MERCS: PSA and looking for help

Submitted 1 year, 7 months ago by

Hey mercheads! Just in case you didn't notice this already, the Acolyte of N'Zoth bounty in Darkshore now awards coins for Finley and C'Thun. I've been beating it on normal twice daily (for the Toki task) and netting coins for those two upcoming new mercenaries. 

I'm also looking for help in PvP. Suddenly pirates are dominating the meta. The Patches/Vanessa/Smite synergy is absolutely insane. Does anyone have a good comp to suggest for beating them?

  • Pezman's Avatar
    Staff Writer 2235 2220 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    Hey mercheads! Just in case you didn't notice this already, the Acolyte of N'Zoth bounty in Darkshore now awards coins for Finley and C'Thun. I've been beating it on normal twice daily (for the Toki task) and netting coins for those two upcoming new mercenaries. 

    I'm also looking for help in PvP. Suddenly pirates are dominating the meta. The Patches/Vanessa/Smite synergy is absolutely insane. Does anyone have a good comp to suggest for beating them?

    "Be excellent to each other." -Bill and Ted

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  • NebuchadnezzarHS's Avatar
    Supporter 2025 1394 Posts Joined 06/14/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    Yeah, I noticed that coins update too and I have been exterminating N'Zoth acolytes left, right and center since the patch went live. So far I have collected 3000+ C'Thun and 2800+ Sir Finley coins and still those pesky N'Zoth acolytes keep respawning! Gotta kill every single last one of them!

    I do not have any advice on the Pirates dominance question though because I do not play PvP, sorry. Perhaps Old Guardian knows?

    EDIT: There is really no end to these damn N'Zoth acolytes, so I will abandon this mission (for now). I have collected more than enough coins anyways, lol.

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  • DragonDraena's Avatar
    640 436 Posts Joined 08/10/2021
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    Feels like the Old Gods are dominant at the moment. 

    And whatever updates to the MMR happened around the time of miniset launch have me confused. 

    I win one game of PvP per day, and for weeks I've only played against one other player: CrazyCat. Do she and I have the exact same schedule and skill level? Or is this the new name for Your Opponent? 

    What have you been seeing in the pit? 

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  • Pezman's Avatar
    Staff Writer 2235 2220 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    Yes, old gods are super strong right now, and I haven't found anything that can consistently counter them. I guess we should just play old gods too and hope to win the coin flips.

    Matchmaking is total garbage. I end up queing into the same person multiple times in a row, and if I don't, the wait is like 5-7 minutes. I had to face Mr. Awesome three times this morning, which is BS because A) he's at the top of the leaderboard, some 20,000 points above me, and B) he's just a fucking bot.

    Botting is a huge problem in Mercs right now, and everyone knows it. If anyone knows a way to take advantage of them, I would love to hear it. 

    "Be excellent to each other." -Bill and Ted

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  • DragonDraena's Avatar
    640 436 Posts Joined 08/10/2021
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    You inspired me to scroll through the Mercs leaderboard (the UI could use some loving attention). 

    I spotted quite a few names that I think I recognize from OOC, so that's fun. Pezman, you are pages ahead of ChahDresh, who is pages ahead of GoliathDwarf, who is pages ahead of me. If the battletags line up with the OOC accounts. 

    CrazyCat is 15+ pages ahead of me, but I often beat her, so who knows what it all means? 

    I have zero ideas right now on how to take advantage of the bot opponents, beyond "don't worry too much about it" and "see if there are any Merc Achievements that'd be easier in a bot pit." Perhaps some of our esteemed colleagues will have more interesting ideas. 

    I can say that winning one PvP game per day takes me to 5000+ (and sometimes 6k+) over the season, so the rewards chests feel fairly worthwhile for the amount of effort. 

    And it's fun. Probably more fun at the mid-levels where we all are than on the first page of the leaderboards. 

    1
  • Unreal89's Avatar
    400 174 Posts Joined 06/02/2019
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    Personally, I am not interested in PvP. I just play some PvE or leave it in the background, to slowly collect coins... and sometimes enjoying the end-boss PvE "puzzle".

