Guild Wars 2

TLDR:
Do we really need soul bound items, when GW2 is mainly an account bound game? Account bound karma, mastery points, world experience, rank points, and more. So many features of GW2 in 2016 are account bound. My request, is for all (or nearly all) soul bound items to become account bound.
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Example:
A person creates a legendary component on a different character that meets the requirements for that component. That component is used for another stage of the legendary on another character. However, the secondary character can not use the component because it is soul bound to their first character. This can be trivialized as player error but this is only one example. There are several minor examples where this happens to new players that don’t have the foresight for account bound vs soul bound. Especially when GW2 is more account bound in 2016 than in 2012.
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If anyone, feels the old soul bound items should become account bound or support this message…feel free to reply.

Edited Post to updated example message.

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

That’s a remnant of Karma being soulbound.
They changed it to have a account bound money but they didn’t change the item in game to be buyable account bound & to become soulbound on equip.

Where it becomes annoying (specially with legendary collection), it’s that soulbound crafting item can’t be used by any other character.

So I agree with you.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

This is off topic but to answer fully. There is no homework achievement, that asks for particular items. Not all of those items were fully counted or known about on HoT release. So many players decided to keep particular items instead of simply discarding. For instance, several fractal weapons were kept by me because they were not being added to the collection. There were several bugged collections on HoT release, so several items were saved and simply forgotten about over time.

papry.8096:

That’s a remnant of Karma being soulbound.
They changed it to have a account bound money but they didn’t change the item in game to be buyable account bound & to become soulbound on equip.

Where it becomes annoying (specially with legendary collection), it’s that soulbound crafting item can’t be used by any other character.

So I agree with you.

I agree, making a legendary seems to go across several crafting disciplines. Which are not all on one character, in several cases.

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

This is off topic but to answer fully. There is no homework achievement, that asks for particular items. Not all of those items were fully counted or known about on HoT release. So many players decided to keep particular items instead of simply discarding. For instance, several fractal weapons were kept by me because they were not being added to the collection. There were several bugged collections on HoT release, so several items were saved and simply forgotten about over time.

The only thing that wasn’t fixed at release was that skins in the wardrobe didn’t count for the fractal skin collection for some people; within 48 hours, ANet was replying to anyone who created a ticket that the bug was known and that a fix was on the way.

Thus, there was never any reason to save ‘junk’ items, barely any reason to save skins, and generally no need to save soulbound items.

So it’s not at all clear to me why the OP chose to create an issue for themselves: the game has always had soulbound items, the bank has never been a great place for them, and deleting the toon to which the items are bound has always turned those items into trash-only items.

There are lots of economic reasons to bind stuff to characters (among other restrictions) and so the need for soulbinding is not likely to go away. I think we all have to figure out how to accommodate the existing mechanic.

edit: typo

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

If one is just looking to get rid of such an item, one can right click on it and pick “destroy.” I doubt support is going to do something to allow one to sell them, which is what the OP was trying to do.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

If one is just looking to get rid of such an item, one can right click on it and pick “destroy.” I doubt support is going to do something to allow one to sell them, which is what the OP was trying to do.

Its come to my attention that the main point of my message is missed even though I typed tldr. So, I updated the example so we can move on from a simple “junk” item being soulbound.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

---

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

This is off topic but to answer fully. There is no homework achievement, that asks for particular items. Not all of those items were fully counted or known about on HoT release. So many players decided to keep particular items instead of simply discarding. For instance, several fractal weapons were kept by me because they were not being added to the collection. There were several bugged collections on HoT release, so several items were saved and simply forgotten about over time.

Thus, there was never any reason to save ‘junk’ items, barely any reason to save skins, and generally no need to save soulbound items.

So it’s not at all clear to me why the OP chose to create an issue for themselves.
There are lots of economic reasons to bind stuff to characters (among other restrictions) and so the need for soulbinding is not likely to go away. I think we all have to figure out how to accommodate the existing mechanic.

edit: typo

You missed the point of the message, so I changed the example. Also, what economic reasons? Having an item account bound doesn’t affect the Economy at all. You cannot sell account bound items. If I’m mistaken about this, please enlighten me.

reapex.8546:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

---

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

This is off topic but to answer fully. There is no homework achievement, that asks for particular items. Not all of those items were fully counted or known about on HoT release. So many players decided to keep particular items instead of simply discarding. For instance, several fractal weapons were kept by me because they were not being added to the collection. There were several bugged collections on HoT release, so several items were saved and simply forgotten about over time.

