Lurker > KanzarisKelshen

Eddv posted...

KanzarisKelshen posted...

The problem with Pennywise is that you need to have the Ritual of Chud active to really do anything to him. So it's kinda a mess making him into a battlemerc.

(Also hi guys, I haven't forgotten about the ability primer! Just busy with my new job, gonna try and get it out ASAP.)

I can feel the Dark Samus'esque arguments already....

This is one thing to keep in mind if we do any Bleach mercs too.

Unless you're already dead, theyre completely invisible and inaudible, which should probably be factored into their value.

Let's not include badshow mercs imo

Like I could maybe accept Naruto because at least it did a couple things right but Bleach is just garbage
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

The problem with Pennywise is that you need to have the Ritual of Chud active to really do anything to him. So it's kinda a mess making him into a battlemerc.

(Also hi guys, I haven't forgotten about the ability primer! Just busy with my new job, gonna try and get it out ASAP.)
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

(Up. Still working on this!)
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

- Having both "untyped" and "other" removals seems unnecessarily complex. I would say that anything that is a removal but not one of the Big Four counts as "untyped," and leave it at that. (Or, if you want to be extra clean, get rid of untyped removals altogether and require everything to be classified as a specific removal type. self-kidnapping gogogo)

"Other" here refers to stuff like Morrigan's PSification which is effectively a removal (as you do not show up for the fight) but not blocked by anti-removal tech. By contrast, 'Untyped Removal' is Dragonborn's Fusrodah, which is *explicitly* untyped as a selling point for it.

I'd say remove the terminology of recharge weekly and the like when writing abilities though. this needs to read more along the lines of a CCG comprehensive rulebook, where there is absolutely no question on it. The writing can have the fluff writing, but it needs a very technical writeup as well, that has no questions to it.

This will go into the Ability Boldtext. You can see an example on page 1 for Little Mac's Title Bout, I think - is there anything you'd say is missing there?

- Possession is mechanically weird - the merc is removed from their team, but is not removed from the battle. I remember this causing trouble in the past (thought not the specifics). I wouldn't be opposed to removing possession from the category of removals altogether, and just having it be its own category.

- I'm not sure what a Subversion is. But offhand I think all "cannot be rostered" type effects should just be a single category (unless there's a reason for differentiating them that escapes me atm). I also think they should remain distinct from removals because, mechanically, they're quite different - the merc is not removed, he's still there and can declare and be targeted by abilities as normal.

Possession being its own category is something I'm open to - as you said, it works very different from the other members of the Big Four and even Intimidations (more on this in the next paragraph). The thing that ties it together is an interp of 'removes the merc FROM YOUR TEAM', but I think 'removes the merc FROM BATTLE' is probably clearer and better overall. Maybe say 'blocks Removals and Possessions' for stuff like Terra if you gotta, it's still pretty clear.

Re: Codifying 'can't be rostered' effects, that's precisely what Intimidations are - it's a keyword for stuff like Akuma Weaklings and Algus' Common Maid. It was a distinct and interesting effect so it made sense to make it 'official' so people can look at ability effects for inspiration.

Re: Subversions, that's the term I made up for any third party-izing effects - see Neclord, Ellie's Confusion, Charizard's Won't Obey, etcetera. They're very clear and distinct effects, they remove a merc from your team, and I think it's worth codifying them so we don't have to argue 'is this a possession or not'. I feel like there's value in them being distinct because overall, Subversions have a very different power level to Possessions, which makes them kind of incomparable. Gaining a merc while taking one away from an enemy is much more powerful than taking a merc away and having them show up to the fight as a spoiler.

I kinda like the idea of a Priority keyword. Idea being that stuff will explicitly resolve in order of ascending priority, with Pre-Battles resolving in order of declaration as usual.

