Faction thoughts.

[Ravenkid9266]

So here is a few quotes from the announcement I want to highlight as I feel they are worth reading to understand where I am coming from. Everything in "" comes from the official forums either directly from a developer or in response to an included quoted question.

"These factions add a powerful source of items regardless of which faction you pick, and so without further changes they would lead to a dramatic increase in player power and the game becoming a lot easier. To counteract this we will increase the power of monsters and also adjust item drop rates and rewards at relevant levels."

"Early CoF will be lower than now while late CoF will be higher. MG will be lower."
"Meanwhile if you’re in MG you will find fewer items than you currently would in endgame"

"Will Resonances let me gift non-crafting material CoF items to MG? Yes, however it does not remove the CoF Faction Requirement so the MG player would have to switch to CoF to use the item."

"If I’m MG and I’m playing with a friend who is CoF, can we gift items between us freely? Yes, however items found while CoF that they gift to you would require you to switch to CoF and rank up to use."

"How will you balance 4 stack CoF groups form not becoming to strong comapred to solo CoF players? at the moment we have no mechanical changes planned."

"How does CoF item drops impact magic find of corruption. Pretty sure it’s multiplicative"

" Does direct trading cost favor? Yes, the same amount as using the Bazaar." --Adding context here as any form of trade will require spending favor be it direct or via Bazaar, and as I read it selling and buying both cost favor.

Edit: When asked about using trade to fund the Lightless Arbor on a CoF character we got this "It will naturally keep MG in check because as items are purchased, they are removed from the market but the gold isn’t. So, eventually prices will rise on items and selling something and then using the gold on the vaults will become more lucrative. This will drain the market of gold and item prices will drop again." --This means that selling items on one character to use the gold to fund dungeons is intended.

Now that was a bit to read, so lets dig into it.

Drop rates are going down by ? amount, monster difficulty is going up by ?

Gifting MG to CoF is fine, but CoF to MG will tack the CoF requirement onto the item, this is a hurdle to mixed faction groups.

Funnel strategy is a go, as getting x4 drop rates is fine apparently.

With the CoF adjusted drop rates being Multiplicative the farther into corruption you go the wider and wider the differences in drops will be between the two factions. + the prophecy target farm + funnel gifting + twice as likely to have LP + 50% more likely to be Exalted affixes + 45% to save Runes of Ascendance.

Where as with MG you get the base reduced item drop rate, the option to spend favor to buy items (with gold), and the potential to miss out on cross faction gifting.

Now the developers have said this system gives them a lot of dials to adjust, and that is true. However if this is their opening offer, their fair starting point, what direction do you think the dials will turn? if at all.

Tell me again what is the path of least resistance?

Edit: With regards to adjusting the dials of the factions:
"We also have several dials that we can turn for both factions which will adjust their relative power. Chief among them is simply the Favour costs of everything. "

This would surely adjust for the CoF but do little to nothing to adjust for MG. surely shows their insight into the potential problems.

[colga]

here come the gold farmers and 3rd party sellers game isnt worth playing now. and i was thinking of a big supporter boost

[RodHull]

If I had to guess I would say this was the version they 'ideated' most during the 4 + years, and which was then scrapped. As its riddled with pinch points and potential problems that it introduces into the game (as well as being unfair on certain types of player like soloists)

When I first saw this I'll admit I thought "well at least they are adding it back in" (though the dishonesty really bothers me but thats for another thread) Now I've had time to really look at it, I think they probably rightly scrapped this convoluted system and that was what brought on the Dec "Its scrapped" announcement. Then when that went down like a cold cup of sick they just basically took the most developed version of that system they had from the previous 4 years and slapped it back in the game despite previously admitting it was a mess in their own post.

If I had to guess

Cause anyone not being ridiculous doesn't believe they pulled this system fully formed out of their hats in a month when it apparently took them 4 years previously and they didn't even get a version they liked.

[Ravenkid9266]

I just wanted to point out that the debate started over the assumption that trade would require nerfing drop rates. For all the praise people are heaping on this system people are overlooking the details. Both the general nerf to drop rates, and increasing difficulty.

Then you also have people who still cling to the notion that trade is going to overtake farming, despite the massive buffs that CoF is going to provide.

Dial up poe or D2 drop simulator and dial your Magic Find up to potentially infinite as one example. Now you may say oh that's hyperbolic, but stacking the bonuses of CoF with what we already have, corruption as a MULTIPLICATIVE bonus that is functionally what the system provides.

On the other end the best theory craft to "abuse" the trade that people are theory crafting is using trade to bankroll that gold not into items but stacking the CoF bonus onto the already loot pinata that is Lightless Arbor.

[Koala 4peace]

Originally posted by Ravenkid9266:

I just wanted to point out that the debate started over the assumption that trade would require nerfing drop rates. For all the praise people are heaping on this system people are overlooking the details. Both the general nerf to drop rates, and increasing difficulty.

Then you also have people who still cling to the notion that trade is going to overtake farming, despite the massive buffs that CoF is going to provide.

Dial up poe or D2 drop simulator and dial your Magic Find up to potentially infinite as one example. Now you may say oh that's hyperbolic, but stacking the bonuses of CoF with what we already have, corruption as a MULTIPLICATIVE bonus that is functionally what the system provides.

On the other end the best theory craft to "abuse" the trade that people are theory crafting is using trade to bankroll that gold not into items but stacking the CoF bonus onto the already loot pinata that is Lightless Arbor.

Well, unfortunately we will need to wait until they polish the system more to see how good or bad it is. It does sound interesting but we will need to see how they handle it. Also wait to see how offline drops are affected (if there is any offline at all...).

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Koala 4peace:

Well, unfortunately we will need to wait until they polish the system more to see how good or bad it is.

