would like extra, but who can fault me for that? 

[Razor Cure]

15 hours ago, Ukase said:

Still, some folks are working harder than others and not being rewarded appropriately. 

Off topic but...why are AE farms still SO much faster to level than anything else in the game? Risk Vs Reward and all.

 

Back to the point..I woulnd't mind if Task Force gave extra rewards for certain tasks, in a similar way to how iTrails give astal/emps for tasks.

Kill the RomulusPhalanx in under 2 mins, get 3 extra merits/rare salavge/rare recipe drop/whatever. Take down all 4 towers in STF, actually rescue Glacia and Infernia on LG (make it 500 merits, cause damn that mission is a pain!) etc etc. At the very least, Master runs should give something extra.

[golstat2003]

4 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Off topic but...why are AE farms still SO much faster to level than anything else in the game? Risk Vs Reward and all.

 

Back to the point..I woulnd't mind if Task Force gave extra rewards for certain tasks, in a similar way to how iTrails give astal/emps for tasks.

Kill the RomulusPhalanx in under 2 mins, get 3 extra merits/rare salavge/rare recipe drop/whatever. Take down all 4 towers in STF, actually rescue Glacia and Infernia on LG (make it 500 merits, cause damn that mission is a pain!) etc etc. At the very least, Master runs should give something extra.

AE farm are so much faster if you build a specific toon that can handle those custom maps with specifically chosen snob types.

 

Try bringing a mostly smashing lethal damage mitigation based toon into one one of those faster fire farms. Let us know what happens. We’ll wait.🤣
 

EDIT: On a more serious and on topic note: I’d be fine if master runs did give a little bit extra something.

Edited October 31, 2019 by golstat2003

[Lost Ninja]

Master of Runs give badges.

 

As for AE farms, the accessibility of farming is easier than it was before AE but it is still entirely possible to get fast single (or near single) type damage in normal content, it's just harder to manage for something so easy to build as a */fire brute. In HC using a */fire brute in something like the Harvey Maylor demons map would be insane XP.