How are stationed mercenaries placed n others games?

[Clem]

Does the game try to put mercenaries of the appropriate level at a certain difficulty, or is it all separate?

I sent my mercenary Hikari Yakusoku out yesterday for 12 hours to Gascony, and made him level 40. He claims that he defeated the powerful mercenary he encountered. (Both times.)

I assume that means there was a player he fought?

Anyone have any idea on how the system places mercenaries? I know Gascony is the first area on Nightmare mode, haven't played the other yet. Would it still stick him on Easy, even if he is level 40, or would it put him on higher difficulty, or take the highest level of book in the players inventory into account?

I'd like to know peoples thoughts on this, and any information would be nice.

[Xiahou Mao]

Well, I found and beat that mercenary a couple of hours ago today, along with a couple of others. I was playing Hundred Years War mode, though, so that might not help with your Nightmare speculation.

I'm going to guess that other players beating him isn't something the game checks. It's probably just a random roll based on how long you station your character, to discourage people from doing the one hour, cheap stationing.

[Harusame]

Ever since getting a lot of equipment from these stationings and then equipping my character with them, so far I've been doing the 6 hour ones. There has not been much losses ever since. However it does literally pay to pay attention to the rise and fall of number of contracts daily and number of mercenaries stationed. I seem to get a lot of contracts and money and SP if I send them somewhere with lots of contracts with few mercenaries stationed. Rare loot is the only random thing I've noticed.