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."
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.
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.
I'd like to forget Acidic Blast and try to Shoot. Too bad that forgetting Acidic Blast means throwing away ~100 lessons.
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.
Health regeneration after a lost fight is SLOW. Waiting half an hour to try again after losing a fight sucks.
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."
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:
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.
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 Sent By: (imperian) 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>
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.
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.
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:
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?)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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."
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."
"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."
Comments
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."
More complaints, this time about fighting:
"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."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
I'm working on some changes now which will hopefully help with some of this.
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?)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
1: Stab (Rank: 5) (none)
2: Jab (Rank: 5)
3: Sneak Attack (Rank: 1)
(none)
weapon: armor:
a bronze dirk a suit of frayed leather armor
offhand: jewelry:
a rough wooden lockpick (nothing)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: Stab (Rank: 5) (none)
2: Jab (Rank: 5)
3: Sneak Attack (Rank: 1)
1: Stab (Rank: 5) (none)
2: Jab (Rank: 5)
3: Sneak Attack (Rank: 1)
Assigning ability priorities should be improved. Let me know if it still gives you trouble.
feels good
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.
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.
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
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.
"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."
I'll bring your feedback up with Jeremy and see if he's changed his mind on it.
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."
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."