Board 8 > Mercenaries 5 Preseason Topic 1: Wartime Economy

(+) Yeah! (+)

LAST TIME ON MERCENARIES 5...

-New admins confirmed! Trdl23 and Kamekguy join the admin team.
-AP system adopted. Abilities are usable every day by default but you can only use so many!
-New ability primer released! Check it out here: https://pastebin.com/zdVHMZij
-Bounty Hunting and Supply Duties peacetime systems previewed! We are currently discussing possibly improvements to these. See them here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/76995866/910333430

I put up a poll so that we can get a better picture of what the people want as an antipaydown system. If you have any suggestions on how to improve on it, please let us know! This is a very important mechanic, and we very strongly want to get it right.
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Quick thought from discussing the possibility of being stuck with jabronis for bounty hunting that @Mewtwo59 mentioned with the rest of the admin team: dedicated Bounty Hunter mercs who aren't hirable on a permanent basis (think like Claude worked in M3, but for bounty hunting specifically), that anyone can hire week in week out. This would allow us to include some fan favorites that we haven't seen in a while too, like HUNK. Thoughts?
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Seems reasonable, but that's more work on your end.
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http://mercsce.pbworks.com/w/page/103642057/Front%20Page

Got in touch with the pbworks people; Mercs CE database is recovered! Plenty of cool builds on there
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I think the anti paydown hate plus the increased prevalence of KOs when both combined are too much.

MasaomiHouzuki posted...

I think the anti paydown hate plus the increased prevalence of KOs when both combined are too much.

You mean decreased prevalence I think

KOs are either costly APwise, have fatigue, or both

Pound for pound, they apply to less matches overall when players are playing optimally. Remember the aim is to increase the amount of battles you wage and give incentives for going to topic and making the matches at least somewhat competitive.
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Tag
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bump
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Goal of the week: Provide an example of how 'kill based' bounty hunting might work, work on a little something new related to the topic title. Stay tuned!
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will do
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suggested merc

Monika: DDLC
Pure Support

Ability: Just Monika (Peacetime)
Monika attaches to another preselected Merc and they cannot be rostered this week

effectively a KO, if by cooldowns I think its a once every 5 or 6. what do you guys think
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ScareChan posted...

suggested merc

Monika: DDLC
Pure Support

Ability: Just Monika (Peacetime)
Monika attaches to another preselected Merc and they cannot be rostered this week

effectively a KO, if by cooldowns I think its a once every 5 or 6. what do you guys think

I remember someone made a full build for Monika but don't remember who
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That was me. She was an anti-female support.
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It's just really hard to make a Monika build without spoiling the entire game, which shouldn't be done if it can ever be helped
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Yeah, it was hard enough watering down Monokuma's build without spoilers (aside from the fact it was released unpolished).
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sidetopic where you write a poem and if any of your mercs are judged to like it they get a morale boost
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it was such a good idea that everybody died of shock
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It's funnier if you have to write the poem and then the merc is randomly selected
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I'm still sad the courtroom sidetopic Phoenix Wright created in M1 never came back

that idea was aces
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I think that was Von Karma - that one could be fun to bring back. I think someone (GANON?) made a build like ten years ago that used all of the different prosecutors with different effects for each one that's probably still floating around somewhere. I can try to dig it up sometime.
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that'd be welcome tiro, give it a go

btw, I got a new teaser for y'all, stand by!
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Problem 1: Wartime is always a forfeit fiesta when players know what they're doing. This is boring for everyone involved.

Problem 2: Being a good mercs player means minimizing risks. This means not fighting if possible.

Problem 3: The rich get richer with no way to catch up except grab a broken merc that everyone missed.

Solution:

Step 1: Embrace the AP system to decrease windows of vulnerability, encouraging more aggressive plays.
Step 2: Introduce new ways to fight the strong teams' powerful mercenaries (Bounty System)
Step 3: ???
Step 4: A better, more aggressive, more entertaining game of Mercenaries!

It's time. Allow me to explain the mythical Step 3.

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Winstreaks and Takedowns

As you fight through your Mercs season, you will experience bitter defeats and, hopefully, triumphant victories. Should you accumulate significantly more of the latter than the former, your excellence will be rewarded - but keep an eye out, because so will whoever takes you down.

