Mercs and CoV

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Kimosavi, Dec 11, 2020.

  1. Kimosavi Journeyman

    Just wondering if you plan on upgrading the Mercs so they at least perform adequately for CoV. Against trash they do a so-so job but against Task bosses theyre woeful.

    I went into the Zlandi group mission with a maxxed Tank merc and 2 maxxed healer mercs on reactive and the merc tank lasts 5 seconds. Tried it various times and the merc tank doesnt last long enough to even have a chance (and this is one of the easier group tasks im told). Might wanna scale the group missions back a little or bump up the performance of mercs, not everyone has an automated bot group.
    Skuz, Laurana, Marton and 1 other person like this.
  2. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Both tank merc and healer mercs need upgrading EVERY expansion, they make content harder for players therefore it follows that the tank and healer mercs need to be able to cope with these harder mobs.
  3. Cicelee Augur

    However, everyone has the ability to invite a real tank and a real healer and another real player into your group to replace three mercs, especially for a mission.

    You should try it!
  4. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    If they merged all the servers together I think there would be enough population to support the view that upgrading mercenaries isn’t worth it since you can just fill your group with other players.

    But as it stands now even at new expansion launches when population is highest, the pool of LFG players isn’t large enough to just discard mercenaries and tell people to invite players.

    All four types of mercenaries should be getting boosts every single expansion. Either through behind the scenes upgrades, AA increases or mercenary items. Whatever method they choose, each expansion your mercenary should see gains enough for them to hold up decently well against the current era content in a full group. The OPs 1 tank 2 healer merc combination should not be getting one rounded.
  5. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    There is a reason they put tank and heal mercs in the game, there isn't enough to go round!

    If there was a real one around they would be invited.
    Andarriel, Gyurika Godofwar and Skuz like this.
  6. Vumad Cape Wearer


    Wow. What a great idea. It's a shame the developers wasted all the time implementing mercs when there was such a simple and obvious solution. I hope DPG reaches out to you and invites you to the team where you can bring such a level of innovation and the same amount of contribution you brought to this thread.

    Fingers crossed!
  7. Vumad Cape Wearer


    I have some ideas for improving mercs...

    - Add expansion tags to the merc AA window so that AAs can be autogranted
    - Adjust the Merc AA XP rate to reflect the current eras
    - Increase the merc banked AA cap

    - Every level increase expansion, let the merc level handle the tuning.
    - Ever non-level increase expansion, add merc armor to boost the merc.
    My idea is this spreads out Dev time and keeps the merc balanced for changes in Era.

    MOST IMPORTANTLY

    Add a new feature. MERC COST SHARING.

    One of the problems is that people not using mercs do not get merc AA. This mean people who group pay the largest penalty when a merc is needed, because their merc is weak from under use. What happens is, the same player keeps using their merc, because it is stronger, and the rest of the group doesn't earn merc XP. Is this making sense?

    The way this would work is each player can opt in to merc cost sharing. The cost of the active merc is distributed to every player in the group AND so is the merc XP earned.

    This would be a big improvement for groups with 5 players who just need that 1 cleric merc. This way the group can decide who has the best merc, collectively agree to hire and pay the most qualified merc, and everyone can earn merc XP that is paying for that merc.

    Yes, Overseer exists, and it's a good way to help with merc XP, but letting everyone pay for the merc and distributing out the merc XP is a better solution.
    Skuz, Caell and Velisaris_MS like this.
  8. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    Never mind. I don't have anything worthwhile to contribute to this.
  9. Kimosavi Journeyman

    How when almost everyone is an AFK botter? Maybe I should try jump on the third party bandwagon, seems its all the rage and as long as the cash is rolling in DBG or whatever their called now turn a blind eye...
  10. Bigstomp Augur

    I may be wrong, but I believe mercs are designed to fill 1 spot in a group if you are short.
    Half your group being mercs including both the tank and the healers sounds like you are setting yourself up for failure.

