Guild Wars 2

I would like to suggest getting rid of soulbinding, and replacing anything like it as account bound will make gear useable by other characters and will help players save a lot on gold and mats when deciding to change builds or whatever. Making Ascended account bound was a nice step, I suggest going further and getting rid of soulbound altogether because it is simply to restricting and leaves players with a bunch of useless gear on a toon/in bank that they could put on another toon, just because they changed builds and stats.

Completely agree. Let’s add getting rid of the unique classification as well.

yea it just seems like a very inconvenient and restrictive system, would really help a lot of players, especially new players

X T D.6458:

I would like to suggest getting rid of soulbinding, and replacing anything like it as account bound will make gear useable by other characters and will help players save a lot on gold and mats when deciding to change builds or whatever. Making Ascended account bound was a nice step, I suggest going further and getting rid of soulbound altogether because it is simply to restricting and leaves players with a bunch of useless gear on a toon/in bank that they could put on another toon, just because they changed builds and stats.

its in place to make it so that crafters and people in the economy always have business.

Knighthonor.4061:

X T D.6458:

I would like to suggest getting rid of soulbinding, and replacing anything like it as account bound will make gear useable by other characters and will help players save a lot on gold and mats when deciding to change builds or whatever. Making Ascended account bound was a nice step, I suggest going further and getting rid of soulbound altogether because it is simply to restricting and leaves players with a bunch of useless gear on a toon/in bank that they could put on another toon, just because they changed builds and stats.

its in place to make it so that crafters and people in the economy always have business.

I understand that, and it is valid, but I am also suggesting it stay account bound. and its not like people switch their normal gear everyday. I think this would simply just make it easier to help players shift gear around to characters that can actually use it instead of having it take up space in their banks and mule toons.

Just put me straight to level 80, I’ve already hit it once!

Give me 500 crafting on all characters because I got it on one already!

Heck, why make a whole new character to play a different class?! Let me switch classes on the fly!

I only auto attack this boss to kill him, it is a waste of my time to sit here for 5 minutes doing it, just let me click him once to kill him and get the loot!

/s

Seriously, this game is really casual friendly as it is. On its own, this idea may not sound horrible (I think it is a horrible idea), but combine it with all of the other convenience ideas, and it really dumbs the game down.

I say heck no to this.

your opposed to making gear on your account useable on other toons on your account? And your reason is because you think this game is to casual? Did you give more then half a second of thought before posting what you did?

Not exactly opposed to this idea. But there are some arguments against it. We already have wardrobe and the ability to unlock skins so making items account bound because of expensive skins isn’t necessary. Besides helping new players/ players who are clumsy I’d agree this kind of dumbs down the game alot. At the same time, I’m in favor of this bc have exotic items soul bound to certain characters that I’d like to delete. Although, I remember there was a way to do that before, although it may have been with transformation stones

well to clear up some confusion, this is less about skins, actually didnt even consider them at all, its more about gear stats, like when changing builds and being left with a bunch of gear that you cant use on another toon unless its ascended, and are stuck either having to salvage it, assuming it can be, or letting it collect dust in the bank. For those with multiple toons, regearing is quite expensive, think this would really help a lot of players. It would still be account bound, if they did it with ascended gear, I think it would be very helpful to do it with other tiers

X T D.6458:

your opposed to making gear on your account useable on other toons on your account? And your reason is because you think this game is to casual? Did you give more then half a second of thought before posting what you did?

Thanks for going for the belittling comment. Mature of you…

Yeah I did. And I’m not really understanding that comment of yours.

A lot of these ideas lead to people wanting the ability to do some work on one character, and transfer that work to all other characters on the account. It really blurs the line of why even have multiple characters other than class and pretty dress up.

A good chunk of an mmo is to show off how much work you put into the game. I personally don’t want to play a game that shows no difference between a 200 hour played account vs a 1000 hour played account.

Stuff like this dumbs the game down, no denying that. Gw2 is already reaching that danger zone of too much convenience for me. Add more “features” like this will make me put this game down for good.

