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Original article
Read on to find out how I managed to achieve 300 awards in less than 300 days, and how you can too!
In life, it’s always a good idea to have goals, and I’m sure most will agree that the same is true for Torn City too! Having something to aim for focuses your play, and with a game as open-ended as Torn, structure becomes an absolute necessity as time goes on.
One personal goal which I recently completed is the achievement of 300 awards in less than 300 days. I can already hear Torn's grizzled veterans grumbling, so eager to remind us new kids of how easy things are nowadays, especially with the creation of everyone’s favourite “Free merit Tuesday” (deal with it gramps!).
Despite some people's belief that this kind of thing is easy, I still get quite a lot of requests for help or guidance from people wondering how the heck I’ve managed it. So here is my quick and easy guide to hunting for awards.
1. BE CERTAIN
Like many goals, even merit hunting can be a drag at times. I begin by considering which merits will actually be useful to me at this stage of my Torn life. Whereas the reduction of bank and education time is invaluable to most new players, Life and critical chance are arguably the most important for older players. And the passive increase to battle stats can make a huge difference to players of any age, as well as reduce the negative impact of Xanax, which is excellent!
Pictured: It happens more often than you’d think...
There were many times I considered just focusing on other things, but merits are, in my opinion, an overlooked mechanic in the game. Merits provide some fairly significant boosts that suit a variety of play styles. Perhaps you want to mug your way to your very own PI? Then why not spend your merits on masterful looting and boost how much you take!
It may also be useful to pop some merits into Evasion to increase your effective Dexterity and increase your chances of remaining stealthy. Another good use of merits is the mastery of your weapon of choice to give you that edge on those unsuspecting victims! Attacking not your style? Boost up your protection and give yourself a passive boost to defence to defend yourself against those eager to separate you with your hard-earned dollars!
Whichever way you play, there are perks within the merit system that are absolutely invaluable! Plus, nothing is set in stone, and merits can always be reset if ever you decide to mix things up a little. Regardless of which path you choose, the benefits which merits provide are a great motivator when it comes to chasing those awards, knowing that they'll make your day-to-day Torn life that little bit easier.
2. KNOW YOUR ENEMY
Knowing which awards you want is a good long term strategy for staying productive. Knowing which awards you are close to is a great short term strategy for giving yourself the warm glow of achievement. The first thing I always say to people is this: Which awards or merits are you close to?
Honestly, I’ve rolled my eyes so much at people saying they don’t know, so it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen out. Do your homework. I spent a lot of time researching which awards were out there, and how close I was to unlocking them. Between Tornstats, YATA, the wiki and the forums, there really is no excuse for being unprepared if this is a goal you are seriously considering.
You can find a list of all medals and awards here on YATA
There are many really easily achievable awards too. I found that Tempest did a great job of listing them here, and they even provided a few instructions and links to help you achieve some of the more difficult ones. So a massive thanks must go to Tempest for that!
Some of these awards take literally seconds if you've got a friend to help, such as “Gone Fishing” which involves being slapped about by a trout. Blood Bags are your friend here if you can use them, as the trout must be used to land the final, defeating hit on you. This is an award you could snap up immediately after reading this article, as is “Landlord”, which requires you to lease any property to anybody for any length of time!
3. PLAN AHEAD
Now, this might seem fairly obvious at first, but bear with me! At no point during my first 300 days did I ever have a singular goal in mind - I had several!
One of my favourite aspects of Torn is the ability to multitask. I always made sure I had at least the next 5 or 6 awards in mind, and I stacked them wherever possible. The most recent awards have made that especially easy. Take a look at which merits you want to achieve and consider ways in which you can group them together.
Chains are especially good for merit hunting as there are a wide range of attacking or weapon-based merits to bag - from special ammo and finishing hits to genocide and attacks won, chains are a goldmine of opportunity for merit hunting! You can also take the opportunity to get busy with your spouse for the Deadly Duo honor, or if you're feeling ballsy, you could “accidentally” attack a coworker for the Going Postal award.
4. CONSIDER THE DOWNSIDES
Focusing on one area of Torn will always have an impact on another, but this is something you'll have to weigh up for yourself. If you do it right, hunting awards should benefit your overall experience of Torn, not harm it.
