Board 8 > Mercenaries 5 Test Run, Week 6 Results: So Scream All You Like...

(+) Yeah! (+)

Lopen posted...

That being said if Gordon never gets his helmet in game I actually agree with it being removed just all the time. As you can tell my half life knowledge is not super high. I thought he got it late game lol.

Nah him having the helmet is more of an 'ok HL1 lore shows this shit CAN have helmets, I guess he gets one???' argument. But Gordon's iconic look is helmetless nerd and he never acquires one either.

FFDragon posted...

I mean, in this newage Mercs Leon is barely a 2/Day.

I actually felt that way about Leon before Mercenaries mode but I think Mayhem Mode really does make him a genuinely viable gunner. Like I would've said he has a 50-50 matchup with DK depending on terrain before. Now? Not so much unless you start them straight up adjance to each other. Boosted Striker shots kinda sick IMO

The only thing about Mayhem mode is you have to kill like 20 people before it triggers. Most mercs teams are five or less. And if you just give it to him from the rip than you're making him an arcade version. But I guess he has to have it to be at all viable.

Yeah. It's not a perfect solution, but Leon deserves to be viable and this way, if you want to, you can make Leon your first gunner and not feel like you chose an ability bot. There's genuine arguments for Leon with Mayhem + the attach case to make some noise in particular. BJ Blazkowicz may have a better arsenal for example, but Leon grabbing one of his guns and using it just plain better than him is something I find super cool. He won't feel instantly outshone the second we release like, say, Lara Croft or Nathan Drake this way.

What terrains even have enough people on them (without something like Jinx's ability)? I know Kamurocho does, but there's no faster way to lose credibility than to say Leon massacres the civilians in Kamurocho to get Mayhem Mode.

Mewtwo59 posted...

What terrains even have enough people on them (without something like Jinx's ability)? I know Kamurocho does, but there's no faster way to lose credibility than to say Leon massacres the civilians in Kamurocho to get Mayhem Mode.

Cyberdemon's got lost souls which means Leon can get a second set of Mayhem stacks fairly easily mid-fight. Lea's terrain has a bundle of fairly weak earlygame RPG mobs too, which means both her and Leon can gain power there. There's a few others too.

Simply give Leon a Wheres everyone coming from? Bingo? Ability that filled the terrain with appropriately-dressed-for-the-terrain ganado

GANON1025 posted...

Simply give Leon a Wheres everyone coming from? Bingo? Ability that filled the terrain with appropriately-dressed-for-the-terrain ganado

Sir we can't have Leon stealing Frank West's signature ability

Frank West

Now there's a guy who is definitely 1/day in newmercs.

1/day? He's covered wars, you know!

FFDragon posted...

Frank West

Now there's a guy who is definitely 1/day in newmercs.

Yeah I don't think anyone takes Frank over Leon and Leon is a clean 2/week

Feels weird to make Frank a 1/week, though, because he would demolish every other 1 unless all he got was meme items. Then again...maybe there is room for one 1/week who has halfway passable combat capabilities...

Unless you turn him into Mega Man lite, Frank is the very definition of "a dude with a gun."

If Leon is the new 2 standard, with actual training, he would throttle Frank.

I don't think Frank can be anything BUT a high 1 unless his ability suite was so overtuned as to make up for his battle worth.

FFDragon posted...

Unless you turn him into Mega Man lite, Frank is the very definition of "a dude with a gun."

If Leon is the new 2 standard, with actual training, he would throttle Frank.

I don't think Frank can be anything BUT a high 1 unless his ability suite was so overtuned as to make up for his battle worth.

Yeah I think you're right, particularly since Frank's guns would be like...handgun, pump action shotgun, maaaaaybe one more thing? Dude is realistically kind of more melee heavy with stuff like the dual chainsaws and the like. And that's not even counting that Leon gets to have his movie showings too which make him look sick. I would never take Frank over Leon regardless of terrain so your take is the right one. Him being a 1/week is warranted.

Frank is less dude with a gun to me and more dude with a shirt

It's a nice shirt though.

But even in a fashion contest, Leon's jacket clobbers him.

FFDragon posted...

The only thing about Mayhem mode is you have to kill like 20 people before it triggers. Most mercs teams are five or less. And if you just give it to him from the rip than you're making him an arcade version. But I guess he has to have it to be at all viable.

It charges over time, killing just gives a boost to speed.

With no kills, I think it takes about a minute for 1 stock of it, so he's pretty set in terrains where you're not instantly on the other team.

