Mercenaries

[bad_captain]

I'm not sure what you mean 'in their own range'? I think it's been agreed that keeping mercs in a separate table from npc_types makes the most sense, if that's what you mean. KLS commented on that earlier.

Keep in mind, we need to include spell damage modifiers (per spell type, as I believe HoT spells aren't affected), as well as melee skills or discs, which don't conform to the npc_types table.

I agree some kind of scaling feature would be nice, but I also think allowing for complete customization has its benefits as well. I may have come over to Trevius' thinking in that respect. I'm not sure some aspects match a specific scaling rate, as looking at maxhit from lvl 1-60 does not seem to follow any particular equation, or any set of equations. I'm sure the same can be said of spell damage modifiers, etc. This also allows customization shown in live pets, where one particular pet focused with a particular focus has extreme regen - a bug I'm sure, but created some differentiation. SOmething similar could be done with something like the mercenary contracts, where obtaining a contract and hiring your mercenary that way results in a superior merc than what is available from the merchant, at the same proficiency and tier.

What I had planned to do was basically split the npc_types table in two and pull out any unneeded fields, and end up with a stats table (hp, mana, str, sta, resists, regen, etc for each level of a particular proficiency and tier), a texture table (to store visible textures and tints- weapons seem to change every 5 levels, and armor maybe every 20 or so?) - no need to duplicate the textures for every level. Then, one more table for the spell & skill mods (instant heal mods, nuke mods, buff duration mods if any, etc.).

[trevius]

I think the npc_types_tint table could be re-used for mercs as well. We would just need to add texture/model fields for each slot. It would be good to have that option for NPCs as well anyway, so you could have different textures for each slot if you wanted (plate chest, chain legs, etc). Then you would just assign a tint set ID to the merc and it would give the appropriate look.

I haven't tried the RoF beta yet (and don't plan to), but I hear that mercs may now have a new UI window that lets you at least view the equipment they are using. I don't have much detail on the subject, but if this is true, it would confirm that mercs do in fact equip gear. If no one can confirm now, we may have to wait until it goes live to be sure. Mercs equiping items could be something new to Live (assuming the info is true), or they may have done it all along.

Either way, even if it is true that Mercs can use gear, that is something that could always be added in later. Just like NPCs can use gear or not. It can factor into their combat, but not on the same scale as it does for player characters.

It is very possible that the casting bonuses and such come directly from focus effects on worn items. Though, it would be nice to have the option to change those values directly via a table like bad_captain mentioned.

As mentioned, a scaling option would be good if it could be worked out properly, but I think it would be pretty hard to really properly scale more than a few levels at a time. There may still be a good way to consolidate the large number of DB updates that would be required otherwise, though. We may be able to split stats out into a couple more tables and assign IDs from those stat tables to individual merc templates. There are probably different stats that overlap between different merc types. Maybe all tiers use the same STR/STA/INT/WIS/AGI/DEX/CHA and Resist values for each respective level of the merc, but they use different min/max and hp/mana/AC values. We could have one table that deals with stats and resists, then another that deals with min/max damage and hp/mana/AC, or whatever. It may take some analysis and thought to see if this approach would be worth-while, but if it can consolidate the amount of entries considerably, it could be worth it. Just kinda thinking out loud here, heh.

[trevius]

Originally Posted by trevius

I haven't tried the RoF beta yet (and don't plan to), but I hear that mercs may now have a new UI window that lets you at least view the equipment they are using. I don't have much detail on the subject, but if this is true, it would confirm that mercs do in fact equip gear. If no one can confirm now, we may have to wait until it goes live to be sure. Mercs equiping items could be something new to Live (assuming the info is true), or they may have done it all along.

FYI, the info quoted above is false.

And, Noport, mercs have always displayed weapons and armor like you show in that pic. That is nothing new. It doesn't mean that they actually equip any of the items they are displaying, it could just be (and most likely is) for display only.

Originally Posted by bad_captain

Also, not sure about this, but just because a merc is 'wearing' a piece of equipment doesn't necessarily mean it has to use that texture, right? They could use the equipment for stats, but display what we specify, correct?

That is correct. We can send texture changes, or wearchanges to make any NPC appear to wear/wield whatever we want, no matter what their inventory actually is (or isn't). Keep in mind that there is 1 extra step that has to be taken to make different weapon type changes work as needed; we have to also change the attack message to match the weapon model (slashes, crushes, etc). NPCs already support this type of change in fields of the npc_types table.