Focused Feedback: Reward Merits

[tidge]

57 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

In an earlier Page, the Rune of Protection power was nerfed despite the power being used on less than 5% of level 50 toons (as stated by the development team).  It seems difficult to imagine that the Rune of Protection power was breaking the game if 19 of 20 toons did not even feel the power was worth taking.  In comparison to a power like Hasten which is probably taken by 19 of 20 toons.   The power was nerfed it appears because it bothered the sensibilities of the developers in some manner. 

 

Seems like the same situation here. 

 

I don't think there is a precise equivalence between those two (pool) powers. Some comments from a player who was mostly ignorant/unaffected by the Rune of Protection nerf. It was my belief that the "nerf" was due to the disproportionate benefit the click power was providing as a Pool power (compared to other clicks available within Primary/Secondaries).

 

At the risk of playing too much into whataboutism: Hasten is a different animal, as so few AT even have anything like a way to enhance global recharge, it it is a little difficult (for me, but I have blind spots) to imagine what my answer would be to a question like "which AT inherently (as a primary/secondary power choice) ought to be able to have more global recharge?" without already knowing which ATs currently have something like that. I am not ignorant on what Hasten can do, nor am I ignorant why it is such a common build choice. I have some awareness that the dev team is considering (for some possibly arbitrarily small values of "consideration") changes to other game effects that may be skewed because of beaucoup (Global) recharge (e.g. "%proc changes").

[Omega-202]

2 hours ago, scottocamp said:

I've never felt the slightest impact from other players door-sitting or power-leveling or setting up advantageous AE missions or farming AFK or whatever.  None of that diminishes my joy of playing CoH.  Perhaps there is some effect on the Auction House that I don't perceive, but the AH seems remarkably stable under the guidance of this development team. 

There are a lot of effects on the AH that most people don't perceive.  It's really not that stable under the hood.  There's too much accumulated wealth disparity and too few participants for it to be truly stable.  The whole AH balance is incredibly artificial and rests heavily on an unspoken "honor system" from the veteran players sitting on warchests of billions upon billions of inf.  At the drop of a hat, I (and any number of others) could corner a market for a stretch of time and throw things off just from accumulated wealth.

 

Case in point, someone tried to mess with the market again with yellow salvage a few months ago, throwing billions of inf at the market simply to screw with salvage price and supply, only to be exposed by another player throwing even more money at the AH to show where the huge buy/sell positions were set by draining the whole non-seeded market.  Lo and behold, the manipulator(s) got bored and yellows are back to 100 inf a pop 40 days later.  

I think the dev team is very aware of this weird quasi stable state and are trying to figure out a way to curb the number of whales who are able to put their thumb on the scales.  If that means removing Emp conversions or stemming Emp generation, then fine.  Might as well try something.  

[Bionic_Flea]

On 7/28/2022 at 11:11 AM, Ukase said:

If you review that post you quoted, I was talking of the play of the afk character between missions. The crafting, converting, etc. That's the play I speak of. 

Delayed response, but when you are pushing buttons and looking at that character, you are playing that character.  If you are leveling up, slotting, buying, selling,  attacking, defending, then you are playing that character.  Some people don't count marketing, or role-playing, but I do.  It's you at the computer interacting with that character and the game.  When you tab out to read e-mail, shop Amazon, or play another account you are not playing your character, even if it is automated to do certain things.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Seed22]

39 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

There are a lot of effects on the AH that most people don't perceive.  It's really not that stable under the hood.  There's too much accumulated wealth disparity and too few participants for it to be truly stable.  The whole AH balance is incredibly artificial and rests heavily on an unspoken "honor system" from the veteran players sitting on warchests of billions upon billions of inf.  At the drop of a hat, I (and any number of others) could corner a market for a stretch of time and throw things off just from accumulated wealth.

 

Case in point, someone tried to mess with the market again with yellow salvage a few months ago, throwing billions of inf at the market simply to screw with salvage price and supply, only to be exposed by another player throwing even more money at the AH to show where the huge buy/sell positions were set by draining the whole non-seeded market.  Lo and behold, the manipulator(s) got bored and yellows are back to 100 inf a pop 40 days later.  

I think the dev team is very aware of this weird quasi stable state and are trying to figure out a way to curb the number of whales who are able to put their thumb on the scales.  If that means removing Emp conversions or stemming Emp generation, then fine.  Might as well try something.  

