Some Buff Ideas for Mercenaries

[Shazbotacus]

It's generally agreed that among the Mastermind primary sets, Mercenaries stands out in its mediocrity. As someone who loves the idea of leading a team of soldiers yet is dismayed at the mercs' lack of worthwhile strengths, I'd like to take a serious look at trying to put them on par with their competition.

 

To start off, we must first understand what is seen as wrong with Mercenaries. That is, there isn't much to say about it: Mercenaries lack meaningful damage and survivability. Compared to Thugs they only have their inherent resistance against S/L and the Medic's one heal to keep themselves alive while Thugs Enforcers giving all their henchmen about 15% defense against everything. Also compared to Thugs, Soldiers hover around 1.34 damage per activation cycle in their single target attacks while Thugs get around 2 and 1.8, or a little over two thirds more "DPS." While it's true Spec Ops have CC powers available to them, they are on such long recharge timers (2-3 minutes) that they are not even available every fight. So let's get to addressing these issues.

 

Addressing Damage

Part of what really hurts Mercenaries damage output is the obscenely long activation time of their standard shooting attacks. Burst -> Heavy Burst -> Full Auto all take a long time to finish firing. I'd suggest keeping their recharge and total damage and changing them to Single Shot -> Burst -> Heavy Burst, and setting the activation time of Burst to be more like what players get from Assault Rifle: 1.00 second instead of 2.67. Like this, we end up with activation times of 0.9, 1.00, and 2.67 respectively. This should bring the damage per activation cycle of the Soldiers' three attacks of this new chain to 1.94, 1.71, and 0.96 if my calculations are right, so much closer to Punks. It may also be desirable to change Heavy Burst to a higher damage single target attack. The arc was only five degrees anyhow, and damage went down the drain for it; up Heavy Burst damage per activation cycle from 0.96 to 1.8 or so and leave AoE damage to the Commando.

 

This should also carry over to Spec Ops, and I'd argue that their SCAR Snipe should even be replaced. They need to be doing more damage and dumping flashbangs and teargas on hostiles, not hanging back and sniping. Sniping does not help this set. Burst -> Heavy Burst -> SCAR Snipe becomes Single Shot -> Burst -> Heavy Burst; it all stays single target. Just use the firing sound of the Snipe for the Single Shot.

 

Moving on to Commando, my one gripe is LRM Rocket. It does decent damage but not for its 4 minute recharge. Like the Spec Ops, the Commando doesn't need a snipe. I'd replace this with just another AoE grenade: Incendiary Grenade as a heavy fire damage over time with similar damage spread over 12 seconds, shorter 80 foot range, and a much shorter 30 second recharge.

 

Then I'd take away everyone's Brawl. This has been a popular request for all ranged Mastermind primary sets, to remove Brawl from these pets.

 

Addressing Survivability

First I'll look at Medic. He should be healing the team, but he's too busy throwing aggro grenades and punching things much, much bigger and stronger than he is in the face or groin. In addition to the previously mentioned "take away Brawl," I'd also replace his Frag Grenade on final upgrade with an area effect heal around himself, and add a +100% regeneration effect and wide area effect on his Stimulant so he can get the whole squad in one application.

 

Finally, Spec Ops again. The simplest thing to do is to merely cut the recharge time of Flashbang and Teargas down to something more reasonable, like say 45 seconds instead of the current 2 and 3 minutes. It might be needed to lower the hold magnitude of Teargas from 3 to 2; a mag 3 AoE hold from two henchmen sounds possibly too effective, and it's better that these mitigating powers be consistent and available every fight and last long enough to matter. If we go ahead with removing brawl from the whole set, we can keep these guys out of melee too by taking out Rifle Butt and replacing it with, say, Glue Grenade from the PPD SWAT to slow down enemies and hurt their power recharge a bit on a 60 second cooldown. Web Grenade might be given a longer duration of 30 seconds to match its recharge and keep that juicy -recharge rate debuff on an enemy longer.

Addressing Serum

Jesus this power is just bad. Possibly justifying a special case overturning of the "cottage rule" levels of bad. It's like an armor set's T9, but it crashes after just one minute, recharges in 1,000 seconds, and only affects one henchman. For realsies. Super soldier serums are a neat trope, but not specifically helpful for supporting the whole set of henchmen. What can we do with this thing?