Thus, there was never any reason to save ‘junk’ items, barely any reason to save skins, and generally no need to save soulbound items.

So it’s not at all clear to me why the OP chose to create an issue for themselves.
There are lots of economic reasons to bind stuff to characters (among other restrictions) and so the need for soulbinding is not likely to go away. I think we all have to figure out how to accommodate the existing mechanic.

edit: typo

You missed the point of the message, so I changed the example. Also, what economic reasons? Having an item account bound doesn’t affect the Economy at all. You cannot sell account bound items. If I’m mistaken about this, please enlighten me.

You can vendor most, if not all, account bound items. This brings new gold into the economy rather than exchanging gold between players and reducing total gold through Trading Post fees. Therefore it could be argued that account bound items affect the economy through increasing the total amount of ingame gold. Of course it applies to soulbound also, but this comment is just to address the point that bound items, both soulbound and account bound, do have an effect on the economy even if they are not Trading Post tradable.

reapex.8546:

You missed the point of the message, so I changed the example. Also, what economic reasons? Having an item account bound doesn’t affect the Economy at all. You cannot sell account bound items. If I’m mistaken about this, please enlighten me.

The OP’s original and new examples both are about losing use of soulbound items after deleting the character to which they were bound. My advice remains appropriate: contact support, whether it’s to use them on a different character or to monetize them in some fashion.

With respect to binding & how it affects other players: Account binding removes items from tradeability, which affects supply. Soul-binding affects demand, by preventing other characters on the same account from using the same items. Both types of binding affect different aspects of the economy. I’m not here to argue if it’s good or bad; I’m just explaining why game companies see it as a useful tool.

Additionally, some “quests” are meant to be done by each character, which is why binding is also used on non-tradeable items, including things collected by event or heart quest NPCs. I’m pretty sure the application of soul-binding for collection-related items is an oversight and will get fixed by ANet. Eventually.

Even if none of the above were true, it’s a lot of work to change the binding on every item, QA the impact on the rest of the game (including the economy), and implement the changes (and then deal with the resulting issues that slipped past). So even if ANet agrees that soulbinding should end, it won’t happen quickly.

As long as binding is in the game, the bank remains a poor place to store soulbound items, because it’s too easy to lose access when deleting characters, as the OP found.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

reapex.8546:

You missed the point of the message, so I changed the example. Also, what economic reasons? Having an item account bound doesn’t affect the Economy at all. You cannot sell account bound items. If I’m mistaken about this, please enlighten me.

The OP’s original and new examples both are about losing use of soulbound items after deleting the character to which they were bound.

I never mention anything about deleting a character.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

---

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

This is off topic but to answer fully. There is no homework achievement, that asks for particular items. Not all of those items were fully counted or known about on HoT release. So many players decided to keep particular items instead of simply discarding. For instance, several fractal weapons were kept by me because they were not being added to the collection. There were several bugged collections on HoT release, so several items were saved and simply forgotten about over time.

Thus, there was never any reason to save ‘junk’ items, barely any reason to save skins, and generally no need to save soulbound items.

So it’s not at all clear to me why the OP chose to create an issue for themselves.
There are lots of economic reasons to bind stuff to characters (among other restrictions) and so the need for soulbinding is not likely to go away. I think we all have to figure out how to accommodate the existing mechanic.

edit: typo

You missed the point of the message, so I changed the example. Also, what economic reasons? Having an item account bound doesn’t affect the Economy at all. You cannot sell account bound items. If I’m mistaken about this, please enlighten me.

You can vendor most, if not all, account bound items. This brings new gold into the economy rather than exchanging gold between players and reducing total gold through Trading Post fees. Therefore it could be argued that account bound items affect the economy through increasing the total amount of ingame gold. Of course it applies to soulbound also, but this comment is just to address the point that bound items, both soulbound and account bound, do have an effect on the economy even if they are not Trading Post tradable.

Yes, so the items that are soulbound can be sold to merchants, if the soulbound items are account bound they can still be sold to merchants. So their shouldn’t be a further impact on the economy if the value for soul bound and account bound items are equivalent.

