A relook at MSR rewards

[MsSmart]

As of lately, I have "heard" many complaints that exp has been nurfed for this event, which I tend to believe its not so, its just the composition of the players in the MSR has resulted with reduced DPS, which results with reduced kills and thus reduced exp, inf, etc.

 

I would gather that many folks use MSR for usually one of 2 purposes, the first is to get vanguard merits for pet acquisition, the second is to use to level low level alts towards the magic 50.

 

So it occurs to me, that many repeatable high value TFs tend to half the gains on the second pass, and once again on the third and subsequent...

 

So why not double the exp, inf and vanguard merits on the first pass, when repeated the merit gains, exp and inf gain drop to normal rates, and the third there are no merit gains and exp and inf are now halved, and keep every subsequent repeat

 

By allowing players to get their needs satisfied quicker, it releases players to participate with others to do other game content

 

 

[MsSmart]

Oh common Rudra, you can do better than that...

[Bob]

I strongly disagree with your sentiment.  

 

If the event is made even better than it already is, it will not release people to do other activities, they will simply continue to do more of that activity.  Most of the reward happens from the kills after the actual objective is completed.  So at what point does the event flag a person for having completed it before the kill rewards are nerfed?  And how do you nerf vanguard merit earning per kill if it is giving 1 per kill anyway?  

 

MSR (and similarly, ToT) is plagued by a bunch of leechers.  Absolutely no point in making better an event that, frankly, has half the league (or less) actually fully participating once in the 'bowl'.  

 

You are wrong about the common problem being a compositional one.  It is absolutely a lack of participation that causes such disparity in reward from league to league.   Team to team can be, but so long as 2 actual dps are in each team, they 'should' be capable of tagging almost everything themselves... if they play.

Edited October 10 by Bob

[biostem]

I've found that "ramp heroes", who try to engage the spawns far away from the central cluster of players, tend to hamper things more than low-level players - since even such low level players will usually have at least 2 ranged attacks that they can cycle pretty quickly, and with the number of buffs flying around, almost all will hit...

Edited October 10 by biostem

[Lunar Ronin]

6 minutes ago, biostem said:

I've found that "ramp heroes", who try to engage the spawns far away from the central cluster of players, tend to hamper things more than low-level players - since even such low level players will usually have at least 2 ranged attacks that they can cycle pretty quickly, and with the number of buffs flying around, almost all will hit...

 

Gravity Controller or Dominator with a large supply of Ultimate inspirations solves that problem.  Just keep Wormholing Rikti from the ramps into the middle of the bowl.

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Just keep Wormholing Rikti from the ramps into the middle of the bowl.

Oh no doubt, and those that are on top of things, with wormhole or fold space like you've indicated, are a huge help, but the fact still remains that there are some, for whatever reason, that just love to keep inching up those ramps...  

[CoeruleumBlue]

31 minutes ago, Bob said:

I strongly disagree with your sentiment.  

 

If the event is made even better than it already is, it will not release people to do other activities, they will simply continue to do more of that activity.  Most of the reward happens from the kills after the actual objective is completed.  So at what point does the event flag a person for having completed it before the kill rewards are nerfed?  And how do you nerf vanguard merit earning per kill if it is giving 1 per kill anyway?  

 

MSR (and similarly, ToT) is plagued by a bunch of leechers.  Absolutely no point in making better an event that, frankly, has half the league (or less) actually fully participating once in the 'bowl'.  

 

You are wrong about the common problem being a compositional one.  It is absolutely a lack of participation that causes such disparity in reward from league to league.   Team to team can be, but so long as 2 actual dps are in each team, they 'should' be capable of tagging almost everything themselves... if they play.

 

Yes. This is also why it's hard to find people to do the Zombie Apocalypse event with, because you can't just leech on it, even though I want as many zombie apocalypse badges as I can get since they would be nice on many of my characters. 

[JKCarrier]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

Oh no doubt, and those that are on top of things, with wormhole or fold space like you've indicated, are a huge help, but the fact still remains that there are some, for whatever reason, that just love to keep inching up those ramps...  

