Allowing people to use 2 mercs simultaneously would potentially solve a lot of problems: Healer mains would become viable again with a tank and dps merc, without having to have an ironclad guild or friend support network that lots of people don't have DPS mains would be much more solo-friendly with a tank and healer merc 6-person content is suddenly unlocked to the solo player because it's reasonably easy to 2-box on the same computer just by alt-tabbing, and if both characters can have 2 mercs then they can access instances I expect this would improve the solo experience substantially, and for friend duos it means they can go do any old content they want without having to fill their group with alts just to request the instance. For me personally, I have one lifetime membership, but I would DEFINITELY subscribe a second account so I could play instances by myself and check out older content I've always wanted to see. I imagine there's a non-trivial number of people who would suddenly sub a 2nd account for this reason. I find 3-boxing too hard to do comfortably, but 2-box isn't too bad.
If a second merc is regarded as a necessity for playing molo, then it shouldn't be a pay2win feature. A single basic subscription should be all a player needs imo. Not all classes have equal synergy with a single merc-setup. Why should some classes be more expensive than others?
Exactly. A SK with a cleric doesn't need 2 mercs. Clerics, ENC, Rogues, etc would benefit greatly. Already going to be paying double the plat. Have to pay extra cash too? Lame. I'd rather you just make charm work right again. Then I wouldn't need 2 mercs.
Should create mercs beyond Warrior, Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard... maybe a Shaman Merc, or a Bard Merc, or Enchanter merc... or better yet make a client side ability to use your own characters..
The game was never meant for solo pay, so paying extra seems reasonable to me if the alternative is not doing it. Even for classes that can molo now I am sure an extra merc would allow them to do more. Well its unlikely they will do much more with mercs, but its a nice thought exercise.... like winning the lottery.
Not sure about SHM merc. AI would probably get confused on healing vs debuffing. BST merc though, let it debuff and DPS. Mage merc having DPS and offtank modes. DPS it assist and offtank mode the pet always don't to non-assisted aggro mobs to offtank. Pet will taunt on the non-assisted mob. Tank mercs ignore mobs offtanked unless they are not top of any aggro. It can have suspend minion and swap b/t air pet in DPS mode and earth in offtank mode. The mage itself however would always nuke the main assist target, losing some DPS for targeting when offtanking, and patch heal the pet at expense of DPS unless the pet heal is blocked by the merc owner. Mage pet offtank is much better than ENC/BRD. A merc should not replace a PC for pulling or CC while letting the pet handle CC in a work around.
Not sure if that is a joke or not. If it's a joke, I did find the reply comical. If not, just to clarify, they are reducing merc tiers from A1-5 and J1-5 to A5 something like just Apprentice and Journeyman. It simplifies tuning down to what people are actually using. We still have 4 class options for 1 merc. Race options unchanged as well.
Ber Shm Brd Merc Tank Merc Heal Merc Heal That was pretty much my Boxing set up, I got so sick & tired of Merc Tanks being utter garbage that I was levelling a Warrior up to rep it though, and fact is that some missions/quests actually make success while using Merc Tanks impossible. I also felt that was a 2-box with the Bard basically being on /melody duty 90% of the time, unless I needed to split-pull stuff. Mercs would need to be a bit stronger than the capabilities/strength of a weak group player to actually be effective in a 2-merc molo I think, so not sure teh devs would ever consider that. Best we could hope for would be the "mercenary tasks" being 2-merc molo-able, and repeatable, then that's the low-hanging fruit for solo play while you look for a proper group.
Allow Multiple mercs from one player. Restrict mercs to one in a group per role. Meaning you can't have a team of Tank / Healer / Healer for instance. It would be Tank / Healer / DPS and thats it. You choose Caster or Rogue for DPS slot. This pushes to allow slots for other players while not punishing solo players as much. Solo player Group comps would essentially become: Player <Tank/Healer/DPS> Tank <MT on or off depending on if the player is tanking> Healer DPS <Caster or Rogue> That's 4 with 2 open slots.
Funny thing is the game they stole the whole merc idea from let you have like 3. They bought the game took its assets and closed it down. We will not be getting more merc classes without significant resources being added to the team. Originally they had plans for more.
Mercs seem inspired from EQ Emur tbh. They had AI bots for a long time before SoD was out. You could even equip them with dropped gear and give them basic commands. They were closer to an AI companion than the merc system is. Though credit is due there is some neat interactions with mercs.
The 2nd merc would probably require an additional merc slot, which is 750 in the DB store. That's one way to raise money from it.
Unfortunately the tank merc is often not strong enough for 1 cleric to keep it up. It can tank okay against singles but adds in current content can cut through them fast. Also the tank AI is poor and those adds pingpong around the group slaughtering everyone. Limiting it to 1 cleric puts a monopoly on tanking for PC tanks. Sounds great unless you don't have one. Merc clerics do nothing but heal. That 1vs2 cleric merc is the freedom to make a decision b/t healing and DPS. No reason to take that away.
The idea was from Gods & Heroes Rome Rising. Beta for that started in 2007 (and EQ added mercs in 2008 from SOD). It was actually an SOE published game but not developed by them.
Ohh I am totally in support of buffing the mercs. They should be strong enough to do questing with. It is just a separate issue to me.