Anyone else just kinda hate the whole mercenaries mechanic?

As I've suggested in the appropriate forum, Mercs should be levelable like skill gems. They gain XP to a point, and then you decide whether or not to progress them. ='[.]'=

mercs are the best. without summon mercs, like the zombie merc or the fallen emperor merc, i wouldnt be able to kill a lot of bosses, or do niko's mines. they need to keep mercs forever.

"

chaD#3533 wrote:

mercs are the best. without summon mercs, like the zombie merc or the fallen emperor merc, i wouldnt be able to kill a lot of bosses, or do niko's mines. they need to keep mercs forever.

But see....this is actually a great reason why they SHOULDN'T stick around.

I promise I'm not attacking you personally, or have anything against you accomplishing new things thanks to the power that mercs bring.

BUT

The reason you are able to beat these bosses and other content is not because you have personally improved or learned the bosses (which is the real intention behind the game)......instead it is because you simply have an automatically more powerful teammate that bypasses the learning process and potential build mistakes. THIS is a fancier way of saying that mercenaries dumb down the game, and especially build creation. Long term, they are actually most likely hurting YOUR progress without you even knowing it.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

"

chaD#3533 wrote:

mercs are the best. without summon mercs, like the zombie merc or the fallen emperor merc, i wouldnt be able to kill a lot of bosses, or do niko's mines. they need to keep mercs forever.

But see....this is actually a great reason why they SHOULDN'T stick around.

I promise I'm not attacking you personally, or have anything against you accomplishing new things thanks to the power that mercs bring.

BUT

The reason you are able to beat these bosses and other content is not because you have personally improved or learned the bosses (which is the real intention behind the game)......instead it is because you simply have an automatically more powerful teammate that bypasses the learning process and potential build mistakes. THIS is a fancier way of saying that mercenaries dumb down the game, and especially build creation. Long term, they are actually most likely hurting YOUR progress without you even knowing it.

Going that route, you cold make a point that almost every new mechanic dumbs down the game
Every new mechanic pushes power creep a bit higher and that itself make the game simpler, new farm methods lets you get currency faster if you simple youtube the strategy and enable broken characters with less knowledge of the rest of the games mechanics, you just know that one specific strategy, heck for some strats you dont even need to know exactly how things interact to make the setup work, just copy-paste the tree and scarabs and presto
Ditto for new items and new mechanics, those further push in direction to enable broken characters that let you demolish the game without interact with monsters, again, similar to farm strats there are instances that you dont need to deeply understand the mechanics that are scaling your damage or the defensive layers at play, just follow the flowchart given and you get by

Really understanding the game is optional at the end of the day, action rpg in general is a genre that enables copy-pasting and execution barrier is low, you dont need to really "get good" to clear top content, that is nothing new and its not something introduction of mercs enable any more than the introduction of T16.5 did

+1 for mercs to not go core.

I hate being forced to manage extra units unless I'm playing a RTS. Skipped the league and I'm not touching the game ever again if mercs go core.

"

feike#6684 wrote:

Going that route, you cold make a point that almost every new mechanic dumbs down the game

that's not making a point, that is absolute fact. All new content that adds borrowed or even unborrowed power is making the game easier. Shaper (non-uber) was the pinnacle of the game. Before that? Act 3 Dominus. Now? Double Uber Shaper is pretty damn easy, let alone normal Shaper

The problem here is the scale of power on a single new mechanic. And the fact that the power is outside your own build.

Isn't this kind of crazy? The guy gives you two major auras

How are Mercs any different than playing in a party?

If we're arguing for removing Mercs then we should also require that the game becomes a Solo endeavour too?

Personally I love them as an addition to the game. They open up new ways of playing the game and regardless of the various positions of they are good/bad, overall I just find them to be fun.

Could the mechanic be improved upon? Certainly! But you can say that about almost any of the mechanics in the game.

100% hope Mercs goes core. Awesome job GGG.