Item Binding

[Valmonte]

id love a reason as to why you [The Dev Team] think it was absolutely necessary to change a system that wasn't broken.

[Keku]

I craft/gather and have all jobs leveled so I am trying to post this as unbiased on the good or bad for crafting side.

problems I see:

1. People will be more gimp then they are end game knowing the gear they have before the u/u drops will be worthless so why spend money on a good meld that will hold you until you get your drop item? don't say this won't happen because I have seen enough people who want to raid in very cheap gear already this number will increase if all they buy is worthless later.

2. those who do not craft may be kinda screwed before people could get by on limited funds and still have decent gear because they could sell and buy newer gear without taking a huge hit until end game which is when everyone really cares about having the best anyway.

3. prices will go up SE seemed worried about the economy and high prices, this will inflate things more creating less supply for same demand, yes certain things may go down like expensive melds because people won't want to spend tons for an item that has no value later. But basic gear will go up in price a lot, and it's not that lower level gear didn't sell before I would sometimes make it and sell it for fairly high prices because nobody else made it, why would more people make it now just because it disappears? there was little demand because there wasn't many low level people, not because there was tons of stock.

Only things that had high amounts of stock from what I saw was SB items which were bought for the sole purpose of binding and most of it was junk gear anyway that would not be used aside from binding. Aside from this certain high end stuff there was a lot of.

4. I also like to give away my old stuff sometimes to those who could not afford really good gear. Also I would lend stuff to people for fights sometimes not just because they forgot can also be because they could not afford some of the stuff to make a specific job better.


Well either way it will probably happen, I have played some other games I don't particularly like it in general systems in other games most things have no value except dungeon drops which in FFXIV, hopefully most if not all stay u/u, I don't like the idea of selling good dungeon drops personally, so I hope they remain bound.

I also like FF MMOs because they are not the same as other MMOs, I do want them to take good aspects from other games but I also want it to be it's own different game in enough aspects that make it better to me then the others, like great quest/story content, amazing graphics and a community that really is way closer knit then other MMOs I have seen.

[Kryptic]

I craft/gather and have all jobs leveled so I am trying to post this as unbiased on the good or bad for crafting side.

problems I see:

1. People will be more gimp then they are end game knowing the gear they have before the u/u drops will be worthless so why spend money on a good meld that will hold you until you get your drop item? don't say this won't happen because I have seen enough people who want to raid in very cheap gear already this number will increase if all they buy is worthless later.

2. those who do not craft may be kinda screwed before people could get by on limited funds and still have decent gear because they could sell and buy newer gear without taking a huge hit until end game which is when everyone really cares about having the best anyway.

3. prices will go up SE seemed worried about the economy and high prices, this will inflate things more creating less supply for same demand, yes certain things may go down like expensive melds because people won't want to spend tons for an item that has no value later. But basic gear will go up in price a lot, and it's not that lower level gear didn't sell before I would sometimes make it and sell it for fairly high prices because nobody else made it, why would more people make it now just because it disappears? there was little demand because there wasn't many low level people, not because there was tons of stock.

Only things that had high amounts of stock from what I saw was SB items which were bought for the sole purpose of binding and most of it was junk gear anyway that would not be used aside from binding. Aside from this certain high end stuff there was a lot of.

4. I also like to give away my old stuff sometimes to those who could not afford really good gear. Also I would lend stuff to people for fights sometimes not just because they forgot can also be because they could not afford some of the stuff to make a specific job better.


Well either way it will probably happen, I have played some other games I don't particularly like it in general systems in other games most things have no value except dungeon drops which in FFXIV, hopefully most if not all stay u/u, I don't like the idea of selling good dungeon drops personally, so I hope they remain bound.

I also like FF MMOs because they are not the same as other MMOs, I do want them to take good aspects from other games but I also want it to be it's own different game in enough aspects that make it better to me then the others, like great quest/story content, amazing graphics and a community that really is way closer knit then other MMOs I have seen.

^This.. item binding is really not a necessary feature for this game. It seems they are trying way to hard to make this a WoW clone I pray to every God that it isn't.

[Terri]

I don't usually post on these forums, but I have to for this. ( and seriously, you crafters who are for this- have you ever even played other MMOs with it? if you have you'd know how terrible this really is, especially for your craft. )

I am 100% against Item binding. I've played many MMOs with it, and have always hated it. I can understand drops from dungeons and stuff like that being ra/ex and untradeable, BUT that's the stuff you're aiming for, and that's what you use the crafted gear for- to get to that point.

Making stuff BoE or on spritbound in this case- this will actually HURT crafters even more. Every other game that has BoE- the markets are utter CRAP, and nobody buys any crafted gear for much, if at all- since they know they will JUST get better stuff for free from their raids/dungeons/whatever. It's a known fact in most MMOs ( ESPECIALLY ONES WITH BoE ) the only things you'll make profit on are consumables. At least in XIV- people were able to craft items with awesome melds, and then people wanted to buy them until they got better ra/ex, but in turn knew they could sell them back. Now people are LESS likely to buy it at all.

Please please pleaaaaaaaaaaaaase do NOT implement this.

[Zumi]

All this complaining about it probably is for nothing. At endgame they will probably go the FFXI route and all the best gear will be rare/ex and drop from raid dungeons, or boss fights.

