Board 8 > Mercenaries 5, Day 0: Heart of Ember, Autumntide

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ahhh, I see what you're saying now. That's a good catch and we can certainly amend it! It's definitely true that I at least personally wouldn't humor arguments saying, say, 'Leon is going to use his gun while closing in and then go for CQC' compared to him keeping his distance and then using martial arts and the knife if someone gets in on him. We can absolutely tweak that to make it clearer.

FFDragon posted...

But I know I'm annoying and maybe if you get a whole new crew it won't matter. I'm going to attempt to ignore these as much as possible, no promises though.

There's no escape for any of us. I thought you were well aware of that by now.

Lopen posted...

Like if nothing else I think keeping them completely factual with primary in game sources is an attainable goal

Replace Tifa's little Mac quip with someone she actually beats in her games 1v1.
Replace Leon's preference for melee with proficiency with melee as ffd said and cite the Krauser fight.

This isn't a half bad way to go about it, yeah -- I think some builds are already doing this, even (Selvaria and Zenos spring to mind here -- both are obviously built with a 'hypeman' angle but reference actual cutscene feats to back up their hype). We could absolutely standardize this more and lean on it harder. Do any bios stick out as not quite adhering to this hard enough outside of those two?

Just keep all speculation out

If it doesn't directly happen or display in a game then keep it out

You should specifically cite games as standard and have moments or mechanics that support it from the game

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Do any bios stick out as not quite adhering to this hard enough outside of those two

I'll look em over later today. I only noticed these because ffd brought them up.

I only started skimming those I was most familiar with so far.

But I'm also trying not to get too sucked back in.

But but M2 raises a valid point.

I do agree with no speculation and citing direct game feats as the standard though

I'm cool with general, semi-subjective descriptions ("strong tank" "weak in melee" "this is a good option at range") for the reasons stated of "what if people DON'T know every video game or want to spend the rest of their lives studying" but yeah the Mac/Tifa line in specific raised an eyebrow. Nothing else I saw bugged me but I didn't look at everybody or go over it with a fine-toothed comb. I envision them kinda like OG Mercs bios that had more detail at the expense of impartiality. I also appreciate that each of them (that I looked at) also had a line about the weak points.

I think all that sums up as I'm fine with a basic "scouting report", I'm less fine with comparisons with characters from other franchises

Eddv posted...

Mac wins, deal with it.

The main thing making me want to join is to continue Mac's legacy as the premier assassain. He never lost under my ownership

Sidenote I am looking at Leon's bio and I am now reminded that he got punted like a football field away into metal and was just vibing after that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glV21LKk7Iw

If there's a thing that I think gives me some confidence on how research still matters, it's this kind of thing. It's one thing to read 'he's withstood getting thrown long distances by BOWs' and another to see what's actually done to him live on camera, at least to me. The former sets the terms, but the latter is the one that makes me go 'ok so Sagat getting in on Leon isn't an automatic doomsday scenario for him'.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Sagat getting in on Leon isn't an automatic doomsday scenario for him'.

Depends if it's O. Sagat

Can't CQC all these i.frames

oh god O.Sagat

Almost want that to be an upgrade ability for him that triples the amount of TIGER he flings out

Leon counterpoint: He takes one 9mm round to the shoulder and is unconscious for like two hours.

FFDragon posted...

Leon counterpoint: He takes one 9mm round to the shoulder and is unconscious for like two hours.

Clearly he has Blunt damage resistance and Gun type vulnerability

Aigis gets press turns against him, yuck

That's a good point/counterpoint example of why being conservative with bios is good.

One off happenings if they're one of many sure include it as an example to show they do this

But I wouldn't put that as a hype center for parameters or feats that's what a topic is for

On a directly game-based note...

Pay down Zenos to Mid for 6 GP.

No way I'm forgetting something so important!

Tusk pay down to mid, 6 GP

Yeah I'm kinda not into losing by default. But like, I didn't wanna be the one to say a dirty word first.

Somebody has to be the villain, not to worry

And how could I refuse to play that part as the lead badmin???

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80315446

The lightning round continues! Time for some fireworks, I think.

Is this good guy mercs?

Maniac64 posted...

