MG and CoF progression is boring

Feedback and Suggestions
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Basically, MG gives you the ability to trade and CoF gives you more loot. Higher levels aren’t fun because they just give you more trades and more loot. I can’t even remember what the last MG levels do. So I have no purpose or interest in tracking these levels. CoF is a little better because getting a full set instead of just one item from a set sounds cool.
I suggest you to shrink the existing levels to 4 or 5. At higher levels, add the ability to unlock certain quests and bosses related to the merchant guild or circle of fortune. Additionally
you can add own skill tree for every guild, unlockable cosmetic sets, guild hub etc.

TLDR Grinding to unlock the full potential of MG or CoF shouldn’t take that long. Late levels of guilds progression have to be exciting.

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I think the system needs work for sure… but disagree with your statements that the later levels are boring…

Sets in this game are terrible and they know it… so ya rank 9 COF is terrible…

Rank 10 tho… DOUBLE rewards from Prophecies!!! You can legit get 16x Unique chest pieces from a single boss kill. Not to mention the Double drop lense??.. in a game about loot their is almost nothing better than that!!

Not sure its its doubled, then doubles so you get 32 items?? or if its 8 + 8 + 8 but either way thats HUUUGGEE

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How much time should it takes then?

I am asking since the game came out on the 21st (with the factions I mean). I played a lot, go for around 100 hours played so I probably got 60 of those as CoF as I took my time in the campaign. And I am halfway to level 7.

Considering this cycle should last 3 months at least and that if I was to start over in CoF my new character would keep the same progress, I fear I do not understand how more quickly it should be.

Balance on the level rewards, yes, we could talk and I would agree on this. But to make it more quickly? Not sure at all.

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Well, I am halfway of rank 7 of CoF. I would agree that improvements on the faction rewards, bonus, content in general will be aways welcome (Sets are in a dark spot right now, but not forever).

I think it is a blast in terms of SSF, it is a rain of loot in a smart and fun way (some minor bugs here and there, nothing to bad). You are rewarded by your target farm strategy and rotation of prophecies, as well your set up by intrinsic mechanics as lens.

I am at Lvl 92. So far, so good.

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The answer is simple:

By far not that long.
I’ve invested 20 hours into actively farming MG, I’m at Tier 7. To even get full functionality of the market… not even ‘fantastic’ gear I’ll need to reach Tier 8.
Why? Because otherwise I can’t even buy any uniques outside of weapons.

To put it into perspective: My character is lvl 99 and more then halfway to 100.
When am I supposed to start buying uniques? When I have them all fully completed and stored as a set?

Not to speak of buying or selling Legendary items, those are Tier 9 for weapons only and Tier 10 for everything else. So my Weaver’s items? Can only sell the baseline ones at best, not finished ones. They’re worthless because of the heavy RNG without stats on them, but with stats they can actually become great depending on the outcome.

To get From Tier 7 to Tier 10 I imagine another 100-150 hours of play-time at my current level of running Monoliths, should I increase corruption I can cut it down to roughly half at best. That’s a massive undertaking for any player which isn’t heavily dedicated to the game in a 3 month spectrum, the ‘common’ player doesn’t have nearly every weekend to spend 6-8 hours a day simply gaming. It means not even reaching the functionality of the market, no matter if they then can afford the actual ‘fantastic’ stuff. But a friggin 1 LP unique with a single stat on it should be available far earlier.

MG needs massive reworks foe the tier levels, for the UI, for the usability in terms of search as well.

In comparison CoF is just utterly broken. Uniques and exalts everywhere, tons of them.

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True, but are casual players the intended users of 4lp uniques?

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Disagree.

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No, but juuuust maybe they wanna use a simple unique they’re missing.

I personally definitely are not a casual player, but I still can’t even do that.
Level 99, 60% to 100, Tier 7.
I need Tier 8 to buy all uniques outside of weapons.

It’s a bit of a joke to say it mildly, the system is utterly broken and needs to be re-done for MG simply, the current one is not very functional.

