Merc Loot Penalties

[Yimway]

<p>I've seen some discussion of the merc penalty and how it affects people moloing PR.  I've heard of the coin being greatly reduced with the merc running when the chest is opened.</p><p>I'd like to more clearly understand how the merc penalty is applied.  If I'm running a raid of 23 people in skyshrine, what exactly is our penalty for popping the troub merc in the last slot?</p><p>I can't seem to get a feeling for if this only affects coin from chests, the chance of items in the chest, the chance of trash loot, etc.  Does he only reduce coin by 1/24th since the merc is only 1/24th of the raid, or would we get hit as heavy handed as someone moloing PR?</p><p>Exceuse me if the merc penalties have been clearly or officially communicated elsewhere, I've not actually seen it.</p>

[Proud_Silence]

<p>based on empiric knowledge the merc takes as much plat as a normal player character, and the drop chance or quantity is not affected by having a merc along.</p><p>in Munzoks the first named never dropped more then 36pp when i soloed ( true solo, no merc) it. over about 2 dozen kills the average coin drop is around 30pp, maybe a bit less. with merc along i still get the same coin drop pattern as long as i suspend him before opening the chest. Same in VP and Shard of Hate. Drop quality and quantity are unaffected by mercenary.</p><p>"slight derail below"</p><p>However, i think there is some kind of mechanic involved in Skyshrine zones that affects drop quality. particularly talking about crafting mats or other rare loot table drops. What i noticed is when i molo EM covenant i have not yet gotten a single crafting mat, or master spell to drop. My guess is there is some sort of time-check on named kills, since it takes me 3-5min to kill one of the 3 nameds i can solo in cov district. And with a whole grp they die much faster, and i see crafting mats drop fairly often when blazing through the instances in a grp.</p><p>Haven't solo'ed very much tho, so maybe once i reach a data sample of 100+ named kills it will be more evened out.</p><p>Am very much interested in knowing more about what affects, if anything, the drop quality/quantity. I thought i read a post from a red name a long time ago, that mentioned some zones having internal timers, eg Shard of hate Byzoola dropping his rare loot more, the faster he is killed after zone creation.</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p>Merc takes before 'leader only' option his 'share' of the coin.  if your raid has 19 members and he would be #20, he gets 1/20th  if the raid has 4 members in PR, add a merc he takes 1/5th.</p>

[Yimway]

<p>But has absolutely no impact on items in the box, just the coin?</p><p>I'd sure like SoE to be clear an upfront about how this works.</p>

[Lemilla]

<p>SOE has been quite upfront about it. The merc takes as much coin and xp as a normal player would (apart from the upkeep), but does not take any other loot.</p>

[kdmorse]

<p><cite>Lemilla@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>SOE has been quite upfront about it. The merc takes as much coin and xp as a normal player would (apart from the upkeep), but does not take any other loot.</p></blockquote><p>Sadly, the dev quotes you remember are tucked away in Beta and special Testing forums, never to be seen again.</p><p>I agree with you 100%.  I agree both based on what the devs said, and personal experimentation.   I just can't provide any actual Proof to Atan.</p>

[feldon30]

In the webcast, Dave joked about having a message saying the merc took one of the loot items, but they figured they would get thousands of /petitions. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Lemilla]

<p>Found some dev quotes that aren't in the beta forums.</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=512171#5688575" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...=512171#5688575</a></p><p><cite>Gninja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They are intended to take the same cut of the plat as a normal character would if you are killing things with just you and the merc yes that amount would be half.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=503215&post_id=5586441#5586441" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...5586441#5586441</a></p><p><cite>Gninja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>- Mercs will take a % of coin and exp from the group they are in. We have no plans for them to eat treasure at this time but that is subject to change as we iterate.</p></blockquote>

[Yimway]

<p>Thanks Lemilla!</p><p>This needs to be communicated in the game on the merc panel.</p><p>I posed the question here, cause I've heard so many conflicting player opinions, and I can't expect every player to read the forums and find this communication (heck I couldn't find it when I searched).</p>

[Lempo]

<p>If you used the abysmal search feature here as I am sure you know you are lucky to find anything.</p><p>site:forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/ gninja+merc+loot</p><p>put that in a google search FTW.</p>

[Rhymers]

<p><cite>Lempo@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If you used the abysmal search feature here as I am sure you know you are lucky to find anything.</p><p>site:forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/ gninja+merc+loot</p><p>put that in a google search FTW.</p></blockquote><p>I tried that and it took me to some freaky crazy pornography web site.</p>

[Lemilla]

<p>The best way to find dev posts is to go to flames, and use their search function in the dev tracker area. For the posts you find you'll get a link back to this forum.</p><p>The search function on this forum is absolutely horrible. It is no wonder that new players can't find anything, even if they try.</p>