Is this good guy mercs?

We hope so! We're trying to make it friendlier, easier to approach, and generally a lot less punishing and painful. :)

Unrelated to the above, I also have an announcement to make:

Kamek and Trdl's match was technically on freeze and awaiting a ruling that would've influenced peacetime paydowns. Since this has only just now been resolved, and for the sake of not unduly hosing over either side, we're extraordinarily extending the Peacetime paydown window by 15 minutes.

The perils of running a showmatch featuring the admin team...!

People who make the rules needing to make a decision to actually play the game, which requires them to reach a consensus -- what a concept!

Kirby paid down to low is something I'm going to have to get used to.

Random comments

The wiki is a bit harsh on the eyes. Black and red no bueno. I'm having trouble reading these pages a bit. I also think if you're going to use a black background you should use the benefits of that and use colors instead of bold or italic for headings. I would suggest use of Beige, Orange, Yellow as some alternates to white. I'm not saying don't use white, just that instead of bold you could use Beige + Bold.

Write-ups

Overall notes on all write-ups.
Citations needed for feats ideally.
I feel there is a bit too much mansplaining of the abilities/strategies uses of mercs but maybe some people will appreciate it.

Aigis - Don't know well enough, nothing immediately jumps out as super offensive.
Banjo - Weird for me to say this since I'm no fan at all but weird amount of dehype of their combat ability here. "Would possibly lose to Glass Joe" get that out of here.
Estinien - Don't know well enough, nothing immediately jumps out as super offensive.
Garrus - I don't like the dehype of his melee because I'm not sure how much there is to indicate his capabilities there. It'd probably be better to stick what he can do unless he's specifically shown to be countered-- I mean I'd take Garrus over a lot of dudes in melee quarters just by virtue of having armor and a beefy assault rifle.
Haurchefant - Don't know well yada yada
Kazuma - Completely fine.
K. Rool - I think the "You're looking at a platformer boss here, any actual showings past his potential are going to be limited" line should be cut at that-- no need to further dehype or say what he's going to be argued as.
KoaC - Perfect bio. This is a wonderful bio, what all bios should strive for.
Kirby - No need to downplay his durability imo. (Also I disagree with the assessment of his durability)
Len - Nothing but the generic notes here regarding abilities.
Leon - FFD covered this pretty well.
Mario - This is fine and a good way to do the dehype style of some previous mentions that I've been down on. "This is more of a problem than it seems, however, as most people's image of Mario is just his sidescrolling platforming shenanigans. Not exactly full of battle hype, those. While his agility and athletic prowess are beyond question, you'll have to work hard to sell his battle prowess." I like this way of putting it.
Max - See Len.
Raiden - This is fine.
Sagat - I'll have no Tiger Shot dehype as "annoyance"
Selvaria - This is fine.
Slave Knight Gael - But is he undead guts from berserk? No really. I get it's repeated as a joke but this may dip into the skewing perceptions thing too much because it then tries to justify it.
Solid Snake - I don't think trying to sell him as Batman is good tbh. This is too dipping into skewing perceptions again. Just say what he's done and his versatility, people will think he's Batmanish if they want to.
Tifa - I think Bio spells are pretty inspired, myself, why hate. Also what FFD said.
Tusk - Probably fine but don't know the source material well enough to be sure that there aren't showings to draw from.
Vivi - This feels like fair dehype as he's actually portrayed as clumsy in FFIX. I'm fine with it.
Yu - This feels like fair dehype too with respect to guns. ALTHOUGH I'm not sure that ever came up when they actually have access to their personas, so it might be the worst kind of dehype? Been a while since I played Persona 4.
Zenos - Don't know well yada yada
Zeratul - This is fine.

Side note I love that Kirby's build has piloting vehicles built into it. I'm going to take credit for this by putting Kirby in Rex.

Side note 2 Zenos's !!! ability sounds absolutely miserable to play against. Why is this a good idea.

Okay there you go I tried to be helpful.

The gun weakness in Yu's bio is a reference to Shinjiro dying from a gunshot in Persona 3. It happened during the Dark Hour, so he had access to his Persona when it happened.

So yeah good "citation needed" moment there if nothing else.

