Last Epoch players have been excited about the trading feature getting implemented into the game for some time now. Originally, Eleventh Hour Games promised some form of trading in their Kickstarter campaign. However, the developers received various feedback, and ultimately they decided a trading system would compromise the game systems too much — a moral consideration.
See, introducing open trade would segment the player base and leave one side of the equation unhappy. You have your solo players — “solo self-found” players who grind for gear independently and don’t want to rely on trading.
Having a trading system would make it so the drop rates on items would have to be nerfed so much that these solo players would suffer — otherwise, the game economy would become so flooded with items that everyone who participated in trading would simply have the best loot in the game.
And, as any action RPG player will tell you, grinding for loot is what keeps players coming back. So, Eleventh Hour Games was at a bit of an impasse. How could they introduce a trading system that caters to both sides without angering and dividing players and compromising other systems? Well, what they came up with was pretty innovative, to say the least.
Last Epoch’s Innovative Trading System
With the new trading system in Last Epoch, there will be two factions: Merchant’s Guild and Circle of Fortune. Players can only be part of one faction at a time, and each faction grants different perks. Let’s take a look at both:
Merchants’ Guild
Trade, Profit, Grow
- Buy or sell any equipment type
- Trade directly or asynchronously using the Bazaar
Circle of Fortune
Stars guide our fate
- Improves quantity and quality of item drops
- Use prophecies for hunting specific item types
Those solo players would opt for the Circle of Fortune, where they receive better drops but cannot buy or sell anything from the Bazaar. On the other hand, players looking for an open-trade game would join the Merchants’ Guild, where they can buy or sell any type of equipment and trade via the Bazaar.
Players also level up through each faction, gaining new and better perks as they climb the ranks. As mentioned, players can only join one faction at a time, but switching factions is possible (at the cost of losing faction rank) if players decide the one they picked is not for them.
The developers have also addressed the possibility of cheating the system. If an item drops when a player is in one faction, they can only equip it while still in the faction. If that player were to switch factions, that previous item would no longer be equippable.
That’s the gist — and it’s a pretty genius way to make both pools of players happy. Players can still play with other players cross-faction, so there are no limitations with this new system. If you want to trade with other players and use the Bazaar, you are free to do so in the Merchants’ Guild.
Improvements are also still being made to the item gifting system, where players in the same game could trade items that drop while playing together.
According to EHG, they will be “introducing a new item type called Resonances that drop when you’ve played alongside a player for a very extended period of time. Using a resonance on an item will enable it to be gifted to that player even if they were not present when the item dropped.” You can learn more about that here.
Undoubtedly, the systems will undergo some tweaking along the way, but it’s something we’ve never seen before in any action RPG, to my knowledge.