 

1. Aerosolized Regeneration Serum - Assists Survivability

The player lobs a grenade-like canister and releases the ARS around a target henchman, affecting all nearby henchmen in a 25 foot radius with +600% Regeneration for 30 seconds on a 4 or 5 minute recharge. This, with base regeneration, should mean about 40% health regenerated every 12 seconds, or full healing done in half a minute.

 

2. ACE Support - Assists Damage

Teleport in a soldier wearing the ACE, Aerial Combat Exoskeleton, which is a full body suit of power armor with a jet pack for flight. He carries a scary grenade launcher like the one used by the PPD, and rains several types of destructive grenades for massive area effect damage and scorched earth on your enemies for a full minute before teleporting out to refuel and rearm. Like Assault Bot but purely area effect focused. Recharges in ten minutes. Can be targeted and shot down. Alternatively, summon a sky skiff with a similar armament of high-yield rocket propelled explosives, but that'd look silly to use on indoor missions which is most of them.

 

3. Simple Solution

Just cut that recharge down to like ten minutes, make it affect the whole squad, and remove the crash bro, like instead of the one needle it's an aerosolized gas from a grenade or something and spreads the Serum's effects to all your henchmen.

 

Okay this took like a couple hours to write or something. Lemme know what you think, okay? I'd really like to see Mercs helped. Anyways its late af and I got work tomorrow so brb sleep or something

Edited September 12, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[Galaxy Brain]

All solid ideas, but I think brawl cannot be removed. 😞

[Shazbotacus]

Oof. What prevents removing Brawl? Lich seems to work without it.

 

EDIT: I just gave a closer look at the Lich's behaviour. No matter the upgrades, it seems to move within 40 feet of the target, and I think this is so it can use its Tenebrous Tentacles appropriately. It also runs through its attacks fairly quickly, with what seems to be minimal hiccups. If the issue is the Mercs' AI sending them into melee regardless of Brawl's presence, and it is not possible to re-write their AI to not do this, I'd recommend copying the Lich's AI to them instead. This especially seems ideal for the Commando and his cone AoE attacks, Buckshot and Flamethrower.

 

That being said I'm not 100% sure on how feasible any of this is. I need someone that knows the system to tell me if I'm on point or to learn2dev.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[Vanden]

People have been suggesting removing Brawl from pets for ages, but if it were that simple to stop pets from running into melee it would’ve been done years ago.

[Shazbotacus]

It still needs to be done. If it can be done, even if it's difficult, if it is at all possible, it needs attention. It should've been done on live. It shouldn't have been a thing in the first place. It still needs to be done now.

 

If not, then...  give them bayonets so their melee is at least worth using. This was not Paragon/Cryptic's finest moment when they decided to write their ranged pet AI to endanger themselves in melee just to use an intentionally bad power, while Lich does not engage any closer than is needed to use its still-not-melee-range powers, and effectively cycle through its abilities with minimal hiccups. Eh, I gotta go to work.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[Galaxy Brain]

I'd rather pet melee attacks at least be good. The AI tweaks out if they dont have a melee attack it seems, so maybe just make them all have a rifle butt that can cause a solid stun over a generic brawl

[EyeLuvBooks]

I'd like to chime in on this as a player of MANY MMs now and on Live.

 

1) If MM pets go stupid (I mean...MORE stupid...) if they don't have a melee attack then this is easily solved: Give them a fast-firing, low-DPS attack that will recharge before Brawl does. As was mentioned above, the Lich almost never goes into melee because it always has a ranged power ready and it prioritizes those. A low-DPS attack will keep the pets from being OP and it dissuades them from entering melee unless the enemy does it first.

 

2) PLEASE give the pets a melee attack that's worth a fiddler's damn! Once we have the 'Leroy Jenkins' problem fixed then we need to address the fact that the melee attacks for the pets simply suck. Give them a slow-recharge but moderate damage melee attack that will be ready (because they've been at range so far) when the enemy charges in. The pet gets one good attack before launching it its regular attack chain. Not that I encourage this for ALL pets, even the ones like Zombies and Ninjas because it's not like their melee attacks are OP either.

 

3) As much as I can't refute the OP's suggestions, might I suggest that we fix Ninjas FIRST? IMHO they have more issues and perform worse than just about any Merc combo out there. I'm not saying that Mercs don't need some love but I'd like to see numbers on how many players get to even 40 with Ninjas let alone 50.  I'm a triage kinda guy and I feel that the worst performers should be fixed first.

[Galaxy Brain]

It seems Mercs are below Ninjas 😛

[EyeLuvBooks]

14 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It seems Mercs are below Ninjas 😛

Mercs are below Ninjas as far as popularity...that chart shows nothing about how effectively they play.

