9999 Reward Merits

Jeez, this took me a while to accrue, think about 2 years or so. Anyhow, it was one of those crazy goals I set myself to see if I could do it. Having hero merits, playing alts, and my bank really helped in not spending the ones on my main so I could hit the 9999 cap.



To celebrate, those who posts to this thread by Tuesday 11:59pm EST will get a free recipe of their choice! One per player, so no looting the bear.

Even if I throw in an offer of Honey Glazed Apples or something? *Loots the Bear*

Crazy silly Bear gratz ... but where's the chat log???

I don't recall the chat log saying anything special. I was at 9973 and Path Into Darkness was worth 27 merits. I got the 27 merits and.... that was it. :/ No message that said I had hit the meritage limit, no fanfare, no article in Forbes. I wasn't expecting anything because not many are crazy enough to try it.

Guess I should spend some and put the recipes into the bank. Since Dakota is my main, I play her an awful lot so she'll certainly get more merits.

Btw, here's an interesting calculation, 9999 merits = 50 LotG +7.5s at 200 merits each = 150mil current market value = 7.5 billion

Another interesting point, we have 91 slots not counting Fitness, Brawl, Rest, and Sprint powers. The average cost of merits being 150 each, all my meritage would only cover the cost of 67 of them. :/

I've always been one for having ambitious personal goals but maxing out the merits I'd say takes the cake

Now you need to post that on the main CoH forum and see what reactions you can stir up

Congradulations on the completed goal, now what will you aim for next?

Ok, so looking at this calculation another way...

7.5 billion influence / 120m influence per day = 62.5 days which can be earned with about an hour's worth of judicious crafting in WW per day. Assuming about 90 minutes of work per day, that's roughly 90 hours of play time to earn this 7.5 billion via WW.

Assuming 30 merits per hour, which is 50% higher than the dev target rate of 20/hr (but we are, after all, incarnates and uber toons), 10k merits = 333 play hours.

Now this totally ignores the recipe drops obtained during those 333 hours which are NOT dropped when standing around in WW crafting stuff. Assuming 35 million per hour in influence earned + drops, that gives the following equations:

80 W = 7500; W=93.75 (WW hours to earn 7.5 billion @ 80M per hour play time)

TF/Merit earning = 5 hours for LOTG (150m @ 30 merits per hour) or 30 million worth of LOTG earnings per hour + 35 million per hour in misc drops + earned influence = 65m/hr.

By comparison, 5 hero tips = 1 hour play or 2 horus for 10 tips = 1 hero merit. 4 hours for LOTG, so slightly faster than merits. Assuming level 50 tips and the same 35m in misc drops and earnings, that's 150/4=37.5m/hr in LotG earnings + 35 in misc drops and influence = 72.5M per hour in total earnings. WW still faster by 10% in terms of earnings per hour.

more

There are pros and cons for each method of purchase:

Hero/Villain Merits:
Pro: Tips can be completed in 1 hour per day. 2 hours in two days generates 1 one H/V Merit. Any non-Purple, non-PvP recipe can be purchased for 1 or 2 H/V merits, which means 2 to 4 hours of work.

Con: Tips missions limited to 5 per day and it takes two days to gain 1 H/V Merit. Can make only on purchase every 20 hours.


Market:
Pro: Influence drops from almost every facet of the game. Can ignore the "game" and simply buy and sell on the market to generate capital. No limit to number of purchase made per day.

Con: Recipe availability is limited to items auctioned by players. Market values may fluctuate.


Reward Merits
Pro: No limit to the amount of Reward Merits that can be gained in a day. No limit to the number of purchases made per day.

Con: Slowest way to accrue merits; average of 16 merits per hour for Ouro arcs, 20 per hour for TF/SFs. Does not include Purple or PvP recipes.


The actual "best" way to acquire recipes? Balanced use of all three methods.

Personally, I use H/V Merits to buy expensive Rare recipes such as LotG +7.5 or Numina ++ (Recipes that cost 200+ at the Merit Vendors), the Market to buy Recipes that cost 50mil and less and Purple recipes, and Reward Merits for Recipes that cost 150 or less or if I have to have it "NOW!". This is just a rule of thumb. I use a loose equation based on time to gain merit/influence to tell me which is the most efficient way to purchase said Recipe.

For example, I'm looking to buy an Obliteration Recipe that costs 200 Reward Merits. I've already used my H/V Merit purchase for the day for LotG +7.5 because the current market price was 180mil. The going WWbay price for the Obliteration is 50mil crafted. 50mil is much cheaper than spending 200 Reward Merits so I bid for it on WWbay or wait until the next day to purchase it with H/V Merits.

Dakota Sunrise wrote:

There are pros and cons for each method of purchase:
Market:
Pro: Influence drops from almost every facet of the game. Can ignore the "game" and simply buy and sell on the market to generate capital. No limit to number of purchase made per day.

Con: Recipe availability is limited to items auctioned by players. Market values may fluctuate.

In my own case, the recipe availability isn't an issue. I have the recipes I craft memorized (removed cost of recipe purchase and availability issues) and I also have a portable workbench on my crafting toons. So I can crank out 100+ common IOs in 15 minutes or less and I also know what reasonable salvage prices are, what common IOs sell through at what rates (in normal cases) per day, etc. It's taken me a few years to reach this level of understanding of the market and to have these "convenience" features in place.

The point being that when you read "80 million per hour" for WW, that requires quite a substantial up front investment in terms of accolades and research.

JaneReaction wrote:

In my own case, the recipe availability isn't an issue. I have the recipes I craft memorized ...

You have IOsets memorized? What badge do I have to get to do that? :O

I was talking about the pros and cons of each system to buy IOsets (non-common) for your character to slot.

First, gratz on the craziness haha!
Never thought I'd see anyone outside the Market forums with that much Meritage.

I wouldn't buy LOTGs with that...I would...

RANDOM ROLL 35-39!!

That's FIVE HUNDRED rolls. You are probably going to get more than 50 GOOD recipes out of that. Even if you get 20 LOTG, 5 Kinetic Combat, blah blah you are still looking at a nice haul. Or just spend some on Alignment Merits and some on rolls, but individual buys...when LOTGs will cost 32 ASTRAL MERITS in two weeks, is a complete waste.
If you want to be a "burn my money" type, buy Scirocco procs with them or something bad then delete them.

Myt current goal is inf cap x Market slots on my marketer. I think she has 20ish (?) slots at 50. Currently have two slots filled (4,000,000,000 infamy) and more coming in...those PvP IOs and Purples sell for a mint!

Also, I have 230 Astral Merits and 35 Empyrean on my Traps... >.>