mercs need to be rethought.

Wouldn't it be stupid  to buy mercs i.e. cave giants ect, if they would take XP from your own troops ?  maybe if the XP they would have gained was spread between the rest of your troop's in the battle, it might make them a bit more worth it. Also to buy them for only 10 days makes them totally not worth it. once bought they should become a full member of your army.
A major rethink on this seems to be in order lot's of other players seem to agree with this as I have never seen a player use them yet.

Thanx pug

Well, yes they do take xp but thats not really the matter, the real deal is that they suck, they still earn you gold and res from battle but mostly people tend to use them in co ops and pvps and if they cant compete against regular infantry, how would they be able to take out or......... "Atleast" hurt a geared unit.

Keep in mind you dont really care if they die in battle since they are ready immediately for the next one and you dont earn xp on them anyways.

*An idea i had in mind was that the mercs get a magor rework and instead of mercenaries, they turn to other tier (special) units spread among the races (which can be geared and gain xp and abilities ). Cause lets face it, they are not worth the gold nor gems knowing you can only use them 10 times a day.

The real problem is overpowered gear. There's no way to balance mercenaries properly with overpowered gear being in the game, considering mercenaries cannot wear gear. Thus they will either have to be made to compete with godlike units or only with lowly geared units, and either way they will be unbalanced.

I've got to the point where until gear balance is better in this game, I won't be playing it much at all. And from the sounds of it, that might never really be improved much... So I guess... I'm waiting for KA then? Or will that just be the same (or will my computer even be able to handle it)...

Yes, I know it's hard to fix gear balance. But that's not really a good excuse to not fix it, in my opinion. It's like saying it's "hard" to recover from a broken leg. Yes, it's broken and getting it to be usable again will be tough, but if it's not dealt with than you (the game) will be using crutches (tiers) for the rest of your (its) life. So from that, I hope it's clear what the more satisfying option would be...

I don't post much here but I have read all the comments for the past few months.  Bobba and others are spot on.  Your insight is invaluable to the community.  I hope the devs take your suggestions to heart.  I have nothing new to add at this time, but just want to raise my glass to those that have remained active and continue to post despite the seemingly uphill battle to the changing of mechanics, both Light and Dark.

Actually, the idea was to make the Mercenaries fully usable units gaining XP and levels. I am not so sure about equipping them with gear, but this is something that we could look into. One thing to consider here, is the fact that mercenary units were never supposed to be OP units. They don't rely too much on their stats, but on their abilities, which when used correctly, they could turn the tables..

To be honest, we hadn't considered the Mercenaries change as an urgent change and according to the majority of the players other issues were more urgent, so we left the Mercenaries transformation for the "foreseeable" future.

If we said that there exists no ground for improvement in the balancing area, then that would be not true. Gear is of course very important, and to some extent more important than it should have been, so this is something that we would like to look into. However, we do not wish to reduce the importance of gear, as it is one of the strengths of the game..finding fragments, crafting better gear...

As for the Tiers, they are not going anywhere. There is no balance if you do not determine the boundaries. You cannot have a lvl 3 army fight against a lvl 14 army.

To conclude, I personally believe that there is no perfect balance in such games, unless of course you want to create a "chess" game. The more you try to balance things out, the more restrictions you need to add, and then it becomes less enjoyable. I am not saying that changes cannot be made to improve the balance, but these changes need to be made in a way that they won't change the game mechanics drastically, because that would create a lot of confusion and anger.

RuneSlayer wrote:

As for the Tiers, they are not going anywhere. There is no balance if you do not determine the boundaries. You cannot have a lvl 3 army fight against a lvl 14 army.

But a lvl 18 army fighting a lvl 12 army can lose... Since after lvl 10-11 abilities don't change, and you can almost cap your units.

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

As for the Tiers, they are not going anywhere. There is no balance if you do not determine the boundaries. You cannot have a lvl 3 army fight against a lvl 14 army.

But a lvl 18 army fighting a lvl 12 army can lose... Since after lvl 10-11 abilities don't change, and you can almost cap your units.

