Mericarol's online/multiplayer stats in Ultimate mode

Should we fix Mericarol's online/multiplayer stats in Ultimate mode?

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    93
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I love this server and i love this community, so it should say quite a lot when the vast majority who have voted on this clearly are leaning towards leaving this as is...this is something you should really think twice on, as others who have been here a lot longer than me (and atm are also much more active than i am) have a strong opinion on the matter.

When you start to tinker with mob stats and such, you are skating down a very slippery slope, as the main reason i enjoy Ephinea is that things are as vanilla as Sega intended them to be (oversight or whatnot).
 
My vote is No on this one.

EP2 is already a pretty big step up in difficulty from all other areas of the game and we do have Anguish Mode giving players an optional degree of difficulty if they desire. Any forced changes to the stats will not be viewed in good faith and I feel needless.

Sure the game may have some oddities in balance with mobs and gear but that is part of the charm of the game we love so much and are still playing after all these years.

I ask you reconsider any changes to the battle parameters of monsters in the base game. Say if the attribute percent were to work on minibosses they would become very trivial overall.

Just a quick and dirty rundown of my feelings towards battle balance changes. Have a wonderful day everyone n.n
 
I have spent 4 years here on Ephinea - 2 of which I'd consider being very active in the Discord and ingame community. And this is the post that forces me to make a forum account.

I agree with the "no"s from my fellow players and friends I've played with for months, even years. These changes, (including ESP!) are very disruptive to general gameplay.

Mericarol is in a nice spot as-is: it has an instakill move, but has the potential to be quickly dealt with by any class - not just the stronger/meta classes. That way, a weaker party member can target Mericarol while the stronger players (or players with either Freeze Traps or Frozen Shooter) can lock down the tougher Mericus and/or Merikle in a spawn.

The ESP change particularly irks me. Arresting Mericarol in multimode is like a super-secret tactic you can use to help your party out. It's not used or even known usually. It's a fun bit of trivia, and an extra tool to prep for if you're running in a disorganized or inexperienced party. If a change has to occur, I'd rather OPM Mericarol ESP to be lowered. Triple Meri spawns in solo is hell to deal with. Fleshies without Frozen Shooter have no tools for crowd control other than an RNG Rabarta or Gibarta freeze, or infinitely chipping away with a 10 damage Razonde hitstun. I would prefer even more if the fragile state of the game remains unchanged, however.

I understand wanting to "fix" "broken" things, but pushing this change through without community approval is selfish. I, too, ask you to reconsider your decision here.

PSO is an accidental masterpiece. There's so many "bugs" and "broken" things, but that's what makes it so incredible! There's always more to learn about the systems. How to use "glitches" intentionally is fundamental to the wonderful feeling of skill progression.

The QoL changes have been mostly fine and can be opted out of in most cases. However, I've been hesitant even on some of those seemingly harmless decisions. It's indeed a slippery slope, so I would prefer the default to be "leave it alone." An accidental masterpiece falls apart if you mess with it. I would hate to see Ephinea, the final bastion of vanilla PSO gameplay, fall as badly as other servers have. One change can lead to a hundred.

*Edit* - line breaks for readability
 
As someone who's done some game-deving as a hobby, I want to point another perspective that hasn't been taken into account: While it might have been a mistake at first, maybe the devs actually noticed it and thought something like "well, multi mode is hard enough already, let's just leave it as is" or "actually this makes for a fun dynamic, the enemy is weak as shit but it is still a high priority target since it kills you instantly, and unlike the other two meris you have the option of killing it quickly or para-ing it instead of just being a carbon copy of the other two".

Is it unlikely? Maybe, but in the end you can't know for sure. This also applies to the weapon attribute "typo" in floor 2 of the final areas that got fixed. Maybe they left it like that because the rates are so dumb they thought it didn't really matter anyway, or just to allow for those high hit items to make it into the game more consistently.

