Small rant on Merit Decay!

[Kigre]

I bet i am the first to rant on this topic!

Here goes.
Came back to game from a long time break.
Played since saturday. friend joined on sunday.
We have been playing everyday since, the whole day. 10-12 hours.
We joined a Power/Faction.
Started finding out how things worked, started earning Merit Points.
Found better routes, bought new equippement, did some combat. Earned some more merits.
Had fun, really, really fun.
Yesterday i had 725 merits and he had 470 or something. We both payed a few good times to "Fast Track" to next collection. I, maybe payed 1.5 mil. Not that big of a deal. I wanted to get to rank 2 by today i figured. Might as well invest a bit. Didnt mind.
Now comes Today, were we both are eager and happy to start the day, playing Elite....
We log on and we both have a serious decay in merits!?
I am on 380 merits or something! And my friend on 280!? For what!? Why?
We sit with the feeling of being penalized for nothing!? Or at least i do, im not gonna speak a 100% for him but he wasnt happy either!

I can understand the decay to a certain degree, because the bonuses are good. And we WANT them.
But we dont want to do merit runs all day long either, everyday. Do we? And if we dont we feel as we are losing something that we already have worked for, sort of. Makes me frown with confusion.
I had heard of merit decay and thought it be something different like, If the merit decay came after days or weeks of not playing i'd totally not make this post.
But we have done NOTHING BUT, play this game.

This decay just feels a little bit unjustified. We wont be "fast tracking" anytime soon.
But we will play all day.

Thoughts?

 

[specialsymbol]

Formula for Merit Decay:
Current Week Merits (CW), week before: Week 1 (W1), week before that: Week 2 (W2), the week before the week before: Week 3 (W3). All other weeks are discarded. So, let's see how it works:
Total Merits is calculated by:
CW + 0.5 W1 + 0.25 W2 + 0.125 W3

Let's assume you want immediately go to Rank 5. Merit development will be as follows:

CW W1 W2 W3 TM
10000 0 0 0 10000
5000 5000 0 0 10000
5000 2500 2500 0 10000
5000 2500 1250 1250 10000
5625 2500 1250 625 10000
5313 2812,5 1250 625 10000,5
5313 2656,5 1406,25 625 10000,75
5313 2656,5 1328,25 703,125 10000,875
5352 2656,5 1328,25 664,125 10000,875
5332 2676 1328,25 664,125 10000,375
5332 2666 1338 664,125 10000,125
5332 2666 1333 669 10000
5335 2666 1333 666,5 10000,5
5333 2667,5 1333 666,5 10000
5334 2666,5 1333,75 666,5 10000,75
5333 2667 1333,25 666,875 10000,125
5334 2666,5 1333,5 666,625 10000,625
5333 2667 1333,25 666,75 10000

So you see that in the end you need to earn approx 5333 new Merits per week to maintain Rank 5.

 

[Lateralus]

Maybe the decay should be reduced a bit, I think 25% would reduce the 'hamster-wheel' feel...but if there was no decay at all it would be far too easy to make money.

In a Python the other day I managed to go from rank 1 to 4 (pending powerplay cycle update) just by combining PP fast-tracking with trade (200 PP cargo one way, progenitor cells the other way for 400k profit). With this strategy I managed to keep my credit balance at around the same mark (not completely it dropped by a couple of million) and gain merits very fast. Now I'm going to wait til I rank up to level 4 and try to get to level 5 with the increased cargo allocation. The 5 million should help with the fast tracking..might take more than one Sunday afternoon to get to 10000 merits though.

 

[Bortas]

This decay just feels a little bit unjustified. We wont been "fast tracking" anytime soon.
But we will play all day.

Thoughts?

Just ignore your rank. The financial rewards aren't worth the effort. The time is better spent trading or bounty hunting. Just make sure to grind up to rank 3 before you reach the "4 weeks pledged" gate, to get the modules, if you want them.

 

[SentineI]

@Kirge
Merits decay every Thursday morning. Yes it sucks. It sucks even more when you've been away for a 2 week holiday, or are too busy with work to play for a week.

IMHO there's NO need to "fast track". Especially now that destroying ships carrying enemy PP cargo (if you have the right Power ethos) gives you 30 merits, instead of 15... And now that stealing enemy PP cargo (if you have the other kind of Power ethos) gives you 5 merits per cargo, instead of 1 merit:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170302

I expect to be able to get maybe 200+ merits per hour (in Solo of course) from simply killing PP enemies carrying propaganda cargo. If you have a ship better than a Cobra Mk3, then probably even better. That means 7 hours in a week to get rank 4 (1500 merits), and then 4 hours per week to maintain rank 4.

