The introduction of the Nemesis mechanic where you can upgrade a non-LP unique (either end up with an LP, usually a 2 LP or some random stats on it) is actually a big issue with CoF.
The problem is that the CoF “upgrades” most of the uniques from non-LP to 1 LP.
So compared to a non-CoF player, you’re basically stuck with a 1 LP unique without any option of upgrading it.
This is incredibly frustrating. I see two ways of going about this - either allow 1 LP uniques to be upgraded OR improve (greatly, so that it matches the Nemesis or close to it) the chance of getting 2 LP drops with CoF.
All this was observed around 250-350 corruption (which coincides with what the devs consider “standard” end-game).
So much this: As a CoF player it SUCKS SO HARD getting regular uniques “downgraded” to 1LP.
I NEVER want 1LP from Nemesis. I’d rather have a totally useless Affix than a 1LP as I will never take a 1LP to the sanctum.
Without going into whether we should be allowed to put LP items in the egg (I’m actually in favour, but this is something that affects both MG and CoF equally), Nemesis is necessarily balanced around MG.
To me, the simplest solution would just be to let your CoF ranks affect the result, so you have a better chance of LP or of getting better (meaning higher tier) affixes. It should also affect the non-unique gear. Both for the initial items and for the improvements.
I mean if the argument is to not flood the market, it’s just the oppositen (imo)
Nemesis giver you a pretty reliable way of getting 2LP items. As non-CoF, even more so, as you can get non-LP uniques (the ones you need) far easier than a CoF player.
Not 100% sure if this works (no MG char) but frankly as MG I would never buy 2LP from the market if for the same money I could get 3-4 non-LP. Just play the Nemesis roulette with those and maybe even turn a profit.
Heck, if this works (egg working with non-LP uniques traded via MG) it might just be a business opportunity
Anyway, the point is that the Nemesis absolutely means the market (MG) is flooded with 2LPs.
Which I guess leads to the same result. 1LP, nobody wants, at least in most cases being worth less than non-LP.
At any rate, I don’t recall EHG stating that the Nemesis mechanic is tailored to MG (correct me please if I’m wrong, link).
And at this point it clearly and significantly favours MG over CoF - which suffers not just from not being able to simply buy the non-LP base (CoF must “rely” on drop) but even more so with way less chances for a non-LP drop because of the CoF “perk”.
I would assume that if you buy a 0LP and then put it in the egg, you can’t resell. So no profit would be made. That’s one of the factors of balancing Nemesis for MG.
The other would be the actual rate at which you get LP vs random affixes. Those would need to be balanced for MG, otherwise Nemesis would just start “spitting” high LP uniques in the market.
Basically, what I meant about Nemesis being balanced for MG is that the “drop rate” and “improvement rate” of nemesis are balanced in a way that it just gives you little more loot for AH, but not so much as to make every 4LP unique common.
Much like they balanced the global drop rate because of MG (there was a 30% drop rate nerf when MG was introduced), which then gets offset by CoF bonuses, Nemesis base drops/improvements were also balanced because of MG. Meaning that MG does get more and better items than in 1.0, but in a balanced way where rare uniques/high LP is still balanced and doesn’t bring the market crashing down.
Which is also why you still don’t see a bunch of 2LP red rings in AH in 1.1.
However, unlike drop rates, CoF bonuses don’t apply to nemesis, so CoF players get the exact same drops as MG does.
CoF still gets lots and lots of 0LP gear, especially for rare uniques. I think you’re overestimating the influence of CoF rank bonuses.
While I don’t have statistics, my feeling so far is that 2LP is something around 20%-25% for Nemesis egg.
On the topic of 0LP vs 1LP drops I can absolutely tell you that as CoF (fully upgraded faction) 0LP is at least half as rare, is not even less, than 1LP.
My last boss runs have had the vast majority of drops 1 LP (250c+).
Would be glad to have the perspective of other CoF players doing 250+c (to account for potential corruption offset of drops).
The likelyhood of LP getting added per Empower or the Tier of affixes getting added is based on the Uniques Rarity/LP Chance.
So uniques that you naturally find less with LP have much lower chance to get LP in the first place and if affixes are added they are usually alot lower tier.
For very low LP chance uniques I find the Nemesis system very weak. Which is ok, because its a chance and it won’t make the item “worse”.
For example Event Horizon (a uniques with incredibly low chance for LP): I put roughly 40 0LP ones into the Nemesis and only 3 came out with 1 LP, not a single one with 2LP, the rest mainly got T2 Affixes added on the first empower, which then got to T4 on the 2nd Empower.
For much higher LP chance uniques you will see 1LP much more common and also see 2LP more reliably.
In a sense the Nemesis system is much, much weaker for these kind of items, because even if a affix is added and it is the right one, you would be looking for, their tier for the most part is very low, most of the time not evne exalted.
Obviously this is an extreme case, but the kind of uniques that are hard to come by LP to begin with are the ones that are most chased for many builds.
If you take a little bit less extreme example, but still a “rare” unique (with somewhat low LP chance) you will see 2LP a bit more often, but still LP chance and affixes getting added are also relative to the items rarity/LP chance.
MG provides tha ‘baseline rate’ of drops. With CoF EHG can adjust the relevant drops where SSF players will need help to acquire them compared to someone playing MG. Hence Boss-drops, generally more exalted items and so on and so forth.
Which means you balance for MG since nothing affects their rates and then add a mechanic solely accessed for CoF on top for them to make it work there too.
In our example with Nemesis it’s just a mistake in their design choice, one done intentionally for very very odd reasons and hence simply misguided. Happens.
You can’t re-sell, so that’s not a thing which is possible.