 

Any time I've done MSR with a melee character, it was damn near impossible to actually close in on an opponent in the bowl. So I can see why people might start picking off targets on the perimeter instead.

[Bob]

1 hour ago, JKCarrier said:

 

Any time I've done MSR with a melee character, it was damn near impossible to actually close in on an opponent in the bowl. So I can see why people might start picking off targets on the perimeter instead.

Well, we aren't talking taking a step up a bit to get some hits.  Meeting the enemies half way up or all the way up top just slows things down.

 

Either way, the reality is that people join someone else's raid group, then they need to listen.  If they want a far less rewarding timesink, then by all means, they can host their own.

[Ghost]

10 hours ago, Bob said:

 

Either way, the reality is that people join someone else's raid group, then they need to listen.  If they want a far less rewarding timesink, then by all means, they can host their own.

Listen to what?

Any MSR I’ve been a part of consists of my chat filling with non-stop bad jokes.

Are there instructions in there somewhere?

[tidge]

20 hours ago, MsSmart said:

So why not double the exp, inf and vanguard merits on the first pass, when repeated the merit gains, exp and inf gain drop to normal rates, and the third there are no merit gains and exp and inf are now halved, and keep every subsequent repeat

 

Homecoming already scaled back the MSR rewards (w.r.t. Vanguard merit conversion) once; it is unlikely that they'd boost rewards for MSR. There is no shortage of methods for players to get similar rewards... obviously low level characters have it harder, but it isn't impossible. For example, Ghost Falcon's mission can be farmed for Vanguard Merits.

 

I disagree with the sentiment that (m)any players want to re-run MSR consecutively. The pylon phase at least requires movement, the bomb-phase is helter-skelter so quick as it is a blink-and-miss-it, and the bowl phase is not much different than a do-nothing sit-and-farm. Some of us have turned the Drop Ship hunt into something a little different. 

 

20 hours ago, MsSmart said:

So it occurs to me, that many repeatable high value TFs tend to half the gains on the second pass, and once again on the third and subsequent...

 

I'm not sure what is being considered here? Weeklies are "once a week", only the first play of the week includes double rewards, after that rewards are the same as always..

SSA repeats, are sort of like weeklies, except the first repeat is 4x merits and the non-standard merit rewards are 1-per week too. There is a little bit of Reward shenanigans related to Giant Monster defeats, but those not on a rewards timer still drop same rewards (MMV by Inf, but Giant Monsters a poor source of Inf anyway). Market Crash has a special reward that is first-time only, but otherwise the rewards for repeats (modulo weekly) are the same.

[Triumphant]

I don't know why people do it now, whatever the rewards might be.  If the rewards were doubled, I still would not do it.  It remains one of the most boring raids in the game.  Spend 3 seconds per pylon, knocking them down.  Set the bomb to get past the shields.  Spend an interminable amount of time in a huge glob, in the middle of the mothership, hammering buttons until the mission ends.

*Yawn*

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, Triumphant said:

Set the bomb to get past the shields. 

Knocking down the pylons drops the shield; as far as I know, breaking the grates and setting bombs just summons U'kon G'rai — I think summoning and defeating him is peripheral to the raid proper, and you can carry on with the raid without setting any bombs; you miss out on the merits and badge progress, but it won't affect the rest of the raid. 

[Lunar Ronin]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

Knocking down the pylons drops the shield; as far as I know, breaking the grates and setting bombs just summons U'kon G'rai — I think summoning and defeating him is peripheral to the raid proper, and you can carry on with the raid without setting any bombs; you miss out on the merits and badge progress, but it won't affect the rest of the raid. 

 

Half true, half not.  After the final Rikti pylon is destroyed, you have ten minutes on the clock before the mothership raid ends.