 

[Richard Bentley]

Formula for Merit Decay:
Current Week Merits (CW), week before: Week 1 (W1), week before that: Week 2 (W2), the week before the week before: Week 3 (W3). All other weeks are discarded. So, let's see how it works:
Total Merits is calculated by:
CW + 0.5 W1 + 0.25 W2 + 0.125 W3

Let's assume you want immediately go to Rank 5. Merit development will be as follows:

CW W1 W2 W3 TM
10000 0 0 0 10000
5000 5000 0 0 10000
5000 2500 2500 0 10000
5000 2500 1250 1250 10000
5625 2500 1250 625 10000
5313 2812,5 1250 625 10000,5
5313 2656,5 1406,25 625 10000,75
5313 2656,5 1328,25 703,125 10000,875
5352 2656,5 1328,25 664,125 10000,875
5332 2676 1328,25 664,125 10000,375
5332 2666 1338 664,125 10000,125
5332 2666 1333 669 10000
5335 2666 1333 666,5 10000,5
5333 2667,5 1333 666,5 10000
5334 2666,5 1333,75 666,5 10000,75
5333 2667 1333,25 666,875 10000,125
5334 2666,5 1333,5 666,625 10000,625
5333 2667 1333,25 666,75 10000

So you see that in the end you need to earn approx 5333 new Merits per week to maintain Rank 5.

This is how I thought it worked too, but it hasn't done so this week. Has there been some change in the merit decay system?
I finished the last cycle on Wednesday evening (29th July) with approx 2,300 merits, of which 1266 were earned last week i.e. up to Wednesday evening. The previous week I had generated over 1,000 merits as well. I was expecting my 1266 to be carried forward in full to this week as the baseline figure, with half of the previous week's total added to this, plus 25% of the week before that. This should have left me with a starting figure of approximately 2,000 merits give or take for the merits dropping off from 4 weeks earlier.
Instead I started this week's cycle with 1,208 merits only. This means that the merits I earned in the last Powerplay round have not been carried over in full at all, but have been halved, with the previous week's also being reduced by a further 50% before being added. I don't recall that this was the case before. Are these figures what is supposed to happen now or has something not been calculated correctly?
It doesn't look right to me.

 

[Balfuset790]

@Kirge
Merits decay every Thursday morning. Yes it sucks. It sucks even more when you've been away for a 2 week holiday, or are too busy with work to play for a week.

IMHO there's NO need to "fast track". Especially now that destroying ships carrying enemy PP cargo (if you have the right Power ethos) gives you 30 merits, instead of 15... And now that stealing enemy PP cargo (if you have the other kind of Power ethos) gives you 5 merits per cargo, instead of 1 merit:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170302

I expect to be able to get maybe 200+ merits per hour (in Solo of course) from simply killing PP enemies carrying propaganda cargo. If you have a ship better than a Cobra Mk3, then probably even better. That means 7 hours in a week to get rank 4 (1500 merits), and then 4 hours per week to maintain rank 4.

Yeah, it's a lot quicker with the doubled kill merit award. 1200 merits in 3 hours or so today. Actually makes the 5k target to maintain Rating 5 seem tempting... maybe

 

[Raduk]

Formula for Merit Decay:
Current Week Merits (CW), week before: Week 1 (W1), week before that: Week 2 (W2), the week before the week before: Week 3 (W3). All other weeks are discarded. So, let's see how it works:
Total Merits is calculated by:
CW + 0.5 W1 + 0.25 W2 + 0.125 W3

Let's assume you want immediately go to Rank 5. Merit development will be as follows:

CW W1 W2 W3 TM
10000 0 0 0 10000
5000 5000 0 0 10000
5000 2500 2500 0 10000
5000 2500 1250 1250 10000
5625 2500 1250 625 10000
5313 2812,5 1250 625 10000,5
5313 2656,5 1406,25 625 10000,75
5313 2656,5 1328,25 703,125 10000,875
5352 2656,5 1328,25 664,125 10000,875
5332 2676 1328,25 664,125 10000,375
5332 2666 1338 664,125 10000,125
5332 2666 1333 669 10000
5335 2666 1333 666,5 10000,5
5333 2667,5 1333 666,5 10000
5334 2666,5 1333,75 666,5 10000,75
5333 2667 1333,25 666,875 10000,125
5334 2666,5 1333,5 666,625 10000,625
5333 2667 1333,25 666,75 10000

So you see that in the end you need to earn approx 5333 new Merits per week to maintain Rank 5.

