I absolutely love this approach. It really allows for the best of both worlds that gives more options for people who play together in small groups frequently while also providing options for using an auction house for those who want to play that way. Very well thought out and exceptional work to listen and react to the community!
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I honestly love the solution. It’ll be a challenge to keep them balanced, but seeing the effort you guys put, I fully trust you to handle it.
On the other hand, this seems like a significant development. Do you expect any delays for 1.0 release?
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As someone who was hoping there wouldn’t be more trade than the gifting system, this is amazing. Perfect way to satisfy both crowds. Like always, I applaud your decision making, EHG! ^^ Can’t wait to proudly represent the Circle of Fortune 
Also, two things:
- When the rank 6 reward for CoF says “uniques are twice as likely to have legendary potential”, how is that calculated exactly? Is the chance to have any LP doubled, and then the choice of the amount of LP is the same as without the reward, or is it something different? I know it’s probably very early in development, so I’m sorry if the question is a bit premature ^^
- It might just be me being a bit dumb, you might want to remind people in the post that those factions will not be in 0.9, as that wasn’t obvious to me through the post only (unless I misunderstand and they are, but I assume the bazaar alone will take months to develop)
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This is a pretty interesting and innovative approach. I really hope it works out.
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I am shocked. I had no idea how you guys would do this, but you did it. This sounds amazing and I look forward to trying it out as soon as possible! 
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Fine details like these are not completely set in stone and could evolve slightly. The current intent is that it is double the chance to have any LP. Also we mention that this is not part of 0.9 in the closing paragraph.
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First: Massive cudos to the team for their innovative direction. It looks like you made a system that can balance both main groups of the trade division.
I do have a question though that I’m confused about. In the details you state that “You can have different characters… in different factions”, but then state “Faction repurtaion is shared account-wide.” The question is for clarification; On my account, will I be able to have some characters in the Guild and others in the COF? And then switch between them for my differing needs/wants?
Thanks again for the great work!
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Thanks a lot for the answer! And my bad for the “not in 0.9” mention, my ADHD brain must have zoned out on that part, my apologies. ^^
This is really the best of both worlds. I’m impressed! Woohoo!
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Yes, you can have multiple characters simultaneously in both factions. You can switch back and forth between them as you please.
Progress in each faction is shared so you can level up your MG rank in one and your CoF in another and then switch back and forth if you want and both characters have access to the ranks in both factions.
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Thank you for listening to the community and it’s obvious you have been working seriously on this.
There is a lot of things I love about this update, but I think the most important one is the great amount of freedom this implies.
I don’t particularly like how strong the merchant faction seems to be, but I guess it’s a matter of balancing it as we go along, which is way better than just doing nothing because trade is ultimately unbalanced. Some things I would change right now is not being able to trade crafted items or craft them afterwards and I would put a gold tax.
I also love the resonance and the idea of the Circle of Fortune in general.
I was looking forward to 0.9 but now I can’t wait for whenever the Faction patch drops!
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That’s a little funny in that you say “how strong the merchant faction seems to be” as I had the same feeling about the Circle of Friends faction. 
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Hey Mike, can you confirm CoF won’t have anything helping faster gold farming? As far as I understood, gold will still be shared.
Awesome!!! Can’t wait!
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There currently are no plans to give any direct gold farming bonuses to CoF. They technically have a slight boost to finding gold through adventuring because they will find more gear but with sale prices so low compared to just finding gold from the monolith and that you can make more gold through selling items at the Bazaar, it will not be advantageous to farm gold on CoF to use as MG.
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#CoF lets go!
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CoF CoF CoF !
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Mind blown. I came here expecting a compromise that still would leave half the player base dissatisfied, but this is … wow!
It will be interesting to see if there will be a clear preference over time for one faction.
Two questions remain:
- If you have great friends in the MG, you can still play CoF and they buy and gift you items via resonance, correct?
- What happens with items that we acquire now in 0.9? Will they automatically have the CoF requirement? Otherwise it would be a golden opportunity to farm MG gear with CoF drop rates.
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Cheers team. Resonances solves the major issue I had as we move into the Cycle development phase of the game. While trading isn’t necessarily my primary interest (and especially playing some more D2R this recent ladder reset I’m growing to detest it), I’m happy with what MG and CoF are offering here. And also glad the team is interested in exploring the bazaar again.
I see the best of all worlds with this design.
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Merchant’s scales with the work of other people, but the Circle scales with your own farming.
To me Circle’s increased drops seem like a way to not have reduced drop chances in Merchant’s Guild.
But yeah we still don’t know enough to tell how balanced these things will be when they release, so it’s only natural the look too strong right now.