Change to Alignment Merit earning/spending

The existing system limits the acquisition of Alignment Merits to 1/20 hours for conversion(50 Merits plus 20 million inf) and 1/40 hours for earning via Morality Mission. For the purposes of discussion, I will call that 3 AMs/2 days, or 1.5 AMs/day. This has the distinct effect of encouraging daily play on a specific character(s), since AMs are non-transferable(as are Merits).

It is the daily part which bugs me. It seems obvious that the goal is to limit how often one can purchase rewards with AMs, especially purple and pvp recipes, the most expensive and rare items. That is fine as a concept. However, wouldn't it make more sense to put a timer on the purchases themselves, and not the earning? As of now, this is how often things can be bought, in terms of days played one one character, either consecutive or non-consecutive:

pvp recipe: 1/20 days
purple recipe: 1/14 days
respec recipe: 1/7 days

Example 1: Player A is able to play for 2 hours each day, or 14 hours each week. This enables him to run his Tip Missions every day on his main, his Alignment Mission every other day, and generate 50 Merits every day for conversion. He will acquire 1.5 AMs/day and 10.5 AMs/week. He can acquire the rewards in the actual number of days above. It will take him 20 real days to earn a pvp recipe.

Example 2: Player B is not able to play during the week. He is able to play for 7 hours each on Saturday and Sunday, or 14 hours each week. This enables him to run 1 full set of Tip Missions plus the Alignment Mission for his main, earning 1 AM. He is able to convert 100 Merits plus 40 million inf for 2 more AMs. He will acquire 3 AMs over those 2 days and 3 AMs/week. It will take him 10 weeks, or 70 real days, to earn a pvp recipe.


Compare that to all other rewards in the game, including xp, inf, recipe/salvage drops, and Merits. For all of those things Player A and Player B could have the same result after their 14 hours of play. With AMs it is impossible. I do not know if it was intentional, but for the first time(?) there is a game system which actively promotes a specific play schedule at the expense of others. Yes, Task Forces do have timers on their rewards as well, but one can always do a different TF or a story arc, and always be producing Merits.

My suggestion: add a timer to the purchase of each item, like the one which is on "Convert Merits" right now. If they do not want a player producing a pvp recipe(on a single character) faster than 1/20 days, set that timer at 20 days. Allow a character to run as many Tip and Alignment Missions as they would like within their existing alignment to earn AMs. This would maintain current time limits on side-switching, while allowing "burst" players like player B above to earn AMs as much as they can during their playtime.

So this system has been out less than 2 weeks on live and suggesting it be changed? Can't the devs collect a little more data?

I also don't understand why player A and B have to be the same. The system as I see it now keeps the power gamers in check and doesn't spread the distribution curve on earning merits as much. If player B just plays the game, he could earn a PvP recipe recipe in 5 minutes by chance just going to a PvP zone, fighting other players. Or Player B could put a bid and wait, which could be bought in <70 days. Or better yet, Player B sounds like a casual player and doesn't care one bit about PvP recipes.

If I had been in beta I would have suggested this then. What meaningful data would be collected?

It does not keep power gamers in check at all, it simply means that every 20 days they will acquire x pvp recipes, where x is the number of characters they have time to grind daily. It does incentivize daily play for those power gamers, so I guess one could argue that it keeps weekend power gamers in check, but not daily ones.

I don't see why you would call player B casual and not player A, they play the same number of hours each week. Players A and B should receive the same reward because they are playing the game for the same length of time. That should be obvious.

1 in 20 days...so that min/maxing powergamer, has gotten 3 whole PvP recipes in 2 months time without PvPing. That really doesn't sound all that OMGish.

Especially when you consider they have to have paid 400million Influence out in that 20 days and still earned 1000 Merits. Now, doing normal content, say an ITF and a LGTF, and getting just one lucky purple drop (maybe 2) could pay for all that...but they're doing the work for it.

Besides that, most PvP sets really do suck. They may be good in PvP zones for the additional set bonuses, but in PvE (Where most players play)...they're not.

+3% Defense PvP IO is nice *nod*

-Resist Proc PvP IO is nice *nod*

Panacea has some nice set bonuses (imo anyways) to go with that additional 7.5 RCH bonus (which is only 2.5% more than a Doctored Wounds set).

Purple IOs, one isn't limited to using one toon to build those up and can still stick to PvE.

