In some of the displays, it would be nice to have the ID# do a probe of the thing in question and the name of the thing to serve as the selection in the mxp.
For the minigame itself, some TLDR:
1. Mercs should die.
This has to be a feature. Without this, the entire thing is way too boring. Tournaments naturally become non-static because your roster becomes non-static. Risk becomes a factor. And it's the fastest path from static to functional.
2. Hiring and Upgrading Mercs
The merc board is blah.
Skip the lesson costs and make it take a skillbook, at least one active use of the skill in a mission or fight at the current level, and downtime for the merc. Sell all non-tourney skillbooks at the store.
3. Trading Mercs
This should be a thing.
4. Missions
Times should be a base time plus the total times of all the adventure skill modifiers you attempt for the mission. The base time represents the time of combat itself, and then you can play with those times and the rewards to balance the risk.
"Adventure Skills" should be combat modifiers that change the overall risk of the final combat step of the mission. All adventure skills should be possible at any given time. The chances of success for each type of skill should have a starting value based on the roleplay of the adventure. All adventure skills will give a modifier to the combat at the end if successful, but failure will result in the death of the attempting merc and immediate combat with all previous modifiers removed.
When combat happens, mercs who die are dead! Any enemies left alive at the end of combat results in a reduction of the gold and quest exp value to 1/(number of enemies left). A random merc left alive gets a bonus to rating.
If you clear all the enemies, your dudes get to collect the equipment from their dead brothers plus a bit of loot from the enemies in the form of equipment.
If you clear no enemies, all your mercs die.
A handful of examples of a group of mercs fielded by
Example Mission 1
Goblin Fort (Easy mission)
There's a fort with goblins!
Brute force attack. No time modifier. --Your current mercs have no adventure skills, and this is always an option. That said, it will always be the highest risk. The enemies will receive a bonus on top of the lack of modifiers.
You storm the fort, so the enemy archers gain +20 speed and one level in their shoot skill from the height advantage.
Combat happens. You lost three mercs. They barely managed to get out of the fort with (Reward of 50%). Swordshine Slayerhacker promoted to rating 2.
Example Mission 2
Goblin Fort (Easy mission)
There's a fort with goblins!
Brute force attack. No time modifier --You spent a bit on replacement mercs from a friend! It should go better, right?
You storm the fort, so the enemy archers gain +20 speed and one level in their shoot skill from the height advantage.
Combat happens. You lost two mercs, but you killed the defenders! You get 100% of the gold and exp reward this time, and you didn't lose equipment. Random rating up! Your mercs brought back a barbed goblin spear.
Example Mission 3
Goblin Fort (Easy mission)
There's a fort with goblins!
Explosives 1 - 50% chance of success, +Time modifier of Z minutes, -30% HP on all enemies if successful, combat starts immediately after use even on success. --You brought on an explosives guy. He's a little shaky though, so it might not work!
Lergenstein rigs a bomb under the walls of the fort. He sets the fuse and manages to get out in time. Kaboom! The walls are down, and the goblins are startled. -- On top of the 30% HP loss, the goblin archers don't get their skill bonus this time.
Combat happens. No casualties! Random rating up! Happy days!
Example (Yes, another one!) Mission 4
Goblin Fort (Easy mission)
There's a fort with goblins!
You waited a bit and taught Longfisted Crowstorm how to be sneaky! Now, we get to see how adventure skills work together!
Alongside the previously posted Explosives 1 and Brute Force options, you see:
Sneak 1, 80% chance of success, +2 hour time modifier, combat does not start if successful, improves all other adventure skills' chance of success by rank*10% if succesful.
Crowstorm knows how to find his way into places! He leads the group through the vision of the few sentries with ease.
Now, your options are back to Brute Force and Explosives 1, but the combat bonus for enemies is gone from the Brute Force option and Explosives 1 is at 60%. You try using Explosives again!
Lergenstein trips with the bomb lit in his hands. Panic sets over him, and before he can come to his senses, the bomb explodes! The enemies are alerted, and Lergenstein is no more.
Well, at least there's no combat malus! Combat happens, you lose one more merc, and your force has to retreat. You get a quarter of the reward.
5. Tournaments
Every month or when Y amount of merc groups are enrolled, two tournaments are put on by the Merc Guild. No adventure skills allowed!
a. Sparring Tournament
No merc death
Requires entry fee
Limit of one merc group per player.