Ehh even I've thrown off prices significantly on a few IOs that I really REAALLY wanted in that moment. Didn't seem to last beyond a day thankfully or a few hours but I've done it.

 

In my defense: I wasn't doing it purely out of malice, it was moreso because I wanted it NAOW, so paid extreme buy it now prices due to a RL time crunch.

[scottocamp]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

 

I don't think there is a precise equivalence between those two (pool) powers. Some comments from a player who was mostly ignorant/unaffected by the Rune of Protection nerf. It was my belief that the "nerf" was due to the disproportionate benefit the click power was providing as a Pool power (compared to other clicks available within Primary/Secondaries).

 

 

It is an odd argument that a power hardly anyone felt worthy of selecting (yourself included) could be providing a disproportionate benefit.   Folks tend to love disproportionate benefits.

 

My point was only that some changes don't seem based on logic so much as aesthetics.  The RoP power seemed to bother the sensibilities of the developers in the same way grinding out emps seems to bother them.  Personally I prefer the game be constrained as little as possible.  Buff the pool powers rather than nerf them, let folks play the game in the manner that brings them joy, that sort of thing.  But I'm not doing any work on the game so the decision is not really mine to make.  🙂

[Marbing]

What benefit is there to grind out pretty much any story arc when I can do a farm in less time for more reward? Other than the badge...
Asking for a friend...

[scottocamp]

46 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

There are a lot of effects on the AH that most people don't perceive.  It's really not that stable under the hood.  There's too much accumulated wealth disparity and too few participants for it to be truly stable.  The whole AH balance is incredibly artificial and rests heavily on an unspoken "honor system" from the veteran players sitting on warchests of billions upon billions of inf.  At the drop of a hat, I (and any number of others) could corner a market for a stretch of time and throw things off just from accumulated wealth.

 

What you are saying is likely true.  But it also seems likely the developers have even more power to control the market and could re-balance any malicious actions if so needed.  But I don't blame them for trying to establish a marketplace that does not require regular intervention. 

[tidge]

5 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

 

It is an odd argument that a power hardly anyone felt worthy of selecting (yourself included) could be providing a disproportionate benefit.   Folks tend to love disproportionate benefits.

 

For many (half?) of the ATs the effects of Rune of Protection were a selectable Primary/Secondary power. It isn't as if Rune of Protection is really nerfed, it just can't be (near-) perma.

 

The AE Veteran Level Empyreans? Those are different than things like random drops for a group of 8... put 7 characters in an AFK farm run by an 8th, those 7 are all getting equal Empyrean merit rewards at the same time. If the player is really greedy (or abides the 3-box rule) they can respin the dedicated farmer as well. I've no doubt there are some folks who've do this and also have personal ideas about when to actually level characters (to get more slots for insps perhaps).

[Omega-202]

18 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

Ehh even I've thrown off prices significantly on a few IOs that I really REAALLY wanted in that moment. Didn't seem to last beyond a day thankfully or a few hours but I've done it.

 

In my defense: I wasn't doing it purely out of malice, it was moreso because I wanted it NAOW, so paid extreme buy it now prices due to a RL time crunch.

That's a blip on the radar.  We're talking about someone throwing thin markets into a spiral by setting hundreds or thousands of buy orders at well above market prices, relisting above that and keeping it up for a month or more.  An individual Purple IO market can probably be captured and flipped for about 2 billion, forcing people to pay whatever price over 25 mil that they relist for, or forcing people to either start using merits and craft their own or buy something else and play convertor roullette.  12 billion gets you a whole set cornered.  120 billion could get you the whole purple market.  

 

The thing is, plenty of people have that kind of money squirrelled away.  Could they keep it up forever?  Probably not.  People would just default to alternative means of getting their Purps.  But it would inflate the price and slow the market to a crawl for an extended period of time.  

[Bionic_Flea]

It was hard to corner the market on live, almost impossible here, because seeded prices of salvage, converters, and Reward Merit Vendors give folks an out.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[scottocamp]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

 

For many (half?) of the ATs the effects of Rune of Protection were a selectable Primary/Secondary power. It isn't as if Rune of Protection is really nerfed, it just can't be (near-) perma.

 

The AE Veteran Level Empyreans? Those are different than things like random drops for a group of 8... put 7 characters in an AFK farm run by an 8th, those 7 are all getting equal Empyrean merit rewards at the same time. If the player is really greedy (or abides the 3-box rule) they can respin the dedicated farmer as well. I've no doubt there are some folks who've do this and also have personal ideas about when to actually level characters (to get more slots for insps perhaps).

