Personally, I dont like how factions can be so strict and lock you out from items. Especially, if you make a mistake. So, my suggestion is that they implement a blackmarket merchant that sell all the hostile factions items, but are lock behind the amount of hostility you have.
This is mainly for Kymon’s Chosen vs Order of Death’s Vigil, Outcast and Barrowholm. Well, for any faction that has only 2 sides of the coin.
For Example: You pay more instead
Hostile (1 to 1,499) - 5% overcharge, unlocks Friendly items
Despised (1,500 to 7,999) - 8% overcharge, unlocks Respected items
Hated (8,000 to 19,999) - 12% overcharge, unlocks Honoured items
As for Outcast/Barrowholm, if you are an ally with it, you can buy a special key from the Blackmarket mechant to do the dungeon as if you were hated or nemesis, but more thought will be needed on how to do it.
Disclaimer: This could have been suggested before, no clue here. I am a new player.
I think it’s a bad idea. I believe every action in the game should have a bearing on the plot. If you need items from a particular faction, simply be friendly with them or create another character.
I like the black market vendor for locked augments (as one example). Even though many become obsolete with the availability of DLC augments, I wonder if there are build/gear combinations where a locked augment would be that absolute best in slot one needs.
There’s already some grey area for locked faction items - like recipes that are faction specific, are still available to every character once unlocked, no matter their faction choices or rep level.
I think Nemesis bosses should still be locked unless your character went through the effort of achieving that infamy level. Some elements of faction choices are more story based as mentioned above.
honestly i think it could be fun, mostly because you can already get all faction items on a single char anyway, it just requires more boring checklist/careful selection play (wuhuu not playing as necro until homestead just to cheese a faction)
However
totally cosmetic, the way GD cost is and easy obtaining of specially money, just iron bits, specially with a mere 20% increase, would not actually serve much as a counterweight or even that “thematic” to deal with a betrayer.
Granted i don’t know what other options there would be/what GD systems even allow in terms of payment/cost or “hand in” effects, but i’d think it should need something “moar”, also fitting the dark back-alley dealings’ nature
I would add another thing or two things into “consideration” how the blackmarket vendor would work.
An entry (approach) fee… You wanna shop by the blackmarket vendor! Pay an entry fee for it (significant entry fee)
RNG into action… You want an augment or an item from a Barrowholm faction? It’s a pity, for this shopping session, the vendor has another items, mostly from Death’s Vigil faction. So it changes when all the proper vendors changes their gear to be sold…
I mean - the blackmarket vendor is a great idea, but let’s make it difficult to obtain, what you want to buy. So you need proper deliberation, if it is worthy to use the blackmarket vendor, and if so, if the char has enough iron bits to afford it!
EDIT: The approach fee would / needed to be paid everytime you approach the vendor!
I don’t like the black market idea and don’t see the need for it.
Of these factions, the only one where vendored stuff really matters is Barrowholm. If I want to end up hostile with them then I get to revered first in normal or elite and stock up on their augments. I quite like that this is something you need to consider while levelling and it’s not punitive. You just need to do some Ch’thonian farming and rush to Act 5 in elite.
Outcast. Who cares? Go hostile if you want her MI. None of her vendored stuff is important.
ODV/Kymon. The issue here is the Necro-ban, which I absolutely would get rid of as it’s a noob trap - you can brick you fledgling cold reaper at level 2 if you don’t know that “of course” you mustn’t start with necro, and this is something that you can’t change in the next difficulty. And there is no genuine issue with the lore, as they evidently don’t care enough to kick you out. (A simple, lore-friendly way around the ban is to say they just don’t know.)
I understand your viewpoint but that mostly applies to players that are not new to the game.
As a new player I won’t know that until it was too late (already being in ultimate difficulty and making the mistake). The idea came mainly for the augments which are character bound not account bound. Having to redo the character is just draining and not fun as you already went through the fun as you were building it up the first time. The first run through will always have the most energy.
In general, you would only do this fairly rarely for each character, right?
Like you would only need a couple augments, or maybe a great weapon as you’re levelling up.
I really like the idea of locking tiers behind how much the target faction hates you.
Plus, I think a steep price in Iron bits is great.
But you know who hates you buying this stuff from the Kymon’s Chosen back alleys? Your friendly neighbourhood necromancers. You just lost some rep with them. Aren’t their wares enough?
If you’re top level, it means you’re going to get a blow at faction reputation that you have to farm back a bit, so there’s some actual cost. If you’re levelling, it immerses you a little bit more in the connections of all factions.
Maluses could be (buying from > malus):
Order > Chosen
Chosen > Order
Outcast > Legion
Barrowholm > Coven
Maybe you would even get maluses to 2 or 3 factions?
So in the end it would be a fairly expensive endeavor but still realistic?
You get:
An entry condition (being very hated by the target faction) (+ entry fee? Maybe a rare component linked to that faction?)
A steep iron bits cost (from 2x to 10x depending on the item level?)
A reputation cost in other allied factions
Mebbe some RNG as well, but imho it just means you have to logout/relog so not the funniest