Board 8 > Mercs Offseason Topic: Now with Less Purge

(+) Yeah! (+)

peridiam is usually good with spoilers, he knows.

I'm surprised no one ever made a Buffy build for Tvmercs
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DeathChicken posted...

I'm surprised no one ever made a Buffy build for Tvmercs

I have ideas for one, I could probably whip something up in the next few days.
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So I wanna do a community thing - how about we talk about what mercs you thought had issues in M4 and how to fix them? Not the obvious ones, we all know Ellie, Nilin, etc. were all broken. I mean the ones that didn't break the game to pieces. We could call it a Remix Roundtable, since the idea is to discuss what we can do to update wonky builds. I'll start:

Kerrigan
http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/103738503/Sarah%20Kerrigan

Oy vey, there's a lot to discuss here. If I had to sum up the issues with Kerrigan, they would be as follows...

-Extremely polarized battleworth respect. Either you thought she was good, in which case she was crazy powerful, or you didn't and she might as well not have existed. Multiple times I saw discussed how Kerrigan could lose to 5s during M4.
-Unbalanced units. Mutalisks and Hydralisks came up exactly never in a situation where they mattered, whereas Zerglings were a powerful upgrade in low tier and Ultralisks broke mid to flinders. Fielding an unit that could tank nuclear blasts in mid tier and was enormous and powerful was kind of too hard for most teams to find an answer to.
-Very bad upgrades. Evolution Pit might've been good, but it was too costly, and Psionic Storm was 25 EXP to buy a limited use, super long cooldown, powerup for a merc of dubious battle worth to begin with. The upkeep upgrade's cost was also too high to begin with, as it provided no significant benefit for the EXP (since it didn't allow you to host an ultralisk, lings and any mid tier unit at a time, which was the key breakpoint, without paying money), and you couldn't spawn units fast enough to really take advantage of fielding a huge army either.
-Huge costs. At 92 GP, Kerrigan was the priciest non-7/week unit in the game, above characters like Revan, Raiden and Zero. I'm not sure what the angle was there, but she didn't need to cost that much.

How would you address the issues of battle worth? I think the 'swarm master' angle Kerrigan had was a good one, and perhaps an upgrade that amped her production rate so she could build up a horde of units (for example, spawn two different units at once) might be worth pursuing. It still feels bad when the main named character gets no respect though. She'd also still need a new ability to replace psistorm, which was very unattractive.
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Juliet really should have been a 4 instead of a 3. She just stomps any 3 completely flat in a straight fight
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DeathChicken posted...

Juliet really should have been a 4 instead of a 3. She just stomps any 3 completely flat in a straight fight

It's kind of a weird thing because while I think this turned out to be true (she won that icedrake match ffs), Juliet at 4 would get beaten up by dudes like Alucard or Doomguy. She's in that 3.5 space kinda? Sorta like Lloyd and Max Payne.
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Kerrigan might honestly be better as a Pure Support. A costly one, mind you, but a Pure Support nonetheless, perhaps placing the Zerg inside of her attached mercenary and having a certain number pop out based on the merc's upkeep and days since last they were infected? I know next to nothing about Starcraft other than basic plot musings and the obvious memes from the outside looking in, but I feel that fits the 'swarm' archetype better, and from what I can tell, Kerrigan's strongest powers absolutely need to be nerfed and from there, her actual gameplay built versus expanded lore got really messy? I know she's iconic, but I look at her and I see "needed to be nerfed in order to actually be releasable", which is never, ever a good state for a merc to be in.

How was her respect when compared to Nova? Nova, I'd argue, had similar issues starting out battle worth-wise, but eventually was considered consistent and found a nice groove of respect that Kerrigan never did.
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Way all over the place compared to Nova, yeah. Nova had the advantage of permanent stealth and gunz and full access to all of her showings except psiblasting, in comparison to Kerrigan. The issue is that yeah, she's the face of Starcraft so just axing her (or turning her into a PS) feels bad, for similar reasons to why we can't cut Dante for Nero just because the latter is more quantifiable. It might be fine to just bake the zerg into her battle writeup (so she ALWAYS comes with addies, just like Sorey did) but stabilizing her is important.
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Well I mean, people like Disgaea but there's a reason that Laharl could never be anything more than a Pure Support. You could nerf him to, like, the Captain Gordon fight and call him a 7/week, but then you've got a bunch of hypotheticals and the like and people trying to extrapolate how strong "Level 30" in Disgaea actually is. I don't see much issue in giving Kerrigan the Morrigan treatment if it means that the Zerg as a whole is represented more faithfully.

Dante has the great fortune of his strongest stuff being tied to a power-up rather than to himself, and that his base form is simply really, really good to start with. I feel he's the exception for "generally too strong" rather than the rule. Most people could imagine what Dante with limited DT does against Raiden or 2B. Kerrigan... that's not something I feel most could pin down, or separate her additional material and lore from her pure gameplay-based build.
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I personally take Juliet to beat Doomguy (at least the Mercs 4 version). She can take gunfire well enough and unless you are tankier than a UFO, it's hard to survive her chainsaw. Alucard is trickier as he has more ways to not get hit
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Kerrigan is in such an incredibly weird position. She got more or less inferior respect than the ultralisks she spawns.

I think if she is to be included as a battle mercenary then she needs to have better definition of her powers within her write-up, including feats and otherwise from secondary and tertiary media, because at the minute the write up is simply not effective or condusive to hyping her in any fashion.

So back when Mercs IV was running, I used to talk to my one friend at work about it

Now lately he keeps asking me if TV/Film mercs is going to be a thing and has been asking me how to make merc builds

so I may or may not post some from him if he ends up going through with them
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Probably unpopularly, I also don't think Haleigh is a bad player. She has good game sense, just very bad reads, and an alliance who can't help her make up for any bad reads. She also has a conscience and that has no place in big brother.

