I for one have encountered the case where I’ve respecialized my build and noticed that I might need an augment or even piece of gear from a faction that I’m hostile with. I think it would be nice and useful to complete the respec circle and allow players to reset their standing with factions that are currently hostile. Afterwards, gaining favor with the faction will only be done through bounties and eliminating enemy heroes.
For example, if you’re hostile now with Death’s vigil, you should have a button in the factions UI to “ally” yourself with them. This implies that the game needs to reload the screen and teleport you to a town (the same one where you start the game), in case you were inside the faction’s personal fortress, since making Kymon’s chosen hostile will stop you from entering anymore. Same for the Outcast and Barrowholm.
This is already possible. When you move up to a higher difficulty you can change so if you’re hostile with the Order on Normal you can ally with them on Elite for example. Note that doing so changes your status with them on Normal as well. What most people do if they need gear/augments is be friendly with a faction on Normal/Elite, buy what they need once their rep is high enough and then go hostile with them on Ultimate.
I know that, thank you. I was talking about doing it beyond Ultimate, if you’ve finished the game already and decide to respec your build at some point (as in change skills, gear and devotions). This usually requires other augments that match better the new version of your build. For example, previously you needed only resistance augments in your armor, but after the respec you’ve covered your resistances from the new gear/skills/devotions and you now just need some extra life from your augments. So, if you’re hostile with Barrowholm, you now need to become allied to benefit from their life augments. And it wouldn’t be an instant swap, you still need to work to raise your reputation with them from scratch, relying only on bounties and fighting enemy heroes.
This is why you work it out beforehand or make another character if you’re going to change the current one that much.
But your argument would also imply that a respec for attributes/skills/devotions shouldn’t exist either, but rather you should just “work it out beforehand or make another character if you’re going to change the current one that much”. Right?
Nah, there’s also a crapload of quests and flags which would have to be managed. Doing this properly without breaking your save would require extreme care on the dev side for minimal benefits.
A suggestion was made to tackle this issue by simply adding a black market merchant.
It’s already done when choosing a different faction on the next difficulty. The game keeps the old faction’s quests in your history, while updating the new relationship status with them on all dificulties. So, when you go back to elite, you find yourself allied with Death’s vigil, even though your history says that you completed the Kymon’s chosen’s quests. There’s nothing new to implement, as far as I can see. The only difference is being able to do it at least once more.
it breaks those quests, leaving them unable to be completed
Another example is resetting Barrowholm rep, even if you completed all their quests, up to the point of selecting ravager; if you reset rep, you will never be able to fight ravager again on that playthrough, even if you set the rep back, because the NPCs trigger state wont match anymore (basically set back to before the faction choice, which removes ravager etc)
Seems to me that it already works without breaking anything.
it doesn’t, “you haven’t tried it then”; because you can’t complete those quests, and you can’t interact with Kymon’s quest on Elite that are left hanging, as you’re now allied with Vigil, and vigil wont give you any quests/interactions
it’s literally one of the most common complaint borks in MP because of the cross faction choice and unintended/unaware rep state resets 
But it does, it’s the same thing. There’s the history and there’s your current status. It’s already implemented that the two can point to different factions (the example being when you go back on a lower difficulty and the game works just fine).
it is not, you haven’t tried it then is what i’m telling you,
you cannot interact with quests when hostile, nor can you interact with NPCs, it screws you over fully
it doesn’t matter that it’s in your completed history, current progress will not be set to match, it will be left hanging, and any completed NPC triggers will be reverted, eg can’t fight Ravager even if you set your rep back again, it does not work the way you think
But in this case it means that the game would break your quest progress even if you swap allegiance on a higher difficulty (as you’re currently allowed to do). So, this extra feature would add no extra problems to the already existing ones (if what you’ve mentioned are actual problems).
it will, because it lets you change it after stuff is already fixed, that’s the issue.
The system is made to handle it during progress, ie you’re not supposed to return to elite once you make the choice on Ult, ult is your final choice, the intent being that’s your decision. But if you mess with it a 4th time, you’re now irreparably screwed since all your stuff is messed up, again, ravager example, if you completed that quest, because you wanted to fight him, but now want a temporary Reaper farm, so you reset it with your consumable thingy; you permanently screwed our of the Ravager fight because you cannot transition back, and you can’t reset that trigger back merely by flipping rep a 5th time.