Not if the lvl 18 army is using the lvl of gear for its lvl.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

As for the Tiers, they are not going anywhere. There is no balance if you do not determine the boundaries. You cannot have a lvl 3 army fight against a lvl 14 army.

But a lvl 18 army fighting a lvl 12 army can lose... Since after lvl 10-11 abilities don't change, and you can almost cap your units.

Not if the lvl 18 army is using the lvl of gear for its lvl.

His gear is gl gear, as for the lvl 12, and even with the GS limit you can make a good army.

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

As for the Tiers, they are not going anywhere. There is no balance if you do not determine the boundaries. You cannot have a lvl 3 army fight against a lvl 14 army.

But a lvl 18 army fighting a lvl 12 army can lose... Since after lvl 10-11 abilities don't change, and you can almost cap your units.

Not if the lvl 18 army is using the lvl of gear for its lvl.

His gear is gl gear, as for the lvl 12, and even with the GS limit you can make a good army.

I'd like to see a lvl 12 army defeating a lvl 18 army equipped with gear of its level. Mmmmmaybe possible...but the lvl 18's General must have a veeeery bad day for this to happen...

RuneSlayer wrote:

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

As for the Tiers, they are not going anywhere. There is no balance if you do not determine the boundaries. You cannot have a lvl 3 army fight against a lvl 14 army.

But a lvl 18 army fighting a lvl 12 army can lose... Since after lvl 10-11 abilities don't change, and you can almost cap your units.

Not if the lvl 18 army is using the lvl of gear for its lvl.

His gear is gl gear, as for the lvl 12, and even with the GS limit you can make a good army.

I'd like to see a lvl 12 army defeating a lvl 18 army equipped with gear of its level. ;)Mmmmmaybe possible...but the lvl 18's General must have a veeeery bad day for this to happen...

You can practically equip everything you need to cap your units around level 12 or 13. So I can easily see a level 18 player losing against a level 12. However, the sad thing is a level 8 player against a level 12 player is a whole other story, despite those two levels being in the same tier. Without cheesing with archers you need a terribly drunk opponent or the grace of multiple Gods on your side to win.

Regarding mercenaries, because they never depended on their stats, they are terribly weak (because stats are almost everything in this game). Once they begin fighting level 8-9+ well equipped units, they stop being remotely worth their AP as they die before they can really use their abilities that are supposed to make them unique. For example, poor Mr. Troll is lucky to regenerate 1 single HP before he's buried. They are also very easy to kill with archers, even low level ones.

Gear needs a revamp, not because it makes you stronger, but because of how much it makes you stronger. I don't want gear to cease being an asset on the battlefield of course, otherwise there would be no point in crafting it. I just want it to be possible to have a (at least close to) fair fight without spending months and months leveling up your units to the maximum in tiers 1-3 and getting the perfect gear. Otherwise, it makes it feel like your gear and levels are the ones really fighting on the battlefield, not you and your troops. And don't get me started on those poor T5 only players who have nobody to PvP with... That's like being punished for playing the game. The whole current tier system is dependent on the idea of overpowered gear. While tiers in some form may need to stay, they can at least be improved so that more people can play with each-other if gear balance is handled better. So if the broken leg can't be completely fixed, at least it can be strengthened so that if you lost your crutch for a moment you'd still be able to stand until you could pick it back up again. Okay, my examples are getting silly now, but I hope you understand.   

Bobba wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

As for the Tiers, they are not going anywhere. There is no balance if you do not determine the boundaries. You cannot have a lvl 3 army fight against a lvl 14 army.

But a lvl 18 army fighting a lvl 12 army can lose... Since after lvl 10-11 abilities don't change, and you can almost cap your units.

Not if the lvl 18 army is using the lvl of gear for its lvl.

His gear is gl gear, as for the lvl 12, and even with the GS limit you can make a good army.

I'd like to see a lvl 12 army defeating a lvl 18 army equipped with gear of its level. ;)Mmmmmaybe possible...but the lvl 18's General must have a veeeery bad day for this to happen...

