Curse

Dzjudz · Mar 09, 2011, 06:39 PM // 18:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrettM

I have not made the claim that no advantage exists, so I have nothing to prove. I am simply challenging those who claim it does exist to demonstrate it before I'll believe it.

I want my mesmers! (though, have to give credit to Shadow Form + E/Mo of course

)

BrettM · Mar 09, 2011, 07:28 PM // 19:28

Fair enough. You've set a benchmark to match. I'm not sure I'm the one to take on this particular challenge, though, since I've only done DoA once, with a full human team. I doubt I could come close to matching your time even if I used your team. Hopefully someone who knows DoA will be up to giving this one a try with a non-merc team.

Dzjudz · Mar 09, 2011, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Oh, just to point out, that wasn't me. Just an ss from another thread, all credit goes to Life Bringing (I don't have Mercs).

*lemming* · Mar 09, 2011, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrettM

With 27 heroes already in the game, there are 4,475,671,200 ways to select seven of them to build a team. For each of those team compositions, there are an enormous number of builds for each hero chosen. I don't think anyone without mercs is really being stifled in the options available to them, since it is not humanly possible to explore all the options we already have. Granted, most of the options will be crap. But, the same can be said of the additional options available with merc heroes.

Your math is wrong. The number of distinct combinations of heroes in a party is not 27*26*25*24*23*22*21 as you seem to think, it is 27 nCr 7 = 888,030, which is still far higher than the real value, due to the fact that heros of the same profession are regarded by that number as distinct, despite there being no functional difference between, say, Olias and Livia. Unfortunately, I don't remember enough math to calculate the exact value.

By contrast, with five mercenary slots, that number increases to 10*10*10*10*10*10*10 = 10,000,000.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrettM

I don't think anyone without mercs is really being stifled in the options available to them, since it is not humanly possible to explore all the options we already have. Granted, most of the options will be crap. But, the same can be said of the additional options available with merc heroes.

Would you complain if there were a microtransaction for players to take a second secondary profession in PvE? It won't matter, right? Most of the options will be crap!

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrettM

@Lemming: the onus is not on me to prove a negative. The onus is on those making the positive claim. I have not made the claim that no advantage exists, so I have nothing to prove. I am simply challenging those who claim it does exist to demonstrate it before I'll believe it. Why should I spend money on something that has not yet been shown to work?

The only way to test this is for those who think they have found such a merc team to post the details and a benchmark of performance, at which point others can try to match it with a non-merc team. At some point there will be a preponderance of evidence pointing one way or the other. With so many combinations available either way, absolute proof is simply not possible.

Wait for it. Try to keep in mind that unlike the period immediately after a skill balance, where you'll probably have a pretty significant chunk of the playerbase exploring new options, only a relatively small segment of them have bought mercenary slots, which prohibits many would-be innovators from tinkering.

I believe it's been proposed more than once - if they had just introduced generic heroes of variable primary profession, people wouldn't be complaining at all.

BrettM · Mar 10, 2011, 01:17 PM // 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

Would you complain if there were a microtransaction for players to take a second secondary profession in PvE? It won't matter, right? Most of the options will be crap!

You caught me on the math error. I don't know what I was thinking, but I blame it on too many years gone by since I took basic probability. Or sunspots. My bad.

I don't think I would complain of the above, unless someone showed a build that wasn't crap. If you want an example that would make me complain, hypothesize a microtransaction that allowed players to exceed the limit of three PvE skills. The playerbase wouldn't need 30 seconds to prove that this produces an advantage.

For the merc heroes, I'm willing to wait for it, as you suggest. I never denied that it might work out to an advantage. I simply object to all the screams of outrage before anyone has been provably hurt. I just can't see harm as a foregone conclusion in this case, as it would be with extra PvE skills. Should the case be proven, I will be glad to pick up my pitchfork and torch and join the rest of the villagers in storming ANet's castle.

Meanwhile, I am a bit bothered that ANet has not chosen to give any comment, official or unofficial, on the issue. It obviously IS a serious concern to the playerbase, and it seems like pretty poor CR to not even acknowledge this publicly. Perhaps ANet is hard at work crafting a response, but they should at least throw up a twitter to tell us this instead of meeting the concern with complete silence.

In fact, ANet would have to be strangely clueless not to have realized in advance that such concerns would be expressed, so they should have had a response in hand the day of the release.

