Important!! Changes to Mercenaries

[Amairgen]

This thread is open to all for discussion/input purposes prior to any change being implemented. I hope and trust that all comments will be constructive and that the thread will not evolve into a rant. Reference to Mercenaries includes both the Undead and the Normal ones.

Preamble - the problem:

1) In a nutshell the blame/responsibility for changes being necessary to Mercenaries is mine alone. Trust me - no one hates a 'nerf' more than I do. The scripts used for the Mercenary creatures were inherited and not my creation. They appeared to work fine but I did not recognize the manner in which they could be used or the unfairness of making such creatures available to characters with zero skill investment required (i.e. compared to Tamers or Ninjas). They are obviously fine as is on other shards who do not care as much about such things.

2) Mercenaries are stronger than fully developed player characters. They rival the very strongest pets that Tamers can find. Players have found ways for Mercenaries to 'insta' heal themselves making them almost unbeatable. Combining that with the fact that two Mercenaries can be used at the same time along with their master makes for an massively over powered combination that was never intended. Soloing Champs and killing Dark Fathers is fine and admirable under normal circumstances but sitting with two almost invulnerable Mercenaries waiting to kill Dark Fathers over and over for the loot is not working for the shard.

3) We have lost some veteran players who have used the Mercenaries to the point of boredom as the challenge to them is gone.

4) Overall the existing Mercenaries are contributing to an unbalance in the economy and the play style choices players would otherwise make for themselves.

*******************************************************

Solution - as I see it:

I have spent many hours scripting and testing various changes on the Test Server looking for the right combination. I have found what I think will work but I am human (honest) and can miss things as much as anyone. That is why this thread was created to seek everyone's input. I cannot promise any or all suggestions will be implemented but I can promise that all will be given very serious consideration.

1) The new Mercenaries will take up 5 follower slots instead of 3. That alone will mandate that only one Mercenary can be used at any one time.

2) The new Mercenaries with 'no' equipment and 'no' weapons added will do the same basic damage as a naked player. Adding good equipment/weapons will have a similar affect as it would adding these items to a player. In spite of that the new Mercenaries will have more Hit Points than any player.

3) The maximum Dexterity possible on a new Mercenary (after adding special jewelry) will be 110. That should solve the 'insta' heal problem.

4) Players will need at least 100 Anatomy Skill to use a new Mercenary. This is not a major impairment for a warrior but it is a skill point investment. Some players will think this is not enough and I do not disagree. Bear in mind I would like the new Mercenaries to be primarily available to warriors and mage/necros. At the same time I do not want to force template reworks on players using those classes of character.

5) Special Follower Slot Potions will become available through warrior quests so warriors wanting to use the new Mercenaries will also be able to mount most (but maybe not all) steeds. These special Follower Slot Potions will not be usable by Tamers. Tamers get Pet Slot Potions through the Taming quests.


Implementation - the challenge:

1) The changes will not go live on the Server until at least next weekend (probably longer) to allow player input and resulting script tweaks.

2) Players who have old Mercenaries will be asked to trade them in to me in exchange for new Mercenaries. I advise everyone to remove all equipment/weapons/jewelry before the exchange. I will be making note of each account that completes this exchange.

3) When the script changes go live on the Server they will have zero impact on the old/existing Mercenaries. As a result the old Mercenaries will have to be wiped from the Server at some point in time. I hope to do this sooner than later but will give reasonable time so players can log in to complete the exchanges. I suggest three weeks after the scripts go live which will still make some infrequent players with old Mercenaries unhappy. I will try to deal with their losses on an individual basis.

4) The new Mercenaries I give out will be at full stage development and at full skill development.