Of course this is an opinion. It also depends on how much time you have to play. If you have 5 hours a week to play this, I could see why you want this change. But see? Someone playing this 5 hours a week is a very casual player.

Reply if you actually want to talk about the topic, rather than spewing a trash comment contributing nothing to your own topic.

I have no clue what your talking about, and wont waste anymore time with you, and fyi if you dont want to be talked down to, watch your tone in the first place. If not for your condescending and insulting first post, there would be no need to question your lack of attenion span

Klinch.2964:

A lot of these ideas lead to people wanting the ability to do some work on one character, and transfer that work to all other characters on the account. It really blurs the line of why even have multiple characters other than class and pretty dress up.

A good chunk of an mmo is to show off how much work you put into the game. I personally don’t want to play a game that shows no difference between a 200 hour played account vs a 1000 hour played account.

Stuff like this dumbs the game down, no denying that. Gw2 is already reaching that danger zone of too much convenience for me. Add more “features” like this will make me put this game down for good.

Someone playing this 5 hours a week is a very casual player.

To me, the point of a game is to play the game and tacked on stuff that makes playing the game inconvenient is irritating. And I think there are more 5 hr/week players than you think in the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the majority.

I’m genuinely curious – what is it about the game adding in extra work that makes it more attractive to you?

exactly, I cant understand why anyone would oppose making anything more convenient for them

Gilosean.3805:

Klinch.2964:

A lot of these ideas lead to people wanting the ability to do some work on one character, and transfer that work to all other characters on the account. It really blurs the line of why even have multiple characters other than class and pretty dress up.

A good chunk of an mmo is to show off how much work you put into the game. I personally don’t want to play a game that shows no difference between a 200 hour played account vs a 1000 hour played account.

Stuff like this dumbs the game down, no denying that. Gw2 is already reaching that danger zone of too much convenience for me. Add more “features” like this will make me put this game down for good.

Someone playing this 5 hours a week is a very casual player.

To me, the point of a game is to play the game and tacked on stuff that makes playing the game inconvenient is irritating. And I think there are more 5 hr/week players than you think in the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the majority.

I’m genuinely curious – what is it about the game adding in extra work that makes it more attractive to you?

I have this persisting suspicion, acquired over many years, that its most often people that can’t find the engagement and challenge they crave IRL that wind up the most doggedly pursuant of it in these games. I’ve known a few that were unemployed/underemployed, basically either depressed or bored to tears with their lives and wanting nothing so much as to feel that rush of validation and that glow of success.

And god help you if you somehow took that away from them.

well whatever the reason, I would like to ask that people please stay on the topic and stay as civil as possible

X T D.6458:

exactly, I cant understand why anyone would oppose making anything more convenient for them

And I cant understand why anyone would want less to do in the game, Like only having to craft 1 set of items and move it around to other characters

Linken.6345:

X T D.6458:

exactly, I cant understand why anyone would oppose making anything more convenient for them

And I cant understand why anyone would want less to do in the game, Like only having to craft 1 set of items and move it around to other characters

If they see it as a grind, then I’d say it’s understandable.

By the way . . . no. Don’t think Soulbound needs to go, but I do think “on Acquire” might need to be trimmed from several particular items. (Unsafe Wintersday Gifts….)

Linken.6345:

X T D.6458:

exactly, I cant understand why anyone would oppose making anything more convenient for them

And I cant understand why anyone would want less to do in the game, Like only having to craft 1 set of items and move it around to other characters

So let me get this straight, if you had gear on one toon you didnt need anymore because you changed builds and you could use that gear stats on another, you would rather waste gold and mats crafting/buying the same exact gear with the same exact stats for that toon??? Please explain the logic in that, if you like to grind nothing is stopping you, and removing soulbinding wouldnt stop you lol, heck go for it should they ever remove it. But I can bet you anything if they ever remove it you and every one else will see the benefit of being able to use gear YOU ALREADY OWN.

If it hasn’t been said already, Soul binding is a gold/material sink. Ascended/Legendary gear can get away with Account bound b/c they are such huge gold/material sinks in and of themselves.

