Increase Merit Rewards for Arcs Impacted by Crey Buffs

[macskull]

7 hours ago, Earnest Victory said:

And a less than decent build makes the game very ugly and unappealing to play at the higher levels, and that's even if you're playing a strong AT with a good pair of powersets. If not, the game can become practically unplayable.

Hyperbole much? The game's combat is not balanced around the existence of IOs. This was reiterated multiple times back on live and the current devs have stated the same on several occasions.

7 hours ago, Earnest Victory said:

'Cheaper than before' is not the same as 'at the price they need to be for the game to function as intended'. 

I'm curious what price point you think that needs to be, considering a character needs exactly zero IOs for the game to function as intended.

On 1/13/2022 at 10:18 PM, golstat2003 said:

I haven't fought the new Crey in a tf yet, so we'll see. Life is too short and this isn't a decade ago.

The most difficult thing about the new Crey is remembering they've changed so you aren't surprised by some of the new powers. I haven't found them to be any more difficult than they were before but I'm also not trying to solo them on +4x8 or something.

[arcane]

9 hours ago, Earnest Victory said:

'Cheaper than before' is not the same as 'at the price they need to be for the game to function as intended'. 
 

May I ask what other MMO’s you have experience with? Because not only have items’ prices fallen by incredible factors like 100 to 1, but it is now also far far quicker/easier to kit out a character with the highest end gear in CoX than in any other well-known MMO I am aware of. It is pitifully easy to do. 
 

You seem to have no idea what you’re talking about on this subject. Before we go any further without comprehending your logic, please clarify (1) how cheap do you think a fully maxed out build should be and (2) how quickly should you be able to attain it in in-game time.

Edited January 15, 2022 by arcane

[A Cat]

12 hours ago, Earnest Victory said:

 

I did indeed. And as I said, it is not because of that cheapness that fewer players can't afford them. A decent build is still prohibitively expensive to any new player, or even frequent player who doesn't play in one of a few particular ways. And a less than decent build makes the game very ugly and unappealing to play at the higher levels, and that's even if you're playing a strong AT with a good pair of powersets. If not, the game can become practically unplayable.

'Cheaper than before' is not the same as 'at the price they need to be for the game to function as intended'. 

The thing that's made it so just about everyone can afford build is that just about everyone has been playing for months, if not years, because the player pool is stagnating, and they either got with the program and started playing 'correctly', or they stopped playing because optimal play bored or frustrated them. 

Which you must already understand, because as you said, the number of players who cannot afford IOs is shrinking... meaning it did not shrink all at once when all the prices dropped after live. Where then the shrinkage, if the prices are not in continuous freefall (which they are not)? 

Boat. Hole. Water. 
 

I only started at the beginning of summer, but even my first level 50 used all IO's (first common IO's and random stuff that I crafted from drops, then sets, though no purps or winters) right when she reached level 50. I did not farm or anything, this was from merit rewards from arcs, TF's, and Hami/MSRs (I did a lot of the latter two). Getting fully common IO-d out is only a couple mill. Cheap set IO's are also, well, cheap. The one thing that any new player has to learn to have adequate income is how to semi-efficiently turn merits into money, which probably could stand to have an in game short tutorial or something. I was playing up till 20-ish before I figured out how to turn merits to converters to money, and by then I had 100+ merits IIRC. That's already like, 21 million minus AH listing fees, and probably enough to fully common IO out a character, all at level 20-something. I was able to play at +0x8 towards the end with just mainly common IO's. YMMV depending on your AT though. That was an Elec/Elec brute. Not a very meta primary by any means but the secondary is pretty good. 

[Earnest Victory]

6 hours ago, arcane said:

please clarify (1) how cheap do you think a fully maxed out build should be and (2) how quickly should you be able to attain it in in-game time.

Depends what you mean by 'maxed out'. 

Do you mean 'enough to make the game playable', like what I was talking about? Because the answers to that are 'very' and 'instantly'. It should not take any extra time from your regular gameplay to be able to continue to play the game - and as enhancements are necessary for the majority of that time on the majority of characters, they should therefor be cheap enough that you can afford them by completing missions and defeating enemies. Which means the a whole build, capable of dealing with even-level enemies, should cost less than you would earn getting to level 50 by playing content. So, somewhere between one and two million inf - assuming you don't need enhancements before 50, which you do, so a let's say a fraction of two million equivalent to how often on the way to 50 you will have to replace your enhancements. So about 400,000 inf to get your character basically functional. Any more and you may as well be the US medical system, with how much you would be relying on other people's charity.  

