When ToT launched mercs from AoM and ToT got a stat boost. Older mercs (including Rare mercs) were left to become obsolete. I seriously don't think this is good for EQ2. Having a variety of Mercs available will liven up the appearance of the game. Forcing people into a narrow selection will cause frustration and boredom. So instead of offering a boost to some mercs, introduce a mechanic to boost mercs. The Tithe system was recently introduced and is in a prime positon to fufil that desire. Let us put points into "mercs" to boost the performance of all mercs, with added HP and increasing the mercs base ability. Alternatively change mercs to be more like beastlord pets, so that each merc comes in a variety of grades or levels. Then introduce quest series to improve mercs. That would mean to get the best performance for a new merc you'd have to go back and do all of the merc quests to level your new merc to the current limit. New mercs could start with some levels to cut out some of the grind. Certain mercs (rare?) could have additional quests for special upgrades. There could even be weekly quests to give the merc temporary buffs that last for several days.
I really like this idea. They would just have to make sure you couldn't over power them. But if the scale of upgrades was similar to the scale sta/pot/cb are on, there would be no danger of that.
In every xpac the mercs have been boosted to be able to handle the new zones. This is the only time they fell short. Although they did receive a bit of a boost, it was not enough. I don't think the Tithe system should be used for it though, we shouldn't have to do anything to be honest.
Boosting the mercs every xpac says it all. If you change the merc for each xpac, older content becomes more trivial. If the changes need to be made every xpac then making them a reward for the player's action instead of automatic gives the players a feeling of empowerment instead of an invisible change that most players don't notice, and still isn't adequate. Also as I said above, it allows more different mercs to be used. Making the entire system a no-benefit when it comes to player experience means dev is going to cut corners and make decisions like only buffing the AoM+ mercs.
I think that boat has sailed a long time ago. And simply buffing all the mercs instead of just a select few ones once they reach level 100 would also make all of them useful for ToT, meaning we'd see more of them being used. Tying this to the tithe system seems unnecessarily complicated.
But for ToT they didn't buff all mercs. What they actually did was buff the 10 year vet mercs, and all mercs introduced from AoM. As things stand now there isn't a reason for dev to go back and buff the rest of the mercs unless some additional mechanic is added.
So why would tying a buff for the other mercs to the tithe system be better than just buffing the other mercs like the rest of them? Yes, I understand that right now only SOME of them were buffed, but if you could upgrade all of them through the tithe system, then the 10 year vet mercs and the AoM mercs would still be a lot stronger by comparison, assuming they'd also benefit from your proposed tithe change. I think it would be less awkward to simply match the currently underpowered mercs to the ones who got a buff and be done with it.
ok, so lets go over dev motivations. Dev wants people to play the game. When they play, they want them to play for longer. Dev also wants people to enjoy the experience. Dev also wants to spend as little time as possible on things they don't have to do because it saves time to do things they want to do. Dev already decided it wasn't worth buffing every merc for ToT. Unless some additional carrot gets tossed in dev isn't going to buff the rest of the mercs. So just saying "buff all the mercs" isn't going to get a lot of dev interest. Also giving people more stuff to do is a good thing. Making people do quests or at least grind to buff their mercs gives them a little more to do before they completely max their character, again.
Yes and then all the mercs who are already too strong by comparison will still be stronger when buffed through the tithe system, leaving the underpowered mercs as underpowered and undesirable as they were in the first place. Not to mention the fact that it's generally more useful to buff one's own character through the tithe system instead of wasting these points on the mercs.
Mercs are something we already PAID for, I shouldn't have to do extra things to make them viable. They should get a boost in new content, not to make it trivial but to make them useful. Right now it's as if they're barely there. In the past Mercs worked as they used to in old content and got a boost in new content. I never said boost them so we could take them back to CoE, ToV, or AoM and make it all trivial.
You do know that if you work through the Shipwrecked timeline, you can learn to make Henchman Boosters, basically a temp adorn for your merc?
Yeah and the TS relic boosts your merc as well. I personally don't notice a difference. Then again my merc spends most of the time just staring off into space instead of actually doing anything.
Yeah I was taking a beating in Bar Brawl the other day, turn around and I see my Merc is talking to the Bartender.
