No More Empyrean Merits to Reward Merits

[DarionLeonidas]

Can I ask the Devs why we can no longer exchange Empyrean Merits for Reward Merits?

I'm just curious as to why you thought this change was warranted.

[Greycat]

 

[battlewraith]

2 hours ago, DarionLeonidas said:

Can I ask the Devs why we can no longer exchange Empyrean Merits for Reward Merits?

I'm just curious as to why you thought this change was warranted.

 

The relevant post in the thread Greycat linked is this:

 

Removing the conversion is to address a different though tangential issue - a set of circumstances that encourages a very particular type of abuse involving a cycle of deleting and re-creating characters to take advantage of the frontloaded and limited supply of Empyreans. Removing the conversion (mostly) isolates the benefits to things that are account-bound and limits its impact on the economy, making it not worthwhile in most cases. That's likely preferable to most people than removing or significantly reducing Incarnate progression through vet levels, even though they were tuned for a much smaller population and probably shouldn't have ever gone live in the state they're in today.

 

In a nutshell, a certain number of players were farming emp merits by repetitively pling characters that would be deleted rather than enhanced and actually played. The dev solution was to take away the conversion from everyone. They added additional merit rewards to other content. If you don't want to run that other content, you're sol. If you weren't paying attention to the appropriate threads on the forums and have a big stockpile of emps you were going to convert later, you're sol. If you're a player who didn't use the conversion, you get thrown a bunch more merits for trials and whatnot. If you're a player who relied on the conversion to buy things, you lost a source of your income.

[DarionLeonidas]

I see.

So this perceived abuse was grossly unfair to other players… how?

Understand, I have about forty Level 50s and more on the way. I play them all, and I’ve accumulated roughly a dozen extra Transcendent Merits to use for their Tier 3 and Tier 4 advancements and for those soon-to-become Incarnates.

Along the way, I get them their Set Enhancements, which I usually buy with cash on the Market. Often I buy Enhancement Boosters, which can only be purchased with Reward Merits. When I was short of Reward Merits, I could rely on converting one or two Empyreans to make up the difference.

I have so many Empyrean Merits because they’re easier to get than threads. Three Hamidon raids with three characters will net 12 Emps. Practically no Threads will. One of those, but those can be acquired in Rikti Mothership Raids, though not nearly as fast as empyreans, given the ratio needed of Threads to Empyrean Merits.

And of course, neither Threads nor Empyrean Merits can be bought or sold on the Market, nor can they be traded between accounts. They are locked in to the player who earned them.

And while Threads are eventually relegated to purchasing Super Inspirations, beyond a certain point, Empyreans made for a decent “nest egg” for acquiring Reward Merits.

Now, unless I’m very much mistaken — and I hope I am — they become completely useless.

So, to return to my point, I’d like to understand how my use of Empyreans was do abusive as to warrant them losing a huge portion of their worth?

As for the other reasons, given that Empyrean Merits cannot be converted, traded or sold, this perceived abuse was grossly unfair to other players… how?

 

[Troo]

19 minutes ago, DarionLeonidas said:

Understand, I have about forty Level 50s and more on the way. I play them all, and I’ve accumulated roughly a dozen extra Transcendent Merits to use for their Tier 3 and Tier 4 advancements and for those soon-to-become Incarnates.

 

New Incarnate abilities might be on the horizon. I'm not saying horde your Empyrean but a new use may be approaching fyi.

 

Currently EMs can be transferred to another character on the same account.

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Troo

[Grouchybeast]

8 hours ago, DarionLeonidas said:

Along the way, I get them their Set Enhancements, which I usually buy with cash on the Market. Often I buy Enhancement Boosters, which can only be purchased with Reward Merits.

 

I have so many Empyrean Merits because they’re easier to get than threads. Three Hamidon raids with three characters will net 12 Emps. Practically no Threads will. One of those, but those can be acquired in Rikti Mothership Raids, though not nearly as fast as empyreans, given the ratio needed of Threads to Empyrean Merits.

 

Boosters can also be purchased on the Auction House.

 

If you're short of Threads and have excess Emp Merits, Emps can be converted into Threads.

[battlewraith]

16 hours ago, DarionLeonidas said:

Now, unless I’m very much mistaken — and I hope I am — they become completely useless.

So, to return to my point, I’d like to understand how my use of Empyreans was do abusive as to warrant them losing a huge portion of their worth?

As for the other reasons, given that Empyrean Merits cannot be converted, traded or sold, this perceived abuse was grossly unfair to other players… how?

 

 

As other people have noted, they aren't completely worthless. I you were using them, like I was, as an additional source of income to outfit new characters--they are strongly devalued. There are things you can do, if you're willing to put up with the additional hassle, to convert them to inf. Is it worth it, I don't know.

 

As for your main question--why was it necessary to penalize normal players over an outlier farming practice? There were vitriolic arguments on the forums about this issue for over a month. I never saw any concrete answer to your question. 

