Adjust merit costs for certain items

[Yomo Kimyata]

I'd like to open this to all requests, but my specific beef is with ATOs and Winter Os.  It seems silly to me that they cost the same amount in terms of merits, while the cost of the packs that generate them are so different (most of the time, exception of course during the winter Winter events).

 

I don't particularly care if the cost in merits of Winter-Os goes up, or if the cost of ATOs go down, but if we got closer to a 2 or 2.5 to 1 ratio, I think we would see more people using merits for ATOs.

 

I would find this to be interesting and engaging.

[macskull]

I think this (the price difference between super packs on the AH) is on purpose because of how insanely good the winter enhancement set bonuses are, specifically for farming characters. I know this because Homecoming is the only I25-based server where the super packs don't all cost the same amount of inf.

Edited July 22, 2020 by macskull

[JayboH]

On the other hand, I don't think the cost difference translates well enough to the bonuses they provide (in the opposite direction.)  I wish they were a bit more common.  Their availability is crazy rare for the player base size we have.

[MTeague]

I get a fair amount of winter packs every month, but I admit, I keep all of the Winter-O's I get for myself, and distribute them to my alts.

 

I do converter roulette on a regular basis and at any given moment one of my characters is selling 20-50 regular rare IO pieces.

I sometimes post ATO's for sale.

I never post Winter-O's for sale.  If I don't have an alt who can use the Winter-O I get, I convert it until it's one of the sets my alts need.

[Coyotedancer]

I still think it's silly that the Winter packs cost what they do here...

Yes, the Winter IOs are good. But they're just aren't twice as good as the ATOs.

[Ukase]

Interesting thoughts. Was discussing the Superior Winter-Os with a newer player earlier today. When I mentioned that Avalanche, made Superior gives 5% melee defense, they were stunned. I always thought it was that 5% that made them so valuable to most folks. 

I rarely...wait..I've never used Entomb, except in early levels. The Frozen Blast set isn't really anything special, except to a farmer. Same with Winter Blast. Blistering Cold isn't too bad, but I'll use Kin Combats more often than not, with two crushing impacts. 

What I'm surprised at is how cheap the Hero/villain packs are. 

I don't have the memory I used to - but weren't the ATOs costing like 350- 400 reward merits EACH, plus 25 million back in live, from a merit vendor? (the proc and the quads usually cost an extra 25-50 merits) Or am I confused? 

I completely understand that many players if they lack the resources have no joy in marketing or farming. I do understand it gets tedious. But why is EVERYTHING so cheap? 

In one year, I have more inf than I made in 3 years in live, and things cost ...1/10th of what they did. (So maybe I should have 10x as much?) 

We need things to work towards, and other than badges...we don't have that. 

[Greycat]

Honestly, the ATOs, packs, etc. should drop. Extremely rarely, but they'd be nice to see as drops.

 

As far as the winter-Os... they're what I spend 100 merits on, sell, and buy whatever else I need, with rare exception (I'll use Avalanche's chance for knockdown or, more rarely, the melee chance to hold, for instance.) The bonuses aren't that interesting to me. Maybe the slow resist for, say, my Khelds' dwarf forms since they have so light of an attack chain, but I can snag a winter's gift for that too.

[Coyotedancer]

19 hours ago, Ukase said:

What I'm surprised at is how cheap the Hero/villain packs are. 

 

The ATOs were *LUDICROUSLY* overpriced in the Live days... Absolutely to a ridiculous degree, because the idea was to drive people to buy superpacks for real-world money. Making them hard to attain with in-game currency was directly related to profits. 

 

That's not an issue here. And frankly, I'm glad merit prices were adjusted to something more reasonable. 

[macskull]

21 hours ago, Greycat said:

Honestly, the ATOs, packs, etc. should drop. Extremely rarely, but they'd be nice to see as drops.

 

As far as the winter-Os... they're what I spend 100 merits on, sell, and buy whatever else I need, with rare exception (I'll use Avalanche's chance for knockdown or, more rarely, the melee chance to hold, for instance.) The bonuses aren't that interesting to me. Maybe the slow resist for, say, my Khelds' dwarf forms since they have so light of an attack chain, but I can snag a winter's gift for that too.

IIRC ATOs and winter O's did come as drops on a certain other I25-based server but it changed to the current version to put inf sinks into the game.

[Myrmidon]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

IIRC ATOs and winter O's did come as drops on a certain other I25-based server but it changed to the current version to put inf sinks into the game.

When the Winter Packs drop to 10 million during the Winter event, they are most definitely an Influence Sink.😁

[Greycat]

4 hours ago, macskull said:

IIRC ATOs and winter O's did come as drops on a certain other I25-based server but it changed to the current version to put inf sinks into the game.

