A-Merit and E-Merit thoughts

[dvandom]

Okay, so last night I spent a few minutes in the Training Room poking at the E-Merit and A-Merit vendors in Oro. Hardly exhaustive, and my priorities are probably not yours so I may not have even looked at some things that others will be interested in, but here's my thoughts so far. Behind a cut both for anticipated length and in case anyone wants to be surprised. :)

Here's the questions and concerns that drove my limited researching last night, so you know where I'm coming from.

1. What's the cheapest price for anything? If everything costs multiples of 10 merits, that's a pretty high entry barrier.
   
2. If you can get something for 1 A-Merit, is it worth getting, or are we talking the kinds of crap prizes one ticket gets you at the fair?
   
3. How much for the Rainbow Dash Aura? Will it be necessary to grind just to get an unlocked aura?
   
4. How much for the Unlock Alpha voucher? Will it be easier or harder to get from trials than from just doing Ramiel's arc?
   

First, the answers to those, then other observations. I didn't write down all the numbers, and it's possible they'll change again before official release (they're all significantly lower than during beta, to go by the thread on the forums).

1. 1 A-Merit will get you something other than threads, although it looks like you need at least 2 E-Merits to get anything other than "convert to threads/shards". The most expensive things appear to be the purple and PVP IOs.
   
2. 1 A-Merit will get you a voucher to unlock one new chest emblem on one character. These vouchers sit in a tab in your global mail until you redeem them, so you can't use one on character at creation, but if you're earning A-Merits in the first place you know how to get costumes altered as soon as you get out of chargen. The new logos are...okay (although I'd like a sword option without the crescent). As an aside, you cannot spend E-Merits on chest emblems, although it'd be nice if you could permanently unlock one for all accounts with an E-Merit. CORRECTION: One A-Merit unlocks it for all characters, but you have to redeem the voucher separately on each toon.
   
3. Regular auras are 2 E-Merits (can also be bought with A-Merits, but I forget how many). Trail auras like the rainbow trail are 3 E-Merits and cannot be bought with A-Merits. A bit steep (if cheaper than Incarnate Armor pieces), but not grindy. Even a casual trial-player can get 3 E-Merits in a week. I haven't experimented to see if auras unlocked this way are available at creation (like Booster Pack auras are), or if you have to get access to normal auras. ETA: Regular auras do not need to be unlocked to use these.
   
4. Unlocking the Alpha Slot (or unlocking capes, or regular auras) costs 5 A-Merits for a voucher that sits in your mail. Given that a successful Trial tends to give 4-5 A-Merits, this is a LOT easier than Ramiel's arc, especially if you have a 50 on a low-activity server where it's hard to find teammates. Just do a trial or two on a high-activity server and shunt the voucher over.
   

I am generally satisfied with the price structure as it sits now. There's certainly stuff outside my likely price range (like purples), but plenty of nice stuff I can get without having to dedicate all my time to trials. Super Inspirations can be bought with A-Merits (1 for most, 2 for Ultimate), and almost everything you get is portable across at least your own characters in some way, if not unlocked across all servers immediately.

The Incarnate Armor pieces are pretty expensive (5E per piece for non-glowy, 6E per piece for glowy), I don't think I have enough E-Merits across all my 50s put together to unlock an entire set of non-glowy, much less glowy too...but the designs don't really thrill me anyway so I don't mind that much.

Vouchers for shard/thread conversion seem fair (IIRC, an E-Merit turns into 18 threads). It's less efficient than just turning the merits into threads for yourself, but this way a character who's good at trials can supply a decent number of threads to characters who aren't on trials. It's not the same as a true "solo option" for Incarnate stuff, but it's a step in that direction.

I bought four chest emblems to check out: Sword, Musical Note 1, Musical Note 2 and Rune. One of the "notes" is actually a treble clef, and the other is two 16th notes joined (so now Octavia and DJ Pon-3 toons can have cutie marks). The rune is a weird squiggle, I doubt I'll buy it for real. The sword is a downward pointing sword going through a crescent, reminiscent of the Federation crest in Mobile Suit Gundam. I have an old pre-CoH character design who has a downward sword on her suit, and I tried faking a no-crescent version by matching the secondary color to her jumpsuit, but you can still tell it's there (here). A bit disappointing that the logos are shorter on females than males, being limited to the sternum area, but that's not the fault of the new ones, it's a design thing in general.

ETA: Added price list.

E-Merits:

• Conversions (1 E-Merit) - Puts a single-use voucher in mail
  
  • 18 threads
    
  • 7 Astral
    
• Costume Pieces - Globally unlocked, but character must be eligible. This uses a voucher system, so a character will not have access to a piece until the voucher is claimed for that character. This is like Vet Rewards, you get them on all toons but only once you go claim them.
  
  • Radiant Ascended Armor (glowy): 6 per piece, 6 pieces
    
  • Ascended Armor (non-glowy): 3 per piece, 7 pieces (there's no glowy cape)
    
  • Regular Auras: 2 per aura, 8 auras. ETA: Usable at any level once claimed.
    
  • Trail Auras: 3 per aura, 6 auras. ETA: Ditto. I tested this on an L4, and he got to leave a rainbow trail as he Ninja Ran.
    
• Emotes - Globally unlocked (haven't bought any yet, dunno if they're vouchers)
  
  • Costume Change Emotes: 3 each, 5 emotes
    
  • Regular Emotes: 2 each, 4 emotes
    
• Rare IOs (PVP, Purple): 50, 60 or 70 each
  

Astral Merits

• Account Rewards - These are all single-use vouchers sent to mail
  
  • Unlock Alpha - 5
    
  • Unlock Capes - 5
    
  • Unlock Auras - 5
    
  • 1 Shard - 1
    
  • 4 Threads - 1
    
• 1 A-Merit = 1 Reward Merit for redeeming character
  
• Costume Parts - Global as above, a voucher is put in your mail for each item for every character, but a character can't access the part until the voucher is claimed.
  
  • Ascension Armor = 10 each, all 7 parts (Radiant not available with A-Merits)
    
  • Auras = 10 each, all 8 auras (Trails not available with A-Merits)
    
  • Chest Emblem = 1 each, 15 available
    
• Emotes - 10 each, all four available (Costume Change emotes not available with A-Merits), Global (possibly vouchers)
  
• Super Inspirations - 1 each for all but Ultimate, which is 2
  
• Rare IO Sets - 16 or 32 each
  

ETA2: Added chest emblem pics



ETA June 24: Today's patch added an "on login" message explaining the difference between Certifications (every character can claim) and Vouchers (one shot). So, chest emblems are Certifications, alpha unlocking is a Voucher. Also, the E-Merit and A-Merit vendors have new costumes. Doesn't look like prices have changed, other than one E-Merit now converting to one A-Merit, which I hope is an oops (7 was too high, but 1 is too low).