Item Binding

[Mychael]

It's an aspect of the game I don't like, but not one that'll ruin the whole game for me. I don't even mind the binding so much as that they're using SOULBIND to manage it.

I realize that the idea is to remove money from circulation. This method will succeed, but it has many negative consequences. Soulbind will affect every single piece of gear, not just selected pieces, so it affects gear that, to be fair, SHOULD be sellable after use.

What do I mean?

• The materia system allows for ever-better pieces to be created. Bound, you cannot continually upgrade to these better pieces without losing. For the consumer, this creates a dilemma: while the triple-melded bow you see now is fantastic, you know that a better one could show up at any time. If you buy it now, you no longer have the assurance that if you find a better one, you can still buy it.
• The materia system creates one-of-a-kind pieces. If you replace a great piece with an insanely good one, that doesn't take away from the rarity of whatever you started with, but that piece is officially lost to the world. This makes rare melds even rarer.
• Rare drops/crafts. Before I start, I know that most rare drops will be untradeable. Nonetheless, some pieces are so rare that even IF they are sellable after wear, there should never be a surplus--HQ crafts, for example, or rare drops from timed open world HNMs (e.g. Herald's Gaiters). This will make these pieces even harder to acquire, but I admit my bigger fear is that SE intends to completely do away with such impossible-to-get pieces.

And some reasons that binding makes me sad in the first place...

• There will be no more, "Well, I'll buy XXX to use until someone sells a YYY."
• A linkshell can no longer keep a bank of items for members to use.
• You can no longer lend your friend gear for hard battles. In XI, I lent a lot of my gear to people who were facing Maat for their first time.
• You are unable to "try" new equipment. If you are unsure which of two weapons will be better, there is no more "test it out," as you are stuck with whichever you try first.

Just some thoughts.

[Nayito]

There is good arguments on both sides, and since i haven't played a many MMOs i can't coment on if this is good or bad so i'll just coment on what i read.

I see some saying that crafting will become useles, and i have to agree there, though it'll depend on how good the dungeon, rare/ex, droped gear is. Anyone that plays XI today will tell you that crafring has become useless to the point that farming for mats has become pointless.
Now in XIV 1.0 there were slots that you had to fill them with crafted gear, cause the rare/ex wasn't very good. E.G if you were a THM/BLM you were better of with a crafted/melded head piece than anything else, same was for the legs, there was no good leg piece (except for DL?). If that continues, there might be a spot for crafters, but let me put a situation.
Lets say i don't like to craft, i just like to fight. As it's been stablisshed, we'll be doing a lot of quests to lvl. So we'll have more gear that we can use, no point for crafters there. I got to lvl 50 i got my AF (that for most ppl will be enough for endgame), so no room for crafters there. I got a little money i deside to spend on a melded gear, double meld will be easy to get so there'll be cheap, so i get a triple meld. I'm happy with it and i do some endgame. Some times passes and my triple meld is starting to get old, i'm wanting something with more power. I got the money so i wanna get a quad meld, but wait, there is a problem, what do i do with my triple meld? i can't resell it, i can't give it away to a friend (wich defeats the idea that Yoshi-P had by giving us PLing, to help a friend get tough to play at the same lvl), i can't even pass it to a character in my own account. All i can do i sell it to NPC for set price by SE(a price that does not reflect the value of the item) or i can turn it into materia (a Materia that would be a the very best 1/2 of the value of the materias in it, not to mention the tries it took to make). Now i'll wonder if it is worth it? or my the next time i wanna buy something if it's woth pay X amount for something that i'm gonna get X/10 to 30 or more. That will end up lowering the price of everything crafter/melded because ppl won't be buying that much.
Now crafter's only source of real income will be expendables (Stalone, Schwarzenegger, Jet Lee, ETC), but wait, there's no more arrows, there'll be no bullets, there will be no thrown weapons. Only food and pots, so yay for alchemists and cooks, the rest will make do.


Now the other thing i see is that SE is sending mixed messages with this. In 1 side we have items that once used in battle/craft/gather won't be able to be traded/sold in AH. And on the other we have the Free Companies that will have a commun storage for players put and take out items. So if i take something from the FC's storage is mine for ever? IDK how will this work. This will be a great tool for an ass to grab items that were ment for everyone and steal them or make a simple mistake and screw someone else who might need said item.