You can practically equip everything you need to cap your units around level 12 or 13. So I can easily see a level 18 player losing against a level 12. However, the sad thing is a level 8 player against a level 12 player is a whole other story, despite those two levels  being in the same tier. Without cheesing with archers you need a terribly drunk opponent or the grace of multiple Gods on your side to win.

Regarding mercenaries, because they never depended on their stats, they are terribly weak (because stats are almost everything in this game). Once they begin fighting level 8-9+ well equipped units, they stop being remotely worth their AP as they die before they can really use their abilities that are supposed to make them unique. For example, poor Mr. Troll is lucky to regenerate 1 single HP before he's buried. They are also very easy to kill with archers, even low level ones.

Gear needs a revamp, not because it makes you stronger, but because of how much it makes you stronger. I don't want gear to cease being an asset on the battlefield of course, otherwise there would be no point in crafting it. I just want it to be possible to have a (at least close to) fair fight without spending months and months leveling up your units to the maximum in tiers 1-3 and getting the perfect gear. Otherwise, it makes it feel like your gear and levels are the ones really fighting on the battlefield, not you and your troops. And don't get me started on those poor T5 only players who have nobody to PvP with... That's like being punished for playing the game. The whole current tier system is dependent on the idea of overpowered gear. While tiers in some form may need to stay, they can at least be improved so that more people can play with each-other if gear balance is handled better. So if the broken leg can't be completely fixed, at least it can be strengthened so that if you lost your crutch for a moment you'd still be able to stand until you could pick it back up again. Okay, my examples are getting silly now, but I hope you understand.   

'
Level 8 is in t2 , level 12 is in t3.
  

Haha, you are right Pulkit, my mistake. It's because most of my units are still level 8 except for a few level 9's so I got mixed up.   Either way though, level 9 units get their butts handed to them on a platter against level 12 units.

I just don't have the patience and time to get level 12 units, heh.

Personally, I think I prefer the idea of buying mercs permanently and just having them available as a strategic option with equip-able gear. I think I'd even say being able to recruit the regular unit types would be cool. That way people who have lots of resources but bad units can up their army a little bit

As a side idea, what about the capability to recruit "foreign" mercenaries? There's no way every species has 100% loyalty, I'm sure plenty of gold could persuade some elves or undead to help me out Of course, this would have to be limited to maybe one per army, or everyone would have their armies full of elven archers and dwarven HIs

Bobba wrote:

Vmomo wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

But a lvl 18 army fighting a lvl 12 army can lose... Since after lvl 10-11 abilities don't change, and you can almost cap your units.

I'd like to see a lvl 12 army defeating a lvl 18 army equipped with gear of its level. ;)Mmmmmaybe possible...but the lvl 18's General must have a veeeery bad day for this to happen...

You can practically equip everything you need to cap your units around level 12 or 13. So I can easily see a level 18 player losing against a level 12.  

Yup, capping units is entirely possible having lvl 12ish, unless someone wants max droprate or something (which no one does.. because it's a lot better to bring additional unit for the same ap). In rune's example of how lvl 18 must have some advantage... nonsense.
I and others with nearly-next-tier armies lose a lot vs those who have lower levels because they have more freedom to bring a good army. High levels mean higher base AP from level ups... And it's a lot better to have lower base stats and compensate with gear (GS allows that..) than have units overcap a lot just because of unfortunate level stats.

Eg.. I have a cav with 97 melee from tech/levels, any weapon which has melee, overcaps by a ton.. So I must choose either melee/str weapon or str/pve stats... While a lvl 12 could properly cap the melee without any waste). If I could choose, I'd even downlevel my units to the bottom of the tier, and ditch some researches...

Some people do complain that their levels are low for the tier, but they don't realize it's actually to their advantage in t4/5, because they're used to level differences meaning too much in low tiers...

Really the most active (and fair..ish, and fun) pvp was before those level limits.

I never liked the level limits. Still don't and won't in the future. If you(Runeslayer) really think the tiers are good and fair then why not make a "free tier" where there is the only rule of +25 AP or even private pvp lobbies where there are no rules.