Hi EHG Team,
I already posted my initial thoughts on LE after just several hours of gameplay, and maybe you will find it useful what I think about some of its current problems after 278 hours spent. As a brief reminder - I am a gamer for 35+ years and a game industry pro for 20+ years.
First and foremost - the tab prices. Even after you reduced the progression with the tab pricing, it’s not enough to make this system fly. In my case for example I tend to collect most uniques, idols and exalted items, and as I am in MG and need a lot of gold, for me it’s very painful to pay now around 220K for a new tab, with even further progression. My suggestion - make it with a cap of 50K or at least not more than 100K, regardless the number of tabs.
As I wanted to save my money on MG stuff I was kind of forced to make the good old “mule chars” for items, like in Diablo 2 :). BUT now I got stuck with it too, as you allow only for 25 online characters. Which is anyway not a good number considering that you have 15 masteries in the game right now and probably even more in the future, so 25 online chars just seems to be not enough. If you really want to put some boundary on this number (I’d advise though to make it your USP and not limit it at all) - set a very high number, something like 100+ or even more.
A BIG topic is the group play. You really should allow for corruption progression in groups, I just don’t see any real reason why to prevent it entirely. E.g. the group leader could get the full corruption, and all other team members at least 50% of the corruption. You can also balance this system in numerous ways, e.g. based on achieved stability per character, if there are any personal bonuses for corruption (such as for the boss killing or based on other monoliths’ progress), but please make it at least possible. It’s a major factor why group play in monoliths currently doesn’t make so much sense.
I understand that your system design probably made it easier to make all items “disappear” if a player is killed, but it doesn’t make ANY sense at all. E.g. in a team boss fight, one of the group members is killed just after the boss drops something highly valuable, and after rejoining the group everything on the ground is gone - doesn’t make ANY sense at all. Same applies to town portals, it doesn’t make any sense and even the first versions of Diablo did it better in this regard.
More filters for search in the bank as well as in the MG. More precise search, better filtering options (e.g. not just for a name or for an attribute or its tier level, but also for a number, for example if I want exactly an item with “+12 All Attributes”, this applies especially for MG). Also the filtering/search system in the bank has some real issues sometimes as it shows items with absolutely no relation to the search itself. E.g. if I search for “shield” I also get to see ALL items with “ward”. Your system of searching/filtering is already a big help, but you can make it even more helpful. Same applies for the rarity - if I want to search in the bank for all “exalted” items for example, currently impossible.
I’d suggest to remove entirely (!) the favor costs for putting items on the Bazaar. For me it’s a major prevention for trading, as I don’t want to spend my precious favor this way. Therefore I stopped putting any items there, just to save my favor for buying stuff. This is also very important if you want to keep the economy healthy - don’t make it hard for people to sell anything, they should have ZERO hesitations in my opinion.
After I tried both CoF and MG I think it’s the best to merge both systems and just allow players to use both of them at the same time. You can still make CoF items untradeable, it’s totally fine, but allow for using both item categories at the same time. An example - I’d love to play more CoF, but ALL my characters have quite a lot of MG items, which I can use only if I stay in MG. Therefore I just can’t switch to CoF without losing basically most of my equipment. Either merge both systems in one or allow to at least use both items at the same time. Also don’t penalize players for switching - they should have all favor and all other things preserved if they switch to a different guild (if you really don’t want to merge both systems in one).
Make Monoliths more exciting. You can make special events for different monoliths every week, such as for example - one week there are additional rewards or even new quests for “The Black Sun”, then next week there is something new and cool for “Reign of Dragons” etc. Your Monolith system is by far the best you have in the endgame, you can take it from there and make it even better.
Currently dungeons are the weakest of all your systems and extremely boring. They even feel totally unnecessary for me at the moment. The dungeon design is extremely repetitive and simple, they are unnecessary lengthy with no real fun based on the time spent to get through them, and the rewards and the bosses are not exciting. Plus you don’t have any events with them, similar as I’ve described it above. Especially bad is that all players actually NEED at least Temporal Sanctum, which feels just pure waste of time due to its length. You could make it 1 section shorter for sure, so a player can immediately get to Julra after the initial map with the temporal labyrinth.