If you mean something else, I can't help you. 

 

3 hours ago, A Cat said:

I did not farm or anything, this was from merit rewards from arcs, TF's, and Hami/MSRs (I did a lot of the latter two).

Yes, you were the recipient of charity. Charity that would have been completely worthless if the Merit Rewards for those activities were tied to mean completion time, BTW. There are people in our community who work very hard to make the game more playable, it is good and decent of them to do all that work for rewards get very little value out of just to keep another avenue for profit open for those who can't afford to go down the others. 

It should not be the basis of the health of the game's economy. 

[A Cat]

1 hour ago, Earnest Victory said:

Yes, you were the recipient of charity. Charity that would have been completely worthless if the Merit Rewards for those activities were tied to mean completion time, BTW. There are people in our community who work very hard to make the game more playable, it is good and decent of them to do all that work for rewards get very little value out of just to keep another avenue for profit open for those who can't afford to go down the others. 

It should not be the basis of the health of the game's economy. 

How was I the recipient of charity?

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, Earnest Victory said:

Do you mean 'enough to make the game playable', like what I was talking about? Because the answers to that are 'very' and 'instantly'.

Can I interest you in a test server with a freebies menu?

[macskull]

3 hours ago, Earnest Victory said:

If you mean something else, I can't help you. 

The system you are describing in your post already exists - for the most part just playing the game will get you enough inf to kit your character out with SOs or generic IOs. Both of those are perfectly adequate for, in your own words, "capable of dealing with even-level enemies." The game's balanced around generic enhancements and the IO system is entirely optional.

[macskull]

2 hours ago, A Cat said:

How was I the recipient of charity?

Apparently the reward merit system is some form of charity, at least that's how I'm understanding it.

[Lazarillo]

40 minutes ago, macskull said:

Apparently the reward merit system is some form of charity, at least that's how I'm understanding it.

I got more the implication that Hamidon and Mothership raids are generally just "carried" by a small number of good players and that 30-40 of the people involved are basically do little more to contribute than your average farm "sitter".  I can see where the idea might come from, though I'm not 100% sold on it, personally.

[Hyperstrike]

30 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

I got more the implication that Hamidon and Mothership raids are generally just "carried" by a small number of good players and that 30-40 of the people involved are basically do little more to contribute than your average farm "sitter".  I can see where the idea might come from, though I'm not 100% sold on it, personally.

Nah.  On a Hami raid, if you don't contribute, you don't complete.

Yes, a small team or a nuke team can carry it by themselves.
Realistically, most Hamis aren't carrying that sort of firepower.

On ship raids, you can carry on a team or less and keep most of the league alive.
But kill stats are so low, it's almost not worth running the raid.

[Katharos]

No, I think he's saying most of the effort involved in Hamidons is in the organising, rather than calling anyone a leech. Which seems fair. 

This is fairly far off topic. Perhaps someone should start a different thread for this.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Katharos

[Ruin Mage]

I think this could be done as part of a whole "hey, those merit formulas suck absolute butt. lets re-do them." path to modifying rewards for arcs and task forces, trials, etc.

[Tahliah]

On 1/13/2022 at 3:56 PM, Katharos said:

I have no idea why there’s all of this talk of incarnates driving merits down. Few of these arcs are in the 45-50 range incarnates are allowed. And for cases like Dr Q where the problem is the sheer quantity of missions, most of which are defeat alls, spread out across over several dozen zones, the biggest factor for completion time is TT, not incarnates. Balancing merits around how many people have TT seems insane. 

 

Incarnates are almost entirely irrelevant to my original post. 

 

This was my thought, as well.  TT makes, for example,  Dr. Q. doable in far less than the bazillion hours it took on live (when you had to literally plan ahead and let everyone know to free up their whole day to run it for the badge). This is a good thing, a GREAT thing.

 

My other note is that Crey are not devastating foes for some ATs, even with their new buffs.  My ice/ice/ice blaster cuts through them like butter, including when scaled down for Manti . . .  but has run into problems with Carnies and CoT (particularly at lower levels).  Do we change all the merit rewards because some ATs can handle some baddies better than others?  I don't think that's a good path to take. /just my two cents!  That and $6 will get you a gallon of gas or a pound of chicken this summer.