This should now be fixed in game. If you're a F2P player and can't hire a merc, please let me know with as much detail as possible.
Cost of a merc is based on player level and merc type (Apprentice or Journeyman). Your response here is ignorant if you can't read that the entire post there is using level 20 data. Edit: So let's see. My Rog from the previous post is now level 30 Level 70, J5 merc cost is 78p 3g/15 mins Level 30 is 16p 5g/15 mins Level 40 is 30p 5g/15 mins If it's costing you 100pp/hr, that puts you at level 35-ish? That puts you at LGuk Najena SolA Rathe Mts The Hole Tim Deep Frontier Mts Emerald Jungle Kaesora Trakanon's Teeth Burning Woods Dreadlands City of Mist Karnor's Castle Mines of Nurga Chardok Howling Stones (Charasis) Old Sebilis Crystal Caverns Eastern Wastes Iceclad Ocean Great Divide Tower of Frozen Shadow Kael Drakkel Cobalt Scar Dawnshroud Peaks Grimling Forest Twilight Sea Jaggedpine Forest Scarlet Desert Katta Castellum Mons Letalis Tenebrous Mountains Gulf of Gunthak Dulak's Harbor LDON's Dranik's Scar Blightfire Moors Stone Hive Goru`kar Mesa Please... Do tell me what zone you're in where you can't get 100pp/hr XPing. I'll go there and simply prove you wrong.... again.
I didnt claim anything but you just supported their argument that J5 is more expensive and depending on the player can be cost prohibitive. From your own data, you showed at level 20 it’s that it’s a 6plat per 15 minute charge. It’s pretty significant at that level. You showed a jump from Monday 2.5p to Wednesday 6.2p per 15 mins at level 20. So, it went up ~250%.
It really isn't. Not on live. Not coming out of the tutorial. I went from Gloomingdeep to Crescent Reach to Blightfire moors. Granted the merc cost was about half what J5 would have cost, he got several hundred plat from kills and trash loot. I even skipped a lot of loot because it was cheaper. From 20-30 today, he's got around 2.5k for doing treants and mushrooms in Blightfire.
Let's be real here. The cost of a merc is not much at those levels. The spells are much more expensive to keep up to date than the cost of a merc. The complainer should divert their complaints to the cost of spells.
Let’s be real, prices went up and now someone complains. Mercs really shouldn’t even have a cost to until 70.
I'm with Wyre. Live servers basically rain money on players. There's no argument here. Mercs are cheap - they reflect their in-game value.
You all need to save up for when your paying 259 plat every 15 minutes at level 117 and then leave it running
Complaining about the price going up is fine. I even said so in my early reply. Blaming the increase in price as a reason you can't afford it? No. That's not a good basis, you absolutely can afford them.
Some zones are pretty stingy when it comes to plat drops. Not every level range has TS mats that sell well in /barter. I'm fine with making mercs free up to lvl 50 or so.
I started playing EQ in November of 99. My wife began shortly thereafter. We have taken breaks, but we (usually me) always end up back. Our children played a bit when they were young and now two of them play as adults. Currently, four of us play together twice a week. We are filthy casuals these days, but we all have paid accounts. Yesterday, the Thursday after the patch that removed options for more granular control of merc toughness and cost, my daughter and I decided to play a couple low level toons. She was running a level 17 BST and I, a level 15 DRU. We spent about 45 minutes in Unrest and then headed to Guk when we were mid 20s. after a stop in PoK to sell and get spells. Guk went great, and even when my merc poofed because I ran out of money to pay it, we had no trouble, but I did run out of money. It was mildly irritating. I did buy several levels of spells to take along to GuK but I have always done this, and to be fair (to be Faaaaaair!) I don’t pickup everything that drops. In unrest I only rolled on gems and defiant armor, so it’s likely that I would have had enough coin but chose not to, that said, why should I have to be that attentive to coin on a level 20ish toon? I never have had to before? My point is that I don’t prefer the change and I’d like it undone. Though I suppose there have been worse changes…May 8th, 2002 comes to mind, and yet I’m still playing. And if the buggering Shaman took with regard to spell stacking didn’t drive me away, I’m pretty sure this change won’t chase me away either.
It seems like they should have lowered the cost a bit to account for the fact that people used to use lower-level mercs to save money. At the lower levels the mercs could be about what tier 3 used to cost. At the top levels only the highest level mercs are really viable, so they can be the regular tier 5 cost. While I can see the desire to retain the multi-tier mercs, from a programming perspective I think it's best to condense them. Each tier takes coding and testing resources. That takes away from other things they could be doing. If the vast majority of mercs are tier 5, then it's probably good to limit the developer resources to just have to code and support just one tier of mercs.
I just came out of LGuk. Took all money away and gave my Rog 100pp so I could have a solid baseline. 1 hour. [Fri May 20 11:36:18 2022] Your mercenary waived an upkeep cost of 16 plat, and 5 gold or 1 Bayle Mark and your mercenary upkeep cost timer has been reset to 15 minutes. [Fri May 20 11:51:18 2022] You have been charged a mercenary upkeep cost of 21 plat, and 7 gold and your mercenary upkeep cost timer has been reset to 15 minutes. [Fri May 20 12:06:18 2022] You have been charged a mercenary upkeep cost of 27 plat, and 4 gold and your mercenary upkeep cost timer has been reset to 15 minutes. [Fri May 20 12:21:18 2022] You have been charged a mercenary upkeep cost of 30 plat, and 5 gold and your mercenary upkeep cost timer has been reset to 15 minutes. [Fri May 20 12:36:18 2022] You have been charged a mercenary upkeep cost of 32 plat, and 0 gold and your mercenary upkeep cost timer has been reset to 15 minutes. Total merc cost: 111p 6g Total coin collected (minus merc cost): 182p 9g 0s 2c Total vendor gains:487p 8g 1s 0c Total gains: 670p 7g 1s 2c It's like people act as if picking up FS weaps is beneath them now. Yes, the cost to run a Journeyman merc below lvl 85 has a little over doubled. But it hasn't broken it. Should they reduce the costs? Well.. I think they should, since the quest line for J5 was around level 85, there probably should be a reduction in cost for all Journeyman mercs below that level. It didn't make it unplayable and you can definitely pull in coin to cover costs.
Just something to point out... At lower levels, unless the player has paid real money for lots of big bags, inventory space is a concern. Things like FS weapons and some other merchant fodder items don't stack and can really eat up bag space in a hurry, forcing the player to go and sell quite often. Which can be a real pain in the backside depending on where they're fighting and if they have to take a lot of time getting to and from that spot. I'm not saying players worried about plat shouldn't be picking up and selling everything they can, but I can certainly understand why it might become an unattractive endeavor when you're basically using backpacks and maybe a couple of slightly bigger bags you've managed to obtain. And yeah...I think merc costs should be adjusted down a bit since they've removed the option of going with a cheaper merc of the same type.