Mid-Battles are sort of meant to address this - the new definition for them is 'effects that occur after mercenaries gain the ability to act', in contrast to SoBs that explicitly occur before a merc can do anything about them. So for example, X's Dark Hold turns a SoB damaging ability into a Mid-Battle. Priority seems useful too regardless, tho - Dark Hold as Priority 0 makes sense, for ex.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Got delayed but making progress. Have a preview of the titles of the primer:

Mercenaries Ability Manual

1. What is an ability?
1.1 The components of abilities

2. Types of abilities
2.1 Peacetime abilities
2.2 Pre-Battle abilities
2.3 Start of Battle abilities
2.4 Mid-Battle abilities
2.5 Trigger abilities
2.6 Results abilities
2.7 Cross-phase interactivity

3. On ability targeting
3.1 Targeting types
3.2 Ability resolution steps
3.3 Resolution keywords
3.4 Untargetability and Immunity

4. Recharges and ability power benchmarks
4.1 Recharge 0, Recharge weekly, and higher Recharges
4.2 Cooldowns, Recharges and Every X Week: Ability recharge terminology

5. Effects and Ability Interactions
5.1 Removals: Big Four, Untyped, and Other
5.1.2 Intimidation and Subversion: The new Removal types
5.2 Damaging abilities
5.3 Sidetopic abilities
5.4 Manipulations, and the Lone Change Clause
5.5 Positive, Negative and Mixed effects
5.6 Ability modifiers, and cross-ability interactions
5.7 Ability Resolution Order, and what goes when

I think that covers everything? If there's any major contentious topics I missed, lemme know and I'll slot them in somewhere. The idea is to make something pretty exhaustive so people only have to consult that to make sense of anything that isn't a true case of unclear ability writing.
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Class 7 >>>>>> FF4 party. Any given Class 7 member would be a mid to high 3/week, most FF4 dudes are easy 2s. This match is interesting because Nisha has actually fought and beaten massive mechs before too, so it's not 100% clearcut.
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Ringworm posted...

24. Next.

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Started a new job. Will try to have the 'how to parse/write abilities' manual done by the weekend. Keep this topic alive until then guys, please!
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MasaomiHouzuki posted...

jojo mercs

Don't tempt me
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Lopen posted...

Right.

And I'm saying they're both not really handled very well to the point where to me it's like... neither one is really trying it's just MGSIV isn't even pretending to. You clearly feel differently but yeah I'll never really get the love for FOXHOUND.

FOXHOUND is kinda like Algus in FFT. They're not very complex characters, but you get to know them as you go along so when the final fight with them comes, it's got stakes and importance. The B&B unit is so depersonalized you can't even hate them, because it's like hating an attack dog whose owner says 'GET EM BOY'. You hate the owner, not the doggo.
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That could be acceptable, yeah. Make the Top 4 run 4-6 weeks, but the play-ins for the last two spots just one week.
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The Dark Knight for sure. It never really stops entertaining. It's STILL the definitive superhero movie even though we've had a billion since then.
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Johnbobb posted...

ex. I know what each of those means individually but when three different abilities are interacting, each with different (and sometimes contradicting) aspects, it gets a lot harder to follow

The trick is that the base rules always win unless an ability explictly and clearly says otherwise. To give you an example, the base rules say 'KO'd mercs cannot be interacted with'. If a Revival ability says 'this ability can be used on a KO'd merc', then it works, otherwise it doesn't. Does that make sense? Like yeah, the abilities themselves will frequently contradict each other, but they don't matter. When there is a conflict you always go to the core rules that don't belong to any ability and work it out from there. It's how the admin team hands out rulings 99% of the time.
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Maybe just make sure the effect/targeting parameter/timing/etc. are all completely clear in the abilities. Plus, things get more complicated when abilities are combined, and with those the answer definitely isn't usually as simple as "know definitions"

Like so?

