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Mercenary System

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  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2014

    Those levels don't actually help you beat the adventure, though. My team is all level 5 and I still get curbstomped by the L1 adventure because, hey, their level is meaningless when it doesn't help me pass Force/Poison/Arson/Traps tests.

    Also, Goblin Fort seems almost worthless to run. None of the skill books are for any skills I have problems with and the L2 armor will only help in the rare fights(unless you get poisoner's armor, I guess). It almost seems like your best bet would be running Find the Cure over and over again, because at least you have a chance of a Poison or Force skillbook that WOULD help on adventure tasks.

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    Old adventure records will eventually go away. I'm also going to change it so that the list command only shows the current ones, and add a LIST ALL so that you can see the recent history of failed/succeeded adventures.
  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2014

    More complaints, this time about fighting:

    1. Going over the fight logs, I see that the level 1 fights have a crapload of AOE compared to my nothing. Goblin Bowwielder AOEs my entire back line. Wolfrider AOEs my entire front line. 10 rounds later, more AOE. 10 rounds later, more AOE. I have no AOE and no way to predict the location of the AOE people or effectively target them if I did.
    2. I'd like to forget Acidic Blast and try to Shoot. Too bad that forgetting Acidic Blast means throwing away ~100 lessons. 
    3. If I have to fight more than once, I will not have enough health to win further fights. So basically I can fight once and then I'm screwed on the next one. 
    4. Health regeneration after a lost fight is SLOW. Waiting half an hour to try again after losing a fight sucks.
    5. Seriously, what the hell is up with this AOE.

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • IluvIluv Member Posts: 703 ✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2014
    Mercenary Adventure Information for Adventure #231 - Goblin Fort
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Events Completed: 5
    Events Remaining: 1

    Last Event Result:
    Your mercenaries begin battering the fortifications with the instructions shouted by Taeryaynn 
    Bearsunder. After several minutes, the fortifications are succesfully weakened, and your mercenaries 
    continue on in their mission.

    Current Report:
    Your mercenary team reports that it has reached the leader of the fort. End his brief reign and 
    eliminate the goblin threat.

    What do you do?

     1) Attack the leader (Fight - Difficulty: 10) [10m]
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    (Fight - Difficulty: 10)

    :(

    Mercenary Adventure Information for Adventure #231 - Goblin Fort
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Events Completed: 6
    Events Remaining: 0

    Last Event Result:
    Your mercenary group was able to defeat the goblin leader and complete the adventure!

    This adventure has been completed.

    Rewards: You have not yet received the rewards for this adventure.

    231   Goblin Fort               Bialycorp                 Completed

    AWESOME!
  • IluvIluv Member Posts: 703 ✭✭✭✭
    There is a problem with trying to assign abilities with lower rank at a higher priority than abilities with a higher rank. Is this intended or a bug?
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    Can you elaborate, Iluv? What is the problem?
  • MathiausMathiaus Member Posts: 1,039 ✭✭✭✭
    Here's my situation. For one of my options, it was a 3h difficulty 2 sabotage option that I chose. I have two mercs out of my 6 that pertain to this as well:

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mercenary Info For Mecenary #97
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                Info
     Name:    Craen Flamerazer         Owner:  Mathiaus
     Level:   2 (54.52%)               Group:  Mauthium
     Rating:  1                        Points: 13/20
                               Stats
     Health:  116/116                  Speed:  31
     Str:     10                       Dex:    11
     Int:     14 (+1)                  Con:    14
     Defense: 0
                             Abilities
     Attack:                           Passive:
     3: Acidic Blast (Rank: 5)         (none)
                                     
     Defensive:                        Adventure:
     2: Heal (Rank: 5)                 Search (Rank: 2)
                             Equipment
     weapon:                           armor:
     (nothing)                         a tattered robe
                                     
     offhand:                          jewelry:
     (nothing)                         (nothing)
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mercenary Info For Mecenary #100
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                Info
     Name:    Aynoreth Spellnemesis    Owner:  Mathiaus
     Level:   2 (54.52%)               Group:  Mauthium
     Rating:  3                        Points: 19/22
                               Stats
     Health:  116/116                  Speed:  70
     Str:     7 (-4)                   Dex:    9 (-4)
     Int:     16 (+3)                  Con:    14
     Defense: 0
                             Abilities
     Attack:                           Passive:
     2: Acidic Blast (Rank: 5)         (none)
                                     
