To Merit badges or not to merit badges, this is the question

[Vanins]

Sparkle in Discord posted a list of events that trigger a merit badge compensation. They are:

Weekly Merchant day events and other events (i.e. dragon event)
Temporary events rewards
some quests from the daily contracts, randomly, basically rifts, abyssal, mistmerrow. This is random every day.

Unfortunately, the chance to have a merit badge without being robbed 4 merchant on an overseas trade (weekly merchant event) is near to 0, and honestly also the amount of merit from the event is so low (18 if you have 4 merchants of charcoals or gilda star, 48 for same amount of dragon essence, once a week). We have also a shop full of interesting items with merit, but they are not affordable by the users since if we are lucky we can get 1 merit badge/week with the daily contracts.

On the other side we are full of gilda stars and we don't know what to do with them, since the gilda star shop has 1 page of crap item, and everything is on mirage too.

Sjinderson pointed that ppl did ask to use alle the currencies in the game and he suggested me to have a poll on this topic.
Here we are:

 

[SamELFisher]

I wish we could keep only gilda instead of merits, at least we work and farm only one thing instead of two. Also, the quests for merit are absurd, nobody will do them.

 

[Sparkle]

Merit Badges is mainly just a good bonus for the players who are interested in additional items. That is not something that we plan to convert.​

​

Prior you start voting, players need to understand - if we remove Merit Badges from the game, we will completely remove Merit Badges shop from the game too, so extra source of costumes, mounts and pets that rotate every few weeks will no longer be available for the players.​

 

[IronBull]

I totally aggre with some kind of change in this Merit thing. I have 700 merit badges that I got a long time ago before I stopped to play. When i came back to the game a few months ago I realized that with all the merit changes I would never be able to get 800 for my Axis cloak, because the only way to get merits would be with those ridiculously hard treasure day quests and such. I've tryied those, but I couldn't finish any, because of the high amount of players doing those same quests. Thats not easy at all, mainly for low geared and new players.

You should either delete merits at once or restore the old ways to get it.

 

[IronBull]

Merit Badges is mainly just a good bonus for the players who are interested in additional items. That is not something that we plan to convert.​

Prior you start voting, players need to understand - if we remove Merit Badges from the game, we will completely remove Merit Badges shop from the game too, so extra source of costumes, mounts and pets that rotate every few weeks will no longer be available for the players.​

So at least put Axis cloak somewhere else, please!

 

[Vanins]

Merit Badges is mainly just a good bonus for the players who are interested in additional items. That is not something that we plan to convert.​

Prior you start voting, players need to understand - if we remove Merit Badges from the game, we will completely remove Merit Badges shop from the game too, so extra source of costumes, mounts and pets that rotate every few weeks will no longer be available for the players.​

Sparkle, they won't be available with merit badge, but if you want you can make them available in the gilda star shop, since you can customize it, i guess.

This is not an attempt to have free merit for everyone, the point is that at today there is a very very low chance to have merit via dailies. Historically talking daily contracts were made to get merit badges; they were removed by live server, and you decided to mantain it. The mistake, in my hopinion, is that you didn't revert the prizes of daily contracts back to merit. There were a lot of achievements giving merit too.

to get merit as a normal european player i am requested to:

- be lucky in daily contracts to get ONE merit, hoping it's not abyssal, since at 3 a.m. i am sleeping.
- have a merchant and ship 80 packs overseas (so 4 rounds) exchanging labor to get useful charcoals (everyone does it, so the % is ridiculous), or crappy gilda stars (i have 3k, dunno what to do with them), for 18 merit. dragon essence for 48, but just because you need to leave merchant alone and unload packs one by one to the vendor. Once a week.
- take part on dragon event hoping that pn is not preventing you doing it

So.... the feeling is that it's a half made change. We have merit but no way to have them. The only merit i saw, came from the 4,7 gift. All i am requesting is to modify this, reverting the changes as they were planning in the old system (daily+achievments). we have a lot of ways to farm gilda stars, no chanche to farm merit badge. Ppl is just requesting to fix this, not to have easy things.