 

RoP was a selectable power similar in effectiveness to Primary/Secondary powers that less than 5% actually selected.  It is not logical to reduce the effectiveness of a power players already don't feel is worthy of selecting.

 

Regarding farming Empyreans - I'm trying to imagine how much work is involved in setting up 8 computers using 8 different accounts and getting all those toons logged into the same map.  I don't doubt that it would generate crazy amounts of wealth.  But for what purpose?  This is not real money.  You can't sell CoH influence for real money.  It only has one value - allowing you to buy stuff for your CoH toons.  Presumably for toons that you want to actually play.  I have 40+ level 50 toons completely tricked out with never once doing an AE farm.  And I barely have time to play those 40 toons.  It is not hard to generate influence in this game.  I don't understand the point of generating billions upon billions in influence.  It seems like pointless madness to me.   But I also have this vision of Ukase swimming happily in his billions like Scrooge McDuck.  If that brings him joy - fine by me.   It doesn't seem to have *any* impact on how I play the game.  And it doesn't seem to have *any* impact on the game at large.

 

The only possible concern would be market manipulation as Omega-202 wisely points out.  But this is an artificial market.  The developers can do anything they want with the market.  The developers can just lock in prices for everything if they so wish - as they have done with Super Packs.  So even that seems like a non-issue.  If the developers want to change the conversion rate so that converters cost more merits - they can just do that.  So, like others have stated, I just don't understand what problem really exists that requires a solution.  Players with hundreds of billions of completely fake money are not causing any harm that I can see.  It seems like a complete waste of time to create such meaningless wealth - but I don't really care what others do with their time.

 

Again - it seems more like an aesthetic sensibilities issue.  It just "feels" wrong that someone can generate billions with 8 computers and 8 accounts.  But really - what difference does it truly make?

Edited July 29, 2022 by scottocamp
Clarification

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

There are a lot of effects on the AH that most people don't perceive.  It's really not that stable under the hood.  There's too much accumulated wealth disparity and too few participants for it to be truly stable.  The whole AH balance is incredibly artificial and rests heavily on an unspoken "honor system" from the veteran players sitting on warchests of billions upon billions of inf.  At the drop of a hat, I (and any number of others) could corner a market for a stretch of time and throw things off just from accumulated wealth.

 

Case in point, someone tried to mess with the market again with yellow salvage a few months ago, throwing billions of inf at the market simply to screw with salvage price and supply, only to be exposed by another player throwing even more money at the AH to show where the huge buy/sell positions were set by draining the whole non-seeded market.  Lo and behold, the manipulator(s) got bored and yellows are back to 100 inf a pop 40 days later.  

I think the dev team is very aware of this weird quasi stable state and are trying to figure out a way to curb the number of whales who are able to put their thumb on the scales.  If that means removing Emp conversions or stemming Emp generation, then fine.  Might as well try something.  

I'm not sure how many of you are readers of the Market sub-forum. The potential for these shenanigans is certainly there, but fear not, readers. Some of the more savvy marketers know how to deal with situations like that. Sure, if I wanted to, I could buy every purple in the game right now. And potentially re-list them at a price that's 12% higher. But guess what? I'm not the only marketer, and I promise you, other marketers would see that move, possibly even as it was happening, and just flood the market with purples, selling them at 10% below the previous price and I'd lose money for who knows how long? Maybe, if I have enough, I can buy up the supply the first marketer dropped in. But ultimately, I would end up with too damn many purples. It would take me months to recoup the investment, if I could recoup it at all. Generally, no shenanigans can continue forever, or rarely more than a few days. The thing with the uncommon salvage..well, they're seeded. So, someone has to pay 90-99k more than they otherwise would, no real harm in that. Just annoyance. The only way it would be kind of worth it is if you did a million sales of them. While that's possible, I can't fathom the clicking to make it possible. And even then, too many clicks for the inf you get. (for me, anyway) 

I do think it would be fun to have a global name next to each item for sale after it occurred, lol. That might certainly bring prices down. But that's another post for another thread. 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Marbing said:

What benefit is there to grind out pretty much any story arc when I can do a farm in less time for more reward? Other than the badge...
Asking for a friend...

I run storylines in this (and another huuuuge mmorpg) mostly as a mental fidget.  There are some moderate rewards.   Sometimes i learn something.  Sometimes i get better at the game.  Sometimes i have fun.  Sometimes it just makes the voices go away….for a while…..