Winner receives a piece of equipment.
b. To the Death Tournament!
DEATH. You keep all equipment, though.
Requires entry fee.
Either a limit of one group or no limit. I could go either way
Winner receives a piece of equipment and a tournament guidebook.
You can enroll your mercs for either tournament and have them participate in the next one. A mercenary group can only be enrolled for one tournament at a time and cannot run any adventures while enrolled to ensure there are no scheduling conflicts.
6. Player-ran matches
Should still be a thing, but include both death and no death modes plx.
Okay!
I haven't touched on everything, but I wanted to get the general idea out.
If my mercs died, I'd just throw my hands up and use the system less than I do now. It takes a lot of checking the board every RL day to get every single decent one. Then you have to organize them into groups and build them up with the for some reason very frustrating syntax for dealing with them. I was warned not to get them, and I did it anyway
Mercenaries do seem super boring, but I definitely wouldn't be more "excited" if they died. In fact, it has a bit of a parallel with character XP loss, which Imperian has apparently been the only IRE game smart enough to ditch. It's always exciting when Demonic rolls in to attack, and it's not because I'm going to lose XP when I die first.
In my changes, you can avoid all thought by hiring a team of mercs from people! You may have to pay more than training some up yourself from the beginning, though. After that, it's just the maintenance stuff you have to do while upgrading. You can also avoid risk (at the cost of less reward) by taking easier missions with your stellar A-Squad of battle-scared (spelling intentional) mercenaries. Something for everyone!
I'm not opposed to interface fixes, but I was already at Great Wall of Text so I pushed that to later.
Also, ratings wouldn't be static, and I already said the merc board was blah.
So now when people have been toying around with this system for a while... Do you recommend me or anyone else new to this system actually investing in it? Are the rewards at all appealing?
"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."
It seems like something that at one point might've been cool, but was never fully fleshed out. I think that Warlords of Draenor presenting the highest ceiling version of the system also didn't help Imperian's mercenary system.
‘Least I won’t have to carry it no more. You see how bloody heavy it is?’
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
The mercenary system seems like Jeremy and Jesse saw those kinds of minigames and said "people like those, let's add one" without actually understanding any of the reasons why people liked them or what made good systems good.
"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."
Don't do it. Khizan tried to warn me, but I couldn't resist the cryptic help files, vague descriptions, irritating command syntax and cool mercenary names
It's a somewhat decent thing if you just want to waste time/lessons. I personally find it hard to get interested in something that has been pushed to the side for about 9 months already, and not for lack of requested fixes/additions. At the current point of mercenaries, all you're going to do is spend a lot of time leveling a group of mercenaries, just to take part in a weekly tournament where 80% of the people can't kill each other because the defenses are too high and the current attack skills only do so much damage. Additionally, the only way to get better attack skills after rank II adventures is to take part in this tournament. Note: if you and your opponent can't kill each other after 500 rounds, it ends in a draw and NOBODY gets anything. Check out MERCTOURNEY LIST.
Also, the new attack skills don't add that much damage..
Also, INT mercenaries are lacking the love others get. There are no int increasing weapons like there are dex weapons, so their max is around 17?
edit: I say I can't get interested, but I'm already so invested from the time it WAS being looked at, there's no reason not to at this point, since there's no cost to me. Just to clear that up.