/thread

Tman.6349:

If it hasn’t been said already, Soul binding is a gold/material sink. Ascended/Legendary gear can get away with Account bound b/c they are such huge gold/material sinks in and of themselves.

/thread

yes was mentioned earlier

I was gonna leave this thread alone until the morning but I feel like a quick (and written hastily reply, may help)…
I actually have to agree that this is not a good idea at all.
Firstly I have 4 level 80 characters each of which is carrying 2 or more full sets of exotic gear around (in addition to ascended main sets), so I understand the cost of gear. Making gear soulbound makes it better for the economy by far, for a few reasons but I’m only going to focus on two for the time being:
1. Gold/Badge of Honor/Dungeon/etc. Sink:
Gold: It might not seem like a ton on the gold sink (which is generally going to be more important than the other’s in the list) however there are people that make exotic gear to sell/purchase and they do pay the TP fee’s. (Armor, Weapons, Runes, Sigils, all of which can be fairly costly depending on what gear set up you’re using).
Badges: This one doesn’t seem like a real issue because most WvW’ers have these in an overabundant supply, however those are the same people that use these badges on a regular basis. If you take the ability to spend these away from the average individual (read: people who level in EotM.) Then they’ll have no purpose at all, fortunately they’re in teh wallet so not a huge problem.
Dungeon Tokens: This one at first falls into the same boat as badges, certain people already have an overabundant supply, however people use dungeon runs to buy exotics for crafting pre-cursors as well as for themselves. Ultimately having no other use for them would let people drive the precursors down drastically (Something Anet has clearly made a priority not to do).
2. Item Inflation (or Item supply): If you make it so that I can craft 3 zerker chest pieces (light, medium, heavy) and that’s it I never need to make another zerker chest piece that means for all of my characters I need to make a total of 18 pieces of armor. (In order to keep it simple I’m going to assume that weapons and trinkets are ignored). That’s a total of 90 globs of ectoplasm (another item Anet is known for protecting in value). At first that sounds like a lot, at first it seems it would be impossible for the average player to do anyways, however after a few days of vacation I can tell you 90 globs of ectoplasm is almost laughable as some kind of long term goal or ‘endgame project’.
Now if 90 globs of ecto are all it takes to fully gear out all my characters now and in the future, the value of ectoplasm would drop. Ultimately I think it’s fair to say the leveling gear isn’t a primary factor in ecto price, ascended gear and legendary crafting probably are but not nearly as much as ecto’s current (and intended) use for the average player (read:crafting).
Ok, globs of ecto seem really important, but if they don’t play into the economy in any major fashion other than Legendary Crafting and Exotic crafting then it wouldn’t entirely be a bad thing for the value to decrease… Except that Exotic Weapon crafting would suddenly drop in price of investment (because a main ingredient dropped in price). Not entirely a bad thing, except why are people crafting exotics (Focus: Weapons)? Because they want to make precursors, and ultimately the price of precursors effects the price of legendaries, and while we all like to pretend legendaries are something that only hardcore players have and that they only effect the players willing and able to spend the gold/sell the weapons. The reality is that from day one of launch Legendaries are tied in to the economy in so many ways more than at first appears.
Examples:
Legendary prices effect: Crafting mats (all crafting mats (T1’s not included in actual crafting, but they’re upgraded T2’s, and so forth. Everything is either included directly or used to create more of a certain item)), Weapon Prices (Exotics and rares specifically, however given the crafting materials and their ability to be salvaged from greens, blues, whites those prices are also effected), Armor prices (3 exotics chest pieces and an axe still have a chance to give you a precursor, same explanation as above for greens,blues, whites), Other rare skins (If a certain skin is easier to obtain than a legendary (any BLTP skin for example) its price directly reflects that, and because of that if the price of Legendaries drop significantly the prices of those skins also decrease) Gold:Gem value (It was a common occurrence for individuals with money to straight up buy gems with cash, gold with gems, legendaries with gold. While this might not be as common an occurrence now that those people have their legendaries it still happens and is still a driving force on the conversion factor. (Similarly, people buy gold for their current exotics and other gear))
TLDR: It needs to stay because it is a gold sink, but it is naive to think of it as just a simple or single gold sink.
(Again hastily written, so I apologize if I missed something I will re-proof read it in the morning)

thank you for giving a detailed and civil counter arguement

I don’t think it’s as terrible an idea as it used to be (“No Trade” + “No Drop” = “Loot You Can Only Destroy”).