     Defensive:                        Adventure:
     3: Heal (Rank: 5)                 Disguise (Rank: 2)
                                       Sabotage (Rank: 3)
                             Equipment
     weapon:                           armor:
     (nothing)                         a tattered robe
                                     
     offhand:                          jewelry:
     a crude disguise kit              a grimy tin necklace
                                       a grimy tin necklace
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Now, here's the adventure message I got for my last mission:

    Mercenary Adventure Information for Adventure #56 - Goblin Fort
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Events Completed: 4
    Events Remaining: 2

    Last Event Result:
    Using a collapsible saw, Craen Flamerazer sets to work on weakening the supports to the roof. Half way through the first beam, his saw snaps
    and clatters to the floor. The guards in the room below raise the alarm, and your mercenaries are forced to fight their way out in order to
    retreat.

    This adventure has been failed.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Craen doesn't even have sabotage. Why was he chosen as the merc to handle that? Shouldn't it have gone to Aynoreth instead and rolled on his rank 3 sabotage? Or am I missing something completely with this and it's just a big RNG for the entire situation.
    image
  • SarriusSarrius Member, Beta Testers Posts: 1,682 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2014
    I feel like the difference between their dexterity might explain it, but that might still be a bug. Assuming Rank 3 Sabotage = +3 to the difficult check, it is likely a bug.

    EDIT: Jesse ninja'd me, whoops!
    <div>Message #2062&nbsp; Sent By: (imperian)&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Received On: 1/20/2018/2:59</div><div>"Antioch has filed a bounty against you. Reason: Raiding Antioch and stealing Bina, being a right</div><div>****, and not belonging anywhere near Antioch till he grows up."</div>
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    @Mathiaus

    I responded to this on your bug report #56358 earlier today. Aynoreth (merc #100) has 9 dexterity, which means that her effective ranks in any skills that use dexterity are penalized.

    HELP MERCENARY STATS has the information about how stat bonuses are applied to mercenary abilities.
  • MathiausMathiaus Member Posts: 1,039 ✭✭✭✭
    Ah, thought it was int based.
    image
  • IfreannIfreann Member Posts: 66 ✭✭✭
    edited May 2014
    If there was a Mercenary shop (which users can trade their own mercenaries with other players), it could be beneficial for us. I don't think rate of quest xp and rewards are satisfying while it's too hard to complete quests at the moment. May be I am speaking too early about that. However 100 gold from Goblin Fort was dissappointing. Heh. By the way, an artifact which can increase rating of mercenaries could be nice.
    Khizan said:

    Those levels don't actually help you beat the adventure, though. My team is all level 5 and I still get curbstomped by the L1 adventure because, hey, their level is meaningless when it doesn't help me pass Force/Poison/Arson/Traps tests.

    Also, Goblin Fort seems almost worthless to run. None of the skill books are for any skills I have problems with and the L2 armor will only help in the rare fights(unless you get poisoner's armor, I guess). It almost seems like your best bet would be running Find the Cure over and over again, because at least you have a chance of a Poison or Force skillbook that WOULD help on adventure tasks.

    And I agree what Khizan said here (about skills, quests and levels).. I have every skills in my group (which we can buy from mercenary board) in Rating 5 and result:

    148   Goblin Fort               Wolves                    Failed
    278   Goblin Fort               Wolves                    Failed
    322   Goblin Fort               Wolves                    Failed
    335   Goblin Fort               Wolves                    Failed
    342   Goblin Fort               Wolves                    Completed
    349   Goblin Fort               Wolves                    Failed
    352   Goblin Fort               Wolves                    Failed
    Post edited by Ifreann on
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    Thanks for the feedback, Ifreann.

    I'm working on some changes now which will hopefully help with some of this.
  • LalitanaLalitana Member Posts: 208 ✭✭✭
    Current Report:
    A chest left open, and it is full of explosives?

    What do you do?