Attackers: Elite ---------------- Derayenn Shadowrain Cilye Firecutter Ralurd Foecleaver (199/199) (200/200) (185/185) Werthur Stormhewer Crachmond Dawnfell Teshara Treeender (199/199) (179/179) (192/192) =============================================================================== Round 1: Stealthily, Derayenn Shadowrain sneaks up to Neyowyn (895, 5) and slashes him with a black iron dagger. Neyowyn (895, 5) takes 1 damage! (206/207)
Cilye Firecutter sweeps a crude broadsword in a wide arc, striking Cythiren (254, 1) , Gwaeryll (256, 2) and Aechdoch (260, 3) . Cythiren (254, 1) defends against all of the damage! (217/217) Gwaeryll (256, 2) defends against all of the damage! (174/174) Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Teshara Treeender casts a green glob of stinking acid at Aechdoch (260, 3) 's face. Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Ralurd Foecleaver sweeps a crude broadsword in a wide arc, striking Cythiren (254, 1) , Gwaeryll (256, 2) and Aechdoch (260, 3) . Cythiren (254, 1) defends against all of the damage! (217/217) Gwaeryll (256, 2) defends against all of the damage! (174/174) Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Crachmond Dawnfell takes and deep breath, carefully aims at Aechdoch (260, 3) , and fires a deadly arrow at him. Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Cythiren (254, 1) sweeps a rusty iron scimitar in a wide arc, striking Derayenn Shadowrain, Cilye Firecutter and Ralurd Foecleaver. Derayenn Shadowrain defends against all of the damage! (199/199) Cilye Firecutter defends against all of the damage! (200/200) Ralurd Foecleaver defends against all of the damage! (185/185)
Hanola (893, 4) takes and deep breath, carefully aims at Ralurd Foecleaver, and fires a deadly arrow at him. Ralurd Foecleaver takes 3 damage! (182/185)
Neyowyn (895, 5) casts a green glob of stinking acid at Werthur Stormhewer's face. Werthur Stormhewer defends against all of the damage! (199/199)
(10 minutes later)
Round 499: Teshara Treeender raises her hand in the air and a burning column of fire roars down to engulf Cythiren (254, 1) . Cythiren (254, 1) defends against all of the damage! (217/217)
Werthur Stormhewer raises his hand in the air and a burning column of fire roars down to engulf Gwaeryll (256, 2) . Gwaeryll (256, 2) defends against all of the damage! (174/174)
Gwaeryll (256, 2) holds a black iron dagger by the tip lightly and throws it at Ralurd Foecleaver, watching it plunge into him flesh before leaping forward and retrieving it. Ralurd Foecleaver takes 1 damage! (81/185)
Match times out! Nobody wins.
[Mercenaries]: The mercenary tournament has ended in a draw.
[Mercenaries]: The mercenary tournament has started, with 7 teams competing!
Let's see... going to make another guess at what happens.
Tournament ID: 40 Started: April 26, 2015 Winner: (none) Rounds: 1 Round 1: Sroath (StartUp) vs. Tikal (Kombat kittens) Ristani (Team 3-Star) vs. Mercer (Ghosts of the Waves) Karyn (Elite) vs. Sommnus (Thirst)
Round 1: Tikal beats Sroath, Mercer beats Ristani, Karyn beats Sommnus Round 2: This one is a toss-up for who gets matched with who, but out of Karyn, Tikal, and myself, whoever gets matched up against mercer is going to win. The other two will end in a draw and be eliminated.
*fingers crossed*
edit: To be fair, this outcome would be the same no matter who won between mercer and ristani, it's not a fair guess. I hate how predictable these are.
I don't know how these work, but looking at the previous post, looks like Defend is preventing -anyone- from dying. How is Defend described, at each level, and how does it actually work?
Defend is one of three skills: Dodging, Mental Shield, and Reinforce.
Each skill increases defense based on the respective stat, as well as by ability rank. I don't remember how much it is initially, but to put it in perspective:
My mercenary has 0 defense right now, 14 dexterity. rank 1 dodging is 3 def. Rank 2 is 6. Rank 3 is 9. But then... 15 dexterity is 12 defense, 16 dex is 15 def, 17 is 18 def, 18 is 22. 22 defense is higher than what all but a few mercenaries can hit for.
Now, not every mercenary can get up to 18 dex/str/int, and that's currently the highest you can get without winning tournament items... but when everyone who stands a chance to win a tournament is also pushing high defense, it just goes nowhere.
Just so people know how bad overstock is with the current mercenary system is... I just donated 1456 extra offhand items because there is literally nothing I could ever do with them. I also probably destroyed that many guidebooks as well over the period of me getting them. The only benefit I get from the system at this point is a measly amount of gold every so often.
Can we get a MERCENARY GROUP (group) DELETE command? This would let us easily empty out a group to put in completely new members or whatever, since right now I have to remember the numbers for all six members and do MERCENARY GROUP (group) REMOVE (number) x6.
Can the weekly tournament send you a message if/when you win even when you're online? That message is a little 2-3 line block of text which puts 3 guidebooks in your inventory and a random item into your mercenary equipment list. I can't speak for everyone, but I haven't memorized every item I have on that list just yet, so if you miss the message, it is REALLY hard to figure out what you got.