     

    But, since Mercs came out, I play up to 1 or 3 wins in PvP daily, because random coins are worth it, until they fix excess coins issue.

     

    Since 1 or 2 weeks, with some patch, I play ONLY against "QuirkyTurtle". The time of the day does not matter. Morning, afternoon, evening, midnight... it's always him in PvP.

    He seems like a bot. Takes actions instantly. If I go into queue ASAP after a match... I play again against him, but... he changes his Mercenaries in composition. No human would be able to change them this fast and queue... unless he has dozens of teams ready.

    But I kid you not, I don't think I ever saw him play 2 same teams. His teams seem just random. Including something stupid like for example 5 Fighters and 1 Caster. Like, wtf? But if he is a bot, random team compositions should not be surprising.

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  • Riffraff's Avatar
    755 370 Posts Joined 04/30/2020
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    I think CrazyCat is a bot, replacing "your opponent" for me, at least. I face CrazyCat whenever I am leveling mercs in PVP (which is my method of choice). The party is always a random mix of mercs, and their level always mirrors the levels of the mercs in my party.

    For example, if I have two maxed mercs doing the "carry", then CrazyCat has two maxed mercs and then the remainder are mercs levels 1-29 (whatever I have in my party). It's usually a pretty easy win, but sometimes I get a really bad match up (CrazyCat has 5 protectors versus my 4 fighters, ouch!) and it gets really interesting.

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  • NebuchadnezzarHS's Avatar
    Supporter 2025 1394 Posts Joined 06/14/2019
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    CrazyCat is the bot in the US region and QuirkyTurtle is the bot in the EU region. They are particularly useful to complete the Mercenaries Fighting Pit achievements. You will encounter these bots many times more at lower ratings.

    2
  • Pezman's Avatar
    Staff Writer 2235 2220 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    This is good to know - I was not aware that there were other versions of "Your Opponent". I wish I encountered them more myself. Like a couple others noted above, I also play PvP to get just one win a day (occasionally I'll go to three for the second chest). Fighting "Your Opponent" generally makes for an easy match.

    "Be excellent to each other." -Bill and Ted

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  • NebuchadnezzarHS's Avatar
    Supporter 2025 1394 Posts Joined 06/14/2019
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    I wonder what weird name was chosen for the bot of the Asia Pacific region or for the Chinese servers. This information was nowhere to be found when I looked for it.

    1
  • JohnnyStorm's Avatar
    Magma Rager 490 117 Posts Joined 05/29/2019
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    How does matchmaking in the pit work now? When mercs were first introduced, it was clear: if you are not matched with an opponent in 1:30 min, you get a bot. But at the beginning of this year (or even earlier, I don't remember) it changed, didn't it? Now I can wait for an opponent for 4 minutes and more. And sometimes I am matched with bot before 1:30 have passed.

    Does anyone understand the logic behind it? I would play more pvp if the waiting time was reasonable.

    0
  • Unreal89's Avatar
    400 174 Posts Joined 06/02/2019
    Posted 1 year, 5 months ago

    The 1:30 min thing did not change I am pretty sure. Most times when I reached 1:30, I got a bot, until recently.

     

    It "kind-of" changed recently, starting since about 2-3 weeks ago (Thursday - Friday patch ? Might be a patch, which introduced bots to Constructed...).

     

    Now I never reach 1:30 time anymore, because I get matched against "QuirkyTurtle", which seems like a bot for my (EU) region. So currently I wait about 10-25 seconds until I get matched with "QuirkyTurtle", that's it.

     

    Not sure, how is it possible to reach 4+ minutes of waiting, unless it's a bug. Sometimes in Constructed (Standard or Wild) ladder I get a bug where queue lasts 4-5+ minutes and can't find anyone.

    In such case, after restarting the client, I get a match pretty quickly. Not sure what triggers it, but it happens (rarely) for months now.

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