Board 8 > Mercenaries 3 Day 76 Results: Crimson Beyond a Fleeting Eternity

(+) Yeah! (+)

See I don't like that. While Drak is evil to his core I think he has the right idea about leaders should have big decisions to make every dauy. My five ability system where you can block others abilities I feel is pretty awesome.

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Except then KOs and KO protection are still too OP, and let's not talk about mega-damage abilities like Eschaton. I insist, using a static 3-man team cap is bad. I see two ways around it:

A) Use variable team caps based on merc worth. You can get two-three total badasses to the field and no more, or you can send a bigger squad of five or six duders who are competent but not crazy. This encourages you to buy more mercs to have options, and it also opens the field to extra playstyles.

B) Poaching an idea from LLFmercs, create an offensive and defensive roster. You can switch mercs at will on Results (unless an ability would prevent you from doing so), but once peace rolls in, you're locked in. This adds a strategic element, particularly if the declaration order is worked out so as to be more variable without kicking teams in the nads due to a bad streak.

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You're all fixing something that's not broken. There's nothing wrong with the 5 v 5 format.

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From: Achromatic | #301
See I don't like that. While Drak is evil to his core I think he has the right idea about leaders should have big decisions to make every dauy. My five ability system where you can block others abilities I feel is pretty awesome.

It sucks tbh. You don't block abilities, you just load up on AoE and coast on "oh yeah? You want to play a nullifying game? Screw this, eat lead.".

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From: GANON1025 | #303
You're all fixing something that's not broken. There's nothing wrong with the 5 v 5 format.

Says you. I remember when I asked people what they thought about mercs and out of the blue Neonreaper and Red Sox chimed in. I still have their pointers about what they didn't like saved.

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I don't think we need to limit teams to only 3. Pure supports are something different, if it were up to me they'd be gone.

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You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.

From: KanzarisKelshen | #304
It sucks tbh. You don't block abilities, you just load up on AoE and coast on "oh yeah? You want to play a nullifying game? Screw this, eat lead.".

Uh, then let it escalate. Someone can block an ability with a certain power. Example: They could use all 5 of their ability points to block one move. The move cannot be used under no circumstances.

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I don't know if a hard limit of 5 is the way to do it. I think just tweaking the recharge system would probably be enough, but we'll (if I'm actually involved-- otherwise they'll) definitely consider a lot of ways. The ability sealing idea is kinda neat, too. I'd like to see something like that implemented. We're probably going to take out "counters" that you can actually choose when they happen, replacing them with counters that just auto trigger given certain conditions (to prevent bog down in the ability use phase), so putting a feature that allows some manner of ability defense built into the game would be cool.

But as numbers already said, anyone who has cool ideas they really want to see implemented should email them to [email protected], so they're like, documented and crap.

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Also uhhh AoE attacks like Eschaton are probably never going to be in the game again, so you can rest assured with that, at least.

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I'll just continue poking this topic and you guys. I am bad with emails.

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I don't think email is the way to go. A dedicated forum, like that mercs one, or a chat room is probably better. It leads to more dynamic discussions.

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You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.

Well I agree. We still have the mIRC chat. And I may keep a "discussion" topic up on b8 during the long downtime (if people think that's a good idea) so it's easier for people to keep giving input. Like a private forum is nice, but a lot of interested people might not even use that. Obviously since the game is going to be dead for over a year, the topic would be dead most of the time, but eh. We may also just use the old merx forum but keep the "real admin" forum private. The old way of operation where everything was open was much too chaotic, though.

I'm just saying if you have "an idea" and want it documented permanently, the email is a good way to do that.

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The potential for ability spam makes for a much more interesting strategy game. I don't care for any system that limits the number of abilities that can be used per day, or that limits pure supports, for that reason. It's already enough of a restriction that a fighter must be rostered in order to use a start of battle ability.

Basically I think the M3 5v5 hybrid system had the right balance between allowing ability usage while keeping teams on the battlefield manageable. Isn't broke, don't fix, etc.

Use variable team caps based on merc worth. You can get two-three total badasses to the field and no more, or you can send a bigger squad of five or six duders who are competent but not crazy.