On another note, maybe I'm wrong but I believe the argument against fixing D-Parts Ver2.10 was that it remained bugged through multiple updates of the game and that somehow made it "official" that it was supposed to be like it is. So whatever philosophy is being taken towards the Mericarol issue should be considered towards that as well. :cool:
 
The ESP change sucks but I can live with that but a stat change would change strategies and make certain areas harder for a playerbase that is already bad at episode 2 lol. I'll vote no, even though it doesn't affect me personally much.
 
@Sodaboy I'm going to have to go with the mob on this one and give this a big fat hell no!

Sodaboy said:
The most glaring problem is Mericarol's ESP value is 20, as opposed to 100, as it is in all other modes, and this will be corrected regardless of the outcome of this poll.
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Please note the bolded section of the quote here.

It is painfully obvious that the vast majority of your players here at Ephinea stringently disapprove of this stat change most of all. While I do cede that the decision is ultimately up to you and your co-admins to make, to go ahead and change it "just because you want to" would greatly harm the trusting and respectful relationship between the Administration and the general public.

Please say that you'll reconsider upping the ESP anyways.

Tagging @Matt and @Ender as the co-admins of the server to see this message.
 
Last edited:
Kayak said:
EXP: 348 552 (This is the only one that sega bothered to fix in later versions [BB])
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Thats actually interesting, so Sega HAS looked at the wrong stats of mericarol, and decided to change JUST the xp? hard to tell with sega's patchwork balance scheme but does seem interesting that this change happened (this is before the 1.3x xp multiplier on ep2 in general)
 
Interesting that so many people are a no on this one. Why don't we just try it out for a couple of weeks and adapt? Maybe it's not going to be nearly as bad as it seems.
 
Updated the OP. ESP change is being reconsidered.

This thread is dope, though, I love the conversation and reading all this stuff, especially No Hit's tears and assumptions about me.

Also, don't think we don't notice the new alternate accounts of users voting more than once (some of you obvious by using the same IP, some not), you're invalidating all of your votes.
 
Sodaboy said:
Updated the OP. ESP change is being reconsidered.

This thread is dope, though, I love the conversation and reading all this stuff, especially No Hit's tears and assumptions about me.

Also, don't think we don't notice the new alternate accounts of users voting more than once (some of you obvious by using the same IP, some not), you're invalidating all of your votes.
Click to expand...

Thank you, Soda, for opening up the game about suggestions on stuff like this. I originally voted "yes" but changed it to "no" after Meridian's point that perhaps Ep. 2 Multi is already hard enough as it is. It's the only Episode that has an enemy with an instant-kill attack that can't be built around or resisted, so it makes any area in which the Meri variants can appear exponentially more dangerous than any other area in the game. Your head constantly has to be on a swivel, and enemy prioritization choices are limited when Meris could appear.

Still, great discussion. Thank you for continued devotion to this server and the wonderful work that you and the rest of the staff do. I'm still gonna be happy and keep playing PSO no matter the outcome of this, but I do agree that Episode 2 is already dangerous enough as it is.
 
Just a couple of random questions, but how do you guys and gals deal with this in one-person mode?

Mericarol is considerably more buff in Ultimate one-person mode as well as having their ESP at the correct value of 100. Do you guys just not play OPM Episode 2 in Ultimate?

We added all the multiplayer quests to one-person mode quite some time ago, which is also not a "vanilla" thing. How do you deal with Mericarol in the SAME quests in OPM in Ultimate? Or do you just say it's too hard, can't deal, and play multiplayer mode with the weaker version of it instead, because you can exploit the oversight?
 
Sodaboy said:
Just a couple of random questions, but how do you guys and gals deal with this in one-person mode?

Mericarol is considerably more buff in Ultimate one-person mode as well as having their ESP at the correct value of 100. Do you guys just not play OPM Episode 2 in Ultimate?