Given the general tone of the developers with regard to trade. Given the rambling post about how bad trade is for the game and how they simply could not figure it out. Given that the only metric to adjust the balance for trade was stated to be lowering the favor cost, and how that shows that IF there is a problem and IF they want to fix it, that proposed solution would solve >< of the sources of the problems. Do you really think there is any desire to keep the factions even 70/30 balanced?

[Revilar]

Originally posted by Ravenkid9266:

Originally posted by Koala 4peace:

Well, unfortunately we will need to wait until they polish the system more to see how good or bad it is.

Given the general tone of the developers with regard to trade. Given the rambling post about how bad trade is for the game and how they simply could not figure it out. Given that the only metric to adjust the balance for trade was stated to be lowering the favor cost, and how that shows that IF there is a problem and IF they want to fix it, that proposed solution would solve >< of the sources of the problems. Do you really think there is any desire to keep the factions even 70/30 balanced?

Given that their adding a cosmetic cash shop when the game's complete, I'd want to keep as many people happy and playing the game by the time it's complete.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by Ratchet:

Given that their adding a cosmetic cash shop when the game's complete, I'd want to keep as many people happy and playing the game by the time it's complete.

If that were true we would not see the current situation with *gestures vaguely at everything* No developer, no fremieum developer, no P2W developer caters to everyone, that is also before you consider that thanks to that rambling our vision post it is also pretty clear that the developers are more then willing to cut their nose to spite their face.

Now lets pretend that what you say is true. What keeps people playing longer and by extension drives micro-transactions? is it trade? or farming via infinitely stacking magic find from CoF?

For the record, I am not pro-trade, I am pro-promise. I myself have no intention of engaging with this "trade" system.

[Koala 4peace]

Originally posted by Ravenkid9266:

Given the general tone of the developers with regard to trade. Given the rambling post about how bad trade is for the game and how they simply could not figure it out. Given that the only metric to adjust the balance for trade was stated to be lowering the favor cost, and how that shows that IF there is a problem and IF they want to fix it, that proposed solution would solve >< of the sources of the problems. Do you really think there is any desire to keep the factions even 70/30 balanced?

Given that they cannot even openly state whether the offline would be implemented or not, i do not expect much on the different systems.

But there is still time, even if it's little, for them to pleasantly surprise me. Unlikely, but it may happen.

[Ayk-]

Too early to argue this system, it will take another 1-2 years before we actually see it in-game, given the current development pacing.

Originally posted by colga:

here come the gold farmers and 3rd party sellers game isnt worth playing now. and i was thinking of a big supporter boost

Nobody is gonna bother RMT on a dead-beat early access game when there are much bigger markets(D4, Poe2) in the horizon. No one will also bother buying stuff with RMT as well, unless they butcher the drop rates of unique items.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by RodHull:

Cause anyone not being ridiculous doesn't believe they pulled this system fully formed out of their hats in a month when it apparently took them 4 years previously and they didn't even get a version they liked.

I believe they did exactly that. I do believe it only took them a month to cobble this together, however I also believe that the 4 years they spent "working" on systems and scrapping them was entirely a smoke screen. I do not think they had any real intention of having trade much less an economy and this faction "choice" is just to stem the negative reviews and stop the refunds. If you poke around the reviews suddenly and without a history of doing so you see a lot of "A developer has responded" tags on negative reviews that are trade related, almost like they are trying desperately to assuage the reviewer.

Looking at their initial offer for MG, I find it so disrespectful that all it does is show the open contempt for the system.

[nbst]

Players who go the loot route will play the game as it is intended by the devs, i.e. like any typical ARPG with the SSF switch on, and MF (from the faction reputation).

Players who go the trade route will play the game with nerfed drop rates and 0 MF. They will most likely feel forced to buy gear (like the typical PoE player).

That's what it sounds like to me and I don't see why anyone would go the trade route.

Also I don't see how you could realistically switch factions - how do you kill anything to get loot when you're naked because you can't equip the gear you traded?

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Ravenkid9266:

Originally posted by RodHull:

Cause anyone not being ridiculous doesn't believe they pulled this system fully formed out of their hats in a month when it apparently took them 4 years previously and they didn't even get a version they liked.

I believe they did exactly that. I do believe it only took them a month to cobble this together, however I also believe that the 4 years they spent "working" on systems and scrapping them was entirely a smoke screen. I do not think they had any real intention of having trade much less an economy and this faction "choice" is just to stem the negative reviews and stop the refunds. If you poke around the reviews suddenly and without a history of doing so you see a lot of "A developer has responded" tags on negative reviews that are trade related, almost like they are trying desperately to assuage the reviewer.

Looking at their initial offer for MG, I find it so disrespectful that all it does is show the open contempt for the system.

That is of course the other option, but I firmly believe only 1 of these is true. This is either some previously thrown away system hastily added back in despite knowing its bad OR its a hastily cobbled together system to shut people up.

Neither is very promising.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by nbst:

Players who go the trade route will play the game with nerfed drop rates and 0 MF. They will most likely feel forced to buy gear (like the typical PoE player).

That's what it sounds like to me and I don't see why anyone would go the trade route.

I do not understand forced to buy gear? that is assuming you have the correct rank and favor and there is something up worth buying. Maxing out faction rep is supposed to happen post level 100. So I would imagine that given the duration of a cycle, that the average player wont even have the option to unlock unrestricted trade.

[Ravenkid9266]

Thanks to new info posted on the official forum it seems the new plan is to use trade to get gold then use that gold on a CoF character to run Lightless Arbor for even more efficiency. I added it into the main post.

So tell me again about the economy? tell me again how it was about drop rates when you are going to expand the loot pinata even further?