[ZOS UPDATE] Mercenary style mat (laurel) is BoP and only drops if you know the style?!

ThatNeonZebraAgain

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) simply because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities over the last year and a half. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat from a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

UPDATE
Official response from ZOS clarifying drop rates for motif pages and laurel:

MSchroeder wrote: »

There’s been a lot of discussion about the Mercenary motif since it appeared on the PTS yesterday, and we’d like to clear up some misconceptions and answer some questions.

First, we’ve seen your concerns about the time and effort it’s going to take to obtain all the chapters of the motif. We’re aware that some of you feel that the other recently-released motifs are too grueling to get, so we wanted Mercenary to be more easily obtained. Bronze chests will drop a chapter 40% of the time; Silver chests, 50% of the time; Gold chests, 60% of the time.

We’ve also seen some confusion when we say that the Laurels (the style item required to craft a piece of gear in the Mercenary style) are Bind on Pickup. To be clear, when we say ‘Bind on Pickup’, we mean it binds to your account, not your character. This means that any of your characters can earn a Laurel, bank it, and let any of your other characters use it.

Finally, we’ve seen lots of talk about how the Laurels will only drop for characters who know at least one chapter of the style. One thing we didn’t mention in the patch notes, however, is that this is not a simple 0%-100% scale – while knowing zero chapters of the style does mean you won’t ever see a Laurel, having just one chapter means that final bosses from Veteran Dungeon will have a 50% chance to drop a Laurel for you. From there, it scales up linearly to 100% (approx. +4% per chapter). Note that the drop rate of Laurels from final bosses in Normal Dungeons Laurel is always 1/4th of their Veteran counterparts.

If you’re concerned that you now have to get your crafting character suited up and ready for dungeons, consider this: With just one chapter under your belt – likely obtained after only a day’s worth of Pledges – your most Undaunted character will be getting a Laurel about every other run through a Veteran Dungeon.

SleepyTroll

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat for a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

ZOS needs to start supporting account wide setups.

Ruben

Learn the styles with your lvl 16 char, get a group of 3 VR16 guildies with you as the leader and farm lvl 16 dungeons for a very fast and easy farming of laurel for everyone.

Slurg

Don't worry too much yet, this item is sure to show up in the crown store after enough people complain about it.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Ruben wrote: »

Learn the styles with your lvl 16 char, get a group of 3 VR16 guildies with you as the leader and farm lvl 16 dungeons for a very fast and easy farming of laurel for everyone.

And wait how many more months before I can craft the armor I want to use because of having to research the necessary traits (including nirn)?

Slurg wrote: »

Don't worry too much yet, this item is sure to show up in the crown store after enough people complain about it.

Unfortunately, that does seem to be the point. Engineer inconvenience to encourage cash shop sales

Slurg

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Ruben wrote: »

Learn the styles with your lvl 16 char, get a group of 3 VR16 guildies with you as the leader and farm lvl 16 dungeons for a very fast and easy farming of laurel for everyone.

And wait how many more months before I can craft the armor I want to use because of having to research the necessary traits (including nirn)?

Slurg wrote: »

Don't worry too much yet, this item is sure to show up in the crown store after enough people complain about it.

Unfortunately, that does seem to be the point. Engineer inconvenience to encourage cash shop sales

I don't like it either but it's the direction they've been going lately.

Getting together a strong group to run pledges with your crafter may be the only alternative.

Perhaps someone will be kind enough to put out a guide - easy dungeons to run for crafters.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Slurg wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Ruben wrote: »

Learn the styles with your lvl 16 char, get a group of 3 VR16 guildies with you as the leader and farm lvl 16 dungeons for a very fast and easy farming of laurel for everyone.

And wait how many more months before I can craft the armor I want to use because of having to research the necessary traits (including nirn)?

Slurg wrote: »

Don't worry too much yet, this item is sure to show up in the crown store after enough people complain about it.

Unfortunately, that does seem to be the point. Engineer inconvenience to encourage cash shop sales

I don't like it either but it's the direction they've been going lately.

Getting together a strong group to run pledges with your crafter may be the only alternative.

That would require leveling and respeccing my crafting alts. I made my crafters to craft, not fight -- how I've structured my characters in MMOs for over a decade. IF I had known all this over a year ago when I started building up my crafters' style and trait knowledge, I would've gladly researched traits on my main, but who knew that new crafting styles and systems would be so player unfriendly. It is incredibly frustrating how so many of ZOS's designs penalize long-term players.

