Merit Rewards

Overview

Reward Merits are awarded for completing a variety of activities. Characters can then go to a Merit Vendor and use merits to purchase recipes, enhancements, salvage, and more. This article describes the sources of reward merits, how they are calculated and valued, and purchases that can be made with them.
A character receives the following pop-up when they receive their first Merit Reward:

You have received your first Merit Reward!

These merits are awarded for completing difficult tasks and allow you to exchange them for powerful rewards such as enhancements. Merits can be spent at the various Merit Reward Vendors throughout Paragon City, Praetoria, and the Rogue Isles. Merit Rewards are stored in the "Special" tab in your Salvage window.

NOTE: Merits earned from completing Taskforces/Strikeforces and Trials are subject to diminishing returns if the same task is completed more than once within a 24 hour period. So try out different Taskforces, Strikeforces and Trials to maximize your rewards!

Background

In Issue 13, Merit Rewards, replaced the random recipe option at the end of Task Forces, Strike Forces, and Trials. Reward Merits are also given at the end of every Story Arc, whether it is major or minor, and by defeating most Giant Monsters. Each activity has had a different reward amount assigned to it, based on its datamined time required to complete it.

In the February 10, 2009 update from Synapse, the design philosophy was covered:

Task Forces give an average of 1 merit every 3 minutes of average time (20 merits an hour), Trials give an average of 1 merit every 2.5 minutes (24 merits an hour), and Story Arcs give an average of 1 merit every 7.5 minutes (8 merits an hour). The reason for this major difference is due to the considerable time and effort Task/Strike Forces can take to set up and complete, so naturally these tasks grant a much greater reward.

On February 10, 2009, how many merits per minute each activity is awarded with was altered. Task Forces were previously 12 merits per hour, Trials were 13-14 per hour, and Story Arcs were 4-5 per hour. Additionally, datamining was performed to adjust each activity's specific awarded amount according to the new formula.

The Formula

The formula used by the developers to calculate number of merits to award a task was described here:

(MedianTime / MPM) * TaskModifier * TimesRunModifier * TimeModifier + ArtificialModifiers

Decimals in the result are dropped off (ie: the result is rounded down).

• MedianTime: The datamined median time to complete the task
• MPM: The desired Minutes per Merit, currently 3.7
• TaskModifier: 1.5 if the task is a raid, 1.2 if the task is a trial, 1.0 if the task is a Task Force or Strike Force, and 0.6 if the task is a Story Arc
• TimesRunModifier: 1.0 if the task has been run enough times for the developers to be comfortable with the datamining, 0.6 otherwise
• TimeModifier: A percentage merit bonus equal to the median time divided by 20 (ex: the Synapse TF has a MedianTime of 194 minutes. 194 / 20 = 9.7, rounded up to 10% bonus)
• ArtificialModifier: Manually added bonuses or penalties to a given task; from Synapse:

What I've used this field here in the past was to round out some villain strike forces that weren't granting enough merits for a random roll.

For example: When merits were first introduced in Issue 13 beta the Temple of the Waters SF would have normally only granted 23 merits. However, I wanted players who completed this task to be able to purchase a random taskforce roll (which was then 25 merits, now it's 20) so I added a +2 bonus in this field. I've seen a number of players wonder why certain tasks (namely villain SFs) not have their merit numbers increase. This is because after the new data rolled in, I removed the bonus from this field if the task offered enough merits for the random roll.

Example

The Statesman Task Force has a datamined median completion time of 133 minutes.

(133 / 3.7) * 1.0 * 1.0 * 1.07 + 0 = 38 merits

Rewards Sources

The following pages list the rewards for all available Merit Rewards sources:

• Hero Merit Rewards -- Task Forces, Trials, and Story Arcs
• Villain Merit Rewards -- Strike Forces, Trials, and Story Arcs
• Cooperative Merit Rewards -- Cooperative Task Forces, RWZ Story Arcs
• Miscellaneous Merit Rewards -- Giant Monsters, Hamidon, etc.

Diminishing Returns

Synapse discussed diminishing returns on Task Forces/Strike Forces/Trials here:

If an activity only awards merits (does not give a reward screen upon completion), repeating the same activity within [18] hours will lessen the Merit Rewards by this formula: 1 / (# of attempts), rounded down. So, the first time gives the full reward (1/1), the second time gives half (1/2), the third time gives one third (1/3) and so on, to a minimum of one merit.

