So the greatest takeaway for me with this system is:
It doesn’t feel like a compromise, while still making both sides happy.
Also I like that they somewhat flipped the decision of “Do I want to play solo” around into “Do I want to trade and lose all those juicy benefits?”
Ladders affect only a small minority, but if you care about ladder, you might be forced to join a certain faction if there is no distinction.
Primary method of favor gain is simply adventuring. Go kill monsters and interact with the end game systems. Special events would be cool and are possible in the future.
Now THIS is a welcome update. I was super scared that you guys were going to lean heavily into either “no trade besides item gifting” or “free trade with massively reduced drop rates”. VERY glad to see that those fears were unfounded. I’m super excited to see how this system pans out, this is BY FAR the most unique, outside-the-box, and thoughtful solution I’ve ever seen a game developer come up with to solve a very divisive issue. I am SUPER impressed with this, you guys ROCK.
Very elegant and interesting solution.
It should be hard to balance, maybe looking at the number in each faction may help that later.
Given choices and more option to the players is always good.
If I understand correctly items can only be traded ONCE (=Bind on trade), which should avoid flippers.
Also because Rune of Creation (LE mirror) reduced forging potential to 0 we should avoid any form of mirror mafia.
This is brilliant! Honestly I did not expect this at all, but I’m very happy with how this approach is being laid out. I was afraid the solution to this debate would end up “alienating” a chunk of the playerbase.
I find it a very elegant solution for a tough issue, especially being so divisive within the community.
About untradable crafting materials.
What prevents me to indirectly sell them like on Path of Exile’s TFT Discord server?
The crafting mat buyer “sells” me the item to craft, i use my crafting mats on that item, i “sell” back the item to the crafting mats buyer. And he pays me with additional gold on the trade back.
You can’t trade it back.
EHG you continue to impress me - what an elegant and unique solution to such a divisive issue.
I never imagined this blog would actually contain benefits for solo play whilst also enabling free trade. This blew my expectations out of the water. You guys are killing it!
Really like this solution 
. “The only thing to remember about the faction split… is that there is no faction split” 
. I am concerned how EHG will address if this solution opens the door significantly more to RMT and bots. I trust that they will be able to tune and tweak the system to almost completely disincentivise that behavior.
Are items found or created on a MG character locked to the MG faction if they never get traded?
Will we be able to craft legendaries in Temporal Sanctum using items that we are ineligible to equip? For example, will a MG character be able to take CoF-bound items out of my stash and use them to make a legendary that my CoF characters could equip?
No, items that organically drop while representing MG are not MG locked.
Items will require to have non-conflicting faction requirements and if either item has a faction requirement, the resulting Legendary will have that same requirement.
I am extremely impressed with the holistic nature of this solution. It has a “no gamer left behind” vibe that I REALLY resonate with. Congratulations on the brainstorming and thought leadership that created this. I truly believe that you’ve landed on something that the majority of players, regardless of their perspective, can support.
Couple of questions:
How will you balance 4 stack CoF groups form not becoming to strong comapred to solo CoF players?
Will items with faction requirement have some visual indicator, like a Faction Badge or some special background. (I think the X for unequippable items might not be enough)
Can cof raid this bazaar with our superior combat skills/gear?
I’m very impressed, great job!
Questions:
A lot depends on Bazaar implementation, how comfortable will it be to use. Hope you dive more into that, so we can discuss, make suggestions etc.
My personal wish: using item filter system to search for items, and apply a few sorting options (by price, by single affix value or by weight of affix values/tiers, by LP etc.). You might a well add item filters for uniques and LP. Don’t know exactly how many players want it, but there are some. I’ve seen Mike reading through unique item on stream for few seconds every time it drops, can’t imagine how it’s not frustrating. Anyway, in perfect world I will come to Bazaar, go to helm stall, select my item filter, sort by weight, set maximum price, buy and be happy 
Keys should be tradable IMO. Crafting materials can be gathered in a lot of ways, but keys are random drops (except Arena). Specific players will not enjoy specific dungeons and will just simply throw them away. Other players may like to run specific dungeons a lot, but they don’t have supply. Making keys tradable will satisfy both groups.
I’m joining MG, but CoF look spicy too, I might try it out too at some point. If you made MG enjoyer want to try CoF, you definitely nailed it! 
I like most of the things in this update
I think we need a security for AFK game time with friends to get trade benefits (preventing also RMT in some ways).
Firsty, one indigo resonance should be imo at least 24 hours of total game time with a particular friend (should be hard to achieve in general, i would even opt for longer).
Secondly, it should log you off to character screen or kick you out of the group if you are AFK (no mouse/keyboard moves fot lets say 15 minutes).
I still maintain that 4/4 = 1/1. If it’s a major problem in practice, we will address it but at the moment we have no mechanical changes planned.
Current plan is just the X as though you are too low level and a tooltip tag at the bottom, possibly only in the alt version.