Is this information stickied someplace? Thank you for posting this!

 

[specialsymbol]

This is how I thought it worked too, but it hasn't done so this week. Has there been some change in the merit decay system?
I finished the last cycle on Wednesday evening (29th July) with approx 2,300 merits, of which 1266 were earned last week i.e. up to Wednesday evening. The previous week I had generated over 1,000 merits as well. I was expecting my 1266 to be carried forward in full to this week as the baseline figure, with half of the previous week's total added to this, plus 25% of the week before that. This should have left me with a starting figure of approximately 2,000 merits give or take for the merits dropping off from 4 weeks earlier.
Instead I started this week's cycle with 1,208 merits only. This means that the merits I earned in the last Powerplay round have not been carried over in full at all, but have been halved, with the previous week's also being reduced by a further 50% before being added. I don't recall that this was the case before. Are these figures what is supposed to happen now or has something not been calculated correctly?
It doesn't look right to me.

No, you're right. It's exactly working as intended.
Merits from your previous cycle are in the second column, so they're halved (50%).
The cycle before that has been halved again, resulting in 25% of the original value (one quarter).

 

[Richard Bentley]

No, you're right. It's exactly working as intended.
Merits from your previous cycle are in the second column, so they're halved (50%).
The cycle before that has been halved again, resulting in 25% of the original value (one quarter).

Thanks for clarifying that. I didn't think that merits I earned on a Wednesday could decay by 50% the following day, but I can see that on the model now.
That really is quite a huge rate of decay. With a week's holiday looming I was hoping to get 1500 banked in the week before I went away to keep me in band 4 but that isn't going to work is it?

 

[andyraptor]

Just spend your 50 Mill fast tracking like all the other wannabes and be done with it

 

[specialsymbol]

Thanks for clarifying that. I didn't think that merits I earned on a Wednesday could decay by 50% the following day, but I can see that on the model now.
That really is quite a huge rate of decay. With a week's holiday looming I was hoping to get 1500 banked in the week before I went away to keep me in band 4 but that isn't going to work is it?

No.

Just spend your 50 Mill fast tracking like all the other wannabes and be done with it

Well, it's 150 MM upfront (you have to do the first week and then the subsequent week too, before you get a financial reward).

The thing is, the initial 10000 Merits are not only expensive but also a tremendous grind: you get only 10 Merits per fasttracking. That's 6000 keystrokes/actions just for fasttracking. It's massive and utterly monotone.

 

[Swifty]

Yep it has pretty much killed any semblance of interest I had in pledging to a power. I had a good crack at earning merits but then for various life reasons didn't play for a fortnight and poof most of my work undone.

 

[defekt]

Just another reason, among the many, not to PP.

 

[lyravega]

At least we earn more merits per job done now, but it is a temporary fix. PP is just boring, and unrewarding.

 

[Atrus]

This is one of the main reasons I'm not bothering with this stuff. Maybe if at least one faction offered a module suited for explorers I might soldier through it to rank 3 but evidently it's all combat stuff. :/

 

[Iskariot]

I bet i am the first to rant on this topic!

Here goes.
Came back to game from a long time break.
Played since saturday. friend joined on sunday.
We have been playing everyday since, the whole day. 10-12 hours.
We joined a Power/Faction.
Started finding out how things worked, started earning Merit Points.
Found better routes, bought new equippement, did some combat. Earned some more merits.
Had fun, really, really fun.
Yesterday i had 725 merits and he had 470 or something. We both payed a few good times to "Fast Track" to next collection. I, maybe payed 1.5 mil. Not that big of a deal. I wanted to get to rank 2 by today i figured. Might as well invest a bit. Didnt mind.
Now comes Today, were we both are eager and happy to start the day, playing Elite....
We log on and we both have a serious decay in merits!?
I am on 380 merits or something! And my friend on 280!? For what!? Why?
We sit with the feeling of being penalized for nothing!? Or at least i do, im not gonna speak a 100% for him but he wasnt happy either!