I will argue Banjo over Frank West, and I am confident I could score two, MAYBE three votes.

the impostor would beat frank west

Tails could easily beat Frank West

Banjo gets wrecked by Frank West

Tails might have a chance though. Good match for Tails.

Mercenaries Changelog, Part 5:

This one will be smaller than the last, I believe. Let's get right to it, shall we?

Aigis: Aigis did a very fine job in the TR and we're proud of her. We're increasing the cost of her 'I'll Always Be By Your Side' ability to a permanent 1 AP, however, as we don't like that the suplex can reposition for 1 AP on a mercenary with great battleworth. That's just too strong an effect to have on the cheap. To compensate, we're reducing her min bid, from a massive 74 GP (!!!) to a much more reasonable 64 GP. This should keep her about as valuable, and still a great addition to any team.

Albert Wesker: We're clarifying that Wesker can reinforce for AP.

Batman: We were a little apprehensive about allowing Batman in, but he was a smash success. He brought votes to the yard, with the highest votals of the entire TR being one of his matches (which he lost super hard, even!). He also didn't seem overly overwhelming. Voters actually treated him like any other mercenary, dispelling our fears that he might be too strong.

That said, there were some things to tune up about him. His respect delta was immensely wide with some voters taking him to overcome even long odds to win, and others expressing they felt he was barely 3/week strong with his current build. As such, we're going to normalize him by compressing his ceiling a bit and pushing up his low-end respect point...by giving him more tools from other videogame appearances. His projectile weaponry array from NES Return of the Joker should let him fight without having to get up close and personal more effectively, and Injustice's WayneTech batarangs will allow him to shine in melee more brightly in turn.

We're also pushing his upkeep down to 4/week, and making the Batmobile an optional ability, so that people who don't want to argue Batman's car carries him won't have to do so. Lastly, to suit his lower upkeep, we're lowering his minimum bid to 62 GP. We believe this set of changes will make Batman into a consistent powerhouse without making him overpowered.

Cloud Strife: Cloud did very well in the TR. A little too well even, as characters were widely considered to be nerfed even when they rolled characters relatively similar to them of greater proficiency and power (Kiryu and Raynor, Crono and Tusk). Clearly, Hollow needs some adjustments, and so, we're making it grant equipment out the gate alongside perfect emulation of the target's skills -- just no magic and of course no parameter matching. We're also restricting it to hitting mercenaries of upkeep one lower, one higher, or of equal upkeep value, and adding a thematic way to narrow the pool of copied mercs which should make it more reliable and more comboable.

In addition, we saw Cloud get argued as a Bahamut bot, with the big dragon getting more respect than he did. This is fine as an option, but not as a default, so we're turning Bahamut into a character upgrade and throwing in a few extra materia Cloud is missing plus the option to aoe-target his magic to sweeten the pot.

Lastly, we're removing Cloud's ability to Reinforce. With Hollow now hopefully less powerful, he doesn't need it anymore.

Jesse Faden: We're removing Jesse's ability to Reinforce. As compensation, we're also lowering her min bid to 64 GP, to make her a more competitive investment.

Jim Raynor: We're converting old Jimmy's nuke ability to reference TP instead of GP and removing his ability to Reinforce. The changes to the TP system have made Hyperion less instantly desirable to spam every week, and as such, Jim's opportunity cost on Reinforcement has gone down.

Joshua & Estelle Bright: We're removing an extant clarification that wasn't necessary from Joshua and Estelle's writeup, and adding in their Master Quartz so people can actually look up what they do without having to deep-dive ToCS4. We're also giving them a Character Upgrade to gain one more Master Quartz, plus Lost Arts access. Try not to have too much fun, you crazy kids.

Mewtwo: Mewtwo ended up being a borderline 6/week overall. While more mortal than most 6s, we want to bring him down to earth a little. As such, we're making Strongest Pokemon cost 1 AP at baseline to use, removing his ability to Reinforce, and granting him a compensatory Character Upgrade to pick four TMs from his teachable Gen 9 movepool and add them to his writeup.

Selvaria: We're clarifying that Selvaria can reinforce for AP.

V: We're clarifying the rate of Chippin' In's HP drain and clarifying that its upgrade will not necessarily kill the enemy at the same speed the drain would if not tended to.

Zeratul: We're making Zeratul not be immune to abilities in peacetime, so as to give him a little bit of counterplay. He's just too safe ATM, particularly as a PS carrier, and that's obnoxious to deal with. We're also reducing his minbid cost to 65 GP to compensate.