Since my classlead was denied...When is my merc update! I'm tired of my merc group timers getting out of order because of the stupid fights. Fights that a) take too long to start, b)wait up in queue for the next one to start, c)take too long. This is all when i'm not even choosing to watch them.
"I can't use mercenaries to print free gold anymore this is awful".
The ability to chain run mercenaries while you AFK is so goddamn exploity that you're lucky they're not punishing you under the HELP TRIGGERS clause about automated gold generation.
"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."
Lets just do the math on it, to get 200k you would have to run about 267 missions (200,000 / 750(the average reward)). Each mission takes around 40 mins(fights make the mission take longer) so you can get about 1.5 missions per hour. So to get that done daily it would take
That is how long you would have to be online and paying fairly close attention(run them every 10 mins) to make that much gold. Honestly to make that much only 15-20 squads makes that feasible. The initial 2 mercenary squads cost 50 credits each to create, any squads after those 2 cost 100cr to create. So 15 squads would cost 1400cr and 20 squads would cost 1900cr. 1400cr sold for gold would be 21,000,000 gold(15,000 gold market value) would take 105 days to break even at 200k an day, which is 1260 hours playing imperian(20 squads would take the same amount of hours ti break even). I really don't see how this is too much gold for something that since launch has given no other benefit(other rewards are really really low quest exp, and guidebooks which just self promote spending more on mercs for no benefit)
I don't think anyone is being accused of cheating with triggers while being afk. It is against the rules as it would be to make that amount of gold auto triggering for hunting. I can say that I honestly had no triggers other than one that told me when my mercs were ready to send again every time they were ready(since the merc system didn't even do that)
Comments
"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."
‘Every sword’s a weight to carry. Men don’t see that when they pick ’em up. But they get heavier with time.”
"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."
Also, the new attack skills don't add that much damage..
893 Hanola (893, 4) 73 Spd:59 Str:10 Dex:19 Int:7 Con:12 Def:25
Nobody is going to kill hanola just yet.
Also, INT mercenaries are lacking the love others get. There are no int increasing weapons like there are dex weapons, so their max is around 17?
edit: I say I can't get interested, but I'm already so invested from the time it WAS being looked at, there's no reason not to at this point, since there's no cost to me. Just to clear that up.
===============================================================================
Defenders: Two
--------------
Hanola (893, 4) Neyowyn (895, 5) Gwerola (896, 6)
(199/199) (207/207) (192/192)
Cythiren (254, 1) Gwaeryll (256, 2) Aechdoch (260, 3)
(217/217) (174/174) (200/200)
Attackers: Elite
----------------
Derayenn Shadowrain Cilye Firecutter Ralurd Foecleaver
(199/199) (200/200) (185/185)
Werthur Stormhewer Crachmond Dawnfell Teshara Treeender
(199/199) (179/179) (192/192)
===============================================================================
Round 1: Stealthily, Derayenn Shadowrain sneaks up to Neyowyn (895, 5) and slashes him with a black iron dagger.
Neyowyn (895, 5) takes 1 damage! (206/207)
Cilye Firecutter sweeps a crude broadsword in a wide arc, striking Cythiren (254, 1) , Gwaeryll (256, 2) and Aechdoch (260, 3) .
Cythiren (254, 1) defends against all of the damage! (217/217)
Gwaeryll (256, 2) defends against all of the damage! (174/174)
Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Teshara Treeender casts a green glob of stinking acid at Aechdoch (260, 3) 's face.
Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Ralurd Foecleaver sweeps a crude broadsword in a wide arc, striking Cythiren (254, 1) , Gwaeryll (256, 2) and Aechdoch (260, 3) .
Cythiren (254, 1) defends against all of the damage! (217/217)
Gwaeryll (256, 2) defends against all of the damage! (174/174)
Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Crachmond Dawnfell takes and deep breath, carefully aims at Aechdoch (260, 3) , and fires a deadly arrow at him.
Aechdoch (260, 3) defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Cythiren (254, 1) sweeps a rusty iron scimitar in a wide arc, striking Derayenn Shadowrain, Cilye Firecutter and Ralurd Foecleaver.