Many people assumed that I must be slacking in one aspect of the game in order to chase awards, but that's simply not true - have you seen how many battlestat awards there are? In actual fact, for as quickly as I reached 300, I could have done it much faster if I had pursued the flying merits. I could've also snapped up many of the drug merits too, but I wanted to build my NNB, so I stuck to arsons instead of going for the easier crime merits.
Pictured: This meme is a lie.
It’s hugely important not to let yourself burn out because you’ve prioritised merit hunting. Like many things in Torn, it can be a grind - but committing to one thing at the expense of fun will only hurt you in the long run. Keep yourself motivated, but above all make sure you’re enjoying what you’re doing - there’s nothing wrong with taking a little break here and there. I paused on the hunting for a short while, and it didn’t slow me down anywhere near as much as being demotivated and bored would have.
5. GET COMPETITIVE
Having supportive friends and faction mates can really help you feel like you’re doing well and achieving, even if you don’t necessarily hit the goals you set yourself. However, another way I found to keep myself going was by encouraging my competitive side.
On my way through the awards, I kept track of others doing the same thing, as healthy competition can be a great motivator! This is also a good way to pick up tips and avoid bad habits. For example, I noticed that a common theme among merit hunters is that they spend lots of money to gain relatively easily awards, such as buying defends. If that’s something you don’t mind doing, that’s great, but it wasn’t necessary for me, and it shouldn’t be necessary for you either.
Knowing when not to do something can be just as helpful as deciding when to do it. Ultimately, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, learn how to measure your progress, and have fun with it!
6. MJH’s PRO TIPS
Pictured: Sometimes it can feel this way, but there are still things we can do!
Cheap Losses
Many people are put off merit hunting due to the perceived expense, or they believe that certain tasks simply aren’t achievable. When I first checked out the attacking forum for the cost of defends my heart dropped - what can I say, I’m cheap! I completely understand the price, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.
To avoid the cost and secure myself some cheap losses I simply had to put the hard yards in. Using advanced search, I messaged hundreds and hundreds of players and explained my situation. I knew that there were people who paid more, but I made it clear that I would only pay $100k for any and all losses. If you don't ask, you don't get!
Of course, many people ignored or declined my offer, and a few even accused me of being a scammer, but I still managed to get over 1,000 defends at a much lower price than the market demands. As a bonus, I also nabbed several finishing hit merits for a fraction of the price I would have paid, all thanks to a little effort on my part.
Pictured: Everybody loves a bargain!
Dumping
The eco-friendly award for trashing 5,000 items often sees many players waste millions in buying up jackets just to dump them. This is unnecessary. There is plenty of junk available in the City shops waiting for you to buy it up, and if four of your friends are willing to use up their 100 daily item limit on your behalf, that's 500 items right there.
In the past, many players would use their 100 item limit to buy up beers. These days, given that most factions offer beer to their members for free, you should find that plenty of people are willing to buy up items on your behalf. You can also find a whole heap of junk to dump spawning on your City Map, or on sale via Bazaars and the Item Market.
This method may only save you a relatively small amount compared to buying jackets, but being savvy in numerous small ways will help you build that networth much faster - and you could even spend that extra cash saved on dumping a $1m item for the Lavish honor!
Competitions and Events
I personally have made the bulk of my wealth through competition and event participation, and I highly recommend it! Even if you don’t win prizes, most if not all of the special events in Torn offer up the chance to earn unique honor bars too - not to mention all of the ones in the token shop which most certainly count!
That’s not to say participation is a must. I personally gave Elimination a miss this year in favour of those sweet sweet gains, but it’s definitely something to consider, and always carries the potential for some pretty awesome prizes! Outside of competitions, single-day events like World Diabetes Day and 4/20 give you the best chance to earn specific honors for achieving 99,999 happiness and overdosing on Cannabis.
And of course, the ongoing slate of Community Events run throughout the year offer you a great chance to nab the Champion honor. Some of these competitions only have one or two pages of entrants, so if you target these, you stand a good chance of victory - so long as you don't enter a picture of yourself with lady blood around your mouth.
