Mericarol's online/multiplayer stats in Ultimate mode

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


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I do agree that this isn't a huge deal either way. If Meri becomes more powerful in Multimode, I'll adjust. I'd rather the mindset you're taking than "nothing is ever going to change," even if it means I don't agree with every single change.
 
On the contrary. I combat these changes because I personally believe they go against the growth of the community. I don't know if you've realized or read logs concerning this but, without callling names, people aren't exactly nice to each other sometimes when they get frustrated by lack of contributions and EP2 is mostly to blame for it, so newer players get hit the most with the change whom are partly looking for social interaction. I'm gladly taking them under my wing and its incredible that they can actually do things without me having to do everything (even though I'm also ok with that too, I even enjoy it), and its also amazing to see how much better those players become overtime, but I'm not everyone, and I've seen players leave in unfortunate circumstances sometimes.

Then there's the sub-cats that have build upon this in the community like the TA category and quest devs whom are keeping enemy interactions in mind when putting their hard work into the game to provide something new for the community to play. I don't do either, but I'll vouch for them.

This isn't the matter of pleasing everyone, but actually just displeasing the vast majority of the PSO playerbase including what's added to it in the recent past months (edit: I meant newer players, as they're part of the playerbase, and sorry for the confusion). Again its not like I totally super disagree with the change either on a practical standpoint, I'm all in for difficulty, but there comes a time where one has to throw out the dev-perspective and realize that mistakes sometimes are a boon to the game (there are some modern games who take after this example nowadays, and most of them are beloved for what I call the dev's "painters mindset"). Your mindset isn't bad, its just that this one specific change falls very sour on a lot of fronts as an ultimatum (although, as people have mentioned, would be great as a variation).
 
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Other members have already made several good posts in here touching on points such as keeping combat vanilla (such as it is), whether to classify the current stats as an "intentional" oversight or a bug, or if it even needs to be addressed in the first place.

I've come back to try a different avenue - consider the following video taken with the existing multimode balance from the excellent quest Maximum Attack: Gal Da Val:


See how dope this shit is? It's not strictly optimal since you can oneshot them with Dark Flow (even HUnewearl can do this, which is nice), but it's just cool how you can use Arrest as an additional tool to shut this enemy down in a tight spot if you need to, like Alisaryn, Thunder and others have already mentioned. Ask yourself "why would I want to remove this cool ass shit this player is doing?" - it's a solid example of emergent gameplay!

It would be much easier for me to swallow a huge change like this if more people in the community had already made some noise about how they thought it ought to be done, asking you or other devs for a change, but this isn't what I have seen. Other changes that Sodaboy mentioned like Anguish, the Ruins untekk rate etc are not in the same category as this since they frankly have no effect on gameplay, or were welcomed by many as a great addition like EXP share (meaning people can focus on gameplay).

TL;DR I think "Is Ephinea vanilla?" or "Is it a bug or not?" are the wrong questions, and "Did anyone ask for this?" is the right one in this case.
 
especially No Hit's tears and assumptions about me.
My post was only considering your track record is all. I do appreciate many of the things you've done for the server, but it really has felt like in the past you disregard a lot of what is said. Since you're reconsidering ESP that says this isn't the case right now.
 
I'm probably going to be echoing a lot of the sentiments already expressed, but I tend to find mericarol spawns fun to deal with as is. I think their potential to one shot anybody without a way to protect against it makes them enough of a threat. It's still easy for less experienced parties to be overwhelmed by them.

It also seems like some quests were designed with this in mind, spawning weaker enemies in front or around the mericarols (or even boxes) to extend their threat. It's fun when learning new quests with mericarol spawns too because I can think "oh well next time I'll do this here", and all the fun that comes with putting together your routing for a run.

My biggest argument is going to be the fun factor though, you can arrest them and safe ft's (as a lot of people have said), and even with a huney you can one shot them on spawn, which is extremely fun and one of the few ways a huney can be concretely useful (as opposed to playing another class) in areas where they spawn. I mean sure huney could do other things too, but it wouldn't be as fun imo.

I'm trying not to come across as a "not in my backyard" type, but it would be odd to rethink how to approach certain quests that seem to have been designed around their current stats, and responding on the fly to quests I'm not super familiar with. Admittadely I don't play a lot of opm, so I can't really speak on that aspect.
 
