🎭Mercenary System

The mercenary system is designed to add a new dimension to Ragnarok Online, allowing players to have an NPC henchman to fight at their side. Players will be able to support, party with and control a mercenary using an updated version of the homunculus system. Different from homunculii, any player can use mercenaries, but instead of a creature that grows alongside you, mercenaries have fixed stats based on the level of mercenary summoned. A contract is made with a mercenary and scrolls are used to call them into battle. Both homunculus and mercenary can be used by the same player at once.

Summoning a Mercenary

Mercenaries are summoned through the use of special scrolls purchased from the mercenary guilds located across Rune-Midgard. The cost of scrolls increases with higher level mercenaries, and the maximum level of mercenary that can be summoned is limited by a character's base level and your Loyalty with that mercenary guild. Scrolls are character bound, and once purchased cannot be transferred, stored or traded. Mercenary Guild Locations:

• Bowman Mercenary Guild Representative: Payon Archer Village, near the Archer Guild Hall.

• Fencer Mercenary Guild Representative: Izlude, directly outside the swordsman guild.

• Lancer Mercenary Guild Representative: Prontera, outside the knight guild.

Using Your Mercenary

Using the default mercenary AI, the mercenary will be non agressive, and only attack monsters that you are attacking or are directly attacking you. The mercenary AI can be customized, see the Mercenary AI section for more info. Mercenary skills can be used by putting the mercenary skills directly on your hotkey bar. When fighting monsters with your mercenary, all the experience gained by your mercenary is automatically given to you. Unlike homunculus, mercenary's are able to receive and give job experience as well. Mercenaries regenerate HP and SP over time just like players. The amount of HP or SP gained is proportional to their vit and int stats. Potions exist that can be used to recover the mercenaries HP or SP as well, purchasable from the mercenary merchant near each mercenary guild manager. HP Regeneration Rate : (MaxHP * Vit / 10000 + 1) * 6 (Every 8 seconds) SP Regeneration Rate : (MaxSP * (INT + 10) / 750) + 1 (Every 6 seconds, only while not moving) The following are keys used to control mercenaries.

• Enemy Targeting - Alt + Left Double Click (on monster) Right clicking once will cause the mercenary to queue up the monster. Right click again and the mercenary will immediately switch targets.

• Moving - Alt + Left Click (on ground) Alt and Right Clicking on the ground will cause the mercenary to stop everything and move to the target cell.

• Standby - Ctrl + T In standby the mercenary will stop everything and wait for orders at the masters side.

• Information - Ctrl + R Opens the mercenary status window.

Supportive Skill Behavior

Unlike homunculus, mercenaries can be targeted directly by player support and healing magic. However, some skills function differently when used on or with a mercenary than with a regular player.

• Healing Magic - Heal and Sanctuary skills have their effectiveness on mercenaries reduced by 50%.

• Endows - Endow skills such as Aspersio and the 4 sage endows can only be cast on the mercenary if they are the master.

• Blessing - Increases hit rate by 10 and removes curse, but gives no increase to the mercenaries attack power.

• Increase AGI - Will increase the mercenaries move speed and flee, but have no effect on their attack speed.

• Aid Potion - Aid Potion does not currently work on mercenaries.

• Lex Aeterna - Lex Aeterna only doubles damage of regular attacks. Skill damage from mercenaries are not doubled.

Mercenary AI

The mercenary system is very similar to that used by homunculus, as both are run by an AI on the client side. Mercenaries by default use a non-aggressive AI and only attack targets hitting the player or targets the player is attacking. The AI itself is located in the /AI/ folder in the RO directory. Where as homunculus normally executes AI.Lua, mercenaries use a separate file AI_M.Lua. Users can and are encouraged to customize their mercenary AI by modifying the files in the /AI/USER_AI/ folder. By default the mercenary will share const.lua with the homunculus AI files.

Warning: When the 11.3 update is patched into the client, mercenary AI files will be added which will overwrite any existing homunculus AI you have. This will occur for both Sakray and Main Servers.

Loyalty Points

As a player fights along side with mercenaries, that player can gain Loyalty with that mercenary guild. Higher Loyalty rating gives the player faster Killcount Bonuses and allows the player to contract higher level mercenaries. Loyalty is specific to each guild of mercenaries, so for example if a player gains high reputation with the Bowman Mercenary Guild, the same will have no effect on his standing with the Lancer and Fencer guilds. The following conditions affect one's loyalty standing.