Pangnirtung

Gawd, why does ZOS seem to make things increasingly more complicated with each new update?

Cinbri

Can anyone tell me what Laurels thing is?

Arkadius

Cinbri wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what Laurels thing is?

It's the style material for the Mercenary style.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Cinbri wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what Laurels thing is?

The style material required to craft an item in the new Mercenary style.

xaraan

I can say this. I craft for most of my guild (being the only master crafter and guy that learns every style) and I do it free, they just have to give me the mats b/c I actually play the game and don't farm mats to sell. This will continue, meaning, nobody (but me) will get this style in our guild as I'll be the only one who can craft it and will not be running dungeons endlessly just to get laurel to 'sell' to people that want the armor style crafted. Kind of a dumb decision to limit crafting more.

But never fear, they will probably sell laurel in the crown store soon. And, they are going to be selling a merc costume, so no need to even craft it.

Levo18

They definitely will sell them in the crown store thats why they make them hard to obtain mark my words!

Poor attempt to make people spend money

Maotti

I can't wait till November 10th for a game that starts with F and ends with 4.

ZoS introduces way too much busywork for ESO!

Zinaroth

SleepyTroll wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat for a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

ZOS needs to start supporting account wide setups.

No. You're already way better off in this game if you spread out your play time on several characters compared to only focusing on one when it comes to crafting, making gold and anything else that is related to a daily quest. There needs to be some boons to people who invest heavily on one character.

ssewallb14_ESO

I'm guessing the intended mechanic is I collect laurels/chapters on my toon that does dailys, and the laurels I've collected but can't use along with the inconvenience of farming the motif twice makes me feel motivated to buy the book from the crown store for my crafter.

It doesn't bother me personally as long as this f2p-style nonsense says out of the gameplay. I do feel sorry for crafting completionists though.

AhPook_Is_Here

It doesn't seem like a bad grind compared to glass and ziv, I have a ton of gold and silver keys still sitting around, they said the chances are good to get a chapter drop, so between some trading and some luck shouldn't be any harder than dwemer was, maybe easier.

Ezareth

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) simply because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities over the last year and a half. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat from a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

I don't see how this is that big of an issue. Malachite right now is BoP but you can put it in the bank. Why can't you do this with Laurel and the style chapters? Just learn them all on your main char and give duplicates to your crafter alt. It does seem like a bit of a quirky system.

Ruben

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Ruben wrote: »

Learn the styles with your lvl 16 char, get a group of 3 VR16 guildies with you as the leader and farm lvl 16 dungeons for a very fast and easy farming of laurel for everyone.

And wait how many more months before I can craft the armor I want to use because of having to research the necessary traits (including nirn)?

I though it was your level sixteen character the one that had all the traits and styles learned.

redspecter23

The first question should be, why does it have to be bound? Why does Malachite have to be bound? I'm looking for a serious answer. Crafting mats should never be bound unless it's some ultra special unique item. A standard style stone for crafting? Nope.

Bound status should be used as a last resort for items that are unique or meant to have some special rarity (trial gear) or require personal effort to acquire (trophies).

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Ezareth wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) simply because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities over the last year and a half. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat from a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

I don't see how this is that big of an issue. Malachite right now is BoP but you can put it in the bank. Why can't you do this with Laurel and the style chapters? Just learn them all on your main char and give duplicates to your crafter alt. It does seem like a bit of a quirky system.

Malachite shards are not BoP, so you can buy/trade 10 shards and make the full, BoP mat on the character/account you want it on. So for laurel though, I just need to farm 2 full sets of the motif to be able to craft it on my account? Great design.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

redspecter23 wrote: »

The first question should be, why does it have to be bound? Why does Malachite have to be bound? I'm looking for a serious answer. Crafting mats should never be bound unless it's some ultra special unique item. A standard style stone for crafting? Nope.

Bound status should be used as a last resort for items that are unique or meant to have some special rarity (trial gear) or require personal effort to acquire (trophies).

Malachite shards aren't bound though.

Contraptions

Again with the farming of new materials and motifs eh ZOS? Tsk.

To fix this, why not add a fixed number of Laurels to the chests each time you open? 1 for bronze, 2 for silver and 3 for gold? They can be either BOE or BOP. So as long as you are doing the pledges you should be rewarded, and mats can be transferred to crafting characters if needed. Like how the chapters work, except the chapters don't have a definite chance of dropping.

redspecter23

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

The first question should be, why does it have to be bound? Why does Malachite have to be bound? I'm looking for a serious answer. Crafting mats should never be bound unless it's some ultra special unique item. A standard style stone for crafting? Nope.