When a leader wins three consecutive matches in a row, uninterrupted by losses, they will begin to accumulate a winning streak bonus, coming into effect each Results after a win. Winstreak bonuses award GP (NOT infra - only flat GP, with one exception) in addition to the standard match rewards. The winstreak tiers are as follows:

Vicious (3 wins): 3 GP
Dominant (4 wins): 4 GP
Unstoppable (5 wins): 5 GP
Shake (6 wins): 6 GP
Conqueror (7 straight wins or more): 6 GP + 1 Infra

Meanwhile, ending a winstreak will instead provide additional infra - 1 infra per winstreak tier, then 1 additional infra per 2 wins above 7. So ending an 11-win Conqueror streak would award 7 infra, while ending a Vicious winstreak would award 1 additional infra (on top of the normal amount gained from winning a match). Punching above your weight class is a viable strategy to get ahead of the game!

Spectacle Bonus

Mercenaries is a game of tactical and strategic warfare, but it's not just that: it's also a spectator sport, and we've decided to encourage treating it as such. Should you go to topic during Wartime and lose your match but accrue at least 33% of the vote, you will receive a reward of +1 Infra for your valiant efforts. Note that this bonus will NOT apply if you forfeit, whether before the match is underway or during it. You must allow the match to reach completion to receive the Spectacle bonus! Additionally, an important clarification: Winners NEVER benefit from the Spectacle Bonus, unless an ability says otherwise (and expect it to have additional caveats if so). Consider your win rewards to already include it instead, if you wish.
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Bumping so everyone can see the above. Thoughts?
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So the spectacle bonus is basically Gordon's never wins ability made universal?
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Mewtwo59 posted...

So the spectacle bonus is basically Gordon's never wins ability made universal?

Bingo. We hadn't thought of that when we made it, but that's exactly how it's supposed to work (though a bit more forgiving). Part of what makes mercs such a hard game to play is that losses are absolutely crushing and binary. If you win you get infra, if you lose you get jack shit to justify your spent cooldowns or limited use abilities (in M5's case, Fatigue spenders). This makes people avoid going to topic, because doing Mercs-style arguing is already draining, but then LOSING after doing your best like that smashes your morale. This should go a long way towards encouraging people to fight, since it'll stop feeling like a loss means your world is ending due to you getting something for your efforts.
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I like it, as someone that got told to just forfeit matches(due to not knowing anything about what was going on and drafting terrible mercs) until I rage quit in draft mercs this makes me happy because I will argue any and every match even if I believe its impossible to win.
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How does Spectacle work in regards to other team owners?

We try to play straight but lets face it not everyone votes honestly. Is there going to be something to enforce voting legitamacy for spectator or giving non team owners weighted value?
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ScareChan posted...

How does Spectacle work in regards to other team owners?

We try to play straight but lets face it not everyone votes honestly. Is there going to be something to enforce voting legitamacy for spectator or giving non team owners weighted value?

No because we need leaders to vote and anyone who starts thing to vote strategically will get retaliated on. It's a tactic for idiots that will fuck those who employ it up, so I'm none too worried about that.
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rekt
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Tom Bombadil posted...

rekt

Wasnt meant to be a diss honestly

Its just that it doesn't work on a few levels

First, we have rules against vote soliciting. Selling your vote like that is a surefire way to get tagged by an aldor peacekeeper, minimum, if you don't just scheme silently.

Second, it incites retaliation as said above. In game theory this is called 'tit for tat'. What you do to me I will do to you, so if you hold back votes strategically to deny the bonus, people will start to antivote you subconsciously and abstain from matches in which they'd vote for you. It's like being the guy who uses the first nuclear weapon - you get to wave your dick around for a bit and then get annihilated by everyone else teaming up on you.

Lastly, it's just mentally and emotionally draining. You're fomenting an atmosphere of paranoia, anger and distrust, all for the sake of an extremely marginal advantage. The damage it will cause to your own play from having to look out for blades in the dark constantly is considerable and not likely to be compensated by the minor sabotages you'll inflict.

In conclusion...yes, you could do it, but why would you want to? It's a doomed strategy with no prospects.
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

In conclusion...yes, you could do it, but why would you want to? It's a doomed strategy with no prospects.

Doesnt this summarize Mercs in general?
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That's not what happened to the guy who used the first nuclear weapon though.
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DoomTheGyarados posted...

