Play own characters as Mercenaries

works, will take $300.00 a hour for my characters - cash up fron minmum 3 hour time frame you pay for all repairs and expierence debt removal potions when you get them killed, no thanks, already have the incentive for multiple accounts and have had it all the way back to 1999 in eq1

To speak of Obano's point. If they did this I would be very much for still not allowing any Mercenaries in Heroic/Raid instances. Perhaps with this "super-merc" which essentially is another persons character with their gear locked on them... perhaps in Heroic but still I see this whole idea as an extreme detriment to potential groups.

When mercenaries went live I saw almost an estimated 40% drop in LFG's and LFM's on my server.

\

As far as mecenaries in heroic or raid - that is the group / raid leaders choices, just becasue you don;t like it doesn't warrent a general SOE imposed restriction on them. Freedom of choice for group or raid make up is what it is all about. did not group much outside of my guild or my account group prior to mercenaries, they just let me combine 6 accounts down to 3.

To each their own opinions. I saw tanks stop grouping because they no longer had to same for good solo dps (like conjies). Overall the impact I saw was negative so, I did not like mercenaries. Though I do use them because I would be the fool to not use a tool offered even if I do not fully agree with it, though I do not use them in groups unless asked by the majority of the group.

The part about LFGs dropping 40% that is just human nature and you can't change that. People will naturally try to use their mercs first and then when they fail at the group content they will /quit out for the night before asking for actual players. This leaves them with a bad experience that is not good for the long term health of the game. I was originally against mercenaries altogether because I knew this would happen but there is no putting that genie back in the bottle now. I don't think anyone is really happy with the current system though. Mercs are too weak to do all that much but at the same time LFG is dead so there is no casual grouping going on. It is a lose-lose double fail situation that has created a worst of both worlds scenario.


EQ2 needs to decide what kind of game this is and not do things half way. They either need go back to an old school forced grouping mechanic or buff up mercs to so they are competitive with actual players. Old saying 'A house divided cannot stand' and that is what we have with Eq2. Devs sent mixed messages to the player base by putting in mercs and then made them too weak to do the content. This leaves the casual player confused and thinking EQ2 is just a bad game which is unfortunate.


I think my point to let players use their own characters as mercenaries is best solution in the face of this conundrum. It adds an extra layer of replayability at a time when CoE zones are so completely under utilized. If player characters were added as recruitable mercenaries then players will want to gear their alts as mercenaries and maintain 2nd and 3rd accounts. This will give Eq2 something unique that no other game on the market has right now. When life gives you lemons make lemonaid.
_________________________________________________________________

I can agree with you there Obano. I am still against Mercs but you are right "the damage is done" and there is no stopping it. I wouldn't mind well using my alts sometimes would be incentive to roll a good one.

Someone suggested allowing us to use our own toons as mercs for other players to use. I can see a big issue with that.

- If you were to get the "hiring/upkeep" back as profit that would be good.
- What happens if you log in while someone has "you" as a merc?
- The player-merc also could not accrue XP dept or Gear-Damage due to well the lifespan of mercs.

They do this on GuildWars (the first one). You can turn your character into a mercenary via their version of a Marketplace. It was a pretty cool in game feture. At the same time you could also fill out your intire group with mercs though. So it would have to be handled a little differently here. I would love to turn my own characters into mercs, even if it was 2000 SC each character you wanted to turn. Seeing the same mercs running around gets boring, and playing with the same looking merc also gets boring.

Right now nothing is stopping anyone from making 5 extra accounts, and using box programs to do group content. Not sure why everyone is so up in arms against the mercs. Guess what I cant find a group 24 / 7. You cannot use a group in the advance solo instances. My low level characters 10-89 can NEVER find a group. The answer ends up being Mercs... Even sadder is at 95 some mercs are smarter then half the people you will PuG with in the game (and no it is not my job to taech someone else how to play their class).

All this post really asks for is some better options for mercs in game. Who wouldn't rather use their own alts as mercs, then the junk they have now? or...


Create a Merc Workshop! Now available on the Marketplace. Pick a race, class, name and up to 10 spells for XXXX SC. or copy your own character today!!!

Oh i know how boxing works, I got bored and 5 boxed wow for a short period (but even 5 boxing that can't keep it interesting for long ), but it's easy to tell the difference between a multiboxer and a botter, clearly the GM was either wrong or didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I like the prospect of subbing in your own characters as mercs though, give people more reason to play multiple characters and work on advancing more of them.

They've already designed the CoE 'solo' questline to require a raid-rigged toon OR a merc or a second player (yes some of the stronger classes can do it, but most can't). We don't need to make mercs even more powerful so SoE makes it even worse. Solo play should be doable SOLO... not require moloing it

I also like group content, which CoE has little of that is relevant.. but solo content should be soloable (that means no merc required). And interesting group content, that is more then tank and spank, would be hard with any merc that wasn't better then most players.

And yet it makes your life (and everyone else's) so much better if you do help teach people.

Here's the real issue though: I'll use Estred and myself as examples as we both play Guardians for our mains.