I’m not sure how CoF players feel about it, but as a primarily MG player I feel REALLY bad about the current legendary system, because it’s completely random for anything below LP4 items. E.g. some LP1-LP3 items can cost already a fortune or are very hard to acquire, and after I finally got them, I basically bricked/screwed them with a bad random roll on which affixes were taken. I’d strongly advise to let players select, which ones they want to get transfered to the legendary items. As the current system doesn’t contribute to any fun at all, and is merely a huge frustration point.
Some masteries or even entire classes are clearly HIGHLY underpowered, such as all Primalist masteries, Sorcerer, Void Knight, Forge Guard and some others. You should allow them for similar “OP” skill combinations like it’s currently the case with Runemaster, Marksman, Falconer, Warlock, Paladin. Every mastery should have at least one “OP” build, which is currently not the case at all. And for some masteries (such as Beastmaster), the only really viable build for high corruption/arena implies zero companions, which is a bit weird imho. Your skill system is a true gem, just allow for more crazy/OP combos, to make it fly even higher.
Allow for campaign skipping after the first playthrough, and don’t force players into going through it for additional passive points and idol slots. It’s a boring and bad experience after several playthroughs, even considering the help from my friends, who help me with all important waypoint portals, it’s simply extremely boring and waste of time.
Make exchanging items between friends MUCH easier, resonances should drop at least 10x more often and can be reduced into just one type of them (any kind of items). Alternatively - depending on the playtime together, at some point “good old friends” should not have ANY barriers to exchange items AT ALL, so basically giving an item to an old friend should not require any resonance etc.
Something to think about - I am not sure if the current skill re-speccing system is the right way to handle it. I’d rather pay some gold for re-speccing instead of time. E.g. I’d love to experiment MUCH MORE with re-specs, trying hundreds of different combos, but ultimately I can’t do it as it is very time-consuming. So basically you are shooting yourself in the foot by not allowing players to experiment with one of your best game system in a much more flexible and fun way. There is no clear reasoning for me, why you did it this way. Imho it doesn’t improve in any way the retention or engagement, it’s just an obstacle.
That’s a complete misunderstanding of the point of CoF. The goal is to allow proper balance between trading and non-trading players by offering them the choice between the two guilds. If you make players able to use both, then the goal fails. And the point of forbidding MG items on CoF chars and vice-versa is to avoid players getting the benefits of both mechanics by switching between them or giving items of one mechanic from one character to the other.
If you want the benefits of CoF, you need to forfeit using traded items on that character. If you want the benefits of trading, then you don’t get the bonus loot from CoF. It’s simply fair.
Expect rebalancing and maybe slight reworks of underperforming or overperforming masteries in the next season.
I just don’t really see why this separation of CoF vs. MG adds any value to the game. Initially I was quite excited about item factions, as it was something truly new in the genre. But again - after I experimented now with both systems (level 9 MG, level 6 CoF) - I don’t see any REAL value in such a separation. And if there is a separation in terms of “what to push first” - at least EHG should allow to use all items, which a character had access to, regardless of the current faction. I pointed a very real example, how this system can ruin the game experience - I’d like to switch to CoF with some of my characters, but they would be “naked” then.
I just signed up to the forums to post about stash tab prices and saw this thread, so now I can just reply here to +1 the comment on stash tab pricing.
I am entering the endgame and fumbling helplessly with endgame crafting and gear farming. I’m old and I hate these complex systems and RNG means a lot of crafting attempts get bricked. Every video on crafting help and gear target farming in endgame has one very specific point to make:
You will have to spend ALL THE GOLD on stash tabs and keep every piece of exalted or unique gear that drops. Not to mention experimentals and idols as well.
LE has the exact opposite problem D4 has - D4 has a ton of gear drops that almost all are worthless or meaningless. LE has a ton of gear drops and potentially EVERYTHING can be valuable.
That’s great and all, but if you’re going to make us keep this much gear and the sizes of the gear (armor, 2h axes/swords, etc) are this huge in inventory size space, then the cost of stash tabs needs to come down by about 80%.
