Adjust Rewards for BAF to Make them Equivalent to the Past

[BlackSpectre]

The rewards, specifically the Merit Rewards, for completing a BAF are a bit low compared to what they were before the adjustments in Issue 27 Page 4. I know an attempt was made to balance the rewards so they would be more or less equivalent to what they were before the changes, but they could use a little tweaking... 

 

REWARDS PRIOR TO PAGE 4:

 

Every 20 hours:

1 Empyrean Merit

 

1 Astral Merit per BAF after the first

1 Astral Merit for defeating Nightstar

1 Astral Merit if less than 20 prisoners escaped

1 Astral Merit for defeating Siege

1 Astral Merit for running as an open league (not locked)

1 Astral Merit if the requirements for a badge are fulfilled (up to 4)

   * Not On My Watch - prevent every prisoner from escaping

   * Alarm Raiser - no towers were deactivated

   * Gotta Keep ‘’em Separated - Siege and Nightstar defeated each time where they spawned

   *Strong and Pretty - defeating AVs while no minions are spawned/alive

 

1 piece of incarnate salvage per BAF completed

Incarnate Threads

Psychic Incarnate Experience to unlock incarnate slots

 

REWARDS AFTER PAGE 4:

 

Every 18 hours:

1 Prismatic Particle

18 Reward Merits

1 Empyrean Merit

 

1 Astral Merit per BAF after the first

1 Astral Merit for defeating Nightstar

1 Astral Merit if less than 20 prisoners escaped

1 Astral Merit for defeating Siege

1 Astral Merit for running as an open league (not locked)

1 Astral Merit if the requirements for a badge are fulfilled (up to 4)

* Not On My Watch - prevent every prisoner from escaping

* Alarm Raiser - no towers were deactivated

* Gotta Keep ‘’em Separated - Siege and Nightstar defeated each time where they spawned

*Strong and Pretty - defeating AVs while no minions are spawned/alive

 

2 Reward Merits per Astral Merit awarded from completing a badge achievement requirements

 

1 piece of incarnate salvage per BAF completed

Incarnate Threads

Psychic Incarnate Experience to unlock incarnate slots

 

 

THE REQUESTED CHANGE:

The part that needs to be adjusted is the amount of Reward Merits awarded for completing a BAF after the first completion. 

 

Prior to Page 4, players received 1 Astral Merit (AM) for completing the BAF, 1 AM for defeating Nightstar, 1 AM for defeating Siege, 1 AM for preventing 20 prisoners from escaping, 1 AM for not deactivating any towers... and sometimes 1 AM for preventing all prisoners from escaping. The total AM reward per BAF amounts to 5-6 AMs per run.

 

Perviously, players were able to convert those AMs to Reward Merits. 5 AMs equaled 10 Reward Merits. This means players earned 10 Reward Merits per run (if they didn't want to convert them to Emp Merits for incarnate salvage). After Page 4, however, players can no longer convert AMs to Reward Merits.

 

Page 4 added the ability to receive 2 reward merits per badge achievement. That means that players will receive only 2 Reward Merits per BAF run after the first, since Alarm Raiser is typically the only badge achievement consistently completed in a BAF run.  That's a lot less than 10 Reward Merits per run.... well, 8 less to be exact.

 

What I recommend is this:

Reduce the number of Reward Merits earned for the first BAF run every 18 hours from 18 RMs to 10 RMs. 1 Emp Merit was equivalent to 10 Reward Merits, so that's right on the money.

 

After the first BAF, just make sure the players are able to get 10 reward merits per run. If you want to keep the 2 extra reward merits for badges, then simply add 8 Reward Merits for the completion of each BAF. .. or you could just award 2 Reward Merits for every Astral Merit earned. Either way, it still amounts to 10 Reward Merits... and that's the mark you want to hit.

 

Task Forces, Trials, and other missions that award Reward Merits in general give about 30 Reward Merits per hour. That's the typical exchange rate in City of Heroes for time spent (there are a few exceptions, but the vast majority follow this rule). BAF takes about 20 minutes to complete, which means if we follow this rule it should earn players 10 Reward Merits per run. BAF used to follow this rule, but after Page 4 it no longer does.

 

After Page 4, doing 1 BAF per day will give  a player approximately what they would get before Page 4... however, after the first BAF the rewards drop to only 20% of what players used to get. Losing 80% of your Reward Merit income from BAFs is a pretty big reduction. A bit too much. Frankly, 10 Reward Merits per run is only an average payout. It's not what I would call a good deal or even a good return for time spent. It's just average. Nothing special.

 

I don't know if it's attempting to incentivize players to only run 1 BAF per day, and no more, but that is basically the end result. Maybe we want to encourage players to do other incarnate trials other than BAF, and it's not a bad goal, but don't we also want to encourage players to LEAD more than 1 BAF per day? Not having a BAF running severely hinders players' ability to gain their incarnate powers. We want a BAF running at all times if possible. I'd imagine the game would want to incentivize people to lead BAFs, not discourage them as Page 4 does.

 

In my view, BAF has 4 big advantages over other incarnate trials... 1) no Alpha slot requirement, 2) allows a big league of 24 players, 3) is exciting and has tons of special effects gong on, and 4) takes only 20 minutes to complete. There are no other incarnate trials quite as good for casual players with a limited amount of game time. The Dark Astoria arc is only good for 8 players or less (and can be done solo), can be completed in about 15-20 min, but it lacks the camaraderie, special effects, and team spirit that BAF has. Good for some players but not most. The same can be said for LAM. And that's about the only incarnate trials that take less than 45 min-1 hour to complete. 

 

So... please restore the ability for players to earn 20 Reward Merits for the first run, and 10 Reward Merits for every run thereafter. 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by BlackSpectre

[Uun]

Your issue seems to be the 18-hour lockout on Reward Merits, not the actual number of Reward Merits received for a single run. IMO, nobody runs BAF for the Reward Merits. They run it for the incarnate salvage. For new level 50s that don't have their incarnate slots unlocked or filled yet, it's a very easy trial that gets them the components to do that. Regardless of the lockout, it's quite common for leaders to run 2-3 BAFs in a row (sometimes for the badges, sometimes not). If you're looking for Reward Merits, there are far more efficient ways to get them. You can run Tin Mage and Apex back to back inside of 30 minutes and get 80 Reward Merits (as well as 2 incarnate salvage rolls).

[BlackSpectre]

Yes I know.  There are far more lucrative sources for Reward Merits. 
 

Every little bit helps, and believe it or not it adds up over time. 
 

I don’t have an issue with the 18 hr lockout  if they removed that then we’d get double the amount of reward merits per run than we had before.  I’m not asking for that. I’m merely asking to make the amount of Reward Merits the same that it used to be, no more. 
 

in the patch notes the Devs make it a point to let us know that we’ll be getting an equivalent amount of reward merits as before Page 4. That’s true for the first run only. After the first run it’s an 80% cut. Not equivalent at all.