It messes with a lot, so giving the player the option is then giving them the option to make a mess.
My point is you’re simply underestimating the consequences, and that’s likely why you havent’ seen such feature, because it has wide reaching ramifaction, regardless if you believe it or not
Ultimate Diff, Quest "Cult Activity" unable to finish yet Anasteria is also alive
Then it sounds like the solution to this is allowing the extra feature only after all of the faction’s quests are completed, so it won’t break the current progress.
i don’t know how you keep missing the point; that still doesn’t fix it not breaking… you’re still breaking stuff/getting the ability to break stuff players might not be fully aware of nor intend to that degree
Changing rep state can break NPC triggers, and changing rep back does not re-enable those triggers, because they are enabled by acting on quests. (and those quests are now already completed)
Sorry, I don’t do it on purpose, it’s just that I usually have a hard time understanding exactly what you mean, even though I try my best. If there are problems due to swapping allegiance, they should already exist due to the fact that the game allows you to do it whenever you go to the next difficulty. If there are more nuances to that, it just means that the implementation of the allegiance system needs to be revised in order to not create issues in general. This extra feature doesn’t bring anything unusual to the table. You’re allowed to do it twice, so I see no difference being able to do it at least once more. Same as for the respec methods, you’re allowed to completely respec attributes, devotions and skills (at any time), so this extra feature is just 30% of the remaining 25% of the respec pool that you’re already allowed to do. It’s nothing special and it completes the respec circle and creates complete consistency when it comes to the process.
Yes! that’s also what’s been said
but it’s been “accepted” because the assumption is whatever your final choice is would be the one you intended. But if you then mess with that a 4th time; you now cannot repair that, unlike you could the 3rd time as it was done via reopening the quests.
3rd time the table catches, but it’s fine because you clearly decide it/do XY quest to also enable the NPC triggers (3rd time is not just about rep)
so when you now flip rep a 4th time, you reset those NPCs to prior their quest chain state, which means you can’t interact with them when you swap rep a 5th time to get them back, because that quest was already done, but you moved the NPC back to prior in the chain. A → C → A , but to go to C you need a quest trigger, and you can’t do that anymore. You only have the rep state reset, not quest reset.
It’s 2 different systems in play together, both quest and rep.
That’s why if you wanna fight Anasteria or fight Ravager it’s crucial you make that choice the final time on Ult, because if you accidentally go friendly with Ana, just setting rep to hostile wont let you fight her, and if you go friendly with Barrowholm to fight Ravager, but go back to elite to quickly farm reaper, you can never fight Ravager on Ult again, even if you set rep back to friendly, because Ravager’s state is quest triggered, and NPCs are reset back to the villa when you revisit, “awaiting your rep reset quest interaction”; but that’s already completed so no quest for you.
For Kymon/Vigil specifically iirc the issue is smaller, you simply can’t access the hideout/the powder merchant in Homestead wont talk to you. *provided you already did the Ashes quest 3x ofc, otherwise that tomb might be locked
totally unrelated and has no bearing on it at all. Unrelated system and interactions, no cross conflicts or “bugs”, it’s a silly comparison because of it.
That’s why being able to reset the faction status beyond ultimate should generate the least problems, when compared to what you’re already allowed to do (resetting it before). I also mentioned that maybe a patch to all these problems would be to allow the resets only after the quests on the current difficulty have been completed. Or maybe even the ones on the lower difficulties. This would solve any already existing problems and make way for the extra choice (which essentially is the same as the previously allowed choices).
… dude… how do you keep missing it
it doesn’t matter, in fact it makes it a problem, because you need quest triggers
and you don’t have a quest triggers anymore, so yes, it not only still screws with it, it possibly screws with it the most if you reset your rep after ult choices are made… since that’s the quest states that matter, that you can’t fix when you just screwed it by resetting rep…
srs, “TLDR; you don’t understand/vastly underestimate the impact and conflict potential of changing rep after the fact” /out