AE Vet Levels -or- Empyrean to Reward Merits

[Troo]

Just now, Andreah said:

What fraction of the actual players who login and play on homecoming servers on a daily/weekly/monthly basis read the forums? What fraction post? I doubt it's very high. No poll is going to measure general playerbase sentiment.

 

I feel like it is around 26.4%

[Andreah]

Oh yeah, I do have a third option, for what it may be worth.

 

Veteran Merits. VM's are awarded from Veteran levels instead of Empyrean Merits.  Veteran levels which awarded threads now award additional Veteran Merits instead, at a rate of 1 VM per 20 threads. Veteran Merits can only be used to craft common (1 VM), uncommon (3 VMs), rare (8 VM's) and very rare components (30 VM's). Veteran Merits cannot be converted to any other currencies, and are bound to characters. 

 

Veteran levels, from whatever source, could then only be used to speed up incarnating the character that earns those levels, from whatever activity the player enjoys the most.

Edited July 31, 2022 by Andreah

[TheZag]

2 hours ago, Faultline said:

so either the vet rewards go, or the conversion from emps goes.

 

 

[SwitchFade]

48 minutes ago, Troo said:

 

I feel like it is around 26.4%

You should make a poll to find out!

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Andreah said:

Oh yeah, I do have a third option, for what it may be worth.

 

Veteran Merits. VM's are awarded from Veteran levels instead of Empyrean Merits.  Veteran levels which awarded threads now award additional Veteran Merits instead, at a rate of 1 VM per 20 threads. Veteran Merits can only be used to craft common (1 VM), uncommon (3 VMs), rare (8 VM's) and very rare components (30 VM's). Veteran Merits cannot be converted to any other currencies, and are bound to characters. 

 

Veteran levels, from whatever source, could then only be used to speed up incarnating the character that earns those levels, from whatever activity the player enjoys the most.

The current game already allows for this with Veteran levels,  it just won’t be an option if the “No Emp-Merit” option goes live (not a big loss, to be honest). 

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, TheZag said:

 

 

If you think that the complaints are bad now, limit Incarnate progression to Trials/DA/A couple of mission options and watch the nuclear explosion that comes from that.

[Starforge]

14 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

If you think that the complaints are bad now, limit Incarnate progression to Trials/DA/A couple of mission options and watch the nuclear explosion that comes from that.

I don't want to go back to 2012.

[Astralock]

14 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

If you think that the complaints are bad now, limit Incarnate progression to Trials/DA/A couple of mission options and watch the nuclear explosion that comes from that.

 

That's the way it should have been.  The only reason it is the way it is now is because Homecoming took what SCoRE had (which was set up for a tiny population, a fraction of Homecoming's), and ran with it.  Unfortunately, it's too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

[Myrmidon]

4 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

That's the way it should have been.  The only reason it is the way it is now is because Homecoming took what SCoRE had (which was set up for a tiny population, a fraction of Homecoming's), and ran with it.  Unfortunately, it's too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

To be fair, had the game stayed active instead of closing, we would have had at least nine years of Incarnate content by now. Since we know that the Content team is definitely looking to add Incarnate content in the future, I’ll happily take the Vet levels at least until enough becomes active.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Myrmidon

[overmanprime]

To add my 2-cents, the argument over AE giving actual XP and/or rewards that are useable in the rest of the game was raised back on in the Live NCSoft days when AE was first introduced. Said argument was... and possibly still is... passionate.
To use my own experience of using AE, 90% of the farming I do is to level up my ever growing army of alts. A fundamental foundation of CoH is that if you want a particular Primary/Secondary set of powers on a character, then that has to be a new character. The condition we all suffer from, 'Altitis', is systemically linked to the CoH game design (and that isn't going to change). If you want to try out a new character, you can PL that character in AE (or occasionally in PI mission groups) so you can try out how that character feels at higher levels (even if in the mid-level 30/40's), because for many characters, they only start to feel good (or you can start to see the strengths and weaknesses) when you have twenty or thirty levels under your belt.

Of course, some people are purists and insist on never powerlevelling and playing the game as they believe it was intended. More power to them I say; if you like that style of game play, then go forth and kill Skuls, Personally, that kind of play is tjhe definition of pain. When I try out a character, I want to see how it feels when you have most of your powers available (I have about 150 different toons that are between level 25 and 35 who have sat unplayed for months or years as a result). Each of those was just an investment of two or three hours of fairly light farming, rather than the 10-20+ hours it would take to level the 'traditional way (assuming I could even find a steady stream of available level appropriate teams to play with).