I strongly disagree with this. Someone like Silver who can afford to field a full team of top-tier mercs every day should be able to do so. (well he would have if endgame releases weren't nerfed) Effectively limiting powerful leaders' rosters is too much of an equalizing factor.

We're probably going to take out "counters" that you can actually choose when they happen, replacing them with counters that just auto trigger given certain conditions (to prevent bog down in the ability use phase)

That sounds like a good idea. Could have them be peacetime abilities, declared in secret (like Ramirez's upgrade that I never used) or publicly (like Lloyd's upgrade).


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You put your RESOLVE HAT back on, which conveniently is the same hat as your NORMAL HAT.
{Drakeryn}

From: Lopen | #312
Well I agree. We still have the mIRC chat. And I may keep a "discussion" topic up on b8 during the long downtime (if people think that's a good idea) so it's easier for people to keep giving input. Like a private forum is nice, but a lot of interested people might not even use that. Obviously since the game is going to be dead for over a year, the topic would be dead most of the time, but eh. We may also just use the old merx forum but keep the "real admin" forum private. The old way of operation where everything was open was much too chaotic, though.

I'm just saying if you have "an idea" and want it documented permanently, the email is a good way to do that.

Yeah, keep a topic up once this gets close to full. Hell, I'll make it if there isn't a problem. I think I can cover the important points.

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obviously the next mercenaries should be My Little Mercenaries.

what could possibly go wrong

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Well Ed, I think Drakeryn is probably the only one that's mostly intrigued by politics, honestly. And that's probably largely cause his team fell well behind the power curve of the big boys around day 20 or 30 or so. Or maybe I'm just taking a cheap shot at his team's bad combat worth, but the sentiment stands. Even people like Dante who aren't interested in the actual fight topics still were intrigued by ability spam and not so much politics, I believe. So yeah, ideally we're trying to remove subjective as much as possible I'd imagine, short of making a computer program to simulate the fights.

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There's an mirc chat?

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You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.

Just because no one talks in #gamefaqsmercs doesn't mean we can't say more than "wow great chat" from time to time!

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oh yeah that

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You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.

short of making a computer program to simulate the fights

I fully support Deadliest Mercenary

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I can't wait for Deadliest Mercenary

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Well amusingly enough I honestly was thinking I could program something like that, but I don't really have the inclination to program it. <_<

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I agree with Ed Bellis' idea and want to say anyone proposing solutions at this early stage should feel bad.

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You're messing with me! You're messing with me, aren't you!?
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Just assign numerical attributes to every merc and add them up.

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You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.

i do agree with the sentiment that there weren't enough mercs (that people actually cared about) for 24 leaders in a 60-day game. there are three ways to go about fixing this -

1) make all of the mercs in advance and hopefully see that we can indeed make enough
2) decrease the number of leaders
3) decrease the length of the game

just from my perspective, 1 would be ideal. if that isn't sufficient, probably 3. everyone thought m3 went on for too long anyway. not a huge fan of 2. things are simply less interesting with fewer people around (it also makes things take longer, but this can be offset by doing things in advance and having a ruleset that doesn't allow stalling). if a lot of people are for 2, it can't be helped, but we probably don't need to change the number by much. 16 at the very least, and we can easily support 20, i think.

Mercs as a 40 day game, 24 leaders, with a double elimination final between the top 8 or 12 or so would be best I think. People didn't even really start getting sick of this game until the late 20s, early 30s or so. If this game were that short people wouldn't even have hated it much, in spite of bad admins and whatnot.

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Personally, the subjective element of voting is one of the major things that drew me to mercs in the first place. And I'm not talking about "politics" at all. I'm talking about the art of persuasion.

When I first joined mercs, I believed that, if you argued long enough and well enough, you could convince voters of nearly anything. My enthusiasm in that regard has been somewhat tempered over time, but it's still possible to convince a lot of people of a lot of things. And that's how it ought to be. Victory should not necessarily go to the one who has the objectively stronger team, but to the one who is more silver-tongued. Few things in mercs are more satisfying than watching one's arguments genuinely sway undecided voters to one's side. (And again, this has nothing to do with factions or that kind of crap. I mean legitimate neutrals.)