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That I disagree with. I think it is good if it takes very, very long.
There is no “grinding”, the grinding is the game. If you find doing monoliths to get your ranks boring… Well, what are you going to do if you get the ranks faster? Stop playing altogether? Endlessly repeating monoliths is what the entire game is about.

However, what I do agree with is:

The ranks do feel wrong, some simple useful stuff is blocked too long.

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Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but my issue with the current MG Favor/Rep system is that the grind is so long to get to the good stuff, that I’ll probably burn out before I get to it. The way I normally play any ARPG is focusing on gear then on XP; some people do it the other way around (think level 70s in 5-ways), and if you’re one of those people, then maybe you don’t mind the current iteration of the grind… but, personally, I mind it quite a bit.

What’s the point of getting better gear if I’ve already cleared all the content? Current system is backwards if you ask me. :confused:

Of course there are solutions to the problem (which is clearly a problem since so many people are complaining about it), but I’m not even sure EHG is willing to implement any of them. They have a “vision” too and sometimes I wonder whether it lines up with what I’m looking for in an ARPG. The game’s foundation is great, but I guess time will tell.

P.S. Add more bonuses to MG faction levels (e.g. Favor discount when buying/selling) and move gear access to earlier tiers. Please.

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Which is why it’s rank 3 for uniques without LP. Rank 3 should be easily achievable by anyone who can get to monos.

Nope, that’s for uniques with LP. Read the dev post about it again (or check in-game). Build-enabling uniques are easily achievable.

It can be improved, undoubtedly as the rank rewards aren’t too interesting, but you’re clearly confusing the rank rewards. If you’re going to complain about something, please get it right.

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Yeah, this is the part that gets me. Folks see some streamer/youtuber with perfect LP3 or LP4 items, and think they’re entitled to it.

As a further point, sets from CoF 9 aren’t exciting, but 9 also unlocks the 3rd lens slot, which is pretty useful.

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Yeah, many uniques aren’t useful without any LP on them though. And I’m not talking 3 or 4 LP… I’m talking 1… maybe 2.

Putting them into the same place in general is a mess plainly spoken.

A Wraithlord’s Harbour with LP? Sure, that one’s a bit more rare, it’s something which should be available later on, I absolutely agree!
But… what about ‘Prism Wraps’ with 1 LP to get armor or life on it? Or ‘The Kestrel’ or worst of all… what about Weaver items?

It needs to be reworked simply. You can’t just throw ‘trash’ uniques into the same category as rare and very useful ones. They’re available far later and far harder for a reason.

Overall the ranks are utterly messed up.

Rank 1: Sell all items and Buy Basic Items
This one is an immediate game-changer for early game. All rares? So you mean… a triple rare-modded + extra mod all T5 item with the right base? It’s broken for progression.
It needs to be tiered, there’s a reason why you can’t craft beyond a specific point during leveling and have a hard limit on the access for class-specific affixes, the same thought needs to flow into the MG.

Rank 2: Set Items
Too early, Sets provide a very strong and easy way to have directed power earlier on, far more then any rare item provides during the same time you can acquire them.
They need to be later in the list.

Rank 3: Specific Uniques
You suddenly get access to all uniques without LP. You’re still fairly early in the game there. Not only things like ‘The Kestrel’ or easily accessible ones. No… you could buy an ‘Exsanguinous’ right away, or ‘Wings of Argentus’ which is really hard to get. Also all the ‘Vessel of Strife’ for example is available there… why? That goes counter to anything which should be at that time.
The uniques need to be tiered as well. Also it’s at the wrong position as well, needs to be a bit later in the list.

Rank 4: Buy Idols
Why 4? Idols are integral to a build, you need several and they’re dropping like mad. Why is an item type which drops massively more often then sets or uniques available after them? It makes no sense.
Idols should be Rank 2 simply said.

That’s for the first 4 by itself, I could describe every single one and explain what’s wrong with it, instead I think I’ve made my point and the issues there, so I’ll start to summarize now:

The MG has a nice UI layout, the idea is interesting… but implementing them in the same way as the ‘equivalent’ (which it isn’t though, not even remotely) faction of CoF is one utterly bad design.
First of all… 10 ranks. Ranks in CoF play no role beyond ‘get more loot, it’s always an upgrade!’ because no matter which rank you hit something good happens. Even the sets dropping in full, and even if it’s only the gold reward coming from that!
The same system doesn’t work with a marketplace that has to take into consideration all the possible items there are. CoF does that automatically as a rare item will stay rare… a common will stay common… LP will just be more available given on the sheer amount of drops, which is the overall theme there after all, right?

