Powerplay: Merit Retention

[campbell]

im at a loss with the merit retention.. my numbers don't seem to add up either

wk 1. 1500 earned

wk 2. carried 1500, earned 1500

wk 3. carried 2500, earned 2500

wk 4. carried 2500 (today)

week 3 i carried over an extra 250 merits, but on balance i should be starting this week on 3625 merits shouldn't i (2500 + 750 + 375)

[holex]

im at a loss with the merit retention.. my numbers don't seem to add up either

wk 1. 1500 earned
wk 2. carried 1500, earned 1500
wk 3. carried 2500, earned 2500
wk 4. carried 2500 (today)

week 3 i carried over an extra 250 merits, but on balance i should be starting this week on 3625 merits shouldn't i (2500 + 750 + 375)

actually, I have to admit, after today's turning point, I'm also not sure how that works anymore, as the calculation, I have written about yesterday, was okay for the last four weeks, but not applicable today as the carried amount was much less than I should have been, according even to the manual.

I need to wait another more week to figure out how that works actually, because it seems a quite ambiguous at the moment.

[campbell]

actually, I have to admit, after today's turning point, I'm also not sure how that works anymore, as the calculation, I have written about yesterday, was okay for the last four weeks, but not applicable today as the carried amount was much less than I should have been, according even to the manual.

I need to wait another more week to figure out how that works actually, because it seems a quite ambiguous at the moment.

i feel a wee bit happier in the knowledge that there are more than a few players experiencing 'fluctuations and oddities' in their merit retention, as such, hopefully the dev team will prioritise looking into it..

..although, it could be interesting if retention was tied a little deeper into our chosen powers, would certainly promote a more organised and concerted effort on the players part. then again, maybe that would be expecting a little too much lol.

short of any announcements, i think i'll maybe tone down the grind this week and just aim for an additional 1000 merits and wait to see what next week brings.

thanks for the response Holex

[campbell]

so im still at a loss with the merit retention lol

wk 1. 1500 earned

wk 2. carried 1500, earned 1500

wk 3. carried 2500, earned 2500

wk 4. carried 2500, earned 500 (should have started on 3625 (2500 + 750 + 375)

wk 5. carried 1313 (today)

new week and even more mystery, i should be starting on 2125 (500 + 1250 + 375)

i think until FDev decide to give a full explanation of this system, i'm going to go back to being a free trader, i do enjoy PP its great to have an extra focus in game, and reason to inhabit a specific part of space. but, i'm a spreadsheet player, i like the predictability of numbers, and an ability to plan accordingly, the seemingly random nature of merit retention feels like 'nails being scraped down an old school blackboard' in my mind lol.

[Sendraks]

Yup - merit retention makes no sense to me beyond that it has no resemblance to the system included in the PP manual.

At present - pretty much all my game time is spent farming merits to keep my current rank, which sucks. And the amount of merits I need each week seems to keep increasing, for reasons I cannot fathom either.

[Skipp]

Shouldn't the system just cut your week earnings in half each week up to 2 weeks? So you get something like this:

WK1: Earned 1000 merits : Total 1000 merits
WK2: Earned 1500 merits : Total 500 (wk1) + 1500 current = 2000 merits
WK3: Earned 500 merits : Total 250 (wk1) + 750 (wk2) + 500 current = 1500 merits

[JohnLuke]

I am still not sure if my merits are being retained correctly, but I've only been tracking my 'earned' ones for the last couple of weeks. Here's some info that I read from one of the developers on the FD board:

So, here’s how merit decay should work, using an example of you being a Commander newly pledged to a power, who will be earning 10 merits per cycle from activities completed in each cycle:

At the end of the first cycle, you will have earned 10 merits. These merits are used to determine your Rating for the next cycle.

At the end of the second cycle, still assuming that you’re earning 10 merits for tasks each cycle, you’ll have 10 merits from activities in cycle two, and the merits you earned in cycle one will be added again, only at half value, meaning that you’d have a total of 15 merits (10 from cycle two and 10/2 from cycle one) used to determine you rating for the next cycle.

At the end of cycle three, you would be earning merits from activities from that cycle, plus merits earned from cycle two at half value, and merits from cycle one at a quarter value.