I am very good at playing a Guardian - SOLO. That's what I do, and I'm happy doing it. I know my class inside and out in this role. Taunts? Not even on my hotbar (well, they are, but way off to the side just in case I ever group up). They have no purpose in my playstyle - I'm much more concerned with keeping my other eighteen or so combat arts going in the right rotation, while moving in and out of range and still being able to hit my Oh ****! buttons and change pace when things stop going smoothly for whatever reason. Now that I'm playing with a merc more often I may have to learn them a bit, but so far it hasn't been an issue (I'm using werewolf pally - he heals, rezzes, and has waaaay more HP than I do).

Estred is very good at playing a Guardian in raids, and probably groups as well. I'm sure he knows all the taunts and hate management abilities that Guardians have,and uses them all the time to keep aggro on him instead of on the diaper brigade. He probably even spent AA points in things like that (think you'll see any hate management AA's in my tree?)

Now, let's consider an average Joe Guardian playing the game. He figured Guardians looked cool and decided to play one. Maybe got himself some sort of merc, probably a healer, and went on to level himself up from 1 to 89/90. Whose playstyle do you think he is going to be closer to: Estred's or mine?

Is it his fault he has no idea how to play in a group? Ditto for every other class. It will only take a few bad PUG's who tell him he sux and L2Play before he gives up on the idea of grouping and stays in the solo content (of which there is a lot more of in the new expansion). Unless he's lucky and finds a friendly casual guild willing to help him out, his grouping/raiding career is over before it even began.

I'd say they almost need a new 'tutorial' zone when you get to endgame where it teaches you the difference between playing solo (where you are tank/healer/DPS all in one) to focusing on a single role and working within that framework. And to everyone who thinks it's obvious - it isn't. At least not for someone new to these game who hasn't played that way before.

This is why I prefer to solo or raid with friends to grouping with people I don't know. I am not unkind, not averse to helping someone learn the game, but these same people are the ones that tend to heap abuse if they die or w/e while in the instance. It gets really old, really fast - so I just stay out of it. Also, at least TRY. I have mostly really decent gear, but the piece or two that needs upgrade is reforged and adorned - I am at least trying.
/end rant, return to thread.

That said, I don't think new/better ideas to have mercenaries really fits with this game as an MMO. It's a really good idea, though, for a solo player game. If that's the direction the devs want this game to head, I think the OP's idea is a good one. If they are trying to force grouping..IDK what to tell them.

Yep. It's very simple, if they want people grouping more they need to keep mercs 'as is' and implement better grouping tools, a better DF would be nice.

If they don't care about grouping and want people to enjoy solo/duos/moloing more then by all means, crank up mercs.

Right now I don't have a horse in this race. I just raid and only run group stuff if i'm asked by a set of guildies. Now if the DF was better set up and insured at the very least the players involved were the proper class and properly equipped I would try and group more. As it is grouping is too much of a hassle for their benefits in even a best case scenario of group set up and drops. So, for me at least, grouping incentive needs to be cranked up or getting into a proper group needs to be made much easier. Until then I will stick to my static and pre-made raids and groups.

Except for the people who get offended if you dare offer them any advice because they think they already know everything. I've had people rage quit groups because something was suggested to them, even as simple as hey make a hotkey with the command /target ####. I've also had people who think that because they're an sk, they're supposed to be tanking in reckless and pull everything in sight to pad their parse, and then blame it on the dps for not killing fast enough when the group wipes cause they can't keep the mobs from killing the healers and everyone else.

In order to help them, they have to be willing to receive the advice, and often that's an even bigger issue then actually finding someone to give them advice.

I like that idea of using one of your alts as a Mercenary (my idea before was that is had to be from another account).

The grouping is broken, and the reason is the people that play. For as far as I can remember, I had always done zones with 2-3 people. We always had the raid gear to do so. With new HM zones, it's not that easy for me. So the dilemma is look for hours for a HM group that at least half the time they fail (cause people don't know what they are doing) or group the easy zones and have people take all the loot. Well I have chosen option 3 for a while and that is to run my own easy zones and get the loot I want. It also makes it easy in my particular situation with small kids that if we need to take an afk from the game it doesn't bother anyone and we can get back to the zone when we want to. So all I ask for if superior Mercenaries so that I can do HM zones that I can't do grouping with under par players. I'm not going to get a bot program and SOE isn't doing enough to stop this so solve it by not having to need a bot program at all.

The problem is you are asking for something that completely undermines the entire concept of an MMO. What you are asking is not small and its impact would not be limited to people of your playstyle, it would be global. People who LIKE grouping with a full group would instantly be shafted. The difference being the game was established and put forth with emphasis on that style so it has more merit.

Finding players of similar interest and skill is part of the game, cutting out that requirement would be no different than asking that all raid targets be one or two groupable but still drop the same loot. Multi-group raids would disappear instantly. This I have seen done as well in WoW.

I've already seen this done and it does not bode well for grouping. right now just today I was on EQ1 and the other two people in my group denied invites for healers and tanks because we knew they wouldn't perform as well as our upgraded mercs even if their skill was excellent, and its true. Their equipment more than likely would have been subpar in comparison and the strength of their abilities would have been lacking. About the only way you can guarantee someone will be better than a merc on EQ1 is already knowing they are or if they clearly have raid equipment and experience. There is no way I will ever support powerful mercs in a MMO, I came to this decision after I have seen similar scenarios to the one I have laid out happen regularly. Anti-social behavior in favor of a program in a MMO.

