Board 8 > Mercenaries 5 Test Run, Week 2 Results: Outnumbered, Outgunned

(+) Yeah! (+)

5 on Triple Tech, 5 on Suplex

:(

http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/ashley-winchester
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/atlas-and-p-body
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/cranky-kong
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/ichiban-kasuga
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/joshua-and-estelle-bright
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/kefka
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/neku-sakuraba
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/squall-leonhart

Rest of the builds coming soon! Please wait warmly until they're ready to publish~

Formal note of concern from the perspective of a voter

I have noticed the same abilities being used both weeks in multiple matches
I talked to merc leader greengravy294 and he said this is a result of the "AP System"

If literally every match with Crono is going to have a dual tech and every match with Leon is gonna have a removed limb it kinda homogenizes the matches and perverts the reason to buy a merc in the first place in the case of abilities that have more creative license. I don't want Leon I just want a dude who removes dominant limbs every week (something Leon isnt exactly known for). You know?

http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/albert-wesker
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/trevor-and-sypha
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/richter-belmont

Phantasmals will go out in a moment! Just wanted to get the main dish out quickly so people could feast.

Lopen posted...

Formal note of concern from the perspective of a voter

I have noticed the same abilities being used both weeks in multiple matches
I talked to merc leader greengravy294 and he said this is a result of the "AP System"

If literally every match with Crono is going to have a dual tech and every match with Leon is gonna have a removed limb it kinda homogenizes the matches and perverts the reason to buy a merc in the first place in the case of abilities that have more creative license. I don't want Leon I just want a dude who removes dominant limbs every week (something Leon isnt exactly known for). You know?

It's definitely a concern and we're taking note of it

(Though I suspect a lot of it is straight up just the fact we started the TR with teams on week 1 maingame econ, as opposed to week 5 maingame econ)

We're keeping an eye out on how things play out these upcoming weeks for sure. If it remains an issue we'll give some thought to tweaks.

theoretically at some point we'll hit a point where our rosters will outstrip our AP budget and we'll have to start getting picky about what to use

until then I'm kinda enjoying the spamfest

And here are your first phantasmal mercenaries!

http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/the-cyberdemon
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/rathalos
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/lady-maria

Merc updates will be listed in the next admin post. Standby for details.

15 on The Missing Link
5 on Vivi's ability upgrade

K. Rool, you chose to pursue Lu Bu, so- wait, where'd Lu Bu go?

KanzarisKelshen posted...

It's definitely a concern and we're taking note of it

(Though I suspect a lot of it is straight up just the fact we started the TR with teams on week 1 maingame econ, as opposed to week 5 maingame econ)

We're keeping an eye out on how things play out these upcoming weeks for sure. If it remains an issue we'll give some thought to tweaks.

I dont think this fixes much

Every week as long as mewtwo can bid on shadow moses successfully, he basically has a 1 AP weekly KO and precious little reason not to use it.

Which again, its not exactly Vivis "Thing" that she casts Doom

Eddv posted...

as long as mewtwo can bid on shadow moses successfully

ensuring a certain terrain every week gets expensive, or so I've heard

The problem aside from Vivi being Paul Ellering and Leon being a master limb severer is your team becomes about using your best ability every week

Probably gonna be a ton of abilities literally never used with this system

List of changes to already-released mercenaries

As promised, we are making some changes to mercenaries that have already been released. First off, the minor ones that aren't actual tweaks or fixes:

-Aigis, Estinien, Sol Badguy, Tusk, and (of course) The Doom Slayer have gained the Slayer tag, as befits their backgrounds.
-Yu Narukami has gained the Detective tag. How did we miss this when we have the #1 Naoto Lover (TM) on the admin team???

Now then, onto the meat of the changes. The mercenaries receiving significant alterations to their builds are as follows:

-Estinien Wyrmblood: Estinien's high jump now makes him immune to ALL start of battle abilities, not just those declared after his jump (this does not apply to Dragonshadow Dive). A 10 XP upgrade has been added to grant Dragonshadow Dive Estinien's previous immunity against SoBs declared after it, if its cost reduction upgrade has been bought. This should provide reasons to High Jump where appropriate, and is in keeping with traditional FF Dragoon shenannes.

