What to do with Empyrean Merits in the future...

[Troo]

1 minute ago, blue4333 said:

Bad idea as Emp Merits

 

I don't remember asking you. Please butt out of this private conversation. 😛

 

[blue4333]

Just now, Troo said:

I don't remember asking you. Please butt out of this private conversation. 😛

 

 

Or what? You'll make a thread crying about inputs in a forum and pass it off as a joke thread when people call you out for being salty?

 

Oh wait. That happened with the thumbs down thread and oppsies it got locked.

[arcane]

13 minutes ago, blue4333 said:

 

Or what? You'll make a thread crying about inputs in a forum and pass it off as a joke thread when people call you out for being salty?

 

Oh wait. That happened with the thumbs down thread and oppsies it got locked.

I think you’re struggling with interpreting the text medium here. You keep accusing people of crying when they aren’t, and it’s just kind of awkward to watch.

[blue4333]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

I think you’re struggling with interpreting the text medium here. You keep accusing people of crying when they aren’t, and it’s just kind of awkward to watch.

 

I don't remember asking you. Please butt out of this private conversation. 😛

[arcane]

7 minutes ago, blue4333 said:

 

I don't remember asking you. Please butt out of this private conversation. 😛

Fair enough 🙂 

[Neiska]

Okay, seriously, why are some upset that vet levels give Emp merits. For reals. You want them, what, to be entirely awarded 1-2 at a time from trials? And you think that by gatekeeping them will have a positive effect? And that by giving people artificial and needless steps to accomplish they will be more motivated to do trials?

 

I mean, let's play hypothetical here. Let's say that *gasp* someone levels entirely and completely in the AE by themselves all the way from level 1 to full T4'd 50 and doesn't step a foot outside of the AE except to tailor with costumes, put stuff on the AH, and so on. What biz is that of yours? To me that sounds more like people who take issue with that, are more focused on "I do trials, therefore only I deserve t4 powers!" even though that player A and player B will likely never interact with one another.

 

Which further leads me to hypothesize that such people get more sense of accomplishment by keeping other people down, more than focusing on themselves.

 

"They got the same thing I did by doing something I didn't. It's not fair. Take it away from them" which is pretty much the same thing as kids on a playground, one group of kids doing their thing, and another group something else. And one group going to the teacher saying "Teacher teacher! They are having just as much fun doing something else! Take their ball from them! Make them play with us!"

 

Keep it up and that group of kids might find themselves on an empty playground going "Why isn't there anyone else to play with?"

 

Food for thought.

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:

Okay, seriously, why are some upset that vet levels give Emp merits.

I thought that was staying, just that you can't convert them to RMs anymore.  Or did I miss a post?  I would not be surprised, there's been so many.

[lemming]

41 minutes ago, Darmian said:

I thought that was staying, just that you can't convert them to RMs anymore.  Or did I miss a post?  I would not be surprised, there's been so many.

Nope. you have the current state of the patch.

And as a dev pointed out, this was to address the cycling chars up to a certain vet level for their Emp Merits.  Apparently enough of a strain on resources, that there were a couple different ways to address.   I think the non-convert is a better solution, since no Vet levels in AE would just get circumvented, though I'm guessing it had more to do with AFK farms anyway.

 

In answer to the OP.  I'll still be using them to boost alts

[Ignatz the Insane]

8 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

This is not useful for those of us who already have all the alts we want at whatever Incarnate level we want, if any at all.  It is great that people interested in kitting out their alts to T4 will be able to do this.  There is a forgotten/ignored group that does not fall into that category.

 

There looks to be quite a lot of solo players who were using those bonus EMP merits to convert to reward merits.  What should those solo players do now to make up for the loss?  "Run more team content" is not going to work for them.  I am asking honestly since it seems to me, at least from the people in my circle, that this is just going to mean even more farming, not less.  That seems to be the exact opposite effect of what this change was meant to do. 

If you're done with alts, why do you need more Reward merits?  At that point money would no longer be an issue.  Unless you wish to stockpile for...reasons.  

 

If money isn't an issue, you can get an endless supply of Reward merits with Super Packs....and even make a little profit.  Granted, it's been a bit buggy now and then and it's time consuming, but no more so than farming.  This also has the benefit of seeding the market with ATOs.  (Although I get it...it's not very fun after a while).

