Mercenaries v2.0 ?

[ALEXz407]

Also, I am aware of the perceived usefullness of the mercenaries. Keep in mind that these mercs are designed after the holy trinity principle and that the healing AI for the shaman merc was designed for lategame content, in which it is important that the merc starts healing even on slight losses of health. I tried to hit a compromise in the design here, by giving the shaman merc a pretty large mana pool in early levels to compensate for it's over-aggressive healing without artificially reducing the treshold in which he starts healing for endgame purposes.

The Sorceress merc will receive a buff in future designs. I am aware that it is currently the least useful mercenary.

It sounds like a thing that can be modified in the future. So why not discuss it?

You can say "hey, mercs are okay, why do you want to change them?".
And answer is: "more gameplay depth". But let's get down to details.

Merc layout
Main Ability	Talent
Secondary Ability	Healing Potion
Hirer Ability	Mana Potion

Main Ability - mana consuming ability with cast time and without cooldown, or instant with low/medium cooldown.
Secondary Ability - AoE / debuff / self buff / situational spell. Medium/high cooldown.
Hirer Ability - special ability used only for mercenary owner. Buff or situational spell.
Talent - enhances one ability.
Healing Potion - restores 75% of mercenary HP. Cooldown: 2 minutes. Used when HP below 25%.
Mana Potion - restores 50% of mercenary MP. Cooldown: 5 minutes. Used when MP below 25%.

Important thing

At this point you can think "Hey, he want to make mercs OP with potions". Well, it will buff them, but i hope they still will be worse than human player.
It's hard to keep eyes on mercenary HP, especially in massive battles. Usually mercs and pets are healed by Shaman or Nymph. With HP potion this will add a chance to survive lag / missclick / AI 'error' for mercenaries.
Also it's not a secret that Shaman can not heal same level bossfights, he will just run OOM. With MP potion parties without dedicated heal will receive a chance to kill bosses, if Tank and DPS are good.

Now mercenaries have only Main/Secondary abilities, auto-attacks and AoE damage immunity if not first in aggro list. But let's talk about new things:
Hirer Ability will make some mercenaries more preferable for some classes on one side.
And on another side it will add choice "merc stats will be higher with player A, but player B will receive more benefits from Hirer Ability" for 2+ player groups.
Talent just affects one ability to add more depth for mercenary role.
All mercs have HP/MP potions. Well, you know, it's a shame that experienced mercenary doesn't use any potions in battles.
This will help with random damage spikes and caster's OOM during fight.

Mercenaries 2.0 list

Information are inside tables to reduce clutter:
- Role of the mercenary (and armor type)
- Main ability (Ability activation triggers are inside parenthesis)
- Secondary ability
- Hirer ability
- Talent
- Best hirer's role for bonus


Tarosh Bloodborn
An orcish shaman from the eastern tribes.

R	Healer (Cloth)
M	Heal (if friend have < 75% HP)
S	Nature's Blessing (if friend have < 25% HP)
H	Dispel Magic (if hirer have dispellable debuff)
T	'Heal' now also replenishes 1% of max MP to the target healed.
B	Universal

Elyssa Ravencrest
An elvish enchantress.

R	AoE DPS (Cloth)
M	Fireball
S	Incinerate (casted right after Fireball if not on cooldown)
H	Fire Shield (if hirer got aggro)
T	'Fire Shield' also increases armor of the target by 20%.
B	Tank / Melee DPS

Vale Sivil
A human warrior.

R	Tank (Mail)
M	Shield Slam (waits for 25%+ castbar fill if target have MP pool)
S	Demoralizing Shout (if at least one enemy inside AoE)
H	Taunt (if hirer got aggro)
T	Decreases cooldown of 'Hateful Strike' and 'Shield Slam' by 25%.
B	Caster DPS / Melee DPS / Ranged DPS

Sle'Var Darkhand
A skilled lancer.
Armor type changed to leather (total armor reduced twice).

R	Ranged DPS (Leather)
M	Feline Reflexes
S	Berserker Rage (if mercenary in the battle mode, skip if already active)
H	Ensnare (if hirer got aggro)
T	Increases duration of 'Ensnare' by 6 seconds.
B	Tank / Healer

Shantriss NEW!
An elvish travelling bard.
Have runner (watcher?) model.

R	Melee DPS (Leather)
M	Coup De Grace (waits for 75%+ castbar fill if target have MP pool)
S	Embrittling Acid
H	Inspire (if hirer's MP < 50%)
T	'Embrittling Acid' also reduces all resistances of the target by 10%.
B	Universal

Theodore Coldwatch NEW!
A human sorcerer.
Have HumanMage model.

R	Caster DPS (Cloth)
M	Lightning Charge
S	Water Globes (casted before lightning)
H	Frost Cage (if hirer got aggro)
T	'Water Globes' is now an instant cast ability with a cooldown of 15 seconds.
B	Healer / Ranged DPS / Caster DPS

P.S. We all understand that this is not main priority thing.
But maybe mercenaries system could be better? What do you think?

 

[Lightshard]

I honestly think, making them more complex, dont make them "better".
Mercs schoulnt replace Player, so a simple and usefull merc is okish.