    Have you seen the dps mercs dps numbers? That's an easier number to measure than tanking and healing, but expect the tank and healer to be similarly amazingly bad.
    Yendar likes this.
  11. Bigstomp Augur

    Try talking to people. It's amazing how many people will reply if you send them a tell.
  12. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

  13. Yendar Augur

    This post is hilarious. You want the Mercs to tank & heal the hardest parts of the game. Tank mercs can tank any namer in the expansion with a real healer. They’re fine. Healer mercs can heal solid tanks on namers just fine also.

    Mercs were in a really bad spot when TBL came out, now not so much. What you are asking for would just make EQ trivial.
    feeltheburn likes this.
  14. Cicelee Augur

    I noticed the sarcasm.

    The thing is the OP went into a mission with arguably the three most important spots in the group a merc. And the key word is mission, which usually (not always) are the harder group content to do.

    I get it. In 2020 EQ it is hard for many to find groups unless you have a built in FS group. I find it hard as well at times. So when I cannot do a mission due to a lack of a tank or healer, I do something else.

    A merc tank should never be able to tank as good as a player tank. They should never heal as good as a cleric. They should be able to handle basic and easy functions, not flat out tank and heal a mission on day 4 of a launch.
  15. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    They didn't put mercs in game so that you could have a healer merc and a tank merc run a brand new top end mission for you. They put in mercs as stop gaps to allow you to do SOMETHING instead of waiting around doing NOTHING. They have said over and over they intend for you to drop mercs as soon as you can get a real player.

    They are not substitute for group members. And from the OP, it sounds more like they are boxing all 3 characters to boot. What do you expect?

    Cleric mercs are arguably TOO good as is, especially when combined with a raid tank.
    Sancus, feeltheburn and Yendar like this.
  16. Vumad Cape Wearer


    Yes, all true. I usually only 3 box hunter and merc tasks, using a Tank/Rog/Rog or Tank/Rog/CLR. I don't 3-box the missions, because, well, they are too hard for me, as they should be. (Note: I haven't had time to play CoV yet.)

    And yes, I was being sarcastic to razz you for fun.

    But I agree with you both. Mercs should be good enough for what I do, a real cleric keeping up a merc tank in T1 ToV and my cleric and a merc cleric keeping up my tank merc in T2 ToV. A real cleric or 2 merc clerics should be able to keep up a merc tank against T1 named at launch and T2 named by the end of the expansion, but When a Cleric merc can keep up a tank merc for a mission at launch, we've gone too far.
    Yendar likes this.
  17. Velisaris_MS Augur

    Mercs are both the devil and a necessary evil.

    It would be nice if they would get upgrades on level increase expansion, just like players. As it is now, they seem to be an afterthought for (insert whatever name the new Swedish overlords are going to call it), and they seem to have no interest at all in improving them.
  18. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    When a ranger heals better than a healer merc something is very wrong.
    Sissruukk, Velisaris_MS and Caell like this.
  19. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    That is a truly wonderful idea I wonder why nobody else ever thought of that one.....

    You sir are a superhero, a captain among superheroes, I dub thee captain obvious!

    Keys to the city are on their way!

    Meanwhile, back in Norrath the rest of us scrubs after asking for a tank for 4 hours & receiving the equivalent of a 0degree Kelvin shoulder gave up & unsuspended the crappy tank mercs & hoped for the best, again.

    I will add that I would not expect to do the Hero tasks with mercs in era, but they should be perfectly fine in partisan mercenary tasks in era and they usually aren't.
    About the only use for mercs is 1-2 expansions old stuff you missed the boat on and for stuff you barely even earn xp in any more.

    I know mercs are intentionally weaker than a player of the class, thing is if the servers populations drop below a certain point there are just too few players to be able to actually play most of the content in era with a real group, if you have a strong server or a strong guild you are in a very fortunate position, struggling a bit to find enough people to get a group together is expected, however struggling to do that most of the time is the norm on many servers.

    There's a reason most boxers play raid tanks, and why most have a few symbiotics hanging around them.
  20. Angahran Augur

    Given how there was basically nothing new in this expansion and everything was cut&paste I'm surprised that mercs were left out.
    Skuz likes this.