Vanguard Merit Conversion Ratio Nerf

[RGinny]

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Formal Request: Vanguard Merit Conversion Ratio Nerf

 

Explanation & Reason:

Look, I love doing Rikti Mothership Raids as much as the next guy. In fact, it was one of the most fun and common endgame events that i used to engage in during the live servers. However, there was never a mechanic set up to convert Vmerits to Rmerits in the live game.

 

I understand why the underground Score server decided to implement the conversion and at such an incredible ratio 10:1. Getting 40 people to engage in a raid is difficult work, so with the limited amount of player-base they needed to make the reward for successfully completing the raid worthwhile. 10:1 was a good ratio then. Not so now.

 

in Homecoming there is no longer any problems with player count as there were on SCORE. But the reward ratios stay the same. So what has happened now is that this is by far the largest amount of Merit per minute in the game, by a factor of 10. (seriously. 120-160 Reward Merits per raid (40minutes) is an insane ratio).

 

This cheapens other content and makes it less desirable to run. Why run a TF when you can get triple the merits in 1/3rd the time?

 

Solution: Downgrade the Vmerit to Rmerit conversion from 10:1 to 100:1. This would still provide the incentive for people to engage in RWZ raids, but puts the reward/timespent in a much more favorable situation, putting on par with the TF, Trials, and other content in the game.

 

Sincerely,

You're friendly local homecoming hero -RGinny

 

P.s.P.S. right now, there are RWZraids running almost nonstop in Torchbearer, specifically because of this ratio. NONSTOP. The exploit is well known now.

[knighthawk515]

While I only learned about this exploit a few hours ago, and since I'm at work and have been unable to take advantage of it (as I most admittedly would have/will be), you make some excellent points.  It does diminish the importance of reward merits and in turn, the loot garnered from them. 

 

But I ask with all seriousness, can you change it next week!!?? Haha  ;D ;D ;)

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Ah, that explains why Enhancement Converters were dropping in price Sunday afternoon.

 

I like the idea of Mothership raids being profitable since they were a lot of fun, but I agree that they probably shouldn't be THAT profitable.

[Vanden]

Well that's an incredibly heavy-handed nerf that would make mothership raids dry up immediately, so kudos for that.

[Zombie Man]

(seriously. 120-160 Reward Merits per raid (40minutes) is an insane ratio).

 

People are getting 1,200 - 1,600 Vanguard Merits per raid?!

[Adeon Hawkwood]

(seriously. 120-160 Reward Merits per raid (40minutes) is an insane ratio).

People are getting 1,200 - 1,600 Vanguard Merits per raid?!

That does sound high, I remember it being more like 500-750.

[Super Homer]

Wonder if the double-xp somehow affects the drop rate of VMerits?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

It shouldn't, you just get 1 merit per kill.

 

One possibility is that it's related to leagues. In order to get a merit your team needs to tag the enemy. With leagues maybe it counts every enemy killed by the league rather than just your team?

[RGinny]

(seriously. 120-160 Reward Merits per raid (40minutes) is an insane ratio).

People are getting 1,200 - 1,600 Vanguard Merits per raid?!

That does sound high, I remember it being more like 500-750.

 

I can confirm. did 5 raids over the weekend. What started to be about 1,000 Vmerits on saturday turned into 1,600-1,800 VMerits on sunday. So yea, it was essentially 1.5 purple enhancements per raid.

 

[RGinny]

Well that's an incredibly heavy-handed nerf that would make mothership raids dry up immediately, so kudos for that.

 

Mothership raids were common enough on live, and that was when they had NO merit conversion at all.

 

I offered up the ratio change based on the actual time-based reward system the developers based all the other content on.

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards

 

Getting 12-18 RMerits for 30 minutes of mindless work seems abit more appropriate than 120-180 RMerits. (not to mention, 50s are still getting threads, exp, recipe drops, shards etc from the farm, not even counting the vmerits gained.