It makes no sense that single T6 exalted in MG are available long after you’ve dropped hundreds of them with CoF. It makes no sense that low level uniques with low LP are available in MG long after you have dozens of them in your possession through CoF and it makes no sense that MG has access to ridiculously rolled rares from the start of the access to it and much much more.

The whole rank system works for CoF, it doesn’t in this way for MG. It needs a massive rework once more.
More ranks, ranks closer together, ranks thought out on how long it should take to have access to them, ranks divided by the chance to acquire specific items at specific times. MG is utterly and absolutely out of whack with CoF in a ridiculous way.

And we’re not even talking about missing functionality like ‘why can’t I search for 1 T6 affix and 1 T5 affix?’ or ‘why can’t I list or search items by the roll range?’ as well as ‘why aren’t the claimable items in the sold tab listed at the top always?’ and so on and so forth.

There’s a myriad of issues with the factions currently. CoF is a loot pinata showering people and reducing their progression time ridiculously while MG allows for instant ‘decent’ setups while barring you nigh forever from anything else after that.

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Disagree

Iv been play since 2019 600hrs. Not once have i ever used a set item at all. U can make better rares easy.

Sets in this game currently are trash and easly out geared by rares.

If EHG does actually rework sets and they become actually useful then i would agree. Imo that rank is useless. Its a wast of a rank slot imo. sets currently how they are might as well not be in the game.

The rest i agree with many many people tried pointing out how broken CoF is vs MG even before people got there hands on these factions. And now we are seeing what people had tried pointing out with the factions.

Having tried MG after CoF i have to agree 100% the factions need to be more in line with each other. As far as when each faction can get items like exalted or lp items. Its way to far apart imo favoring CoF.

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Yeah, that’s fair, but given that they’re all the same item quality, being able to clearly split them into different MG rank bonuses is not an easy thing. If LR had a similar number of item rarities as, say, GD, that’d be easier 'cause you’d have the more powerful ones as Mythics or whatever then have the higher tier items only available for purchase at higher ranks. Unfortunately…

Yeah, but just because you can buy a t21/22 item (4x t5 affixes & a sealed t1/2) doesn’t mean you can equip it at lvl 5.

I don’t know, but Idols are intended to be a chase item, not just any random idol with random affixes, but the right affixes, like one that has 2x health, or 2x bow/dagger/sword affixes. I suspect that’s why idols are as high as they are (not that getting to rank 4 takes long, if you start at lvl 1 you’ll be at rank 5 or so by the time you get to monos.

Yeah, balancing the two & having interesting rank rewards for MG is difficult & I have no idea what they could be.

Not always, but the majority of the time, yes. Where most uniques are niche in that they tend to only be used for a particular build, I think sets are more niche than uniques, sadly.

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I haven’t read it all and i play CoF exclusively and i LIKE it. It’s good that progression through later ranks takes time. It’s an achievement in itself. I also bonuses, 35% for double echo reward, including double XP books - great! Double chance for LP sounds great, but is difficult to measure. I’m currently at 8th rank. Full set rank sounds good if we get better sets. Double prophecy reward also sounds great.
I could use “more gold” rank though, as hoarder i burning through my savings to buy more tabs :slight_smile:
I can’t even begin to compare it to MG. I don’t use it, i most likely won’t use it. Just leaving my feedback for CoF.

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Well, that’s a ‘you’ think I would say. For example:

Vilatria’s Storm Crown. Level 14, 1+ lightning skills, lightning pen on top, int and shock chance per int.
You can’t make an equivalent at level 14.

Pebbles Set.
Each item provides 1 type of ele res, 3 flat ele damage for minions, int and %minion damage.
Level 12 for the first 2 pieces, 24 for the third. Set bonus being extra potion drops from 2 and at level 24… 42 flat damage added, which is a humongous amount.

