I like this solution and am definitely in the CoF camp.
How will each faction be represented in the forums and on the official Discord? Characters of either faction can play together but the needs of these communities vary.
For example I post an LFG for CoF and then discover BobTheSentinel is MG. Or there is a favor stacking group all going for Relics or a group is looking for someone with Relic favor to join their Helm, Body Armor, Boots favored party.
Item showcase is currently slanted towards CoF with look-what-I-found but could suddenly de-evolve into FS: LP2 Exanguinous xxxxxxx gold.
if you are going to have cycles which is like ladders in diablo 2 and like seasons in path of exile. I quit. Just bought the game 2 days ago, refund me.
What if you could play without them and still use the same content? The concern I usually see here is not being able to play with the new updates as they come out. We are currently planning on having cycles (leagues, seasons, ladders) but not locking content to the cycle itself.
So The Slab will cost the same favor as Bastion of Honour, assuming same LP? And all exalted items will cost the same favor?
There should be other factors to calculate favor cost, like overall rarity or Effective Level for Legendary Potential. Some affixes are way more valuable, and every unique is unique (lol). But it can become too complicated to balance very quickly.
With fixed favor cost t will be too much early on and negligible later, as favor is accumulated.
Percent of gold cost is more universal and easier solution, market will determine gold and favor cost according to supply and demand. Trading big items will require to play game more, preventing all kinds of bots/RMT/market abuse. It can be other percent dependence than linear, x2 favor cost for x10 gold for example.
Exactly how favor costs are calculated could change and will likely include more than just the category that they fit into but the main distinction is planned to be which category.
Can we get some idea of what a ‘very extended period of time’ pertains to? Is that an hour? Are the resonance going to be restricted to certain item types?
Edit: I have made a total overhaul to this post, given clarifying comments by Mike below and some re-reading of the OP.
I have some critical comments. The TL;DR is that I think this is greatly over-engineered, and we should just choose between three character types: SSF, Trade, and Non-trade. You can’t swap between them. The “special system” that Trade gets is free trade (no factions required.) The “special system” that SSF and Non-trade gets is this Circle of Fortune thing.
SSF players are truly solo, and cannot trade, nor gift, nor group with anybody, and they get immediately enlisted into the CoF via some quest late in the campaign so they can enjoy the benefits of targeted loot, increased drop rates, etc. – whatever EHG decides.
Trade players can do what you expect! They can trade. I don’t see the need for the MG – but if it’s something the community wants, then fine fine.
Non-trade players cannot trade, but they can item gift to other Non-trade players (but not to trade players! Because the Non-trade players is benefiting from a loot buff. Or maybe the gifting is severely limited like only normal, magic, and rare items.) and can receive gifts from trade players, and they can group – including with Trade players.
Why do I suggest this over what EHG has proposed in the OP?
Point 1: The ability to swap between CoF and MG leads to the creation of a rather complicated system
Point 2: People who understand the complicated system will basically never swap between CoF and MG regardless – the vast majority of people will either prefer to trade, or to not trade. For those people that want to both create a Non-Trade and a Trade character in one season, they can just create another character. That isn’t a big deal. It’s an ARPG. We create a lot of characters – especially the people hardcore enough that they would want to max both rep factions in one season anyway.
Elaboration on point 1:
Having extra bits of text on items that functionally do nothing will confuse new players.
Trade doesn’t need an additional system – the Merchant Guild – to make it worthwhile. Trade is worthwhile in itself. Trade is already a system. And traders will have the Bazaar.
If we get rid of the Merchant Guild, then we can just refer to the Circle of Fortunes as a Non-Trade only thing – it doesn’t need to have a specific designation as a “faction.”
New players may think “Oh, I can game this system somehow” which can lead to them wasting a bunch of time accruing favor with one faction with the intention to swap later, when in reality they should have just picked one faction and stuck with it.
Each Resonance will be usable on specific item types, see the example image.
As for ‘very extended period of time’, we don’t have any more specific information available at this time. It is something that will come down a lot to testing a feedback.
I do not like how there is going to be an RNG element attached to the Resonance… if its a threshold system, such as playing for X amount of time grants one random Resonance, I think the system should be changed to allow resonance to be more universal.
Progression as a CoF vs MG will be very similar. Forgoing all the MG specific items to switch to CoF will be slower than just starting and playing as CoF in the first place.
The entire point is that it’s a meaningful choice that can’t be changed easily. Are you saying that being incentivized to make multiple characters in an ARPG is a bad thing?
I agree that the primary issue with this system is the complexity. It is something we have tried very hard to mitigate. Unfortunately it is quite heavy and as such, there are some misunderstandings and assumptions going on. I’ve got a dozen other questions to get to here so I won’t go too deep but the short version is that we don’t intend for switching to be a common thing to do but rather a safeguard to prevent players from wasting their time in one and deciding that they want to switch.
Edit: Our community has also made it very clear that there is something between SSF and free trade that is extremely desired by a very significant portion of the community.
You wont be able to gift in ssf, thats kinda the point.
Also, your suggestion forces people in non-ssf to trade or suffer the reduced drop rates if they dont want to, which would feel bad. EHG’s suggestion allows people to choose which “playstyle”/benefit they would prefer and even allows them to chamge their mind if they wish.
Not sure thats how it works.
No, if there’s not enough space to unequip the gear they cant swap, thats what theyd go onto the forums to complain about.
You can still use the gear dropped while MG when you switch to CoF, can’t use gear bought, but the dropped can be used by both factions if it dropped while the player was with the MG.
Impressive. We’ll probably need to see it in action before we can judge how well it works.
So having separate tags means you would be able to filter a leaderboard based on that tag? This would be beneficial if one method turns out to be more beneficial than the other for item acquisition.
Based on what was said on Discord, it seems like the current plan is that you will have to take off your gear yourself in order to swap.
I assume this is all subject to change and not finalized either way
Happy to see you considered the “negative feedback” about trade changes. The system seems interesting and if implemented correctly could be a good solution. Looking forward to how it evolves