 

Will this change effect how often raids are conducted? yes.

will it stop them completely? No, because people still like endgame content and the reward structure is still there to reward time spent.

 

somethings gotta change, if its not going from 10:1 to 100:1, then it at least needs to 50:1 or more, because otherwise, right now, there is nothing in the game that even comes this close to merit gains, and the next runner up (The Lady Grey Task Force) is only runner up because that too, benefits from the bloated conversion rates.

 

 

[Vanden]

Well that's an incredibly heavy-handed nerf that would make mothership raids dry up immediately, so kudos for that.

 

Mothership raids were common enough on live, and that was when they had NO merit conversion at all.

 

Yes, but on Live we had to pay for Vanguard costume pieces, and our salvage storage was small enough that the salvage pack was worth buying as well. On Homecoming the costumes are free and salvage storage is huge by default.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

If people are getting 1000-1500 V Merits per raid then I agree that the ratio should probably be changed. I think 100:1 is a bit much though, I'd probably do 30:1, that cuts the merit ratio by a third but still makes it on the high end of earning which is probably fair since putting together a full league does require more effort than an 8-man team.

[RGinny]

Well that's an incredibly heavy-handed nerf that would make mothership raids dry up immediately, so kudos for that.

 

Mothership raids were common enough on live, and that was when they had NO merit conversion at all.

 

Yes, but on Live we had to pay for Vanguard costume pieces, and our salvage storage was small enough that the salvage pack was worth buying as well. On Homecoming the costumes are free and salvage storage is huge by default.

 

Right, which is why im not saying to take away the conversion completely, just reduce it to a place where its equitable based on time-invested. There is 0 reason right now to do any other endgame content, (or any other content whatsoever), because i can earn rewards 9 or 10x the normal rate doing mothership raids.

 

case in point:

The Statesman Task Force (now Ms Liberty) has a median completion time of 133 minutes. The merit rewards for that TF is 38 Merits. Thats a rate of .29 merits per minute.

 

Right now, the RWZraid has a median completion time of 35-45 minutes (depending on how long it takes to bring down the pylons) but the farming part is 30 minutes exactly. So lets say 40. I got ~1600 VMerits (160 Rmerit) yesterday per raid, so thats 4 merits per minute. 

 

That means, I'm generating merits 13x faster doing a Rikti raid than if i had run a Statesman Task Force (or any other comparable TF, because the merits all followed the same formula). 13 times more.

 

so in that regard, reducing the reward by a power of 10 would still have me generating 1.3x the merit rewards, which still provides plenty of incentive to do it, just not such an overwhelming incentive that nothing else is comparably close.

 

Source: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards

[RGinny]

If people are getting 1000-1500 V Merits per raid then I agree that the ratio should probably be changed. I think 100:1 is a bit much though, I'd probably do 30:1, that cuts the merit ratio by a third but still makes it on the high end of earning which is probably fair since putting together a full league does require more effort than an 8-man team.

 

I'm pushing for 100:1, but really, any nerf is welcome. i still think 30:1 is a bit low, because thats on avg 1.33 merits / minute (assuming 40 minutes and assuming 1600 vmerits) which is still 4.6x the rate you'd get from running a comparable TF.

 

Id say, at the minimum, it needs to at least 50:1 which would be .8 merits per minute, which is still 2.75x the rate, but at least its closer in the ballpark.

 

Source: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards

[JusticeEagle]

Yeah, this is not a good idea, certainly not yet. This is still a very young economy, and it's hard enough to find things in the AH as it is. This encourages people to do recipe rolls and sell what they don't need, lowering prices and providing needed recipes, plus people are having fun. Bear in mind, a lot of us have work, families/significant others, the gym or other hobbies and commitments. This nerf would punish those of us who's time to log on to earn merits is limited. The only people who would benefit would be those who are on 24/7 and can grind for rare or ultra-rare recipes and such because the price for those would go through the roof, and the rest of us would get hurt. Maybe at some point in the future the conversion can be adjusted, but right now this is a good outlet for those of us who can't be on all the time.