There’s definitely a lot more of them available. Sets are worthless end-game, those sets as well… but during early stages they’re ridiculously OP in comparison to anything else you can get.
So no, I don’t think they should be especially soon available as it’ll trivialize stuff for the campaign, and the campaign already is fairly easy, not so much that everyone can mindlessly walk through it though, which is fine enough.

But yeah, otherwise I agree, and a set rework is definitely overdue as well, has to be done since they’re… underwhelming after ~ level 40-50.
And yes, the factions definitely need some love. Decent first iteration, they function, they’re interesting in design, that’s a good start. Now they need to flesh them out and bring some balance in simply. As well as providing the missing functionality for MG since that’s also a problem.

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I’ll have to disagree that they’re not easily split in sections… because they actually are.

Level acquisition, rarity of acquisition. Done, there you have it, that’s the framework we can work with.
For uniques it’s really easy. Pick the level requirement and on the backside give it a value, let’s say… 10 for each level.
Now take the acquisition ratio, hence % drop-chance, give that a value.
Add those values together, that’s a sort of ‘power level’ which can be used as a baseline for when it should be available to a player. Tinker around with the details until it mostly fits.

System done for uniques.

For rares and exalteds it’s similar. Give the affixes as power level, give the base item a power level, there you go, same system.

Rares and exalted done.

Idols work the same.

System done.

Obviously it needs a lot of initial work, but the current ‘Ranks’ don’t represent the acquisition rate or need at all, they seem put together without thought, it’s simply a very very bad system.
Alternatively you can adjust it with the ranks in mind as well, though that’s simply a harder task to do. With the above mentioned it’s a more fluid progression, you can add a visible stat to every item stating ‘power level’ which relates directly to reputation and be done with it, you know immediately when you can acquire it, how long you’ll roughly need to do so and have a clear-cut goal without ‘slumps’ in-between.

And also true that you can’t equip it at level 5! But what you can do is buy a random rare someone slaps into the market for cheap which has 1-2 rare mods on it, it immediately trivializes the content since you wouldn’t reliably have access to it otherwise at that point, you’re simple becoming strong faster then the content provides challenges.

And yeah, the idols being chase items I can understand, that’s a nice topic there, and good thing to think about. Idols clearly are a bit of an iffy topic. They’re not absolutely OP but also not negligible, that’s for sure. And while some builds have nothing better to do then slamming double health ones in others instead need slots for build defining mechanics (Acolyte with the wraith conversion is a good example).

It’s a huge topic for sure, but a big part should’ve actually been realized before the implementation of the system. They have comparable trading system on the market to look up, like the PoE trading site for functionality. Just provide it in-game, a bit baffling it’s not there.
For balancing it’s obviously a lot harder, so I won’t go deeply into that… but nobody in their sane mind wouldn’t realize that spewing out up to 24 uniques at once (double prophecy and lens for a 8 unique prophecy) will be vastly stronger then what the market can provide. Also they’re giving CoF very hefty bonuses in terms of reputation acquisition.
If you buy an item in MG you don’t get rep. Decent items cost several thousand rep.
Also CoF doubles rewards of monoliths, experience rewards add to favor since experience adds to favor.

Overall it’s just badly made.

That’s because CoF isn’t too weak… it’s too strong. It needs a hefty nerf as it showers players with loot and still allows a form of trading despite being a hassle. Still, even then it’s vastly more useful then MG is at any time, especially since MG is so underwhelming that people move away from it and hence the market breaks down completely.

I searched for a chestplate with a decent base and a single rare mod on it… 4 listed, total, from all players. 2 are ‘broken’ with 0 Forging Potential, hence 2 available. After 1 week we should be able to see a wide variety of offers on the market but instead we see… nothing.

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Neither of these were even a thing 3 weeks ago. What you call “boring”, we used to call “playing the game”.

Weird how a sense of entitlement shifts things around such…

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It should take zero. The grind is pointless busywork. I mean it is account-wide so assuming you always play either Legacy or Cycle, you will only need to do it once. Ever. So what’s the point?