That’s all from me for now. If you’re in dire need of advice in relation to particular awards and you can’t find it in the forum, please feel free to reach out! Until then, good luck, and have a great new year everyone!
One personal goal which I recently completed is the achievement of 300 awards in less than 300 days. I can already hear Torn's grizzled veterans grumbling, so eager to remind us new kids of how easy things are nowadays, especially with the creation of everyone’s favourite “Free merit Tuesday” (deal with it gramps!).
Despite some people's belief that this kind of thing is easy, I still get quite a lot of requests for help or guidance from people wondering how the heck I’ve managed it. So here is my quick and easy guide to hunting for awards.
1. BE CERTAIN
Like many goals, even merit hunting can be a drag at times. I begin by considering which merits will actually be useful to me at this stage of my Torn life. Whereas the reduction of bank and education time is invaluable to most new players, Life and critical chance are arguably the most important for older players. And the passive increase to battle stats can make a huge difference to players of any age, as well as reduce the negative impact of Xanax, which is excellent!
Pictured: It happens more often than you’d think...
There were many times I considered just focusing on other things, but merits are, in my opinion, an overlooked mechanic in the game. Merits provide some fairly significant boosts that suit a variety of play styles. Perhaps you want to mug your way to your very own PI? Then why not spend your merits on masterful looting and boost how much you take!
It may also be useful to pop some merits into Evasion to increase your effective Dexterity and increase your chances of remaining stealthy. Another good use of merits is the mastery of your weapon of choice to give you that edge on those unsuspecting victims! Attacking not your style? Boost up your protection and give yourself a passive boost to defence to defend yourself against those eager to separate you with your hard-earned dollars!
Whichever way you play, there are perks within the merit system that are absolutely invaluable! Plus, nothing is set in stone, and merits can always be reset if ever you decide to mix things up a little. Regardless of which path you choose, the benefits which merits provide are a great motivator when it comes to chasing those awards, knowing that they'll make your day-to-day Torn life that little bit easier.
2. KNOW YOUR ENEMY
Knowing which awards you want is a good long term strategy for staying productive. Knowing which awards you are close to is a great short term strategy for giving yourself the warm glow of achievement. The first thing I always say to people is this: Which awards or merits are you close to?
Honestly, I’ve rolled my eyes so much at people saying they don’t know, so it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen out. Do your homework. I spent a lot of time researching which awards were out there, and how close I was to unlocking them. Between Tornstats, YATA, the wiki and the forums, there really is no excuse for being unprepared if this is a goal you are seriously considering.
You can find a list of all medals and awards here on YATA
There are many really easily achievable awards too. I found that Tempest did a great job of listing them here, and they even provided a few instructions and links to help you achieve some of the more difficult ones. So a massive thanks must go to Tempest for that!
Some of these awards take literally seconds if you've got a friend to help, such as “Gone Fishing” which involves being slapped about by a trout. Blood Bags are your friend here if you can use them, as the trout must be used to land the final, defeating hit on you. This is an award you could snap up immediately after reading this article, as is “Landlord”, which requires you to lease any property to anybody for any length of time!
3. PLAN AHEAD
Now, this might seem fairly obvious at first, but bear with me! At no point during my first 300 days did I ever have a singular goal in mind - I had several!
One of my favourite aspects of Torn is the ability to multitask. I always made sure I had at least the next 5 or 6 awards in mind, and I stacked them wherever possible. The most recent awards have made that especially easy. Take a look at which merits you want to achieve and consider ways in which you can group them together.
Chains are especially good for merit hunting as there are a wide range of attacking or weapon-based merits to bag - from special ammo and finishing hits to genocide and attacks won, chains are a goldmine of opportunity for merit hunting! You can also take the opportunity to get busy with your spouse for the Deadly Duo honor, or if you're feeling ballsy, you could “accidentally” attack a coworker for the Going Postal award.
4. CONSIDER THE DOWNSIDES
Focusing on one area of Torn will always have an impact on another, but this is something you'll have to weigh up for yourself. If you do it right, hunting awards should benefit your overall experience of Torn, not harm it.