[RGinny]

Yeah, this is not a good idea, certainly not yet. This is still a very young economy, and it's hard enough to find things in the AH as it is. This encourages people to do recipe rolls and sell what they don't need, lowering prices and providing needed recipes, plus people are having fun. Bear in mind, a lot of us have work, families/significant others, the gym or other hobbies and commitments. This nerf would punish those of us who's time to log on to earn merits is limited. The only people who would benefit would be those who are on 24/7 and can grind for rare or ultra-rare recipes and such because the price for those would go through the roof, and the rest of us would get hurt. Maybe at some point in the future the conversion can be adjusted, but right now this is a good outlet for those of us who can't be on all the time.

 

Normally, I'm of the opinion that if its not hurting anyone, why change it.

 

Unfortunately it is hurting other people because there are several reports of people not being able to gather players for high end content because everyone is raiding. again, this is 13x the normal rate. if you think thats appropriate, then idk what to tell you.

 

I work too. and commute. and right now, I can take a lvl 40, bring them into RWZ on Friday, and by Sunday, have him be lvl 50 with T3-T4 incarnates, and a full build of purples. I mean, i get people want fast progression, but thats a ridiculous rate for the highest level content in the game.

 

again. let me reiterate the numbers, right now the drop rate paired with the conversion index is 13x the rate of any other content. Not double, Not Quadruple, Not even 10x... its 13x the rate.

 

Also: Your point about the young economy isn't genuine. During live LOTG+recharge IOs sold for 250-300 million per. right now you can buy them for 10-30 million. I'm sorry if you cant fully slot your character after playing for 4 total hours, but thats not how the progression system is meant to work.

[JusticeEagle]

Your point about Rikti raids isn't genuine. I've neither seen nor heard of more than one RWZ on Torchbearer full up a time, and if it were such a problem we would see multiple instances of RWZ full.

 

However, the economy is still very young. Funny you should mention LOTG Recharges, because I was looking for them over the weekend, and seeing 0 for sale. Same thing with several Decimation recipes and and a few other things I was trying to find. Not even purps, just rare recipes with 0 for sale. And of course, if you nerf the merits people can get, prices will shoot right back up.

 

I'm sorry if you can't find people to run the content you want when you want it, but that's the nature of the beast. People want to do different things at different times, but it's not ok to hurt other people's ability to play and have fun because of it.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

However, the economy is still very young. Funny you should mention LOTG Recharges, because I was looking for them over the weekend, and seeing 0 for sale. Same thing with several Decimation recipes and and a few other things I was trying to find. Not even purps, just rare recipes with 0 for sale. And of course, if you nerf the merits people can get, prices will shoot right back up.

The thing is you're looking in the wrong place. Yes, there are no recipes for sale but there are plenty of enhancements (in fact I bought 10 or so of the LotG recharges over the weekend).

 

With the economy the way it is people aren't trading merits for recipes, they're trading merits for enhancement converters and then converting enhancements. So for rare stuff like LotG recharges you end up with zero recipes for sale but plenty of crafted enhancements for sale instead since it's cheaper in terms of merits to buy a cheap Red Fortune recipe on the market, craft that and re-roll it into a LotG recharge than it is to buy a LotG recharge recipe. In fact recipes are an awful use of merits, right now you're better of trading them for enhancement boosters, converters and catalysts (converters were the best but they seem to be dropping, possibly due to the increase in merits from raids).

 

So overall I would say that the economy is doing fine. Popular rare enhancements are running for about 7-10million each (and less popular sets are 2-4 million a piece) so even quite good builds are very affordable. The only thing that's pricey at the moment are Purples and Hamidon enhancements.

 

Honestly the supply of good stuff on the market is much greater than it was on live and while I'm fine with that there comes a point where it's to much stuff.