I can understand the decay to a certain degree, because the bonuses are good. And we WANT them.
But we dont want to do merit runs all day long either, everyday. Do we? And if we dont we feel as we are losing something that we already have worked for, sort of. Makes me frown with confusion.
I had heard of merit decay and thought it be something different like, If the merit decay came after days or weeks of not playing i'd totally not make this post.
But we have done NOTHING BUT, play this game.

This decay just feels a little bit unjustified. We wont be "fast tracking" anytime soon.
But we will play all day.

Thoughts?

Yep, the harsh, punishing and demotivating merit decay is pushing a lot of people out of Power Play, including me.
I stopped playing PP 3 or 4 weeks ago.
I was rank 4, closing in on rank 5.
Now I have zero merits left.
The merit decay system has broken my resolve.

I do not mind a reasonable form of merit decay at all.
But a gaming mechanism should not leave you behind with an unpleasant, demotivated, wry feeling.
The current merit decay system does. It does so in my case at least.

 

[andyraptor]

Yep, the harsh, punishing and demotivating merit decay is pushing a lot of people out of Power Play, including me.
I stopped playing PP 3 or 4 weeks ago.
I was rank 4, closing in on rank 5.
Now I have zero merits left.
The merit decay system has broken my resolve.

I do not mind a reasonable form of merit decay at all.
But a gaming mechanism should not leave you behind with an unpleasant, demotivated, wry feeling.
The current merit decay system does. It does so in my case at least.

I think the mechanic for rating 5 and the grind was put in for a reason.... mostly to limit the numbers at the top rating

level 4 is quite easy to maintain... especially if you work your way up the ratings in blocks and have a steady amount in the "decay" pot

@ the OP.... yup my apologises..... I thought you were working your way up... going for the full 10k in one shot is not a good way.... again IMO

 

[h347h]

This is one of the main reasons I'm not bothering with this stuff. Maybe if at least one faction offered a module suited for explorers I might soldier through it to rank 3 but evidently it's all combat stuff. :/

And mining, the mining lance lets you prospect at long distances so it has a bit of use outside combat. Though its debatable if that was an oversight or intent.

 

[andrewg_oz]

With all the moaning I read about merit decay, nobody seems to have considered how it fits in with the rest of power play, specifically the weekly rewards. Without merit decay we wouldn't *have* those weekly rewards. If merits didn't decay, we'd be able to earn a rating reward level and then keep getting it forever no matter how much effort we put into power play that week. Which would be just stupid and wrong.

Merits have to decay. The issue is that the current implementation seems to be particularly annoying, for whatever reason. As I see it, there are two (IMHO better) alternatives:

1. Merits are cleared at the end of each power play cycle. Whatever you've earned for one week, gets you the rewards for the next. The rating thresholds would need to be halved (strictly speaking, divided by 1.875). This makes your merits sync up with the power play cycle. Think of it as your casual wage from your power.

2. Merits earned each week go into an 'account'. Merits in this account do not decay. Weekly rating rewards are not automatically given. Instead you can 'buy' rewards for the week from a list, paying from your merit account. There's a little more to this so I'll try to explain my thoughts.

I'm pledged to Edmund Mahon, so I'll use his ratings as my examples, but the principle would be the same for all powers.

The ratings rewards 'shop' would be split into several categories (six shown below). Each week, you can purchase no more than one reward from each category, subject to available merits to spend. As soon as an item from a category is purchased, that category is locked out for the rest of the power play cycle.

1. Bonus Payments:
a) 1,000Cr: 0 merits
b) 50,000Cr: 25 merits
c) 500,000Cr: 187 merits
d) 5,000,000Cr: 500 merits
e) 50,000,000Cr: 2,500 merits
2. Preparation Nomination Allocation:
a) 10: 0 merits
b) 25: 25 merits
c) 50: 187 merits
d) 100: 500 merits
e) 250: 2,500 merits
3. Power Commodity Allocations:
a) 10: 0 merits
b) 15: 25 merits
c) 20: 187 merits
d) 25: 500 merits
e) 50: 2,500 merits
4. Trade Reward Voucher: 25 merits
5. Weapon: Retribution: 187 merits
6. Special: Rare goods 50% increase profit: 2,500 merits

This way the merit 'decay' is entirely under the player control. They can choose to spend their merits immediately, or save them up for something big.

I'm starting to think it's the lack of control over the merits that annoys people. This would give control back.