Title Bout (Pre-Battle, Recharge 3, KO/Side Topic, Single Target, Random)
Once every four weeks, Little Mac can challenge one random enemy merc to a boxing match before the battle. The conditions of the fight are simple: It takes place within the standard WVBA boxing ring, no armor or weaponry allowed, and all attacks are limited to punches. Whoever wins the boxing match (decided by first to 7 votes or leader after 2 hours, whichever is later) will be able to attend the main fight, with the added benefit of greatly increased morale for their successful boxing title bout. The loser, however, will remain fittingly KO'd for the week's match.

This can certainly be done if it'd help people understand where they should be looking. I want to make sure rules are easier to parse (BASE rules - ie, the boldtex stuff there for example, not necessarily the ability details), because players really shouldn't need to ask admins stuff like 'hey does an interception effect work like an interception effect???'.
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FFDragon posted...

i was responding to john, you realize that right

No because you said 'un'necessary, implying you should be stuck with what you got early, and the rest of the post had no sarcasm that I could see. I assume that was a typo then?

Johnbobb posted...

ok but there are a LOT of rules and many of them are easy to misinterpret

No, there actually aren't. That's what's kinda funny about how people think about the rules. Let me list them for you:

Abilities have:

-A Type (Peacetime, Prebattle, SoB, Trigger, Results).
-A Recharge (Multiuse Daily, Single Use Daily, Every X weeks)
-An Effect (which will generally fall into various Keywords - Removal, Manipulation, Intimidation, Damage, etc., and can have more than one)
-A Targeting Parameter (Implemented in Draftmerx - Single Target, Multi Target, Teamwide, War Global, Peace Global in ascending order of AoE)
-A Selection Parameter (Preselected and Randomized, with Pool of X being a subtype of Randomized)
-Timings on ability use (These being Declaration, Targeting, Hitting, Usage and Resolution).

That's it. That's all that needs to be learned. Effects comprise the majority of the rules, but they are also the least important bit because you don't have to memorize them. In total you need to memorize the 21 definitions that comprise the rest of an ability's parts. Once you do that, you can tell with certainty what will happen every time an ability is used unless it requires an actual ruling due to shitty writing of an effect (in which case, by all means ask an admin). Surely 'memorize these 21 things' isn't such a commitment to understand how to work the ability phase?
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FFDragon posted...

Redraft is entirely unnecessary, you shouldn't be poisoned the entire game for an initial mistake.

It's like Fantasy Football if one of your guys gets injured or is constantly underperforming, you absolutely have to pick up someone off waivers or your season is effectively over.

Which is exactly why the redraft was implemented, you realize that right

Because the alternative was 'don't fuck up on initial picks or you are fucked'

Johnbobb posted...

Draft was fun but redraft is unnecessary.

Asking questions should be expected if things are going to be as strict as they are. It doesn't necessarily matter what you do about the rules themselves, if the standard is "acting out of a misunderstanding of something can in no way ever be reversed" then of course I'm gonna want to ask a lot of questions, because even if something seems obvious, if there's even a 1% chance I might misunderstand how something works, it's not worth acting without getting direct confirmation from an admin.

The key is that the admins aren't there to nanny you. If you fuck up because you don't read the rules it's not their fault. Admins can and will implement rollbacks every single time a player plays incorrectly due to something they said. So like...the key is you shouldn't even HAVE to ask questions if you get the rules, mostly, because it isn't going to help you. This is how boko fucked himself, he asked so many questions instead of actually taking time to learn that he screwed up an ability phase that couldn't be screwed.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Oh, and dropping this here - Lopen and I had an interesting discussion about potential alternate win conditions in the draft, which I'd like to hear thoughts on. This is mostly for Mercs Imperium, not so much for a hypothetical Draftmerx 2: Draft Harder. These are the victory conditions that came up during the discussion:

-Conquest Victory: El clasico. Defeat all enemies and you win.
-Econ/Science Victory: Buy a set of mercenaries who do nothing or sink in tons of money into autowinning. In the case of the former, probably apply infra-loss as a way to force interactivity?
-Coalition/Political Victory: Defeat a set of raidboss events that no team could beat by themselves at a certain point in time by working with friends. Enemies might be able to send troops to assist the raidbosses too, or otherwise contest your attempts to achieve dominance through raid victories.
-Exploration Victory: Control a set of territories that add up providing more 'map control' than everyone else. Think of it like getting 51% of the votes in an election, with different territories giving more 'votes'.
-Ascension Victory: Certain (SPECIFIC) terrains can let you win if you manage to hold all of them for a long enough time (or maybe just seize all of them). Whoever grabs all the Ascension terrains wins.