I also think GW2 makes it incredibly easy to gear up . . . until we talk Ascended, which is another can of worms. Exotics are pretty much as far as you need to go, and they’re not too difficult to craft or get your hands on via straight-up buying off Black Lion. I mean, unless we’re talking specific skins. In which case, you only need one of those and some transmutation charges.

. . . I also think less “Unique needs to go” and more “it needs to mean something outside the six slots it actually affects”.

I honestly dont think it would have such a terrible effect in all honesty, this is simply using gear thats not used anymore by one toon on another, Im really focused on stats because of build changes, its kind of annoying going out to spend so much gold and mats to craft or buy gear with the same stats you already have on one toon thats unneeded that could be used on another. The thing is its not like people change builds everyday, we already have account bound gear, not just ascended like crafted back items. Idk I really do think it would help a lot of players avoid unneccesary hassle. I mean if you already own the gear, why cant you use it on your account.

Please excuse my grammar, its late

Well, some people have given you fair answers, even if they’re not integral to the game rules themselves. I’ll recap the ones I can think of.

1 – It dilutes the difference between one character and another if you can just shuffle gear around. There’s literally little difference mechanically now, and no drawback at all to having several dozen characters if gear is simply able to be pushed around anywhere.

2 – It leaves a dent in the need to actually acquire any further gear, meaning crafting is even more pointless than it is currently. It also makes it less necessary to do anything besides salvaging/selling gear drops since . . . well . . . “my alt could use that” is no longer a concern since you can just move your current armor.

3 – There is already less need to work on builds, than there is perhaps a need or request for a service to swap Runes/Sigils outside the Gem Store. In all seriousness, that would cure some of the problem experimenting with builds . . . unless you really needed to get three different prefixes in all slots. (I don’t see why, but then I’m not one to go min/maxing for effect . . . I’m more “go general and then adapt strengths as needed to cover weaknesses”.)

I guess it might be one of those the cure is worst then the disease kinda things

X T D.6458:

I guess it might be one of those the cure is worst then the disease kinda things

Well, more like “invasive surgery to fix an unsightly blemish”, in my eyes. Sure, it could work . . . but why leave a scar by doing it? Or make it worse by trying to fix it?

It’s a travesty that a game that allows for different builds offers so little to help in terms of changing gear.

I know nothing stops you from getting different gear stats but you cannot deny that there is significant overhead in doing so. Want to try a full healing power build? Be prepared for it to take up 18 storage slots. Want another berserker set with different runes? Another 18 slots.

The system simply isn’t scalable and is more suitable to “choose one build and stick with it” mentality. It was akin to what the skin system was like before the locker came. Bank spaces were littered with back piece skins and such, it was silly.

X T D.6458:

Tman.6349:

If it hasn’t been said already, Soul binding is a gold/material sink. Ascended/Legendary gear can get away with Account bound b/c they are such huge gold/material sinks in and of themselves.

/thread

yes was mentioned earlier

And it can’t be said often enough. Else we would maybe end that more mats go down
to the prices of leather and T5 wood. As somebody who makes most of his money
with harvesting this can’t be in my interest.

I’m going to guess this has never been implemented because it would affect the economy. Exotics have already been cheapened by ascended gear, and look at the price of gossamer. Personally, I wouldn’t use the feature because I do not like moving things from character to character.

I disagree with this suggestion for the reasons people have already mentioned

You can already switch gear if you put in effort and acquire ascended. I think its good to reward people for their short term effort with extra convenience long term.

Exotics are already quite easy to come by, making them account bound gives people 1 less reason to repeat content and actually play the game.

It would horribly affect the economy, making most drops even more worthless both through devaluing of exotics on the TP and inflation of gold due to 1 less gold sink. (ok it might be small but its there nevertheless)