Aigis as of Arena knocks a man out by taking one of his shirt buttons and flicking it at his head. I don't think physics even work that way

Aigis did some pretty great work in the TR and I fully expect to see her get bought again in the main game

Should be a pretty great time! Of course, she will have to compete with the next batch of mercs we'll be releasing...

Batman as a 4 makes sense.

I'm hoping his Batmobile summon ups his upkeep to 5 and doesn't cost AP.

Is the Batman thing where he can teleport when unseen part of his inherent kit? Cause that was the main reason I gave him respect in the first place

No that was a Sans PS.

Regular non teleporting Batman is a low 3 don't @ me

hmm yeah honestly the teleport was key. It synergizes extremely well with Batman's entire shtick. Otherwise (and without the Batmobile) low 3 sounds pretty accurate? In a neutral terrain I'd take most generic JRPG main characters to beat him.

ALSO the teleport felt like a natural part of his kit. One of the longest-running Batman jokes is that he disappears when you aren't looking, even if it doesn't make sense. I also enjoyed how it gave respect people couldn't ignore to a stealth merc, which has been the most chronically undervalued type of merc since the series' inception.

This is just me adding my two cents though.

Mario dunks on batman without teleports

I feel like you all are insane for underestimating batman to the degree you are to the point I would say batman isn't worth having in the game tbh

SirChris posted...

I feel like you all are insane for underestimating batman to the degree you are to the point I would say batman isn't worth having in the game tbh

Would you feel this way in a hypothetical universe where the only Batman media was the Arkham video games?

KamikazePotato posted...

Would you feel this way in a hypothetical universe where the only Batman media was the Arkham video games?

Thinking Mario over batman is wild to me. It just gets much worse since he has other lore outside of games so someone who isn't familiar with these discussions is going to be baited.

It isn't like Arkham Batman is removed from OG Batman by any real physical metric, just the metric of Dumb Shit He's Done On Panel. The guy is more or less the same

I think this version of Mario has like a million things shoved into his kit. People were arguing him to actually do things in a few matches.

SirChris posted...

It just gets much worse since he has other lore outside of games so someone who isn't familiar with these discussions is going to be baited.

Implying that mercs gets voted on by non-merc players these days

(I do see the concern)

Like for example, even in the context of *just* the Arkham games Batman overpowers Croc (a 9 foot tall hell monster) and takes 5 full vials of Fear Toxin, wades through a brief nightmare and punches Scarecrow in the face. Honestly he's just as absurd physically speaking as his comic version

Ganondorf is a 3/week, and he could all that

DeathChicken posted...

Like for example, even in the context of *just* the Arkham games Batman overpowers Croc (a 9 foot tall hell monster) and takes 5 full vials of Fear Toxin, wades through a brief nightmare and punches Scarecrow in the face. Honestly he's just as absurd physically speaking as his comic version

Leon Kennedy could beat Croc and half this topic was spent dunking on him.

Oh I'm not arguing who would beat who in a fight (lol), just that there's no practical difference between this version of Batman and the comic version on a stats level

Batman has comic panel reflexes. I'm sure there's an instance out there of him tripping the Flash or something. He also gets the kind of stealth respect that you...well, need a specific teleport ability to force Mercs voters to actually respect. Most importantly, in Mercs, he specifically does not have time to plan beforehand.

DeathChicken posted...

It isn't like Arkham Batman is removed from OG Batman by any real physical metric, just the metric of Dumb Shit He's Done On Panel. The guy is more or less the same

This is how I feel

It's a little weird that people are throwing shade at him. To me it's like they're the same unless you're citing something truly extraordinary that the comic version did (he has lots of examples)

I feel like his write-up needs to be changed because I feel like people are dumbing him down to "Batman Arkham moveset" when I think the intent is mostly "you can't cite ridiculous comic feats or give Batman the experience of issue #458 of Detective Comics" or whatever.

Now I could see him being a 3/week on pure combat worth but that's not really what Batman is for anyway.

Mario is like a 1 upkeep Merc and I respect him none, even Batman could beatman him

Just not on B8. Because voter respect is wack as fuck they think Donkey Kong can beat Raiden.

greengravy294 posted...

Donkey Kong

Also gutter trash imo rather have Leon than DK

I honestly don't see Batman as being overly weak relative to videogame characters. As someone pointed out, the main knock against Arkham Batman is just that his actual offensive options are relatively limited to the Batclaw + Batarans + environmental disables + some preset explosives + punches. But the two additions to his writeup we've given him solve that issue, because one gives him an absolute barrage of projectiles to keep people on their toes with if he has to brawl more front to back (so he doesn't lose all value in that situation at all), and the WayneTech batarangs mean somebody like Cloud doesn't instantly ginsu him because he has to push through a constant field of bladed things around him.

