Mercenary revival

[pubby]

The mercenary card is frustrating and feels like an incomplete feature. Two reasons for this:

1. Mercenaries die easily due to bad AI and AoE effects

2. Mercenaries become separated and lost when you travel to different floors without them

Two options to fix:

1. Remove mercenary card.

2. When mercenaries die, you can pay gold to revive them. Give the player a "Recall Mercenaries" ability.

[Tiktacy]

To my knowledge, Permanent allies are only in the game for 2 reasons: Yredelemnul is a decent god and Dpeg loves his spicy orc jesus.

Anything that involves permanent allies that does not also involve those two things should be removed to at least be consistent with design goals while still being accepting of crawls few exceptions.

[ion_frigate]

I'm neutral on whether the mercenary card should stay or go, but to respond to your two points:

1. Mercenaries die easily due to bad AI and AoE effects

I don't see a problem with this, as long as it isn't avoidable in some silly way. Most cards are not meant to be game-changing effects, especially at low powers.

Your solution would also be a massive noob trap: it's not worth it to repeatedly pay pretty much any amount of gold to continually revive a merfolk or a naga. Even the deep elf blademaster wouldn't really be worth it (especially if you'd have to pay 2000+ gold each time it croaks). Basically, characters who could actually spare the gold to do this would have absolutely no need to do it.

2. Mercenaries become separated and lost when you travel to different floors without them

I agree that this needs a solution. It's minor in this case, but it's pretty much a pure interface annoyance, trying to shepherd permanent allies around. Personally I think Brogue-like interlevel following would be better than a Recall ability, but the ability has the advantage of not requiring any new coding, and therefore being more likely to make it in.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I would rather fix the mercenary card by making mercenaries ask for roughly eight times less gold and be incapable of using stairs, making the merc more like a summon that doesn't time out if you choose to pay it.

[duvessa]

if mercenary card is going to exist at all, it should just be a temporary summon that forcibly takes your gold without asking, like alchemist card

[HardboiledGargoyle]

but alchemist card doesn't always forcibly take your gold without asking. If it's useless, i.e. you're at full HP/MP, it won't take anything. So I don't think it would be a stretch for mercs to give you a choice, in case they're useless and unwanted. And would they still go hostile if you don't have enough money? That might promote some kind of silly gold management.

[MrRokkomies]

A permanent merc summon should not be a card effect at all in my opinion. It has too many issues (mentioned earlier) and fixing it as a card is probably not possible. It could be made in to a god power, where you can summon a "permanent" ally that grows in power over time. Let's make a Pokemon god for permanent pets.

[WildSam]

I love permanent allies. I think "solitary permanent ally" is good design, which naturally solves most of problems with allies.
Currently merc card is good for early-midgame if you get good base type and manage to upgrade it. Later it scales badly with Evo and you get cool dudes too late for them to matter more than 2 fights. I think making limit (one merc at time) plus adjusting possible monster list would make it fine.

And make DS evolve to classes.

[Croases]

I still think that permanent allies work best as a summon spell that summons the same ally every time, allows it to level up with on-screen kills Beogh-style and gives you an exp-gated period in which it can't be resummoned when it dies. I also still think that this is best accomplished with a Summon Imp replacement that gives you a named 5 that can grow all the way up to a 2 (or 1, or &) with enough experience.

Alternatively, implement an evocable item ('mercenary pact') that summons a mercenary when used, resummons it to your location if used again (no ally herding), becomes inert when the mercenary dies and allows you to resurrect it when you get enough experience like the elemental evokers.

Failing that, remove mercenary card and allow every species to worship Beogh so that everyone gets the leveling allies experience.