Plutoman · Mar 12, 2011, 06:30 AM // 06:30

I'd complain if there was an option to take a another secondary profession. There's quite a few times constructing builds that I wish I could have had that option available. Specific cases, for sure, but it would definitely by viable in many areas, particularly farming.

Anyways, mercs might provide a slight advantage. However, it's not much of one; using 7 heroes there's not much of a difference between the types. There's only so much you can compensate for AI for by using certain team builds of this size. Most of the general rit/necro/mesmer builds will serve just as well. Understandable, it would be *nice* to use 4 mesmers in a team, abusing the AI a tad, but I don't believe it provides a significant advantage.. Maybe a somewhat easier time in the DoA (1h 40 instead of 2h, as an example), but it generally won't make a difference.

Honestly, as a game that's provided free, and it's been free for a long time, with very little revenue input, they really need a source of income from it. They don't get advertising revenue, they're putting out a lot of money for servers and they're not gonna get near as much back from the current playerbase buying new expansions :P They need to make some money somehow; people will buy mercenaries, and they provide only a slight advantage if any at all. Win/win.

FoxBat · Mar 12, 2011, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Looking over the new "metaway" people are posting, which is basically 2 rit, 2 mesmer, 3 necros. Often they "really" want their 3 necros to be this:

Dedicated healer/protter (could be necro)
MM (definitely necro - a few areas you don't want this guy at all though)
Damage/shutdown (very often better as a 3rd mesmer)

Seems pushing 3 or 4 mesmers is frequently advantageous - for a price.

Jeydra · Mar 13, 2011, 07:21 AM // 07:21

I have a question. If it's fair to say that mercenary heroes provide an in-game advantage for money, wouldn't it also be fair to say that purchasing EotN provides an in-game advantage for money?

Dzjudz · Mar 13, 2011, 11:49 AM // 11:49

Yes, but comparing a €10 expansion with all the content to €35 heroes?

BrettM · Mar 13, 2011, 03:46 PM // 15:46

No, that would not be a fair comparison. Campaigns and expansions are not microtransactions or bundles of microtransactions.

Players expect an MMO to grow over the years, adding new features, skills, etc. If new campaigns were simply a clone of the first campaign with a different story, ANet would be leaving out a major chunk of the potential market. Nobody can blame ANet for delivering these things in the game packages, and players who come late to the party know they are going to have to play catch-up for a while. If they don't like that idea, they go looking for a different game where they can get in on the ground floor along with everyone else. Most players buy the campaigns and expansions because they want to play them, not as a way of "buying win".

9tails · Mar 15, 2011, 06:45 PM // 18:45

I think a big part of it is just that $20 for 3 merc slots or $45 for 8 is really kinda expensive. I'd love to do that, but I'm very reluctant to drop that kind of money on a game I play every few months.

Beomagi · Mar 20, 2011, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrettM

No, that would not be a fair comparison. Campaigns and expansions are not microtransactions or bundles of microtransactions.

Players expect an MMO to grow over the years, adding new features, skills, etc. If new campaigns were simply a clone of the first campaign with a different story, ANet would be leaving out a major chunk of the potential market. Nobody can blame ANet for delivering these things in the game packages, and players who come late to the party know they are going to have to play catch-up for a while. If they don't like that idea, they go looking for a different game where they can get in on the ground floor along with everyone else. Most players buy the campaigns and expansions because they want to play them, not as a way of "buying win".

Sounds like a fair comparison to me. People with access to 1 game are at a disadvantage no? adding a story and gameplay with a purchase makes it money better spent. Buying nightfall and eotn were far far more advantageous for me compared to merc slots.

FoxBat · Apr 01, 2011, 04:19 AM // 04:19

Bumping because I have a new opinion after spending some time with the 3-pack. 7 necros may be nothing, but 4+ mesmer builds are completely insane. Massive AoE armor-ignoring damage, thanks in part to coordinating their interrupts and hexes better than humans. They make both for optimal speedclears and solid general PvE meta builds, and are extremely easy to use. I've run time trials of several common 7H builds and the mesmers always pull out far ahead. I had my OoU buddy in a vanquish stop summoning minions because everything was dead before he could get anywhere near them. They can be a little fragile on defense, but the huge speed gains are more than worth it.

So my verdict, yes there's an enormous advantage for duplicating this one particular class. I mean when you're on par with meta pugway something is definitely up.