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So...to...absolutely rock the boat, because, well, so many people seem to praise the new MG/CoF breakdown, here's my conundrum, from a Path of Exile perspective:
(EDIT: no, this is NOT a proposal for the full-on free trade that PoE has that burns people like me out. Far from it.)
Trade can be beneficial because it allows players to buy a rare, super-niche, super-hard-to-acquire, but very-low-in-aggregate-demand build-enabling/empowering item. For instance, the items in Path of Exile that I think embody and exemplify this better than anything else are the Circle of X rings (Nostalgia, Guilt, etc.).
They are:
1) Gated behind a super-rare semi-endgame dungeon instance (distant memory unique maps)
2) Don't always drop from the boss upon completing that instance
3) If they do drop, they have 15 different mod combinations or so (6 different qualitative mods, of which one of these rings rolls 2 at a time)
4) Even if you get the exact mods you need, their rolls may be low.
And just to add salt in the wound:
5) These rings have a whole slew of possible implicits, many of which are junk.
Long story short, even a particularly good ring, short of having some super-rare implicit mod (+1 max frenzy, onslaught on hit)...might only run the cost of about an hour's worth of efficient farming (if that). In contrast, if you try and SSF one of these things, you're going to be searching a long, Long, LONG time.
This is where trade shines. Super-niche build-enabling unique? Spend an hour farming some currency, instead of twenty hours trying to SSF it. Great.
Now, where does trade not work so well?
Well, as someone that's farmed up an omnishot build in PoE 3.17, along with part of a CoC FR build in 3.20 (the mageblood inclusive), and spent...not a single second playing either due to burnout, having everything be tradable, including items one can craft, sort of just boils everything down to "how much currency per hour can you farm", as opposed to, well, doing all of the host of novel activities that an ARPG can encompass.
Maybe you need fossils and resonators? Instead of delving, just keep farming Dunes. Want that awakener's orb? Instead of fighting Sirus, nah, keep farming Dunes. Want to buy imprint or split beasts? You guessed it, keep farming Dunes. Head, meet desk.
Now, here's my issue with the MG/CoF split:
What if my build needs just those two or three tier 3 uniques?
Well, looks like I'm out of luck, and I'm stuck playing trade mode, period. There's no world in which I can, after killing 30,000 monsters or something without ever performing another trade, just switch over to Circle of Fortune, because suddenly, I won't be able to use the couple of items that I traded for. Now, my progression is inevitably tied to leaning on trading to constantly fund more item acquisitions, such as exalted items, that drop significantly more rarely for MG members.
In contrast, say I was SSFing and found some excellent exalted bases that have no relevance to my build (say I'm playing some shadow-dashing blademaster, and found some legendary lich staff). Well, that item that might otherwise be highly valuable to me is just...whatever crafting materials I can break it down for. This feels really bad.
I wonder if there's a way for LE to be a bit more fluid with acknowledgement of the fact that some players' playstyles may amount to "trade a very few times, but otherwise prefer to play SSF", or that some players may prefer to be trade monsters for a while, but may want to decide that hey, maybe they made enough money for now and want to shoot for those top tier exalted bases to really mini-max their build.
The part where there should, obviously, be friction, is having to re-grind faction ranks. However, the fact that you have to completely abandon any and all equipment means that these factional choices are basically a hard lock, and in a very "all or nothing" sort of style. Need a couple of small build-arounds? Well, give up any hopes and dreams of playing CoF.
I feel like when it comes to at least switching from MG to CoF, that maybe a few small build-arounds should just have a monster-kill burn-in period ala Path of Exile's incubators before they lose their MG demands, such that a player that needs only a few low-demand niche uniques isn't forever tied to MG, and if they pay the time cost of respeccing to CoF, that they should have the opportunity to reap the CoF rewards, while still equipping their few build-arounds.
Does this make sense from a conceptual perspective?
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