As for the casual gamer...if they want to load their toon with IOs but don't have the time for TFs, it just got easier...11 missions in 2 days gives them a Hero (or Villain) Merit. So in 4 days time, they just got ahold of a LotG: +RCH IO at whatever level they want!

This system just made IOing out toons with the normal IO sets so much easier.

Purple IO sets are not all that. They aren't. I love seeing those "I have 5 purple sets!" builds that crumble so quickly.

I wouldn't call myself the casual player. I wouldn't call my builds the casual build. However, my SG is filled with A LOT of casual players, and casual players don't need uber DPS builds that can elliminate everything solo.

What I find most casual players want, is a toon that survives better than it does on SOs (or generic IOs). And for that, all you need is regular IO sets, to get +Defense, +HP...sure some +RCH is nice. But having many of those uber +RCH bonuses are only needed on /Regen Builds and ILL/ Troller Builds in terms of "make me more survivable".

Now if you're talking about the casual PvPer. I'd have to say, if they're casual PvPers (like me) then they should already be used to losing.

I mean what the hell were the devs thinking. Making a system that encourages you to use their product on a regular basis. It's like they want to have more people on all the time to make it easier to find groups and stuff. This is an MMO, people don't run around in groups anymore, sheesh.

/endsarcasticrant

Okay, you have no counter-argument. You are not saying my idea or concern is wrong, you are saying that without data(99% of which the players never see), we players should not be making suggestions at all. By the way, at no point did I say the devs do not datamine, I know they do. In this case, I think the basic principle "time played should equal time played," does not need data to support or refute it. This is not true of the current AM system, so I put forth a suggestion to change it.


Hellincarnate: my main does not have a stockpile of merits, I do earn those every day. As for the inf, yes I have some saved, but if I didn't, it would increase my daily playtime by an hour at most to get 20m.

That 70 day figure is mathematically true. If you're not willing to do a little mental work to keep up with what is being said in the thread, maybe you should stop replying to it. For someone so hung up on data you seem to have a poor grasp of the data that I have provided.

You are saying my suggestion is "poor", but have given no reason for why that is. That is a vague descriptor which in this case is meaningless. The difference between the daily player and the non-daily player who play the same amount of hours over time is in fact "real information."

What I am telling you is that I do in fact do that every day, except for earning 20m inf. I run 5-6 mishes, then 50 merits worth of other stuff, every day, in around 2 hours, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. I think you are vastly overestimating how long it takes to acquire and complete Tip Missions. From logging on, I will have my first Tip within a couple of minutes, and probably have that mission completed within another 5, rinse and repeat. Around 30-40 minutes for all Tip plus Alignment, then about 90 minutes to get 50 Merits. If I choose to do less efficient tfs/arcs it might take a little longer, but that's on me.

Like I said, if I had to earn another 20m inf, it would take another hour tops, so 3 hours. This is not supposition or theory, it is my actual play experience.

My whole premise is, shouldn't someone be able to achieve the same result that I do in 3 days of playing 2 hours /day(6 hours total), by playing one day for 6 hours? It seems pretty simple to me.

What are you running that gets you 50 merits in 90 min?

lgtf+itf

Ok so you can get an ITF and a LGTF together and done in 90 min. While that would not be an issue for the time to complete both of them on speed runs, what would be an issue for your average player would be to get the team together and complete them. Depending on the server and time of day and day of the week it could take anywhere from a few min to half an hour, sometimes more just to get a team together. If you do not have a group of friends that are on all the time, getting a PUG together for a LGTF can take longer than the TF itself.

I am willing to bet that you and I are not the average player. We both can get those things done pretty fast most of the time. But for your average player, 2 hours a day is not enough time to get all that done, at least not on a regular basis.

But let's pretend for a moment that it is. Player A does 2 hours a day for 6 days a week. Player B does 6 hours, 2 times a week. There is nothing stopping Player B from playing 3 different toons and ending up with the same results over time. Granted it will take 3 times as long to cash in for a pvp recipie, but he will get his pick of 3 pvp recipies in the same amount of play time that it would take Player A to get the same 3 pvp recipies.

This is all assuming that Player A and Player B even should be getting the same rewards. Should we adjust merit rewards for for Player B because he plays on Pinnacle in the middle of the night? Because Player A plays at peak times on Freedumb and is able to find teams for TFs faster so that would only be fair so that they can get the same rewards for the same amount of play time.