Merc Nurf?

Having read the thread and the replies, one of the primary questions though is not about every change is not reported, be it in beta or update notes. The question though is why this one was not noted? Remove the bazaar toons on all access, how many active toons have purchased and are using a merc? I do not believe we are likely talking about low percentage of players. Nor will every player be 101 anytime soon, but many will be eventually, then there is the hidden sticker shock, and that is what really is being discussed now.

So what happens when someone dings 101, is either moloing/small group using merchs, and continues experiencing in the same spot for a bit longer to get a exp cushion before moving on? This player atm may be clueless why his mercs, tank/healer, is suddenly not performing like they were just two kills ago. In fact, the player now dies, the group almost wipes and he lost his level. Frustrated but determined, kills some more, things are great til he dings, now things are going downhill.

He logs off in frustration, might even log onto the forums or onto Alla to reread the patch notes. Nothing on there about any merc changes. He starts up a ticket about the "merc" bug like tons of other players, increasing the CS overhead, or he starts up a thread on the forums (hey, like this thread...) questioning, does anyone else have this bug? Ooh.. its not a bug, it was intentional. Mercs when through a revamp for this expansion. It is not an easy revamp either, a gradual change but a complete 180 difference between mitigation and avoidance.

Do you not see the PR issue? This is a huge change, one that, imho, could have been worked in a little smoother, even before lvl 101, starting at a specific level (lvl 85) and make the mitigation/avoidance change in increments so that at lvl 101 it is NOT a shocker and making sure, if not during beta, that at least it is noted in the patch notes. Then ya could have spin it anyway you wanted, including AC/Avoidance differences between PC and NPCs, with the pet changes coming first, followed by merc changes, etc, and to the re-commitment to the power being with the PC toons, not the NPC toons.

Again, it is not really that it was done, it is how it was done and the community not informed about it. And you are currently defending yourself and have not made any posts saying that it would be included in any future patch notes/announcements.

That is my two cents (cant even buy gum for that amount anymore ).....

What this thread needs is to have Daegun work some magic like he did back in August.

In one of his first pet nerf threads this fun tidbit was posted:
Pet Mitigation: Parses and Discussion[/URL]
Check out a tank merc. They don't avoid so well but their mitigation is superb.

Goose
Gander
Giggle

Today my merc decided to have a big crush on the group heal over time spell while on reactive. Luckily they must have 4000 mana regen per tick or something because that never became a problem. I'm struggling to understand what type of AI would prioritize casting a promised heal, followed by group heal over time, then single heal over time on me while I am tanking 2 yellow con mobs in Thuliasaur.
I've actually started to get a kick out of how horrible the spell selection has been. Been maniacally laughing when I die while the merc is casting group HOTs.
Gotta laugh to stay sane I guess. At least one need only take 2 boat rides to get back to the zone. FUN!

You fail to realize that in order to "enjoy content" everything need to mitigate so much that DI never reaches the top. Otherwise you just an accident waiting to happen, and that type of death-trap gaming gets really old, really fast. (Spikes in PRNG used to come in chunks making it look more like a "discrete function" than noice all over.)

When you keep nerfing and at the same time fail to give classes the tools they need to grind away an hour of their life here and there, you just end up with a bad game design. And all the Ninja-nerfs thinking that the players wont notice is an interesting method too. We had a bunch of them the last year. Some are pretty fun! Like the pyramid mobs in Jewel of Atiki, if a mage was first to aggro it, then the xp would be reduced by 90% or so. If any another class was first to aggro it wasn't reduced. Who did the dmg or what the group consisted of didn't matter, as long as it wasn't a mage who engaged the mob..

When content is next to unplayable or simply not fun, telling players to "work harder" doesn't really cut it when you design entertainment. It is like a movie where the cameraman is epileptic. You don't tell the audience they should focus harder to see what is happening as they stand up to leave.

The human controlled healer is still underpowered. As it a lot of other things. Basically the design SoE been moving towards the last years is awful!

Imagine the following example on good design!

1) Oh noes! We have no proper plate tank --- Don't despair! We have cleric and since they can't do jack besides healing we can keep a monk/ranger/merc/random-hybrid healed up as our tank!

2) Oh noes! We have no cleric --- Don't despair! We have a Warrior and since they can't do jack besides reducing incoming damage from melee, even an evoc specialized druid can keep it fully healed without going oom.

3) Oh noes! We only have 3 persons! --- Don't despair! We have a Warrior and Cleric (and something), so even if the fights will take a long time atleast the enemies can't beat us up!

4) Oh noes! We have no plate-tank, and no cleric! --- Don't despair! We have a full group with 6 people, and we can burn-zerg-improvise through. It might be messy but 6 fully capable living breathing humans behind their computers can figure out how to work together to progress in the game.

5) Oh yeah! We have the holy trinity + 3 of the currently most OP DPS in game! --- Well, good for you... go join a raid, it is what the hard-core people who love to properly organize and plan well in advance are supposed to do. Getting perfect setup for doing some group grinding should be overkill and you probably wasted too many hours of your life just getting proper classes together. You like standing in queue for 1 hour waiting for the bus each morning too?

They want to fail in the same way as EQ2 currently does. EQ2 is designed with "Daily"... you always see people yelling in the server-channels, LFG for weekly/dailys (sometimes the same name for hours).

EQ2 is more built around alts than EQ. You can level up a character very fast and the gear your main finds is either tradeable or heirloom so your alts can use it via shared bank. Since levelling up is so easy and so fast, they decided the time-sink should be to get gear instead. And gear also makes an extreme difference in EQ2.