-Lea: We've heard the complaints about Lea's base ability and we're adding a new ability (not replacing the old one!) to mitigate this. The new ability is as follows:

"Blue-Haired Spheromancer! I challenge you to another duel!" (Start of Battle, 1 AP): ...It's Lea. And just what is up with all these freaks wanting to take a crack at her?! As is disturbingly common in her life, Lea may target one enemy mercenary, who will decide they simply must prove their superiority over her by challenging her to a PvP duel under CrossCode rules (best of 9 fights wins, loser of each bout regenerates to full health, winner stays as they are). They will start the battle this week at the center of the terrain, locked into an unbreakable arena of at least 25 by 10 yards (the terrain will expand to provide enough room, should it not be big enough), unaffected by other Start of Battle abilities until the duel resolves. The loser will die upon being defeated as normal. [Repositioning]

-Luigi: We're discounting Luigi to 30 GP. He's too pricy for his nil battleworth at 40. We are also adding a 10 EXP ability upgrade to make shell targeting fully randomized, as it used to be.

-Mario: We're adding an ability upgrade to Mario's Hat's Off ability, allowing it to be targeted to a specific merc for Fatigue 1.

-Solid Snake: We're reducing Snake's minimum bid by 15, to 55GP. He costs too much at the moment, and this should bring him in line.

-Sagat: We're discounting Sagat by 11 GP, to 50 GP. Likewise, he's a little overpriced, and we want to see the king out on the battlefield.

-Meta Knight: We're lowering Meta Knight's min bid by 6 GP, to 48 GP. We believe he's a total menace, but he needs a little push to get over the fear of him being a flop.

-We are also considering changes to Haurchefant Greystone. If we go through with them they will be announced later during Results.

That is all for now. Enjoy Results, everyone!

Lopen posted...

The problem aside from Vivi being Paul Ellering and Leon being a master limb severer is your team becomes about using your best ability every week

Probably gonna be a ton of abilities literally never used with this system

i see this for sure.I did have a thought after reading this though:

While definitely not something that could be added to the TR at this point, i do wonder if theres some sort of jank 'ap repeater' cost you could bake in to the system - like, if you use the same ability two weeks in a row, it just adds to the ap cost naturally - so a 1ap cost ability could be used a second week in a row, but it'll cost you 2 ap, and then 3ap week 3, or whatever. This would need some thinking to work out the logistical kinks (like some abilities probably SHOULD be spammed and aren't a problem that needs to be addressed) but it discourages spamming the same ability without opening the floodgates to 25 abilities going off late game, while leaving the option to spam if you're willing to pay the increasing cost

idk

Lopen posted...

The problem aside from Vivi being Paul Ellering and Leon being a master limb severer is your team becomes about using your best ability every week

Probably gonna be a ton of abilities literally never used with this system

It depends on whether the delta in power between the best and worst ability is large enough that a good setup can't swing it. Like...silly example here, but would you take one KO or two abilities of the caliber of Leon's limb severing? I don't know which one's better there.. Some level of ability sameyness has always been the case in mercs though. I literally won the last game by realizing this, wintrading for a 50:50 winrate for two weeks out of 3, then exploding people on the third and repeating towards the back half of the game. Ability usage is how you win fights, there is no point in fighting if you don't have them, and so the game grows more stale via forfeit trading unless abilities can be used freely. Making sure teams fight is, imo, worth some level of ability sameyness because the game is poorer for seeing less matches.

(relatedly, it might be the case that the game doesn't need pools with the AP system in place. If there's a wider net of targets to attack, the odds of ending up fighting the same match lower drastically. This would, as a side benefit, avoid having to see shit like the Armstrong vs Diablo rerun for the sixth time like we saw last game)

On an unrelated note:

Gravy has asked to be replaced due to IRL issues. We are looking for a replacement for him, effective immediately. If you are interested in playing in the test run, we're taking in applicants!

I think it partly depends on the number of teams. I suspect we only have 12-16 max given what's happened to the board.

