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

myrrrorb14_ESO

code65536 wrote: »

There is a bit of a workaround: Find a V16 buddy to group with your level 10 crafter. Make your level 10 the leader. Go to Fungal Grotto. Follow the V16 as he 1-shots the whole dungeon in 5 minutes. Collect laurel. Rinse and repeat?

Easiest solution would be to make the laurel drop based on the chapters known by the most learned of your characters. Avoids all the problems here while adhering to the spirit of this reward-for-knowing system (which I actually like).

More or less what I was thinking. You can run 10 dungeons in an hour pretty easy. With account wide knowledge you will have fewer people deliberately bypassing the system.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Updated OP to reflect ZOS's clarification of motif page drop rates and obtaining 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.

silky_soft

Great a PvP player I'll never get it. Can have you AP motif back, it's terrible.

Scyantific

Well ok, that 50% chance with drops isn't so bad, to be generously honest. I've got a bunch of keys saved up on my templar and my soon-to-be V1 DK will start hoarding keys as well, so it's just a matter of popping over duplicate chapters to all of my veteran characters so that I can start playing the RNG.

Lithium Flower

I don't think this is sufficient at all. Firstly, the drop rates as they are will mean the rarity of these items will be non existent. That's not a good thing. Maintaining the scarcity of new styles is desirable to some extent to keep the economy stimulated. The idea that the chapters will be so common that non crafters can just slap on a chapter to bypass an idiotic drop rate mechanism is really silly.

If I'm not a crafter and I get chapters, I should sell them and earn gold for my effort. Same for laurels - that design makes sense and is logical. Teaching duplicate chapters to non crafters makes no sense. It's poor design. Mopping up excess chapters in the economy by making it compulsory for every character to learn is still very stupid.

I feel a 30 or 40% drop rate for chapters should be from gold chests only and a basic 50% chance to drop a laurel by the last boss is good enough. Most crafters should be able to have the style eventually with the really hardcore saving up keys to have it at launch.

You can even have different dungeons have different drop rates so harder content has a higher chance.

ZoS needs to strike a balance between extremes of ridiculous and coming up with more or more zany ideas that make no logical sense and degrade player experience for no tangible benefit.

The drop rate of the original purple motifs is pretty good. They have maintained their value as commodities for over a year. The Xivkyn motif rate is more or less also reasonable (though it seems some items almost never drop at all and others are almost worthless they're so common but that's not necessarily undesirable). Glass motif was terrible and this one appears to be headed in the same direction.

Laurels should drop for everyone and be tradeable, they can just add a unique item to the crownstore which would be BoP.

Troneon

This is so scummy to not allow laurels to be sold or traded...

Conquistador

Troneon wrote: »

This is so scummy to not allow laurels to be sold or traded...

It's PATHETIC. They are doing that to force you to grind the same *** as before.

@ZOS_GinaBruno should admit they just want to cash grab crownstore laurels.

Troneon

Conquistador wrote: »

Troneon wrote: »

This is so scummy to not allow laurels to be sold or traded...

It's PATHETIC. They are doing that to force you to grind the same *** as before.

@ZOS_GinaBruno should admit they just want to cash grab crownstore laurels.

@Conquistador @ZOS_GinaBruno

I had a few friends wanting me to craft some stuff for them, then we realized you can't trade them and you can't buy them so you HAVE TO FARM THEM just to be able to craft stuff for other people....they can't even farm them to give to you YOU HAVE THE FARM THEM YOURSELF...

Or im guessing in the future....CROWN STORE $$$$

It's scummy business...

Imagine if they did this with other items, you would no longer be able to buy any crafting mats off guild stores or trade with other people, killing the economy and forcing everyone to farm or pay up $$$$....

It's stupid in any game and really scummy business model..

N0TPLAYER2

myrrrorb14_ESO wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

There is a bit of a workaround: Find a V16 buddy to group with your level 10 crafter. Make your level 10 the leader. Go to Fungal Grotto. Follow the V16 as he 1-shots the whole dungeon in 5 minutes. Collect laurel. Rinse and repeat?

Easiest solution would be to make the laurel drop based on the chapters known by the most learned of your characters. Avoids all the problems here while adhering to the spirit of this reward-for-knowing system (which I actually like).

More or less what I was thinking. You can run 10 dungeons in an hour pretty easy. With account wide knowledge you will have fewer people deliberately bypassing the system.

I like many others didn't realize this situation until I had all the pages of the motif learned. I am a crafter on Xbox one with 80-85% traits finished researching, and every style available - all through earning enough money in the ways I can go buy each piece from the guild store. I bought all glass motifs, all zyfkin, all dwemer etc. my point is, is I have earned what I wanted. I didn't farm the sewers for these.

With that said, my question has to do with the quote above. Can I really run fungal grotto with a level 20 and expect to receive a piece of laurel with a 25% success rate? I have every page learned which would be a 100% drop rate on vet, and 25 on non vet. Correct?

This method is terrible. I don't mind having to earn 10 malachite shards to equal 1 malachite piece. It's awful enough. But now this, is just a slap in the face.

What about getting a group of 3 vet 16s and having them go with a vet 1 who is the leader into a vet dungeon? Would the enemies be vet 1?

Thanks

Sordidfairytale

Craft a level one Mercenary item with your laurel. Sell that item in the guildstore or trade it. It's not a 100% decon, but it's better than nothing. Out of 10 items I average 8 laurels.