5) In addition, I will offer a bonus gift to any account exchanging a Mercenary owned by that account. The bonus gift will be 'one time per account'. The bonus gift will be a choice of any one of the following:
- 10,000 Tradium coins
- One special storage container (like wood, ingots, tools etc.) of player's choice
- Two spell crafting jewels of player's choice
- One 115 power scroll of player's choice
- 1,000 power scroll tokens (equal to one 120 random PS)
- Five +1 skill balls
- One stat ball
- Pet slot increased by 1 to a maximum of 8
- One ID wand with 1000 uses
- One blessed pouch to safely store 10 items
- Blessing of one Item
- Renaming of 1 item
- One race change token


Generally:

I am deeply sorry this has become necessary. I am at fault for the lack of long term vision regarding the Mercenary set up and its impact. I am implementing changes because I am convinced the short term pain will be good for the long term benefit to the Shard.

As always . . I appreciate your understanding, patience and cooperation. I am open to all ideas and constructive input.

Cheers
Amairgen

[A Black Death]

im not liking this at all..

[Amairgen]

Feb 27, 2016 14:47:40 GMT -8 A Black Death said:

im not liking this at all..

Thank you for our first 'constructive' input. I hope things get more productive from here.

Cheers

[Grull]

Sounds like a good fix to me. And i tend to agree with the idea of adding tactics to the required skill list. Tamers must invest taming and lore...and if you have anatomy, there is a good chance you already have tactics. Something like these mercs sounds just fine, but your character should be based around being a leader of mercs imo.

[kendrkin]

I know next to nothing about the merc system, but one evening of listening to some of the advanced players discuss their plans to use this seemingly broken mechanic to it's maximum exploit before it's taken away from them, convinces me that something here is definitely in need of a fix. 

From what I have read this seems fair to me, no one should have a huge set of advantages at no cost, that's hardly fair. Hearing folks discuss their plans to grind champs, and dark fathers solo as quick as they can before they can't use that anymore, is all I really need to hear to know somethings out of hand.

There has to be some things that best suit a group, this is after all a MMORPG, and by it's very nature is supposed to be collaborative. 

At the end of the day, I favour server balance. So I think the proposed changes look like exactly what is called for. But again, I admit, I've never used these mercs myself, so as someone with nothing to lose, maybe I'm overly detached. 


Just my two cents. 

[kendrkin]

Also I favour the idea of two skills, not sure what they should be but, two seems the minimum of fairness in my mind.

[Sargoth]

I believe that everyone who tried Mercenaries can honestly say, that they are the best choice if you consider their strenght and gameplay "skill" of a player controlling them. They have many advantages (healing, speed, equip choices, no skill requirement) and are really easy to play with... along with that, they are the strongest "pets" i found here and you can trust me, i found and tried many pets =)

The fact that Amairgen put a lot of time to test them on a test server, tried different methods how to "reduce" their unbalanced strenght, spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this better, not worse.. the fact that he informs us and wants an open discussion and opinions of all of us... That all is telling me, that he really cares about us, which is a good feeling, hehe He could simply change or even delete them without saying a word, but instead of that he understands that some players like them and play regulary with them (including myself). I can understand both sides, it was fun playing with something that strong as Mercenaries but suddenly all challanges i had disappeared, all tough monsters i was preparing on, died like a fly from Mercenaries.. All strategy, risk and adrenalin was gone, because i knew i can just stand behind them and they will do the work. Sometimes we need to understand, that letting go of something "good" can bring us much more than we had with it =) ... But the way you handled it Amairgen is what i admire. Some nerfs might be painful... But now I'll recieve a gift, because of an update that makes the game even better, thats pretty cool! :-D

So for me, i understand these changes and i agree with them. =)

Have a nice day everyone. =)

[Amairgen]

Thank you for the feed back to date. Please consider this.

Feb 27, 2016 15:15:14 GMT -8 Daedalus said:

. . . Maybe you should consider making Tactics and Anatomy both required skills for mercs.

Feb 27, 2016 15:34:35 GMT -8 Grull said:

. . . i tend to agree with the idea of adding tactics to the required skill list. Tamers must invest taming and lore...and if you have anatomy, there is a good chance you already have tactics.