 

[Aviendha]

Imo it is fine to get merits atm, the additional* merits from the custom dragon event are nice, and the other weekly quests too. I actually finally bought the Battle Fae costume last week, for 800 merits...

Yes it is more tedious than before but I appreciate the extra options in the marketplace for other items. Also, they do their best to add extra content to get merits, such as making them obtainable from the login tracker, or events such as the Easter one we had in mirage.

 

[Aviendha]

Sparkle, they won't be available with merit badge, but if you want you can make them available in the gilda star shop, since you can customize it, i guess.

This is not an attempt to have free merit for everyone, the point is that at today there is a very very low chance to have merit via dailies. Historically talking daily contracts were made to get merit badges; they were removed by live server, and you decided to mantain it. The mistake, in my hopinion, is that you didn't revert the prizes of daily contracts back to merit. There were a lot of achievements giving merit too.

to get merit as a normal european player i am requested to:

- be lucky in daily contracts to get ONE merit, hoping it's not abyssal, since at 3 a.m. i am sleeping.
- have a merchant and ship 80 packs overseas (so 4 rounds) exchanging labor to get useful charcoals (everyone does it, so the % is ridiculous), or crappy gilda stars (i have 3k, dunno what to do with them), for 18 merit. dragon essence for 48, but just because you need to leave merchant alone and unload packs one by one to the vendor. Once a week.
- take part on dragon event hoping that pn is not preventing you doing it

So.... the feeling is that it's a half made change. We have merit but no way to have them. The only merit i saw, came from the 4,7 gift. All i am requesting is to modify this, reverting the changes as they were planning in the old system (daily+achievments). we have a lot of ways to farm gilda stars, no chanche to farm merit badge. Ppl is just requesting to fix this, not to have easy things.

I have never seen pn block anyone from doing that event lol sure there's a little pvp at the start but once everyone is attacking the dragon, you can easily come in a minute after.

Also, you forgot the treasure hunt event, that gives merits too.

 

[Vanins]

Imo it is fine to get merits atm, the addition merits from the custom dragon event are nice, and the other weekly quests too. I actually finally bought the Battle Fae costume last week, for 800 merits...

Yes it is more tedious than before but I appreciate the extra options in the marketplace for other items. Also, they do their best to add extra content to get merits, such as making them obtainable from events such as the Easter one we had in mirage.

new players are screwed to get the Axis Mundi......

 

[Aviendha]

new players are screwed to get the Axis Mundi......

No they aren't. There are multiple ways to get that:
- merits
- kyrios warrior medals
- buy from player
- get lucky drop at custom titan event

 

[Vanins]

I have never seen pn block anyone from doing that event lol sure there's a little pvp at the start but once everyone is attacking the dragon, you can easily come in a minute after.

Also, you forgot the treasure hunt event, that gives merits too.

Aviendha even if this is not a staff matter, ppl on saturday at 18.00 usually stays out from their homes. Anyway, we are having a poll, just to understand if i am alone with this or of there is a real issue in progress.....

 

[Aviendha]

Aviendha even if this is not a staff matter, ppl on saturday at 18.00 usually stays out from their homes. Anyway, we are having a poll, just to understand if i am alone with this or of there is a real issue in progress.....

Yes and I am elaborating on why I do not agree with the point you are making c: that's what the thread is for.

 

[Vanins]

No they aren't. There are multiple ways to get that:
- merits
- kyrios warrior medals
- buy from player
- get lucky drop at custom titan event

800 merit, so not possible at this rate.
1000 defeat in arena. i think this is self explanatory
i saw that at 9000 gold. ok it's a scam but it's not less than 4500
lucky lucky lucky .... can we farm farm farm instead?

 

[Aviendha]

800 merit, so not possible at this rate.
1000 defeat in arena. i think this is self explanatory
i saw that at 9000 gold. ok it's a scam but it's not less than 4500
lucky lucky lucky .... can we farm farm farm instead?

So you ignore all the merits we got with the 4.7 update? The ones we get from the events that rotate? The ones from the login tracker? It's not just the options you listed and you never once acknowledged anything that I mentioned. You only say "new players are screwed" in response to my 2 cents.