     1) Set them off, let the whole place go up in smoke (Skill: Explosives - Difficulty: 4) [10m]
     2) Steal some, you might need them later (Skill: Steal - Difficulty: 2) [3h]
     3) Attach it to a guard and torture it for some information (Skill: Torture - Difficulty: 1) [8h]


    It seems strange that Goblin Fort, which is supposed to be the "easy" adventure, repeatedly gives me all "bad" options - essentially, options requiring abilities for which mercenaries cannot be trained unless you've already managed to acquire guidebooks for explosives, steal, or torture (and none of the other adventures appear to reward guidebooks for these. Am I missing something?)
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    Nope, you're not missing anything at all. We've been talking about that quite a bit in this very thread, actually, and is something we're working on addressing.
  • IluvIluv Member Posts: 703 ✭✭✭✭
    Jesse said:
    Can you elaborate, Iluv? What is the problem?
    Mercenary Info For Mecenary #408
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Info
    Name: Aeldthan Treerage Owner: Iluv
    Level: 7 (60.99%) Group: Bialycorp
    Rating: 2 Points: 19/22
    Stats
    Health: 60/118 Speed: 84 (+10)
    Str: 11 Dex: 14
    Int: 13 Con: 11
    Defense: 1
    Abilities

    Attack: Passive:
    1: Stab (Rank: 5) (none)
    2: Jab (Rank: 5)
    3: Sneak Attack (Rank: 1) 

     Adventure:
    Lockpick (Rank: 5)

    Defensive:
    (none)

    Equipment
    weapon: armor:
    a bronze dirk a suit of frayed leather armor

    offhand: jewelry:
    a rough wooden lockpick (nothing)
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    merc ability sneak attack assign 408 2

    Attack: Passive:
    1: Stab (Rank: 5) (none)
    2: Jab (Rank: 5)
    3: Sneak Attack (Rank: 1)

    merc ability jab assign 408 3

    Attack: Passive:
    1: Stab (Rank: 5) (none)
    2: Jab (Rank: 5)
    3: Sneak Attack (Rank: 1)

    I can't seem to make rank 1 abilities higher in priority than abilities of higher ranking.
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    @Iluv

    Assigning ability priorities should be improved. Let me know if it still gives you trouble.
  • MercerMercer Member Posts: 220 ✭✭✭
    Finally completed an adventure

    feels good
  • CassiusCassius Member, Beta Testers Posts: 607 ✭✭✭
    Your mercenaries take up post behind the barrels, each one hidden from view. As a guard patrols the area $(mercenary$) grabs hold 
    of him while $(mercenary2$) prepares the barrel. They both shove the guard into the water until his body convulses and dies.

    Can we get those variables fixed?
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    Thanks, @Cassius.

    That one is a problem with all of the fight resolution messages, as those don't pick out specific mercenaries for messages like the ability messages do.

    I should have those fixed once I do a pass through all of the adventure stuff, which I'm currently working on.
  • AakrinAakrin Member Posts: 84 ✭✭
    My feedback so far:

    Entry Level: I've done 40 missions so far, and completed 5. That's a 12.5% completion rate. This is frustrating to me as its the entrance level quest. If it were a higher level, top end quest I'd be completely okay with this ratio. However, I can do absolutely nothing to improve this completion ratio. This after spending a ton of lessons and gold. I wouldn't recommend this to any friends I had join the game, until they're months established.

    Part of this has been addressed earlier, in that we randomly get choices that require Arson 4. Which in itself, wouldn't be something I'd care about. Sure I'd hate seeing it, but what I hate seeing more is that the other two choices are ALSO skills I don't have access to.

    Time Costs: The time spent on the longer "safer" options is too long. Especially if higher level quests are going to require more choices made. Something along the lines of 10 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours should be considered. Its still a considerable time dump and hard choice, do you go with the safer longer one, or the shorter harder one. With 10+ choices, adding 3 hours for a single choice is a considerable thing to do. Spending eight hours is unreasonable.

    Rewards: When I finally finished a mission, I was really, really excited. And then I got 100gp, a combat skill, and some armor. It honestly did basically nothing to help me advance my part. And the gold was silly, compared to how much I'd spent to get them ready to adventure in the first place. Having a new combat spell was neat, but combat almost never happens. Finally completing a mission didn't help me advance in any notable way, which combined with such a low completion ratio seems like a bad setup.