 

• Planting the first bomb will extend the timer three minutes for a total of thirteen.
• If you have fewer than 25 people on a mothership raid league, planting the second bomb spawns U'Kon Gr'ai and adds an additional ten minutes onto the clock for a total of 23 minutes.
• If there are 25 or more people on a mothership raid league, planting a second bomb adds an additional three minutes for a total of sixteen minutes.
• If you have 25 or more people on a mothership raid league, planting a third bomb spawns U'Kon Gr'ai and adds an additional ten minutes onto the clock for a total of 26 minutes. 
• Defeating U'Kon Grai adds an additional five minutes onto the clock for a total of either 28 minutes if you have fewer than 25 people on the mothership raid league, or a total of 31 minutes if you have 25 or more people on the mothership raid league.

[Ukase]

A fool may be considered wise if he keeps silent. And yet, when they open their mouth, any doubt is removed. - a horribly botched version of a couple of bible verses. 

Allow me to confirm my stupidity by opining on this suggestion. 

The HVAS pet being available via VG merits is wise. It is the only reason I participate. That, and maybe some stale joke Okie is likely to share. And occasionally, I share my own, making players groan, and likely put me on ignore, which kind of makes everything worthwhile. 

To limit the rewards, how would I get my HVAS then? 250 vg merits is sufficiently high enough to kind of make the msr mandatory to earn them. The problem is - I seem to only use them in msrs, or maybe the labyrinth on a Sunday. (when we go the full hour)

I've experienced some msrs when my level 44 would barely get a level, and others where my 46 would get 2 levels. It varies widely, because teammates kill speeds vary widely. (pet peeve of mine is one of the reasons why) 
 

What msr really needs is a reason for players to pay more attention so going afk results in league wipes. It's really that simple. 
 

 

[srmalloy]

4 hours ago, Ukase said:

I've experienced some msrs when my level 44 would barely get a level, and others where my 46 would get 2 levels. It varies widely, because teammates kill speeds vary widely. (pet peeve of mine is one of the reasons why) 

That's an argument for having the league rewards code looked at to change it so that, instead of XP and rewards being shared out within your team, they're shared out evenly among the entire league. This would likely need to have the reward rate reduced a bit to keep the Vmerit and other drops close to where they are now, but it would be a more equitable arrangement. Of course, this would allow leechers to benefit more from being in a league in a wide-area fight, but that's one of the tasks of the league and team leaders.

[Ukase]

On 10/9/2025 at 7:15 PM, biostem said:

I've found that "ramp heroes", who try to engage the spawns far away from the central cluster of players, tend to hamper things more than low-level players - since even such low level players will usually have at least 2 ranged attacks that they can cycle pretty quickly, and with the number of buffs flying around, almost all will hit...

What are you saying here? What difference does it make where the players choose to stand to attack the rikti? The sole purpose of leaving the bowl is to engage the rikti. You should only return to the bowl for buffs, not remain in the bowl. The players in the bowl are generally the folks who are afk with powers on auto-fire. And it's not like you can actually target specific rikti like magus or priests within the central cluster, because they don't render visible until you're within 50 feet of them or so. 

Most players just spawn their HVAS, and target through it with an attack on auto-fire. Any player fighting on the ramps is a bonus, not a detriment. It means they're actually playing, unlike the lazy folks spamming that one power on auto-fire. At least, that's what I see when I msr. I'm always on the ramps because that's where the rikti are, except for when they spawn in the bowl - and that's when I use judgement and other nukes in the bowl. But the rest of the time - go out and clobber the rikti. There's no added value by sitting there and hoping you get to find and target one, except when they spawn on top of you - which isn't often enough. 

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

The players in the bowl are generally the folks who are afk with powers on auto-fire.

Huh. And here I thought we were the supports and ranged characters huddling together for mutual support while shooting Rikti with our ranged attacks.

 

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

And it's not like you can actually target specific rikti like magus or priests within the central cluster, because they don't render visible until you're within 50 feet of them or so. 

Yes, you can. You hit TAB to target foes you can't directly see or click. On the rare occasions I do an MSR, that is what I do. Someone calls out a Rikti Priest or Magus in a direction and I can't see the target to click for any reason? I tab to the target and start shooting it.