I’m basically to the point where I’m deleting weapons and idols every so often if they’re not immediately useful to save myself from buying new stash tabs for weapons and armor every few days.
Simply because a lot of players (typically 100% of offline players) don’t trade, and balance needs to take into account both trading players and non-trading players. The game is going to be too easy for trading players and/or too hard for non-trading players unless you give non-trading players a similar buff to trading players, hence why CoF exists and needs to be entirely separated from MG.
I understand the initial reasoning behind it, I’m just saying that after having tested both systems I don’t see any real need for such a separation. Offline players won’t interfere in any way with the online players anyway, they can have their own leaderboard etc. And for non-trading players it’s again their own choice to focus solely on CoF. I’m just saying that it would be wise at least to let players use both type of items - CoF and MG, even after switching to another guild. Otherwise it creates too much penalty moments and makes any kind of switches relatively worthless, plus I had to throw away ALL my CoF items due to the tab pricing and the bank limitations. Which brings me back to my point (1) ;). So it would imho make the player experience way better, if both faction items could be used on the same character at the same time.
I agree with dungeons being tedious, there really should be a special dungeon key that puts you right into the boss room.
Regarding merging CoF and MG, what you’re saying is basically giving everyone a blanket loot drop rate multiplier for bind on pickup gear and letting everyone trade bind on equip gear. There’s absolutely no need for the factions to exist in that case and it’s totally againts the philosophy behind the factions.
Not really, if EHG would let us at least WEAR both item groups - for MG and CoF, at the same time. A very realistic scenario would be - 1) you equip your character first with MG stuff, just to have some good starting point for a certain build (preserved that you already have enough advances for MG, to buy exalted/uniques etc., which takes a LONG time anyway), 2) then when you progress further in high corruption monoliths, you switch over to CoF (while still being able to wear the MG stuff), and get the levels there, to be able to find LP3-4 items easier etc. etc. And EHG can still forbid to sell any of the CoF items, totally fine with me, I just see the need for such a scenario as described above as critical for the long term motivation for a good portion of players.
So basically the bottom line is - leave both systems in place exactly as they are, don’t force players into losing all equiped items/gathered favor/prophecies in case of switch, and everything will be MUCH better in terms of long term fun for most players. And I’m not talking about the most hardcore ones ;).
It’s not about competition, it’s about balance. By giving access to trading players to both sources of equipment, you are making them have a huge advantage in power when compared to non-trading players, meaning, one of the two demographics is going to have a subpar experience, either trading players having the game too easy, or the non-trading players having the game too hard.
And here you are clearly stating that you don’t care that people that don’t play the same way you do have a subpar experience just so you can get the double-dip.
PS :
I could get behind suggestions to make the transition between MG and CoF less tedious, but clearly not for double-dipping.
There is a huge number of RPG games with trading, I don’t see any problem with it at all. If some of the players willingly want to skip the trading entirely, it’s fine, e.g. I know some WoW players who never traded and still got an excellent epic/legendary equipment. I just don’t see any real reason why to limit the entire playerbase in this regard. If someone wants to have more challenge and find everything by himself/herself - OK, why not, but it should not impact everyone else. It’s about the same decision as to make a hardcore char or SCF char for more challenge. But I personally don’t want to have SO much challenge as to farm 500M+ for LP4 items, it’s just stupid and totally crazy. I hope EHG will see it in the same way if they want to increase their playerbase, as it’s only possible if they make the game as accessible as possible, making the “hard modes” purely by personal choice (SCF, hardcore, non-trading etc.). Again - ALL leaderboards etc. can be easily adjusted to make clear separations in this regard, and we are not talking here about some “ultimate justice for everyone” (which would be nonsense anyway), it’s about fun and great game experience for all kinds of players.
What you ask for makes no sense. It’s contrary to the whole idea behind EHG having introduced CoF in the first place. I’m sorry to put it like that, but you’re wasting your time trying to go against that.
CoF is specifically designed and balanced around people who wish to have a SSF experience but not feel completely hindered compared to the ones who chose to trade items.