[Excraft]

15 hours ago, DarionLeonidas said:

So this perceived abuse was grossly unfair to other players… how?

 

It wasn't.  Don't buy the bullshit.

[DarionLeonidas]

21 hours ago, Excraft said:

 

It wasn't.  Don't buy the bullshit.

THANK YOU, EXCRAFT.

 

My point was, like a lot of people, I wasn't "abusing" anything, yet I have to take the hit for a handful who might have been doing something which, in the end, really affected no one but them.

 

This change reads a lot like the removal of double Inf for sacrificing XP. It seems people accumulating lots of game currency is somehow objectionable to them. Otherwise, I don't understand why the Devs feel they need to keep changing the rules of the market, unless somebody is an economics major and is using it as a model for a thesis on economic controls.

If that's the case, then speaking as someone with over 40 years' experience in that area, let me save them some time: Don't.

[golstat2003]

On 8/27/2022 at 7:10 PM, DarionLeonidas said:

I see.

So this perceived abuse was grossly unfair to other players… how?

Understand, I have about forty Level 50s and more on the way. I play them all, and I’ve accumulated roughly a dozen extra Transcendent Merits to use for their Tier 3 and Tier 4 advancements and for those soon-to-become Incarnates.

Along the way, I get them their Set Enhancements, which I usually buy with cash on the Market. Often I buy Enhancement Boosters, which can only be purchased with Reward Merits. When I was short of Reward Merits, I could rely on converting one or two Empyreans to make up the difference.

I have so many Empyrean Merits because they’re easier to get than threads. Three Hamidon raids with three characters will net 12 Emps. Practically no Threads will. One of those, but those can be acquired in Rikti Mothership Raids, though not nearly as fast as empyreans, given the ratio needed of Threads to Empyrean Merits.

And of course, neither Threads nor Empyrean Merits can be bought or sold on the Market, nor can they be traded between accounts. They are locked in to the player who earned them.

And while Threads are eventually relegated to purchasing Super Inspirations, beyond a certain point, Empyreans made for a decent “nest egg” for acquiring Reward Merits.

Now, unless I’m very much mistaken — and I hope I am — they become completely useless.

So, to return to my point, I’d like to understand how my use of Empyreans was do abusive as to warrant them losing a huge portion of their worth?

As for the other reasons, given that Empyrean Merits cannot be converted, traded or sold, this perceived abuse was grossly unfair to other players… how?

 

 

Sorry to see the option go to0. But if you are doing 3 Hamidon raid rounds just choose the Merit Reward option. It will net you 80 + 40 + 40 merits if you stay for all three regular rounds (on Excelsior anyway). There are also bonus Hami raids there on Friday nights and sometimes an Abyss Raid (villainside). Convert the merits to converters, craft uncommon recipes and convert them to Rares to sell on the market.

Edited August 29, 2022 by golstat2003

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, DarionLeonidas said:

This change reads a lot like the removal of double Inf for sacrificing XP.

I never did understand that change. Was a reason ever given? I never saw one.

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

I never did understand that change. Was a reason ever given? I never saw one.

Related to a host of farms that were set at level 49 and some double dipping influence techniques iirc.

[srmalloy]

36 minutes ago, lemming said:

Related to a host of farms that were set at level 49 and some double dipping influence techniques iirc.

Coupled with the fact that, at level 49 (or any level down to 45, but 49 gave the best rewards), the farmers still had their incarnate abilities, pumping them up over straight 49 content.

[@Follies]

They should just remove empyrean merits altogether as the only function they have now is to convert to threads or transfer from one toon to another on the same account. Whereas before now they actually had value. As of now they are another crap form of salvage with little usefulness. About as useful as AE tickets. Why not just increase thread drop rates and do away with them? It’s an extra layer of time waste to fiddle with if you enjoy that sort of thing….which I do not.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, @Follies said:

They should just remove empyrean merits altogether as the only function they have now is to convert to threads or transfer from one toon to another on the same account. Whereas before now they actually had value. As of now they are another crap form of salvage with little usefulness. About as useful as AE tickets. Why not just increase thread drop rates and do away with them? It’s an extra layer of time waste to fiddle with if you enjoy that sort of thing….which I do not.

 

25,000,000 inf* to create rare Incarnate salvage out of threads, plus enough threads to make all of the common and uncommon salvage to combine to the rare.  200,000,000 inf* (4x rare + 100,000,000 inf*) to create very vare Incarnate salvage, plus all of the threads to create the common and uncommon salvage used to make the rares.  Each T3 requires one rare salvage, each T4 requires two T3s, so 250,000,000 inf* total to create a single T4 Incarnate ability.  Six Incarnate abilities, 1,500,000,000 inf*.

 

 

Empyreans aren't going anywhere.  I'll give the ultimate power wedgie to anyone who tries to take them out.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Luminara

[DarionLeonidas]

2 hours ago, Krimson said:

Last I checked, you can still use them to make Tier 3 and Tier 4 Incarnates.

