Focused Feedback: Reward Merits

[ScarySai]

I prefer this to the AE changes in the last build, seeing as how I can hardly remember any time I've ever felt compelled to convert empyreans into regular merits.

 

If I want reward merits, I know how to get them fast without any veteran level shenanigans. 

 

In short:

 

[Coyotedancer]

2 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

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.

 

Run Doc Q when it's the weekly... Or join the daily Hamidon raids... Or ship raid regularly... Or get the zone exploration accolades... Or maybe do some iTrials. Or story arcs. Or tip morality missions. Or go beat up some giant monsters. Or do one of the Signature Story Arcs every week.

 

Merits come from many sources in this game. You're losing ONE of them. And gaining a new one in the process. The sky isn't falling and merits aren't going extinct. People built up scads of the things before vet levels and Emp conversions ever existed. If they could do that in the past, you can still do it now. There's no reason you can't.   

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[lemming]

I like this more than the lack of vet levels from AE.   I think I may have converted Emps to Reward long time in the past, but I think I was funding buying all the anniversary badges and was a little short.   Couple years in, I'm rarely in need of reward merits and only occasionally have moved some Emps around to boost a character's incarnate stats.

 

I also assumed the vet level bonus threads and emp merits was for building up the incarnate area of a character.  Didn't really think to monetize it.

[Troo]

Is the idea to make access to reward merits through non AE content simply easier to get than through AE?

 

If so, I think I prefer the previous solution.

[Clave Dark 5]

8 hours 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. 

This was me too.  And boy howdy do I have some toons sitting on a mountain of Emps - also due to the fact I'm not even sure what they're supposed to be used for.  I'm not much a fan of endless Incarnate-leveling, so they're all sat there while I haven't taken the time to really find out.  Guess I better rush out and cash all those in now then.

 

That said, this makes my reaction to this change a bit negative?  As in "what else am I going to do with these dumb things?"  But I'm sure, sure that must be just from my ignorance, that they do have a real useful place other than just serving a a Merit farm, right?

 

ETA: starting to sweat because I can't open the game at work, want to burn off all those excess Emps I have before this change comes about, and this is Tuesday morning...  I can just feel I'm boned on this ha ha.  Seriously, I have one toon with something like 500 Emps I think?  No use for them if he's not going to be able to make Reward Merits out of them, I don't play him any more.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Clave Dark 5

[Troo]

2 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

ETA: starting to sweat because I can't open the game at work, want to burn off all those excess Emps I have before this change comes about, and this is Tuesday morning...  I can just feel I'm boned on this ha ha.  Seriously, I have one toon with something like 500 Emps I think?  No use for them if he's not going to be able to make Reward Merits out of them, I don't play him any more.

 

You've got time.

Imagine folks who don't know about this potentially happening!

 

Empyrean/Astral Merits can also be emailed to another character.

I can't remember off hand if they are account bound. If not, they could be sent to another account.

[Clave Dark 5]

Yeah, my problem is that I just don't really care about chasing Incarnate stuff.  So it's nice to find out that there's something else I can do with these, even if it's right before they close the barn door.  😃  If the game's up when I get home, I'm going to go round on all my old 50s and burn these off like there's no tomorrow, because, well, there isn't!

[Troo]

 

500 Empyrean Merits does equal 5,000 Reward Merits and then 15,000 Converters worth ~1B.

 

500 Empyrean Merits also equals 10,000 Incarnate Threads. That's enough to simply unlock all the Incarnate abilities on ~40 level 50s without doing one Vet Level.

 

(someone might wanna check my math)

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Troo

[AlwaysAPrice]

While I wasn't stressed enough about the vet XP removal to post on that particular topic, I greatly appreciate that the feedback on it was considered and a less broad method of addressing the infinite merit fountain of AFK-farming new alts is being tested. I love having the option to farm my Alpha level shift out of the way in a few levels, but if the change had gone through I'd be fine doing that via the many other perfectly sufficient methods of grinding out XP solo or teamed that already exist; I have almost never used Empyreans for Merits, the ability to stockpile the remainder of a character's vet level Empyreans after they T3 or T4 everything through a mix of farming and trialing and other play to jumpstart the next build's incarnates is far far more valuable to me.

 

That said I definitely understand people's concern for those who may have been stockpiling merits with the option to convert them if they had no other use for them in mind and who may miss this change coming down. One idea I have for that would be the granting of a special one-use power to all existing characters via the Character Mail inbox when this goes live that, when claimed with a confirmation message, converts all Empyreans in the player's inventory to Reward Merits (at the 1:10 exchange rate of course). Could even keep that around, add a version as a Super Pack drop that can convert 10 Emps to 100 Merits with each charge.

 

There's also the option of just slowing the influx of Reward Merits and allowing those with stockpiles to continue to convert by putting Emp-to-Merit conversions on a daily timer like the full value Shard:Thread conversion.

 

Straying into suggestion territory I realize but just musing on how the change could be made with the least disruption possible to those it might affect adversely. Otherwise I welcome the change.

[Zepp]

Would it be possible to get Rare Salvage and Purple Recipes through Emp-conversion?