Mike said they even have potential plans to introduce even more different factions, but you want to merge them? No, thanks.
Anyways, seems like you don’t follow the forums nor the weekly dev’s stream much. Because the majority of your suggestions have already been discussed and addressed many times before and they all have already been put down or are being currently worked on to be implemented in future patches.
I don’t have time to follow forums or watch dev updates, but it’s good to hear that they are working on many of the suggestions. And as always - they can also make surveys to see what is the percentage of players, who want the faction system to be more flexible, and I am sure that I’m not the only one.
This is why I wished there would be some sort of merge function for new characters. I get it, once you decide to play CoF, this character should stay in CoF but many twink items are unusable unless the twink also chooses to get into CoF. With the system right now you are doomed to stick with the first factions you ever chose or start from scratch and repeat the whole campain at least with one more character to benefit your twinks.
Not sure if I’ve completely thought it through but for new chars there could be a one-time option for every faction item to copy it to the other faction with the same level. So when I start a new char in MG and there’s a CoF Helm already in my stash, I could pick it up, copy it and transform it to MG once. Now I have an MG and a CoF version of the item and my new twinks are free to choose their guild without having to start from scratch.
Merge function as you describe it is far too complicated imho. They should simply allow to wear both item groups - CoF and MG, at the same time, according to the level already achieved in both factions. This would be the easiest and the best solution. So players can use both factions, switch easily depending on the needs (without losing favor etc.), enjoy all contents of the game, but they would need to focus inevitably which faction to push to gain all its benefits. Fair enough imho. The choice is still there, the separation as well, but the entire idea would be much more consumable and player-friendly.
There is a ton of value in seperating these systems, i personally enjoy playing SSF alot more than i enjoy trading so does a ton of other players, CoF helps you “target” farm uniques that would otherwise be rough to get when you solely you are gathering the items. I wouldn’t wanna see this ger merged. Even PoE could learn from the CoF system, its awesome - i even think that some of these prophecies is abit to overpowered. There is a reason someone goes SSF, and that is usually to enjoy the game longer than you would playing trade.
Agree, in the majority of other ARPGs, this mechanic is just called “the game.” You find, you trade, you sell… done. Splitting the factions just divides the player base. My MG butt can’t trade with my CoF best friend, we both can’t trade with our kids since they weren’t online when something dropped, and essences apparently drop once a year so no one’s getting anything.
Players should have the choice. Some people do like a challenge of not trading with others and going purely SSF. But forcing us all to do it by not allowing trade in a multiplayer game (save for a bloated AH) displays a level of ineptitude on the devs part, that borders on the imbecilic.
How in the world are you being forced “to not trade”?, you were presented with two choices that offered different playstyles, even if you felt like your choice wasn’t what you thought you can change to the other one.
probably a mmorpg will suit you and your friends better.
I like that but then, why would I spend dozens (hundreds) of hours with my CoF char farming for an LP3+ item when my MG char can just buy it, why have two separate factions then at all? Okay you’d have to level each individually but after a month or so both will be maxed anyway and the whole goal the devs had with dividing both factions falls away.
That’s why the more I think about it, the more I move towards not having separate factions at all and fully merge both, MG and CoF. CoF could still be used for Exalts and to farm stuff to put on the market and make some money, MG would be used for the one item that just does not want to drop for you.
We could have both and it wouldn’t lessen the fun for anyone because no one is forced to either CoF or MG but those who want, can. Or limit CoF to pure SSF mode and let all “normal” players have both worlds on each char.
Because that 3 LP item probably won’t exist in the market in the first place. So you got to wait for it to do and then be the first to acquire it before someone else comes along and snatches it up.
To provide those that don’t want to interact with an economy to have an alternative. As simple as that.
Nobody said it’ll be as good… it’s just an alternative where you don’t leave completely empty-handed by the end of the day.
Overall… there being 2 factions is not bad per-se.
How they’re implemented currently is sub-par though, loads of variants possible which aren’t as stifling while upholding the set goals for the devs as well as not causing a darn equipment fallout for either the economy or individual progression.
