Merit reset
What TornLife's research has established about Merit reset, and the questions players asked about it.
What TornLife has verified
- Torn staff (bogie) advised a player asking about long-term merit planning that it is better to save merits than to pre-emptively spend them on an upgrade that may not be needed, since regretting the choice later forces a costly reset. (confirmed by Torn; merit points, )
- Merit resets exist as a game feature; a 2019 bug report shows a player with 238 merits to re-assign immediately after performing a merit reset, and the developer confirmed re-assignment was temporarily broken due to a fix in progress, not permanently unavailable. (confirmed by Torn; merits assign not working after merit reset, )
- Free merit resets can be used whenever available, and must be used before a points-purchased reset can be bought. Using a free reset does not raise the points cost of the next (paid) reset, and free resets stack. (documented; Merit › Free Merit Reset, )
- A free merit reset is granted upon completion of the Book: High School For Adults, and every player has received a free merit reset every year since 2018 as a Christmas gift; admins occasionally grant extra free resets for special circumstances. (documented; Merit › Free Merit Reset, )
- The wiki's Points Building notes confirm that using a free merit reset does not increase the cost of the next (paid) reset, mirroring the Merit page's reset mechanics. (documented; Point › Points Building, )
- A wiki-documented honor bar, 'Fresh Start,' is awarded simply for resetting your merits, and can be earned without spending points if the reset used was a free one (e.g. the Christmas gift reset). (documented; Point › Related Awards, )
- Resetting merits costs between 500 and 5,000 points; this range has not changed across the 2024 Points Building price revision that raised the per-merit purchase price from 250 to 300. (confirmed by Torn; Upcoming points building changes, )
- Patch list #115 (29/10/19) credited a free merit reset to every player who had been active in the preceding 31 days, a one-off mass grant distinct from the recurring yearly Christmas free reset. (confirmed by Torn; Merit/Patch History, )
- Patch list #60 (11/09/18) added a second confirmation step before a player could reset their merits, a safeguard against accidental resets of long-term merit investment. (confirmed by Torn; Merit/Patch History, )
- Merits can be reset for a cost of points. The first reset costs 500 points, increasing by 250 points per subsequent reset (second reset costs 750 points), up to a cap of 5000 points per reset. Gaining Honors and Medals rewards a merit. (confirmed by Torn; Missing 250 point merit reset, )
- Free merit resets (e.g. awarded at Christmas) do not count toward the escalating price of the next paid reset; the price only climbs when a player actually pays for a reset. Example given: a player who paid 500 points for a reset and then used a free reset will still only pay 750 points for their next paid reset, not 1000. (confirmed by Torn; free merit reset adds to the next price, )
- Developer confirmation in 2017 that a free merit reset does not increase the cost of the next reset: after a free reset, the cost remains the same as it was before the free reset was used. (confirmed by Torn; Free merit reset, )
- The in-game UI message logic for merit resets was adjusted in 2019 to clarify, depending on how many free resets a player holds, whether the next action uses a free reset or starts the paid cost ladder, and what that next paid cost will be. (confirmed by Torn; Merit reset, )
- A UI bug meant players holding multiple free merit resets could not see what the normal (paid) reset cost would be; this was fixed by developers in September 2023 after being reported in May 2023, having already worked correctly for players with only a single free reset. (confirmed by Torn; [QoL?] Can't see cost of merit reset w/ free reset, )
- The developer confirmed in 2015 that a free merit reset was being considered as compensation whenever the game changed something that invalidated previous merit allocations, and that it was on the to-do list at that time. (confirmed by Torn; Free Merit Reset to reallocate merits wasted, )
Questions about Merit reset
- Which merits in Torn take the longest to obtain, and why?
The single longest-to-earn items are time-gated Honors, not the point-bought Merit upgrades: the marriage honor Stairway To Heaven requires staying m…
- Which merit upgrades are worth buying for long-term benefit, and what are their costs, caps and trade-offs against other uses of points?
A merit costs 300 points (up from 250 before 3 Sep 2024), capped at one per two levels up to 50 by level 100 . The durable buys are percentage catego…
- Does Torn ever offer a free merit reset, such as during Christmas?
Yes. The wiki says free merit resets have been given every year since 2018 as a Christmas gift, and they can also come from the book High School For …