With that number of mercs there's gonna be a tendency to hard vector to your most favorable matchups, giving us a lot of samey match topics + or - a BH or purchase here and there.

Let me sell Gordon and Yugioh thing back and Ill run Gravy team otherwise no deal

To sweeten the pot I'll only bid on mercs from day 1

Lopen posted...

Let me sell Gordon and Yugioh thing back and Ill run Gravy team otherwise no deal

Just to answer this question, yes, we'd allow a partial rebuild. It's a test run and we know how little fun it is to be stuck with someone else's hand-me-downs.

(We're leaving things open for a bit since it's late and it's likely other potentially interested parties may not have seen this at all, but we wanted to clarify this asap cuz it matters.)

Yeah.

Well if anyone is just willing to take his team as is pick them. I'm just saying I'm not so those would be my conditions.

If any leaders have a problem with partial rebuild I will take back the offer too. Just letting you know your options

Oooh, Estelle and Joshua Bright!

Ohhh, what the hell are those abilities?

KIDNAP A CHILD UPGRADE, you monsters!

Mega_Mana posted...

Oooh, Estelle and Joshua Bright!

Ohhh, what the hell are those abilities?

KIDNAP A CHILD UPGRADE, you monsters!

There's a reason we put '(willingly)' in there. Mercs terminology is rough, but it's obviously about how they convinced Renne to fully desert Ouroboros and join the Bright family.

So I looked through the rules and the only place I was able to guess how much AP you get is from a section on bounty hunters where it said something about 2 AP

Do you just get 2 AP then unless you reinforce/bounty hunt? Am I missing something?

Lopen posted...

So I looked through the rules and the only place I was able to guess how much AP you get is from a section on bounty hunters where it said something about 2 AP

Do you just get 2 AP then unless you reinforce/bounty hunt? Am I missing something?

No, players have 3 AP right now. It's not in the rules because the test run is using a modified prototype, with the rule changes put in the discord. The rule changes were as follows:

-Players will start with 200 GP to make purchases with.
-To allow players to actually experiment with upgrades, EXP gains will be doubled. Losers will receive 10 EXP per week, while winners will receive 20 EXP per week.
-Likewise, infra gains will also be doubled, and set at a static 3 Infra baseline (so, 6 in practice) instead of ramping amounts of infra gained over time. It should be possible to buy a few mercenaries before the end. This includes the close match bonus, so losers in close matches will gain 2 infra instead of 1!
-We will conduct a 'Week 0' on Monday of next week for players to buy Week 1 mercenaries on. Peacetime will last 48 hours, and during the latter 24, mercenaries will be integrated into teams, allowing Peacetime abilities to be used.
-Players will bid for declaration order priority on Monday, to determine who will declare first. Any amount of GP may be bid to secure a higher spot on the hierarchy, and any player may declare on any other player. After week 1, declaration orders will be adjusted based on win-loss record, with players with less wins given a higher spot. In the event of a tie, head-to-head record will be used if appropriate, and otherwise ties will be broken by number of votes received, then remaining GP, then a coinflip.
-Players will have 3 AP to spend on the first cycle before Reinforcement, and 4 AP on the second.

We're doing some tweaking of the last bullet point, though -- specifically, we'll likely be keeping AP capped at 3. We want to see if maintaining the same level of AP but having more mercs available helps with the concerns of ability sameyness, specifically.

What tier is next week? High?

Yes it is high

Where is this mystery discord

replace no longer necessary

Fake proxy
Fake replace

What's next ???

And here I was, about to step up and create my Sonic-centric team of my dreams

recrating my team is for the best for sure

greengravy294 posted...

recrating my team is for the best for sure

I would stick it right back in the crate

A cardboard box, even

obviously the play is to let lopen take the team and gravy 'advisors' it

best of both worlds

Also, and Ive been meaning to ask this, isnt this Mercs 6?

20 exp Mega Mans third ability upgrade

MM ability upgrade for reference:

1. 15/15
2. 5/15
3. 20/20

Super Robot roll

GET EQUIPPED WITH . . . Murasama Blade!!

Please select your ability as normal.