[Troo]

5 minutes ago, Zepp said:

Would it be possible to get Rare Salvage and Purple Recipes through Emp-conversion?

 

used to.. i'll check  https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate_Merit_Vendor

 

Category	Subcategory	Item	Astral Merits	Empyrean Merits
Conversion	Merit	Astral Merit 1 Emp into 1 Astral		1
Conversion	Merit	Reward Merit 1 Astral into 1 Reward	1
Inspiration	Super	Amazing Luck	1
Inspiration	Super	Back in the Fight	1
Inspiration	Super	Furious Rage	1
Inspiration	Super	Immortal Recovery	1
Inspiration	Super	Liberate	1
Inspiration	Super	Resistant	1
Inspiration	Super	Sight Beyond Sight	1
Inspiration	Super	Ultimate	2
Recipe	IO Set		16-32
Recipe	PVP IO Set			50-70
Recipe	Very Rare IO Set			40
Enhancement	Archetype Enhancement	Non-special piece + 25 million inf	55
Enhancement	Archetype Enhancement	Special piece + 25 million inf	70

Edited July 19, 2022 by Troo

[Excraft]

No thank you.  You can quadruple the merit rewards or more and I still won't farm iTrials or TFs or whatever other content you all seem intent upon driving me into. 

 

13 hours ago, Mr. Apocalypse said:

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

 

Yup. 

 

13 hours ago, Luminara said:

Not thrilled, but I understand that motivation behind the change is the betterment of all players. 

 

It's not better for me and I'll determine what's best and works for me, thanks.

[Yomo Kimyata]

So, like threads, emp merits will become essentially useless after you have achieved your incarnate goals?  I don't assign value to super inspirations, personally, but they will certainly be cheap as heck.

 

I guess I'm fine with that, but then please enable an option to stop emp merits and threads from dropping.  And/or enable an option to receive something else instead of emp merits or threads.

 

If the intention was to keep players from farming emp merits and converting them, your first solution was significantly better, in my opinion.  The new solution adversely affects people who want to play their 50s in a non-exploitative way.

[Stoked]

One thing I'm having a tough time understanding is  why is one kind of farming (TF's, iTrials) more acceptable and getting all the love versus AE farming? Once you've hit 50, there is nothing left but farming regardless of what content you happen to prefer. This is simple logic. You can't get any more levels and can only improve the existing powers and incarnates that you already have which cost a fortune.

 

Every decision that's been made about game mechanics has brought the community to this point. Adding enhancements, allowing for up to 1000 characters per account, availability of XP boosters, incarnates, etc. All of these things encourage making more than one character on more than one account so you can "afford" to pay for all your other alts. By continuing down this road all you accomplish is creating more problems for you to "solve" which of course means more drama over changed policies, back pedaling on previous attempts, etc. All of this is completely insane but after almost 20 years you people actually expect a different outcome. If you were really interested in solving the issue, you'd simply only allow a single character per account. You immediately take away the need and most everyone's willingness to farm because ... well ... there's no reason to. One last comment about farming - people that sit here in this forum and applaud the efforts of devs to nerf AE rewards and XP but then jump in game and start farming AE or any other content are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. Just because you choose to run TF's or iTrials or race through TINPEX or ITF several times a day doesn't make what you're doing any different.

 

Lastly the economy in game is going to blow up. People will have to decide whether to pay a billion for a purple set or just say screw it and not join a 54/8 TF that's unsurvivable without IO sets. What good will it be to focus on great builds when you can't even afford to pay for the IO sets to make it happen? The logical conclusion is - you got it - more farming. I can't imagine any of this escapes those making the decisions. They well know the outcome already because these types of heavy-handed tactics have been used all along and consistently fail time after time.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Stoked

[ShardWarrior]

8 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

If the intention was to keep players from farming emp merits and converting them, your first solution was significantly better, in my opinion.  The new solution adversely affects people who want to play their 50s in a non-exploitative way.

 

Just guessing here, but it seems like someone took issue with a few people farming EMP merits from Vet levels on multiple characters in AE.  Removing Vet levels from AE would only force people doing that back into PI portal map farming, so the net result is same.   STO had a similar issue with people leveling up alts to run them through the Reputation system and cashing in on the big dilithium bonus for completing a rep.  That is a different story though because of the in-game dilithium exchange where people can convert it to Zen to buy things in the store, and that impacts Zen sales on a live game.

 

I just do not understand why this is such a horrible issue here.  If someone wants to invest that kind of time doing enough farming to earn 5,000 EMP merits like in the post @Troomade above, more power to them.  They are not people I would be teaming with to do other "correct/dev approved" content anyway, so it makes no difference to me personally. 

 

Being able to convert EMP merits to Reward Merits was a nice bonus and means to buy recipes that I needed to complete a build without needing to farm tons of inf to buy it on the exchange.  Like others have said, I do not chase Incarnates on every character either, so piling up worthless EMP merits does not solve anything for me.

 

This is just making me want to play less, not more. 

