Mercenaries

I'm also assuming this files under common sense, but mercs do need a lock placed on them so they can't be suspended (disbaned from the group) or activated druing combat -- this could lead into all sorts of issues.

Gninja wrote:

Hello Gninja,
Most of us, and everybody I know for that matter, is very happy abotu the mercs coming. I honestly don't know why some people have to rail against them like they are going to take a group spot away from them that they never had, they can just use a merc and not LFG if that's the problem.
I hope you are not going ot make these too burdensome to use, it is clear that the players who will be using them (and are eagerly looking forward to having them) are the ones who don't farm ToRZ and sell BP's every day. They should be very budget friendly to allow the greater mass of people to afford them, you know those of us without funding from selling raid gear.
I know that for my group of friends we will never use one when a friend is available, but when they are not online it is going to be SO much fun adding these to our small groups!
Don't make them weak! I don't mean for them to be OP but they should be a viable alternative in a group, other wise why bother.....
I know I don't seem like I care for much of what SOE has been doing to my beloved game but with this addition I am over the moon with joy, Although I am still not happy with what has been done with the dragon ring event coming, on this you have my full support and gratification.
About the appearance gear you can put on them, can we get it back if we change our mind? Is it like the mannequins in guild hall etc? Can we give them weapons too even if just for appearance? Can we name them?
Again, good job SOE!

Eileah wrote:

The price should vary depending on the quality of the merc and it should be a huge seperation, if you can level/aa the merc the price should increase dramatically as well

Gninja wrote:

That WOULD be kind of awesome, actually. I am curious as to how much we will be able to customize mercenaries outside of appearance gear. In EQ1 all you could choose was the race and gender, name and appearance were randomized. Will we be able to do more than that? Makeover kits for the mercs perhaps? Custom names would be cool, too, especially as the random name generator tends to spit out names that are little more than gibberish strings of letters for the most part.

Crabbok@Unrest_old wrote:

Merc bards will be coded to randomly wipe the group once per zone!

The appearance gear for Mercs is an excellent idea, I hope that feature can be set up like GH mannequins!
Also, would it be possible for smaller races to shrink the Mercs if they end up too big?

Talathion@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I believe Guild Wars now allows this but it requires an additional cash purchase.

Gninja wrote:

Wouldn't it be easiest to use the same system you already have for the guildhall manniquins? It seems like it does exactly what you want, assuming you can adapt it to your needs. The harder part would be getting an NPC to hold the same physical appreance (hair/skin/size/etc.) because most pets and guild hall NPCs shift those at random.

NamaeZero wrote:

Given that many players have very different tastes in what they prefer, I'm thinking that the summoning item should allow you to either make the Merc to match your current size, or the option to be smaller or larger.

Gninja wrote:

Mercenaries arent going to have AA right? so the bard one shouldnt even HAVE Battlecry! =D

Gninja wrote:

So in short
Mercenaries: Better than nothing, worse than anything.

Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:

Are you not listening to the people that are for them in this thread?
Can we give them AA?
Can we gear them?
Can we name them? - NO WAY THIS SHOULD BE ALLOWED you can name a pet you can't name an employee
Can we only have to pay a tiny amount for their services?
Can we run current zones that were designed for 6 with 3 people and 3 mercs and get the same amount of loot that a full group gets but the mercs do not get any?
Can we play dress up with them?
Can we swap them out at will anywhere in Norrath, without having to zone to a city.
All you have to do is look at what was done with the promise that station cash would not be on subscription servers, then once that was breached the promise that there will not be any items with beneficial in game stats in the marketplace, only fluff items to what it is today. The talk of stronger mercs being put on the marketplace already before they are even here and if you still believe the statement that was bolded above you are truly a gullible person. Once they are here the whining will begin that they are too weak and "we can't do challenge mode instances with 3 players and 3 mercs" and they will be buffed to the point where they can. None of the people that are calling for them in this thread will be happy with them when they arrive unless they are OP to start with, and if they are happy they will complain about having to pay for them, the cool down period (if either of those actually make it to the game) until they are removed.