[tidge]

41 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

 

RoP was a selectable Primary/Secondary power that less than 5% actually selected.  It is not logical to reduce the effectiveness of a power players already don't feel is worthy of selecting.

 

Rune of Protection is in the Sorcery pool, what are you referring to?

[Ukase]

22 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

Again - it seems more like an aesthetic sensibilities issue.  It just "feels" wrong that someone can generate billions with 8 computers and 8 accounts.  But really - what difference does it truly make?

Fair points. And a good question. 

For the record, you only need one computer. A very strong hamster can run ..well, anecdotally, my i7 that only recently had 16 gigs of ram could run 4, at least, without issue. Mind you, my graphics card was an Nvidia GTX 1050 (now upgraded), but Tom's Hardware showed it to be in the bottom 12% of cards out right now. 
So, not many resources at all are needed to run multiple accounts. And I only have 4 accounts, just for the record. Tried running all four, and my system handled it just fine, but I could not. I ended up with too many damned enhancements that needed to be crafted, converted and sold. It just took too much time. I did that for like a day and learned quick it was more work than I wanted to do. 

Now, I can understand why folks might be puzzled by someone like me would choose to play in such a way where I would pretend to be Scrooge McDuck and swim in my loot. In all transparency, as a player, I'm only slightly better than mediocre. I use the arrow keys to move. My reflexes are slow. I build my characters more for order than chaos. (Order is defense, chaos is dps). There's a balance, mind you. Too much defense, and you lack the dps to get out of difficult situations. Not enough, and even though the dps is high, it's not high enough to tackle some AVs without an adequate layer of mitigation. It takes practice, I think to get that balance right. Some folks have mastered it - those guys that level to 50 in the farm and suddenly do master trial runs on a character that's never been on a team before... those are the guys I'm trying to measure up to, really. So, I make sure I have all the influence I need just to keep up and feel slightly better than mediocre. Marketing is really the only part of this game I'm good at, so it makes sense to me to do that more than the other stuff. 

I do enjoy leveling characters up, though. There are still powersets I haven't tried, although I remain disappointed at how similar many powersets are. The icons, the effects...a lot of them seem like the same thing, just a different name. Like Broadsword and Katana. Strong similarities in those two sets. Play one, you've played the other. Sure, small differences, but for the most part the same. But, I digress. Just wanted to make the point that I do play through the game. I do not PL characters I play, at least not most of the time. There have been a few that were just too painful, like a dom or a controller. I don't team below level 50 very often, and those ATs, the way I make 'em, tend to really suck. 

I think the only reason I think folks are against the farming thing, as you stated, "it feels wrong" is because those that do not farm are actively seeking XP or reward merits or both, or perhaps, just a fun team to pass away an afternoon. And when you don't farm, and you (not you, the OP, but the collective you that may be reading) want to outfit your character, and you see that some asshat is selling a cyto for 300M, that probably feels really wrong. And some of "you" feel like you have to farm even though you'd rather not to afford these items. I can see where that would cause resentment towards the farmer that's already rolling in influence. 

 

[Ukase]

6 hours ago, scottocamp said:

In an earlier Page, the Rune of Protection power was nerfed despite the power being used on less than 5% of level 50 toons (as stated by the development team).  It seems difficult to imagine that the Rune of Protection power was breaking the game if 19 of 20 toons did not even feel the power was worth taking.  In comparison to a power like Hasten which is probably taken by 19 of 20 toons.   The power was nerfed it appears because it bothered the sensibilities of the developers in some manner. 

Man, you really nailed it! Those devs need to roll that damn change back. I have 5 characters that I need to respec out of Rune otherwise! There really wasn't a reason to change that! And if I'd known that change was coming, I'd have bitched about it, I guarantee it! 