She makes me think of sports players who play below their potential cause of the team around them affecting her play.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

yeah, and I think (maybe. This isn't an accusation, unless I'm right then it is?) he wasn't telling the Craigslist people that he had HIV, which is why people got mad at him. It was never about intentionally spreading it, but more like malicious indifference.

or I'm totally making that up and the Craigslist people knew what they were getting into

From how I remember it, not informing was the whole point of the uproar.
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OMG! I never got to try them or at least I don't recall having tried them. DO WANT!

Nominate support merc john madden

Ability madden curse
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ScareChan posted...

Nominate support merc john madden

Ability madden curse

Not 'JOHN FUCKING MADDEN' ability that makes the enemy team unable to understand their own battleplan?
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Porque no Los dos
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Good point, both are p useful
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What's the Madden Curse?
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Madden curse is whoever is on the cover of madden gets injured or has abad season

So for this as support I think he would either injure an already ko merc or have a preselected merc under perform in their match
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ScareChan posted...

Madden curse is whoever is on the cover of madden gets injured or has abad season

So for this as support I think he would either injure an already ko merc or have a preselected merc under perform in their match

Madden attaches to enemy units and makes them fight like shit, sounds cash imo
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I cannot accept a Madden model that does not also create a pre-battle topic that involves a game of football or change the match into fooball.

I mean yes Beach Volleyball was broken as hell in Mercs 3. But I want to argue football far more than volleyball, and it being on a PS rather than a battle merc makes it not immediately terrible.
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I second all of this
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You can use the Longshot guys to make them in game mercs. 1 upkeep Wade or Colt and their prebattle is a football game
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so would John Madden be considered a TV/Film merc or a regular merc via the Madden game series?
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Johnbobb posted...

so would John Madden be considered a TV/Film merc or a regular merc via the Madden game series?

game merc I think
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ahem

PORQUE NO LOS DOSSSS
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Slave Knight Gael (Dark Souls 3)
Villainous Male Undead
4/wk
?? gp

Slave Knight Gael is as he appears in stage 3 of his boss fight in Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City, fully empowered by the Dark Soul. However, he starts at full health, and can still use techniques from stage 1 of the fight if he wishes.

Hand it over. That thing, your dark soul... (Results): Whenever Slave Knight Gael is rostered on a win, he devour a target rostered Human on the losing team, injuring them. If he does, he receives a Blood counter.

'Twill be a cold, dark, and very gentle place. And one day, it will make someone a goodly home. (Peacetime): When Slave Knight Gael has three or more Blood counters, you may KO him during Peacetime and remove all Blood counters from him. If you do, the painter girl will use it to paint a terrain for you to use for the rest of the game. Choose a terrain that has been revealed; you now have access to it as long as you own Gael, and it is not tied to any of your mercs, though for the purposes of abilities, it is considered to be Gael's terrain.

UPGRADES:

New ability:
Ah, is this the blood? The blood of the Dark Soul... (Start of Battle, Recharge 3): Once every four weeks, Gael may spend 1 Blood counter to empower himself further. The first time he take lethal damage in this week's fight, he will respawn where he died at half health and with a 30% increase to parameters. If he is KO'd this week, this ability's recharge will reset to 1 week, but the Blood counter will not be refunded.

Ability upgrade:
Gael may now target an unrostered Human on the losing team of lesser upkeep as well, earning a Blood counter for that victim too. However, taking this upgrade increases the cost of the painting to 4 Blood counters.

TERRAIN:
End Times -- The ruins of the Dark Souls world, coated in endless sand, ash, and debris. Attackers begin at the bonfire; defenders begin at the Thrones of the Pygmies, though the entire stage is in-bounds for the fight.
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I look forward to seeing (and trying?) your game when its ready for playtesting!
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Hey, we got a bot post that actually makes sense in context.
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Probably Spore. Was so insanely hyped for that to finally come out and then it was just blah.

missing Monster Hunter XX Switch, SHINE

region-free you can do it
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This actually reminds me - what upkeeep would you peg the Monster Hunter at? What about some of the iconic monsters, like Rathalos, Deviljho and Lagiacrus?
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Oh, that's a good one. I don't know MH at all though.
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Same here

It does give me another question though

Where would we put Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn?
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A few changes to the laser-beam enemies
-Can be one of 4 elements (Fire, Water, Grass, None)
-If your characters element matches the beam's element you can pass through it unharmed
-Most beams will stay one element, some will rotate between types

And looking like about 50 enemy bestiary entries so far. D:

wait is that a bot post because that legitimately seems like it could be talking about mercs
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It is a bot post, but yeah that one worked well.
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I mean emotions are fine, but you can't use it as an excuse to lash out

Gonna put up a new match tomorrow, Lara Croft (new version) vs Nathan Drake

Taking suggestions on the terrain, I want it to be a neutral one that's been Drakeified with his ability so neither one has a knowledge advantage.
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waterball
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X_Dante_X posted...

waterball

pls
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bubbly clouds

real answer: Oil Ocean Zone
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...I like that. Drakeified waterball would be funny but I wanna save that for another day since I wanna get an accurate gauge of who's the stronger adventurer
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But Oil Ocean Zone just isn't the same without Charizard there to set it on fire.
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I like the idea of an Uncharted version of oil ocean. Very high stakes when it comes to things like maintaining your grip and footing, a ton of danger if you're sloppy with firearms/explosives
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Bowser Castle imo
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We're live! Go vote, everyone!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/76988660
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Quick Ratings:

Mario Tennis Open 7/10
Roller Coaster Tyoon 3D 5.5/10

...

and thats all

talk about dry