[RGinny]

Your point about Rikti raids isn't genuine. I've neither seen nor heard of more than one RWZ on Torchbearer full up a time, and if it were such a problem we would see multiple instances of RWZ full.

 

However, the economy is still very young. Funny you should mention LOTG Recharges, because I was looking for them over the weekend, and seeing 0 for sale. Same thing with several Decimation recipes and and a few other things I was trying to find. Not even purps, just rare recipes with 0 for sale. And of course, if you nerf the merits people can get, prices will shoot right back up.

 

I'm sorry if you can't find people to run the content you want when you want it, but that's the nature of the beast. People want to do different things at different times, but it's not ok to hurt other people's ability to play and have fun because of it.

 

Well, the raids dont run concurrently in multiple zones because people are running them nonstop in 1 zone. All day yesterday RWZ1 had a raid going. All day.

 

Furthermore, last week I was able to buy 5 LOTG +recharges for an avg of 10 million per. 2 of which I bought for 5 million. I'll check again today but I assume there will be more than 0. Not to mention you can just use converters to get them anyway if you have any purple enhancement.

 

And I'm not hurting people's ability to play or have fun. I'm bringing attention to a mechanic in the game that is terribly broken. It detracts from the other content and forces players to play a certain way or else they have to feel like their time elsewhere isnt worth it.

 

I'm going to cite AE and how homecoming responded to the PLers in that during the first few weeks. Homecoming nerfed AE because it was broken to the point where it detracted from the main game. Were the AE farmers hurting others? If not then why did Homecoming nerf them? Because they actually did hurt the core of the game, which is the reward system. By making something super easy and way more profitable than any other venture, you destroy the entire time invested reward system that the game is based around.

 

Or maybe youd like it if homecoming gave people the ability to be lvl 50 with all the incarnates and all the enhancements by just clicking a button on character creation... it's not hurting anyone. Right??

[Vanden]

I'm going to cite AE and how homecoming responded to the PLers in that during the first few weeks. Homecoming nerfed AE because it was broken to the point where it detracted from the main game. Were the AE farmers hurting others?

 

Yes, they were, because AE farms were taxing the servers to a disproportionate degree and degrading the experience for everyone.

[brian9824]

I'm going to cite AE and how homecoming responded to the PLers in that during the first few weeks. Homecoming nerfed AE because it was broken to the point where it detracted from the main game. Were the AE farmers hurting others?

 

Yes, they were, because AE farms were taxing the servers to a disproportionate degree and degrading the experience for everyone.

 

Yep this.  They were quite clear they were nerfed because the resources to run them were of a significantly higher amount then people running missions

[Razor Cure]

Would nerfing the V merit conversion ratio work retroactively? Because..it should. If they lower the rates, how is that fair to the many many people who did not do, or even know, about the raids?

It reminds me of that stupid Khled Arc merit exploit that got farmed into the ground, when it was pretty clear it was an exploit. Then the forum Mods denied it even existed..and yet still took another week to fix it.

[crabion]

Leave it the way it is.

[knighthawk515]

Would nerfing the V merit conversion ratio work retroactively? Because..it should.

 

retroactively? No.  It would be nearly impossible, save for wiping characters that participated, to remove IOs/Influence/Mertis/Incarnate content/etc from alts in any logical way to say what was gained 'illegally' - for the lack of a better word - and what would have been gained in a normal environment.  You simply correct the problem going forward and everyone moves on.

[Primantis]

I think the 10:1 ratio was balanced around solo/team/farming VMerit gain, not the RWZ mothership raids.

 

I tested this earlier on before RWZ raids became popular. 'Reward Merits per time' ratio seemed pretty spot on that way. Farming for an hour gave me maybe 20-40 Reward Merits (farming x8 maps). Of course YMMV and my numbers aren't exact.

 

 

That being said, I expect them to be nerfed eventually. They've already nerfed Merit gain from morality missions. It was 50 at launch, now its 30 or so.