Gash@Kithicor wrote:

When you ask the bard Merc about Battlecry, he'll just look shifty and claim he doesn't have it...

Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

I didn't know asking about a feature implied that you are 100% in support of it. I'll be sure not to ask someone if they stole any of my stuff so they won't think I want them to steal my stuff. How about you stop jumping to conclusions, hmm?
How about you look at EQ1 and what they have done with mercenaries ALREADY and realize all your fears of SoE screwing them up in this conspiracy you laid out are completely baseless. "OMG they sell exp potions surely they will let you hire limitless amounts of NPC's that are raid geared and only cost station cash!"
And guess what? EQ1 mercenaries are pretty much I what I just said in bold. So, yeah, you're wrong. I have evidence and precedence, you have imaginative assertions.

It wasn't directed at you, but you jumped to that assumption.
I hope you are right, everything lately indicates that these things will be just the opposite within 3 months of showing up we will see.
All that has been happening lately is the stuff getting nerfed until it is trivial at best because people that had Full SF legendary gear with some assorted fabled items couldn't up and run through KD contested in a breeze so they made that content trivial, easy enough to solo a good bit of it. They didn't want to work through the intended progression, cos it was hard so they nerfed the other things too, they didn't just tone them down they made everything they touched about 25% easier or more. So there is no reason to believe that these mercs are not going to be beefed up when the whining starts, they will be made more convenient and easiy to use. They are not here yet so anything in this thread is speculation, and some of what the red names say will be speculation at this point because things will definately change before then.
They have asked for input for it and it is being delivered by both sides, hopefully they will keep it in the middle.
The games are different animals totally, so
"So, yeah, you're wrong. I have evidence and precedence, you have imaginative assertions."
is far from being an even remotly accurate statement, and people in here have said that the mercs were pretty good. I have evidence and precedence as well. I have no experience with the mercs in EQ so I can't say either way hearing conflicting stories on here, so don't take it personally but I'm not gonna just up and accept your opinion as the gospel on it.

lol how was that not directed at me? You quoted me! And if you were directing it to gninja you could have just quoted him, but you weren't since you were referring to the developer team as a third party. Nice try.
Mercs at most replaced real people grouping on EQ1 when it came to leveling up and very trivial level cap content. People rarely if ever group for these this level of content on EQ2. If you wanted to do any progression that mattered, using a merc is a last resort if resorted to at all due to it most likely being a waste of time. I haven't seen a single MMO in general where a NPC controlled group member met the quality of a player one, so I fail to see why they would do it here.
Nerfing content isn't anything like beefing up these mercs, so again, imaginative assertions and no facts. You can't use something that happened to one completely different thing as evidence for another.
I can already tell you what they are shooting for. Mercs will work in pretty much all easy group content and obviously any solo stuff as well. Might get away with them working in a medium level difficulty scenario and they will get trounced in anything 'top end.' I'm going off what this exact company has done before with this exact feature in another game that plays very similar to EQ2. To think they will do otherwise is quite a leap in speculation, to say the least.

Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

There was never any promise that SC would not be on the subscription servers. Since SC pre-dates EQ2x, that would have been an impossible 'promise' to have made. The subscription servers do not, though, have the "robust" Marketplace found on EQ2x.

Rijacki wrote:

1. Smed: We aren't going to be allowing RMT in any way, shape or form on the non-exchange enabled EQ II servers. Period. End of statement.
2. Smed: This [LoN] is not some slippery slope towards selling items directly in EQ & EQ II.
3. Station Cash. Enough Said.

From a signature of a poster here, I have never heard the signature questioned.
I quoted you and presented all the absurd buffs they are already asking for on these things, they aask for nerfs they get nerfs. What makes you think they wont have these things cranked up with equivalent gear within a few months of them being introduced? And EQ is not a satisfactory answer, it is not the same people in charge unless it was done after the recent trimming down if it was it was not the case when the mercs were introduced into EQ. You are comparing apples to oranges but because the games start with EQ you think they are the same thing.

