Flashback Favors Blueside?

[Erratic1]

Doing more flashback missions of late, and it seems to me the rewards are more generous on the hero side of things than they are redside.

 

Is there some reason for this?

[Luminara]

Merits are rewarded according to average measured completion times.  Villain story arcs, which were designed without the over-reliance on filler missions typical of hero story arcs, are completed more quickly, on average, resulting in lower rewards.

 

In other words, you can run one stupidly long hero arc or run three to five villain arcs in the same period of time, and the cumulative rewards should be roughly comparable.

[Erratic1]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

Merits are rewarded according to average measured completion times.  Villain story arcs, which were designed without the over-reliance on filler missions typical of hero story arcs, are completed more quickly, on average, resulting in lower rewards.

 

In other words, you can run one stupidly long hero arc or run three to five villain arcs in the same period of time, and the cumulative rewards should be roughly comparable.

 

Blueside: The Rise of the Vampyri rewards 42 merits requiring 7 Door Missions (1 Defeat All), 3 Hunts in the level 30-34 range.

Redside: To get 42 merits you would need to combine Lost and Found (5 Door Missions [1 Defeat All], 1 Talk) for 20 merits with Into Valhalla (4 Door Missions [1 Defeat All], 2 Hunt) for 15 merits and Taming the Tigeress (2 Door Missions [1 Defeat All], 1 Hunt) for 7 merits.

 

7 Door Missions + 3 Hunts versus 11Door Missions, 2 Hunts, and 1 Talk. Seems to favor Blue side.

 

Blueside has The Unity Plauge for 42 merits requiring 6 Door Missions (2 Defeat All), 8 Talks. For 6 Door missions with 2 Defeat Alls on Redside same 30-34 level range, you could do both Strange Memories and Nictus Dissection and also have to do a Hunt mission and only end up with 15 merits. If Blueside is getting an extra 27 merits for 8 Talk missions, that seems like a strikingly good deal.

[Ukase]

Supposedly, back on retail, the Paragon Devs would data mine the length of time various tfs and such would take and base the reward merits on those timers. 

Most folks who played red side back then had already conquered blue side, so went red for something different. It's probably NOT fair for me to say, but my hunch is a lot of those folks were fairly competent in playing their characters, even though MMs, Brutes, Corruptors and Dominators and VEATs were newer ATs. So, they probably went a little faster, on average. That's just at theory of mine, mind you. 

I personally think Blue side is preferable, simply because there are more zones and more content. More options. Thankfully we have Null who makes changing alignments instant, so there really are no barriers to content for anyone, except for those gated by level. 

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Blueside: The Rise of the Vampyri rewards 42 merits requiring 7 Door Missions (1 Defeat All), 3 Hunts in the level 30-34 range.

Redside: To get 42 merits you would need to combine Lost and Found (5 Door Missions [1 Defeat All], 1 Talk) for 20 merits with Into Valhalla (4 Door Missions [1 Defeat All], 2 Hunt) for 15 merits and Taming the Tigeress (2 Door Missions [1 Defeat All], 1 Hunt) for 7 merits.

 

7 Door Missions + 3 Hunts versus 11Door Missions, 2 Hunts, and 1 Talk. Seems to favor Blue side.

 

Blueside has The Unity Plauge for 42 merits requiring 6 Door Missions (2 Defeat All), 8 Talks. For 6 Door missions with 2 Defeat Alls on Redside same 30-34 level range, you could do both Strange Memories and Nictus Dissection and also have to do a Hunt mission and only end up with 15 merits. If Blueside is getting an extra 27 merits for 8 Talk missions, that seems like a strikingly good deal.

 

If you're defining all missions of a similar type (e.g. Defeat All) as identical in map, enemy group, spawn composition, location and travel time, then yes, there's a discrepancy which favors hero missions.

 

But all missions aren't identical, so that would be an erroneous conclusion.  Even within a type, the completion times of different missions can vary wildly.  In this mission, for example, you're directed to a warehouse map for a Defeat Boss mission.  The map has one room and one spawn.  For most characters, the mission can be completed in less than a minute.  Contrast that with the infamous Cake Room cave maps (there are a few variations of the map itself), which are also often used for Defeat Boss missions, and can take 15-90 minutes to complete because you not only have to reach the Cake Room, which can take several minutes by itself, you also have to defeat everything in the Cake Room, which has double-digit spawn points.

 

Average completion times for arcs were datamined for use in determining merit rewards.  CoV arcs have lower merit rewards because they can be completed more quickly.  The maps are smaller, less convoluted, spawn points less spread out, and the doors are more frequently in the same zone as the contact.  In The Unity Plague, those eight contacts to whom you're directed are in eight different zones.  CoV doesn't do that.  You might be sent to a different zone, or even to that door in Nerva, but you're not sent on a global tour like you would be in hero arcs.

[High_Beam]

29 minutes ago, Luminara said:

You might be sent to a different zone, or even to that door in Nerva, but you're not sent on a global tour like you would be in hero arcs.

Remember, Numina hates you all.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, High_Beam said:

You might be sent to a different zone, or even to that door in Nerva, but you're not sent on a global tour like you would be in hero arcs.

 

Might be more meaningful back in the day when travel was harder. Not sure. No hero arc I've done so far has felt horrible.

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, High_Beam said:

Remember, Numina hates you all.

Not as much as the complete failure of machine efficiency that has Citadel bouncing you back and forth between Independence Port and Talos Island over and over and over and over again, instead of resolving issues in one zone, then the other, then being sent to defeat Vandal. I'm sorry, Citadel, but you've been handing out a completely pessimal plan to clear Council bases leading up to the defeat of Vandal since forever, and you need to figure out what you're doing wrong.

[High_Beam]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

Not as much as the complete failure of machine efficiency that has Citadel bouncing you back and forth between Independence Port and Talos Island over and over and over and over again, instead of resolving issues in one zone, then the other, then being sent to defeat Vandal. I'm sorry, Citadel, but you've been handing out a completely pessimal plan to clear Council bases leading up to the defeat of Vandal since forever, and you need to figure out what you're doing wrong.

Fascists make no sense so they would clearly confound a logical thinking machine-person.

[Without_Pause]

5 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Might be more meaningful back in the day when travel was harder. Not sure. No hero arc I've done so far has felt horrible.

I've done IP contacts and been on teams with IP contacts as well. I would certainly disagree with this statement. Even traveling within IP can be an issue. 

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

I've done IP contacts and been on teams with IP contacts as well. I would certainly disagree with this statement. Even traveling within IP can be an issue. 

 

Which Flashback missions are you referring to?

[Without_Pause]

They aren't done via Flashback. I can't recall the contact I had. It certainly felt like every mission was in a different zone. IIRC, if the arc doesn't offer a badge, it won't be in a Flashback, but then I can't recall if there was one or not. I've soloed enough of both sides and CoV is much more streamlined. I can hit at least level 20, before I get a mission outside of the zone I'm in. 

[MoonSheep]

9 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Not as much as the complete failure of machine efficiency that has Citadel bouncing you back and forth between Independence Port and Talos Island over and over and over and over again, instead of resolving issues in one zone, then the other, then being sent to defeat Vandal. I'm sorry, Citadel, but you've been handing out a completely pessimal plan to clear Council bases leading up to the defeat of Vandal since forever, and you need to figure out what you're doing wrong.

 

citadel is a killer for those repeat kill all small cave missions

 

synapse is also repetitive, but at least the maps are a lot more enjoyable

[Ukase]

17 hours ago, Luminara said:

even to that door in Nerva

I wish that new teleport power would just take us there. It's one of the reasons I usually avoid redside.