I do not disagree with adding more than one skill requirement but it gets really tricky. The Human Mercenaries and their counterpart the Undead Followers are intended to be the domain of Warriors, Mages and Necromancers. Tamers strongest pets should out match a single Mercenary. Where the new Mercenaries become really good is when they accompany a master who is willing to stand at their side and be part of the front line fight. Bear in mind that Pets and Mercenaries will never attack a player even on Tartarus (not tested).

My main concern here is - I do not want to cause disruption in the templates of Warriors, Mages or Necromancers over Mercenaries. Using a combination of multiple skills gets really complicated given the various template combinations of those classes. While I would like to use more than one control skill it is less disruptive to use only one.

After further consideration I think we need to use more (not additional) control skills to assure that Warriors, Mages and Necromancers can use Mercs without additional pain. So . . this is what I am currently looking at (if I can script it) and I would appreciate your input.

To use Human or Undead Mercenaries a player must have GM skill (100) in at least one of the following:
Anatomy
or Tactics
or Chivalry
or Magery
or Necromancy
or Spirit Speak

Input appreciated.

*bows*

[kendrkin]

Although I like the consideration for existing templates I am somewhat stuck on how much a tamer has to give up in order to really have a decent pet, generally speaking a tamer will have three skills to support their pets, taming, animal lore and vet.

On the other hand you have mercs, who my understanding is self heal and can be healed with normal healing a skill almost any warrior has built in. I think a 'dump' skill like animal lore is to the tamer should be required.. It doesn't really do much for a tamer to have animal lore and yet is more or less a requirement not unlike the relationship between music and any of its tertiary skills.

My concern I guess is that as it stands any fighter or Mage can more or less get a high end tameable at no cost other than the skill they currently already have in their build. I think that to be fair they either need to be

a) fairly substantially weaker then high end tameable (which has to account for their self healing and the fact that almost any master will have have healing skill to heal them at no additional skill cost to their build.)

b) very difficult to train.. Are they treated as evo pets? I had thought they were but if they aren't that's always an idea make them comparable in difficulty to the evo pets final evolutions.

c) maybe remove the need for vet skill entirely, to balance things for those who choose to take actual pets, and or add self healing to those evo pet types, as an alternative to a nerf this boost could help tamers.

d) if they cannot attack players on tart make them still be able to -be- attacked or change it so they can attack and be attacked this will increase the risk of brining one with you as it could be pkd and looted.

All just speculative thinking not sure if any of it helps but I've played a fair number of shards and staffed a couple so I've got an ok head for balancing issues..

No one likes a nerf but it's an essential thing to maintain balance especially on a small server..

Again great work Amairgen, it's so nice to see your consultative approach.

[Sargoth]

First thing that comes to my mind is comparing a Mercenary vs other pets. Pets are a way of fighting for tamers and tamers need to have 3 skills developed in order to fight with their pet: Animal Taming, Animal Lore, Veterinary. These 3 skills are useless for anything else than obtaining/control of their pet and the strongest pets require 120 Taming/120 lore for absolute control. It is clearly stated (and i fully agree) that tamers should have stronger pets than Mercenaries... There are plenty of pets afterall and mercenary is just an "addon" to make more fun and versatility for warriors, but it is no weakling. Mercenaries are going to be pretty strong, even after an update.

We clearly need to setup some skill requirement. If i think about lets say just Tactics, we basically give mercenaries "for free" to all warriors/archers/ninjas/samurais because all of them must have Tactics with or without a mercenary. Same with Necromancery for necromants etc. So thats probably why people suggesting mercenaries to require 2 skills. I understand.

What i'd suggest would be just 1 required skill, but that skill should be useless for anything else (just like tamers skills work). Lets say Herding. That way, every character needs to invest 100 points off their template to be able to control a strong pet, which is a pretty good deal i think. Also, it is equaly fair to every template be it a warrior, mage or necromancer. Also, it would be easier to script it just for Herding than adding 2 required skills or some combinations of them.

