Odyssey's Mercenaries and Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis
The recent Mentor's Guild discussion thread had a question that asked our opinions of the weekly mercenary/ship stuff, and I realized how little of it I've actually done.
This seemed strange to me, because the mercenary system was one of the things I was looking forward to most in this game. I've mentioned before that hunting orcs was one of my favorite things to do in Shadow of War/Mordor, but the mercs in Odyssey just didn't scratch that itch for me for some reason.
Personally, I think this is due to two things-
1) In the Shadow series, taking down orcs can have some affect on the world state, particularly if you manage to dominate them. In Odyssey, you just see a new mercenary almost immediately step into the ranks of the one you eliminated. It feels less like you actually accomplished something.I know there's been a lot of discussion on how the Battle system doesn't seem to have much of a permanent affect on the world, and I think this is a very similar issue.
And I realize you could recruit defeated mercenaries, but it's not nearly as smooth as dominating, and it still doesn't have much of an affect on the world state afterward.
2) Personally, I enjoy Odyssey's combat system more against waves of weaker enemies rather than a single spongey one. I feel like the weaknesses and strengths of orcs in Shadow really play into the fights that you have in that game, even if you're not consciously trying to utilize them. For instance, accidentally releasing a caragor into the fray could cause an orc to become enraged, or alternatively to flee in terror.
In this, I really just find myself using pretty much the same tactics for each mercenary, causing the fights to feel a little samey.
I realize that a game that more fully embraces the high fantasy stuff like Shadow has some more leeway with adding in crazy game changing abilities, and Odyssey already does push the boundaries of the Assassin's Creed universe.
What do you guys think? If the next game were to feature something like a Mercenary system is there anything from Shadow of War that you'd like to see implemented? Or something else entirely? Or did you enjoy the Mercenary system as is?