EQ2 is also experiencing horrible player drain as players don't enjoy to login and spend hours begging on their knees for some group to bring them in for a Daily. The extreme gear disparity (new tank 150k HP, veteran tank 1 million HP), that EQ1 managed to avoid for the last years is really a catastrophy in EQ2. If you missed the gear-train there is no way to catch up as the groups move on and the 150k tank simply wont survive even if it tries hide around the corner (the DoTs will find you). DPS also can't harm mobs because mods are contested making the mob more or less immune to those without "proper gear".

Most EQ1 players stick to this game because they need a hobby, and they content with EQ1 fulfilling that niche year in year out.

As EQ1 becomes a EQ2-like frustration (as seen in Plane of War, Tower of Rot) it will die pretty fast as people hit their heads on that and other ridiculous "challenges". Just like EQ2 with superior graphics and smoother gaming experience is loosing a lot of players due to frustration in massive gear difference that the player can't grind away to overcome. Either the oldies gear you up, or you stuck with gear that is utterly useless. (Or you pay thousand of dollars buying it with via Krono->Platinum from the farmers. Many raids sell gear in auction channels.)

EQ1 and EQ2 are both in trouble but the design problems causing them are different. Will be interesting to see which one the sun sets on first.

People like to keep their hobbies simple. Like a single score on the bowling alley, a single value like level on their toons. After that there should be added methods and ways to make it more diverse but a simple base must be there for everyone to understand. The fact that SoE doesn't seem to get basic hobby/gaming psychology and done away with levels in their next game in order to increase fuzziness makes me believe it can be an even race between which EQ dies first. So which game dies first? EQ1, EQ2 or next-generation EQ3? ;-)

Only way to deal with this is set your damage caster to passive after every fight to ensure they follow you across the zone. On the flip side of the coin, if they already are on the other end of the zone or out of combat range - set them to passive to come closer to you then put them on balanced.

This drives me crazy. Clerics don't do it. I wish the Ribbon of Empathy worked for mercs too.

i respectfully disagree with this sight regarding EQ2 ... the difference in gear is if someone puts in the time he can get decent gear, which will allow him to survive group content (even tank group content) by doing advanced solo Ini's (can solo them together with another player or a merc) it just takes time ......

a lot of EQ2-players don't want to invest this time, only seeing the better group ini's gear and want to step from questing gear right into group ini's and can't contribute to the group instead the get killed by a single AE ....

This is what is different in EQ1, there are no advanced solo Ini's in which players can gear up to survive the group content ..... (not that i endorsed this kind of content to be added, i think its a bad way ....)

Mercs were almost as broken as pets.

This ^

No they don't see the PR issues. and they never have.
Roshen should demand that all changes and patch notes need to fly past him for language, inclusion, and presentation approval - before going public. But being the "new guy" - I doubt Roshen's in much of a position to "demand" much of anything. So, instead of getting out ahead of issues and problems - his job mainly consists of damage control and cleanup after the fact. And that's no way to run a successful business. Then again - Sony is far from a "successful business" anymore.

-Rat

My take away from reading all these threads, I think all changes are designed to sell more TDS.

For box teams - buy TDS for all your toons, but keep 2 of them at level 100 so you can use the pre-nerf mercs. Work on the progression to unlock all zones.

For single players who use merc - Get at least one box account, buy a heroic toon, (instant 85, level it to 100), buy TDS for that toon, keep it at level 100. Work on progression to unlock all zones.

There, more subscriptions, more TDS being sold. win-win for SoE.

Nope what we are saying is you don't have the population for us to have the luxury of human controlled tanks or healers all the time, and i am sure you are aware of this, or why else would you have created Mercs in the first place. Mr. Smart .

And what WE REALLY ARE SAYING!!! is stop nerfing the game your making it less fun for PAYING CUSTOMERS. But as always hear what you want to hear, do what you want to do. And than wonder why each year your paying subscribers become less and less. But again if you were a good coder you probably wouldnt be working for SONY , now would you?

OK, Just found this thread by accident and with the exp nerfs and now merc nerfs, I'm sorry but my casual box play style does not support the purchase of 5 expansions. I almost broke down and bought but I'm glad I didn't. Looks like my progression ends forever at level 100. I'm sure the raiders will laugh at my post and say I'm wrong. I'll play till my subs run out one by one and that's it. Farewell all.

My tank merc has held up fairly well for me through leveling and progression using a single healer merc. I am slowing with my enchanter, however. There were also a couple mobs in progression tasks that the tank merc + 1 healer could not handle. For those I had to pet tank while my rogue just sat and watched from the side. They might be doable with a tank merc if you have a real healer or 2 merc healers.

Tank mercs definitely take damage differently now. I don't think the new way is game breaking. Some further tuning might be needed, but it's not broken. Other than they can't hold agro if you give them a merc shield thus negating the premise that these changes made merc armor matter.

If you all displayed merc's (and our) Avoidance AC separately in the Stat window that would have shown that going up lots. ;-)

Wow, I finally purchased the expansion that allows players to level to 105 after boxing and playing old content at level 100. Needless to say I am ending my subscription and moving on from Everquest. That's pretty sad that my merc can no longer tank the easiest of mobs because her AC was cut in half. She is now a paper tank that tanks mobs like a level 30 wizard. Bye Everquest...terrible customer satisfaction.

Can I have your stuff?

(un)holy necro, batman!