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?
The meris spit timings are very dodgeable, so to me the stats don't matter TOO much. For multi spawns it depends on the class too. By example lets take the first 2 meri spawn in pw4. For up to two meris with option-weak classes like Hunl and Humar I CK the first one with demons mechs or charge vulcans on spawn so the second doesn't have a chance to lock me down. That way I can just dodge the spit attack and kill the second.

Or the triple meri spawn in xmas fiasco, that ones trickier but you either rabarta or line up a snowqueen shot and shoot the 3rd to pieces. You just gotta keep a mental note of when they're gonna spit and you should never get hit. It's all situational and has to do with how they're spaced and if the spawns threaded or not, which on that note im not a fan of. Threaded meri spawns are evil lmao, but anything usually can be worked around.
 
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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.
Ephinea isn’t too far gone at all (yet) when it comes to being vanilla in terms of combat/gameplay. I know that when you say this you mean literally and are counting QoL and drop changes, but changing enemy stats feels like such a huge step in the wrong direction away from those things even if it’s just this one enemy (for now) because it affects the way virtually every CCA-area quest in Episode 2 multiplayer is played, the way specific classes handle the enemy, and increases the difficulty of an episode that deserves it the least.

I also sometimes play with someone who loves the fact that you can turn off all of the current non-vanilla features, except maybe material stacking (which isn’t a huge deal) and essentially play the game 100% vanilla if you choose to. He’s very much a casual player & is not into TA at all. So just realize that you’d also be taking that away from some people too by doing a change like this in the future, unless you add an option to toggle it on or off. But at that point it just feels like extra work for something that ~85% (just based on the poll) of current players would prefer to keep off in the first place.

You are allowed to do what you want of course, it is your server! And I hope I’m not coming off as too confrontational. You’ve done a ton of work creating Tethealla and this server, and it’s really the only close-to vanilla BB option right now. But that’s why it’s important for it to stay that way, at least in my opinion; it feels like the perfect balance between modern QoL, quest options, and vanilla gameplay - and I think it’s actually the reason we’re still getting any new players, not the other way around. It’s why I fell in love with the server a few years ago at least, and up until this proposed change I’ve felt the same way!
 
Voted yes, I like this proposal. Meris are currently 0 threat with correct positioning, why not make them a little bit harder?
 
Voted no. I'm not good at thinking up reasons to back stuff up I said, since many other people have already given very good explanations, but I will note one particular thing.

Just having raw stats doesn't make a mini boss a mini boss. The scariest thing about that enemy type is the fact that they literally one-shot you and drain all your TP. Having one of the three being the less tanky but still threatening of the trio kinda fits, I feel. Especially since it's the most 'vanilla' one seen.
 
So I'm going to come off as some PSO romantic, but I guess that's the reality so here goes.

ESP change is being reconsidered
Cheers for that. This gives me hope.

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?
Why are you attacking us?

OPM Mericarol isn't neccessarily hard because of its stats. I've only noticed it taking longer to kill on solo Racast or Racaseal and basically just attributed that to lack of Shifta, Zalure, or HU ATP.

What I was referring to earlier was multi-Meri spawns like the triangle of each Meri- on the small square platform in MAE: CCA. Too far to trap all at once, not enough space to dodge the fast death projectiles from Mericus & Merikle, and definitely not enough space to aggro only one at a time. Or Random Attack Xrd 2's tower segment. I avoid these in OPM. These specific situations are not fun without the fallback of allies taking aggro & hitstunning enemies or being able to revive each other. Raza or Nikki might have better strats as they run solo often.

That difficulty is unrelated to stats. It's about fighting multiple specifically spaced Meri- without allies to help you.

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 haven't interacted much with you Soda. I really do appreciate your work on the projects that have lead to Ephinea we have today, and keeping it running. Seriously. Thank you. PSO and Ephinea are core to my being by now.

But I think you're being a bit stubborn. Ephinea is very active everyday. AFAIK, no other PSO server has a daily or concurrent player count even close to this. And that is because PSO is an unfathomable gem - no other game compares to it. Every delicate part meshes in just the right ways. Once you're hooked, you're hooked. Ephinea has kept PSO intact, and only nudged it along with changes.