That's not what happened to the guy who used the first nuclear weapon though.

because nobody had access to the same options

first person to order a nuclear launch today loses alongside everyone else
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This is the same conversation we always had in M4 when it came to people breaking deals. "Well what if Person A just says 'Nuh uh, not holding up my end'?" "Then the other players would ruin him." "No they wouldn't, they're all craven shits." "Touche."
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Point

How would you suggest regulating it admin side without being super arbitrary tho
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Yeah, I'm sorry, but thinking people won't try and game your carefully constructed systems due to honour or fear of retaliation is just plain naive. Particularly from someone who bragged about the voting bloc he was part of in Mercs 4. Or think tank. Ultimately it's the same thing.
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Luis_Sera89 posted...

Yeah, I'm sorry, but thinking people won't try and game your carefully constructed systems due to honour or fear of retaliation is just plain naive. Particularly from someone who bragged about the voting bloc he was part of in Mercs 4. Or think tank. Ultimately it's the same thing.

I think there's a difference between intentional gaming of the system and unconscious biases. The latter are more limited and inconsistent. I voted against tom almost all the time cause I disliked the waterball gimmick but it wasn't for my own gain, for example. Likewise I disrespected dmc characters cause I don't like their toonforce factor much but that didn't follow an agenda. If you can fix intentional vote manips without catching this kind of stuff as collateral I'm all ears, I just don't know where to start.
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Well, that's just it - you can't. Mercs isn't a perfect strategy game. It isn't chess where action X will always have outcome Y. An absolutely integral part of it is voting to decide which team wins, and you can't regulate people's opinions and prejudices. The best you can do is restrict suspect voting and that's difficult to prove.

Ultimately what I'm saying is, trying to give people incentive not to forfeit just leads to players abusing that system. If there was a happy solution to limiting the number of forfeits, someone through four games would've found it by now. The truth is that most fights in most weeks are over before they reach topic because of an inherent unbalance of power between teams. In an ideal world teams would stay evenly matched for longer, but over the course of a season you will always get strong teams and weak teams, unless you artificially add rubber banding. Elimination matches in Mercs 4 attempted this, but people abused that too. Your proposal is like a less extreme version of this, but also easier to exploit with casual voting alliances to achieve 30%.

I don't wish to send negative, just offering a dose of realism that you're trying to solve a problem that only exists aesthetically. Having lots of forfeits looks bad but that happens as a matter of course. Topics featuring mismatches look even worse.
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But it's not going to happen as much because we're not trying to silver-bullet this problem. This is why we're introducing multiple systems to make the game more aggressive and simultaneously less sanity-destroying. I'm not trying to achieve a perfect fix here - all I want is for people to feel like it's fun to do match topics and that it's not stupid to engage in them, as opposed to doing 1-1 forfeit trades every cycle then only fighting one match out of three. Because it should be, instead of the emotionally grueling ordeal they were in M4.

EDIT: Basically what I'm trying to say is, M4 built a good base and we believe we can improve on it. And it's much, much better to try and fail to find a good enough solution than to give up before even making the attempt. If it doesn't turn out perfect, that's OK, the admin team of M6 will iterate on the work we do and come up with something that gets that much closer.
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I feel as if voting collusion could and would exist regardless unless you run mercs as entirely isolationist. Do I feel that a spectacle bonus is a be-all end-all solution? Nah. But I feel like it rewards more than it could be abused, with a beneficial but ultimately negligible boost, not to mention if collusion IS found, there is a system to enforce penalty. Not to mention that it is easy to discount obvious 'outlier' votes after a longer period of time with consistent performance likely seen in different tier and terrain environments. Imperfect, but ultimately detectable.
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Also, to emphasize this: we found the correct way to play in M4. There was absolutely no substitute to cabaling and doing 1-1 trades then exploding someone else in the third week because of how recharges worked. It's what allowed myself and trdl to survive in a pool of sharks with teams that kinda sucked (mine sure did at least, his was better off - seriously look at how much of a paper tiger my team was with recharges down), and also made boko and GANON's lives easier. Over time, that strategy yielded a consistent 66% winrate, which was significantly in excess of what the non-cabaled teams pulled off for the most part, especially given we forcibly had to fight the best opponents the game could offer. In any other game, a strategy that produced 66% WR would be banned outright, but because there's no good way to achieve this short of demanding players send us logs of everything they say to each other and banning alliances (which is clunky and dumb), we're instead trying to fix this by making it so there is less need to ally so heavily if you want to win, and incentives to not settling for the FF trade 'safe' option because you can roll the rest of the game if you're skilled enough to get ahead and stay there. I can't imagine not wanting to address this, because it makes for poor spectator sport and a boring set of decisions for the most part if players just quickly make groups and hand over infra to each other to avoid playing the interesting bits of the game out. Aside from some mayhem where we tried to control the declaration order, our weeks were extremely relaxed in M4 and they shouldn't have been.
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i'm all for fomenting an atmosphere of paranoia, anger and distrust