The wiki is a bit harsh on the eyes. Black and red no bueno. I'm having trouble reading these pages a bit.

So this is something we're still experimenting with. A weird thing about wikidot Themes (what provided these colors) is that they also expand or compact the available page space on top of changing colours. This was, unironically, the hardest part of setting up the wiki -- finding something that would be wide and not an eyesore to read (since pbworks has become, uh, shall we say bad as of late so using that was right out). I wouldn't mind surveying people on whether other themes are more acceptable, since changing them is as simple as pressing a button. (Alternatively if I find a way to edit themes manually I would happily change the text to be something like cream-coloured to make it easy on the eyes). Work will be done on this for sure.

Overall notes on all write-ups.
Citations needed for feats ideally.
I feel there is a bit too much mansplaining of the abilities/strategies uses of mercs but maybe some people will appreciate it.

So just to be clear -- when you say citations for feats, do you mean something like, say...noting which games Kiryu punched out sharks and tigers in? Or something more specific?

Side note 2 Zenos's !!! ability sounds absolutely miserable to play against. Why is this a good idea.

This is mercs, what is mercs without some trolling

Just because we want to reduce the suffering in this game doesn't mean we can forget about its roots as a horrible source of pain

(super appreciate all the feedback btw!! It's really helpful and makes it clearer where we erred and what went right. Ty so much!)

KanzarisKelshen posted...

noting which games Kiryu punched out sharks and tigers in?

Yes. This makes it easy for people to fact check. It's especially important for stuff like Mewtwo said where you're technically extrapolating off similar in-franchise characters (never cross-franchise-- if you're considering doing that in a fact dump don't) and not directly talking about the referenced character, it helps people make their own decisions with respect to whether that matters.

I do have a question about Kiryu, however. Are we going to take his "won't fight women" thing at face value? He won't hit your female party members in LAD, so it's more than just a statement from the creator. There's also his "never killed anyone" thing, but that's such a meme for how wrong it is that it's probably not an issue.

Mewtwo59 posted...

I do have a question about Kiryu, however. Are we going to take his "won't fight women" thing at face value? He won't hit your female party members in LAD, so it's more than just a statement from the creator. There's also his "never killed anyone" thing, but that's such a meme for how wrong it is that it's probably not an issue.

Setting aside that he's on my team for a sec, I would argue he'd be reluctant to strike women before they launched the first strike, but women in the crossover world of Mercenaries are so much more badass than the average lady in Yakuza (really uhh, every lady in Yakuza save Miss Tatsu, honestly) that this wouldn't be a problem, because they're fighters first and foremost -- and refusing to fight women would clash with the ideal teammates clause if it would keep him from saving an ally's life by interrupting a spell or strike, I think. I want emphasize tho: don't take this as an admin statement. This is something that is, I think, open to interp.

(also, needless to say the 'never killed anybody' thing is basically disregarded considering an entire ability exists to riff on it. Say that he somehow manages to make shooting someone in the brain nonlethal if necessary to square this particular circle imo)

So Im not sure how this would apply to Kiryu specifically, but in general the ideal teammate clause still doesnt override core tenants of a mercs personality, right?

In other words, mercs will perform as ideal teammates within the limits of their ability and canon personality?

redrocket posted...

So Im not sure how this would apply to Kiryu specifically, but in general the ideal teammate clause still doesnt override core tenants of a mercs personality, right?

In other words, mercs will perform as ideal teammates within the limits of their ability and canon personality?

Correct. So a heroic character wouldn't become a merciless killbot and so on.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

The wiki is a bit harsh on the eyes. Black and red no bueno. I'm having trouble reading these pages a bit.

So this is something we're still experimenting with. A weird thing about wikidot Themes (what provided these colors) is that they also expand or compact the available page space on top of changing colours. This was, unironically, the hardest part of setting up the wiki -- finding something that would be wide and not an eyesore to read (since pbworks has become, uh, shall we say bad as of late so using that was right out). I wouldn't mind surveying people on whether other themes are more acceptable, since changing them is as simple as pressing a button. (Alternatively if I find a way to edit themes manually I would happily change the text to be something like cream-coloured to make it easy on the eyes). Work will be done on this for sure.

