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- think ever see any new mercs??
think ever see any new mercs??Follow
Such as Shadow Knight, Paladion or Mage. How about rumored master mercs from raid mobs, if they do make them will it all be one tier or five tiers.
cjguy wrote:
Such as Shadow Knight, Paladion or Mage. How about rumored master mercs from raid mobs, if they do make them will it all be one tier or five tiers.
Doubt it for the hybrid tank classes as setting the a.i. for a computer to automate, ie an SK Merc to go and pull and FD split, then tank a mob for a group of players set up in a camp must be near impossible (without endless wipes) on this old EQ system/server. While if they just make the SK or Pally mercs operate like how tank mercs do, ie no pulling, splitting and pet control capabilities then they are handicapped of their utility as a merc. Which is a hard bargain there imho.
The Mage sounds possible as a dps class but the pet and when it engages makes we wonder. Unless they added a player ui option so the player can control the mercs pet.
I also heard people in the past begging for Shamans as a merc class on the EQ forums. But that chat was well over a year ago.
If they did I'm certain they would have J5 as an option.
Good luck.
Edited, Apr 13th 2015 5:49pm by hexeez
I'm sure they could, if so inclined.
With dev resources clearly a bit limited vs. once-upon-a-time, is this a feature we really need though? I'll admit it doesn't make my top-10 list of things I'd like them to do.
Probably the best measure of possibility is: Can they monetize it? That is to say would expanding merc classes either a) work via stationcash or b) be a feature that helps sell a future xpac?
Use the same developer investment to implement a stationcash access only player race (let's say Sarnak since Chardok already exists as home city and very little NPC work would need to be done to make it work. They would have to do some animation/armor model work). I think that makes more $ for them. (and some of the work would be cut-and-pastable to add a few more pay-for races (goblin, aviak, clockwork golem, kobold heretic, coldain heritage dwarf, and Mistmoore denizens all come to mind).
With dev resources clearly a bit limited vs. once-upon-a-time, is this a feature we really need though? I'll admit it doesn't make my top-10 list of things I'd like them to do.
Probably the best measure of possibility is: Can they monetize it? That is to say would expanding merc classes either a) work via stationcash or b) be a feature that helps sell a future xpac?
Use the same developer investment to implement a stationcash access only player race (let's say Sarnak since Chardok already exists as home city and very little NPC work would need to be done to make it work. They would have to do some animation/armor model work). I think that makes more $ for them. (and some of the work would be cut-and-pastable to add a few more pay-for races (goblin, aviak, clockwork golem, kobold heretic, coldain heritage dwarf, and Mistmoore denizens all come to mind).
Honestly not sure how many other "classes" of merc they could put in while still making them mercs and not really just some kind of spell bot. As mentioned earlier, any hybrid would just be a less capable tank, but maybe with some other spells/buffs they could use. But which ones? I could maybe see paladin since you'd have a tank that could heal itself. That would totally be worth doing for moloing when your own class can't do either (like say a wizard). Of course scaling that so that it wouldn't be overpowered would be tough. But I suppose that's doable. Not sure how you'd do SK though. At the end of the day, it's just different ways of doing damage, and I'm not sure the distinction would be that valuable.
You almost have to start by listing off abilities that could be automated and that would actually be a useful compliment to a character. Healing, tanking, and damage are all pretty obvious. The healer casting basic buffs is a nice bonus. But what about other classes? Do we have a chanter merc? What would it do? Just cast haste and clarity on you? I'd shudder at any attempt to have an AI doing CC for me. Similar issue with shaman, druid, mage, etc. Just different ways of doing damage. The only distinction could maybe be based on buffs, but again, do we want to introduce that into the game? Might as well just give people the ability to buy some clicky item that casts sets of basic buffs on them, but there would be howling if they did that (and honestly, some of the clicky items out there already approach this).
Would we want a merc that snares? Or mezzes? Or *shudder* fears? How about one that casts SOW type spells on us (does anyone actually use those anymore?). I'm kinda seeing this as a bang for buck sorta thing. They've covered the major stuff with the existing set of mercs. At this point, you'd be going for more esoteric abilities, which simultaneously are less likely to be worth buying *and* more likely to have unforeseen game balance effects. It's a lot of dev time for something that will probably produce more headaches than it'll bring in money.
But you never know!
You almost have to start by listing off abilities that could be automated and that would actually be a useful compliment to a character. Healing, tanking, and damage are all pretty obvious. The healer casting basic buffs is a nice bonus. But what about other classes? Do we have a chanter merc? What would it do? Just cast haste and clarity on you? I'd shudder at any attempt to have an AI doing CC for me. Similar issue with shaman, druid, mage, etc. Just different ways of doing damage. The only distinction could maybe be based on buffs, but again, do we want to introduce that into the game? Might as well just give people the ability to buy some clicky item that casts sets of basic buffs on them, but there would be howling if they did that (and honestly, some of the clicky items out there already approach this).
