Please don't bring Mercenaries to POE2

This may be a minority viewpoint, but I hate playing with: companions, mercenaries, followers, minions, totems, rhoa mounts, etc. The news post recently that talked about eventually bringing Mercenaries core bothered me a lot and I'm scared they will come to POE2.

Why? Primarily because I prefer my fantasy / gameplay to be about my character's direct control and power instead of others.

But I also think companions or mercenaries introduce a problem: they become a requirement instead of being an archetype.

Example: Rhoa Mount and Tame Beast are universally recommended as additional power for any class / character. Every class or build now tries to find a way to integrate Tame Beast for additional power. To me, that's stupid and bad design.

What about minions and totems? These work as they are separate archetypes that generally require a divestment of your own character's power towards them. I may not like these archetypes (and thus don't play them), but there isn't a universal agreement that builds recommend throwing in a random minion for an extra aura.

Mercenaries and companions introduce additional power that will ultimately become "required". They aren't an archetype.

Why is perceived requirement bad? Because like it or not it shapes the way the game is played. It impacts the economy, build diversity, and community discussions. It changes the way people experience the game in a way that I find unfun and negatively impacts my experience.

So ya, don't bring Mercenaries to POE2. And while you are at it, please delete Rhoa Mount and Tame Beast. Thanks. :)

/rant

i really hope they bring mercenaries. it would be so much fun

I'm not even sure how they consider glorified Animated Guardian a league mechanic.

It's just another one of those where players are letting loot influence their judgment over the actual league mechanics. Much like Sanctum which was a currency printer but failed at it's intended experience in every way possible.

If you played Sanctum while leveling you felt the intended experience. I tried it a few times. Then the player damage kicks in and it's just like everything else in PoE1. Kill it before it moves.

Personally I don't think they've done better than Heist in recent years. Story telling, side quests, characters, dialogs. It's all quality stuff. Shame players went into a stealth league with their 40 zombie army then cried on the forums and ruined the gameplay.

Yes, no mercenaries please.
I am fine with totems, minions, etc, they are silent tools you work with.

But Trarthan assholes should not proliferate any further.
Their poisonous attitude deletes desire to even think about them, let alone play with them.
Let them disapppear after this PoE1 league.

I don't want to relive this again:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3806624

Please bring mercenaries. I wasn't aware of that for path of exile, and now that I do, I want it badly.

I want a desert mercenary from Diablo 2 because he'll "make good use of that"

Bring those auras and additional rarity find baby.

Also, bring runewords and set item, ty.

I agree, please don't bring mercenaries as additional power into this game. I want to play my character and not have an NPC do part of the combat for me.

i like mercenaries; but they should not be added until core balance is addressed.

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Xzorn#7046 wrote:

I'm not even sure how they consider glorified Animated Guardian a league mechanic.

It's just another one of those where players are letting loot influence their judgment over the actual league mechanics. Much like Sanctum which was a currency printer but failed at it's intended experience in every way possible.

If you played Sanctum while leveling you felt the intended experience. I tried it a few times. Then the player damage kicks in and it's just like everything else in PoE1. Kill it before it moves.

Personally I don't think they've done better than Heist in recent years. Story telling, side quests, characters, dialogs. It's all quality stuff. Shame players went into a stealth league with their 40 zombie army then cried on the forums and ruined the gameplay.

Mercenaries are cool though. I like rogue exiles but they feel empty, mercenaries would be rogue exiles+

It doesn't have to be the same as in Poe1, they can completely change the whole mechanic and make it better/balanced towards poe2. This is especially the case now that they already tried on poe1 and have a better understanding of how it could be done on poe2, if done

Especially for story telling, there's so much potential with mercenaries

Instead of developing a couple or two mechanics in depth, they prefer to drop another peace of garbage into the pile. If it's true they seemingly preparing tasteless slop for us, instead of carefully picked quality stuff.

Better less but better, I'd prefer to see they develop existing game mechanics more.

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JEE_ZUZ#0982 wrote:

Instead of developing a couple or two mechanics in depth, they prefer to drop another peace of garbage into the pile. If it's true they seemingly preparing tasteless slop for us, instead of carefully picked quality stuff.

Better less but better, I'd prefer to see they develop existing game mechanics more.

That's part of the intention of 0.4 as far as we know, which will rework the end game. The mechanics we have right now are incomplete and stuff like breach for example is sort of already confirmed to be getting new bosses that lead to Xesht, maybe some on the same level as Xesht or above it