This is probably my only complaint so far, honestly the old wiki's light-base black text was ideal

Lopen posted...

Side note I love that Kirby's build has piloting vehicles built into it. I'm going to take credit for this by putting Kirby in Rex.

hey excuse me wtf

I had Kirby piloting an Arwing for all of mercs iv

Pretty much the only reason you'd ever want to run a back background is if you want to use different colored texts because there are more color options that pop off of it (on a white background you need to use stuff that's too close to black anyway so it all looks samey even if you're using different colors)

I'm not sure it's worth that sacrifice though. Lighter backgrounds probably just are better.

Johnbobb posted...

hey excuse me wtf

I had Kirby piloting an Arwing for all of mercs iv

Oh man I can't believe I forgot the Arwing even existed as a merc especially after that legendary boxing match (especially since I kinda made the merc) I'm sorry Johnbobb

I guess Rikku piloting Samus's ship is the only thing I can really get full credit for.

Lopen posted...

Pretty much the only reason you'd ever want to run a back background is if you want to use different colored texts because there are more color options that pop off of it (on a white background you need to use stuff that's too close to black anyway so it all looks samey even if you're using different colors)

I'm not sure it's worth that sacrifice though. Lighter backgrounds probably just are better.

Also just mobile usage, dark mode is better on phones

The wiki is torture to read on mobile because it feels super wall of texty. I had to get my laptop out to do any of these reviews because I couldn't browse it with my phone.

And at some level it is wall of texty but it feels way way worse on mobile.

Definitely something to work on then because 'doesn't suck on mobile' is a necessity in this day and age

Note to self, take some time to go over the wikidot config guides and see if this can be fixed, they're p legit all told

The big reason it's painful is the navigation occupies too much horizontal real estate (needs to be up top or tuck away) and then the merc layout is taken from the old pbworks so its a grid so you have this narrow column of merc abilities and it's rough to deal with.

PC not a problem but on mobile you can't afford losing all that horizontal space.

If that's the issue then yeah I can fix this during the weekend (I don't wanna disrupt until we're done with the matches) very trivially - just gotta move the sidebar into the top bar and we're vibin'. We'll have a nice clean wiki yet...!

Easy fix is probably

Navigation on top, not left

Change format of mercs to be

Merc Stats Block (maybe condense to one line rather than hard returns between name and upkeep and such use tabs or bars or something)
Merc Battle Write Up
Merc Abilities
Terrain

All just stacked on top of each other on a 1x4 rather than doing a 2x2

Probably looks way better on mobile with those changes.

Lopen posted...

All just stacked on top of each other on a 1x4 rather than doing a 2x2

You're right but also that's blasphemy

In studying it, I think I'd bump Haurchefant Graystone to a 2 just singularly due to the location. The location there can easily be game changing, and although he might not be able to fight against any of the high power characters, the ability to hold the line for them, and in tandem on his location, have support to keep himself standing could easily turn a fight if he can leverage the entire force at his disposal, it's not impossible that the location could be considered a high 3-low 4 if properly leveraged.

did somebody say terrain gimmick

Hi, I'm someone probably no one here knows who (mostly) silently spectated Mercs IV. I'm probably going to do the same for this iteration, mainly because all these characters and abilities are a bit overwhelming for me to process from even a potential voter's perspective. Still, I find Mercs fun to watch, even if I rarely feel like I know/can reasonably learn enough for an informed vote, and I wish you all the best of luck with it!

MetalmindStats posted...

Hi, I'm someone probably no one here knows who (mostly) silently spectated Mercs IV. I'm probably going to do the same for this iteration, mainly because all these characters and abilities are a bit overwhelming for me to process from even a potential voter's perspective. Still, I find Mercs fun to watch, even if I rarely feel like I know/can reasonably learn enough for an informed vote, and I wish you all the best of luck with it!

Hi Metalmind! Don't be afraid to get a little more involved, even if the game looks daunting. No one really has a full handle on Mercs IMO, part of the fun is that we all bring different interpretations of the game together to work out what happens. If you ever have questions, the new discord has plenty of people who can explain things to make them clearer, too. :)