I've drifted off the topic very slightly, but it was important to show my background and viewpoint.

- In terms of removing XP from AE entirely, while a small number of people will rejoice, most will either move their power-levelling into the pre-AE methods (such as PI missions) or they may just stop playing (at least on a regular basis).
- In terms of removing Inf from AE entirely, again a few peaople would rejoice, at least until they tried to buy set-enhancements, but the knock-on effects to the in-game market and economy in general would make most ENhancements out of the price range of the majority of the player base.

- In terms of removing the Empyrean to Merit conversion entirely? Well, that is something I can't really comment on in any depth since it's not something I've really done.

However, as good as the Homecoming player base is, it is not large enough to be able to sustain the loss of either Inf or XP from AE without serious, and most likely negative, ramifications to the size of the playerbase.
 

Personally, I'd love there to be level boosts to be available at the P2W vendor. Maybe with staggered pricing per boost level (1mil Inf for level 20, 3 mil for level 30, 5 mil for level 40, 10 mil for level 50): it would provide a fast way to get into playing your new character and putting it through it's paces, while also providing a nice Inf sink into the economy. Sure, people would still farm in AE for Inf, but people are always going to farm.

Maybe put a block on being able to earn Empyrean merits on such boosted characters until they have 20 hours played on that toon for example? Assuming that Empyrean merits remain. Maybe even remove the ability of boosted characters to earn Empyrean merits at all?! Just earning Incarnate XP and threads the old fashioned way: the price to pay for the convenience of insta-levelling (essentially you can eventually earn the incarnate levels in the broadly the same amount of played time)

The argument about giving people characters at level 50 characters instantly and being unable to play it? Yeah, we have that now.

 

Just a few rambling thoughts. Take it for what it is.

 

[kingsmidgens]

People really want Taunt/Acc/Rech D-Syncs and you can't get those in AE but if you want the inf needed for them... yeah AE is your best bet.

People are going to want Aether particles and people can't get those in AE.  You can trade them so AE again is going to be the best bet.

These two things are good and not acquired via AE.

Add new things, especially some that can't be traded to other players or broken down into inf in any way shape or form and problem solved.

It's too late to change existing rewards as people have been farming for 3+ years and the solution is to add more inf sinks and more currency which is not tied to AE directly or indirectly.

[Spectral]

um... just so I understand... option 1 say "no AE XP post-50" so... people will still be able to PL their altitis (yes I suffer from altitis too) in AE... what they wont get is a toon that's fully T4 in all incarnate abilities... but those are not strictly needed...? so... how is it bad to only level alts till 50 in AE?

do you just PL them to 50+T4, then equip them and then shelf them?

 

blocking the emp -> merit will seriously hurt people with a style similar to mine... I don't farm... however I do get "a lot" of emp from the stuff I do and I would then basically be forced into "playing the AH", which is even more boring than farming for me (not saying others may not enjoy it, if you like it, that's great), AE farmer will not care about the emp -> merit stop, it will hurt casuals more than it will hurt farmers/AH-players...

 

Also it will drive AH prices on some things even higher (offer vs demand), making money farming of some kind even more necessary (ie pushing for min-max money output of whatever you do)

 

do we really want purple IO to go into 50Mil or even 80Mil each?

emp->merit makes sure purple IO stay affordable...

what's the point of farming 50+T4 toons in AE if they then run around with orange IO sets? I'd rather have 50+T0 toons with purple sets, but that's my personal preference...?

Edited July 31, 2022 by Spectral

[Coyotedancer]

2 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

If you think that the complaints are bad now, limit Incarnate progression to Trials/DA/A couple of mission options and watch the nuclear explosion that comes from that.

 

In all seriousness, that would probably be the one thing that would finally make me walk away.

 

No joking or hyperbole here... It would end any possibility of me making new characters. Because I couldn't "finish" any of them that weren't suited to soloing DA.  My character list would be done and *that* would end up murdering a lot of my desire to keep playing. 

 

There's a reason I'll always push back against returning to the days of "Team or Else!" Incarnates.

[Grouchybeast]

10 minutes ago, Spectral said:

blocking the Emp -> merit will seriously hurt people with a style similar to mine... I don't farm... however I do get "a lot" of Emp from the stuff I do and I would then basically be forced into "playing the AH", which is even more boring than farming for me (not saying others may not enjoy it, if you like it, that's great), AE farmer will not care about the emp -> reward block, it will hurt casuals more than it will hurt farmers/AH-players...