Example

The Temple of the Waters SF normally gives 25 merits. So, the first time its completed will give you 25 merits. The second time will give you 12 merits (25/2). The third time will give you 8 merits(25/3). The fourth time will give you 6 merits (25/4).

The 18 hour timer counts how many times you've received a Merit Reward for that Task Force in the past 18 hours.

Example

If you've received a Merit Reward from a particular TF 3 times in the past 18 hours, then the fourth time will get 1/4 of the full reward rounding down. If you wait 16 hours and do the Task Force again, and there is only one Merit Reward payout in the past 18 hours (the others are now outside the 18 hour window), then your reward will be 1/2 (rounded down).

Diminishing Returns on Task Forces, Strike Forces, Trials, and Raids that give a reward screen upon completion will always give 50% rewards for subsequent completions within the 18 hour time period.

Example

The Sewer Trial gives 28 merits for the first time run, the second time will give 14, the third time 14, the fourth time 14... etc.

After 18 hours without completing a particular activity, the Merit Rewards reset to their default value for that activity. The time between when the merits are awarded is what counts, so a repeated activity that is started less than 18 hours from the last one may still be worth the full reward if the task finishes more than 18 hours later.

Diminishing Returns on most Task Force/Strike Force rewards was changed in Issue 14, from 24 hours to 18 hours. The remaining Task/Strike Forces, Trials, and Raids were dropped to 18 hours in Issue 16. As such, all activities subject to Diminishing Returns are now on an 18 hour timer.

Each Task Force/etc. has its own separate timer. Completing one will not diminish the returns of others.

Completing Story Arcs is not subject to diminishing returns. This includes completing multiple different Story Arcs, and flashing back repeatedly to the same Story Arc.

Completing Ouroboros Task/Strike Forces is also not subject to diminishing returns, since they are not true Task or Strike Forces. They follow the Story Arc rules.

Note: A player can avoid Diminishing Returns on activities that have a reward screen by leaving the screen open until the appropriate time. Most activities do not have a reward screen, thus their merits cannot be delayed, only waiting to complete the activity until after 18 hours has passed will gain full merits. Note also that if a character does not meet the reward options (exemplared into the Abandoned Sewer Trial, for example), the popup screen will not open and the character cannot delay their merits.

Rewards Purchases

Heroes and villains can visit Merit Vendors to turn in Reward Merits for various items.

• Conversion:
  • Convert 1,000,000 inf to 1 Reward Merit.
  • Convert 30 Vanguard Merits to 1 Reward Merit. This is the main use for Vanguard Merits now.
  • Convert 50 Reward Merits to 1 Alignment Merit, or vice versa. This is the sole use for Alignment Merits. It makes it easier to transfer stacks of Reward Merits between characters, eg by the in-game email system.
  • Convert 50 Empyrean Merits to 1 Transcendent Merit, or vice versa. Transcendent Merits serve a similar purpose: making transferring Empyrean Merits easier.
• Enhancements
  • Archetype Enhancements (Standard, not Superior): 100 Merits.
  • Event Enhancements (also Standard, not Superior): 100 Merits.
  • Single Origin Enhancements (level 20+): 1 Merit.
• Recipe
  • IO Set: 50 Merits for Rare, 20 Merits for Uncommon.
  • Respec Recipe: 50 Merits.
  • PvP IO Sets: 100 Merits.
  • Standard Invention Enhancements: 5 Merits.
  • Very Rare IO Sets: 100 Merits.
• Reward Rolls
  • Random Large Inspiration: 1 Merit
  • Random Rare Invention Salvage (three "tier" options: Levels 10-25, Levels 26-40, Levels 41-50; and select Tech or Magic): 5 Merits.
  • Random Rare Recipe Roll: 5 Merits.
• Salvage
  • Enhancement Booster: 5 Merits.
  • Enhancement Catalyst: 20 Merits.
  • Enhancement Converter: 3 per Merit.
  • Enhancement Unslotter: 2 per Merit.

See Also

• Special Salvage
• Merit Vendor

Historical

This section contains information about changes that took place in Homecoming: City of Heroes/Villains. It is provided for historical purposes.

• Conversion of Astral and Empyrean Merits into Reward Merits was discontinued in Issue 27, Page 4. Prior to then, the conversion rates were:
  • 1 Astral Merit to 2 Reward Merits.
  • 1 Empyrean Merit to 10 Reward Merits.

External Links

• GoogleDocs Rewards and Purchases (Pages 3-4) by DJ_Jules
• GoogleDocs All IO Set Recipe Merit Costs ugly but compiled by Robziel
• Synapse reveals the reasons behind Merit Award amounts