Guild Wars 2

What if you can change characters on the fly, where in you select a main character, then select another character (or more with further upgrades) that will become a ‘mercenary’ character? You can then switch to this other character anytime out of combat.

This is how it would work. Everything will be based on your main character, such as magic find, inventory bags, etc. If you pick up an item, it goes to your main character’s bag. If you gain experience, it goes to your main character. There could be level restrictions, ie. only level 80s can form a personal character party. You can only switch characters when your are out of combat and it has a casting time to switch to another character. Only your main character can change equipment and traits and skills, but the mercenary character can’t change equipment and skills (you have to log-in as a particular character to change stuff). Mercenaries can be disabled in certain parts of the game (such as Personal Story or some Living Story episodes). There could be a cooldown when could change characters again.

The reason for this is because sometimes people change characters in dungeons to better suit a dangerous area. Then he/she had to walk all the way to where the group stopped to wait. Another scenario is a party member loses internet connection and then reconnects back, and sometimes has to be escorted back to the group’s location. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do it yourself, ie. temporarily become a thief stealthing and then changing back to a warrior. Also I’ve tried Final Fantasy XIV, and they have this sort of thing in their core gameplay; a character could change to any class anytime, and then change his weapons, armor and skills. Guild Wars 2 can implement a much cooler version of this, you can switch to your other characters, even the same character class if you feel like showing your other characters to other people.

There’s already a mild version of this system. People can transform using transformation potions. What I mean is maybe arenanet could reuse and recode the transformation code to fit this mercenary system.

I doubt it would happen. Something like that usually needs to be designed into the game at start. Otherwise it would take the company a lot of money to put in. If they are going to spend a lot of money for this then there needs to be a clear need for it. So far you haven’t given need, only wishes.

For example. Your suggestion requires a char with its own inventory and gear and location in the world to take the place of another char. Right now if you login you arrive at the place you left. How would they keep that in place so people can log in where they logged out and still have a system where that char can “arrive” where another character is? If I have a char left at a spot, after I switch with another char where will he be at next login? The first spot, the second or some other neutral spot such as in Lions Arch?

The mercenary characters won’t leave their spot in the world, only when you log in will you be able to change gear and traits and move them around. Only your main character can change gear, traits, and move. It’s the same way in the GW1 merc system, ie. the system “copies” your characters to become mercenaries. Lore wise, the characters could be on separate time lines, meaning their time as mercenaries could be a point in the past or future of their lifetime. When you log-in to a character, that’s their present time. It’s up to you how you will weave their/your characters’ stories.

For need, maybe new dungeons that are hard, and you need to change party setup to maximize survivability? I mean dungeons that are designed for multiple classes. These new and exciting dungeons will have mechanics designed for certain character classes, ie. routes will need one person, while the others go to other paths.

Another need is when you are in WvW. Right now, to change classes, you have to log out, then log in. If your server is full, then you have to requeue. What if you are a warrior, and your party are the only ones in the tower stalling the enemy zerg? What if you need an elementalist at that time?

So this system would be useful primarily in dungeons? Well I don’t see this breaking the game in anyway and it would definitely help (especially if they implement a proper template system as well).
Still as Just a flesh wound noted, not sure about the cost-benefit.

Actually, the Guild Wars 1 Mercenary system didn’t completely copy your char and didn’t allow you to switch between chars. What it did was make a hero that looked like your char that then played alongside it, not instead of your char. This mercenary came without any of the originals gear or inventory. It came with a default set of armor and you had to get the extra components to improve it and also get weapons for it. It also came without your skills.Those had to be bought separately.

They also weren’t switchable outside of towns. If you were in a dungeon and realized you could really use your necro mercenary, you would have to leave the dungeon, go to a town and add it. So the Guild Wars 1 system really has little resemblance to what you are suggesting.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Actually, the Guild Wars 1 Mercenary system didn’t completely copy your char and didn’t allow you to switch between chars. What it did was make a hero that looked like your char that then played alongside it, not instead of your char. This mercenary came without any of the originals gear or inventory. It came with a default set of armor and you had to get the extra components to improve it and also get weapons for it. It also came without your skills.Those had to be bought separately.

They also weren’t switchable outside of towns. If you were in a dungeon and realized you could really use your necro mercenary, you would have to leave the dungeon, go to a town and add it. So the Guild Wars 1 system really has little resemblance to what you are suggesting.

This.

