Let's talk about the merlin

Is there a real push for merlin rework????
idk, current merlin is niche but does what it says well enough. slight buff could be funny.... imagine if the rockets got aoe slow

Except in taw where the map often becomes an impossible mess to navigate and the ball of impalers you would need gets stuck in everything.

Help me understand. Are you suggesting to remove the merlin?

I'll make another post since its unrelated to the above sentiment.

From #zk and the discord, it seems like the opinion is pretty split.

From what I'm seeing looking through message history:

• Merlin does it's job well as artillery. Supposedly it feels a little underwhelming, but I'm seeing a lot of comments also saying its great.

However:

• Apparently it is high maintenance for low value in a lot of situations.

• Apparently it is hard to use in general.

• Apparently it just feels overall underwhelming in situations it should be good in.

However, it should be noted that a lot of these complaints come from the same 3 or 4 people, so maybe take it with a grain of salt.

I would be genuinely shocked if we reworked another strider. I don't think the Dante transition was very smooth, and we propped THAT up with mod-based testing - imagine what the reaction would be if we randomly changed something like Merlin out of the blue with no testing or data to back it up.

Then again, Magpie and (soon) Hermit are getting changed due to largely community opinion, so maybe it's in the cards.

quote: dont touch merlin. it is required in porcfest lobpot. and how else would you roflstomp massive shieldballs. or 1-shot palas at point blank?

It could maybe possibly be made to mow down porc a bit faster. +12.5% damage and +17.5% projectile flight time perhaps.

make current attack a d-gun attack is a good idea. if, and only IF you want to change something, add a second missle barrage (the fire state is dependent on the same reload, so no double DPS). these missles could be do double damage to shields/reveal cloaked units and do no actual damage.

oboi! There is I think a bit of fear about so allow me to diffuse.

Dante was a special case where what I proposed happend to address a wrinkle in design that, unbeknownst to me, apparently had been discussed sometime/years prior? (Source: katastrophe)
Thats why I assume the carry over was so quick (I was still fishing for feedback), and think that Merlin probably won't be as sudden.

Both Galamesh and mojjj have, from their responses, not actually seen or read about the initial proposal implemented in the Refumble Mod, because they are partially retracing my steps and are sort of missrepresenting the changes (which is ofc not their fault if theyve not seen it, still not quite helpful either).

Have a peek at Refumble: Striders Thread for insights on both how we got the new Dante and the Merlin proposal that, while I think is at least fun, still needs become more concrete. Feel free to leave feedback on anything discussed too.

---

With that out of the way, let's do talk about Merlin!

The TLDR for the Merlin proposal and discussion in the thread above is:

-> Merlin is fine, but I think could/should be more interesting to use and fight.
-> Merlin shorter range alt salvo to encourage and make closer range combat a risk worth taking.
-> GF is not fond of 2 weapons from the same model, which is fair. "Where did those other rockets come from?"
-> Attempt to compromise between main salvo and alt salvo, ending somewhere inbetween as a more powerful but slightly shorter range salvo.



The most interesting insights for me from playing around with Merlin are longer salvo times and immobilising while firing.

Immobilising while firing creates an interesting moment of both strenght and weakness aswell as a counter opportunity to play around, which could in turn allow for a stronger offensive merlin statline.

Longer Salvo time allows you to reaim your Merlin mid salvo to spread the further rockets or predict your enemies dodge. On the flipside it also allows for the Merlins target to try and mindgame the predicts and dodge away too. The sound and style of fire is cool too.

I think those 2 things would make Merlin alot more interactive for both sides of the field and would be my focal points to push.
Any thoughts on that?

Do know I want to and encourage you to get your takes and ideas in and am happy to play or watch test games as I have been, so we can refine into a better end design.

So I ask:
How can Merlin be more interesting?

My take is simply that merlin is interesting as is.

The main points against the current design I see from other players is that melin's price isn't justified for its performance in 1v1 or small teams. For less metal you can get things that punch more, usually silo, or earlier and not let the enemy settle, like the impaler.


But for metal starved environment of large teams, merlin offers a way to snowball when eco remains at less than 20 per player (usually around 15 even by end game). Melin allows to slowly ramp up damage against increasingly durable porc as the opponent stacks shields.

You often can't break that with silo because you can't spam silo fast enough on 15ms. Even if you do manage to kill a cerb, they just stack more shields and by the time the cerb is rebuilt in the same spot, you now need more missiles a single silo can hold to kill the cerb again.

That's where merlin comes in. Merlin is a safe way to ramp up damage that doesn't piss metal to the wind and is punchy enough to attrition porc.

Cheaper artil help not letting porc settle, but once it has, it's really hard to break.

This doesn't happen in 1v1 and small teams because you can just raid around porc. Can't conquer this particular part of the map? Ok. I'll just conquer everywhere else. But in large teams you can't do that. Odds are that as soon as the game starts at least one (usually more) player went for planes and gunships and even if you do manage to break a front, you immediately face one player's worth of full army value in flying units. In large teams there is no such thing as raiding around porc. The map starts littered with commanders that can deflect early raids, and less than 2 minutes there are either units or buildings forming a solid line on the front everywhere. That's why porc settles. It's also why silo is a good answer, but only early on. And impalers are a good answer only so far as proc isn't allowed to settle into a giant forest. At that point merlin ramps up damage while also being capable of hitting units, unlike impalers.

Hm I think it' sort of bland
It's best target/usecase is a unshielded lanceball, otherwise grizzly and silo feel like better options

Merlin runs into the issue of being a sort of "apply forehead to problem" tool while also being a bit removed from general play (by being so safe).
On the using end you want to ideally be shooting as much as possible at decently viable targets, so the general direction of the enemy.
On the receiving end the only real options are "snipe it" or "ignore it"

Merlin is most interesting imo, where you hold your shot for specific targets, as demonstrated by mojjj.
I'd like to extend that sort of "spellcaster" behavior with more need and benefit from supporting units and good positioning in trade for a lone merlin being able to pull it's weight.

At least I'd like Merlin to end up as a justifiable strider choice even outside of TAW.

Ideally I'd like it to be a stylistic choice between scorp, dante and merlin (maybe even funnel?) because that would give people the most options to choose from and lead to the most diverse strider lineups.

Merlin as a damage dealer to build your army and approach around I think could do that.
And even if not as easy and safe, still works as a siegebreaker.


That Merlin stacking is the only real thing to do with them currently hints at something being amiss imo.

For safe arty escalation bertha is right there too, even if I think bertha could also be more interesting to use.

After reading the actual proposal from Stiofan, I can get behind the changes because my initial reservations are addressed.

The merlin range remains the same for main weapon. The main weapon retains the same attack command states by toggle.
Because of this, the new alternate d gun range and function does not jeopardize the current role of the unit, but adds to it instead.