    Also, having my mercs level seems...useless. Which should be an obvious problem. Sure, have most levels only increase their health and point pool. But let every 5th or 10th level create a random event for them. Let us pick a stat increase, or have them gain a random skill increase at no point cost, to something they know. Anything to actually help them, and you, increase the chance of mission success.

    Would you consider letting lessons be a reward? Even if its only the introduction level quest that gives them. The gold it returns is earned by anyone in moments, but the lesson sink alone just to field a viable team is considerable, especially to lower level people. Would be a way for them to earn it back, even if it takes a large amount of time to do so.

  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    @Aakrin

    Entry Level: Totally agreed, and I'm currently working on some changes that should address this.

    Time Costs: This should also be addressed by the upcoming changes. Basically, the 8-hour option should never be a requirement, unless your group is not set up properly for the adventure.

    Rewards: Combat spells will definitely be more significant for PvP stuff.

    I agree that the initial progression options are a little bit fuzzy. I'm going to be addressing this by creating three new introductory adventures that only require tier 1 adventure abilities for the three existing adventures which will reward guidebooks for the tier 2 adventuring abilities. I'm also removing all of the tier 3 ability requirements from the existing adventures.

    This should create some smoother progression. You will complete the introductory adventures (which will be pretty short, probably only 4 or 5 steps) to get guidebooks for more advanced adventuring abilities. While completing those introductory adventures, your mercenaries will also gain experience, which will help you obtain the additional rating points that you will need to train the tier 2 abilities.

    This should help you while tackling the other adventures, which will have their difficulty levels raised slightly, but will only require tier 1 and tier 2 adventuring abilities. I'd expect that completion rates should go up drastically, which should help with some of this frustration.
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    Oops, forgot to address the lesson question. While we're still debating some of the specifics on mercenary rewards, both from adventures and the upcoming tournaments, it's unlikely that we'll be offering lessons as a reward.
  • AhkanAhkan Member Posts: 2,375 ✭✭✭✭✭
    @Jesse

    Is there a heal skill that can heal adjacent dudes? Or can we have heal adjusted so that it can pick up adjacent people?

    I only ask because I see there's a lot of back-line attacks that are absolutely devastating because dudes are getting hammered up front and then the back line gets raked and they have no counter. They just eat it and once that back line is gone :(
  • IniarIniar Member Posts: 3,213 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Will there be a rankings system for the most successful mercenary companies/mercs? (I know how much e-peen measuring is valued)
    wit beyond measure is a Sidhe's greatest treasure
  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    @Ahkan

    While I know it doesn't do you a whole lot of good now, there are some healing abilities with different targeting patterns.

    @Iniar

    Yes, there will be rankings. They're not currently enabled while we iterate through what does and doesn't work effectively for the mercenary minigame as a whole.
  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Jesse said:
    Oops, forgot to address the lesson question. While we're still debating some of the specifics on mercenary rewards, both from adventures and the upcoming tournaments, it's unlikely that we'll be offering lessons as a reward.
    Can we address the lesson refund issue? When I forget a skill, I'm just throwing lessons into the abyss, which makes mistakes hugely punishing and which makes me hesitant to invest further in this system. What will I do when I get better skills? Throw away my prior skills and buy a brand new set? Meh. Buy brand new mercenaries to train in the new skills so that I don't have to lose lesson investment? Meh. 

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    We discussed partial lesson refund when forgetting a mercenary ability quite a bit and opted not to go that route.

    I'll bring your feedback up with Jeremy and see if he's changed his mind on it.
  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭

    If there's no lesson refund, it costs too much to learn abilities.

    I spent several hundred lessons outfitting my initial group of mercenaries with basic skills and I am absolutely 100% not interested in continuing with the system if they're just going to be a pit I pour lessons down so that I can gain more skills to spend more lessons on and so forth.

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

  • JesseJesse Member, Administrator Posts: 108 admin
    Ask and ye shall receive. I'm in the process of implementing a 50% return on lessons when a mercenary forgets an ability.
  • KhizanKhizan Member Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Jesse said:
    Ask and ye shall receive. 
    You might regret saying this... :(

    "On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."

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