Part of your premise is that since a minority is asking for it on the forums, they WILL do it. I'm sure there are entire classes and playstyles that would disagree strongly with you. Put up a poll asking if the devs have done everything each person has wanted, I guarantee it won't result with 'Yes' as the winner.
You also keep assuming people asking about AA, gearing them, stuff about loot WANT those things to be put in. This is also not true. Inquiring about a concept does not mean they are in favor of said concept.
Your premises are faulty so therefore your conclusions drawn from those premises are faulty.
Also I love you just outright deny the evidence of how EQ1 executed Mercenaries. Much like your apparent dismissal of them saying the only way a merc would be better than a player is if they are on autofollow. EQ1 mercenaries and EQ2 mercenaries aren't apples and oranges, EQ2 mercenaries are to provide the same exact purpose as EQ1 mercenaries with some added fluff (appearance, collectable).Would you dismiss comparisons of Eq2's future dungeon finder to WoW's dungeon finder? Or EQ2's public quests to Warhammer Onlines PQ's?
Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

Because they said they won't and doing so would serve no positive purpose for them. unlike the SC store which did benefit them and nerfing content since having weak content and buffing it is much worse than having overtuned content and nerfing it. They won't ever knowingly do something that makes them less money, making hired NPC's that are just as good as player ones would surely do that and I know you agree.
So, what makes you think they WILL have these things cranked up? Other than adjustments they did to completely different content, talk about apples and oranges. They made a raid mob easier after overtuning it for release so surely Mercs will be made OP as soon as someone asks for it! lol.

Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:

How is this problematic? When you do the math here this is the only answer. If its wrose than anything then you have a reason to put a newbie in your group (just dinging your level), and if its better than nothing it STILL helps you out when there is just no one online to help.
Win-Win.
Lempo@Everfrost wrote:

Add #4 EQ2x and +99999e99999
You have to remember when the #1 promise was being made to EQ2 it was also being made to me in EQ1 as well because we were just as concerned as an exchange program taking over EQ1 as the folks in EQ2 were. Not that the games are the "SAME" we knew they were not but we also knew the same cutpurse ran EQ2.
But in short to this V E R Y M U C H agree. People might not like the urine analogy but $med has done it before and if people for some reason think that he won't again are likley prone to domsestic violence and being scammed anyways.
Notes for the mods:

• "cutpurse" is related directly to a class of EQ2 which is acceptable in accordance to the forum guidelines.
• As to the line of domestic violence; this is not to illicit an emotional response (classifying it as trolling) but to be a comparative between the real word and the virtual world as US Deperatment of Justice statistics show those whom are constantly scammed are prone to it, those whom are constantly a victim of domestic volence are pone to it. This inclusivly makes this a non-trolling item.
• My comments were not aimed at any dev but at Smed and his practices himself providing valuable customer feedback.
• Feel free to delete these notes in part or in whole without modification of the content.

Felishanna@Antonia Bayle wrote:

No, until you posted in "THIS THREAD" my opinions were non-inclusive. You lied by attacking me with lies (we call this libel in the legal world) and stating I had done something I obviously had not. I made suggestions in this thread benniffiting mercs and benniffiting the game wihtout mercs (as advocating for "mercs for raiders" wouldn't be in my nature as someone clouded by 0 merc ideals) until you came in and crash-landed the play-set with all the grace of a butterfly overdosing on caffine.
So therein I refer YOU to the forum guidelines to where tolling and baiting is a bannable offense.
Crabbok@Unrest_old wrote:

*sigh* I have already posted this once but obviously the mods didn't like how I worded something as it was removed without notice...
Anyways, as I have no trouble saying it, that was my fault -- I thought you had read into the whole mologing thing and knew that mercs could rez without agroing a kos mob standing on top of the merc. It comes down to the mechanics of EQ1 (which I hope is drastically diffrent obviously) in that a merc, by default gets no agro like the player. It has its pros and cons: Pros, the player donesn't have to worry about pulling trains across a zone; Cons: The player can exploit it. So again that is my largest concern, exploits that SOE later says "this is working as intended".