And i see ppl saying "we need to destroy items" and where up to some extend this is true, this is bound in the premiss that no new players will come in and old players go. There will always be recicle of players, old players that leave and don't get rid of their things in case they wanna come back, and there'll be always new players looking for gear.
For the destruction of items, i propose 2 Ideas
1) In the real world when you buy something used, you know it's used, and for that you pay less than the same thing new. So i say, put a counter on the pieces, so every time you sell/trade it, it goes down and when it gets to 0 it turns into a Materia. you also have the option to make it into a materia before of cource. the higher the number the more it'll cost, but you'll still have a chance to resell it or give it away when you are done with it, but you'll be more causious to lend it though.
2) As someone said back there about a pirate game that has perma-break of gear. That but you are able to sell it, lend, and give it away. the perma-break bar would have to be quite long but it'll eventually take all the gears out of the game.


That's what i think on the matter, and as a final word i'd like to ask anyone who knows of examples of games where they have this binding gear thing and have a succesfull market for crafter gear and related items (ingredients for said gears) and if you are againt it, provide some examples where the market isn't successfull.





P.S: Sorry for the wall of text XD

[Breg]

There are several items I dislike about this change.

Firstly, when I decide to play a new class, I buy new gear every few levels to continue to be useful in a party. By the time I get to the highest level, I usually accumulate over 40 pieces of gear which I may never use again. Previously I was able to sell it all back, but now, with this change, reduced space, and inability to move items to my secondary characters, I could be forced to throw items away. You can argue that they could be broken up into materia and sold, but realistically, low level materia was already inexpensive to start with, and now I fear lesser number of players would even consider upgrading something that will be discarded.

Secondly, there were good reasons to be able to trade gear in FFXI and FFXIV. I used to loan gear to good friends during long absences. I was able to quickly trade that one piece of gear in an instance to a party member so we can get that extra sliver of a chance for success. I could give my gear to a friend that claimed they could do better playing my class, and this was a good way to shut them up lol.

Final Fantasy is the only game I know that allows players to trade or sell back some used gear. It is changes like this that scare me into thinking that my favorite online game is moving in a direction of a lot of cookie cutter MMOs coming out in the last 10 years.

As far as crafting goes, I never had trouble being fairly compensated for making items in FFXI or FFIV, even when compared to other MMOs like Aion or SWTOR. I don’t think this change will affect crafting as much as some people believe.

Since this is my first time posting, it is only appropriate to praise development team for the good job done so far. From what I have seen, the game is 180 degrees from what it was a couple of years back. You guys are the originators, so keep up the good work.

[Kerwin]

I hate gear binding. Will not agree with this idea what so ever... Depending on how drastic the changes are, It might change the way I look at this game for good.

[theomen]

I'm a dol and doh person and been thinking the only way that this is going to work is if they make it hard to kill the mobs to the point where you have to have to have to have to upgrade your gear every 5 lvs or so but other then that I don't see this helping anyone

Sample
so this is what we have the crafter makes some gloves some very good gloves they are sold for 200k well I'm lv 20 or 30 and I don't want to spend 200k on the gloves bc in 5 lv I wont need them anymore and I can't resell them so i'm short 200k thats what it looks like what we have now I don't see this helping anyone

[Babydoll]

Wait...so does this mean my bf and I cant share gear anymore? ...

I really hope not. We share quad melds and rare gear, etc...basically everything.

I dont mind bound gear, as long as every single piece of gear isnt that way heh

[Zezlar]

Wait...so does this mean my bf and I cant share gear anymore? ...

I really hope not. We share quad melds and rare gear, etc...basically everything.

I dont mind bound gear, as long as every single piece of gear isnt that way heh

That's precisely what it means.

[GinTama]

Wait...so does this mean my bf and I cant share gear anymore? ...

I really hope not. We share quad melds and rare gear, etc...basically everything.

I dont mind bound gear, as long as every single piece of gear isnt that way heh

that sucks, but it is necessary to do this

[JillyBean]

Wait...so does this mean my bf and I cant share gear anymore? ...

I really hope not. We share quad melds and rare gear, etc...basically everything.

I dont mind bound gear, as long as every single piece of gear isnt that way heh

Sadly, yes, this is what it means. I swear, this is an entire other topic, but I'm now thinking gear-sharing maybe should be implemented as a perk in in-game marriage.

[Babydoll]

Oh...my thanks for the responses guys! that really sucks though! Why oh why are you doing this se ;;

I'll have to test this out in the beta...

JillyBean, I hope it is a perk also then...bleh, we share literally everything...