Focused Feedback: Reward Merits

[Booper]

Merit Rewards

• The Empyrean/Astral Merit to Reward Merit conversion has been removed from Reward Merit vendors.
• For Incarnate Trials we'll be adding a completion bonus reward of Reward Merits on-top of the current standard Empyrean/Astral Merit rewards valuing the total of what the standard conversion would've amounted to. Meaning you'll get the same number of Empyrean/Astral Merits as you were before Page 4 but also get the following on-top:
  • Behavioral Adjustment Facility Trial = 18 Reward Merits
  • Lambda Sector Trial = 20 Reward Merits
  • Keyes Island Reactor Trial = 18 Reward Merits
  • The Underground Trial = 40 Reward Merits
  • TPN Campus Trial= 30 Reward Merits
  • Minds of Mayhem Trial = 30 Reward Merits
  • Dilemma Diabolique Trial = 30 Reward Merits
  • The Magisterium Trial = 22 Reward Merits
• The Reward Merits listed above are subject to the standard 18 hour cooldown on the same character, per trial.
• The Astral Merit bonus reward that is granted to everyone in the League for each badge challenge completed in all Incarnate Trials now includes an added 2 Reward Merits.

[dom9630]

This helps me feel better about the AE changes (which I begrudgingly agreed with).

 

But it also makes me more enticed to 'touch grass' outside of AE and do some itrials on already-maxed-out characters. 

[Slithershot]

Seems fair to me. I've always been a huge proponent of "Want someone to play this content? Make the rewards worth it". 

 

I think this is a step in the right direction. Good on you guys. Carrot is always more effective than stick, imho. 

[Vanden]

I hate it.

1. Converting Empyreans and Astrals to Reward Merits makes it much easier to afford IOs for your character and alts once you reach 50, just by playing the game, thanks to the rewards from vet levels.
2. Any lapsed players who left with significant Astral/Empyrean collections, expecting them to function as stored wealth for buying IOs, is going to return to find that a significant chunk of their wealth is effectively gone.

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Vanden

[Ironblade]

Good call (about this thread).  I was going to suggest that this deserved it's own Focused Feedback.

 

Having said that, the original AE change (no vet level rewards) was quite a dramatic change.

Now that is reverted and we have this change, which is also quite dramatic.

Based on these changes (about to try to guess dev intentions), it seems that earning Emps/Astrals in AE  *AND CONVERTING THEM*  is what's being targeted.

 

I therefore restate my suggestion that I made in response to the original AE change - continue to allow the vet levels BUT FOR A LIMITED TIME (maybe 15 levels).  This addresses the issue in a 'middle of the road' manner.  Maybe 15 vet levels is too little or too much, but that's where there's room for debate.  These all or nothing approaches don't seem great.

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Ironblade

[@Ghost]

Quoting myself from the other thread with a proposed suggestion

  

6 minutes ago, @Ghost said:

re: Astrals/Emps, I think the change as it stands has a lot of pressure points. People with stockpiled merits across lots of alts, people who prefer to take Astrals/Emp rewards while they're still building a character for flexibility, etc.

 

For the same result, could you consider changing how incarnate salvage/crafting works? Rather than rewarding Empyrean Merits with veteran levels, reward an appropriate amount of incarnate salvage instead. Consolidate the various salvage items down to a simple form named after its rarity, ie, "common incarnate salvage," "uncommon incarnate salvage," and so on, since the salvage items themselves are functionally identical.

 

It's possibly a lot more work, but I think it's a better option than invalidating whatever stockpiles of merits people have stored up, and it stops a flood of wealth from farming, while still letting farmers craft incarnate powers for their characters by leveling.

 

Though I'd also like to add that it might be a nice incentive for people to run itrials over farming if the salvage rewards were guaranteed to be useful for crafting.

[Stormwalker]

As a relatively new player, I don't have enough stored Empyrean Merits for this to negatively affect me in any way.

 

As a player who took frequent breaks from Live in order to not burn out, though, I have to note that this is pretty harsh for anyone who comes back and discovers they have a massive stock of Empyrean Merits they can no longer trade in.

[TheZag]

The farmers wanted their vet XP back in AE because they didnt want to farm outside.  They got it back but had emps to reward merits taken away from everyone instead.  I am happy with this change.  I dont think ive ever converted an emp to a reward merit.  Emp merits should be used for incarnate abilities,  not for farming in AE to convert into reward merits.

[EmperorSteele]

I mean, you can still cash them in for threads, buy Super/Ultimate insps, and sell those...

 

Though if everyone's doing that, the market will likely get flooded.

 

On that note, it'd be nice if there were more things to buy with emps and threads, especially now that conversion is out the window. Not in page 4, you guys have done enough, but people are gonna end up with hundreds of empy merits and nothing to do with them.

[General Idiot]

The only problem I see with this is that for those who already have all their incarnate powers empyrean merits no longer have much use. I wonder if it'd be too out of line to add an option to content that gives empyreans to receive reward merits instead? Wouldn't interfere with the apparent goal of preventing people easily farming infinite merits in AE but for those doing trials, task forces and story arcs past what they need for incarnate powers they wouldn't be getting rewards they have no use for.

[dom9630]

2 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

I mean, you can still cash them in for threads, buy Super/Ultimate insps, and sell those...

 

Though if everyone's doing that, the market will likely get flooded.

 

On that note, it'd be nice if there were more things to buy with emps and threads, especially now that conversion is out the window. Not in page 4, you guys have done enough, but people are gonna end up with hundreds of empy merits and nothing to do with them.

 

I already have tons of notice of the wells I don't know what to do with,

 

Might be interesting to find a sinkhole for those and un-needed emp/astral merits.