Preserving the game is what has kept Ephinea as relevant as it is. Every change is a huge risk in my eyes.

I think Ender has been doing very well with his contributions. A bevy of new quests, new mechanics (contained within quests players can opt-out of), and cosmetics that don't impact the gameplay, but do freshen this old game up. I'm unsure of how much contribution you had with these, but I do want to throw a thank-you towards everyone quest dev-ing or QoL dev-ing or otherwise helping (even just answering questions or giving feedback) to keep a little bit of freshness in Ephinea as of late. If this is your intention, then hooray, we're on the same page. I'm just preferring heavily towards caution because of how important PSO is to me.

My view on PSO:BB is that it's a very fragile, very beautiful thing. It can all come tumbling down with a single wrong change. As I said before, one small change can snowball into huge changes, and break the essence of PSO.

I'm not afraid of dying to a Mericarol.
I'm afraid of the snowball.
I'm afraid of Ephinea, and by proxy, active PSO:BB servers dying for good.

Big whoop. You may have to hit it a few more times.

Changing Mericarol stats means nothing from a bird's-eye view. Players have to attack a few more times to kill this one enemy. Whatever. However...

It means more if you understand and engage in efficient gameplay that many players strive towards (a large portion of the recurring population).
It means more if you understand that HU players won't be able to cleanly DF Mericarol unfrozen.
It means more if you understand that L&K38 Combat is no longer an option for a quick kill (one of the few niche meta uses of this elusive item, and probably the most satisfying and sought-after).
It means more if you understand that this eliminates the opportunity to do TA runs on Ephinea that include Mericarol in multimode.
It means more if you understand that this ruins the Meri- dynamic of weak, evasive, or tanky and the strategies involved in divvying out each player's role in a party (there's a whole silent understanding you build with players based on their class & gear & their tendencies. So cool! What other game has this??)
- ex: Huney DF's Mericarol unfrozen, Ramar Demons Mechs the tankier Mericus unfrozen, and Racast FS's then uses charge vulcs on the evasive Merikle)
It means more if you understand that this waters down the 3 Meri-'s into the same optimal tactic of "freeze them then kill them," which eliminates that depth for veterans and newcomers alike.
It means more if you understand that quests, spawns, and dropcharts take into consideration that Mericarol is the most common and weakest of the three.

It means the most if you understand that this sets a precedent of directly altering gameplay mechanics with no opt-out, and can lead to larger and larger changes. Which in turn can turn away more and more players. And maybe leads to further more desperate changes to win players back unsuccessfully until Ephinea and largely PSO is dead for good.


The principle to allow significant gameplay-changing alterations to be pushed onto all players without an opt-out, and without a say in the change whatsoever... unfortunately it reeks of a certain other PSO server incident that occurred within the past year or two. It makes me fear for the future, and stability, of Ephinea. Ephinea is better than this.

Someone I talked to mentioned that the Mericarol stat change could be packaged into Anguish difficulties. In my opinion, this could be a clean opt-in for this change if it ever is carried through, while keeping the previous stats in standard Ultimate difficulty. Anguish already exists with non-vanilla enemy stats, and longterm players and new players alike can opt-in or opt-out as desired. It sounds like VENOM might want to check out Anguish for a bigger challenge the next time he plays.


This game has been a cult classic since its first release. It's never going to be a mainstream hit, and trying to make it that will surely fail. There is only a specific appeal for a specific type of gamer. In my opinion only QoL, quests, events, and few other select changes can occur while still maintaining the balance.

Exp share, PSO2 style drops, and splitting desirable drops across all 3 episodes (all of the powerful BB exclusive gear is not exclusively dropped in episode 4 anymore!) and across ID's - These are the biggest things that improve the palatability of Ephinea. I am so grateful for these changes.


PSO is bottled lightning. You can't replicate it. There's nothing like it, and likely never will be (but I will try, in separate game dev projects). It took a team of experienced developers years to craft PSOv1, and years again creating the later versions. Some changes are clear improvements. Always trial and error, always a deadline, always unfinished or buggy. It's a miracle everything came together as well as it did. Each iteration had it's improvements, and I consider the progression to be PSOv1 -> v2 -> Ep1&2 -> Ep1&2 Plus -> Blue Burst -> current Ephinea. Those 3 changes above, combined with an active and friendly community...

