Trade development update - Introducing merchants guild and circle of fortune factions

Sounds like you’ve got it all straight. In that scenario, the downside is just that you’ve got multiple gear sets to maintain.

Edit: oh and you’re split farming favor so you’re still just getting half benefit from each.

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To be frank, I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that applying prophecies to help crafting on an item would make said-item account bound (because trading such item is akin to gifting reputation with your faction).

CoF with Deterministic-ish crafting + drop is your SSF route, and your end-game is hunting for whatever enables you to craft your gear

MG is the trade approach, where RNG + very large pool means the stats you’re looking for will statistically drop randomly for someone, so your end-game is about hunter for ressources to trade for that item.

Or at least, that’s how I picture them in my mind. Both are valid playstyle, and it’s good that players can pick what they enjoy.

Again, you seem to be at the top of your game, which mean I’m looking forward to how things play out.

Trading will still require MG favor. You can’t just switch, trade, switch back all the time. You have to spend time playing as MG. Which probably can be spent better playing CoF.

One interesting thing that I would like to see with prophecies would be a prophecy that forces uniques which drop to drop 1 or 2 “rarity tiers” higher. Whatever we define “rarity tier” as would be up to EHG and would obviously change over time with game balancing. But it would be a good way to allow us to use a prophecy to filter out those common uniques from the drop pool when target farming if we have the favor to sustain the farming method. Or maybe instead of dropping 1 or 2 tiers higher, it simply rerolls any low-tier/common uniques until a not-common/not-low-tier unique is rolled.

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So exactly what I already said. Thanks for your input.

Truly impressed. Win win solution. Hats to EHG.

At least I know how to still get the sound effect during crafting :smiley:

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For sure a step on an awesome direction. Good job Mike and team.

You are welcome! I will be sure to share my input next time too, just for you.

So, it’s basically SSF guild and non-SSF guild, speaking in terms of Path of Exile. But SSF players can play with non-SSF players, they just won’t be able to share the loot (aside of post-raid gifting system from previous announcement). But also if SSF player A played with non-SSF player B for long enough, player A will be able to trade with player B! And in the future there totally shall appear more guilds with more mandatory benefits, like a flask dedicated guild or a movement skill guild! Yes, it looks exactly like that.

Current set of limitations sounds really obnoxious for casual players. And exploitable for competitive players.
(and it makes having players from both guilds in a party mandatory to utilize their wealth accumulation capabilities to their fullest)

I still don’t understand which aspects of trading as a whole you’re trying to fix by multiplying complications. I can only reiterate that the only solutions to “trying to fix 2000 years of real-world trading development” are either ‘make all items have fixed price’ or ‘don’t allow trading pronto’.

In the end, said PoE necessiates third party tools usage for trading - but (very few character/account-bound exceptions aside) is not standing in players’ way after they found each other.

You’re trying opposite approach. The result will not be better.

It sounds like you don’t fully have a grasp on the system, I’d recommend reading the FAQ at the bottom to answer those questions about how each group would interact with one another. I wouldn’t personally attempt to compare this to POE or other arpg systems but rather understand the intention being the system and it’s limitations.

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If the dialogue starts, I assume that my opponent is not an imbecile - and if he makes a point, he’s certain that he DO have some intel to back it up.
I’d appreciate same treatment in return.
I. e. in this particular case I’d recommend asking ‘why do you think so?’ instead of making loud biased irrelevant attention-seeking statement.

lol no it doesn’t.

The only bit I see that could be obnoxious is farming up MG levels before being able to trade for any item, and you only have to do that once.

They appear to have a good idea of how competitive players would try to exploit these systems, and have put restrictions in to address them. What exploitation potential do you think they’ve left untouched?

I don’t see how it could, and even if it did, if you’re really concerned with that and aren’t a streamer or RMT company farmer you’re being kind of silly.

To me, the problems they appear to be seeing in other trade systems and are trying to address:

  • People who want to be Fake Item Trade Czar instead of playing the actual game using large numbers of disposable alt accounts to engage in trashy/deceptive behavior in the marketplace.
  • Instant, convenient, unlimited access to any item in the game.
  • Spam sales of every item, no matter how low value it is (as seen in the D3 AH).
  • Use of the item farming methods they want to give people who prefer farming over trade to radically increase the access to powerful items.

