Focused Feedback: Reward Merits

[@Ghost]

14 minutes ago, Vanden said:

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

 

Technically, yeah. I meant changing veteran level rewards to something else that can just reward incarnate salvage, and keeping Emps as they are.

Edited July 19, 2022 by @Ghost

[Andreah]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

 

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.

Every now and then I agree with you; this is one of those times.

 

Demand for super inspirations is fairly inelastic. You could drop their prices down quite far and people would not buy many to use. It's just too inconvenient to keep a supply of them at hand to use when needed. There will be price drops on them, and the Emp->Inf conversion will get fairly low. Still possible, but less convenient and poorer rate of conversion.

[Coyotedancer]

Regular merits from other sources aren't going anywhere... and unlike the vet level Emp grants, you don't just stop getting them at some point from Hami, or TFs or mission arcs. I'm sure the conversion merits were a nice bonus to get, but people earned merits by the ton long before Emps came along. Losing one source isn't drying up the whole well. 

 

It's sort of like a lot of us were saying in the AE thread about losing vet levels there... We could still have gotten them other places, even though it might not have been as easy.

[Andreah]

1 minute ago, @Ghost said:

 

Technically, yeah. I meant changing veteran level rewards to something else that can reward incarnate salvage, and keeping Emps as they are.

That's kind of the whole thing for Empyreans original use.

 

If you have enough Emps, you can go straight to Tier-4's as soon as the slots unlock.  And ifyou have extras, you can email them to yourself to use on the next character. But you might continually uses fewer than you earn, and build up an excess.

[Bionic_Flea]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Apocalypse said:

What is the point of getting empyrean merits with you vet levels if you are already T4 incarnate in all slots?

To mail them to alts so that they can T4 faster and with less effort.

[The_Warpact]

The stockpiled threads is what annoys me. Couldn't they be converted into merits? Since really they serve no point after awhile, you still stockpile them, and you can't email them either. Is this feasible?

[Coyotedancer]

I've never understood why we can't mail iBit salvage to other characters on our own account. The characters I run through DA end up with a ton of common and uncommon bits they'll never use looking for their rare and VR drops. I'd love to be able to ship those off to the next alt in line. 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[High_Beam]

27 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

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.

Same here.

[@Ghost]

3 minutes ago, Andreah said:

That's kind of the whole thing for Empyreans original use.

 

Yeah, but the conversion's been live as long as HC has, and dashing years of potential accumulated wealth is less than ideal.

 

If the friction point is farmers getting cash from veteran levels, changing veteran levels to give 'Veteran Merits' (or whatever you want to call them) which can only be exchanged for incarnate salvage seems like the path of least resistance.

[Vanden]

26 minutes ago, @Ghost said:

Technically, yeah. I meant changing veteran level rewards to something else that can just reward incarnate salvage, and keeping Emps as they are.

 

It's a distinction without a difference. It still makes it harder to get rewards to buy IOs by just playing whatever content you like.

 

Making it possible to buy incarnate salvage with AE Tickets seems like a better idea to me.

[Andreah]

3 minutes ago, @Ghost said:

 

Yeah, but the conversion's been live as long as HC has, and dashing years of potential accumulated wealth is less than ideal.

 

If the friction point is farmers getting cash from veteran levels, changing veteran levels to give 'Veteran Merits' (or whatever you want to call them) which can only be exchanged for incarnate salvage seems like the path of least resistance.

I'd be cool with that; but that still puts a big hit on people who were using Emp merits for non-farming to get their IOs.

 

Let me give an example. As a new level 50, you can run the ITF in a "Kill Most" team, and in an hour get about three veteran levels and 26 Merits. 

 

Those three veteran levels could give 20 Emps which would have converted to 200 Reward Merits. That's the biggest share of the merits the player would have used to get IO recipes. Now, I'll grant that's not a good way to spend Merits, but people do it to avoid the auction. Some people don't know, others just don't like it. However, 200 Merits will buy 2 Purple recipes, or 4 rare recipes, or 10 common recipes. Now, those player's won't be able to do this. I'm not one of them, I don't personally care, but these aren't the players the AE experience changes were supposed to affect, and now it sure does affect them and in a heavy manner.

[@Ghost]

14 minutes ago, Andreah said:

I'd be cool with that; but that still puts a big hit on people who were using Emp merits for non-farming to get their IOs.

 

Let me give an example. As a new level 50, you can run the ITF in a "Kill Most" team, and in an hour get about three veteran levels and 26 Merits. 

 

Those three veteran levels could give 20 Emps which would have converted to 200 Reward Merits. That's the biggest share of the merits the player would have used to get IO recipes. Now, I'll grant that's not a good way to spend Merits, but people do it to avoid the auction. Some people don't know, others just don't like it. However, 200 Merits will buy 2 Purple recipes, or 4 rare recipes, or 10 common recipes. Now, those player's won't be able to do this. I'm not one of them, I don't personally care, but these aren't the players the AE experience changes were supposed to affect, and now it sure does affect them and in a heavy manner.

 

That's also a really valid point and something I hadn't thought about, and I'm glad people are exploring all the angles of it.

