On Mercenaries and Companions

Legend

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21/02/2018
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I believe there may be a way to greatly improve the mercenary system.

Basically, my idea is that a mercenary has an upfront payment (that would probably be much higher than it is currently) and a secondary payment when the player wants to bring them with them. When the merc died, they would respawn back at the city they were hired in or the Player House, Tremadan Tower, or Hired from the City Tower. They could also be provided with equipment, leveled, and healed without losing the items you give them but without making them unbalanced

Their dialogue would look something like this:
"Hello friend, I am a mercenary looking for a work. For a small fee, say, 500g I can join you in your travels, or I would be happy to join your group permanently for 10,000g. Although I'd still require about 100g per trip for travel expenses."

It'd be nice if the golden hand could teach an ability to lower the cost of mercenaries and another to allow you to take more mercs with you in your travels. A cleric could teach the ability to restore health to their mercs (50% the first time, 100% at lvl 2) the warrior could have an 'inspiring leader' perk for them etc.

This all might be too complicated for the game, right now; but what do you guys think? Any other ideas?

Edit: Wizards Guild could have a special ability that allows them teleport hired
mercs to them from the city they are in, and Seventh House could have one that allows them to take the items off the merc's bodies after they die
 

p4ran0id

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A skill for trading would be nice.

About the rest, it's silly. Mercenary joining the group is something I only saw at legendary moonlight sculpture (manga), but that's beside logic. Who would give his life for getting items first*?!

*except Apple Users in front of the applestore waiting for a new iPhone (SCNR)
 

Legend

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p4ran0id":4f9urmcn said:
A skill for trading would be nice.

About the rest, it's silly. Mercenary joining the group is something I only saw at legendary moonlight sculpture (manga), but that's beside logic. Who would give his life for getting items first*?!

*except Apple Users in front of the applestore waiting for a new iPhone (SCNR)

That's true, but mercenaries already do die for just a few hundred gp

I don't mean they'll join your group the same way a companion does; just that they'll teleport back to the city where you hired them in and stick around after you have them join your group; making them semi-permanent npcs. They would still cost money to hire after they joined you-just not as much as they would normally,

The benefit to this would be that you could safely give them armor and weapons without having to worry about losing them if they die.
 

p4ran0id

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That would destroy the game mechanics.

It's same as infinite iventory. That won't work without changing the whole gameplay. Limited inventory is one of the features this game offers. You have to find a way to get along with that. You can see this as a quest ;)
 

Xen

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It can ruin the game mechanic for companions, I like the idea but the equipment slot is too much. It is good if you can equip it with items permanently and you can't remove it once equipped but mercenaries are useless because of the fact that they can't be left behind in a distance, it will die easily in flame pits, toxic pools, death smokes, blizzards and other terrain/environmental elements. I like equipping the mercenary to survive longer with the same old mechanics that once dead it can no longer revive but the only thing I dislike about mercs is you don't have option to control it that is why you can't bring it to certain places.

Maybe a good suggestion is to have an option to recruit it again from the tavern/inn after you dismissed it.
 

p4ran0id

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Idea:

You can use your companion for selling. My idea is, you can give him an amount of items and send him to next town to sell it. He will be gone for (for example) 12h and will come back with the money.
You have to fight alone during that time, but you could get rid of some items without going back to town.

(since there will be only one update so far, that's too much for exiled kingdoms, but maybe David could use it for the next game ;))
 

Cuckoorex

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Mercenaries get killed so quickly and they're so weak that I never even pay the smaller fee for them; I'd rather spend it on a summoning scroll if I'm going to spend anything at all to add another meat shield.
 

JediNxf7

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26/05/2020
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Yeah I was kinda hoping that for 1100 gold I'd get a better meat shield vs king of korne than a level 7. he didn't even survive the trip there.

that said, shout out to whoever named this mercenary Jorah the Explorer
 

VDX_360

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A bit of an old thread but I get the ever present concern over mercenaries.

The joke with mercenaries is by the time you can afford them, they're useless. Harsh, but not entirely untrue. That being said, on my last play through, I hired a mercenary to help kill the Unweakened Undermother. I expected the mercenary just to take a few hits and die. Instead, the mercenary survived the entire fight, and got the KILLING blow on the Undermother when my Companion was dead and my main character was stunned. So yeah, Mercenaries can still be useful.

And that's kind of the point of mercenaries. They're not designed to make your team over powered, but instead offer a little more combat power for long dungeons or tough fights. A party-centric Cleric has a few skills that buff party members that help buff mercenaries, but even than, don't expect mercenaries to pull their weight in gold.
 

Brunors95

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Mercenaries are so weak that I don't even hire them anymore, in fact, if they level up along with you and your companion or if you only hire mercenaries of your level they would be something good, but you can't even control their build, so probably they have the weakest equipment ingame and even lack rings and cloaks, mlst probably wear iron longswords, I have hired lots of mercenaries when I first played game, and that was a waste of money, as many of them didn't survive even 10 seconds with me after leaving the cities, so I considered them a waste of paid money, with cleric you can make them live longer, but, well, if you have cleric, it's better to summon a spiritual wolf + sumonner lvl 3 than hiring mercenaries
 

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