So today I hired a mercenary to speed up my process a bit. She did not do much damage but she gave me ample opportunity to improve my skill. I told her: "Report" and "Skills" but she would not give me any information about herself. I wondered then about a mercenary development system. Mercenaries could be questioned and they could report back with their main skills, and the status of their contract. Another thing that would be cool is if mercenaries could gain skill like pets and become more powerful over time. They are very easily killed so this, I don't think puts them in immediate competition or redundancy vis a vis tamers. Lastly, being able to give them gear(maybe just sword shield and helmet) would also be a nice touch to making them more relevant in the game. When I offered Helene a mace, of my own design, she told me that she had already been hired. I begged her to take the mace but she refused. I know the gms have a lot on their plate but this is certainly a brilliant idea is it not? Mage hirelings????
Implementing mechanics to equip Mercenairys would take a lot of work, but it would be a great addition. Mage hirelings would be great to see though, maybe give them a feature to summon elementals and improve the AI (like healing the player if they drop below 25% health or things) That could make up for a lot of the difficultys pure dexxers without barding skills will encounter while farming. TLDR: +1 for Mage hirelings
I agree that giving the hireling system some more depth would be interesting, although there are certainly some complications that would have to be overcome. Mage hirelings are already available. Or were you just arguing for making mage hirelings smarter and more useful in combat? I frequently hire the mage who spawns in the Ocllo inn. There is usually another mage for hire in the Ocllo mage guild. They are already perhaps the most powerful hireling available, capable of casting flamestrikes and energy bolts on enemies and of healing/curing themselves. Of course, they cannot tank hits the way a paladin hireling can, so the choice between a mage and a paladin depends on the situation. I often prefer hiring a paladin who can tank damage while I'm killing the enemy, but if I need extra firepower I'll hire a mage instead. Both mages and paladin hirelings are much better than fighter hirelings, who hit for very low damage and cannot tank damage nearly as well as a paladin. Their only saving grace is that they are often equipped with fast-swinging weapons. Bards are just terrible. Slow, weak, and unable to hit anything. May as well hire a beggar. I've obviously spent way too much time and gold playing around with hirelings on UO Renaissance, but they are often a vital part of my noob-style hunting strategy. Anyway, I'm interested to hear of ways hirelings could become better and more useful, but to me they are already at least somewhat useful. I'm mostly just annoyed by how they will suddenly disappear into thin air an hour or so after I've hired them, regardless of how long I've hired them for.
I know one spawns regularly in the Ocllo tavern ("The Albatross"). He or she will be wearing full plate armor and wielding a viking sword and a metal kite shield. There are also a few fighters and bards for hire in the tavern. Sometimes the fighters will look similar to the paladin, so it's best to double click them before hiring to make sure they have the "paladin" title. Paladins cost a tiny bit more than fighters (usually 30-31 gold per "day"), but they are far superior to fighters. They can tank hits much better and can actually do a bit of damage themselves. When hunting, the main use of the npc hirelings is to serve as a distraction. Have them engage the enemy while you hang back and focus on dealing damage (and keeping your hireling alive). Keeping them alive is not always easy. I was recently exploring with Amara, a paladin hireling. I ran right into an arctic ogre lord. Amara charged bravely. Two hits. She ded.
I have been looking for ranger npcs to hire but i don't think they exist to my knowledge. Bards can be hired with bows though, but they suck. I totally agree with making them trainable. Make archer npcs that are good, and make them hireable for stashing on roof tops and such for guard towers. Fun fact: you can hire more than 1 npc hireable if you have an alt do it, then transfer the npc to the other player. I think they are 1 follower slot each. In theory you can have up to 7 or 8, whatever the limit is if you do this. I've just tried it up to 3.
I like that theyre a bit squishy because it makes it balanced and its fun and challenging to keep them alive whiel also keeping yourself alive and chasing down that kill. I think the npcs ability to improve and also report its status in and of itself would be an amazing addition. Wouldn't want every class to essentially become a tamer though which is what would happen if they were too tanky/strong.
I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or serious. These are human npc hirelings, not colossal titans. At the most, I think the idea of allowing their skills to improve as they use them and letting them report on those skills (as Geo suggested) would be a neat addition and add a bit more depth to the hireling system, especially if you were able to keep one around rather than having him or her vanish into thin air after an hour or so. That would make them more useful and interesting without allowing them to compete with tamer capabilities, which require a large investment of time and skill points. Nymeros, I'm pretty sure it's UO day. However, as I mentioned before, they seem to vanish into thin air an hour or so after hiring them, regardless of how many days you have hired them for. If I remember correctly, one UO day is about 2 hours, and that seems to be about the longest a hireling has lasted for me before disappearing, even if I have hired them for 3 or 4 days. It may just be that the old hireling disappears the moment a new hireling spawns in his original hangout spot (Ocllo tavern or Ocllo inn). You cannot hire more than one at a time. However, as PaddyOBrien mentioned, you can work around this limitation. You can only have one hireling that you yourself have hired, but another player (or an alt) can transfer their own hireling to you. That player can then go hire another one, and transfer them to you again, until you have eight hirelings. Each hireling takes one follower slot.
I think this thread is a fitting place to bump this story/adventure we had using NPC hirelings http://uorforum.com/threads/village-of-paws-militia-training-part-ii.7974/ Militia Training 101 Paws style
Two survived! The beggar and the paladin. Oh, you were talking about an earlier adventure involving ancient wyrms and hirelings. Nevermind!