Many people assumed that I must be slacking in one aspect of the game in order to chase awards, but that's simply not true - have you seen how many battlestat awards there are? In actual fact, for as quickly as I reached 300, I could have done it much faster if I had pursued the flying merits. I could've also snapped up many of the drug merits too, but I wanted to build my NNB, so I stuck to arsons instead of going for the easier crime merits.
Pictured: This meme is a lie.
It’s hugely important not to let yourself burn out because you’ve prioritised merit hunting. Like many things in Torn, it can be a grind - but committing to one thing at the expense of fun will only hurt you in the long run. Keep yourself motivated, but above all make sure you’re enjoying what you’re doing - there’s nothing wrong with taking a little break here and there. I paused on the hunting for a short while, and it didn’t slow me down anywhere near as much as being demotivated and bored would have.
5. GET COMPETITIVE
Having supportive friends and faction mates can really help you feel like you’re doing well and achieving, even if you don’t necessarily hit the goals you set yourself. However, another way I found to keep myself going was by encouraging my competitive side.
On my way through the awards, I kept track of others doing the same thing, as healthy competition can be a great motivator! This is also a good way to pick up tips and avoid bad habits. For example, I noticed that a common theme among merit hunters is that they spend lots of money to gain relatively easily awards, such as buying defends. If that’s something you don’t mind doing, that’s great, but it wasn’t necessary for me, and it shouldn’t be necessary for you either.
Knowing when not to do something can be just as helpful as deciding when to do it. Ultimately, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, learn how to measure your progress, and have fun with it!
6. MJH’s PRO TIPS
Pictured: Sometimes it can feel this way, but there are still things we can do!
Cheap Losses
Many people are put off merit hunting due to the perceived expense, or they believe that certain tasks simply aren’t achievable. When I first checked out the attacking forum for the cost of defends my heart dropped - what can I say, I’m cheap! I completely understand the price, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.
To avoid the cost and secure myself some cheap losses I simply had to put the hard yards in. Using advanced search, I messaged hundreds and hundreds of players and explained my situation. I knew that there were people who paid more, but I made it clear that I would only pay $100k for any and all losses. If you don't ask, you don't get!
Of course, many people ignored or declined my offer, and a few even accused me of being a scammer, but I still managed to get over 1,000 defends at a much lower price than the market demands. As a bonus, I also nabbed several finishing hit merits for a fraction of the price I would have paid, all thanks to a little effort on my part.
Pictured: Everybody loves a bargain!
Dumping
The eco-friendly award for trashing 5,000 items often sees many players waste millions in buying up jackets just to dump them. This is unnecessary. There is plenty of junk available in the City shops waiting for you to buy it up, and if four of your friends are willing to use up their 100 daily item limit on your behalf, that's 500 items right there.
In the past, many players would use their 100 item limit to buy up beers. These days, given that most factions offer beer to their members for free, you should find that plenty of people are willing to buy up items on your behalf. You can also find a whole heap of junk to dump spawning on your City Map, or on sale via Bazaars and the Item Market.
This method may only save you a relatively small amount compared to buying jackets, but being savvy in numerous small ways will help you build that networth much faster - and you could even spend that extra cash saved on dumping a $1m item for the Lavish honor!
Competitions and Events
I personally have made the bulk of my wealth through competition and event participation, and I highly recommend it! Even if you don’t win prizes, most if not all of the special events in Torn offer up the chance to earn unique honor bars too - not to mention all of the ones in the token shop which most certainly count!
That’s not to say participation is a must. I personally gave Elimination a miss this year in favour of those sweet sweet gains, but it’s definitely something to consider, and always carries the potential for some pretty awesome prizes! Outside of competitions, single-day events like World Diabetes Day and 4/20 give you the best chance to earn specific honors for achieving 99,999 happiness and overdosing on Cannabis.
And of course, the ongoing slate of Community Events run throughout the year offer you a great chance to nab the Champion honor. Some of these competitions only have one or two pages of entrants, so if you target these, you stand a good chance of victory - so long as you don't enter a picture of yourself with lady blood around your mouth.
That’s all from me for now. If you’re in dire need of advice in relation to particular awards and you can’t find it in the forum, please feel free to reach out! Until then, good luck, and have a great new year everyone!
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