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

---

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

This is off topic but to answer fully. There is no homework achievement, that asks for particular items. Not all of those items were fully counted or known about on HoT release. So many players decided to keep particular items instead of simply discarding. For instance, several fractal weapons were kept by me because they were not being added to the collection. There were several bugged collections on HoT release, so several items were saved and simply forgotten about over time.

Thus, there was never any reason to save ‘junk’ items, barely any reason to save skins, and generally no need to save soulbound items.

So it’s not at all clear to me why the OP chose to create an issue for themselves.
There are lots of economic reasons to bind stuff to characters (among other restrictions) and so the need for soulbinding is not likely to go away. I think we all have to figure out how to accommodate the existing mechanic.

edit: typo

You missed the point of the message, so I changed the example. Also, what economic reasons? Having an item account bound doesn’t affect the Economy at all. You cannot sell account bound items. If I’m mistaken about this, please enlighten me.

You can vendor most, if not all, account bound items. This brings new gold into the economy rather than exchanging gold between players and reducing total gold through Trading Post fees. Therefore it could be argued that account bound items affect the economy through increasing the total amount of ingame gold. Of course it applies to soulbound also, but this comment is just to address the point that bound items, both soulbound and account bound, do have an effect on the economy even if they are not Trading Post tradable.

Yes, so the items that are soulbound can be sold to merchants, if the soulbound items are account bound they can still be sold to merchants. So their shouldn’t be a further impact on the economy if the value for soul bound and account bound items are equivalent.

Yes, I know. I was simply addressing where you said that they don’t affect the economy at all (and where you asked to be enlightened if you were mistaken).

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

@OP: contact support to see if they can help you with junk items soul bound to deleted characters.

---

reapex.8546:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

reapex.8546:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why are you keeping junk in your bank? Sorry, but its in place to keep people doing things to gear there characters. Otherwise vets would nit need to gear new characters.

The fractals rewards are junk when HoT was released not everyone sold everything at once lol. Vets, still need to make new characters to level up. Also, gear for dungeon armor can be obtain through account bound tokens. Lastly, ascended armor from chests or crafted are account bound. So vets can still give their alts the latest gear without having to play them once.

In your post you implied it was a gray item

Why? Why would a junk item be soul bound, the merchant even has a sell junk button for all junk items. Why is junk tied to my character…its junk x.×.

So the question still does stand. Why were you keeping junk in your bank instead of going to the merchant and hitting the sell junk button?

This is off topic but to answer fully. There is no homework achievement, that asks for particular items. Not all of those items were fully counted or known about on HoT release. So many players decided to keep particular items instead of simply discarding. For instance, several fractal weapons were kept by me because they were not being added to the collection. There were several bugged collections on HoT release, so several items were saved and simply forgotten about over time.

Thus, there was never any reason to save ‘junk’ items, barely any reason to save skins, and generally no need to save soulbound items.

So it’s not at all clear to me why the OP chose to create an issue for themselves.
There are lots of economic reasons to bind stuff to characters (among other restrictions) and so the need for soulbinding is not likely to go away. I think we all have to figure out how to accommodate the existing mechanic.

edit: typo

You missed the point of the message, so I changed the example. Also, what economic reasons? Having an item account bound doesn’t affect the Economy at all. You cannot sell account bound items. If I’m mistaken about this, please enlighten me.

You can vendor most, if not all, account bound items. This brings new gold into the economy rather than exchanging gold between players and reducing total gold through Trading Post fees. Therefore it could be argued that account bound items affect the economy through increasing the total amount of ingame gold. Of course it applies to soulbound also, but this comment is just to address the point that bound items, both soulbound and account bound, do have an effect on the economy even if they are not Trading Post tradable.

Yes, so the items that are soulbound can be sold to merchants, if the soulbound items are account bound they can still be sold to merchants. So their shouldn’t be a further impact on the economy if the value for soul bound and account bound items are equivalent.

Yes, I know. I was simply addressing where you said that they don’t affect the economy at all.

I understand, thank you.

