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The links provided on this thread are a good read on what you need to grasp concerning merits (and sMerits).
Concerning the profiles you see with thousands of Merits, they have probably spent lots of time on the forum since the Merit System kicked-in, and created some kind of content through their multiple posts that was considered decent enough by others. You can look through the official
Merit Stats for a simple view on the most merited profiles and such.
Bear in mind that when the Merit System kicked-in, on the 25/01/2018, profiles were airdropped an initial quantity of Merits, equivalent to the number of Merits required for the rank of each person at the time (0 Jr. Member – none required at that point in time - , 10 Member, 100 Full Member , ... , 1k merits for Legendary members). Some Heroes were awarded 1k Merits exceptionally.
Note that the typical rookie misconception is that a profile with many Merits should have plenty "
Merits to award" to others. After all, you see a large number of merits on their profile summary, so they must have plenty to hand out. That is not so.
Remember (after reading through the referenced links in the prior posts) that Merits and sMerits are related but are not the same. A profile with 1k Merits on his profile could have no sMerits (left) to award. The Merit counter does not decrease (unless you are really naughty) – it’s the sMerit counter that decreases after you send sMerits to someone.
i.e.
- User A has 10 Merits and 2 sMerits. User B has 0 Merits and 0 sMerits.
- User A sends 1 sMerit to User B.
User A will now have 10 Merits and 1 sMerit left. User B will have 1 Merit and no sMerits to award (he has 0,5 virtual sMerits, but only integer figures are sendable).
- User A sends 1 sMerit (again) to User B:
User A will now have 10 Merits and 0 sMerit left. User B will have 2 Merits and 1 sMerits to award to others when he pleases.