 

You got any data that shows how many of each set get to 50?

[Shazbotacus]

@EyeLuvBooks

To 1) About that Lich, I had the boi attack a few groups of mobs without upgrades, so he just had two powers in his arsenal. Even when no powers were available for use, he did not approach closer than the usual 40 feet or so and would just stand off at that range until ready to fire again. To me, this suggests the Lich's particular AI directs the pet to approach, between firing powers, to a specific and set distance before stopping and just firing off powers, which works very, very well. The Lich, consequently, is one of the "smartest" and most efficient pets and it does not unnecessarily endanger itself while the rest of the pets engage melee. The Protector Bots seem to behave in a similar manner. Neither Lich nor Protector Bots have any melee attacks. I am therefor very dubious that it is truly so difficult to arrange other ranged henchmen to behave in a similar manner with a more appropriate AI set and remove their unnecessary brawl. Someone with actual experience in working with these pets and their behaviors should tell me if I am wrong, please, because I am genuinely interested in knowing exactly what is going on. Maybe this is steering off the Mercs topic for my thread a little too much, but this issue does very much affect them as well.

 

This is what gives me the impression that the Lich's AI can be used for ranged pets. I'm no expert, but all the AI seems to tell the pet to do is to go to that range, about 40 feet, and fire off powers at a target. This is perfect for several henchmen: For Commando this is ideal for using Buckshot and Flamethrower, for Punks and Arsonist this is great for their Empty Mags and Fire Breath, and for Assault Bot this is great for Flamethrower.

 

To 2) Well, barring a fix to their AI, I'm starting to think landing melee attacks for primarily ranged henchmen, if it's going to be terrible damage, could maybe do something to assist survivability like Parry adds defense on hit or inflict some kind of offense debuff rather than plain damage. That being said, fixing ranged pet AI and dropping their brawl would still be ideal. Pets running up to melee end up being in very poor positions for any cone AoE attacks they have (see the paragraph above this one.)

 

To 3) Hm, were I more experienced with Ninjas I could start a thread for them and provide some educated suggestions on improving their position.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[Galaxy Brain]

14 minutes ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

Mercs are below Ninjas as far as popularity...that chart shows nothing about how effectively they play.

 

You got any data that shows how many of each set get to 50?

That is the thread for how many get to 50. Those number show the amount of merc/ , ninja/, etc characters on HC at lvl 50

[Haijinx]

A lot of these underperforming but thematic friendly sets are popular with roleplayers 

 

So they may actually be over represented.

[Redlynne]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

 

 

2 hours ago, EyeLuvBooks said:

You got any data that shows how many of each set get to 50?

 

I always love it when people are directly handed the answer ... and they just drop it on the floor as if no answer was provided to them.

[Black Zot]

11 hours ago, Vanden said:

People have been suggesting removing Brawl from pets for ages, but if it were that simple to stop pets from running into melee it would’ve been done years ago.

 

Unlikely.  It's crystal clear from how fragile pets are (dying at the same rate they get aggro or the boss's PBAoE recharges, whichever comes first) that the original devs wanted MMs to be resummoning pets on cooldown.  Running into melee pointlessly works in service to that goal.

[Shazbotacus]

Unfortunately all we have is speculation, and I'm just not comfortable with that. It's baffling trying to understand why only two pets have decent AI for their ranged function while the rest charge in, endanger themselves, ruin their AoE cone attack arcs, and neglect their ability to attack at range just to use one terrible power. Fifteen years later actually thinking about it, I'm bewildered how this happened in the first place and unconvinced that it's as impossible to fix as other people say; that it's been an issue for a long time alone doesn't sell me that it must have been because it can't be fixed. I don't buy the common notion that no melee attacks interferes with the AI when they have a henchman AI set that works just fine without them, flinging single-target and AoE cone attacks while the other ranged henchmen effectively do the same thing. However neither can I be 100% certain of my "hypothesis" because, in all this time, no one felt anyone in their audience would be smart enough to understand what was really going on and just said what the problem is, at least it is to my knowledge that no statement on the matter was released by the former devs or the new Homecoming team. If it's somewhere, please point it out to me.