The reasoning for binding anything (soul or account) is so that it is not possible to trade or sell it to someone else. In that regard there is no reason to not have everything that is bound to then be account bound. What we need to address: is there anything that is soul bound that should not be account bound because there is a legitimate reason for the one over the other. To which I do NOT see any reason for anything soul bound to not be account bound. We have no soul bound items that are a huge gold sink (aka remove gold from the economy vs transfer of it to someone else in the economy). And that would be the only legitimate reason to want someone to sink that much more gold to get one for all their characters or what not.

Jia Shen.4217:

The reasoning for binding anything (soul or account) is so that it is not possible to trade or sell it to someone else. In that regard there is no reason to not have everything that is bound to then be account bound. What we need to address: is there anything that is soul bound that should not be account bound because there is a legitimate reason for the one over the other. To which I do NOT see any reason for anything soul bound to not be account bound. We have no soul bound items that are a huge gold sink (aka remove gold from the economy vs transfer of it to someone else in the economy). And that would be the only legitimate reason to want someone to sink that much more gold to get one for all their characters or what not.

So my argument was that most items that are soul bound should simple be made account bound. Are you arguing the very existence of the account bound / soul bound system? I understand the point of not wanting to sell to other players. But my questions, do we really need two systems to handle bounding?

/final_bump_message

reapex.8546:

So my argument was that most items that are soul bound should simple be made account bound. Are you arguing the very existence of the account bound / soul bound system? I understand the point of not wanting to sell to other players. But my questions, do we really need two systems to handle bounding?

Sorry for any misunderstanding in my post. I am in agreement that there is no reason to have soul bound and that everything should be account bound. With one possible exception an effective gold sink that drives players to want that high sink item on every character. That would be the only justification for a soul bound item. However there are no such item(s) in GW2 that I’m aware that fit that classification and therefor all items that are soul bound should be account bound as they both accomplish the same end result as far as GW2 is concerned. Hopefully that better states what I tried to say last post.

Make all soul bound account bound?

May as well give all Digital Deluxe Perma bank contracts….

Sarevok.2638:

Make all soul bound account bound?

May as well give all Digital Deluxe Perma bank contracts….

This would be an exception that I was referring to when I could not thing of offhand items that it would be an issue with. In this case the exploit for unlimited free gem store item would be an exception and kept soul bound. I think even the OP would agree on this point.

I think they should fix the handful of soulbinding issues that are real issues, such as the specific example alluded to in the OP. I don’t see how this makes a case for removing soulbinding entirely. It’s a major change with a high likelihood of unforeseen consequences. Which is bad news if only because of Anet’s track record for handling of such things.

Another thing to consider is that the tendency for account binding was largely a consequence of the difficulty to obtain Ascended gear. Now if Anet wanted to try introducing new systems that made acquisition somewhat easier but produced soulbound gear as a tradeoff… I think having options is a good thing.

Or, they remove all forms of “binding” and make everything open and tradable. Would be a great QoL increase.

Jia Shen.4217:

Sarevok.2638:

Make all soul bound account bound?

May as well give all Digital Deluxe Perma bank contracts….

This would be an exception that I was referring to when I could not thing of offhand items that it would be an issue with. In this case the exploit for unlimited free gem store item would be an exception and kept soul bound. I think even the OP would agree on this point.

I do agree, its fine for gemstore items to continue to be soul bound.

Jia Shen.4217:

reapex.8546:

So my argument was that most items that are soul bound should simple be made account bound. Are you arguing the very existence of the account bound / soul bound system? I understand the point of not wanting to sell to other players. But my questions, do we really need two systems to handle bounding?

Sorry for any misunderstanding in my post. I am in agreement that there is no reason to have soul bound and that everything should be account bound. With one possible exception an effective gold sink that drives players to want that high sink item on every character. That would be the only justification for a soul bound item. However there are no such item(s) in GW2 that I’m aware that fit that classification and therefor all items that are soul bound should be account bound as they both accomplish the same end result as far as GW2 is concerned. Hopefully that better states what I tried to say last post.

It does, I understand now, thank you. In GW1, there was a type of soul bound system called customized. But the player chose to turn an item into customized for slightly better stats. I’m not sure why the route was chosen to have so many Soulbound items on GW2’s 2012 launch. I’m hoping that in 2016+, there will be less of a desire to include Soulbound only items in GW2 (since it’s currently using account bound currency and more).