Any other types of victory you'd like to see represented? Providing ways to win without always having to go to topic is something I'm giving serious consideration too, since I know several leaders just don't enjoy having to fight (hi FFD, boko). Mercs is a game that is 'something for everybody', why not embrace that when the concept of fighting on a map changes so much already?
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- it sounds like you're planning to make a ton of changes for any future draftmercs (balance changes, mechanics changes, standardized ability writing, large banlist). in that case I think you need a new wiki. this ties in with what Eddv said about disorganization, except things are going to be even more disorganized with more changes

- this is kinda being covered in chat but the replacement policy was pretty ad hoc. "huh we need to find replacements. what should we do? let's give them redrafts I guess?" which also made replacing pretty op

To hit on this:

A) Yes, any future game will have its own wiki. I'm gonna make one once I get the 'rebalance and new rules' topic up so I can start putting things in there. Draftmerx was sort of an offshoot of M4 meant to test if a smaller game could work, now it's time to take that sort of 'live alpha' and turn it into a proper finished product.

B) Replacements will have to be standardized a bit more for sure. The problem with replacements in draftmerx is that the second redraft came in so late that you couldn't unfuck the team you stepped into if you got a dud like say, Corrik's team or God's and had to ride it out immediately. Not sure how to tackle this issue but my gut instinct is that we'd probably just follow the preexisting rules for redrafting/expansion.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Also the ridiculous exp rewards, those were dumb too

But yes

And re: going to topic vs not, something I discussed a little jokingly with Skyridge, but might be interesting, is if you gave mercs and abilities a point value, and then made the voting topic give points too and whoever had the most won. It might have some potential, maybe - and it'd be an interesting way to implement votehax again without it just being 'if even one people votes for you, you win' - multiplying the final point tally is different from just tripling votes in a system where votes are the only path to victory besides bullying opponents into a forfeit.

As for the other two things...well yes, I am gonna launch a topic to fix and rebalance mercs after this one has run its course. Independently from that, I will continue to tinker with Mercs Imperium. I've been playing a bunch of Dominions 4 and it's given me some interesting ideas about it - something in the HoMM style/Dominions style, but Mercenaries-fied, might be a way to go for it.
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https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75671929

Honor the champion here! And also, some discussion on what could be done better going forward.
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Lopen accepts Tiro's forfeit (Forfeit)

Congratulations to Lopen for winning Draftmerx! A worthy victor indeed.

Now that the game is over, it's time for the post-mortem. If you have any comments about the game, now is the time to make them. Some questions to guide the discussion (though you can talk about anything you want):

-What do you think about the draft system? Would you play another game of Draft Mercenaries? What would you adjust for balance, if anything?
-What do you think about the admin team who ran this game? What could they have done better? What did they do well?
-Were there any rule changes (RR tier bid system, predefined attacker/defender start points, match conventions, etc.) to your liking? If not, why?
-Is there anything you'd like to see done with Mercenaries going forward?