Ephinea is the best way to experience PSO!

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.
PSO isn't a modern game, and defies nearly all modern game trends and designs. Trying to treat this like a modern game will push away longtime players, and kill the staying power of the game even if you bring in new players. Longtime players provide the community and info and knowledge sharing that is so core to the experience to begin with, let alone that PSO is a 4 player dungeon crawler at its core - you need players to party up with. It's advantageous for you to keep them around.

Ephinea is doing great in comparison to other PSO:BB servers. The current state of affairs is quite positive, even if there have been rocky decisions during its history. Why break it now?

Soda, log in and play some quests with us. I never regularly checked forums before now, and I'll admit I don't keep as close a watch in #pso as I used to. Maybe ping me or DM me about gamedev thoughts - it's neat to hear perspectives on PSO. It'd be good to reground yourself with the game and the players. Ender has been doing a great job lately, collaborating (with you as well as others) and working on unobtrusive additions to Ephinea that can be avoided and opted-out of if desired. All while keeping a finger on the pulse of the playerbase.


Please do not repeat the history of other servers and admins: excessive changes for the sake of changing - this isn't a new season in League of Legends. Part of the appeal of PSO is the ability to log off for months, and be able to return to a mostly unchanged, comfortable, familiar grinding zone with friends anytime, but maybe with a new quest or few.

Please do not kill this best version of PSO.

Please do not kill a part of my soul.
 
I voted NO.

Mericarol's status may be a bug, but it does not need to be fixed.
That bug is now a key element of the strategy. The strategy is based on that bug.
As many players have said, this change could cause new problems.

That bug should no longer be viewed as a bug, but as a specification.
The specification is very unique and makes the battle interesting.


This may be off topic, but there are other enemy status bugs that exist.
(Sinow Breill and Sinow Spigell)
I am surprised you did not mention them when I saw this topic.
Why mention Mericarol ONLY?

If you don't treat them in the same breath,
then you could say that Mericarol’s bug was beneficial to the player and therefore needed to be fixed.
Unfortunately, that is what I would think.

(I don't understand English very well, so I used a translation tool.
I apologize if the English is difficult to understand.)
 
This may be off topic, but there are other enemy status bugs that exist.
(Sinow Breill and Sinow Spigell)
I am surprised you did not mention them when I saw this topic.
Why mention Mericarol ONLY?
I'm not aware of the bugs with these monsters. You can PM me more details as to keep this topic onto the Mericarol.
 
Hi Im Mewkey , a japanese player in Ephinea.
Im using Google translation.
So Im not sure my English is correct , but I want to tell my opinion.

I cant vote Yes or No to this poll.
If we talk about fixing Mericarol's stats , we should talk about 2 more things at the same time.

1st , I think stats of Sinow Berill and Spigell should be fixed samely.
2nd , item like Asteron Belt should be fixed samely.

I can finally vote Yes or No , If you are going to fix all of these.
Ill say Yes.

And this is just my wish...
How about making an another mode [fixed psobb] , like the Anguish?
or make a command [/fixed psobb]?

I dont know how hard to make that , so please forget my wish if it is to much hard work.


Thanks for reading this.
And thanks for operating PSOBB Ephinea.
I love this server.
 
A stat consistency I dont think would be an issue, but the issue with removing tactics or an all in one change with no option to enable/disable is the issue.

ESP being tweaked removes those dynamics.
The other stat choices make more sense, but ESP is where a good amount of dynamics are and make the interaction different from the other flowers.

More information would be needed as currently I don't agree with an all in one, no opt out system for combat dynamic changes.

If this is a direction we're moving in please consider having an opt in/out option for non combat changes vs Ephinea+
 
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Hi Im Mewkey , a japanese player in Ephinea.
Im using Google translation.
So Im not sure my English is correct , but I want to tell my opinion.

I cant vote Yes or No to this poll.
If we talk about fixing Mericarol's stats , we should talk about 2 more things at the same time.

1st , I think stats of Sinow Berill and Spigell should be fixed samely.
2nd , item like Asteron Belt should be fixed samely.

I can finally vote Yes or No , If you are going to fix all of these.
Ill say Yes.

And this is just my wish...
How about making an another mode [fixed psobb] , like the Anguish?
or make a command [/fixed psobb]?