Would we want a merc that snares? Or mezzes? Or *shudder* fears? How about one that casts SOW type spells on us (does anyone actually use those anymore?). I'm kinda seeing this as a bang for buck sorta thing. They've covered the major stuff with the existing set of mercs. At this point, you'd be going for more esoteric abilities, which simultaneously are less likely to be worth buying *and* more likely to have unforeseen game balance effects. It's a lot of dev time for something that will probably produce more headaches than it'll bring in money.
But you never know!
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Ok how about the usage of two mercs at once then for me that would be great having tank, cleric and me the mage.
First thing that poped into my head with this was enchanter. A merc that would cast haste/clarity type spells and slow enemies would be neat. To keep it from being OP probably like the cleric merc would never cast a dps spell. If it did do any DPS would have to be very minor. Don't think it would be real handy to molo with but for a group that needs a slower and can't fill the spot could see this helping. Would be an incentive to pay to unlock extra merc slots.
Hi
Yeah. Have to remember that from a business viewpoint, they have to balance people paying for extra accounts versus people paying for extra merc slots. Mot people box specifically so they can fill in those extra abilities for their box group. Give them to mercs and folks might not box as much. Which could be a negative revenue effect for them.
Ditto on the idea of allowing two mercs at a time. I'm semi-convinced that one of the reasons why the devs still insist on putting hard group numbers in many tasks (always set to a minimum of 3) is to force people to actually group or to box. Either way, that's an extra account that must be used for that content. To whatever degree "more accounts" equals "more revenue" this benefits them financially. Allowing players to have 2 mercs would break that dynamic. It would be fabulous from a solo player perspective, precisely because it would open up that arbitrarily locked content, but I can see why they might not want to do that.
Ditto on the idea of allowing two mercs at a time. I'm semi-convinced that one of the reasons why the devs still insist on putting hard group numbers in many tasks (always set to a minimum of 3) is to force people to actually group or to box. Either way, that's an extra account that must be used for that content. To whatever degree "more accounts" equals "more revenue" this benefits them financially. Allowing players to have 2 mercs would break that dynamic. It would be fabulous from a solo player perspective, precisely because it would open up that arbitrarily locked content, but I can see why they might not want to do that.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
The ultimate would be 5 mercs plus allow every zone to be selected as an instanced zone.
Would turn EQ from being a MMORPG to being a MSOPhG (Massive Single Player On-Line Pharming Game).
Would turn EQ from being a MMORPG to being a MSOPhG (Massive Single Player On-Line Pharming Game).
Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
Master Artisan (300+) * Baker * Brewer * Fletcher * Jeweler * Potter * Researcher * Smith * Tailor
Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
Master Artisan (300+) * Baker * Brewer * Fletcher * Jeweler * Potter * Researcher * Smith * Tailor
Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
Other games have made the mercenary (henchman, quest buddy...) something you only get for a specific zone and/or quest arc.
They could do this in some situations and allow you to use the EQ normal-style mercenary. For example: A new expac that does the TSS trick of giving a 1-cap (110?) levelling path could easily heavily employ such a mechanic. It would actually make sense as the under level 85 game is so low pop now. The interesting twist could be that sometimes the quest buddy has to be added to the group (other games seem to always add them on thus exceeding normal group limits if you are doing the content in a full group).
Even if they didn't do the "added to the group thing", being able to hail the quest npc in "level 60-70 zone" for an extra henchman (and in this case it could be a monk or chanter or whatever npc) could work as they could tune the zone for any funkiness. The overall game (old zones) is too big to do wacky things in without somewhere being a bad exploit/mess situation.
They could do this in some situations and allow you to use the EQ normal-style mercenary. For example: A new expac that does the TSS trick of giving a 1-cap (110?) levelling path could easily heavily employ such a mechanic. It would actually make sense as the under level 85 game is so low pop now. The interesting twist could be that sometimes the quest buddy has to be added to the group (other games seem to always add them on thus exceeding normal group limits if you are doing the content in a full group).
Even if they didn't do the "added to the group thing", being able to hail the quest npc in "level 60-70 zone" for an extra henchman (and in this case it could be a monk or chanter or whatever npc) could work as they could tune the zone for any funkiness. The overall game (old zones) is too big to do wacky things in without somewhere being a bad exploit/mess situation.
cjguy wrote:
Such as Shadow Knight, Paladion or Mage. How about rumored master mercs from raid mobs, if they do make them will it all be one tier or five tiers.
I think it's very unlikely we will see more class specific mobs. Given the current amount of people they have, I don't think it's feasible to program a new merc class.
I think it's possible that we will see master mercs (IMO, it's easier to add a new level and power up an existing merc using the current AI than it is to program a brand new AI for a new class). Not sure we will see this anytime soon though.
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