• Fighting Together with Mercenary - When a suitably strong mob is killed by a player (more than 1/2 the base level of the player), their Killcount goes up by 1. It doesn't matter if the player or the mercenary kills the monster, or if they work together to kill it. For every 50 killcount, you gain one Loyalty with that guild.

• Successfully Completing a Contract - If a player and their mercenary successfully survive the full duration of a 30 minute contract, they gain one point of Loyalty.

• Mercenary Dies - If the mercenary is killed while bound by contract to a player, they lose one point of Loyalty.

• Dismissal - Dismissing the mercenary does not modify its loyalty.

Killcount Bonuses

As a player and his mercenary kill monsters of a suitable level (more than 1/2 the base level of the player), their killcount will increase. The number of current kills is listed in the mercenary status window. As the mercenaries gain kills, mercenaries will randomly unlock special bonuses to their stats. The higher your Loyalty rating with that mercenary's guild is, the faster you'll obtain killcount bonuses. By default these bonuses occur every 50 kills. These bonuses last ten minutes or until the mercenary contract ends. There are five different kinds of bonuses that you can receive, and each type of bonus has five different levels. The level and type of bonus you obtain is random. Bonuses of the same type do not stack, but higher level bonuses that are obtained will replace lower level ones. The following chart shows the various levels and stats that the killcount bonuses can affect. If a mercenary receives an HP or SP boost, then their HP or SP become completely refilled.

Flee Boost	+15 Flee	+30 Flee	+45 Flee	+60 Flee	+75 Flee
Hit Boost	+15 Hit	+30 Hit	+45 Hit	+60 Hit	+75 Hit
Attack Power Boost	+15 Atk	+30 Atk	+45 Atk	+60 Atk	+75 Atk
HP Boost	+5% HP	+10% HP	+15% HP	+20% HP	+25% HP
SP Boost	+5% SP	+10% SP	+15% SP	+20% SP	+25% SP

Note that either your mercenary or you must get the finishing hit in order for it to count as a kill. A homunculus or party member will not count.

Mercenary Related Items

The following is a list of mercenary related items that can be purchased. While mercenary scrolls must be purchased from their respective guilds, the potions can be purchased from any mercenary representative. Mercenary potions are used directly by the player, and have the effect apply to your mercenary automatically.

Item Name		Level Requirement	Loyalty Requirement	Price	Effect
Level 1 Mercenary Scroll		Base 15+	-	7,000z	Summons a level 1 mercenary.
Level 2 Mercenary Scroll		Base 25+	-	14,000z	Summons a level 2 mercenary.
Level 3 Mercenary Scroll		Base 35+	-	21,000z	Summons a level 3 mercenary.
Level 4 Mercenary Scroll		Base 45+	-	28,000z	Summons a level 4 mercenary.
Level 5 Mercenary Scroll		Base 55+	-	35,000z	Summons a level 5 mercenary.
Level 6 Mercenary Scroll		Base 65+	-	42,000z	Summons a level 6 mercenary.
Level 7 Mercenary Scroll		Base 75+	50+ Loyalty	49,000z	Summons a level 7 mercenary.
Level 8 Mercenary Scroll		Base 85+	100+ Loyalty	56,000z	Summons a level 8 mercenary.
Level 9 Mercenary Scroll		Base 90+	300+ Loyalty	63,000z	Summons a level 9 mercenary.
Level 10 Mercenary Scroll		Base 90+	500+ Loyalty	400 Loyalty	Summons a level 10 mercenary.
Mercenary Red Potion		None	-	2,500z	Player's mercenary recovers 1000 HP.
Mercenary Blue Potion		None	-	5,000z	Player's mercenary recovers 100 SP.
Mercenary Concentration Potion		None	-	800z	Mercenary ASPD + 10%.
Mercenary Awakening Potion		Lv 40 Mercenary	-	1,500z	Mercenary ASPD + 15%.
Mercenary Berserk Potion		Lv 80 Mercenary	-	3,000z	Mercenary ASPD + 20%.

Mercenary Skills

Each type of mercenary has access to 1-4 skills, chosen out of existing player skills and several new mercenary only skills. The following are new skills that mercenaries may have access to.