Ideas for Mercy changes

Making the mercy behave more like a tactical missle, but one we can control during flight... I like it! Overall very good ideas.

One thing I find particularly frustrating about the current mercy is the large range of the weapon. Often you only have a split second between seeing the mercy in vision, and it dissolving into its invincible weapon blast. From that point onwards you can only watch, no counter possible. I think decreasing the range of the weapon would remove much of the frustration and allow for more counter-micro. HP can be compensated.

You guys are right about the mass cost, I misremembered the change. I blame posting this at 2 AM.

Fixed

As for weapon changes, the current ideas are thus:

1. Low damage, large aoe damage over time, similar to @Tagada 's version in the other thread.
2. Even higher damage but over a long dot, currently playing with around 10 seconds. Intended to punish upgrading commanders or high value structures.
3. Essentially a Salvation shell, damage TBD
4. @archsimkat 's idea. Might be difficult to code but I'll give it a shot

Other ideas are welcome and encouraged

I use mercies when I should but I hate using them and receiving them, be it with AA or my ACU's face.

I would love a large area dot, really something new and interesting. However, it might shake up Aeon meta completely. Is the balance team ready for this?

Otherwise the oblivion option is nice too.

If you take the current faf mercy and change the range to something under 12, it attacks weird and if like to see if we can code it based off of it.

So if will come in at a high altitude and dive bomb and touch the target but won't do anything, don't like any of this, but then it will fly away and come back at a near ground level flight and it can active and attack at it's short range.

I'd like to see if we can change the range to around 6 and code it's attack run to attack at a linear angle or low angle so it's vulnerable to stay damage and also gives aa alot of time to hit it, then the hp can be increased and a lot more fun can be had.

I'd like to also make them volatile so one mercy gets destroyed it will take out others so you have to micro them a bit. Then they can be used to flay into a asf or intie cloud and blow a small group up.

Better late than never!

@deribus said in Ideas for Mercy changes:

Mass cost: 300 => 250

• This makes it equal in mass cost to a TML missile for consistency and ease of remembering.

Universal scale: 0.15 => 0.2

• Makes the Mercy a little bigger as it was always tiny, especially for a T2 air unit

Health: 10 => 55

• This is still a pitiful amount of health, for reference the Aeon interceptor has 285. However it can now survive a single interceptor hit or 1-2 T1 MAA hits instead of disappearing with the slightest AA presence.

Movement changes were scrapped

Weapons!

This sped up gif shows 2 Mercies:

The first does a mere 500 damage over 10 seconds, but on a massive radius of 15. Could be useful for taking out chunks of T1 armies, softening T2, or maybe some T1 power or engineer killing in the base.

The second does 3000 damage over 10 seconds, but on a radius of 3.5. This does slightly more than the current Mercy's 2,500, but isn't as useful on mobile targets. Can be used on upgrading ACUs or sniping high value structures, kinda like a TML but with a little more control. 3k damage is comfortably enough to snipe UEF T2 mexes and pgens.

All the values above are meant to be a starting point for the balance team. I didn't feel a need to fine tune them myself and I'll leave that to those more qualified.

Anyway, mod is live now.

I like the cloud stuff, which feels on par with their race behavior, their artillery have those 'corrosion clouds' as well. Giving them the ability to do damage over time as well, instead "kill everything in sight when x has no AA" feels more natural to the game flow. This would also result to give them slightly more HP.

I am looking forward, what other players are saying to those ideas.

Nice work Deribus, we will definitely use parts of this implementation.
You can expect the Mercy rework to be released with the April patch

DoT for mercies? Looks like EQ to me.

Completely changed the unit's role instead of even attempting to balance it as it is. You might actually make the game balance worse instead of improving it. The problem with Mercies is that the long explosion range lets it get past AA it shouldn't get past. The missile should have to essentially impact the target imo.

I don't like the health of it, I think you will fine it will be quite durable when striking.

Should make tmd able to target it

@zeldafanboy I respectfully think that you are wrong.

@deribus said in Ideas for Mercy changes:

The first does a mere 500 damage over 10 seconds, but on a massive radius of 15. Could be useful for taking out chunks of T1 armies, softening T2, or maybe some T1 power or engineer killing in the base.
The second does 3000 damage over 10 seconds, but on a radius of 3.5. This does slightly more than the current Mercy's 2,500, but isn't as useful on mobile targets. Can be used on upgrading ACUs or sniping high value structures, kinda like a TML but with a little more control. 3k damage is comfortably enough to snipe UEF T2 mexes and pgens.

Looking forward to this. Though, I'm concerned, as, if this rework is done incorrectly - I'll leave Aeon without a T2 Snipe option.
And that's what the Mercy is - A unit to snipe high-value targets.

If I may share my opinion, the smaller radius would be a good fit.
However, the 3K damage may be a bit much. Mercy already deals 2.5K damage which is already more than what other units deal.
Perhaps this should stay as is?

@deribus said in Ideas for Mercy changes:

3k damage is comfortably enough to snipe UEF T2 mexes and pgens.

A UEF T2 Pgen and T2 Mex both share 2.5K HP, which is enough to be destroyed by a Mercy, already.
Why the extra 500 damage? If the damage gets too high, then this unit's mass cost should be increased as well, no?

~ Stryker

"aeon without a t2 snipe option"

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my guy have u never seen a specter in this game?

My Poor Mercie

@ftxcommando

He’s half wrong. It’s not that Aeon now lacks a good T2 air snipe. It’s that now Aeon has a huge aoe area denial/army clearing tool during its already strong T2 phase

mercies in their current form are fine. zero need to fundamentally rework it.

Problem I have with them is you cant dodge them. They get into range, they kill.

@chenbro101 and this is the beauty of the mercy, what makes them satisfying to use.
They drop like flies if they encounter even the slightest resistance. Good luck getting a snipe with even a dozen of them.

it really makes the times 2 commanders are killed with 3 mercies shine.

@cunnismeta said in Ideas for Mercy changes:

They drop like flies if they encounter even the slightest resistance.

I recently got killed by mercies while having maa around so I can tell you they don't drop like flies with slightest resistance

If game was hitscan mercies would be fine. Annoying but fine. Game isn't hitscan.