[Omega-202]

37 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I'm not sure how many of you are readers of the Market sub-forum. The potential for these shenanigans is certainly there, but fear not, readers. Some of the more savvy marketers know how to deal with situations like that. Sure, if I wanted to, I could buy every purple in the game right now. And potentially re-list them at a price that's 12% higher. But guess what? I'm not the only marketer, and I promise you, other marketers would see that move, possibly even as it was happening, and just flood the market with purples, selling them at 10% below the previous price and I'd lose money for who knows how long? Maybe, if I have enough, I can buy up the supply the first marketer dropped in. But ultimately, I would end up with too damn many purples. It would take me months to recoup the investment, if I could recoup it at all. Generally, no shenanigans can continue forever, or rarely more than a few days. The thing with the uncommon salvage..well, they're seeded. So, someone has to pay 90-99k more than they otherwise would, no real harm in that. Just annoyance. The only way it would be kind of worth it is if you did a million sales of them. While that's possible, I can't fathom the clicking to make it possible. And even then, too many clicks for the inf you get. (for me, anyway) 

I do think it would be fun to have a global name next to each item for sale after it occurred, lol. That might certainly bring prices down. But that's another post for another thread. 

My guy...you're really not seeing that YOU are exactly the person that this kind of fix is meant to address.  You are the problem and the vulnerability of the market, not the solution.  The answer to a dragon hoarding loot is not to hope a different dragon swoops in to help the villagers by taking the other dragon's loot.  The answer is to address the dragon problem.  

 

You have a bad case of "selfaware wolf" going on.  I don't want to tell you how to have your fun, but the fact that you are sitting on a mountain of goods and currency and don't think there's a problem IS THE PROBLEM.

[scottocamp]

40 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Fair points. And a good question. 

For the record, you only need one computer. A very strong hamster can run ..well, anecdotally, my i7 that only recently had 16 gigs of ram could run 4, at least, without issue. Mind you, my graphics card was an Nvidia GTX 1050 (now upgraded), but Tom's Hardware showed it to be in the bottom 12% of cards out right now. 
So, not many resources at all are needed to run multiple accounts. And I only have 4 accounts, just for the record. Tried running all four, and my system handled it just fine, but I could not. I ended up with too many damned enhancements that needed to be crafted, converted and sold. It just took too much time. I did that for like a day and learned quick it was more work than I wanted to do. 

Now, I can understand why folks might be puzzled by someone like me would choose to play in such a way where I would pretend to be Scrooge McDuck and swim in my loot. In all transparency, as a player, I'm only slightly better than mediocre. I use the arrow keys to move. My reflexes are slow. I build my characters more for order than chaos. (Order is defense, chaos is dps). There's a balance, mind you. Too much defense, and you lack the dps to get out of difficult situations. Not enough, and even though the dps is high, it's not high enough to tackle some AVs without an adequate layer of mitigation. It takes practice, I think to get that balance right. Some folks have mastered it - those guys that level to 50 in the farm and suddenly do master trial runs on a character that's never been on a team before... those are the guys I'm trying to measure up to, really. So, I make sure I have all the influence I need just to keep up and feel slightly better than mediocre. Marketing is really the only part of this game I'm good at, so it makes sense to me to do that more than the other stuff. 

I do enjoy leveling characters up, though. There are still powersets I haven't tried, although I remain disappointed at how similar many powersets are. The icons, the effects...a lot of them seem like the same thing, just a different name. Like Broadsword and Katana. Strong similarities in those two sets. Play one, you've played the other. Sure, small differences, but for the most part the same. But, I digress. Just wanted to make the point that I do play through the game. I do not PL characters I play, at least not most of the time. There have been a few that were just too painful, like a dom or a controller. I don't team below level 50 very often, and those ATs, the way I make 'em, tend to really suck. 

I think the only reason I think folks are against the farming thing, as you stated, "it feels wrong" is because those that do not farm are actively seeking XP or reward merits or both, or perhaps, just a fun team to pass away an afternoon. And when you don't farm, and you (not you, the OP, but the collective you that may be reading) want to outfit your character, and you see that some asshat is selling a cyto for 300M, that probably feels really wrong. And some of "you" feel like you have to farm even though you'd rather not to afford these items. I can see where that would cause resentment towards the farmer that's already rolling in influence. 

 

 

For what it is worth - I play the game one toon at a time.  Each new toon is seeded with 50 emps and all the needed enhancements as generated by the toon I was playing prior.  I craft all the yellow recipes the prior toon collected and use converters to acquire nearly all the enhancements needed for the new toon.  I don't sell all that many enhancements.  I will use reward merits accumulated by the prior toon to fill in purple and winter enhancements.  I have never converted an emp to merits, don't run AE missions, don't have any idea how to AFK farm and still have no problem acquiring everything I need.

 

So my question to you is - why do you feel the need to acquire such a vast amount of influence?  It seems wildly unnecessary.  Almost borderline ridiculous.  Perhaps you are a "Dragon" as Omega suggests.  But you seem like a dragon hoarding a mountain of wealth that you will never be able to use.  What am I missing?