 

[Juvia_Lockser]

Giving equipments to mercs "might" be nice

 

[SHBlade]

• Tarosh Bloodborn: he is good enough as it is imo
• Elyssa Ravencrest: + she definietly need a buff but 20% armor is a bit too high for a merc. I would change it to 10%.
• Vale Sivil: changing his shield slam to be situational spell against casters would be nice. Giving him guardian angel while he is just a warrior is strange dont you think?
• Sle'Var Darkhand: he is op enough, berserker rage and cd reduction would make him even more broken.
• Shantriss Mysterious (I would change the name to just "Shantriss"): Instead of Inspire I would give her song based on the character peace for healer, vigor for melee and elements for mages. Dunno if having 2 mercs with interrupts is good idea.

I have nothing against merc potions tho.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

A "Health potion" aka an instant emergency self-heal for mercs might be a good idea.

However, mercs were never meant as a viable replacement for players; they are more a "half player fill in" for world bosses in case the group isn't large enough and to make solo play easier.

Originally, mercs were intended to be always available, regardless of the actual player number in the game and could always be taken with you into dungeons. They were also planned as actual characters that you can talk to and that have stories to tell.
But while I was designing the merc mechanics I realized that this would turn the boss battles into a monumental clusterfuck, especially for healers.


Hence why I moved back towards a simpler design.

Adding a third spell for each merc is possible, though. There are some that would qualify within the new base and advanced spells I currently code.

 

[ALEXz407]

SHBlade

• Tarosh Bloodborn: he is good enough as it is imo
• Elyssa Ravencrest: + she definietly need a buff but 20% armor is a bit too high for a merc. I would change it to 10%.
• Vale Sivil: changing his shield slam to be situational spell against casters would be nice. Giving him guardian angel while he is just a warrior is strange dont you think?
• Sle'Var Darkhand: he is op enough, berserker rage and cd reduction would make him even more broken.
• Shantriss Mysterious (I would change the name to just "Shantriss"): Instead of Inspire I would give her song based on the character peace for healer, vigor for melee and elements for mages. Dunno if having 2 mercs with interrupts is good idea.

I have nothing against merc potions tho.

I like some points and added them to first post.

• Well, Elyssa Ravencrest have 20% bonus just because sorcerer's talent says so . I mean all talents are taken as is, and they will work without extra time spending for coding (talents and abilities are MUI, right?). Anyway Fire Shield lasts for 30 seconds and have 60 seconds cooldown, therefore this will work like temporary boost which you can not control.
• About Vale Sivil. Yeah, replaced GA with Taunt, it's more logical for a warrior.
• Sle'Var Darkhand is balanced now around high white DPS and Aggro generation with low defense and HP pool. He is some kind of 'Glass Cannon' and suitable only for Tank or Healer. Ensnare also will help to avoid damage for ranged hirers. (Venomous removed because assassins will cast it anyway on all party, so this ability is useless in some cases)
• Shantriss is support/dps merc and her damage will be lower than pure dps, but higher than healer/tank. Inspire will restore only 150 MP at level 50, so this will not break the balance too much. She have long cooldown on interrupt, this will not be a problem I guess.

Lightshard,Zwiebelchen

I honestly think, making them more complex, dont make them "better".
Mercs schoulnt replace Player, so a simple and usefull merc is okish.

A "Health potion" aka an instant emergency self-heal for mercs might be a good idea.

However, mercs were never meant as a viable replacement for players; they are more a "half player fill in" for world bosses in case the group isn't large enough and to make solo play easier.

Originally, mercs were intended to be always available, regardless of the actual player number in the game and could always be taken with you into dungeons. They were also planned as actual characters that you can talk to and that have stories to tell.
But while I was designing the merc mechanics I realized that this would turn the boss battles into a monumental clusterfuck, especially for healers.


Hence why I moved back towards a simpler design.

Adding a third spell for each merc is possible, though. There are some that would qualify within the new base and advanced spells I currently code.

Yes, that's what about I'm talking. Make mercs more specialized (and at the same time flexible) with additional abilities and talent.
Don't give them higher HP/MP pools or DPS, just emphasize their roles.

Currently we have:
- A bit slow, overhealing healer, running OOM pretty fast at low levels (works better on higher levels) and attacking controlled mobs with weak autoattack .
- Weakest AoE DPS caster without any armor, buffs mediocre aspd bonus and cancels control too with AoE effect from Fireball.
- A bit weak tank (better with high level), randomly using interrupts and casting debuffs when there are no enemies nearby.
- Overpowered ranged DPS with high armor and hard hitting ability which reduces aggro, also buffs additional DPS with AP scaling for owner and for himself.

There are still missing: Caster DPS, Melee DPS, Support, Control, Buffer, Good AoE (enchantress is weak), AoE tank(?).

Juvia_Lockser

Giving equipments to mercs "might" be nice

You mean let mercs wear unsaved items and drop them on the ground if merc dead/fired?
Theoretically could work, practically - this will be hard to balance


P.S. Caster DPS merc added to the list

 

[Juvia_Lockser]

U have to hide merc items in your backpack or your stash i forgot to mentoin that sorry ^^