We added all the multiplayer quests to one-person mode quite some time ago, which is also not a "vanilla" thing. How do you deal with Mericarol in the SAME quests in OPM in Ultimate? Or do you just say it's too hard, can't deal, and play multiplayer mode with the weaker version of it instead, because you can exploit the oversight?
Click to expand...

I think with every other enemy being easier and with invincibility frames, that there's enough other "eases" to cope with harder Meris in OPM. Rote memorization of the quest goes a long way, too.

Things tend to be more chaotic in Multimode. Every other enemy besides Meri is way stronger, so if a Meri, or multiple Meris, appears- things can get chaotic. You don't know who it's going to target always.
 
No one has an issue with OPM mericarols- we use different ways of defeating them than in multimode. You are really missing the point if you think the reason so many are so against the change is because they find the game difficult and need things to be easier, as opposed to preserving the sanctity and experience of a ~20yr old vanilla experience
 
Sodaboy said:
Just a couple of random questions, but how do you guys and gals deal with this in one-person mode?

Mericarol is considerably more buff in Ultimate one-person mode as well as having their ESP at the correct value of 100. Do you guys just not play OPM Episode 2 in Ultimate?

Matt added all the multiplayer quests to one-person mode quite some time ago, which is also not a "vanilla" thing. How do you deal with Mericarol in the SAME quests in OPM in Ultimate? Or do you just say it's too hard, can't deal, and play multiplayer mode with the weaker version of it instead, because you can exploit the oversight?
Click to expand...

I usually deal with OPM Meri's more than Multi.

It depends on the class. HUcast obviously just murks the things with a multitude of choices.
HUcaseal can stunlock with LS and if not that she can still murk them with DPS choices (same goes for HUnewearl).
I don't have a HUmar, its probably harder but he has the ATP to go about it in similar veins (OPM EVP isn't bad enough for the lack of ATA to be a hindrance).

RAcast and RAcaseal lack shifta so the ck potential is limited but they make up for it with traps and wide-range stunlocks (and SQ). Fleshies have to finesse more but they have more tools to outright finish them.

FO's in general have no trouble with Meri's at all in solo, in fact they're absolutely phenomenal in tower generally.

OPM Meri's are just different and are handled differently as opposed to Multi, but because of OPM stats for the other enemies they generally balance themselves out for OPM purposes as opposed to Multi, where frustrations occur for most notably newer players (note: not vets, they can deal with them regardless, at least I hope). The thing is they aren't the only ones that follow the logic either. Many lesser enemies from grunt to high priority targets are just different enough like that to commit to a different strat. Its a different, optional mode that some of us build the gear for, and vice versa.
 
cameron- said:
as opposed to preserving the sanctity and experience of a ~20yr old vanilla experience
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Yeah, as I already said, Ephinea is no longer vanilla. So, the vanilla argument goes out of the window with me.

Also, to be quite honest, I'm not really that concerned with preserving a game in its exact form for a small group of players who want it to be exactly as they remember it from 20 years ago. You can miss me with that.

I think it's more important to evolve the game, through small changes and fixes, and maybe even attract new players as opposed to trying my best to keep older players around and kowtow to them for eternity.

I've already come to the decision, a long time ago, that I cannot please everyone and I'm not even going to bother to try.

Keeping a game completely stagnant is also a good way to make sure a game dies. So, you lose whether you keep things the same or you try to be different.

That said, I don't think there has been any MAJOR changes to Ephinea which would make it not look like or play like PSO. Even if this change was implemented, it's still PSO, IMHO. Not boosting ESP and buffing stats only, Mericarol just becomes a bit stronger in Ultimate mode. Big whoop. You may have to hit it a few more times.
 
Another big thing in OPM is cheese. Door cheese. Fence cheese (in Tower), etc. Sometimes when you're alone you have to use some cheese to overcame large waves of dangerous enemies, but you're always sacrificing efficiency for that. In Multimode, there isn't really time to coordinate cheese, so you just have to deal with the danger head on, and hope that your party is competent enough to get through.
 
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