Derayenn Shadowrain defends against all of the damage! (199/199)
Cilye Firecutter defends against all of the damage! (200/200)
Ralurd Foecleaver defends against all of the damage! (185/185)
Hanola (893, 4) takes and deep breath, carefully aims at Ralurd Foecleaver, and fires a deadly arrow at him.
Ralurd Foecleaver takes 3 damage! (182/185)
Neyowyn (895, 5) casts a green glob of stinking acid at Werthur Stormhewer's face.
Werthur Stormhewer defends against all of the damage! (199/199)
(10 minutes later)
Round 499: Teshara Treeender raises her hand in the air and a burning column of fire roars down to engulf Cythiren (254, 1) .
Cythiren (254, 1) defends against all of the damage! (217/217)
Werthur Stormhewer raises his hand in the air and a burning column of fire roars down to engulf Gwaeryll (256, 2) .
Gwaeryll (256, 2) defends against all of the damage! (174/174)
Gwaeryll (256, 2) holds a black iron dagger by the tip lightly and throws it at Ralurd Foecleaver, watching it plunge into him flesh before leaping forward and retrieving it.
Ralurd Foecleaver takes 1 damage! (81/185)
Match times out! Nobody wins.
[Mercenaries]: The mercenary tournament has ended in a draw.
Let's see... going to make another guess at what happens.
Tournament ID: 40 Started: April 26, 2015
Winner: (none) Rounds: 1
Round 1:
Sroath (StartUp) vs. Tikal (Kombat kittens)
Ristani (Team 3-Star) vs. Mercer (Ghosts of the Waves)
Karyn (Elite) vs. Sommnus (Thirst)
Round 1: Tikal beats Sroath, Mercer beats Ristani, Karyn beats Sommnus
Round 2: This one is a toss-up for who gets matched with who, but out of Karyn, Tikal, and myself, whoever gets matched up against mercer is going to win. The other two will end in a draw and be eliminated.
*fingers crossed*
edit: To be fair, this outcome would be the same no matter who won between mercer and ristani, it's not a fair guess. I hate how predictable these are.
Each skill increases defense based on the respective stat, as well as by ability rank. I don't remember how much it is initially, but to put it in perspective:
My mercenary has 0 defense right now, 14 dexterity. rank 1 dodging is 3 def. Rank 2 is 6. Rank 3 is 9. But then...
15 dexterity is 12 defense, 16 dex is 15 def, 17 is 18 def, 18 is 22. 22 defense is higher than what all but a few mercenaries can hit for.
Now, not every mercenary can get up to 18 dex/str/int, and that's currently the highest you can get without winning tournament items... but when everyone who stands a chance to win a tournament is also pushing high defense, it just goes nowhere.
Name: Cythiren Steelmincer Owner: Shou
Level: 75 (88.93%) Group: Two
Rating: 3 Points: 47/52
Stats
Health: 219/219 Speed: 69
Str: 18 (+4) Dex: 8 (-5)
Int: 7 (-5) Con: 14
Defense: 23
Lol.
"I can't use mercenaries to print free gold anymore this is awful".
The ability to chain run mercenaries while you AFK is so goddamn exploity that you're lucky they're not punishing you under the HELP TRIGGERS clause about automated gold generation.
"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."
1 squad - 178h
2 squads - 89h
5 squads - 36h
8 squads - 23h
10 squads - 18h
15 squads - 12h
20 squads - 9h
That is how long you would have to be online and paying fairly close attention(run them every 10 mins) to make that much gold. Honestly to make that much only 15-20 squads makes that feasible. The initial 2 mercenary squads cost 50 credits each to create, any squads after those 2 cost 100cr to create. So 15 squads would cost 1400cr and 20 squads would cost 1900cr. 1400cr sold for gold would be 21,000,000 gold(15,000 gold market value) would take 105 days to break even at 200k an day, which is 1260 hours playing imperian(20 squads would take the same amount of hours ti break even). I really don't see how this is too much gold for something that since launch has given no other benefit(other rewards are really really low quest exp, and guidebooks which just self promote spending more on mercs for no benefit)
I don't think anyone is being accused of cheating with triggers while being afk. It is against the rules as it would be to make that amount of gold auto triggering for hunting. I can say that I honestly had no triggers other than one that told me when my mercs were ready to send again every time they were ready(since the merc system didn't even do that)