00:00good day folks zigg D here now I set out
00:02to figure out favor and reputation for
00:04the new item factions in last Epoch the
00:07circle of Fortune and the merchant Guild
00:10favor and reputation gain are pretty
00:12important for unlocking new benefits
00:14getting the powerful prophecies for the
00:16circle of Fortune and actually trading
00:18for the merchants Guild so I chatted to
00:21a member of the ehg team to learn a bit
00:23more as the in-game guide and
00:25explanation is a little bit vague it
00:27just says that to gain favor you
00:30monsters and complete quests what I
00:32learned from ehg is that favor is gained
00:36whenever you gain experience so killing
00:38monsters getting Quest reward XP and
00:41even TS of experience from the monolith
00:43rewards all give you favor at endgame
00:45quests very quickly become irrelevant
00:47and don't provide that much experience
00:48anyway so we can basically discount that
00:50it's mostly just Monster killing and the
00:52terms of experience so armed with this
00:55knowledge I set out to explore how this
00:57seems to work so that we can figure out
00:59how how best to gain favor and build
01:02reputation I'll explain reputation gain
01:04at the end but first let's focus on the
01:06favor the first things I tested was how
01:08experience gain translated into favor I
01:11tested a bunch of different Echo and
01:13even campaign zones and tracked my
01:15experience gain and favor gain and stuff
01:18like that but I'll save you some time
01:19the numbers seem to be kind of all over
01:21the place at first but it quickly
01:23started to paint a picture that the only
01:25thing that actually matters is the
01:27amount of experience that the kill or
01:29Quest Etc would normally give you
01:31ignoring your character level that means
01:34that favor doesn't seem to be nerfed by
01:36experience penalties as far as I can
01:38tell the kind of disappointing end
01:40result here is that there's no actual
01:41way for us to really track how much xp
01:43equals how much favor very easily as the
01:46ratio of XP to favor will vary depending
01:48on the level of content you're doing and
01:50the level of your actual character my
01:52numbers would change when I would level
01:53up for example suffice just to say and
01:56all we really care about in the end is
01:58that the more XP something gives the
02:00better now one thing I noticed is that
02:02terms of experience from Echo rewards
02:03didn't seem to give a reduced amount of
02:05favor compared to XP gain from other
02:07sources but it's not a major difference
02:10maybe like 5% so I don't really even
02:12know if that's accurate but suffice to
02:15say that since they do give favor
02:18blasting Echoes with terms of experience
02:20as the rewards is going to give the most
02:22favor over roll so the next thing that I
02:25wanted to test and far more useful is
02:27how much favor do you get Farming camp
02:29pain versus low-level monoliths versus
02:31high level monoliths and then empowered
02:34monoliths basically to try and figure
02:36out where's the best place to farm if
02:38you want to get a lot of favor quickly
02:41so I first tested the campaign Zone
02:43Coral Pools which is level 52 and has
02:45some of the best density in the campaign
02:47I did this with a few load screens for
02:49resets but mostly it's non-stop farming
02:52next I tested the fall of outcast
02:54timeline which is level 58 with zero
02:56corruption and then the level 90
02:58timeline spirits of fire also at zero
03:00corruption and then I jumped over to
03:02empowered monoliths and ran the same
03:04spirits of fire with it now being level
03:07100 and 100 corruption the Baseline for
03:10empowered monoliths I figured this
03:12should be a pretty good sample to give
03:14us an overall picture of how things
03:16scale I did 10 Echoes of each sample and
03:19made sure to include one Arena ONE
03:21experience Shrine and one book of
03:23rewards timeline Echo reward to keep it
03:26as even as possible so basically they
03:28all ended up being pretty similar I was
03:29pretty happy with that the way I did it
03:31was I rushed the echo objectives killing
03:33most of the enemies along the way which
03:35is the way that I normally do Echoes as
03:37I wanted to keep things as realistic as
03:39possible and as similar as possible
03:41across all of the samples now higher
03:43level monsters give more experience and