Whether or not you or I agree that any of those are problems is a different discussion, but based on the restrictions and their past commentary, those are my impressions.

I think you’re overstating the complexity by quite a bit.

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@Bakageyama is 100% correct that your first comment makes it look like you didn’t fully read the post and don’t fully understand the system. Perhaps providing your “why you think so” up front would be a better approach than yelling nonspecific complaints and getting offended when it looks to everyone reading that you didn’t do your diligence before commenting.

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Seems like you misunderstood this, and then made a lot of assumptions based on that. Player A could gift something to Player B, but Player B can’t do anything with it. Anything Player A finds would have a CoF requirement, so Player B couldn’t equip it. Anything with a CoF requirement can’t be sold in the market, so they couldn’t sell it either. All they could do with it is look at it, shatter it, or vendor it, unless they wanted to ditch all their purchased gear (anything they bought would have an MG requirement so it couldn’t be equipped if they changed faction) and re-grind up as CoF so they could use that one item.

The restrictions and complexity you’re talking about are there specifically to prevent exploits that try to utilize benefits from both factions at the same time. They’re not trying to fix trading, they’re trying to close all exploits of having (supposedly) equally viable trade-based and SSF systems in the same game. They’re adding obstacles that make it so profoundly inefficient to try to use both at the same time that the optimal path will always be to stick with one.

Now I have posted in this thread that I don’t think balancing these systems is possible (at least within the constraints mentioned in this announcement) and the system will likely be heavily imbalanced in favor of MG. That said, it is unlikely to be due to exploits involving manipulation of both factions. It will just be because trade is too powerful for CoF to keep up, so the optimal approach will be to go full trade and pretend CoF doesn’t exist.

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Hey there, just wanted to clear up a couple things. I think that calling MG non-SSF guild and CoF SSF guild are misleading, mostly because (and I’m sure you know this) SSF means Solo Self Found. Neither MG or CoF restrict your play to solo and neither restrict the items you use to self found only. We do have an optional Solo Challenge mode which is the same as SSF mode that you can do if you want to.

All items obtained by using your factions special bonuses (Bazaar for MG and drops for CoF) carry a rank requirement to equip, similar to a level requirement. This means that if a CoF player is giving items to a MG player, those items are limited to being used only while the player is representing the CoF. The MG player would need to switch over to CoF and gain some ranks before being able to use it. The items can’t be sold at the Bazaar.

The main goals that we have for this system are:

  • An optional asynchronous trade system.
  • Comparable efficiency between trade and non-trade.
  • Allow everyone to play together.
  • Avoid exploit cases to prevent unfun burdens of optimal play.

This was the simplest and most complete system that we have been able to devise which satisfies all of these goals well. It is also important to note that interacting with these systems will be very low friction. So for example, if you are looking for a specific Helmet to buy from the Bazaar, you just have to go there, walk up to the helmet stall, apply filters for what type of item you’re looking for (very specific options), and then buy the one you want. Delivery is immediate and you can start using it right away.

I don’t think this is really the opposite approach from PoE but just different. I think that it’s kinda hard to put it into PoE terms because the games are built on different systems.

Having said all that, if you have suggestions on how to improve the system, while maintaining our goals, we are always listening for good ideas.

Edit: aaaaaand it looks like other people already said half that stuff.

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Hmm not really, GGG want to limit our interactions and it make it more difficult to trade in general but once that has been met we have no restrictions

You want to restrict many parts of the trading, its like reading an insurance policy PDS and finding out they dont cover for basic things or there is weird conditions

I also find it humorous many people wanted no trade, but since you propose this system; trading with restrictions…many people are on board. I dont understand this community at all

As someone who didn’t want trade - allow me to explain. Those of us who were against trade didn’t really care what other people did. Trade was never really the problem. The problem was that balancing trade also involves reducing drop rates, so even if you have no interest in trade you still have a very strong interest in the side effects it would bring.

The patch that has the notes “added a feature you won’t use” and “reduced drop rates by 90%” would not be well received.

If they were to actually hit their goals with this system, than the people who didn’t want trade could play CoH to avoid its side effects. CoH lets them opt out of trade, but also gives them compensation for those side effects that come from balancing the game around trade that they can’t choose to avoid. Taking EHG at their word that this system will meet their goals, it does look like it could satisfy both sides.