 

I like farming now and then.  I throw on some music and zone out for a while.  But it's been a long time since I did so for money or other rewards.  I simply don't need them and have no desire to stockpile.  I've had around 20 billion for a couple years now.  When I make an alt I transfer a pile of money and they're set.  By the time they hit 50, I email what's left, which is usually about the same as the original transfer, back into the money pile.  Caveat being I usually only power level to 12/17/22 or so and run story arcs and Task Forces.  

 

Outside of joining Task Forces, I primarily solo story arcs.  Nowadays travel time is a non-issue (for me).  At this point in the game, making money is also a non-issue for anyone willing to dip their toes into the Market.  It took a week playing an hour or less a day, plus two hours on a Sunday for my last zero Influence seeded character to reach a billion.  Mostly by buying cheap yellow recipes and converting them with the Merits I earned from story arcs.   This also has the benefit of seeding the Market with desirable IOs, which helps keep prices stable.  To reiterate, I spent about 7 hours playing an alt to the low 30s and made a billion influence.  

 

On the flip side, say a player is power leveling an alt to 50 and using Empyrion Merits to fund that character.  They're buying large amounts of desirable IOs while contributing almost nothing but Converters to the Market.  I'm no economist but that seems bad.

 

 

 

 

[SwitchFade]

On 8/15/2022 at 6:20 AM, arcane said:

Considering I’ve never made this conversion, nothing will change. It’s pretty damn hard to run out of Incarnate-related uses for empyreans unless you’re one of those mystical unicorns that doesn’t like alts. 

Let's all hold hands and skip to yum-yum town where rainbows shoot out of the butts of unicorns.

 

Then nerf Regen.

 

Because...... DoOOOoOoooOooommmmm

 

Ps. Hi arcane! Unicorn tag!

Edited August 17, 2022 by SwitchFade

[SwitchFade]

7 hours ago, blue4333 said:

 

I don't remember asking you. Please butt out of this private conversation. 😛

You just made two posts.

 

One with salty

 

One with butts.

 

SALTY BUTTS 

 

Your bases are belong to us.

 

 

[SwitchFade]

8 hours ago, Troo said:

 

I don't remember asking you. Please butt out of this private conversation. 😛

 

Idea 5

 

Give all emps to @Troo

 

word to the mother.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

At this point in the game, making money is also a non-issue for anyone willing to dip their toes into the Market.

 

1 hour ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

On the flip side, say a player is power leveling an alt to 50 and using Empyrion Merits to fund that character.  They're buying large amounts of desirable IOs while contributing almost nothing but Converters to the Market.  I'm no economist but that seems bad.

 

I'm glad you point this out, because I think it's an underlying issue that informs a lot of this discussion. 

I suspect the majority of the people who are in favor of, or at least fine with, the conversion nerf are people that routinely make a lot of money on the market. So of course it's not a big deal to them. They, like the emp reaping afk farmers are sitting on a pile of cash. Likewise, a recurring rationale for nerfing the conversion, or farming in general, is that it will possibly lead to inflation.

 

So what? I hate using the market more than I dislike sitting in a farm. At what point did it become assumed that playing the market to support all of your inf needs was the expected thing to do? Clearly for a lot of people, the optimal way of funding their endeavors is to use the market. So it comes across as very hypocritical to point to some sort of outlier like emp farming, nerf the conversion in a way that affects everyone, shift the desired resource to team based activities and meanwhile ignore the fact that players that like a certain other solo activity in the game can easily make enough inf that this sort of change doesn't even really affect them.

 

 

[Ignatz the Insane]

46 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

So it comes across as very hypocritical to point to some sort of outlier like emp farming, nerf the conversion in a way that affects everyone, shift the desired resource to team based activities...(snip).

 

Almost all of my Reward Merits come from either running solo story arcs or Super Packs.  Neither are team-based activities.  And at this point I'm no longer playing the Market so I'm no longer adding bunches of desirable IOs.  I suspect that's true for a lot of folks who play(ed) the Market.  