Just an idea, but i like it =)

Have a nice day everyone. =)

EDIT: Kendrkin was few minutes faster with his message than me, hehe. I like his thoughts and it seems we are pointing at the same thing - Tamers invest 360 useless skill points, mercenaries should cost some skill points as well (according to their strenght). I don't want to destroy templates, which is why i think 100 "useless" skill points could be enough, like Herding. I also don't want to further weaken Mercenaries, which is why i vote for new/boosted animal pets, to balance 360 vs 100 skill points invested. I had few ideas that we spoke about Amairgen or we can simply open up a new forum tab and let everyone contribute.. Im sure people have many great ideas =)

[Amairgen]

Thank you for the great and thoughtful input. I hope this continues and more people add to the solution.

Dealing with the two recent contributions . . .

Feb 29, 2016 10:03:25 GMT -8 kendrkin said:

I think that to be fair they (Mercs) either need to be

a) fairly substantially weaker then high end tameable (which has to account for their self healing and the fact that almost any master will have have healing skill to heal them at no additional skill cost to their build.)

b) very difficult to train. Are they treated as evo pets? I had thought they were but if they aren't that's always an idea make them comparable in difficulty to the evo pets final evolutions.

c) maybe remove the need for vet skill entirely, to balance things for those who choose to take actual pets, and or add self healing to those evo pet types, as an alternative to a nerf this boost could help tamers.

d) if they cannot attack players on tart make them still be able to -be- attacked or change it so they can attack and be attacked this will increase the risk of brining one with you as it could be pkd and looted.

Feb 29, 2016 10:06:47 GMT -8 Sargoth said:

. . . .mercenary is just an "addon" to make more fun and versatility for warriors, but it is no weakling. Mercenaries are going to be pretty strong, even after an update.

We clearly need to setup some skill requirement. If i think about lets say just Tactics, we basically give mercenaries "for free" to all warriors/archers/ninjas/samurais because all of them must have Tactics with or without a mercenary. Same with Necromancery for necromants etc. So thats probably why people suggesting mercenaries to require 2 skills. I understand.

What i'd suggest would be just 1 required skill, but that skill should be useless for anything else (just like tamers skills work). Lets say Herding. That way, every character needs to invest 100 points off their template to be able to control a strong pet, which is a pretty good deal i think. Also, it is equaly fair to every template be it a warrior, mage or necromancer. Also, it would be easier to script it just for Herding than adding 2 required skills or some combinations of them.

. . . . Tamers invest 360 useless skill points, mercenaries should cost some skill points as well (according to their strength). I don't want to destroy templates, which is why i think 100 "useless" skill points could be enough, like Herding. I also don't want to further weaken Mercenaries, which is why i vote for new/boosted animal pets, to balance 360 vs 100 skill points invested.

My thoughts . . .

1) "fairly substantially weaker then high end tamable"
Without softening the Mercs too much I intend to assure they are not as powerful as the high end Pets


2) "very difficult to train"
Mercs are Evo creatures with six stages and require a lot of training. I am looking at adding a new item 'Follower Food' to make training faster but it will be very expensive.


3) - "maybe remove the need for vet skill entirely"
- "i vote for new/boosted animal pets, to balance 360 vs 100 skill points invested"
I have no interest in tampering with normal pets and Tamers and further than I did in setting up the shard. Their power is balanced against Monsters (I trust) so messing with that opens a huge rats nest.


4) "if they cannot attack players on tart make them still be able to -be- attacked"
First thing I need to do (and will immediately) is test to see if they will attack another player/pet or can be attacked. I will post on this thread letting everyone know what I find out. Based on that we may have some new tweaking to consider. If in fact Mercs refuse to attack players or player controlled pets then in fairness it should be impossible for a players or player controlled pets to attack them. Commands to do so should simply confuse the Merc/Pet.