Mercs being powerful while leveling up is debatable in its benefit and its damage is already done, but mercs performing well with robot efficiency and fabled level equipment at the level cap will be nothing short of a disaster for grouping in general. The only reason people using programs hasn't made such a negative impact now is because a very small minority use them, its not as popular as you seem to think.

Neiloch that get's back to why I said remove mercenaries from current Heroic/Raid content and restrict them. They are a leveling-tool not a replacement for players and allowing them to be used outside of Solo content is damaging the game greatly. Solo is a viable and necessary part of the game but it currently is damaging Heroic and to a point EM-Raid content. HM Raid thank god is still a separate beast but even then many HC-Raiders agree that it is too easy compared to what we had with Drunder.

I actually agree with Estred on this one. Having done a bit of game design myself, I understand the delicacies of balance a lot more.

If you _can_ bring a merc into a zone, then you must assume the players _will_ bring a merc into the zone, or else the content becomes trivialized by groups where people do. The flip side is solo zones: without mercs, you realistically cannot develop a single zone that will be challenging to players of all the archetypes (not to mention sub-types like crusaders and troubadors/dirges). You either have to make very easy so all classes can complete it - and some will just steamroll through, or else you make different zones for different classes: a lot more work for questionable payoff. The merc lets you get around that by assuming that whatever skills the player does not have, the merc will, so the content becomes doable (and so can be made challenging) for everyone.

Edit: It's mercs that let the 'advanced' solo zones exist, with their nice loot tables. Before this, there was really no solo content where you could challenge a player enough to justify those nice shiny rewards (if you think they're still not justified, fine - but they'd be even less justified in earlier content).

Wait, your solution to all this is to ban mercenaries from heroic zones? So what you're telling me is that on my group setup of a Zerker/Illy/Inq and 3 "dps" mercenaries would make me start looking for groups if I can't have them? So the 14k dps that each can do compared to the 350+ the other 3 toons do is going to make me not be able to complete these zones? The reason I use the mercenaries at all is cause they are there, I could just as well complete these zones without them like I have been doing since the game came out. I mean I remember being lvl 30 playing an inq, tanking in a group with a troub and fury (yeah the game was so much more balanced back then right?). The problem is people don't know how to play the classes that they level in 2 weeks or less. You say DF doesn't balance groups? well guess what you wouldn't need any balance if you knew how to play your class. When Faydwer came out, that night we cleared everything including Mistmoore Castle in a group made up of a Zerker, 2 monks, 2 Furies and a Warden, so that's the kind of balance that you say are destroying DF? Get real, unless you find a group of people that you know are good and you play at the same time all the time, then any other group is just a gamble not because of the setup but because of the people that play them.

Oh, I have helped many people get the basics of their class down. I have more then likely tought more people how to play their class properly then not. A lot of people could seem to care less if they are playing the class right, then complaine when they cannot solo the new advance dungeons. I had to argue with a guild member of mine for over a week untill she finally broke down swiched her AAs out to the spec I gave her, droped the paladin merc for a templar one. Then she sent me several tells afterward saying how much she loves me (it got weird twards the end)

A merc is just another tool to the game, several other MMOs have them in their games. When used right you can more then learn how to play the class you are on at the same time. The trick is to asking questions about things you do not undersand. Getting in a good guild with helpful people makes that a lot easier. I know this game inside and out, I can play all 25 classes without needing help anymore. I should get the option for more advance fetures in the game. (like custom mercs?)

Some people care, some do not. You can never change that. Some people are hardcore min/maxers, some people could care less if they even had the right peices of gear on. It is pretty easy to tell who these people are by serching for them on http://u.eq2wire.com/ . Cannot be bothered to at least expert all spells, under xxx crit chance, nothing adorned what so ever. Wearing the wrong type of gear, AAs just wrong. It is a good guess that person had a merc leveling for them, just do not invite that person to a group / raids.

You say well that is not going to help that person learn anything. Well sooner or later they will get in a group, most likely with the wrong group of people, and get kicked the second they don't parse high enough / cannot keep threat / keep the tank or group alive (after they get chewed out on how much they suck). This either drives the person to ask questions in chat channels / guild / forums and LEARN, or they get frustrated and go to an easier MMO that requires less thought to playing the game. After you deal with enough of these type of players you kinda get sick of handholding....

DF would make groups with no healers and/or no tanks. Its not even a matter of 'balance' its matter of not even meeting the basic requirement of the trinity. Being able to clear lots of stuff with the setup you laid out is not surprising since its stacked with survivability, just not as fast as it could be. lol @ using level 30 as another example.

People would know more about their class if they were encouraged to group more. So if anything this new soloing content is hurting grouping even more since now you can be terrible in a 'vacuum' doing solo content. A properly working DF would help this as well since people could just queue up for random groups and inevitably have or be a terrible player in a group getting some sort of feedback.