 

I also suspect that most players are casual types who neither play the Market nor farm for Empyrion Merits.  Many of those are content with generic IOs, with perhaps a few Unique IOs thrown in.  The players I'm concerned about are those who are both casual and want to fully IO their characters.  As players like me wind down our activities, and players like Empyrion farmers ramp up theirs, the supply will dwindle and yes...lead to inflation.  At least that's my thinking, but I'm also insane and often wrong.   

[Neiska]

7 hours ago, Darmian said:

I thought that was staying, just that you can't convert them to RMs anymore.  Or did I miss a post?  I would not be surprised, there's been so many.

 

No, I was referring to Tso's post about their suggestion to remove emp merits from leveling entirely, which would more or less screw over players who mainly solo play. Far as I am aware that isn't happening and thank goodness for that.

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

If you're done with alts, why do you need more Reward merits? 

 

Only speaking for myself here, but I do not bother with Incarnates on every alt I make.  I do use the conversion to Reward merits for recipes or ATOs on alts as needed.  If you had read the whole post you quoted, you would have already answered your own question. 

[Neiska]

2 hours ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

On the flip side, say a player is power leveling an alt to 50 and using Empyrion Merits to fund that character.  They're buying large amounts of desirable IOs while contributing almost nothing but Converters to the Market.  I'm no economist but that seems bad.

 

Speaking just for myself and what I do.

 

For me, making alts "is" my game. I enjoy taking a new character, getting them to max level, and seeing the interactions in powers. I spend hours not just tinkering with costumes, styles, backgrounds, (bit OCD when it comes to my characters appearance, theme and such.) I also spend hours in mids tweaking and fine-tuning things. Trying new things. Even going against "conventional wisdom" with builds, AT's, and powersets to see what else is possible. 

 

Now one thing you may have neglected to think of, is that power leveling doesn't just dump converters into the market. I also throw up my recipes and salvage. The only things I vendor are white recipes and such. Everything else? Onto the AH it goes. Usually, I list everything for a flat rate of 500 inf, no matter what it is. (I am sure that might give the market players a chuckle.) but I don't care to spend the time to play the market to squeeze out as much profit as possible. Things pretty much always immediately sell. From purple recipes, to salvage, etc.

 

I don't even turn EMP merits into merits and flip them to converters. I am usually the one buying converters off the market to make my sets, because often its cheaper to buy multiple copies and turn them into what you need to finish your set. EMP merits to me are more important than money, so I can get my T3's. I usually only go full T4's if I really enjoy the character.

 

Sometimes I keep a character around. Sometimes I shelf them. Sometimes I completely strip them down and recycle the materials. It depends really. I just finished making a Demons/Storm MM, and while powerful isn't for me, so will recycle everything shy of EMP merits I used on her and use them on a new Demons/Nature MM I made. And all it costs me is time, some unslotters, and the odd few changes in IOs I may make. But the majority of it? I have already used on other characters.

 

Just wanted to highlight that not everyone, not even farmers are flipping merits and selling 10000 converters. Many of us farmers actually don't spend very much each time we make an alt. I suspect I have 2-3 sets of each AT set now, with similar copies of all the purple sets as well. Sometimes I'll find something I need and buy it. But most of it I have already on a shelf waiting for when I need it.

 

Just saying what I do personally. I doubt it's the case for everyone, but for us with alt-itis I suspect it might be similar. It's how we spend time in our game - making alts. That is far more enjoyable to me than running high level content. I enjoy the theory crafting, the math, seeing the interactions of effects and bonuses and so on. I find it mentally stimulating. 

[Ignatz the Insane]

56 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

Only speaking for myself here, but I do not bother with Incarnates on every alt I make.  I do use the conversion to Reward merits for recipes or ATOs on alts as needed.  If you had read the whole post you quoted, you would have already answered your own question. 

You're right, sorry about that.  It was a foolish question.  

 

 

48 minutes ago, Neiska said:

Now one thing you may have neglected to think of, is that power leveling doesn't just dump converters into the market. I also throw up my recipes and salvage. The only things I vendor are white recipes and such. Everything else? Onto the AH it goes. Usually, I list everything for a flat rate of 500 inf, no matter what it is. (I am sure that might give the market players a chuckle.) but I don't care to spend the time to play the market to squeeze out as much profit as possible. Things pretty much always immediately sell. From purple recipes, to salvage, etc.

