Currently, you can only pick 3 mercs, I am proposing two changes.
You can now have 5 squad slots, meaning it is possible to choose up to 5 mercs
You can pick as many loadouts for a merc as you like, but it makes up slots in your squad.
With the changes, I could have 2 Aura cards, 2 proxy cards, 1 Redeye and1 Nader. So 5 cards total
So this way I can choose different loadouts for a single merc depending on what is.needed, and I can play whatever my team needs at any given time.
I actually really like this, would really help with a lot of matches where you end up with a poor card for the situation. And being able to take 5 mercs(Which is also really good) is nice so we can fill more roles for our team. Sadly this will not happen, they’ve already stated they will never increase the squad beyond three slots… however I don’t see a reason why they can’t allow the same merc with different loadouts in that squad.
Yeah, this would help in many situations. Like defending last stage on Chapel, we really need a medic but all I have is a shotgun Aura…
Even 1 additional slot shared would be fine (3 mercs 4 slots).
Fire support slot, engineer slot, assault slot and a recon slot would do for me (not rlly a big fan of playing as a medic).
I would take the 3 slots but with changing loadouts of specified merc in-game.
I don’t get why they won’t increase it beyond 3. After all the mercs are back, we’ll have a total of 20. And there’s more on the way, so at some point that 3 merc limit is going to greatly hinder the game if isn’t already.
I feel like just having a deck of 5 with whatever you want would actually work really well. And if they wanna keep the F1, F2, and F3 keys as the only ones we’re allowed to use, I have a solution for that too.
F1 - Shows your current card
F2 - Previous card
F3 - Next Card
Press F1 to check what you’re using currently, and then press F2 or F3 to cycle though. And on top of that, a little menu can pop up in the corner or something.
We need more teamplay and less one-man-armies who switch between every merc.
It’s not a good idea to have more than one loadout of the same merc to occupy a slot in a squad.
And besides, I got it all documented already in this thread
There is great value in limited resources. It forces you to make hard choices. Instead of being able to do all things all the time, you instead specialize in a few things. So, you pick the few things you want to excel at. The holes you have in your play style, mercenary selection, and ability is exactly why you have a team - they’re supposed to fill in the other spots.
Three slots is okay. I wouldn’t be against the ability to have the same mercenary in each slot with different load outs, but if you’re complaining about lack of flexibility I don’t see why you’d want to do that.
I don’t get why they won’t increase it beyond 3. After all the mercs are back, we’ll have a total of 20. And there’s more on the way, so at some point that 3 merc limit is going to greatly hinder the game if isn’t already.
I feel like just having a deck of 5 with whatever you want would actually work really well. And if they wanna keep the F1, F2, and F3 keys as the only ones we’re allowed to use, I have a solution for that too.
F1 - Shows your current card
F2 - Previous card
F3 - Next Card
Press F1 to check what you’re using currently, and then press F2 or F3 to cycle though. And on top of that, a little menu can pop up in the corner or something.[/quote]
Why not using cursor to click which card you want? 
Just curious…
Idk, I’d like that too but I figured just having it bound to buttons would be easier, so you don’t have to stop moving just to select your next card.
I don’t know, it seems like a good idea on paper but then when I think about it more, being able to have 2 cards for one merc that you can switch between depended on the situation, while it won’t be OP the ability to let’s say have a long range aura loadout for long stretches of maps (the road blockade road in Bridge) and then switch to a Remburg loadout when you are at a close range area (last stage in Bridge).
Again it certainly won’t be OP and more friendly towards you (the player) but balance wise I just never see the current system being changed without a complete overhaul.
Also you need to really think about what cards you take with you.
I don’t see how having different cards for different situations for the same merc breaks anything.
If anything it’d offer more options and cause less stalemates.
[quote=“Watsyurdeal;82816”]I don’t see how having different cards for different situations for the same merc breaks anything.
If anything it’d offer more options and cause less stalemates.[/quote]
Again I said it won’t be a gamechanger/OP but sometimes having more options isn’t the best option.
I don’t agree with 1 but I’m not totally opposed to 2 unless someone has a good reason I haven’t thought of yet.
I initially posted this elsewhere:
I would rather have 5 archetype slots where you select 1 merc of each class to enter the game. For example, fire support you can fill with Arty, Skyhammer, Kira, or Stoker. This allows players in public games to deal with whatever crappy situation arises that is often the source of player’s rage quit. As it stands right now if nobody brings a Nader or Fragger it becomes very difficult to break a corner camping Rhino/ Aura combo without losing a whole team to a case of rage quit. Being spawn camped? The current system does not allow for any means to break it other than hoping your new teamates brought a different set of mercs than your rage quitting old ones.