They can still be inf sinks if the drop's rare. Didn't say to take them out of the AH. 🙂

[macskull]

10 hours ago, Greycat said:

They can still be inf sinks if the drop's rare. Didn't say to take them out of the AH. 🙂

Oh no I didn't mean to take them out of the AH, Sure you get that 10% transaction fee acting as an inf sink but even if your catalyzed winter O sells for 40 million that's still 4 million inf eaten in fees which is less than a fifth of what disappears when you buy a winter super pack (assuming you buy a seeded one and not one someone has listed).

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

Oh no I didn't mean to take them out of the AH, Sure you get that 10% transaction fee acting as an inf sink but even if your catalyzed winter O sells for 40 million that's still 4 million inf eaten in fees which is less than a fifth of what disappears when you buy a winter super pack (assuming you buy a seeded one and not one someone has listed).

Here's my thought on that, though - at least as far as drops. Yes, buying a pack sucks... what, 20-25m out of the in game economy (assuming seeded, yes.) I don't tend to buy those. 🙂

 

Whether through merits (the way I do now) or drops, though, more people would have access to them. Which means people would look at the AH and - aside from a couple - probably want to sell them for inf. Which would indirectly allow *more* inf to be taken out through those fees that otherwise wouldn't have been.

 

Which might be totally out there. *shrug* I buy the IOs at 100 merits (which... hami raids, is pretty common,) sell it on the AH and buy what I need. So that's INF that would not otherwise have been taken out via fee... while still making me perfectly happy with being able to pick other stuff up (with more fees.)

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 7/22/2020 at 11:32 PM, Ukase said:

I rarely...wait..I've never used Entomb, except in early levels. The Frozen Blast set isn't really anything special, except to a farmer. Same with Winter Blast. Blistering Cold isn't too bad, but I'll use Kin Combats more often than not, with two crushing impacts. 

What I'm surprised at is how cheap the Hero/villain packs are.

It’s almost certainly an anchoring effect that ATOs are half the price or less of winter Os.  I rarely use anything except Avalanche myself, and I use that everywhere.

[Dazl]

Don't know if they need to change the price of the packs, but ATO's should only cost 50 merits. Generally 100 merits is around 20-22 million selling converters. Buying purple IO's and Winter IO's are in the 20 million range, so 100 merits makes sense. Since ATO's go for between 8-10 million, 50 merits is closer to what they are really worth.

[Grouchybeast]

9 hours ago, Crimsonpyre said:

Don't know if they need to change the price of the packs, but ATO's should only cost 50 merits. Generally 100 merits is around 20-22 million selling converters. Buying purple IO's and Winter IO's are in the 20 million range, so 100 merits makes sense. Since ATO's go for between 8-10 million, 50 merits is closer to what they are really worth.

Merit prices are caps, not equivalent values.  Trying to keep Merit prices adjusted so that they match what IOs are 'really worth' would be incredibly time-consuming.

[Dazl]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

Merit prices are caps, not equivalent values.  Trying to keep Merit prices adjusted so that they match what IOs are 'really worth' would be incredibly time-consuming.

Perhaps, but ATO's are probably the one case where merits are out of wack in terms of value. You could convert 100 merits into 20 million selling converters, and buy two ATO's.

[Grouchybeast]

2 hours ago, Crimsonpyre said:

Perhaps, but ATO's are probably the one case where merits are out of wack in terms of value. You could convert 100 merits into 20 million selling converters, and buy two ATO's.

Or you could buy a Call of the Sandman recipe for 50 merits! 

 

Almost all Merit purchases are wildly overpriced compared to buying on the market.  Winter sets and Purples are the outliers for being at least in the same general ballpark.

[Dazl]

2 hours ago, Grouchybeast said:

Or you could buy a Call of the Sandman recipe for 50 merits! 

 

Almost all Merit purchases are wildly overpriced compared to buying on the market.  Winter sets and Purples are the outliers for being at least in the same general ballpark.

True, but Call of the Sandman isn't as in demand as ATO's. You make a good point though, all the other IO's should be 25 merits.

[RCU7115]

I think the merit cost for ATO's and Winter sets are fine. There's no way I'm gonna spend 20-30 million for any item in the game. When the Winter Packs went on sale for 10 million I bout 20 of them and got around 25 Winter Enhancements. I did get a few dud packs that gave no enhancements and so I'll never buy the Winter Packs at 25 million just for that reason. Even if I got lucky to get 2 Winter enhancements it still works out to 12.5 million and 10 million per any item in the game is my limit. I don't care if I have 2 billion influence saved on a character. 

I tried the converter deal using merits to get converters but last July I tried to sell 50 converters for 75 K  a piece and after 3 weeks I still had 20 left . It just became faster for me to buy the ATO's and Winter sets with Merits and even at 100 a pop I still can get any ATO, Winter or Purple set in about 4 to 4 1/2 hours. To catalyst the enhancement is easy when you have 30+ lvl 50  toons  and just run a farm and get switch out toons as they collect the 1 free Catalyst you get every 20-24 hours. For the Farmer haters then just use a radio mish and once you get your Catalyst log out and switch toons.