I'll open the discussion:

-On the draft system: Good, but definitely needs to retain some of Vanilla Mercs' expansion factor. Starting with smaller teams that grow to endgame size seems cool and good, and would be a good alternative to redrafting. Would also want to implement the 'face the same-seed' matchup for another version of Draftmerx to get an even 8 matches per RR.
-On the admin team: There were three facets to admining, IMO - Rulings, PR, and Consistency. We did very well on the first one, poorly on the second, and were shaky on the last one. I think a bigger admin team is a blessing even for a small mercs game to minimize errors and sanity-check things. I take full blame for any mistakes that went down - Trdl did rulings work, so everything player-facing was on me. Being a rookie doesn't excuse poor performance, and I hope to take the lessons to heart and improve on my admining skills going forward.
-Rule Changes: Tier bidding was a slam dunk. Terrain clarification was good. Conventions were...fine, but kind of ignored a lot of the time which sucked. I think they had to be more obvious than a link that refused to work half the time for some arcane reason.
-What to do going forward: I'm working on an ability primer right now to standardize ability writing once and for all so players can know for sure what the hell the words on an ability mean. In general, I would also like to increase rules-literacy because a lot of questions could be avoided if the players tried to read the rules more. How to do that is difficult, though - players who asked lots of questions, what was it about the rules that confused you?
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Tirofog - Ride The Lightning (5-7, 27GP)
Low: Sub-Zero (15/15 new3), Booker DeWitt (20/20 CAGE), Ryu3 (10/10 abil2), Nilin (UPGRADED)
Mid: Cloud Strife (20/20 new1), Terra Branford (10/10 abil2)
High: Archer (30/30 UBW), Lightning (15/15 abil1), Lilith (15/15 abil1, 10/15 new)
Supports: Professor Oak (15/15 abil, 15/15 new1) (Link: Nilin), Chrom (Link: Lightning), Yuffie Kisaragi (Link: Lightning)
Recharges: Archer (Drowning, 1 week), Cloud (..., 1 week), Lilith (Phase Strike, 1 week), Ryu3 (Accession, 1 week), Lightning (Pair Up, 1 week)
Notes: Cloud is Archer's master, Lilith is a Controller, Ryu3 genes: Pac-Man, Neptune, Thrall, Fetch, Armstrong, Grigori, Diablo, Damus, Geese, Crono, Kuja, Neclord, Kahn, Alice, Mega Man, Sorey, D.va, KOS-MOS, Bass.EXE, Knuckles; Memory Mix bans: Bass; Lilith is Cloud's waifu

~ATTACKS (High Tier)~

Lopen - Machina Maw (11-1, 137GP)
Low: Rikku (20/20 new, 15/15 char2), Kirby (UPGRADED), Tira (UPGRADED)
Mid: Yu Narukami (15/15 abil-v2, 1/20 The World), Liquid Snake (15/15 new), Bass.EXE (UPGRADED), Duke Nukem (10/10 new1, 15/15 new2)
High: KOS-MOS (20/20 new1, 20/20 new2), Urdnot Wrex (10/10 abil, 25/25 new2), Donte (UPGRADED)
Supports: CATS (10/10 new1, 20/20 new2) (Link: Rikku), Taiga & Illya (20/20 new1, 20/20 new2) (Link: Yu Narukami)
Recharges: Rikku (Steal, 1 week), Tira (J/G, 1 weeks, Discord, 3 weeks), Kirby (J/G, 4 weeks, Helper, 2 weeks), CATS (DESTRUCTION, 1 week), Wrex (Monsters, 2 weeks), Taiga & Illya (Install, 3 weeks)
Notes: Yu S-Links: Rikku (10), Tira (10), Bass.EXE (10), Kirby (10); Wrex: Nobody
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Knuckles>3>Generations>2>Colors

Not even at SA2 yet and there's enough games there to disagree with that!
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Gatarix posted...