You might have missed this update, but content that awards Emps is getting a buff of extra regular merit equal to the amount of merits that would have been made by cashing in the Emps.  So now you get the equivalent reward merits AND you can still use the Emps for Incarnate salvage.

[Spectral]

1 minute ago, Grouchybeast said:

You might have missed this update, but content that awards Emps is getting a buff of extra regular merit equal to the amount of merits that would have been made by cashing in the Emps.  So now you get the equivalent reward merits AND you can still use the Emps for Incarnate salvage.

True, I did not see that update, thank you for letting me know...

so more money... not sure that will solve the AE farm issue, but whatever...

 

curious to see if that means they also take away emp -> thread conversion... threads can be made into money, too. But that's likely not as lucrative?

I've seen friends that like farming drop the normal rewards in AE and go for the tickets only... not sure if that will then become the efficient way of farming (my farm knowledge is hear-say).

[Nurvus]

On 7/30/2022 at 12:58 PM, Troo said:

"a change of some kind is pretty much a bet the farm guarantee for Page Four. It’s either no AE XP post-50 or no more Empyrean/Merit conversions, take your pick."

 

Who is this quote from anyway?

[Myrmidon]

15 minutes ago, Nurvus said:

 

Who is this quote from anyway?

Just someone that pays attention.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Spectral said:

do we really want purple IO to go into 50Mil or even 80Mil each?

With these being capped at 100 merits (18-21 million), I’m curious who would purchase these for 50-80 million? Also, if Farming dried up, the market would likely be supplied by other players, since  purples are not unique to AE and drop in high-level content.

[tidge]

We need a poll of the best use of multiple accounts:

 

a) skewing polls

b) skewing farm rewards

[arcane]

1 minute ago, tidge said:

We need a poll of the best use of multiple accounts:

 

a) skewing polls

b) skewing farm rewards

c) skewing polls about skewed farm rewards?

[Jacke]

11 hours ago, Marbing said:

Its the Inner Circle at play I tell you.

 

It's more of an Inner Oval ATM.  A few Secret Meetings back I hear the Inner Circle got pranged and it's never been the same.

[Andreah]

7 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

The current game already allows for this with Veteran levels,  it just won’t be an option if the “No Emp-Merit” option goes live (not a big loss, to be honest). 

I must not have been clear enough, sorry.

 

In my proposal, these entirely new "Veteran Merits" are not the same as Empyrion Merits; they cannot be converted into threads; they cannot be converted into reward merits, they cannot be transferred. They can only be used to craft incarnate components that are also character bound. Everything received from veteran levels can only be used to craft incarnate abilities for that character alone. 

 

However, real Empyrion Merits would still be earned the same ways they are now, and would remain convertible into threads or reward merits, and be emailable to other characters on the same account.

[johua]

if the previously stated justifications for the nerfs really is the reason behind all of this, hoo boy.

isthisanoutofseasonaprilfoolsjoke.mp4

[Lyrium]

6 hours ago, Andreah said:

I must not have been clear enough, sorry.

 

In my proposal, these entirely new "Veteran Merits" are not the same as Empyrion Merits; they cannot be converted into threads; they cannot be converted into reward merits, they cannot be transferred. They can only be used to craft incarnate components that are also character bound. Everything received from veteran levels can only be used to craft incarnate abilities for that character alone. 

 

However, real Empyrion Merits would still be earned the same ways they are now, and would remain convertible into threads or reward merits, and be emailable to other characters on the same account.

Sounds good! There should be an option to convert a standard Emp to an "non convertible Emp", so you can mix them to buy incanate components (IE: I have 5 Emps and 3 ncEmps, I want to trade them for a Rare component)

[Logansan]

9 hours ago, Andreah said:

In my proposal, these entirely new "Veteran Merits" are not the same as Empyrion Merits; they cannot be converted into threads; they cannot be converted into reward merits, they cannot be transferred. They can only be used to craft incarnate components that are also character bound. Everything received from veteran levels can only be used to craft incarnate abilities for that character alone. 

 

However, real Empyrion Merits would still be earned the same ways they are now, and would remain convertible into threads or reward merits, and be emailable to other characters on the same account.

I may had missed it, but the only proposal from you I could find was talking about replacing the current "threads" you get with veteran levels with this new currency.

 

Wouldn't it be simpler to just replace the (same amount) of Empyrion Merits you get with Veteran Levels with this new type of non-tradeable item ("Veteran Empyrions"?), and have them work the same way as you outline above? I haven't seen anyone mentioned that the threads you get for veteran levels are a problem, only the Empyrions.

 

I proposed a somewhat similar idea in another thread, but this sounds a hell of lot easier to implement then mine.