Feature Build: The calm before the storm

cant see them doing that, would be silly

at the moment im guessing people are hoping to abuse it with necro's with discord. theres barrage pet aswell, but assassins and rits can do that fine aswell, maybe derv too ?

Forget rits and necros. I want to run with 3 mesmer heroes.

I meant that it would be limited by slots. You pay $10 for one slot that gives you one merc-hero. You can take new snapshots, but they replace the previous one; so you only ever get one merc-hero per money at a time. So the limiting factor is money to buy slots. I do think the idea is you can have 7 merc heroes if you are willing to pay.

However there's rumor on the pricing scheme scaling, like you get a deal if you buy 3 or 8. Owning 8 slots would make zero sense on the multi-snapshot model. So that to me implies that it's a one-time thing, you commit a slot to a single character (and therefore profession etc.) It's likely the snapshot just saves your armor appearance, it's then up to you to individually equip each instance of your hero. I would still hope that there was some means to change their armor after snapshot, but possibly not.

There are several things that could not be implemented correctly due to GW not having easy access to characters on your account not currently logged in, such as zquests being once-per-account (per day), part of the problem with the xunlai market. When account-wide titles changes were added to wisdom/treasure hunter, you had to log on each character to tally up their individual points into the account total. Similarly when the factions faction was redone with some retroactive rewards for mission completion, you had to log onto each character to tally up the rewards.

So storage-wise it is in no way the "easy route" for their programmers, although it might be in other games, their character database is not as robust/versatile as many other MMOs (a major stumbling block they admitted to in trying a xunlai market.) They have to dedicate separate resources in an account-wide storage spot regardless, and asking people to pay *money* to delete their character is kindof insane anyway.

Mercenary heroes it sounded good until i heard i had to pay for it. im sorry but thought it would be cool to have a hero to look like you its not worth paying for. now if it was a mini pet then yeah. plus they havent said how it would work. if it ends up you cant change it skills,armors,and it doesnt have title skills like you do whats the point? wouldnt then a hero you can fix to suit the area be better? so far it sounds like the only diff is it looks like you. xD and for us the mix armor would it be a mix or the one main armor? rest of the stuff sounds wicked cant wait for it.

Is it me or did he not mention survivor or drunkard being changed? :O

I fear drunkard is going to be another party animal title

FFS....people were already doing this by buying a second account and running with 6 heroes. This just makes it easier (and cheaper) for everyone to do that, and lets you take your characters along as heroes (which is something that has been asked for for years).

I love how some people are complaining that mercenary heroes aren't worth the money, while other people are simultaneously complaining that they're OP and give advantages to people who pay for them.

Well Ill drink to having some things kept as a surprise.... Just need to find my Vodka, Kahlua, Bailey's, Amaretto, butterscotch, Frangelico, and a little bit of cream or chocolate milk...hmmmm..

Good, i want it to be spammable, so tired of just having to click every minute, but it probably wont be spammable.

Yeah that is what I was wondering as well.

They become like those yankee gangs seen in Japanese media, wearing highschool uniforms, and wielding baseball bats, pipes and chains as weapons. Norgu even gets a pompadour hairstyle and Gwen one of those medical maks. And they start Bullying the poor monsters:
- "You targetin' me? Uh? Targetin' me?!"
- "Wanna cast? Eh? Wanna cast?!"
- "No cast for you!" *Massive succession of skill-punishment skills and interrupts*
- "Now hand your lunch money!"
And then they laugh in the most evil and maniacal way you can imagine.

Mercenary shmercenary, no way I'm wasting money on 'em. Whatever they release for free will be good enough
I'm way more interested in the WoC update then doing the same old stuff with 7 heroes + other stuff they release with Embark.

That's why I've argued that these mercs may not be as people imagine them to be. People wish they will carry a lot of stuff from the real char.

I say the only thing we can be sure they will carry over is physical aspect, name, and primary.

Not sure about armor/weapon set/runes/insignia. The problem with that is that hero armor/weapon appears as customized to the real char running the party, so in theory you could get usable duplicates this way. So IF they carry over any of that stuff, it's gonna say "customized to Original Char" so you can't swipe it. But that could introduce other issues (eg. what happens when you delete the Original Char?)

Can't wait to see how they solved this one. Maybe they introduced a 3rd party ie. "customized to Foobar" where Foobar is neither current char nor the original. But it feels like a kludge.

At the time I said that I had not heard for sure that's gonna be a payed for feature. So yeah, since you pay cash also deleting the char would be overkill.

On the other hand, having to pay for it reinforces my opinion that it's gonna be mostly cosmetic. The only real advantage will be the ability to make a party with more hero primaries. You still have to outfit them.

Basically it's just a vanity/looks thing. You don't really think there's gonna be any AI difference between one [insert profession here] hero and another, do you? I know some people swear the Ogden is dumber/smarter than Dunkoro and so on but for all we know it's just placebo.

Oh! you reminded me about WoC. i heard we are also getting another big update in april i hope this means its WoC. D:

I believe Stumme said the big April update would neither be the pvp update nor winds of change.

as i said before.... only a moron would think they can get through a game their first time without dieing. the first time anyone plays a game, it is a learning experience, so no, i have never expected anyones first toon to get survivor.
and yes, i think it is fair that they would have to re-roll characters again if for some reason they lost the ability to gain the title, simply because the title is supposed to be that hard.

The problem is they (we) couldn't even have known that we weren't supposed to die, because there weren't any titles back then.

Actually someone I know asked this question point-blank at PAX to the guy who designed the hero AI, and he claimed that yes there are subtle differences between the heroes! I doubt it's going to be a real selling point here with an "AI upgrade", but there you have it...

As Stumme described, it is one part cosmetic, but it's also one part letting players run "any party configuration" they want. I don't expect any advantages on the equipment side, but just stacking numbers of primaries is what primarily has people complaining. I question whether you'd have to really skew your account to make that work though, like holding 3 player character slots worth of necros to have your necro heroes...

i'm pretty sure once you have paid to create one of your toons into a hero, as long as you dont delete that merc slot or replace it with another toon, you can erase the original toon the merc is based on.

and from what i'm reading.. aka 8 necros/8 rits etc...

wow people have no idea what it means to have diversity anymore

100K for a full DoA Run? Im on it. Whos the guy? If you ever see him again, post a snap.

There are some people running DoA in the Services sub forum for 100k and less.

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Usually everything except Mallyx !