This archetype slot layout also fixes the problem with the questing system that requires certain mercs. As it stands right now I lose a valuable slot that should be filled with a merc I am more comfortable playing or one that I feel might benefit the team more or be better suited for certain maps or sides. Why would I take Rhino on offense on Chapel? Talk about easy target! If I only have time for 1 or 2 maps, if I want to play with friends, and if i do not want to drop the quest I have to waste that valuable merc slot for Rhino, leaving the whole team vulerable to the problems stated above.
But I was later told by Pixel said that SD mentioned several times that the 3 merc limit was imposed due to a limited amount of client side information that is sent to the server. Thus for every person on the server not only is their choice of the three mercs sent but also their augments, which for example tells the server that it needs to increase the splash damage radius for this person but not that person and send that information along to every client on the server. This information, along with client side hit detection that needs to be sent to the server for verification, there may not be enough room for 5 slots or even servers with greater than 8 v 8 without a serious overhaul of the engine’s design, which ultimately may lead to greater lag due to the increase in amount of information sent over the internet. If their long term plan is to add more mercs and more load out cards(with different augments) they may not be able to do it.
[quote=“Demolama;82827”][left]I initially posted this elsewhere:[/left]
I would rather have 5 archetype slots where you select 1 merc of each class to enter the game. For example, fire support you can fill with Arty, Skyhammer, Kira, or Stoker. This allows players in public games to deal with whatever crappy situation arises that is often the source of player’s rage quit. As it stands right now if nobody brings a Nader or Fragger it becomes very difficult to break a corner camping Rhino/ Aura combo without losing a whole team to a case of rage quit. Being spawn camped? The current system does not allow for any means to break it other than hoping your new teamates brought a different set of mercs than your rage quitting old ones.
This archetype slot layout also fixes the problem with the questing system that requires certain mercs. As it stands right now I lose a valuable slot that should be filled with a merc I am more comfortable playing or one that I feel might benefit the team more or be better suited for certain maps or sides. Why would I take Rhino on offense on Chapel? Talk about easy target! If I only have time for 1 or 2 maps, if I want to play with friends, and if i do not want to drop the quest I have to waste that valuable merc slot for Rhino, leaving the whole team vulerable to the problems stated above.
[left]
But I was later told by Pixel said that SD mentioned several times that the 3 merc limit was imposed due to a limited amount of client side information that is sent to the server. Thus for every person on the server not only is their choice of the three mercs sent but also their augments, which for example tells the server that it needs to increase the splash damage radius for this person but not that person and send that information along to every client on the server. This information, along with client side hit detection that needs to be sent to the server for verification, there may not be enough room for 5 slots without a serious overhaul of the engine’s design, which ultimately may lead to greater lag due to the increase in amount of information sent over the internet. If their long term plan is to add more mercs and more load out cards(with different augments) they may not be able to do it.
[/left][/quote]
That’s their reasoning???
Wtf?
Then how the hell do they expect to handle a huge population of players? Or what are they going to do once they start adding more mercs? 30 mercs and you can only have 3, that means there’s 27 different mercs you won’t have, and 15 your team simply will not have at all because of those limitations.
[quote=“Demolama;82827”]But I was later told by Pixel said that SD mentioned several times that the 3 merc limit was imposed due to a limited amount of client side information that is sent to the server. Thus for every person on the server not only is their choice of the three mercs sent but also their augments […][/quote]If they coded everything correctly, it should be a matter of changing a few constants for the engine then updating the front end.
But then again, I’ve worked on enough software projects that I know it’s rarely ever that easy. ~(o:
I don’t get why they won’t increase it beyond 3. After all the mercs are back, we’ll have a total of 20. And there’s more on the way, so at some point that 3 merc limit is going to greatly hinder the game if isn’t already.
I feel like just having a deck of 5 with whatever you want would actually work really well. And if they wanna keep the F1, F2, and F3 keys as the only ones we’re allowed to use, I have a solution for that too.
F1 - Shows your current card
F2 - Previous card
F3 - Next Card
Press F1 to check what you’re using currently, and then press F2 or F3 to cycle though. And on top of that, a little menu can pop up in the corner or something.[/quote]
The main design reason is to have players make what they feel is a meaningful choice. You limit what they can choose which makes what they choose more important compared to if they could just have everything. The same logic is applied to how Loadout cards are created in regards to their weapon and augment allocations. They require you to make a meaningful choice by having to sacrifice one thing for another. It’s extremely common in game design.
You might not agree with that game design and simply want everything or just access to a lot more. But I think the devs drew the line at three simply because it allows you to choose a good amount without giving you access to everything.
You and I might not enjoy having to make a sacrifice but that’s most likely their logic and it’s a common one since it creates a bit of strategy and depth where there normally wouldn’t be any.