On that note, Gen, I should mention that you completely misunderstood my earlier comment by taking it out of context. When I say that mercs is not and should not be about who would "actually" win in a fight, I am rejecting the notion that the objectively stronger team automatically deserves to win. Thus the emphasis on "actually." Fight topics are still a central part of the game. But if you can trick voters into believing that an oversized turtle shell would somehow solo the enemy team, then more power to you.

That's my take on it, anyway! I figure a lot of people disagree.


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another place and time, without a great divide, and we could be flying deadly high

People didn't hate the game because it was too many days. Well, OK, they did, but only because everything was so bad they just wanted it to end quickly. If everything went well, I think 50 days is perfectly possible.

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You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.

And the reason why things went to slow was merc creation. Making all the mercs before the games solves a ton of problems with the game.

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You beat yourself up with your past. Don't blame yourself, blame the world. Blame God. Blame me.

it's irresponsible attitudes like drakeryn's which led to the infamous Cu Chulainn massacre many moons ago.

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You're messing with me! You're messing with me, aren't you!?
You're making fun of me, aren't you!? Aren't you!? You definitely are! I'll murder you!

Victory should not necessarily go to the one who has the objectively stronger team, but to the one who is more silver-tongued.

Disagree 1000% on this tbqh

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I wish I could wear skirts and dresses :( -GMUN

Well, bear in mind that M2 had 10 teams, and lasted 60 days, and no-one thought that was overly long. I'd say 90% of dissatisfaction can be completely attributed to disagreements with admins/rulings. Once that animosity is cultivated every little thing is going to seem worse. Although I can agree that people might get fed up of the length of the game and want it to end sooner if they were already resigned to the fact that they weren't going to win, or otherwise get what they wanted out of the game.

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"Eet's game time..."

I think 60 days is way too long. Is there really any reason for it to last that long? 40 days will keep people interested longer (casuals and players alike).

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

As for 'what is Mercs', I'm pretty sure there is absolutely no way to completely eliminate subjectivity from Mercs. I do like Lopen's idea of splitting the votes so that it isn't entirely decided by the people playing the game, although I'm not sure exactly how it should be done.

Another thing: all admin rolls should be done in a public place. As in, a program that everyone sees happen, in real time. I forget exactly how often this was done in M3, but it should become a standard for M4.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

ALSO, the declaration order as it is now is absolutely awful and needs to be scrapped and/or rehauled.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Well we were considering for the roll issue, I just program a rolling thing that logs rolls made and their purpose, in addition to who made the roll. Basically lets players roll their own crap, and if they try to cheat by rerolling they'll be caught on it cause all the rolls are logged. Two birds with one stone-- makes rolling honesty no longer an issue and makes rolling quicker.

The declaration order we're still working on but a solution that we were thinking might work is

Randomize, swap, invert, swap, or something like that, so a guy would get

1
24
13
12

Basically you get a bad declaration order you're automatically due for a good one in time.

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lopen says he can make a program to do mercs rolls that can leave a record of use, so even players could do their own rolls

edit: well fine
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gg nub no re

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The problem with declarations orders right now is that getting 24th place isn't bad. Getting a spot in the middle is, and it doesn't reflect that.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

The problem with declarations orders right now is that getting 24th place isn't bad. Getting a spot in the middle is, and it doesn't reflect that.

Which Lopen's proposed solution would fix.


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another place and time, without a great divide, and we could be flying deadly high

Oh, I misread that post. Yeah that would be better.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.

Also, I don't think "subjectivity" or "objectivity" are the right words here, probably better words are non player controlled elements and player controlled elements

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You're messing with me! You're messing with me, aren't you!?
You're making fun of me, aren't you!? Aren't you!? You definitely are! I'll murder you!

I actually on second thought don't even care about "subjective" as long as the "subjective" is based around the mercenaries and abilities and arguments used in the match and not allegiance meshes as Drak likes to call them.

