It seems to be hard to get merits from others. I think it is simply because users should keep merits for themselves in order to be ranked up. Quite hard to get rewarded merits, I guess.
You didnt understand. When someone gives you Merit, they lose sMerit, which is only used to be sent to others and has no purpose besides that.
Hoarding my sMerit doesnt give me any benefit. Likewise, I dont lose any of my Merit (defining my rank) when sending Merit to others, as sMerit are used for that.
You have Merits, those you cannot send.
You also have sMerits, those you can only send, they have no other purpose.
When someone gives Merit to you they lose sMerit of the amount transfered and you gain Merit as well as sMerit (which in case you can send again).
Example: Should I send 10 Merit to you for a post, my sMerit would decrease by 10.
Your Merit would increase by 10 and your sMerit would increase by 5.
Merits are exclusively earned, but the sMerit part you also get keeps the circulation flowing.
(Ignoring merit sources here, for the sake of making an easy example.)
If so, what if selling/ buying merits, how to prevent this?
Banhammer to the face.
I respectfully disagree with the first part. Someone who is a week away from becoming a legendary member, for example, will now have to compete for the same 500 Merit points as someone who just became a hero member, in order to reach the legendary member status.
I did start with 500