03:46higher corruption gives a scaling
03:48experience bonus as does different
03:50modifiers on the echo themselves the
03:52things like Monsters avoid crits and
03:53stuff like that gives some small bonuses
03:56this is a known quantity and since we
03:58know the connection between EXP
03:59experience in favor now we can expect
04:01that favor goes up as we move up the
04:03content and that is indeed the case
04:06however the other thing to consider is
04:08how fast are you clearing each level of
04:10content if you start to slow down
04:12significantly then there will be a point
04:14somewhere where the higher end content
04:16starts to give you less favor per hour
04:19than some of the lower end content and
04:21this is indeed what I found there was a
04:24pretty steady increase in favor As you
04:26move up the levels actually weirdly
04:28linear which was a little strange given
04:30the level jump between different
04:32timelines the level 90 monolith jumping
04:35to the level 100 same version of it with
04:38100 corruption in empowered so the
04:40normal versus the empowered version was
04:42about a 20% increase in favor gained per
04:45Echo but as you can see empowered
04:47monolith monsters are a fair bit tougher
04:50and my time slowed down by more than
04:52that 20% boost in favor made up for
04:55right now the level 90 monolith gives me
04:57the most favor per hour at a bit bit
04:59over 11,000 per hour that's because in
05:02this content I can kill things almost
05:04instantly whereas in the empowered monol
05:06it takes me a little bit time to kill
05:08some of the rare monsters and packs
05:10obviously as my character gets stronger
05:11the corruption level and the content I
05:13can do fast enough to increase the favor
05:17per hour and benefit from that increased
05:19scaling favor gain in higher level
05:21content will change right so as I
05:24improve the optimal content for me to
05:25farm will shift upwards and this is
05:27going to be different for every
05:28character depending on their power level
05:29at the time for example if I could do
05:32the empowered Echoes at the same speed
05:34that I do the level 90 ones I would then
05:3913,260 favor per hour Instead at that
05:42point maybe instead corruption 200 would
05:45be the spot where I start dropping off
05:47until I improved further and so on this
05:49all paints a pretty clear picture and is
05:51about what you would expect but there
05:53are a few surprises here in my opinion
05:55firstly level 58 monoliths are around
05:57the same time spent per Echo as level
06:0091s it's pretty big level difference but
06:03this game's kind of linear in that
06:04regard and when you're instakilling
06:06either way then the time is mostly down
06:09to load screens and moving between
06:11Echoes and waiting for Quest objectives
06:13and things like that that kind of sets
06:15your minimum Baseline time that's hard
06:16to go below so you can only really ever
06:19go so fast in this game right if you're
06:22doing lower level content a better
06:23strategy might actually be to full clear
06:26good density Echoes whenever they come
06:27up rather than moving on to the the next
06:29Echo as quickly as possible that would
06:31mean that your favor gaining time to
06:33load screen time wasting ratio is going
06:36to improve right and this is probably
06:38always true in any level of content but
06:42in higher end content you really want to
06:44be getting more Echo rewards and boss
06:46kills rather than spending a lot of time
06:48in any one Echo that's just kind of the
06:50way the end game is constructed right
06:51now you don't really want to be full
06:53clearing echoes in higher corruption
06:55content but if pure favor gain is your
06:58main goal and you've got things like
06:59load long load screens and stuff like
07:01that or a slow moving character then
07:04full clearing might be the best route to
07:06go for that the next surprise was just
07:09how much favor you still get in
07:10low-level content I expected a really
07:13harsh penalty to discourage campaign
07:15farming and you do get less but that's
07:17just because like the base XP they give
07:19right but honestly it's way closer than
07:21I would have expected with only about a
07:2335% difference between the campaign
07:25content that I did and the empowered
07:28monoliths right the true game to be
07:30honest I think the devs probably should