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-I'd even say it was more the length of each day that made this feel draggy than it was frustration, or at least that is my mostly-outsider perspective. 60 Days isn't bad until Days start taking weeks.
-I kinda like the idea of a power cap rather than a number cap, partially because I'm not a huge fan of hard number caps to start with.
-Agree SO HARD with the need for less obscure Mercs. Somebody or other hit it on the head with the MGS example. I'd rather have Mercs Gear Solid than "who would win in a fight or rather have you heard of any of these guys at all"
-Disagree harshly with Drak. If there was a way to magically and objectively simulate fights, I'd much rather have that than voting at all. Arguing is a close second least favorite part of the game for me to politics. For me, it's a strategy/teambuilding/econ game. Heck, my dream video game is Mercs with SRPG-style battles and an editor.
-3v3 seems really small. 4v4 maybe. The attacking/defending mechanic is the only way you'll convince me 3v3 will be at all fun, because then at least it's something besides "my top 3 v. your top 3."
-...That said, I actually kinda like the attacking/defending teams idea. I think that's been tossed around since pre-M2. It makes deals more interesting if you have to fight two guys at once, and it prevents everybody from fielding the same basic squad every single damn fight.
-The "no consecutive usage" idea seems interesting as well in that respect. I am kinda tired of the "my five best v. your four best plus that guy with the ability" setup that has prevaded since we introduced caps, and would love a way to shake up teams somehow.
-Drak complains about the equalizing factor of limiting rosters, but I don't see the problem. I mean, we want to avoid Mario Kart levels of rubberbanding, but it's also no fun if Chris wins the game 1/3 of the way through the run.
-I haven't seen the "rising water" elimination/infra style brought up since I was with my original team, so I figured I should bring it back up. It seemed a good way to circumvent that whole dying team blues stage.

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##NL
BlAcK TuRtLe would if he played mafia probably

I remember thinking that the introduction of gunners ruined most of my interest when I started loosely following mercs. I loved the spekioshell days, the days where a guy with a sword was useful, when tactics were argued more that which team simply nuked the other. Though to be honest, my favorite part of mercs was a single moment I was reminded of in the journal, that I had saved for my own amusement. Namely, this.



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MMBN style fighting game made by me in the link below!
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Hello Lopen, I am FFDragon. You may know me from such projects as "Sniping for fun in SMFFFC I - XIII", "Knocking icon out of UotY with 4 seconds to go", and "Generally voting at the last second 101"

That's just how I roll and has no real baring on the context of my votes. I just do it for funsies.

Also:

Tom Bombadil posted...
-Disagree harshly with Drak. If there was a way to magically and objectively simulate fights, I'd much rather have that than voting at all. Arguing is a close second least favorite part of the game for me to politics. For me, it's a strategy/teambuilding/econ game. Heck, my dream video game is Mercs with SRPG-style battles and an editor..

This makes it sound like you want something like this if Silver/Me were to fight (pulled out of my ass):

Dante = 7
KOS-MOS = 7
Ridley = 6
Axl = 5
Snake = 5
---vsX = 6
Shepard = 6
Wesker = 5
Aya = 4
Trigger = 4

(7+7+6+5+5) vs (6+6+5+4+4) = 30 vs 25 Silver wins

The you'd just have to place a value on abilities, so say Aya lighting Dante on fire makes him -2 and X going Maverick with Ultimate Armor and Boss Abilities makes him +2 and Shepard using Arc blast on Snake and Axl make them both -1.

(5+7+6+4+4) vs (8+6+5+4+4) = 26 vs 27 FFD wins

Is that really what you're advocating? Because that seems miserable. Voting is an integral part of the game, but it's a broken system as it is down. Boiling Mercs down to just addition and subtraction would be the worst way to go.

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You usually do it when there's a point though. I don't recall you ever sniping a last minute vote when it didn't actually have any impact on the vote. Anyway, I'm just explaining why I have reasons to doubt your genuineness, I'm not trying to convince you to "admit" your votes weren't genuine, and I'm not expecting you to convince me that they were. Just saying that "I didn't vote" doesn't really mean anything because the way you vote usually has you abstaining by default unless you can change the outcome.

Also I think what Tom would prefer would be a bit (read as: alot) more complicated than that. For instance, say instead of just upkeep we had like 5 other stats-- melee skill, ranged skill, defense, hp, speed. You run those through a simulator that takes all those stats into account, weighing those based on terrain and stuff and what the enemy has. I'm not saying it's completely simple, but I bet there's a way to do it with enough stats (read as: more than 5).

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