 

I did think of this.  I think farmers in general are actually good for the economy.   What concerns me is the combination of factors I stated in my previous posts.  A farmer that frequently power levels alts then kits them out can't possibly earn enough recipes to replace supply.   In the past, that hasn't been an issue cuz people like me have been supplementing the supply.   And as of today, supply is still good, and prices are stable.   But humans being humans, many will look for the path of least resistance and bypass the market altogether and head straight to farming Empyrions and power leveling.  It never even occurred to me to farm Empyrion Merits before, and I can see this as something that becomes a widespread pattern.  I'll repeat, these are just my thoughts, and I could be wrong.  

[BlackSpectre]

I need to read the patch notes, but until then... in your opinion, how many Empyrean merits do you think is good to keep?

 

I have 500 Emp merits right now, and am thinking of converting a few, but not sure. I typically send 50 Emp merits to every Alt that makes it to lvl 50 to help speed along the crafting of Incarnate powers. However, more than half of my alts end up sending the 50 Emps back after they've got all their incarnates. So I'm not expecting to lose a lot of Emps over time.  500 Emps gives me enough to send to 10 alts. But with many alts giving the 50 Emps back... not sure. Should I keep the 500 or sell some of them down? And if sell, how much should I keep?

 

*************************************************

Re: Inability to convert Emp merits to Reward merits... The ability to convert to reward merits put the incarnate trials on par with the reward merits earned by task forces and other trials. I hope the Devs consider adding Reward merits as additional rewards to many of the incarnate trials that don't have them. The BAF incarnate trial, for example, typically earns  about 1 Empyrean merit per run. That converts to 10 Reward merits right now, which is about the average ratio of time spent per reward merit (30 Reward merits per hour). BAF takes about 20 minutes to complete so that's right on the nose.    

[Spectral]

3 hours ago, BlackSpectre said:

I need to read the patch notes, but until then... in your opinion, how many Empyrean merits do you think is good to keep?

 

I have 500 Emp merits right now, and am thinking of converting a few, but not sure. I typically send 50 Emp merits to every Alt that makes it to lvl 50 to help speed along the crafting of Incarnate powers. However, more than half of my alts end up sending the 50 Emps back after they've got all their incarnates. So I'm not expecting to lose a lot of Emps over time.  500 Emps gives me enough to send to 10 alts. But with many alts giving the 50 Emps back... not sure. Should I keep the 500 or sell some of them down? And if sell, how much should I keep?

Many will say keep them for future incarnate content... in... years...

My 2 cent:

- it is highly unlikely to happen in the first place (powercreep and incarnate stuff still has too many bugs)

- if... if, they were to add more incarnate powers, the devs would hide those behind a new currency, not allow people to use empy for it... ever single game out there does it, and homecoming is doing it with Page4 PAPs

 

I've been converting like crazy and dropping all my rewards into ATO, WinterO, receipes... I guess I'm sort of a mostly-selffound-selfequipped altohoic who hates the AH: I go there when I absolutely don't have any other choice.

 

3 hours ago, BlackSpectre said:

I hope the Devs consider adding Reward merits as additional rewards to many of the incarnate trials that don't have them.

From what I've read every content that dropped Empys will now also (on top) drop an equivalent amount of reward. So... in theory... income will not change. However I am economics-savy enough to know that prices will change quite a bit... I will have to farm a little to basically completely get the AH out of my equation...

And that is with Devs/GMs seeding a bunch of things on the AH at fixed prices... or they will have to seed a lot more to keep prices down...

[Grouchybeast]

5 hours ago, Ignatz the Insane said:

 A farmer that frequently power levels alts then kits them out can't possibly earn enough recipes to replace supply.  

 

Actually, they will!  In a past thread @MHertz crunched some numbers and taking a character to 50 will generate an amount of recipes that's a multiple of the maximum number of slots a character has.  The worst-case estimate was at least seven times more recipes dropped than a level 50 character has slots.  So long as the farmer bothers to throw them on the AH for someone else to pick up and run through the conversion mill, they will be adding more than they're removing from the supply.

 

And if that character is played at all after level 50, then they're generating recipes again and adding to the supply.

[tidge]

On 8/15/2022 at 1:56 PM, arcane said:

It baffles me that people who have  clearly stated over and over that they are not okay with doing anything but farming… are also stating over and over that they need the reward merit conversion to make money. Where the hell are your 24/7 farm rewards going?