what does corrin identify as

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Lopen - Machina Maw (11-1, 137GP)
Low: Rikku (20/20 new, 15/15 char2), Kirby (UPGRADED), Tira (UPGRADED)
Mid: Yu Narukami (15/15 abil-v2, 1/20 The World), Liquid Snake (15/15 new), Bass.EXE (UPGRADED), Duke Nukem (10/10 new1, 15/15 new2)
High: KOS-MOS (20/20 new1, 20/20 new2), Urdnot Wrex (10/10 abil, 25/25 new2), Donte (UPGRADED)
Supports: CATS (10/10 new1, 20/20 new2) (Link: Rikku), Taiga & Illya (20/20 new1, 20/20 new2) (Link: Yu Narukami)
Recharges: Rikku (Steal, 1 week), Tira (J/G, 1 weeks, Discord, 3 weeks), Kirby (J/G, 4 weeks, Helper, 2 weeks), CATS (DESTRUCTION, 1 week), Wrex (Monsters, 2 weeks), Taiga & Illya (Install, 3 weeks)
Notes: Yu S-Links: Rikku (10), Tira (10), Bass.EXE (10), Kirby (10); Wrex: Nobody

~ATTACKS (High Tier)~

Tirofog - Ride The Lightning (5-7, 27GP)
Low: Sub-Zero (15/15 new3), Booker DeWitt (20/20 CAGE), Ryu3 (10/10 abil2), Nilin (UPGRADED)
Mid: Cloud Strife (20/20 new1), Terra Branford (10/10 abil2)
High: Archer (30/30 UBW), Lightning (15/15 abil1), Lilith (15/15 abil1, 10/15 new)
Supports: Professor Oak (15/15 abil, 15/15 new1) (Link: Nilin), Chrom (Link: Lightning), Yuffie Kisaragi (Link: Lightning)
Recharges: Archer (Drowning, 1 week), Cloud (..., 1 week), Lilith (Phase Strike, 1 week), Ryu3 (Accession, 1 week), Lightning (Pair Up, 1 week)
Notes: Cloud is Archer's master, Lilith is a Controller, Ryu3 genes: Pac-Man, Neptune, Thrall, Fetch, Armstrong, Grigori, Diablo, Damus, Geese, Crono, Kuja, Neclord, Kahn, Alice, Mega Man, Sorey, D.va, KOS-MOS, Bass.EXE, Knuckles; Memory Mix bans: Bass; Lilith is Cloud's waifu


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As always, check for errors.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Antipurge bump
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Lopen (21 + 3 GP) < Tiro (65 GP)

Will get standings up later today before peace.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Income for the two remaining players:

Lopen: 138 -18 Wrex - 10 Bass - 4 Yu + 9 Wrex rebate + 5 Bass rebate - 3 Terrain + 20 Income = 137 GP
Tiro: 84 - 10 Cloud - 4 Terra + 2 Terra rebate + 20 Income = 92 GP
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Ryu3 acquiress Bass.EXE and KOS-MOS' genes!

No ability copy though.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Lopen beats Tirofog with a little help from his friends (8-0)
Boko and Gravy quit the game in dissatisfaction but don't feel like calling it that (DOUBLE RAGE)

Apologies for the delay to the last two players left standing. The deadline for bids will be extended by an hour and a half to compensate. Peace will go on time as usual tomorrow. Send in bids, do EXP, and prepare yourselves. We're almost there.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

greengravy294 posted...

No thanks but a non Caucasian James Bond I'd be cool with

This, with the caveat they still need a british accent.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

PS Nisha should always have the Maggie

It's comically overpowered and it's sort of like giving a FE character a silver sword, killing edge, whatever and then sneaking in a roided version of Ragnell
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Correct on Fetch not caring about clothes for powers

So yeah it's really stompy imo
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Elma smashes this. She just flies and nobody can hurt her.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

KIRB-MOS and Friend. Very strong mismatch here tbqh
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

@Lopen
@Tirofog

The floor is yours.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

~VS~

Rikku is as she appears in Final Fantasy X, equipped with Godhand and a Tercio without SOS Reflect. She has access to her own sphere grid. She has brought 5 each of Chocobo Wing, Lunar Curtain, Light Curtain, Silence Grenade, Smoke Bomb, Purifying Salt and Stamina Tablet to battle and can use any combination of them with Use or her Mix Overdrive, provided sufficient Overdrive has been built. She may freely switch to her Persona Norn, as it appears in Persona 4, who has only their natural non-passive skills and elemental affinities