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Its fine to lock players into a level 100 Lich and not to become a Necro, players should also have to decide if they want to trade or have better drops

Hmm lets see how that plays out if many people are in MG and spamming the same 10 bosses on a rotation.

Funny thing for me is I wanted trade to smooth out my experience, from what I read it would be a semi-nightmare of work-like style points system

Thank you for descending directly. Yes, descending, because we both see that they consider me as a lesser being. Lesser than themselves. But it’s completely different topic, a theme of which will be ‘community shaping’. The shaping of community you’d like to see. Of the community you yourself would like to play with, together as equals.

Agreed!
Do note, however, that I had no choice. Because the choice-in-question was “either write an adequate in-depth analysis noone would care about because ‘too many letters derp’ - or write a short yet somewhat unprecise pitch which shall start a discussion from which all relevant points would gonna surface eventually”.
However, as you can see, as example, from Voctor’s response to my micro-pitch, people are struggling even with reading such small yet intel-dense pitches. Still too many letters. He’d see otherwise that

implies that BOTH players receive a Resonance. For each other (because, obviously, player A can’t spend less time in party with player B than player B spends time in party with player A. They just don’t teach maths and logics as good as they should nowadays…) Which, in return, implies that they can arrange an exchange of any item for any item. Which, suprpisingly, IS act of trading. So Voctor’s statement

is, well, invalid. Invalid - or he was making a point via micro-pitch too (if it’s true, I’d be really proud of him).
Now, to avoid straying away too much, I’d like to take a liberty to actually try to highlight few disturbing points in your response.

That’s the problem. These are in a perfect balance already. That’s how real economics works, you know.
The player either grinds his rear out to loot his chase item from… whatever mechanics would gonna dispense it in PvE session - or the player grinds his rear out to obtain enough currency (and/or an item to barter it away) to get his chase item.
If the balance is tilted - the dreaded Invisible Hand of Market fixes it.
No extra development required.

I’d really appreciate if you’ll elaborate on the topic of exploits. I, however, surmise that I just wrote a response for it already.

Alas, what’s the point in this ‘simplest’ (nope) and ‘most complete’ (nope x2, apologies!) system?
I assume that you’re trying to solve the two chairs situation in a manner which would gonna help new (and socially active, and time-constrained - I mean us working class who can’t play the game 24/7 because families and jobs, you know) players to get at least some gear which would gonna allow them to enjoy the game at least marginally while letting tryhards, nolifers and souls-like enjoyers revel in their burutual (sic!) entertainment.
But the game delivers the former already, in a form of excellent crafting framework you devised.
Care for a fortune telling session, to wrap this up? Yes, a fortune telling. Because I simply can’t stick WHOLE research in this (already ‘obese’) post. And people pay hard cash for such researches…

So, the fortune telling.
I foresee that the Bazaar would gonna win regardless of how hard you try.
Vast majority of players would gonna enroll there.
New players would enjoy extra means for fixing their builds in a jiffy.
Seasoned players would stick with it because they can afford fixing handicaps of not joining Circle of Fortune by simply playing more (which they’ll be doing anyway). AND would enjoy extra means for min-maxing their build in a jiffy.
Circle of Fortune would gonna remain as an enclave of extra sick persons which don’t have enough challenge in their life. You know, that special breed of persons which play Dark Souls with Guitar Hero controller, just for sense of pride and accomplishment.
Oh, and if you’ll try to keep pressing on with this idea, you’ll lose anyway. Ruthless have reached release. And, unfortunately, masochists are NOT eager to swap their current ‘entertainment’. Simply because they receive enough joy shots at where they currently are - and these are strong… too strong to counter CURRENT doze of joy HERE with PROMISES of stronger joy SOMEWHERE IN THE FUTURE.

I know already that the intel above would be of no use. Both you and me can’t imagine altering release plans because of a feedback of a single player, regardlss of how good that feedback is. We both know it.

Still, HOPEFULLY, it’ll gonna be of any utility for those who shall arrive after us.
After you, a developer of a legend in the making.
And after me, a veteran of gamedev which can tell you one thing for sure: the only thing which guarantees losing is giving up on improving. And there’s always some room for improvement…