 

Since there is so much cognitive dissonance coming from some folks, at a certain point you have to assume they are confused or just lying trolls.

 

The "lying trolls" may be too harsh, but the cognitive dissonance comment resonates with me. I have answers to the title question of the thread... thanks to @astral for a nice title question, and a genuinely sincere-reading OP.... and I've read other player's sincere answers to that question in many threads, but I don't always grok if many responders (again, NOT the OP here) are reacting to either:

1.  A genuine question about "What am I going to do with Empyrian Merits past a certain point?"
2.  An alternate question about "What am I going to do when I can no longer get what I was getting from the conversion of Empyrian Mertis to Reward Merits?"

The answer to the 2nd question is pretty easy: If the player isn't going to do anything differently, than they won't get what they were getting. To my eyes, the cognitive dissonance manifests itself when the many alternate methods of getting Reward Merits (and/or Inf) are brought up, and the response is predicated on some variant of "but I don't want to play any other content" is stated explicitly, yet the "even though the rewards (Incarnate powers, Inf-purchased enhancements) derived from my preferred playstyle/content would be most manifest in that alternate content" is rather clearly assumed but unstated.

 

Now, to try to sincerely answer the OP question (#1) here is some of what I do with my extra Empyrian Merits:

• I craft alternate Destiny slot powers.

One example: I find it pretty embarrassing (for us as a player base) when there is a Hamidon Raid (or Hallowe'en event) and only one player in the league has Incandescence. Incandescence is not my favorite Destiny power, but it is a no-brainer of a second choice if you ever intend to play with a team. Another example is during Incarnate Content (not a favorite type of mission), but there are certain enemies that can be best mitigated by alternate Destiny powers that a SOLOGAWD my not have as a first pick. Try them out.

• I craft alternate Lore pets.

If I am being honest, I kinda hate the Lore summons. Many of my Incarnate Path characters stay at a +2 level shift for a long time because I dislike the Lore summons so much, and would rather play around with alternate Incarnate powers. I won't deny that they are useful in soloing GMs and AVs, but I have to go out of my way to face such things.

• Go ahead and craft the Cryonic Judgement for fire-fighting in Steel Canyon.

OK, this is just dumb, but I've done it and so can you.

Edited August 17, 2022 by tidge
esplling

[Loc]

If you don't need emp merits for alts they are far from useless. Buy super inspirations with them. Even if you don't like the idea of using them just put them on the auction house. Super reds can sell between 500k and 1.5mill right now. Even if that drops a bit it you'll still get some infl for them. Super reds in particular are always gonna sell as speeders buy these quite often. Purples and ultimates are another option. It obviously is far less profitable than merits but that's sorta the point of the update after all.

[blue4333]

 

It's completely understandable why people are mad that the Emp Merit to Reward Merit conversion is going away; they are losing a source of income, bottom line cut and dry.

 

NOTE: I said a source of income not "THE" source of income.

[battlewraith]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

The answer to the 2nd question is pretty easy: If the player isn't going to do anything differently, than they won't get what they were getting. To my eyes, the cognitive dissonance manifests itself when the many alternate methods of getting Reward Merits (and/or Inf) are brought up, and the response is predicated on some variant of "but I don't want to play any other content" is stated explicitly, yet the "even though the rewards (Incarnate powers, Inf-purchased enhancements) derived from my preferred playstyle/content would be most manifest in that alternate content" is rather clearly assumed but unstated.

 

 

Yeah I don't see where you're getting cognitive dissonance from this. There have been pages and pages of people explaining this--there's nothing inconsistent about it. People are objecting to their preferred playstyle getting devalued. The fact that similar rewards are available through other methods is absolutely not the point.

 

Let's look at an extreme hypothetical example: All merit rewards are removed from pve and shifted to pvp. You get a daily quota from killing a certain number of players in each zone and the arena. Now, given the nature of this community, imagine the rage from players whose incentives are being shifted over to an activity that they vehemently oppose. Then you look at them as if they are confused because they explicitly say that they don't want to pvp even though they are clearly assuming that the merit rewards they want would be most manifest there. So what if they would be most manifest there?