KamikazePotato posted...

ALSO the teleport felt like a natural part of his kit. One of the longest-running Batman jokes is that he disappears when you aren't looking, even if it doesn't make sense. I also enjoyed how it gave respect people couldn't ignore to a stealth merc, which has been the most chronically undervalued type of merc since the series' inception.

This is just me adding my two cents though.

Batman does have the ability to A) kill any non artificial lighting in the terrain as an ability (this combos very funnily with the Among Us Impostor who can kill artificial lighting, incidental), B) Start separate from his team, already stealthed and prepared to strike (as part of the same ability!), and C) spook the hell out of villains and Criminal tag nonvillains (so like, say, V from Cyberpunk or Kazuma Kiryu from Yakuza) because he's coming for them, so he does have some of this sauce in his kit. Actual offscreen teleportation, no, but he's a metroidvania character and doesn't really need it, just a chance to guarantee stealth IMO.

Lopen posted...

Batman as a 4 makes sense.

I'm hoping his Batmobile summon ups his upkeep to 5 and doesn't cost AP.

We debated whether to raise upkeep or cost AP and overall, we determined that AP was overall a more attractive pick -- this is particularly the case in low tier. Batman + Batmobile for 2 AP is pricy abilitywise but an absolute steal in terms of battle power, you're basically paying 2 roster slots for what would be two valid battlemercs that both punch above tier weightclass that way. 0 AP 5/week makes it so every mid tier and up match makes it so he brings the Batmobile because otherwise you're 'leaving money on the table', which felt wonky when our goal was to make the Batmobile more opt-in...but honestly it might be fair to make it a 0 AP in high tier specifically, since Batman genuinely does really want the help at that point. We'll see what we decide as we work on the high tier boys and girls specifically.

If you think Batmans so good, YOU buy him

2 AP low
1 AP mid
0 AP high

Lol.

greengravy294 posted...

Just not on B8. Because voter respect is wack as fuck they think Donkey Kong can beat Raiden.

400% buffs to strength, speed, and reflexes turns basically anyone decent into a monster.

KamikazePotato posted...

400% buffs to strength, speed, and reflexes turns basically anyone decent into a monster.

Hard disagree but I do think %s make people turn their brain off and not really think about what things mean.

Raiden's functional speed, strength, and reflexes are probably thousands of percents better than most low tier mercs. It's just not easy to quantify it in that way because you don't have a number in front of you.

Lopen posted...

This is how I feel

It's a little weird that people are throwing shade at him. To me it's like they're the same unless you're citing something truly extraordinary that the comic version did (he has lots of examples)

I feel like his write-up needs to be changed because I feel like people are dumbing him down to "Batman Arkham moveset" when I think the intent is mostly "you can't cite ridiculous comic feats or give Batman the experience of issue #458 of Detective Comics" or whatever.

Now I could see him being a 3/week on pure combat worth but that's not really what Batman is for anyway.

This is basically the intent yeah. We don't want 'Batman solo'd a Doomsday Clone with an axe, Batman SOLOS', which is why he's very specifically called out as not getting comic feats, but this doesn't mean he's limited to only what he can do in Arkham games in terms of how he uses the tools he's got. Like...he beat Deathstroke in Batman Origins and fought Lady Shiva to the point she said 'aite we're done here, I like what I see'. He doesn't need the comics to Do Batman Things (TM), even fairly impressive ones. It just means you can't argue he's a 9/week.

2 AP low
1 AP mid
0 AP high

Lol.

Basically what's being considered yeah. Gotta work out potential high tier impacts but this means that Batmobile is opt-in at the tier where Batman's expected to actually make noise but free in the tier where Batman gets waxed otherwise if he fights front-to-back.

---

On a different note, as far as stealth mercs go since KP mentioned it: I actually think stealth mercs are very very strong now! There's been a concerted push towards making most terrains bigger than they were in M4, so it's actually feasible to argue stealth mercs can set up and run game without being Zeratul and having inbuilt automatic invis from the opening bell. We need to see more from them, of course, but like I think Lara Croft and Solid Snake can punch above their weight class if set up to shine this time, instead of fighting against utterly oppresive small terrain sizes.

Also I find "Waded through a massive drug overdose on nothing but spite and punched the guy in the face" super impressive and the kind of thing your average merc probably *can't* do, but it doesn't translate to a punchy fight I suppose