 

Maybe there was some disconnection between designing the AI or function, or both, of many of these henchmen and how they actually perform in practice. Maybe the developers working on these pets thought Punks and Soldiers should be able to punch enemies in the face that got too close, yet for some reason this reasoning never got extended to Lich and Protector Bots. After that, perhaps they thought the AI should proactively use these attacks originally given to them just for close self defense. Meanwhile Protector Bots and Lich don't mindlessly throw themselves in melee range and behave in a manner totally contrary to their strength in range while Arsonist still routinely commits suicide by melee with everything, he may as well not have been summoned at all some times.

 

I can't have been the only person to observe the Lich's AI behavior and think that it would work well as a replacement for the other henchmen. Is that just impossible to do? Did they try it and it didn't pan out? No one ever said. I don't remember seeing anyone suggest the idea before, yet it just seems obvious to me now, or am I just talking stupid? In the words of Mugatu from Zoolander, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills."

 

Le sigh. I'm starting to think I'm derailing too far from my original topic of "fix mercs pls." I still genuinely want to know the issue with fixing henchman AI. I'm no game designer, but I guess I wanted to be at one point when the industry wasn't the greed-filled mess it is now. I have an Associate's in computer science with some courses in programming, we did C++ in my classes, but that's it. Haven't practiced in friggin' years, however long it's been since my passion died. There's still a part of me that would like to make these fun experiences, though my credentials are sorely lacking or I'd help myself to the volunteer recruitment post.

 

This is all a topic for another thread. Let's talk about fixing mercs; I know they need it and I want people pitching in and making me feel validated.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[Zenex]

   I loved my merc/pain on live, he was a tankermind so I was in melee a lot and /pain kept the morons alive pretty well. The only think I hated was the medic, his heal sucked and with the second upgrade he was worthless imo as he would only spam stimulate nothing else. I even went as far to dismiss and resummon him so he didn't get the second upgrade as it was changed to an aoe. 

 

  All I would change is remove brawl, remove stim from the medic and replace that with something more useful i.e an aoe heal, or regen boost. 

[Shazbotacus]

Actually, I'd be interested in keeping Stimulant but adding an AoE on target component to it. Like what Protector Bots should have with their shield. Possibly in addition to a regeneration buff as well. As for an AoE heal, I'd replace frag grenade with that.

[VanguardXL]

I don't have the number at hand, but I saw that the corresponding attack powers Mercs have are the old animations and times, not the refurbished AR animations. Maybe just bringing those in line with what AR currently has would help. 

[Shazbotacus]

Yeah, I mentioned the long activation times. It says in their power details. That's still a thing, but only for Burst; Heavy Burst and Auto Fire has the same activation time as Heavy Burst from SoA and Full Auto from Assault Rifle.

 

Those animations only make sense with long activation times. It's one reason I'd like to see the Mercs change to using Single Shot -> Burst -> Heavy Burst like the SoA does. The other reason is less ticks of damage would mean more damage per tick, so each bullet ends up doing more damage. It kinda bothers me seeing six guys furiously mag dumping on each minion to kill them, like their guns are shooting nerf darts. There'll still be a lot of shots per kill, but less so.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[VanguardXL]

Ah, I sit corrected then.

[Redlynne]

6 hours ago, VanguardXL said:

I don't have the number at hand, but I saw that the corresponding attack powers Mercs have are the old animations and times, not the refurbished AR animations. Maybe just bringing those in line with what AR currently has would help. 

Reference Link

[Shazbotacus]

Yeah, those numbers are telling. Mercs has been needing a fix since live.

[Redlynne]

3 hours ago, Shazbotacus said:

Mercs has been needing a fix since live City of Villans launched.

Fixed that for you.

[Shazbotacus]

Yeah, I thought about saying that. Seeing it, it's far, far more accurate.

[AerialAssault]

I think one of the issues is an AI problem and not a power problem, as there are enemies with melee attacks that will stay at range if they can help it, chiefly Council Marksmen. Despite having a Brawl attack, they will, most of the time, fire their rifles rather than close the distance. They do use brawl if confronted in melee, and I have seen them charge in from time to time as well. But most of the time, they stay at range.

 

AI behaviour can also be observed in AE enemies. Even ones set to range will attempt to close to melee distance if they have a melee attack and no other ranged attacks available. I do seem to recall one of the Live devs talking about AI behaviour and that enemy groups have a sort of 'hive mind', where if a certain number of enemies are engaged in melee, then the rest will stay at range until a position opens up for them to charge in.

 

Of course, from what little I know of programming, any time someone mentions "AI Coding" it tends to send a shiver down programmer's spines, so I won't hold my breath on that being changed any time soon. However, if there is a quick solution, well, the Beta server exists to test these things.