I dont know how hard to make that , so please forget my wish if it is to much hard work.


Thanks for reading this.
And thanks for operating PSOBB Ephinea.
I love this server.
Honestly, taking a look though ep2 enemy stats, this opens a massive pandora box of enemy stats that sega clearly threw together and never fixed, just some notes from my frantic look though, sinow spigell and berill have both weird stats across hard, very hard, and ult, including doubled EVP in different difficulties for each one, higher xp in OPM for several difficulties, higher ESP for spigell in normal OPM, and then theres stuff like gi gue being hellable in hard multi, epsiguard ult OPM being copy pasted from VH, del lillies having higher DFP, EVP and ESP in ultimate OPM, and so on and so on and so on.. whats the criteria for which stats should be fixed or not?
 
Wow look at the passion in the community, sheeeeeesh!

On the contrary. I combat these changes because I personally believe they go against the growth of the community. I don't know if you've realized or read logs concerning this but, without calling names, people aren't exactly nice to each other sometimes when they get frustrated by lack of contributions and EP2 is mostly to blame for it, so newer players get hit the most with the change whom are partly looking for social interaction. I'm gladly taking them under my wing and its incredible that they can actually do things without me having to do everything (even though I'm also ok with that too, I even enjoy it), and its also amazing to see how much better those players become overtime, but I'm not everyone, and I've seen players leave in unfortunate circumstances sometimes.

I can see where you're coming from with this point, but the last thing I'd blame is the game when it comes to people's shitty attitudes. That silly try-hard attitude shit has got me sick, and those people need to be held accountable for their boring ass attitudes about this game. It's only the individual's fault for being unwelcoming and flat out rude if they're treating others poorly for not being good at the game. What an uninteresting, socially inept fool that would feel compelled enough to criticize every tiny action, or throw a fit because you made a decision that was 0.075 seconds slower than the most optimal option, or God forbid, kick you out of an open room party because you're not the correct class lol.

Also, where on this beautiful green Earth are there new PSO players? Almost every single person that goes through the trouble of downloading this game, with it's false positive triggering .dll, has already played this game in the past. Being a casual player, I would argue, is different from being new. I don't think the PSO community is going to be growing anymore. The people that want to play this game, already have lol.

Anyways, look I got nothing but love for this game, but I just don't think this change would really matter as much as everyone seems to think it would. Everyone would adapt accordingly - and those that won't adapt, probably don't even care enough to know how the stat changes would even affect the game. Just my own opinion, I guess.
 
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Yeah I mostly categorize it in similar veins (although, I actually do see "new" players sometimes which is interesting). With the removal of MAS I also see a lot more parties in normal through very-hard that aren't being boosted and are just experiencing the game as it is. There's more controversial changes not sitting well sometimes with other people that I've always seen value in in some way or another. Ephinea is an amazing server overall, miraculous even in some ways.

I think most people aren't necessarily unwelcoming in the broader sense. If provided politely people will calm down. Its just people are used to their comrades and their strong teams and need a little reminder sometimes (small mindset tip: you get better as a player if you account for the fact that the reason you died is always something you could've prevented yourself). I just wish to prevent initial circumstances to happen.

But that kind of adds to me being baffled about changes like this where veterans are just the only ones that will adapt (we already talked about it, and most of it downs to it being just another boring Mericus). What baffled me the most of all is that it wouldn't be optional (I mean its being reconsidered of course, kudos), which seems to be the most fitting gripe. I'm always down for different strats and gear setups but in the main game things like this are just things people can discover as they learn about the game, or makes it just another thing to do in the game for vets that are used to it. Its just a little thing overall but I think every little thing counts.
 
Thanks to everyone who participated, but I'm going to be ending this poll early.

I see there are a lot of other things that could be done to PSO, such as:

- Fixing Mericarol's stats.
- Fixing Sinow Berill and Spigell's stats.
- Fixing items like Asteron Belt.
- Fixing miniboss attribute vulnerability.
- Fixing tech boosts not working on some monsters.
- ... and so on..

I think mewkey's idea is a good one with maybe adding a new mode of play or option on game creation to select whether to use classic PSO everything or a fixed version of PSO and, should anything change, this is the method we'll end up going.
 
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