Bound status should be used as a last resort for items that are unique or meant to have some special rarity (trial gear) or require personal effort to acquire (trophies).

Malachite shards aren't bound though.

Which is exactly why it's so boggling that the fused Malachite is.

Ruben

redspecter23 wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

The first question should be, why does it have to be bound? Why does Malachite have to be bound? I'm looking for a serious answer. Crafting mats should never be bound unless it's some ultra special unique item. A standard style stone for crafting? Nope.

Bound status should be used as a last resort for items that are unique or meant to have some special rarity (trial gear) or require personal effort to acquire (trophies).

Malachite shards aren't bound though.

Which is exactly why it's so boggling that the fused Malachite is.

They wanted to add Malachite to the Crown Store, but they didn't want anyone to sell Crowns for in game gold with that. Making it BoP solves that problem.

Ezareth

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) simply because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities over the last year and a half. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat from a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

I don't see how this is that big of an issue. Malachite right now is BoP but you can put it in the bank. Why can't you do this with Laurel and the style chapters? Just learn them all on your main char and give duplicates to your crafter alt. It does seem like a bit of a quirky system.

Malachite shards are not BoP, so you can buy/trade 10 shards and make the full, BoP mat on the character/account you want it on. So for laurel though, I just need to farm 2 full sets of the motif to be able to craft it on my account? Great design.

I was just saying you can still *trade* anything you loot to your alt by depositing it in the bank. Since you can't sell any of the chapters you're going to need to run a *ton* of undaunted to get a full set on any character....which means even if you give every first page to your crafter alt you'll get a ton of duplicates for your main and more laurels than you'll ever need before all is said and done. The only inconvenience will be if on day one you get a recipe you may not immediate be able to use it for awhile as you probably wont get any laurels until you start getting duplicates.

Shadesofkin

I sorta thing this is brilliant, it's a specific reward of doing Undaunted stuff...

Glory

Ezareth wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) simply because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities over the last year and a half. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat from a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

I don't see how this is that big of an issue. Malachite right now is BoP but you can put it in the bank. Why can't you do this with Laurel and the style chapters? Just learn them all on your main char and give duplicates to your crafter alt. It does seem like a bit of a quirky system.

The problem with their proposed (and ongoing) system is that it just is pushing people towards just buying these motifs outright on the crown store. I run pledges on 6 characters (lol). I don't want to have to farm 15+ motifs for all 6 characters just so I get a drop rate chance.

As others have said, I'd be okay with these systems if it took account-wide motif knowledge into consideration.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Ezareth wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) simply because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities over the last year and a half. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat from a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

I don't see how this is that big of an issue. Malachite right now is BoP but you can put it in the bank. Why can't you do this with Laurel and the style chapters? Just learn them all on your main char and give duplicates to your crafter alt. It does seem like a bit of a quirky system.

Malachite shards are not BoP, so you can buy/trade 10 shards and make the full, BoP mat on the character/account you want it on. So for laurel though, I just need to farm 2 full sets of the motif to be able to craft it on my account? Great design.

I was just saying you can still *trade* anything you loot to your alt by depositing it in the bank. Since you can't sell any of the chapters you're going to need to run a *ton* of undaunted to get a full set on any character....which means even if you give every first page to your crafter alt you'll get a ton of duplicates for your main and more laurels than you'll ever need before all is said and done. The only inconvenience will be if on day one you get a recipe you may not immediate be able to use it for awhile as you probably wont get any laurels until you start getting duplicates.

Yes, I see your point, and that is probably what I will end up doing for the limited time left I will be playing this game.

But from here on out, let's focus discussion not on my particular situation, but rather on the larger issues this system presents. I wasn't trying to make this thread about me, but about how it penalizes longer-term players and those who have structured their crafting/playing characters in ways that don't fit this idiotic design. Here are a couple excellent quotes from the patch notes thread:

Rosveen wrote: »

That's it, my crafter's dead. If you're going to disincentivize specialized crafting chars and push us into playing a jack-of-all-trades, I want an option to transfer researched traits and motifs to another character. This isn't at all what the system looked like when I started the game in April 2014. You gave us free respecs after significant changes to abilities, it's only fair to do the same with crafting.

