The changes to Merchant Guild are a straight up nerf besides the favor boost and time to reach max rank (which is a great thing). However, why are we moving the goal post even further down the line? CoF gets three brand new straight up buffs and we get two additional ranks to gatekeep buyers even more than we already are?
The biggest complaints about MG:
The time it takes to buy LP and Legendary items
ALL items (LP, Legendary, Exalted) should be unlocked by rank 6 at the latest imo. If the point is to keep out bots, then improve your bot/RMT detection, don’t nerf an entire trading system. What is even the point of obtaining High LP items and making Legendary items when only 1-5% of the entire playerbase will even reach that rank? We have nobody to sell to.
Insane high Favor costs for LP+ items
I don’t believe I saw a change in favor costs but instead a boost to favor at higher ranks. This somewhat alleviates the problem, but it’s still ridiculously high.
Ranking up has no benefits.
Why don’t we get more gold drop % chance or reduced favor tax? Favor boost is a good start.
Items drop 95% of the time for your class only.
Playing a non meta class using MG to try and make profit is a bad idea. You have no buyers. Last cycle I started as a Falconer and was selling almost every piece of gear I found. I later switched to Primalist and was lucky if I got two trades in 24 hours. This makes playing an off meta build actually unviable for MG. This has been mentioned many times before. A rank could be changed to have the option of which class/classes you would like items to drop for.
One additional side note… This system assumes that you choose this faction to be both a buyer and a seller. I really think they missed the reality of most people just want to save up and buy the few items that will finish their build. My point being is that it feels bad currently selling when by the time you have people who spent 60+ hours ranking up, they likely already found the gear they were looking for naturally. Imo they have it backwards. Selling should be gatekept behind the ranks and buying should be open to all if not at early ranks.
I’d think that the number of people who are capable of getting high LP uniques (ie, put in enough time & farm high enough corruption) doing t3/4 Julra (can then successfully slam the higher end uniques) is probably similar.
TLDR, the devs don’t want the best possible items to be easily accessible, that’s why you either have to do t4 Julra or grind through the ranks to get to buy them.
See above.
Apart from being able to buy the higher end items. That’s not a small benefit. You need to shift your mindset from that of PoE. Though I agree that the rank benefits in MG aren’t the most interesting.
And yet a common complaint is that so much hear drops not for your class. Is your loot filter too strict?
Maybe that relates more to the number of players (in MG) that play non-meta builds. I’m not saying that MG players are meta whores slaves, but there could be a correlation. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true of CoF but you don’t see it because they don’t trade.
No, that would make it feel awful, there would be little gear to buy, they made it the way it is so that there’s gear available for people to buy rather than going to the AH & it being largely barren.
You know, I don’t play MG and I don’t intend to. But let’s talk about this.
Well you have read that getting r12 will take less time than r10 before, so just assume you will have all ranks unlocked eventually. The problem with MG ranks seems to me that there is simply nothing exciting to give. The pure option of opening buying and selling gear is in reality one big rank reward - and one that trumps all ranks of CoF combined if item progression is your sole goal.
That’s easier said than done. We have outlawed crime around the world and yet there still are criminals. Prevention is much more effective than going after them. But I agree with you that regular players shouldn’t be punished by such measures. There was a time in D2 when you would get kicked for active pindle runs for the game considered you a bot.
I am with you on this and have previously suggested an option to turn off personal loot. The concept of farming gear with one character to equip your alts doesn’t (fully) work in LE.
I’m afraid that’s asking too much. You already get access to so much more gear than CoF players, now you want that for free? Just like in the real world you have to earn currency with something you do and then get to spend it on something others have to offer.
You might be up to something here. This could truly be a great way to discourage bots. Real players will be rank 7+ anyway, so they are not affected. But then I don’t really know how bots generate their funds and which rank they have given that you have to reach act 9 before you can enter the faction in the first place.
Rank benefits are here. Re-read QoL post
Also in 1.1, each Rank in Item Factions also now provides +5% increased Favor gain. At maximum rank of 12, you will have +60% increased Favor gain.
This is not true, though. From my experience (especially with CoF idol drops) I’d say items are only slightly weighted to weighed to your character. Closer to 60%.
I still get lots and lots and lots of drops for other alts. In fact, I have tabs full of gear I pick up for other alts, either to slam or craft.
If you feel like nothing drops for other classes, check your loot filter, like @Llama8 said.
95% was not my estimate, your estimate of 60% is just as fine a guess. It’s about this weighting existing in the first place, which I’d like to turn off sometimes.
My filter is self-made, so I have full confidence in it