 

Turning off XP and offering an alternate route for salvage through AE specifically (like Vanden's suggestion about tickets) could sidestep the issue, but I think it goes right back to the original problem where people would just farm specific contact missions if it's truly that lucrative -- in which case it feels like a really senseless nerf to convenience. I didn't read through that feedback too intensively so I'm not sure what conclusions people came to there.

[brattycommissar2]

1 hour ago, The_Warpact said:

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. 

as someone who farms every once in a while just to get toons to get to 50 + some vet levels, i also didn't know you could do this and never even thought about it since like--- i mean those extra emps i got are just gonna become emps for an alt !! but i do wish OTHER incarnate comps could be traded over or something- like let you compress threads into something that you can email yourself! i would love that personally

[Coyotedancer]

14 minutes ago, @Ghost said:

 

That's also a really valid point and something I hadn't thought about, and I'm glad people are exploring all the angles of it.

 

Turning off XP and offering an alternate route for salvage through AE specifically (like Vanden's suggestion about tickets) could sidestep the issue, but I think it goes right back to the original problem where people would just farm specific contact missions if it's truly that lucrative -- in which case it feels like a really senseless nerf to convenience. I didn't read through that feedback too intensively so I'm not sure what conclusions people came to there.

 

Tickets also can't be sent to other characters on your account. Again, making them a lot less useful than the Emps.

[DarknessEternal]

Another "the rich get richer" change whose only impact is on a giant negative one on new characters/players.

 

Extremely bad idea.

[Marbing]

This is going to hit hard. Wondering if, with this change, merit rewards should be increased everywhere they currently exist since we are losing a source of merits. Just enough to keep the flow near the same.

 

 

[LastHumanSoldier]

I never use Emp Merits for Reward Merits.
I have 10s of thousands of merits saved up anyway.

[Mythical Creature]

I think this is a great change and much better than the removal of veteran levels from AE. 

 

The itrials are only better for this change you get reward merits and empyrean merits, no choices needs to be made, best of both worlds. I love it! 

 

I do think this will cause folks to accumulate empyreans and I don't think everyone has as many alts as I do, so perhaps there should be something else to spend empryean merits on?

 

If I could make a suggestion, perhaps there could be a new class of enhancements called incarnate level enhancements with special bonuses that only appear on itrials (like the pvp sets). That could be a good waste of empryeans and I bet my BAFs will start to fill fast!

[Indystruck]

As I said in the other topic, not a fan. The conversion keeps Emps/Astrals from being useless, and I already level up characters primarily through running TFs/Incarnate trials when available. I'd have rather stuck with the Vet AE removal, even though I thought it was heavy handed.

[brattycommissar2]

7 minutes ago, 723wolf said:

I think this is a great change and much better than the removal of veteran levels from AE. 

 

The itrials are only better for this change you get reward merits and empyrean merits, no choices needs to be made, best of both worlds. I love it! 

 

I do think this will cause folks to accumulate empyreans and I don't think everyone has as many alts as I do, so perhaps there should be something else to spend empryean merits on?

 

If I could make a suggestion, perhaps there could be a new class of enhancements called incarnate level enhancements with special bonuses that only appear on itrials (like the pvp sets). That could be a good waste of empryeans and I bet my BAFs will start to fill fast!

... you know... i kinda like the idea of incarnate io sets... that work like purples or pvps do... adding such a thing would be Work and Power Creep though! so idk if it's actually a good idea. neat one though! maybe a good one! definitely neat.

[DarknessEternal]

41 minutes ago, LastHumanSoldier said:

I never use Emp Merits for Reward Merits.
I have 10s of thousands of merits saved up anyway.

Well you're in luck, Mr Rockefeller.  You get to cash those in now for infinite Reward Merits, whereas anyone new will ever have the chance to make that level of wealth since all means of obtaining it are being removed.

[Nurvus]

I'm one of the less-seasoned players that hasn't really taken advantage of converting Emp/Astral merits. While this doesn't affect me, I can empathize with not wanting something removed entirely. So here's a thought: What about just halving the current conversion rate. It's still a pretty drastic nerf but it keeps some value for excess imerits. I'll admit that I don't know enough about the state of the game's market to know if this is a fair compromise, but I figure throwing ideas out there can't hurt.

[arcane]

Considering we get vet level farming back in exchange for this, I’m happy with it. 

[ShardWarrior]

3 hours ago, Vanden said:

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.

 

I hate this for the same reason as well.   I really do not care for being forced into team content and relying on others to run TFs as the main source of merits.  Running a WST once or twice a week was ok, now basically having to farm iTrials for merits does not make me want to play more.  It is definitely going to have the opposite effect.  I liked having the option to convert EMP merits from Vet levels when I did not feel like running TFs/SFs.

 

3 hours ago, Mr. Apocalypse said:

This is just another Skirt around coming outright and saying "We hate farmers, Play our way or else". 

 

I cannot help but agree here.  That is exactly what this change is.

[KanadeVix]

3 hours 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. 

 

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.

 

 

Yeah, I live in a far removed time zone.

On top of that, I am actually not a fan of iTrials either. 
I prefer to do stuff like an ITF.