[Stoked]

3 hours ago, Troo said:

 

500 Empyrean Merits does equal 5,000 Reward Merits and then 15,000 Converters worth ~1B.

 

500 Empyrean Merits also equals 10,000 Incarnate Threads. That's enough to simply unlock all the Incarnate abilities on ~40 level 50s without doing one Vet Level.

 

(someone might wanna check my math)

 

 

The math seems sound and the effort to detail this appreciated. My only question is ... so what? Who cares how many max'd out 50's you have? We're allowed 1000. Every person in game has an equal opportunity to do the same exact thing which means no one has an advantage. Isn't that exactly the point?

[Marbing]

I’d say do a poll, but that may just end up being skewed by the more vocal / more passionate crowd. 
 

Overall I think this change is going to hurt everyone at least a little. We have lost a source of merits, making the overall rate at which everyone can get merits slower. I guess I can see why this wasn’t the first proposal.

 

It may be a good idea to give a little bit more merits per story arc / TF and maybe even like 1 merit per bank mission for people who like to do radios that are now losing their merit source. Just some ideas.

[Stoked]

12 hours ago, TheZag said:

Emp merits should be used for incarnate abilities,  not for farming in AE to convert into reward merits.

Why, because you say so? The devs created AE, allowed everyone to put 999 alts on an account, created the merit system and allowed merits as rewards for running AE missions. We aren't here by mistake or by chance. This was all planned from the start. Now we have a bunch of whiny iTrial homies that think their way of playing is somehow more acceptable or appropriate. Meanwhile you have a large percentage of the population that simply can't be online when iTrials are happening or just don't like doing them. 

 

This nonsense about "dev approved, regular or normal content" messaging has to stop too. The devs created ALL of this so it's all approved and normal. If AE is causing some divide in the community because there is a percentage of people that don't like it, then they don't have to run it. Just stop whining about it. It's an equal opportunity feature. You can always change the channel so no use in any discourse about it at all.

[skoryy]

I don't think the devs could've painted it clearer with this change:  VLs weren't the problem.  Speed farming AE for RMs defeated the purpose of RMs being a reward for time investment and keeping lower level content alive (WSTs), and that was the problem.  They believe its an unfair advantage.

 

Personally, I'd like to see some numbers myself comparing VL farming to rest of the game content, but I can kinda see it.

[Stoked]

13 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

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

How exactly are you defining "betterment of all players" ? ALL players currently have the ability to take advantage of this. Noone is excluded in any way. However, by forcing people to use iTrials, you are immediately excluding those people that can't join when they run or simply don't enjoy that content. Insanity.

 

1 hour ago, skoryy said:

I don't think the devs could've painted it clearer with this change:  VLs weren't the problem.  Speed farming AE for RMs defeated the purpose of RMs being a reward for time investment and keeping lower level content alive (WSTs), and that was the problem.  They believe its an unfair advantage.

 

Personally, I'd like to see some numbers myself comparing VL farming to rest of the game content, but I can kinda see it.

There is no difference between running an iTrial 100 times or cycling through the Carnie or Dreck map 100 times to earn influence or XP or merits. The game isn't live and it's free to play so time investment is a misnomer. No one cares (least of all the devs) how long you're online playing.

[skoryy]

Just now, Stoked said:

There is no difference between running an iTrial 100 times or cycling through the Carnie or Dreck map 100 times to earn influence or XP or merits.

 

OK, prove it.

[Stoked]

8 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

OK, prove it.

Prove what? The context here is time investment. If you solo the Dreck map at 54/8, it's going to take you about an hour or more depending on your DPS. That's after you've spent countless hours creating a build and earning enough influence or merits to make the build happen. An iTrial with a good group is about 20 minutes. You can get away with a much less "built" toon when you're part of a group. Based on that alone, AE farming Dreck is literally 3x more time intensive so I guess I was wrong, the time investment isn't at all the same. Thank you for making me prove it.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Stoked

[ShardWarrior]

45 minutes ago, skoryy said:

Speed farming AE for RMs defeated the purpose of RMs being a reward for time investment and keeping lower level content alive (WSTs), and that was the problem. 

 

Not sure what servers you are on, but I am seeing people advertising to put together mission teams and/or TF/SF/iTrial/WST teams all the time on Excelsior and Torchbearer.  Literally every minute or so.  There is absolutely no issue with non-AE content needing to be kept alive on either of those servers.  TFs/SFs/iTrials requests fill up quickly.  From what I can see with my own eyes, interest in these is very vibrant and there is a lot of interest in running them, so no, there is no problem.  If there is a struggle to find teams for this, I do not see it.  Wanted to add - people are speed running TFs all the time, not just AE, and that was not the intended purpose of that content either.

[Jaxman100]

I must say this sounds a lot worse than not getting Vet Level XP in AE.  Sure it would be harder to level a new farmer, but if you know exactly what incarnate powers you want, the rest of the Emp merits can go towards merits. 

I find getting the merits/inf for a powerful build more troublesome than getting my incarnates unlocked.  And for players that don't care for end game content, this change makes Emp merits practically useless. 
 

[arcane]

10 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

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.

What are you talking about man? You think this is the only means of making money in this game? I have 100+ characters that are purpled to the teeth and have never done this type of conversion once.