Do some SF's and TF's need a merit boost?

[Shubbie]

Back in the day, some TF's and SF's got mega speeded to the point that the rewards got nerfed so hard that now no one runs them.

I'm looking at you Virgil Tarikoss, and probably some others like Katie .

But VT SF needs A LOT more coordination and planning to get under 45 minutes than running a Citadel and just blitzing the frump out of it, and that gives 3x the merits. 

Its like now , the only thing people want to run are easy TF's with medium merits like Yin or easy peasy ones like Posi's. 

[Ironblade]

47 minutes ago, Shubbie said:

But VT SF needs A LOT more coordination and planning to get under 45 minutes than running a Citadel and just blitzing the frump out of it, and that gives 3x the merits.

 

Citadel probably deserves MORE than triple the merits.  Tarikoss is both easy AND fun.  Citadel is easy in a bad way (kill everything in the mission, now do it again, and again) and a tedious slog.

 

Also, the wiki says Katie Hannon awards 26 merits which, frankly, seems overly generous to me.  Is that figure incorrect?

[Shubbie]

12 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

 

Citadel probably deserves MORE than triple the merits.  Tarikoss is both easy AND fun.  Citadel is easy in a bad way (kill everything in the mission, now do it again, and again) and a tedious slog.

 

Also, the wiki says Katie Hannon awards 26 merits which, frankly, seems overly generous to me.  Is that figure incorrect?

https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Task_Force

7, lol

Yeah but merits need to be based on time spent and Tarikoss is downright painful if you dont have someone who can stealth scout and tt to the foreman and leader, as that map alone would take well over an hour to clear. 

Also that last mission requires stealth to scout out the obelisks.

Its not hard, but if you dont have a team that knows the TF and how to scout and how to WAIT for the scout it can become a painful slog. Citadel you just keep run and burn and still finish it in an hour or a bit more. 

 

After doing both, its way way WAY easier to get a team for citadel and there is much less griping if you didnt recruit a dedicated stealther. 

Edited February 5 by Shubbie

[MoonSheep]

57 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

 

Citadel probably deserves MORE than triple the merits.  Tarikoss is both easy AND fun.  Citadel is easy in a bad way (kill everything in the mission, now do it again, and again) and a tedious slog.

 

Also, the wiki says Katie Hannon awards 26 merits which, frankly, seems overly generous to me.  Is that figure incorrect?

 

citadel needs an overall refresh like some of the other task force commander TFs. it's uncreative and a miserable slog through tiny cramped caves over and over

 

synapse is a similar feel, but at least it has nice maps

[macskull]

Tarikoss gives low merit rewards because it's easily speedable and has been for a long time, but I'm fairly certain people don't do that often anymore and the merit payout has never been adjusted upward to account for it.

[macskull]

4 hours ago, Shubbie said:

https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Task_Force

7, lol

You're using an old, out-of-date wiki. KHTF gives 26 merits.

[Clave Dark 5]

8 hours ago, Shubbie said:

Back in the day, some TF's and SF's got mega speeded to the point that the rewards got nerfed so hard that now no one runs them.

That's on the players, not the game.  Focusing on merit-farming is already reducing this game as it is.

 

We're all wealthy already by now, play what you want and who cares if there's a few less merits?  Maybe stop speed running too.

[tidge]

26 for Katie Hannon feels right. There is a miserable cave escort mission in there, so it isn't exactly able to be sped through.

[Perfidy]

By and large, unless it's the weekly, I don't think most people assess the number of merits a TF/SF/Trial offers before they consider running it. They think about the time commitment, if it will be fun - those kinds of things. 

It's my opinion certain TFs should be relegated to Ouro and newer revamped versions be available, such as Sister Psyche/Yin. We can still do Sister Psyche's TF through Ouro if we like, or we can do Yin's TF. But, that kind of change takes time and energy. 

In the meantime, nobody is forcing me to do longer, more tedious TF/SFs for the reward I'm looking for. 

I personally would love to earn an Empyrean Merit for various things about the city, rather than only get them through vet levels and incarnate content. They're really the hardest thing to get in my experience. Now, if I could exchange reward merits for emp merits...then I'd be running a lot more TF's, I think, depending on the conversion rate. But, I digress. 