5) "What i'd suggest would be just 1 required skill, but that skill should be useless for anything else"
Given what I am hearing about the huge imbalance with skill investment (Tamers vs Warrior/Mage/Necro) . . I am beginning to sway toward a more balanced skill investment needed for Mercs. This will not bother newer players who have not used Mercs here but it would be a very painful adjustment for those in our community using Mercs here daily. If we were a new shard just opening the doors we could impose multiple semi-useless side skills. I do not have the heart to make that harsh a change. So . . Yes . . My leaning is toward adding a semi-useless skill requirement but only one - not two or three. Herding or Camping seem to make the most sense to me at the moment.

Please do not take my comments as written in stone. At this time they are just my contributions to the conversation. This is an open discussion which is the healthy way to go.

Cheers

[kendrkin]

Great answers to my points, that more or less addresses my concerns, my thought for the skill that could be required was actually herding.. I was mulling it over after my post.

To me that would probably be a good solution. Does herding increase follower slots? I'd played a server once where it did but I am unsure if that is the case here, just a thought because if it does that could be an issues again.

I feel the pain for those currently leaning on the power of mercs but the flip side is they've been fortunate to amass the goods and loot they've had the chance to get during the period of unbalance.. I also agree with Andariel on the short term pain for long term gain.. In the long run I think this change is fair.

In further review of the point about animals and mercs not being able to attack I actually considered this a little more and think they should both be unable to attack and to be attacked period. Otherwise you end up with a poke pvp where no player can ever hope to defeat a player with a tamed creatures based on the whole strength difference in the pets vs the players.

As always thanks for considering our comments,

[Grull]

2) "very difficult to train"

Mercs are Evo creatures with six stages and require a lot of training. I am looking at adding a new item 'Follower Food' to make training faster but it will be very expensive.

Why not just make them have a weekly upkeep in gold..something substantial and based on the level of the mercenary in question..nothing extra to script and I mean..what else would a merc work for?

[Amairgen]

Feb 29, 2016 15:52:20 GMT -8 kendrkin said:

. . . my thought for the skill that could be required was actually herding . . To me that would probably be a good solution. Does herding increase follower slots?

In further review of the point about animals and mercs not being able to attack I actually considered this a little more and think they should both be unable to attack and to be attacked period. Otherwise you end up with a poke pvp where no player can ever hope to defeat a player with a tamed creatures based on the whole strength difference in the pets vs the players.

Thank you for the continued thoughts/questions.

Okay three things:

Herding
Herding does not increase follower slots but it does give instant auto Bonding. Apart from that it can be fun to play along with the Bard skills.

Mercenary Control Skills
I have been tossing this over and over in my mind a lot. In a perfect world a couple control skills would have been good for Mercenaries. This would have been acceptable when opening a shard. However, for me it is too harsh a change after a couple of years running. I feel the 'Template' adjustments required for fully developed characters would be painful and alter their game play style.

Keeping in mind that 'human' and 'undead' Mercenaries were intended as adventuring companions for Warriors Mages and Necromancers . . I am now leaning to two further changes will solve this problem (as best I think it can be solved) and balance the problem.

1) Characters must have GM in one of the following skills to use a new Merc - Anatomy or Tactics or Spirit Speak.
2) New Mercenaries will not be able to kill a White Wyrm or Shadow Wyrm without assistance from their master.

Merc/Pet Attack Ability
I believe Mercenaries and Pets should be able to attack (and be attacked by) anything on the facet of Tartarus (Felucca). On all other facets Mercenaries and Pets should be allowed to attack (and be attacked by) monsters but not players.

Just as an aside . . years ago when I played PvP (hated it) I ignored the Pet, killed the Tamer then hide/invis to break targeting (no tamer = useless pet).

I look forward to closing comments. If there is no additional input warranting discussion prior to Sunday night I will begin scripting the changes.

Thank you to everyone.

Cheers

[kendrkin]

Hmmm.. all great final thoughts. I find the solution a little on the light cost side, but I see the reasoning and the logic. All in all, seems like a fair minded solution.

Thanks for considering our input Amairgen