fwiw i think cognitive bias is a much stronger factor than conscious dishonest voting and very hard to do anything about so this kind of concern is just something you need to live with for the most part

speaking for myself i had no problem using underhanded tactics within the bounds of the game but voting dishonestly would have been straight up cheating and any advantage gained from that would have been totally unsatisfying to me
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rekt
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Ah, here's my old Noctis build. Doesn't take DLC or the new Mercs additions like AP into account, of course.

Noctis Lucis Caelum (Final Fantasy XV)
Heroic Male Human
Minimum Bid: 92 GP
Daily Upkeep: 6 GP/Week

Noctis is as seen in the endgame of Final Fantasy XV with Ultima Blade, Apocalypse, Executioner, Dragoon Lance and can additionally use with the following weapons with the same skill as their owner: ____. He has access to the entire Magic, Recovery, Combat, Teamwork, Stats and Armiger ascension trees. He has a few stocks of Firaga , Thundaga, and Blizzaga flasks and can use Armiger mode.

Armiger (Passive) - If an allied teammate is KO'd during the course of this week, Noctis may receive one of their weapons listed in either their writeup or customization as part of his armiger. Noctis will be able to use this weapon in battle with similar skill as its owner, but does not receive any extra abilities or parameter adjustment.

It's Good To Be King (Start of Battle) - In Noctis' world, being a king (or soon-to-be-king) comes with more than its normal advantages. When submitting a roster that includes Noctis, Noctis' leader can also select up to two of the other rostered mercs to form Noctis' royal entourage. This entourage will follow Noctis' orders implicitly, can engage in link strikes and with him, and will guard Noctis like he was their close friend. Additionally, any battle Noctis fights in will have the dark of night removed from it; the weather will always be bright and sunny.

Final Fantasy Versus ____ (Pre-Battle) -Noctis' home game has a storied history, and his owner can use that history to their advantage. Once every 4 weeks, a preselected enemy can be chosen. Noctis will gain knowledge, abilities and experience as if he was in a crossover game between Final Fantasy and the enemies' main series. The specifics are up to voter interpretation but what is fact is that Noctis is a central figure in the game.

UPGRADES:

(Character Upgrade, 10 EXP)

Noctis can choose to come into battle driving the Regalia-F. Any of his entourage may start in the Regalia with him.

(Ability Upgrade, 20 EXP)

Three allies can be chosen for It's Good To Be King. Additionally, each of Noctis' entourage will gain a small stock of -aga elemental flasks to use in battle and can engage in Armiger Chain with him.

(New Ability, 20 EXP)

Stand By Me (Start of Battle) -Once every 3 weeks, Noctis can use his warp strike to start next to a selected ally.
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needs the ability to lose to A HAND?!?

he can share it with kuja
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I'm not sure if this has been/already is implemented but if you want to reduce forfeits and have people play out the matches while actually having honest votes, what about restricting voting to after leaders get to argue their points for a bit, maybe restricting arguments made by other people to questions directed at the leaders themselves.
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Admittedly it was very frustrating as a player for a topic to start and there were multiple votes before even a copy pasted argument could make it up
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DeathChicken posted...

Admittedly it was very frustrating as a player for a topic to start and there were multiple votes before even a copy pasted argument could make it up

yeah I'll second that
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Why not have a 1 hour or both arguments posted delay on votes (whichever comes first), any votes before that timeframe are forfeit?

ZeeksFire posted...

Why not have a 1 hour or both arguments posted delay on votes (whichever comes first), any votes before that timeframe are forfeit?

Because it's clunky and voter-unfriendly

I'm big on 'waiting for arguments' becoming standard voter culture even if you're 300% sure DANTE SOLOS, but we need something better than 'check timestamps before voting'.
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