[Ironblade]

21 hours ago, Shubbie said:

https://cityofheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Task_Force

7, lol

 

That wiki is out of date garbage that has never been updated, had gotten infected with malware, and should be avoided at all costs.

 

The Homecoming wiki says, in multiple places, that Katie Hannon awards 26 merits.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Katie_Hannon_Task_Force

 

 

21 hours ago, Shubbie said:

Its not hard, but if you dont have a team that knows the TF and how to scout and how to WAIT for the scout it can become a painful slog. Citadel you just keep run and burn and still finish it in an hour or a bit more. 

 

After doing both, its way way WAY easier to get a team for citadel and there is much less griping if you didnt recruit a dedicated stealther.

 

Huh, difference between shards, maybe?  Because that has not been my experience AT ALL.  I never have any problem recruiting for Tarikoss and rarely stealth any of it and NEVER stealth the final map.

 

Edited February 6 by Ironblade

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Ironblade said:

The Homecoming wiki says, in multiple places, that Katie Hannon awards 26 merits.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Katie_Hannon_Task_Force

Interestingly enough, the wiki is correct, but if you hover over the Katie Hannon TF in LFG, it says 9. (will throw this into the bug pile if it hasn't been noted)

[Frozen Burn]

Eden Trial needs boosted.  It used to be you could skip the walls and switch to a leader that was 50 and fight grey mobs.  It was sped to farm the merits and Titan-Os.  These things have been fixed, so a boost from the 7 merits currently would be nice.  

 

I can't recall if the GMs in the trial give merits too or not.  I think they did at one point but no longer?  Been so long since I've run it.  I know it's the WST this week - hopefully I can find a team that will want to run it AND actually kill the GMs, which are mostly skipped/ignored.  But if they give merits, maybe more people would fight them too.

[Scarlet Shocker]

Katie certainly does not need a merit boost, it's a fun TF and awards a great temp power too.

 

TFs and trials aren't meant to be speed runs. Their original concept was to be a team event that could potentially last a couple of evenings play together. That produced a few practical issues so their progress has been engineered to be significantly faster over the years. Mostly the merit rewards are fine as they are - you don't just get merits and to spoon feed the player base merits even more readily than they are now available would be game breaking and cheapen the events.

 

There might be a case made for increasing them for Citadel and Synapse, but better to rework both those TFs to be less tedious in their own right.

 

The aphorism "if it ain't broke" applies well here.

[InvaderStych]

Not in the TF/SF category, but all of the Story Arcs in First Ward and Night Ward need their merit rewards adjusted. They are only 9 each. IIRC Fireball and Trilogy don't hand out any at all. (wiki doesn't show a Merit payout for them, and it has been a while since I've done them)

 

For reference, a long story arc in a similar level range, The Unity Plague from Jenny Firkins, gives out 43 merits on completion.

 

Nothing is FW/NW is long or difficult to warrant 43 merits, but 9 is too low.

[Snarky]

This is like staring at a fast food menu and wondering about prices 

 

The only real change i want is for Synapse to have it hard coded for every kill all map to be a small one. Got lucky on last PUG Synapse and this happened…50 min and it felt fun.

[eiynp]

I get 'speeding' some of the longer TF/SFs, but I have never understood why people speed such as tarikoss; it's like five missions, three are quick and you're lowbies anyway, just enjoy a nice outdoor map full of mobs to fight.

 

same thing with the final mission; sure you could stealth/teleport to all the obelisks, but that's barely faster than just fighting four or five "extra" groups of ambulatory chicken nuggets. The lengths people will go to in order to avoid playing the videogame are always bizarre to me

[StarseedWarrior]

On 2/5/2024 at 12:35 PM, Shubbie said:

Back in the day, some TF's and SF's got mega speeded to the point that the rewards got nerfed so hard that now no one runs them.

I'm looking at you Virgil Tarikoss, and probably some others like Katie .

But VT SF needs A LOT more coordination and planning to get under 45 minutes than running a Citadel and just blitzing the frump out of it, and that gives 3x the merits. 

Its like now , the only thing people want to run are easy TF's with medium merits like Yin or easy peasy ones like Posi's. 