07:32consider changing this maybe penalizing
07:35doing really underleveled content or
07:36just increasing how much it ramps up in
07:38higher level content or a combination of
07:40the two I would hate to see people start
07:42to farm the campaign for example I just
07:44think it's not good for the game you
07:46really want to encourage characters as
07:47much as possible to farm the hardest
07:50content that character can handle I
07:51think now a couple extra tips that I
07:53learned the exiled Mages seem to give a
07:56lot of favor so if you can kill them
07:58fast it's worth it they really buffed
08:00the amount of favor that you earn in
08:01lower level content because I think you
08:03kind of do more Echoes more quickly and
08:05you see more Mages and you still kill
08:07them very quickly whereas in higher
08:08level content they take a bit longer to
08:10kill and you're not doing as many Echoes
08:11so it slows you like you're not seeing
08:14as many of them so that kind of maybe
08:16like evens the XP gap between lower
08:18level content and higher level content
08:20similarly doing more Echo faster could
08:22mean more terms of experience rewards
08:24from Echo as well so that also Narrows
08:26the gap between like lower level content
08:28and higher level content and might
08:30explain some of the kind of limited
08:32difference another thing I noticed was
08:33that rare monsters give more experience
08:35and more favor sure but comparing lower
08:37density Echoes with lots of rare
08:39monsters to high density Echoes with
08:41lots of things like bugs and spiders and
08:42just really high density the high
08:44density Echoes were always a lot better
08:46density is King and as you probably
08:49guessed Arena Echoes suck Unfortunately
08:52they take longer and they give very
08:53little favor ehg should really consider
08:56buffing Arena Echoes to make them a lot
08:58more interesting in re rewarding now all
09:00this said I highly encourage you to farm
09:02the higher end content that you can
09:04handle even if it means taking a bit of
09:05a favor gain per hour penalty the loot
09:08that I got in the empowered M compared
09:10to the normal ones was just so much
09:11better it's not even close I got barely
09:13like a fraction of an inventory load of
09:14interesting things from all of the lower
09:16monoliths combined and campaign
09:18obviously was nothing but the empowered
09:20was a full inventory of tier SS and good
09:23tier six items and uniques with
09:24legendary potential and so on really
09:27don't optimize the fun out of your gaml
09:29here that said this information is
09:31useful when deciding at what point you
09:33might be pushing corruption too high if
09:35you're really chasing favor for trades
09:37or certain prophecies for example so
09:39it's another tool in your tool boox for
09:41strategizing the last thing I want to
09:43explain is reputation gain this is from
09:46the ehg team as well as my own testing
09:48for every point of favor you gain you
09:50get two reputation and then for every
09:52point of favor you spend you get another
09:54two reputation so for favor gained and
09:57spent you get four times that amount of
10:00reputation what this really means is
10:02that spend your favor as soon as you can
10:04to boost that reputation and unlock
10:06those higher tier benefits speaking as a
10:08circle of Fortune player here the
10:10bonuses are absurdly good and you want
10:12to get them as soon as possible so spend
10:13that favor don't Bank tons of it all at
10:15once the merchant skilled rep gain is
10:18supposed to work the same way but I
10:20haven't been able to test them as I'm
10:22playing offline and I have heard that
10:24there may be some inconsistencies in rep
10:26gain from favor spent buying and selling
10:28items like items are doing less and some
10:30items are doing more so I'm not exactly
10:31sure what's going on there or if it's
10:33just a bug or I don't know exactly
10:35what's going on there but your goal in
10:37the end is still the same earn lots of
10:39favor and spend it to rank up I'll link
10:41a video in the description on the
10:43merchant skill that dread put up if you
10:45want to learn a bit more about that side
10:46of things and I might go deeper on the
10:48circle of Fortune in a future video if
10:50you're interested I hope this has been
10:52enlightening happy farming folks I'm
10:53Ziggy D and thanks for watching