 

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

Most players just spawn their HVAS, and target through it with an attack on auto-fire.

Or maybe they are targeting through their HVAS to be able to shoot targets that can't be player targeted yet like we do in invasion events.

 

Edit: The rare MSRs I've been on, the raid leader would routinely remind melees to not go far up the ramps and pull mobs back to the bowl. So your response is doubly confusing to me. The bulk of MSR fighting is centered on the bowl in my experience.

 

Edited Monday at 05:12 PM by Rudra

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

And it's not like you can actually target specific rikti like magus or priests within the central cluster, because they don't render visible until you're within 50 feet of them or so. 

Most players just spawn their HVAS, and target through it with an attack on auto-fire.

Don't forget the idiotic render limit — I've forgotten how many times I've been attacking a mob on a ramp or the sides of the bowl and had them disappear because more Rikti were porting into the bowl, causing the game to recompute which mobs should be visible to you, and because the mob sixty feet away you're shooting at is farther away than the mob porting in thirty feet behind you, your target gets reaped from the 'visible mobs' list and becomes not only invisible but untargetable.

 

Targeting through an HVAS isn't much use to melee ATs, though, so you're painting with an overly-broad brush here. And even when targeting through an HVAS, you do more damage (getting you more XP) by rotating through your ranged attacks than just standing there spamming your T1 attack. 

[Ukase]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

Huh. And here I thought we were the supports and ranged characters huddling together for mutual support while shooting Rikti with our ranged attacks.

Some are doing just that. A fair number are not, only checking back in to keep from getting logged out. 

 

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

Yes, you can. You hit TAB to target foes you can't directly see or click. On the rare occasions I do an MSR, that is what I do. Someone calls out a Rikti Priest or Magus in a direction and I can't see the target to click for any reason? I tab to the target and start shooting it.

Sure. I just drop blizzard on a target and hit 2 or 3 critters. That's horribly inefficient. It's far better to see when a group are running in after a tank and drop it on them. If there are no larger groups, then sure, tab away. But in my experience, I have to look for the groups - because they don't come into the bowl. They stop at the rim and use ranged attacks, except for the ones that spawn into the bowl. 

 

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

The rare MSRs I've been on, the raid leader would routinely remind melees to not go far up the ramps and pull mobs back to the bowl.

Pulling the Rikti literally into the bowl is nigh impossible when I'm the tank. There tends to be multiple tanks per "alley-ways" so sometimes you have to go way out to try and bring the Rikti to the bowl. But they always stop at the rim, even when I would essentially crawl at a snails pace, taunting the whole time, slapping them with some ranged attack like Laser Beam Eyes. And that's with a tank with 6 slotted and +5 boosted taunt. I see an occasional ice tank have slightly better luck, but not much better. Now, that's just my anecdotal experience when I'm on a tank. On a ranged character, I will target through the hvas when tab is picking up the drop ship instead of a rikti npc. But I try to use tab, but usually those targets are way beyond the ramp and up at the next level by the grates. And for the ones on the rims, those are the ones I will smack with any attack that's handy. Generally the ones I have proc'd. And because I can only see them when I'm close to them, that means going up on the ramp. 

Perhaps there is some "approved" way to do an msr that I'm not hearing about. 
I do hear leaders/(and non-leaders) urging tanks/taunters/pullers to bring the rikti into the bowl. Fold space is largely useless against them in my experience. I guess you have to use an ultimate, but thus far when I've tried the ultimate, 1 showed up, the other 5 or 6 ignored it. So, I stopped trying to use ultimates. 
But while taunt gets their attention, they get too distracted in my experience at the rim with all the targets. And it's all good because they're all dead in a few seconds anyway. In the afternoon msrs, I generally get about 1400-1600 vg merits. Only when the team is short a couple of members or we have a couple of sub-20's do I not get a good amount of them. 