So if you earned 10 merits per cycle, in cycle three you would have 17.5 merits (10 from cycle three, 10/2 from cycle two and 10/4 from cycle one).

This trend continues; in its fourth cycle, merits are still awarded, only at an eighth of their original value. So, in our example, with 10 merits being earned each cycle, at the end of cycle four the merit total would be 18.75 (10 from cycle four, 10/2 from cycle three, 10/4 from cycle two and 10/8 from cycle one).

Merits are completely removed from your total on their fifth cycle, so in our example, merits earned from cycle one would be completely removed from cycle four, leaving us the same total of 18.75 (10 from cycle five, 10/2 from cycle four, 10/4 from cycle three, 10/8 from cycle two and zero from cycle one, as these merits have been removed).

The above quote was snipped from this thread.

[MJDS]

My merits seem spot on. In order to achieve and maintain 10,000 merits, you must collect a little under 5,500 merits, so just aim for 5,500. I'll use what I aim for, 6,000 which is easy #to break down. So here is exactly how it should be;

Week 1 6,000 collected

Week 2 6,000 col + 3,000(wk1/2) carried over = 9,000 total

Week 3 6,000 col + 3,000 (wk2/2) + 1500 (wk/4) = 10,500 total

Week 4 6,000 col + 3,000 (wk3/2) + 1500 (wk2/4) + 750 (wk1/8) = 11,250 total

If you get the exact same amount of merits each week, you will hit your max in 4 weeks and it will never change unless your weekly merit collection changes.

[StaticRadion]

UPDATE: 18 June 2015 - the merits from two weeks ago have now been halved properly, the merits from last week have not, so decay is confirmed to be 50% after the first week of earning the merits

I am still not sure if my merits are being retained correctly, but I've only been tracking my 'earned' ones for the last couple of weeks. Here's some info that I read from one of the developers on the FD board:this thread.

My merits seem spot on. In order to achieve and maintain 10,000 merits, you must collect a little under 5,500 merits, so just aim for 5,500. I'll use what I aim for, 6,000 which is easy #to break down. So here is exactly how it should be;

Week 1 6,000 collected
Week 2 6,000 col + 3,000(wk1/2) carried over = 9,000 total
Week 3 6,000 col + 3,000 (wk2/2) + 1500 (wk/4) = 10,500 total
Week 4 6,000 col + 3,000 (wk3/2) + 1500 (wk2/4) + 750 (wk1/8) = 11,250 total

If you get the exact same amount of merits each week, you will hit your max in 4 weeks and it will never change unless your weekly merit collection changes.

WITH YOUR POWERS COMBINED!

Merits now have a fixed decay and death. The math is simple 1.875x=y where x is the number of merits you have to earn weekly to have the y total after 4 weeks.

Rank 1- 100 merits.
1.875x=100
x=54
Rank 2- 750 merits.
1.875x=750
x=400
Rank 3- 1500 merits.
1.875x=1500
x=800
Rank 4- 10000 merits.
1.875x=10000
x=5334

To further clarify the original OP is now invalidated and obsolete. You canNOTreach 10,000 total merits by earning anything less than 5334 a week any longer.

[mickymouse718]

There seems to be a lot of confustion here :3 merits are really simple once to see the pattern;

if in 1 week you gain 10k merits - they are valid for four weeks, It's value being halfed each time for example, week 2 you will carry over 5k merits, week 3 2.5k and finally in week 4 1250 before being worthless in week 5.

so,

week 1 - 10k
week 2 - 5k + whatever you earn that week
week 3 - 2.5k + half of last weeks earnings + current weeks earnings
week 4 1250 + half of the halfed value from last week + half of last weeks earnings + current weeks earnings

Confusing yes but once you see the pattern you'll find it easy to work with, I currently maintain rank 5 by getting 5332/5334 (depends on the week) merits - highly achievable as 1k a day from undermining is easy ^^ 30 merits per kill in certain places (NPC) and most of the time they are transport ships

For those with steam visit the ED community page's guides' to see a table of how many merits you need to get and maintain rank 5 ^^ the table I posted there is the one I use and I have maintained rank 5 for 7 weeks probally around 7 hours worth of gametime ^^ how you get your merits is up to you ofc how long it takes will differ in the way you get them than how others do :3

Hope this helps

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