I know about the mercenary system of Guild Wars 1. You couldn’t get your mercenaries to use certain skills, for example bear form, and they follow you around like ordinary heroes and henchmen. Although I wish there was a way Marjorie and other characters could follow you around permanently (not just as minis), maybe an elite skill perhaps, or maybe the return of hero/henchmen system, but nah that would tax the system more plus it would add characters to the environment, meaning more graphics to process if lots of people use it. So this is my version of the mercenary system, instead of using your characters all at the same time like in Guild Wars 1, you can still use them in Guild Wars 2, but one at a time. And it incentivizes people to upgrade to buy more mercenary slots because you now retain not just the looks, but also the armor and skills of the character (in Guild Wars 1 the mercenary character will be wearing whatever armor the character was already wearing when it was registered, only, the insignias and runes are removed).

It would be too open to abuse and exploitation in my opinion.

As I understand your suggestion, people buy mercenary slots and fill them with replicas of their chars. There will be a swap button on the UI, sort of like a weapon swap button but with choices of all your mercenary alts, and when you use the button and choose an alt it completely switches you from the char you are using to the alt, who is completely geared and traited like the real char it resembles.

That would mean that the original set of chars is now redundant. Someone might as well play on one char, swapping out as needed. I’m not much of a role player but to me it trivializes the separation between your chars, both personality wise and by what they can do. They might as well make one char to play with and have the rest doing jumping puzzle chest duty. It makes that one char you will end up playing not one profession such as a thief, but a thief/ ranger/ warrior/ guardian/ mesmer/ engineer/ elementalist/ necromancer, depending on the time of day and what you need. It’s the ultimate homogenization.

I see your point. Going back to what you’ve said earlier, then maybe the characters will be confined to a certain area, such as the mercenary agency, where they can’t leave the area until they have fulfilled their assignment.

I’m thinking it will have a limit of 3 to 5. For example, in another game called Granado Espada, you can have a party of 3 and switch between the characters. It will be like switching in and out of an Omega Golem, but instead of an Omega Golem, you will have the stats and skills of your other characters. It doesn’t have to be ‘thief then other characters’ always. You can switch to other characters as main if you get bored with thief.

In that case, why don’t you instead ask that each profession can freely switch between 3 or 4 other professions at the touch of a button instead of having mercenaries.

Let’s say, I’m playing guardian and doing a jumping puzzle. A friend needs a Mesmer to port him up. I click on my Mesmer button, my armor and weapons switch over and all my skills switch to Mesmer. I then drop a portal and bring him up. In a dungeon, I’m a warrior to start, but wait, we need a thief for a group stealth. I touch my thief button and I’m a thief. I stealth the group, we run past, then I hit my warrior button and I’m a warrior again.

Why bother to ask for a mercenary system when you can simply ask for each char to have the choice to be several professions in sequence as wanted? Why even have separate professions? Give all the skills to one char to be all the professions at once. Because that’s essentially what you are asking for.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Let’s say, I’m playing guardian and doing a jumping puzzle. A friend needs a Mesmer to port him up. I click on my Mesmer button, my armor and weapons switch over and all my skills switch to Mesmer. I then drop a portal and bring him up. In a dungeon, I’m a warrior to start, but wait, we need a thief for a group stealth. I touch my thief button and I’m a thief. I stealth the group, we run past, then I hit my warrior button and I’m a warrior again.

And that is the reason why this will never happen. It will completely ruin any sense of team building and profession uniqueness/originality.

HaxTester.9816:

There’s already a mild version of this system. People can transform using transformation potions. What I mean is maybe arenanet could reuse and recode the transformation code to fit this mercenary system.

I can all but guarantee that virtually nothing about the transformation system could be reused to do what you are proposing. Changing your character’s appearance and skill bars to a stock transformation and changing from one player character to another are completely unrelated from a programming perspective.

HaxTester.9816:

I know about the mercenary system of Guild Wars 1. You couldn’t get your mercenaries to use certain skills, for example bear form, and they follow you around like ordinary heroes and henchmen. Although I wish there was a way Marjorie and other characters could follow you around permanently (not just as minis), maybe an elite skill perhaps, or maybe the return of hero/henchmen system, but nah that would tax the system more plus it would add characters to the environment, meaning more graphics to process if lots of people use it.

Well there’s always the possibility that future (because present dungeons the lore doesn’t make sense) would give the option us using the biconics as stand-ins for real players (that is to say you only have 2 other players , so the 2 remaining slots gets filled in by Braham and Majory or another combo). Well maybe dungeons proper not so much, but story dungeons seems a prime candidate for testing this idea.