If I'm doing it wrong, so far nobody's said a peep. And I would assume that's because I'm not doing it wrong, or they're semi-afk. Many players who aren't afk are doing the same things I am, because I see them doing it. I'm sure there are some sharp players who stick it out in the center and maybe have better graphics and can see them well enough to tag them and continue to tab & fire, tab & fire. But I would venture these are less than half the people on any given raid. And I would also suggest that this can vary from raid to raid. Some raids, I've seen players get much better luck with fold space than I ever did. And when that happens, I don't need to go looking, they come to me. I can drop my AoEs to my heart's content. Maybe they had their fold space three slotted, or maybe they have better accuracy/toHit than my character did. To be transparent, I only tried the ultimate once, and had lackluster results. I can try again next time. 

 

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Perhaps there is some "approved" way to do an msr that I'm not hearing about. 
I do hear leaders/(and non-leaders) urging tanks/taunters/pullers to bring the rikti into the bowl. Fold space is largely useless against them in my experience. I guess you have to use an ultimate, but thus far when I've tried the ultimate, 1 showed up, the other 5 or 6 ignored it. So, I stopped trying to use ultimates. 
But while taunt gets their attention, they get too distracted in my experience at the rim with all the targets. And it's all good because they're all dead in a few seconds anyway. In the afternoon msrs, I generally get about 1400-1600 vg merits. Only when the team is short a couple of members or we have a couple of sub-20's do I not get a good amount of them. 

If I'm doing it wrong, so far nobody's said a peep. And I would assume that's because I'm not doing it wrong, or they're semi-afk. Many players who aren't afk are doing the same things I am, because I see them doing it. I'm sure there are some sharp players who stick it out in the center and maybe have better graphics and can see them well enough to tag them and continue to tab & fire, tab & fire. But I would venture these are less than half the people on any given raid. And I would also suggest that this can vary from raid to raid. Some raids, I've seen players get much better luck with fold space than I ever did. And when that happens, I don't need to go looking, they come to me. I can drop my AoEs to my heart's content. Maybe they had their fold space three slotted, or maybe they have better accuracy/toHit than my character did. To be transparent, I only tried the ultimate once, and had lackluster results. I can try again next time. 

For the record, I did not and am not saying you or anyone else is doing the MSR wrong. So kindly don't put words in my mouth. What I said was what I experience on the rare occasions I do an MSR. Melees that ran up the ramps were told by the raid leader to stop doing so and bring the mobs to the bowl. The mobs never had to enter the bowl itself, they just needed to be in range of the ranged characters gathered in the bowl. Other melees I saw would run around the perimeter of the bowl focusing on finding Rikti Priests and Rikti Magi. Some players I knew had macroes set up to find just the Rikti Priests and Rikti Magi, and would run laps if melee to find them or be spinning in place if ranged to find them. Tankers and Brutes would go up the ramps just enough to taunt and then pull the mobs closer. If other melees were jumping on the targets? The Tankers and Brutes would either go melee them or go grab other Rikti. That is my experience. I am not saying that is the correct way to do it, just what I have always seen on the raids.

 

The entire point of my previous comment was that your comment four up from this one was painting players in the bowl in a very bad light with a very generalized statement like you were lumping everyone gathered in the bowl like they were leeching. And that is very much not my experience. Were there players just sitting AFK with an attack on autofire? I don't know and to be frank, I don't care either. Because I was too busy summoning replacement pets, spamming heals, and throwing attacks as fast as I could juggle those tasks to bother looking. And the few characters that I saw whenever the game auto-turned me for an enemy I have targeted being to the side or behind me? Were throwing heals or attacks or I have no clue what, but were busy doing whatever they were doing.

 

Edited Monday at 08:38 PM by Rudra
Edited to correct "ran" to "run".

[Ukase]

7 minutes ago, Rudra said:

The entire point of my previous comment was that your comment four up from this one was painting players in the bowl in a very bad light with a very generalized statement like you were lumping everyone gathered in the bowl like they were leeching.

That's fair. I shouldn't have stated it like that. In my experience, many players are quite up front about putting this or that power on auto. Mind you, I haven't been told that specifically in a year or so, it's entirely possible those players have moved on or have simply stopped telling me.