Also, keep in mind, Ayanad and Erenor cloaks are endgame content, not sure how fast you desire people to get to that stage.

Furthermore, if friends help you out for arena or you just do it for fun, the medals aren't that bad to get. I mean, if we apply this to new players... just grind arenas alongside whatever else you are doing, while you are working on the low tier, not so endgame cloaks, and your other gear. It is a grind, sure, but tbh we all grinded that. >.>

 

[Zecen]

I always feel i struggle with merits, i myself have wanted the fancy Fae, but i am probably missing everything that gives merits..

 

[Aviendha]

I always feel i struggle with merits, i myself have wanted the fancy Fae, but i am probably missing everything that gives merits..

I got 37 merits again already since I bought my costume 8 days ago ._. guess you're missing some things yea

 

[Zing™]

There was no real point to keeping the merit badges and store - all of that can be converted to gilda, and items in the gilda store can be rotated every week, the argument Sparkle gives doesn't really hold water. The time wasted keeping the code in could have been better used on anything else.

For newer players, the ones that we need to stick around and just don't, yet more barriers to their progression is unhelpful. As experienced players we may have ideas of the dragon event and the trading quests and various things as they come up, but they don't, and it's very frustrating for them.

In a revelation that's shocking to us all, more fun and less endless grind really does help with player retention.

 

[Sparkle]

Merit Badges can be obtained from multiple events in game:​

• temporary events rewards (like Easter event; gifts, login tracker, etc).​
• permanent events: custom bosses (Harbinger & Sea Spirit General); The Merchants Day; Treasures Hunter Day.​
• custom questlines.​
• quests connected with other ingame events.​

Here is a full list of quests for you that are currently active (list doesn’t include temp events quests) and are regularly accepted by the players in game:
​

Crimson Infantry
The Grimghast Vanguard
The Grimghast Army
Creatures from the Depths
Rise of the Luscas
Lusca Hunter
The Bloody Basin
Mistmerrow Champion
Slayer of Gods
Strange sounds at night
A mysterious stranger's trace
Deep sea explorer
The battle of the fearless!
Good deal LvL. 1
Good deal LvL. 2
Good deal LvL. 3
Old Kingdom Coins LvL. 1
Old Kingdom Coins LvL. 2
Old Kingdom Coins LvL. 3
Beauty requires money! LvL. 1
Beauty requires money! LvL. 2
Beauty requires money! LvL. 3
Treasures Hunt LvL. 2
Treasures Hunt LvL. 4
Breaking the chains
Find it – but what?
A heroes pure soul
Defeat Sea Spirit General
Defeat Harbinger
Heroes! To the rescue!​

 

[Aviendha]

There was no real point to keeping the merit badges and store - all of that can be converted to gilda, and items in the gilda store can be rotated every week, the argument Sparkle gives doesn't really hold water. The time wasted keeping the code in could have been better used on anything else.

For newer players, the ones that we need to stick around and just don't, yet more barriers to their progression is unhelpful. As experienced players we may have ideas of the dragon event and the trading quests and various things as they come up, but they don't, and it's very frustrating for them.

In a revelation that's shocking to us all, more fun and less endless grind really does help with player retention.

I for one do think it is nice to have extra content in the marketplace, therefore I appreciate that argument, even though you might not think it that important :x

For new players it might be a bit of a mystery, I agree... but isn't the entire game just that though? To explore and find out things, and ask for help?

 

[Zing™]

I for one do think it is nice to have extra content in the marketplace, therefore I appreciate that argument, even though you might not think it that important :x

For new players it might be a bit of a mystery, I agree... but isn't the entire game just that though? To explore and find out things, and ask for help?

1) The content in the marketplace can be added for gilda, for smarties, or hugs. It can be added for anything. It isn't magically tied to Merit Badges. None of the items need to be removed, and can easily be swapped to gilda.

2) Mystery is great I agree; it's fun to learn. When you are dealing with obtuse quests in broken English, websites showing previous (or future!) patches that don't relate to us and just result in confusion... it's not great. And if it's not great, it can easily be made better. Having a deprecated system half-assedly reconstructed into the current game isn't the best way to go about it.