Kirby is as seen in the Kirby Super Star and Smash series. He has full use of his Smash Brothers Moveset along with the moves from his Sword, Ninja and Parasol forms. (He has also inhaled KOS-MOS, Cloud Strife and Bass.EXE, gaining a set of moves fitting each). He cannot inhale enemy fighters nor create helpers from his abilities during the match, but can inhale anything else and will not lose access to his forms due to taking damage. He may freely switch to his persona Kohryu, as it appears in Persona 4, who only has their natural non-passive skills and elemental affinities. Samarecarm is not available. His physical and magical parameters have been made equal to KOS-MOS', but with no experience utilizing his newfound abilities.

KOS-MOS Jr. has been created as Kirby's helper. Similar in appearance to a Kirbyed version of KOS-MOS, it has roughly the same size and durability of Kirby, but it has proficiency with all of KOS-MOS' attacks. However, it does not have KOS-MOS' memories, tactics, or personality, preferring to attack in a reckless, erratic, and borderline suicidal fashion. She will become invincible and double her parameters for 15 seconds upon death, before dying permanently.

Yu Narukami (MC) is as he appears in Persona 4. He has the persona Izanagi available, with all default skills from P4 learned in addition to all the moves from Persona 4 Arena, with the exception of his mortal blow or gameplay mechanics (invincibility frames, etc). He also can freely switch to his persona Isis, who only has their natural non-passive skills and elemental affinities.

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Analysis of the current situation shows a fight is brewing. FIGHT!
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Cloud, Booker and Ryu3 have challenged Kirby, KOS-MOS Jr., Rikku and Yu Narukami to a fight! Location of the fight: Sanubia Desert - A blazing hot sun, no water in sight, and an endless sea of sand dunes define this battlefield. While the Al Bhed may call this place home, most would call it a death sentence. Attackers will start by the X-Potion chest (which is empty, as are all others), while defenders will start by the oasis. Which side will win?

Guidelines

- The fight will occur in real-time (like an FMV sequence). Gameplay mechanics are less important than how the characters would function in a real-time environment.
- The members of each team are ideal teammates capable of a pre-selected plan of battle.
- "Broken" refers to a lot of things, including insta-death, auto-effects, a variety of status effects (e.g., Imp, Silence, Stop, *not* Poison), and revival. Unless stated otherwise, nobody has them, though do use your own discretion.
- There may be SPOILERS from all of the games the characters are from.

Rules for Voting

- Bold your votes (using bold HTML tags).
- You do not need to require justification for your vote, though the admins reserve the right to disqualify votes in the advent of obvious alt voting and other similar scenarios.
- Leaders cannot vote for their own teams (and players from the same pool may not vote as well), but they are free to argue their case.
- If you want to switch your votes simply bold the change; there's no need to delete your post, though you may if you wish.
- This match will end in 24 hours.
- The following conventions are in use for match topics: www.gamefaqs.com/boards/570224-mercs/75290480/878106427

Booker DeWitt is as seen throughout BioShock Infinite, with access to all of his fully upgraded weaponry as well as all of his vigors save Possession and Return to Sender.

Ryu is as seen in the endgame of Breath of Fire 3, equipped with the Royal Sword, Divine Helm, Laquer Shield, and Shaman's Ring. He has all of his abilities except Raise Dead and Resurrect, master skills, enemy skills, or accession.

Cloud Strife is as seen in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, with access to the First Tsurugi and any abilities/skills granted by that equipment. He additionally has access to all magic (green) FF7 materia and his wing from Kingdom Hearts.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

WE HAVE COME TO TERMS.

Lightning tries to possess Grigori and use Slave Crown. Terra intercepts this, redirecting the entire ability, including the ability copyage. Dizzy then kidnaps a bunch of people successfully (except Ellie, who is possessed).

WE'RE DONE

Send those bids dudes.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Lopen posted...

