Mercenaries

Without going too much into details that are not ironed out yet...
- Mercs will be one merc per player active at a time.
- We want you to be able to collect mercs and not have to return to town to switch them once you have obtained a merc.
- Mercs will scale to your level
- Mercs will be allowed in mentoring however they will scale appropriately for the level they become instead of getting the power increase players see.
- We do not want mercs to be more powerful than a player sitting at the keyboard actively playing.
- Mercs will be like pets however they will take up a group spot. They might have some added functionality that pets do not have and they will be able to be used by classes that have pets without having to give up their pet.
- It is still undecided if we will allow mercs in raids but it is leaning towards yes. However, Mercs will not have any advantage in raids over heroic zones so they will likely take a large amount of damage from AEs etc. This would be costly for the owner.
- Mercs will take a % of coin and exp from the group they are in. We have no plans for them to eat treasure at this time but that is subject to change as we iterate.

If you have any other specific questions fire away but be nice!

Lalen@Everfrost wrote:

While I don't condone it, what he says is absolutely true. SOE has successfully corralled us into the world of DPS DPS DPS then DPS some more so we can get thru this dungeon, farm our obligatory shards, and get the heck out of here. There really is not much short term incentive to "train" a new player who is ungeared or unskilled. Of course long term it makes sense as these new players will eventually be the veterans and will provide population for the game, but the sad part is not many think this way and they get frustrated when they have to do the zone slowly, or worse yet cannot finish the zone. As I said I don't necessarily condone it or act like this myself, but it is the reality and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to sometimes being caught up in it.
Hand in hand with this is the way quests are set up. When a zone is new to you, you'd naturally like to do all the quests in there. Most of the time the group just wants to DPS thru the dungeon for their shards, having already completed all the quests. Sometimes you get lucky and find a nice group, or one that mostly still needs the quests.
A lot of this is due to simple human nature, some people are nice and patient, some aren't, and even if some are some days they may be in a rush for whatever reason. Human nature won't change so it's up to SOE to design and implement a system that rewards patience, that rewards helping the new player out. But unfortunatly SOE is severely short sighted and they constantly strive to do just the opposite, and this is the largest part of the problem of course discounting human nature.
But in the end I am agreeing with you that we need mercs, but not necessarily for group content, but more for the content that there are no players to group with, such as level 1 to 90, and for solo quests, and for mentoring to older group content. Stuff that will help keep the new player from being frustrated and quit. I realize this encourages the new player to never group during that period, but the game absolutely is already like this and I don't see how you can make that worse. I regularly see players level 90 who have only grouped once or twice and have very little idea how to play their class, this is the fault of SOE's shortsightedness first and foremost.

Will we be able to "gear out" our mercs? That might be interesting.

Banditman wrote:

Current plan is to be able to give them gear as appearance only. We will have a hard enough time balancing these without accounting for gear progression.

Gninja wrote:

I like the idea of apperance. What about Attuning. Would the merc get an attuneable item and never be able to give it back, or would the merc serve as kind of a bag where we can take the attuned item back from them for our own appearance (mainly thinking about SC apperance items.) I admit there probably hasn't been that much thought on this one yet but I am curious lol.

Gninja wrote:

I do not understand why making us go into town to chronomentor and not removing that because you want to encourage people to visit the towns and socialize in them, yet for people who want to use mercs they can collect them, and change them whenever the situation warrants with no penalties or delays. This is a bad idea because it is making it even more convenient to use mercs.
Whereas if these same people were forced to go into a town to get a new merc they might find someone standing with a LFG tag?
It is unreasonable for mercs not to eat a percentage of loot, 3 people take 3 mercs and farm zones for the same amount of loot as 6 but only have to split 3 ways, they need to eat the amount of coin and a proportionate amount of loot or it will even further encourage the use of them over a player that might only be marginally better but if able to find a group, willing to listen and could pick up a few pointers and be far more desireable.
I know you can't answer everything Gninja but all the other details you listed are reasonable these 2 are completely unreasonable based on what has been stated by you guys about them and the intended use of them. Making people go into a town to swap them out is not asking much, and not having them consume loot is not 'logical' (since I have to be nice I wont say crazy lol)

Gninja wrote:

Any thoughts on having them scale based on the zone vs. level? If not, I would imagine they would either be way overpowered for Shadowed Corridors or pretty much useless in the Drunder zones.

