Guild Wars 2

Is it really necessary for there to be two levels of protection to bind items to players and remove items from the economy? As is soulbound is completely unneccessary and I would argue for it’s removal for the following reasons.

1- It’s an annoyance to the player.
2- It’s a throwback to old grind based games. Soulbound was invented to make players grind for loot if they ever have an alt, such as needing to grind multiple sets of magic find armor when only one should be needed. With the gameplay of GW2 this is unneeded.
3- Account bound removes items from the economy already. Not much more to say here, things that are account bound won’t end up on the TP any more than something that’s soulbound will.
4- It doesn’t make sense in game lore. Why exactly are these dark stained claws bound to my characters eternal soul again? Are we really afraid I’m going to bank them than use them to some malicious end on some other character?
5- Ascended items you pick up from Fractals are account bound AND soulbound on use. This is just ridiculous.
6- It punishes the player. A player accidentally buys a set of medium dungeon armor on a heavy armored character just wasted 1200 tokens because of a simple mistake due to the armor being soulbound. Whats the difference between tokens being account bound and giving tokens to an alt and buying the armor on a character for one of your alts?

Is there something I’m missing here? because to me it would look a lot cleaner and less redundant if things were just account bound.

Saint.2043:

Soulbound was invented to make players grind for loot if they ever have an alt, such as needing to grind multiple sets of magic find armor when only one should be needed.

You have your answer right there but I’ll just expand on it.

More soulbound gear means more time spent by someone (even if you simply purchase the gear from the TP, someone at some point made it or looted it) grinding.

More players gearing up alts is an increase of concurrent users.

More concurrent users is an increase in the likelyhood of gem purchases.

Don’t forget about the space those multiple armor sets with the same stats take up, that’s less space you have to buy things, don’t worry though, you can purchase more inventory space with those nifty gems I mentioned.

tl;dr Soulbound exists alongside accountbound as a basic monetization route.

Saint.2043:

Is it really necessary for there to be two levels of protection to bind items to players and remove items from the economy? As is soulbound is completely unneccessary and I would argue for it’s removal for the following reasons.

1- It’s an annoyance to the player.
2- It’s a throwback to old grind based games. Soulbound was invented to make players grind for loot if they ever have an alt, such as needing to grind multiple sets of magic find armor when only one should be needed. With the gameplay of GW2 this is unneeded.
3- Account bound removes items from the economy already. Not much more to say here, things that are account bound won’t end up on the TP any more than something that’s soulbound will.
4- It doesn’t make sense in game lore. Why exactly are these dark stained claws bound to my characters eternal soul again? Are we really afraid I’m going to bank them than use them to some malicious end on some other character?
5- Ascended items you pick up from Fractals are account bound AND soulbound on use. This is just ridiculous.
6- It punishes the player. A player accidentally buys a set of medium dungeon armor on a heavy armored character just wasted 1200 tokens because of a simple mistake due to the armor being soulbound. Whats the difference between tokens being account bound and giving tokens to an alt and buying the armor on a character for one of your alts?

Is there something I’m missing here? because to me it would look a lot cleaner and less redundant if things were just account bound.

1. Subjective. Soulbound can work for or against the player in economic terms. Have you looked at common gear prices? The economy could stand for a lot more items (blues and possibly even whites) being soulbound.
2. Binding is not about grinding, it’s about creating a force for consumption for items that are otherwise permanent. This is a compromise that is preferable to most players; the alternative is to destroy your stuff after a certain amount of use.
3. Account bound is not economically equivalent to Soulbound. That’s pretty much why you’re complaining, isn’t it? You don’t want to pay for another item that one of your characters already got.
4. See my response to 2. What actually doesn’t make sense is that your stuff never breaks down to the point of being unusable no matter how long it’s worn or how often it gets broken. If you prefer the alternative, let us know.
5. See my response to 3.
6. I agree that items that are bought with account bound currency should just be account bound until equipped. But ultimately in this situation the mistake is yours, the item’s binding is tangential. You could just as easily buy a wrong account bound item that would still be useless to you.