That’s why I said “beyond a certain point”. 
Like gold, they were an objective unit of value useful for Tier 3 and 4 Incarnate powers, Threads and Reward Merits.

Once the bulk of characters had the Tier 3 and 4 powers they wanted, they were still useful for getting Reward Merits for many other things.

[DarionLeonidas]

On 8/28/2022 at 3:55 AM, Grouchybeast said:

 

Boosters can also be purchased on the Auction House.

 

If you're short of Threads and have excess Emp Merits, Emps can be converted into Threads.

So why not continue to let them be converted into Reward Merits? 🤷‍♂️

[DarionLeonidas]

On 8/29/2022 at 2:51 PM, lemming said:

Related to a host of farms that were set at level 49 and some double dipping influence techniques iirc.

So, those of us who never farm and never have are punished because of exploitation by those who do?

Yeah.

That seems  right. 🙄

[lemming]

55 minutes ago, DarionLeonidas said:

So, those of us who never farm and never have are punished because of exploitation by those who do?

Yeah.

That seems  right. 🙄

Economies of scale, and yea, if there's a math loophole, it will probably get fixed.   

[@Follies]

Well Oro arcs do give merits, so the answer would be do this( this is what some would say I’m sure). Of course if a few farmers start abusing Oro then I’m sure the merit rewards in Oro will get removed as well(sarcasm). And yes I am well aware that EM are the prime drivers in incarnate development. But as was  mentioned, once you get all the incarnates slotted you want there is nothing useful to do with them except buy super inspirations and who really needs hundreds of those? I still don’t understand why we can’t add them to the market. At least them we could sell them to someone who may have need of them that is too lazy to play up their 50 to get them incarnate slotted out.

[arcane]

12 hours ago, @Follies said:

But as was  mentioned, once you get all the incarnates slotted you want there is nothing useful to do with them except buy super inspirations and who really needs hundreds of those? 

*IF* you are *ALL* of the following: (1) completely opposed to making alts *AND* (2) completely opposed to having 2+ Incarnate powers for 1 slot  *AND* (3) completely opposed to making the influence gained by selling super inspirations.

 

*THEN*, yeah, your use for Empyreans will be limited now. But your playstyle is so rare/niche now that it’s hardly relevant IMHO.

Edited September 1, 2022 by arcane

[MoonSheep]

12 minutes ago, arcane said:

*IF* you are *ALL* of the following: (1) completely opposed to making alts *AND* (2) completely opposed to having 2+ Incarnate powers for 1 slot  *AND* (3) completely opposed to making the influence gained by selling super inspirations.

 

*THEN*, yeah, your use for Empyreans will be limited now. But your playstyle is so rare/niche now that it’s hardly relevant IMHO.

 

> looks at my login screen of just two alts

 

😛

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

*THEN*, yeah, your use for Empyreans will be limited now. But your playstyle is so rare/niche now that it’s hardly relevant IMHO.

 

There are people on these forums that are toxic and have no tact when it comes to using them. As a player, it's not my job to look at other people's habits and judge them for being "relevant". Relevant to what? What a stupid comment.
 

The game's strength is giving people options and catering to a wide variety of playstyles. The removal of the merit conversion does not make emps useless. But it takes away a valued convenience. So you can still use them--for things you don't want, in ways that are more of a hassle then what you currently do. And in exchange for adapting you get--what? The approval of some twat that thinks you're now more relevant?

[TheZag]

On 8/30/2022 at 9:50 PM, DarionLeonidas said:

So, those of us who never farm and never have are punished because of exploitation by those who do?

Yeah.

That seems  right. 🙄

 

The original plan was to remove vet level xp from AE.  Several farmers didnt want to farm outside of AE for emp merits to convert into reward merits and cried real hard until the devs gave vet xp back to AE.  I guess the vocal few couldnt see that the change was to reduce abusing vet level rewards.  They refused to farm anywhere but in AE and the new fix was to remove the emp to reward merit conversion instead.  So their AE vet levels are still nearly useless but everyone lost the conversion.  

 

I rarely farm and i didnt convert emps before the change so the whole situation was good entertainment for me to read through.  And even after page 4 dropped,  it has been the gift that keeps on giving.

 

 

[Grouchybeast]

5 minutes ago, TheZag said:

The original plan was to remove vet level xp from AE.  Several farmers didnt want to farm outside of AE for emp merits to convert into reward merits and cried real hard until the devs gave vet xp back to AE.  I guess the vocal few couldnt see that the change was to reduce abusing vet level rewards.  They refused to farm anywhere but in AE and the new fix was to remove the emp to reward merit conversion instead.  So their AE vet levels are still nearly useless but everyone lost the conversion.  

 

That seems a little unfair on the farmers.  The biggest objections I saw to the AE vet experience removal was from people who write and play non-farm missions, who didn't want to lose their ability to make post-50 progress in AE outside of dev choice arcs.  Since playing story arcs in AE is its actual intended purpose, it was changed to leave vet XP in AE.