[Luminara]

18 minutes ago, Booper said:

The Empyrean/Astral Merit to Reward Merit conversion has been removed from Reward Merit vendors.

 

Not thrilled, but I understand that motivation behind the change is the betterment of all players.  So I'll live with it.

[Blackfeather]

6 minutes ago, General Idiot said:

The only problem I see with this is that for those who already have all their incarnate powers empyrean merits no longer have much use. I wonder if it'd be too out of line to add an option to content that gives empyreans to receive reward merits instead? Wouldn't interfere with the apparent goal of preventing people easily farming infinite merits in AE but for those doing trials, task forces and story arcs past what they need for incarnate powers they wouldn't be getting rewards they have no use for.

 

It looks like iTrials will be given the equivalent amount of reward merits now, but I think Heather Townshend also awards an Empyrean or two - maybe that could be adjusted to provide reward merits as well.

[Andreah]

9 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

Though if everyone's doing that, the market will likely get flooded.

 

This will be self-limiting to a degree. Imagine this goes live, and huge number of Emps from farming and ordinary content flood into the market as super-inspirations.  Only so many of those will be bought, listers will undercut listing prices to try to get their to sell, and eventually many will stop and the price will settle where demand is enough to keep the supply from sellers who remained sold. 

 

I don't know where that price is relative to Inf/Emp, but I'm sure it's lower than before.

[Coyotedancer]

31 minutes ago, @Ghost said:

Though I'd also like to add that it might be a nice incentive for people to run itrials over farming if the salvage rewards were guaranteed to be useful for crafting.

 

SOme of us farm and grind DA arcs because we're not online when iTrials are formed. *NOT* having to rely on forming a league to Incarnate characters is one of the best changes made to the modern game. I'm not ever going to agree to anything that moves us back into the territory of having to run Trials to do it. Sorry. That crap was never a good idea. 

 

As things stand now, I can use the Emps to buy whatever rare or VR bits I need. Or save them to equip the next alt.  I couldn't do that with salvage bit rewards since they're (stupidly, I think) character bound.

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Arcadio]

Emp->reward is a large part of what helps me not need to farm to fund new alts. I can get a good number of emps by just playing whatever character I enjoy, much more than I need for their incarnates. This change makes it a useless resource for most of my 50s, and I think it’ll increase the amount of time I’ll be farming rather than playing.

[@Ghost]

5 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

SOme of us farm and grind DA arcs because we're not online when iTrials are formed. *NOT* having to rely on forming a league to Incarnate characters is one of the best changes made to the modern game. I'm not ever going to agree to anything that moves us back into the territory of having to run Trials to do it. Sorry. That crap was never a good idea. 

 

I don't think the change I was suggesting (consolidate iSalvage, reward it on vet levels, keep Emps/conversion as-is) would make DA arcs any less attractive, unless I'm missing something.

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, @Ghost said:

 

I don't think the change I was suggesting (consolidate iSalvage, reward it on vet levels, keep Emps/conversion as-is) would make DA arcs any less attractive, unless I'm missing something.

 

I hit post too soon. See my edit. 

 

Salvage is character bound not account bound. That makes it less useful right off the bat. 

[@Ghost]

2 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

I hit post too soon. See my edit. 

 

Salvage is character bound not account bound. That makes it less useful right off the bat. 

 

Oh, that is a pretty good point I hadn't thought about. Even account bound salvage would be a PITA to move around. Not quite sure then. The issue apparently comes from vet levels and farming, so changing the vet level reward to something that can't convert into money but still gives incarnate rewards seems like the move to keep everyone happy.

[Vanden]

Just now, @Ghost said:

Oh, that is a pretty good point I hadn't thought about. Even account bound salvage would be a PITA to move around. Not quite sure then. The issue apparently comes from vet levels and farming, so changing the vet level reward to something that can't convert into money but still gives incarnate rewards seems like the move to keep everyone happy.

 

That's exactly what this change is, and I sure ain't happy.

[Andreah]

You can still convert spare Emps into cash; it's just not as lucrative as via reward merits.

 

And this does kind of hit players who were running non-AE content and getting emps from Vet levels there to convert to reward merits to get IOs pretty hard, too. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Andreah

[Coyotedancer]

I'm fine with this... But then, I'm one of those people who only uses Emps for Incarnate goodies, not as a regular merit source. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[The_Warpact]

This just shows you how much of a farm n00b I am. Didn't even know you could do it. *shrug*

 

I use my emp merits to build my toons up, never even knew about the conversion. 

 

So this doesn't affect me in the least, now I get merits if I ever decide to do itrials AND I get vet rewards back.

 

I'm a happy boy right now. 

[Vanden]

4 minutes ago, Andreah said:

You can still convert spare Emps into cash; it's just not as lucrative as via reward merits.

 

I don't think it's going to continue to be a reliable way to get inf. Converters (the "standard" merit-to-inf go-between) are in much higher demand than super inspirations, and for players that don't want to use the market there's no way to just buy IOs or recipes directly from a vendor without the merit conversion.

[Mr. Apocalypse]

This is just another Skirt around coming outright and saying "We hate farmers, Play our way or else".  Why cant you just leave the merit system as is, and improve upon the reward system, rather than nerf one type of currency and boost output of another to compensate.  I just don't get it.  It is an improvement over the build one version, but it still sucks. does nothing, other than force prices up and supply down on the market for rare sets.

 

I don't want to run trials to earn merits. I don't have time for all that. I farm for inf,  the vet rewards along with the empyrean merits come with them are converted to  reward merits  so I can afford rare sets. That is my only goal when farm, infamy and empyrean converted to reward merits so I can buy stuff.  What is the point of getting empyrean merits with you vet levels if you are already T4 incarnate in all slots?