Kerioko wrote: »

Over 12 months of maxing out an alt crafter with every craft, style, and trait.....That's for the big "FU" ZOS for those of use that have alts specialized in other things. Bad enough I have to level all my crafting skills on my main just to get quality node mats in the new update. Now I have to go and relearn a year worth of crafting so I can craft the new style......

Ezareth

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

From notes:

This chance is also modified by your knowledge of the Mercenary style: If you know zero Chapters of the style, you will never receive a Laurel from any source. If you know all 14 Chapters, you will always receive a Laurel from Veteran dungeon final bosses, every time you kill one.
Laurels are Bind on Pickup - they cannot be sold, traded, or mailed.

I'm usually not one for hyperbole, but I really, really do not understand this decision at all. This means my account will probably never be able to have Mercenary styled items (which was shaping up to be one of my favorites based on the initial designs) simply because of how I've spread out/leveled my crafting abilities over the last year and a half. My crafting alts are level 16ish and all have 8+ traits learned and know all styles (except Glass and Xivkyn because I find them ugly). My main is a VR16 tank who has no traits researched and no rare styles learned, but who recently gained level 50 of all crafting lines (except enchanting) for purposes of writs. So, while doing dailies on my main I can get motif pages alright, but if I give them to my alts to learn and use like I have with every other style, my main will then never be eligible to receive the mat from a drop. BUT, if I learn the pages on my main, the style is virtually wasted because I've yet to research any traits on that character. Given the significant time and gold investment in building a crafter (traits and styles), this design penalizes all those who don't have crafters as main characters. Please at least give some drop chance or other way to get the style mat even if you haven't learned any part of the style.

I don't see how this is that big of an issue. Malachite right now is BoP but you can put it in the bank. Why can't you do this with Laurel and the style chapters? Just learn them all on your main char and give duplicates to your crafter alt. It does seem like a bit of a quirky system.

Malachite shards are not BoP, so you can buy/trade 10 shards and make the full, BoP mat on the character/account you want it on. So for laurel though, I just need to farm 2 full sets of the motif to be able to craft it on my account? Great design.

I was just saying you can still *trade* anything you loot to your alt by depositing it in the bank. Since you can't sell any of the chapters you're going to need to run a *ton* of undaunted to get a full set on any character....which means even if you give every first page to your crafter alt you'll get a ton of duplicates for your main and more laurels than you'll ever need before all is said and done. The only inconvenience will be if on day one you get a recipe you may not immediate be able to use it for awhile as you probably wont get any laurels until you start getting duplicates.

Yes, I see your point, and that is probably what I will end up doing for the limited time left I will be playing this game.

But from here on out, let's focus discussion not on my particular situation, but rather on the larger issues this system presents. I wasn't trying to make this thread about me, but about how it penalizes longer-term players and those who have structured their crafting/playing characters in ways that don't fit this idiotic design. Here are a couple excellent quotes from the patch notes thread:

Rosveen wrote: »

That's it, my crafter's dead. If you're going to disincentivize specialized crafting chars and push us into playing a jack-of-all-trades, I want an option to transfer researched traits and motifs to another character. This isn't at all what the system looked like when I started the game in April 2014. You gave us free respecs after significant changes to abilities, it's only fair to do the same with crafting.

Kerioko wrote: »

Over 12 months of maxing out an alt crafter with every craft, style, and trait.....That's for the big "FU" ZOS for those of use that have alts specialized in other things. Bad enough I have to level all my crafting skills on my main just to get quality node mats in the new update. Now I have to go and relearn a year worth of crafting so I can craft the new style......

I agree with the points. They've been screwing the crafting system since day 1. I spent my first 3 months of playing and a ton of gold levelling all my alts to 3/3 Hirelings just so I could get gold drops...then soon after they completely nerfed the drop rates.

The other main thing that they did which for most people let happen without a whisper of complaint that I saw was make equal level dropped items have the exact same stats as crafted items....which is something that crafted items always had a slight advantage on.

That said, they're trying to make some difficult grinds in the game that can easily be overcome with a crown store purchase and TBH I'm fine with that. The primary source of income for ZoS has to be crowns and as long as those items continue to be "flavor" or "style" type items I'm fine with that. It's no different than skins in your average MOBA. They make it hard to acquire so you're more likely to buy it in the store. Nothing wrong with that IMO....they have to make $$$ or the game dies.

James-Wayne

I think this is genius, this stops people selling Laurel for insane prices where it really should be used by players who have learnt the system, the crafters of the game world. Why earn something when you don't understand the system its been built for, great job ZOS love it!