Gninja wrote:

How about 1 per group? It is silly to go filling up a group with mercs really -- if we're going to step into this realm we might as well just knock down the max group members to 3 make the content twice as easy and save the dev time on mercs.
Gninja wrote:

Just for clairification, are you saying that having a merc in a mentored group would be like trying to mentor 2 people instead of 1 if you're mentoring another player? If so then +++999e10. Thats an awesome idea -- so if a merc is actually needed then they will be weaker than a same level newbie.
Gninja wrote:

I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but this exact same thing was said in EQ1, and I can show you fraps's of mercs greatly out-performing ACTIVE players in healing stamina.
Gninja wrote:

<3 Keep it in raids if they will be in groups please.
Gninja wrote:

The coin I assume will be quite significant (appropiate for that level of course)?
Ok best for last...
Gninja wrote:

I'm no mage, but just to be completely honest, I can't see how a conjy-for-life player is going to appreciate this idea; like in EQ1 they're supposed to have superior control over pets yes?

Darkeendragon wrote:

Oh NO NO NO NO NO, please lets not turn them into walking banks. Giving a merc an item you've already attuned I'm fine with though.

I do not think the mercs should be able to be dressed up like little dolls, people are already talking and asking about can they gear them out or will the stuff they put on them become attuned, this doesn't sound like something that is going to be used in a pinch this is leading down that slippery slope, first it will be appearance gear then it will progress until you can put raid gear on them really, really bad idea

What a shock... another mercenaries thread dominated by Lalen doing his best to make them useless. /sigh.

As someone who duos, (and thus would actually use these, as opposed to the people who would never use them and are trying to keep everyone else from doing so), I have to say that consuming loot would be a deal-breaker. Paying money and xp is sufficient cost for a 'sub-par player' NPC mercenary. I don't actually care if we have to go back to the city to change the mercenary, although I think that would just be tedium for tedium's sake.

Many players keep Validating Merc's based on the opinion that they will help new players progress through the game with less difficulty because they have trouble finding groups for lower end content. If this is the true intended fix for this situation then there should be no reason a Merc should be beyond the skills/gear of a level 85 player. Outside of the easiest DOV zones (pools/acsent/CC) The Merc should be Near useless (Any Aoe will 1 shot due to very low CM) because at this point A new player is now playing with the current game population and doesnt need a Bot to help them.

Valentina@Butcherblock wrote:

What a troll.

You will be able to put gear on them for appearance and you would get that gear back if you so desired. It would not be "attuned" to the merc.
As far as mercs being another reason to go to cities yes they will but only for initial aquisition. Mercs were mentioned as something that would be in the cities and not in guildhalls but there are plenty of other reasons to enter Freeport after the revamp but that is for another thread.
Mercs will not have "better" options over a pet class' pet but different options. If it makes sense for pets to have one of the options we give to mercs we can look at that after we get it in and see it working on mercs.

Valentina@Butcherblock wrote:

SJ Already said they have no plan on moving Cronomages out of the towns because it brings more players to those dead Zones. With this being said I am 100% positive Merc NPC's will be placed in towns also.
Well I see Gninja posted this this same time I was making this post lol.

Valentina@Butcherblock wrote:

Your previous post is not needed for the most part everyone is being constructive here, just because you don't like the stance on those opposed to it doesn't give you a place to essentailly tell them to stop posting.
So you want mercenaries to greatly reduce your time and effort for the same amount of loot?
If this would be a deal breaker for someone that normally duos that is one thing but if that is the case how can you even begin to say that it is not going to have a major impact on discouraging grouping?

thegriss wrote:

I don't recall seeing any of the devs say that the purpose of mercs if to help new players progress through the game. Those are words that players have put in the devs mouths.
Nor do I recall seeing any of the devs say that mercs are being put in the game to solve a problem. That hasn't stopped numerous people from arguing over why they will or won't solve the problem that they claim they are being put in to solve. Not all features are added for the sole purpose of solving a problem. People have been asking for mercs since a few months after EQ2 launched. They're finally adding them. But I haven't heard them claim they are being added to solve a problem.

Gninja wrote:

So mercs essentially will be a walking bank or an extra bag? This is borderlining in forcing players to use them not there yet, but that gives a lot of incentive for someone that has no desire to use a merc to go out and get one.
If a player gives a merc an appearance item, it needs to be eaten or attuned to that merc. I don't mind giving an item to the merc that is already attuned but I just can't see how this can be a good thing to allow players to freely swap gear from merc-to-player at will.

thegriss wrote:

Yes but did you see it is a one time thing, then they never have to return to the city again for a merc, buy em all up pop the one you want use it until you want another pop it and repeat as necessary, or buy the one you want/need off the marpetplace.
If that is their stance then we should be able to buy or complete a questline for an 'orb of chronomentoring' that would allow us to dynamically change our level inside a dungeon if we run across a grey named. If soemone is going to be able to swap out the ranger merc for an off tank inside a dungeon then mercs are WAY OVERPOWERED based on that alone.