I can't wait to explain why I disagree with this ruling too.

The AP limit on questions or the one I'm waiting on Trdl for
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Missed a little thing. Proper clarification of what occurs:

Morrigan possesses Ellie. Lightning doesn't execute her. She then tries to possess Grigori and this causes the match to be FROZEN one last time.

THIS is maximum mercs. PS seriously starting to think a daily question limit might be beneficial for players at this point, it might prevent some self-ownages
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

'The video is unavailable'
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

greengravy294 posted...

really? i actually thought they got 10 exp

if thats true then my memory is incorrect and i am wrong (unlike lopen, who refuses to admit he can be wrong, i'm not that big of a nerd to say i can be wrong)

They got 5 EXP, same as you would've got on a 2-1 victory (10-10-5). Byes in the playoffs were meant to exactly replicate losses, minus having to spend abilities or money that week.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Yes, that's in the event of a disbandment. Victory through 2-0ing in a series doesn't give extra infra. Do I have to go dredge up standings from M4 to prove this?
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

greengravy294 posted...

uh i mean you're gaining an infra from a bye, to call this a loss in any sense of anything, ever is just plain retarded but i mean you're the dude that decided you cant abstain from using exp lOLO

...No? Byes don't give infra.

- If a team goes 2-0, they get a week of recharge/etc for free on the third week.
- No poaching, but wins still count and give infra.

That's all. Byes give INCOME, not INFRA. Did you get that confused?
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

greengravy294 posted...

tell me exactly how many abilities hinge on simply a 'win' and not against a team in specific during results.

the answer is literally only terra's.

Little Mac's. Works on loss and not win but same exact principle. Should byes count as quantum winlosses if you have Mac AND Terra on deck because both states benefit you?
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Lopen posted...

Well, you really need to say something more than "yes" there I feel for clarity I think.

But I think Boko was kinda not doing his job in clarifying what you were saying "yes" to either, as he was clearly trying to spoonfeed you an interpretation so he sorta just interpreted the yes in the most favorable way.

Basically I feel like he was probably grating on you trying to ask for "rulings" and you were being intentionally obtuse-- not a good look for either side but yeah, can't feel too bad about Boko's predicament either.

As I pointed out to him...

Kanzaris - Today at 5:04 PM
Boko
When you ask rules questions
it's your job, as a player, to be specific about what it is you want to know
Do not use vague wording, do not get general. You know this too.
Look at the difference between the first question re: morrigan, and the terra thing

Kanzaris - Today at 5:05 PM
The former is something I am cleared to answer because it's not playing the game for you.
The latter I'm not, because I am not supposed to pilot your team.
As far as the admins are concerned, it's OK if you get destroyed by not noticing an ability
Our job isn't to point that shit out.
It's similarly OK to us if a player overthinks and fucks up.

This is fundamentally why I don't feel a lot of sympathy for Boko here. You don't ask a question for shiggles in this kind of situation with the clock running out. You ask it because it has a purpose.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Kirby, KOS-MOS Jr., Rikku and Yu Narukami vs. Cloud, Booker and Ryu3.

Terrains: Sanubia Desert (3 GP) vs. Tower of Zot (NO BID). Match takes place in Sanubia Desert.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

The question was already answered. What I didn't answer was a notion of mistaken play a player had. I'm not in the business of playing the game for my players, they're supposed to be the ones who make smart plays.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.

Lopen posted...

I still don't get why Terra was targeted to begin with Did he just not want Morrigan to get KOed or something? Why wouldn't just targeting two non-Terras work in that case?

I legitimately don't get it either. The question Boko asked that called for a freeze was, 'if Terra intercepts a possession (which she's immune to due to Sorey), can she still be affected?'. Me and Trdl conferred for a while and agreed that the answer was yes due to the shoddy wording of her upgrade. Had he not targeted her, she would've eaten Morrigan's possession and gone rogue as intended.
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Shine on, you crazy diamond.