 

 

[Ironblade]

9 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

So my question to you is - why do you feel the need to acquire such a vast amount of influence?  It seems wildly unnecessary.  Almost borderline ridiculous.  Perhaps you are a "Dragon" as Omega suggests.  But you seem like a dragon hoarding a mountain of wealth that you will never be able to use.  What am I missing?

You're not missing anything. I did this back on live (hoarding more inf than I could ever spend).  It was a game within a game.  I employed every possible method of accumulating wealth back then.  It was just something to do.

 

Now, I don't.  I work the market a little to ensure I have all the inf I will ever need but I have around 1/20th of what I had back then.  It's still more than I think I can spend, but now it's just a margin of safety and not hoarding for the sake of hoarding.  What changed?  I dunno.  I just don't feel like it now.

 

Edit:  Upon further thought, maybe what changed is that, back then, CoH was the ONLY online game I played.  When it shut down, I diversified and now I just don't spend as much time in CoH as I used to.

 

Edited again:  So, yeah, that's a good question you posed.  I would guess that it's kind of like badging - just one more way to compete.  FYI, my main has every badge.  🙂

Edited July 29, 2022 by Ironblade

[scottocamp]

1 hour ago, Ironblade said:

You're not missing anything. I did this back on live (hoarding more inf than I could ever spend).  It was a game within a game.  I employed every possible method of accumulating wealth back then.  It was just something to do.

 

Now, I don't.  I work the market a little to ensure I have all the inf I will ever need but I have around 1/20th of what I had back then.  It's still more than I think I can spend, but now it's just a margin of safety and not hoarding for the sake of hoarding.  What changed?  I dunno.  I just don't feel like it now.

 

Edit:  Upon further thought, maybe what changed is that, back then, CoH was the ONLY online game I played.  When it shut down, I diversified and now I just don't spend as much time in CoH as I used to.

 

Edited again:  So, yeah, that's a good question you posed.  I would guess that it's kind of like badging - just one more way to compete.  FYI, my main has every badge.  🙂

 

Oddly - that makes perfect sense.  If Ukase enjoys the "game within a game" - then more power to him I think.  I can see where it might be just like badging.

 

And to Ukase - wasn't trying to be critical.  Just honestly did not understand the motivation to play multiple accounts at one time.  Ironblade's response is enlightening.  You should become as insanely rich as possible.  🙂

 

[Dazl]

I remember back to the last big change they made in AE and the whole game when they removed the disabling of experience for more influence. I understood doing that inside AE but it should not have been nerfed outside of AE. The big argument for those who supported it was “We have to reduce the amount of influence generated because it will cause inflation”. If it was so bad back then, why isn’t it even more of an issue now if you can do the same thing on steroids?

It's not the “Farming” it’s the “AFK” that is the issue.

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Dazl said:

I remember back to the last big change they made in AE and the whole game when they removed the disabling of experience for more influence. I understood doing that inside AE but it should not have been nerfed outside of AE. The big argument for those who supported it was “We have to reduce the amount of influence generated because it will cause inflation”. If it was so bad back then, why isn’t it even more of an issue now if you can do the same thing on steroids?

It's not the “Farming” it’s the “AFK” that is the issue.

 

For a commercial game where there is a financial incentive to keep accounts active and keeping people paying longer, it makes sense to be concerned about the market and inflation.  Homecoming is not a commercial game and there has not been inflation here or ludicrous prices for things on the market like we saw when the game was live when it had a much larger population.

[ZacKing]

On 7/18/2022 at 8:20 PM, Booper said:

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

 

This is a terrible idea.  Please don't implement this. 

[ZacKing]

On 7/20/2022 at 4:59 PM, DarknessEternal said:

Why would it need a cooldown?  It currently has no cooldown and you've provided no explanation for why the change needs to be made.

 

Perhaps if you explain your logic, we might know what to suggest.

 

I'd love to hear this answer too.

[@Ghost]

Catching back up, I'd still say it feels pretty mean if people were still sitting on piles of Emps for their flexibility (send em to alts for incarnate progress, convert to merits as needed for cash) to come back to the game later on and find their stockpile doesn't have a cash value anymore.

 

But maybe I'm alone in how I used them and the damage is way less than I'm thinking? I guess I just gotta go back and convert them while I still can, and anyone who doesn't pay attention to beta notes is just outta luck.