Hmmm well considering how many alts the majority play I would say yes, in many mmos you don't have so many choices and alt friendliness of this game to be honest, so yea in this way I certainly think it could use an increase. If there where more limited classes then it wouldn't be needed.

Edited February 7 by StarseedWarrior

[StarseedWarrior]

6 minutes ago, eiynp said:

I get 'speeding' some of the longer TF/SFs, but I have never understood why people speed such as tarikoss; it's like five missions, three are quick and you're lowbies anyway, just enjoy a nice outdoor map full of mobs to fight.

 

same thing with the final mission; sure you could stealth/teleport to all the obelisks, but that's barely faster than just fighting four or five "extra" groups of ambulatory chicken nuggets. The lengths people will go to in order to avoid playing the videogame are always bizarre to me

On excel its nothing but blitz through everything, but atleast its effective vs my experience elsewhere where people try and blitz but but end up soloing to many groups.  I think the real issue is the lack of pve super groups, if you have a good sg leader they help set the pace of your teams and more. There is hardly enough sgs right now beyond the tight nit rp teams and a few reg pve ones on exc ive seen so far.

Edited February 7 by StarseedWarrior

[eiynp]

I mean I just don't get the motivation; if you're leveling a character you want to be fighting mobs, and if your concern is pure merits/hour you shouldn't be doing (e.g.) tarikoss in the first place. I don't mind going fast per se, I just don't see the point of trying to skip as many mobs as possible

[Ironblade]

7 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

Not in the TF/SF category, but all of the Story Arcs in First Ward and Night Ward need their merit rewards adjusted. They are only 9 each. IIRC Fireball and Trilogy don't hand out any at all. (wiki doesn't show a Merit payout for them, and it has been a while since I've done them)

Frankly, there is a lot of content that needs to have the merit rewards adjusted.  As an example, on a strong soloing character, I can run the first chapter of the first Signature Story Arc in about 5-1/2 minutes.  Running the final chapter, on the game character, takes about 40 minutes.  Yet they have the exact same reward table.

 

Rather than the current system where the default is 5 merits, but you get quadruple merits once per week, each chapter should have a base merit reward based on average completion time with a once-per-week bonus of perhaps 15.

[Ironblade]

1 hour ago, eiynp said:

I get 'speeding' some of the longer TF/SFs, but I have never understood why people speed such as tarikoss; it's like five missions, three are quick and you're lowbies anyway,

 

1 hour ago, eiynp said:

I mean I just don't get the motivation; if you're leveling a character you want to be fighting mobs, and if your concern is pure merits/hour you shouldn't be doing (e.g.) tarikoss in the first place.

 

But what if you're NOT playing lowbies and you're NOT there for the merits?

When the task force is a weekly target, level 50 characters get a Notice of the Well and progress on the assisting badges.  So there is absolutely a set of players who are there for the Notices or badges.  I can't begin to speculate what percentage of the task force runners this applies to, but some of the people doing the weeklies definitely fall into this category.

[Excraft]

To be honest, I'd rather that older, slogfest TFs like Synapse and Citadel get a refresh rather than a straight merit boost.  HC could more than quadruple the merits for Citadel and I still wouldn't run it unless I wanted the badge for the accolade. 

[Shubbie]

On 2/7/2024 at 11:44 AM, eiynp said:

I mean I just don't get the motivation; if you're leveling a character you want to be fighting mobs, and if your concern is pure merits/hour you shouldn't be doing (e.g.) tarikoss in the first place. I don't mind going fast per se, I just don't see the point of trying to skip as many mobs as possible

50's run these for the merits, notice and such.

[Shubbie]

My big gripe is for an average Team, Tarikoss takes 40 minutes or so, and a 13 merits is beyond pitifully low for that time investment, so for now.. no more running it. 

[Nightmarer]

I'd like to see a few TF's revamped and made fun, that'd make people worry far less about Merits. Citadel is painful, but Synapse is far more painful. Numina is also boring with those time wasting hunts and stuff. I'd like to see the three of them only available in Ouroboros and replaced by much better versions, fun versions. Merits are secondary, for merits, Tinpex can be sped daily as well as ITF all three can be completed in less than an hour for 106 merits, throw in MLTF and LGTF which can also be really fast with the right team and allow lower TFs for people levelling outside PD farms (which seem to be the minority tbh) to have fun.