[Seraphe]

So since this has been announced I thought about this.. Still not sure if I like it or not.

[Arkine]

For the "People won't buy gear since they can't resell it a few levels later" argument:

People already don't bother with updating their gear before 50, with the majority not spending money on melds even if they upgrade equipment regularly during their leveling, with some extreme cases where people will use the Lv25 GC set all the way to cap.

To make people actually invest money in equipment you have to make the game very difficult to progress in without regularly updating gear, either by making it a lot harder to defeat monsters, cast magic or even heal with weak gear, or by slowing down leveling up enough that buying that piece of equipment you're going to use just for 5 levels a worth while investment and not just a 3 hour purchase you're going to regret later that evening.

Also, this whole "Race to cap" mentality needs to go.

[Valmonte]

For the "People won't buy gear since they can't resell it a few levels later" argument:

People already don't bother with updating their gear before 50, with the majority not spending money on melds even if they upgrade equipment regularly during their leveling, with some extreme cases where people will use the Lv25 GC set all the way to cap.

in 1.0 gear sets would go 5,10,15,25(Rare/ex),35(Rare/Ex),42,50. there was a giant gap where no gear needed to be purchased at all, that itself wasn't so bad until they did the major gear mat changes and stuff. the real issue was and still is too much gear is just being handed out.

[Kryptic]

For the "People won't buy gear since they can't resell it a few levels later" argument:

People already don't bother with updating their gear before 50, with the majority not spending money on melds even if they upgrade equipment regularly during their leveling, with some extreme cases where people will use the Lv25 GC set all the way to cap.

To make people actually invest money in equipment you have to make the game very difficult to progress in without regularly updating gear, either by making it a lot harder to defeat monsters, cast magic or even heal with weak gear, or by slowing down leveling up enough that buying that piece of equipment you're going to use just for 5 levels a worth while investment and not just a 3 hour purchase you're going to regret later that evening.

Also, this whole "Race to cap" mentality needs to go.

It doesn't have to be necessarily difficult though that does play a part, it just has to take an extended amount of time to level. If you go from 1-25 in a single day their is no reason to go out and buy gear or from 25-32 or whatever it may be. You were lucky to get a few levels a day depending on how high you were in FFXI, this made people upgrade gear because it made their experience go faster. The more damage being done the faster you can chain mobs for some good exp. So if you are talking about difficulty in leveling in reference to time then yeah I agree with you 100%.

[AtryxEtair]

I do not frequently post on these forums due to the nauseating cesspool of ignorance and arrogance. However this topic is most troubling. I have played two MMOs with gear binding in them as a feature, which will remain nameless as not to divert the discussion.

My first, in the initial night of playing, I was very confused when confronted by the Market Place/Auction House/Bid Counter ect. I could not sell the equipment I had used or picked up and tried on. I thought maybe I needed to be a certain level or accomplished a certain quest. I decided to ask the few dozen people around me for insight hoping someone would respond. I asked how I could sell the items in my inventory on the market. Someone responded with another question asking me what items I was trying to sell. After hearing my response they asked if said items were bound to me. "Uhh, what? why would items be bound to me?" (at this point I would have accepted a practical reason or a lore based explanation...I got neither) His response: "Because the developers didn't want to bother with the economy." I had no idea what that meant at the time. But we'll get back to this in a second.

Game number two was not as large of a shock thanks to the services of game number 1. And it did not bother me nearly as much for one reason. I could reasonably craft my own gear without having to spend inordinate amounts of time farming. The mats were things that dropped naturally while progressing through an area and doing quests. Once and a while consecutive boss kills would be in order, but not in excessive amounts so it could not be called grinding. But still, when you devote this much time, energy, and resources into any item in any game it does not feel good to toss it for pocket change or trade it for a free inventory space. I collected all of my gear through the levels that I had upgraded and spent my savings on hoping they could be used for something else in the future. So I ended up basically throwing all of them away and playing for another day before I realized I didn't want to have to deal with that again and never logged back on.

The first story highlights the economical effects that gearbinding has on players and the game as a whole. It does not seem logical, practical, or fair. There are other ways to accomplish equal opportunity relevance for DoL and DoH(a few have been mentioned or suggested in this thread) that don't have negative effects on players mentality when leveling jobs. Which leads us to the second example.

The psychological effects on players when they are left with no option but to basically toss their favorite weapon or armor in the ditch are not unnoticeable. The piece of gear they pour their heart and soul into so they could finally participate in the content they wanted to, in the way they wanted to, and feel like a "hero" for the first time in gets mud slung on it after it's faithful service. I always found comfort when I was done with equipment when I could give it to someone else who would also gain enjoyment from it.

I'm not focusing as much on the economical portion because I think that has been adequately covered. I'm more concerned with players feeling like they're wasting their hard work not because of their mistake(which is acceptable most of the time) but because that is the way the game is designed. There are a lot of people out there that aren't bothered by this, evidenced by all the MMOs out there being played right now. Unfortunately, very few of those people stick around for too long in those games.

I'm all for putting crafters and gatherers on a pedestal. This is a not that. This is a bandaid, this is sweeping it under the rug. This, does not work in the long run.