I'll definitely second your sentiment Wandidar, and will add that I don't see any reason both sentiments can't be realized.
*minor edit for clairity
What I never got about bound weapons is this: I find an good item, I use it and it becomes bound to me, I find a better version and want to pass off the old one to a friend. Nope, can't do it, but I can hand it to Crazy Jim the vendor in town square for 2 silver. Why are vendors able to break soulbinding?!
I think the confusion in nomeclature that I've seen in the thread can be explained. Where Bind on Equip is what Saphreal is referring to, meaning it is tradeable until equipped and Niien is referring to Bind on Pickup which basically means the item is no drop. In EQ terms, we always said No Drop items were basically Bound to your character, which is where I think the confusion lies.
With that said, I'm also with Niien in that I prefer most items to be tradeable and sellable to the NPCs. If you earned your gear, there shouldn't be limits on what you choose to do with it. Also, I prefer to be able to twink my own characters as well. If you put in the time for your main character, I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to twink an alternative if you so choose.
However, if the previous stance was overruled by the Pantheon masses, the compromise that I could see for itemization is not so much Bind on Equip/Pickup, but make items Bindable to Account after equipping. You wouldn't be able to trade to newbies or help twink friends that way, but you still would be able to do something with the gear.
Also, Exmortis, you posted some good thoughts and I understand your arguments, but you could say what's the point for most aspects of a game a year or two after launch regardless how the world is itemized. I do not want to see mudflation either, but to create artificial restrictions to control player behavior I would argue is equally as damagin.
CelevinMoongleam said:
I agree with your arguments Exmortis. As Borumber noted above, Eve's economy is setup correctly. All of its phat loots have a finite lifespan. I also agree that crafting should not be bothered with unless item inflation is directly addressed. Eve accomplished much of the needed destruction by removing some items upon death. I can't see this being a popular approach, but I also can't see Pantheon outliving its predecessors unless items can be lost. I should have seen the truth of this long ago, as it is the obvious application of basic economics to the problem. You have totally flipped my thinking on this matter with your arguments. Double plus good, but a challenge still remains: The daunting task of convincing the developers and the potential consumers to follow the superior path. I'll even venture that it may be the single most important thing determining Eve's venerable longevity. There is little I would prefer over seeing Pantheon follow a similar path, but with a high fantasy setting.
Wow first thanks very much, now if I could learn how to use this power to convince women I'm not a bad dude, maybe I wouldn't be single LOL but that's for another thread.
Now join me and will kill the emperor rule together, bringing an end to this destructive...OH wait sorry that was a movie.
Raidan said:
I think the confusion in nomeclature that I've seen in the thread can be explained. Where Bind on Equip is what Saphreal is referring to, meaning it is tradeable until equipped and Niien is referring to Bind on Pickup which basically means the item is no drop. In EQ terms, we always said No Drop items were basically Bound to your character, which is where I think the confusion lies.
With that said, I'm also with Niien in that I prefer most items to be tradeable and sellable to the NPCs. If you earned your gear, there shouldn't be limits on what you choose to do with it. Also, I prefer to be able to twink my own characters as well. If you put in the time for your main character, I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to twink an alternative if you so choose.
However, if the previous stance was overruled by the Pantheon masses, the compromise that I could see for itemization is not so much Bind on Equip/Pickup, but make items Bindable to Account after equipping. You wouldn't be able to trade to newbies or help twink friends that way, but you still would be able to do something with the gear.
Also, Exmortis, you posted some good thoughts and I understand your arguments, but you could say what's the point for most aspects of a game a year or two after launch regardless how the world is itemized. I do not want to see mudflation either, but to create artificial restrictions to control player behavior I would argue is equally as damagin.
For the record, I hate bind on pickup. Until an item is actually equipped, I think it should be fully tradable, sellable, hoardable, what ever. But once it is a equipped, it must leave the game when the character no longer uses it, however selling to an NPC is fine with me, as long as it cannot be re-purchased.
If its for the good of the game... then I trust the right thing will have to be done even if I don't like it. I do agree that a two time trade system, BoE, or account bound option would be nice, though I understand that items need to leave for economy to flourish.
Thank you all for the passionate posts and help even the stubborn people see the light... lol
Niien said:
If its for the good of the game... then I trust the right thing will have to be done even if I don't like it. I do agree that a two time trade system, BoE, or account bound option would be nice, though I understand that items need to leave for economy to flourish.
Thank you all for the passionate posts and help even the stubborn people see the light... lol
Never forget, having both side of a discussion be a part of the discussion is for the best. Nothing is more stagnating to progress than everyone in the discussion seeing it the same way.
Exmortis said:Niien said:I believe we have a little miscommunication and most likely on my part. Anything I pick up that I can't give to someone else is something I don't like. I understand the need for high end raid items, though even that should have a limit. If we keep the story going along with the levels with expansion packs... those older items will lose value anyways to be replaced by new and better ones at some point in time. Though one item from the original game may still be best in slot for two expansions in where it's finally replaced with another item.
This is also in my opinion a bad idea, trivialization of anything in a game is bad news. Everquest was terrible at this, man they did ths over and over and over than sat around whining that no one played the old content....I wonder? Two brain cells is all it should take to realize as soon as you make a new level 10 zone have better rewards than any other level 10 zone you have instantly trivialized every other level 10 zone.
If there is one thing that too many game devs suck at is itemization, and Silius was the worst, not only did he screw up Vanguard, he realyllmessed with EQ2 with his re-itemizations. Once you set the power levels of items at a certain level or tier, then you stick to it. You can make different items? yes sure can, however never ever ever make higher power items that you have set the itemization for.
In Vanguard we had item levels, so based on an itemization calculation, an item with certain bonuses, stats, effects, damage what ever was assigned a level. a level 10 sword should always follow the same itemization calculation, sure it can have different stats, different bonuses, abilties what ever, but never should a weapon with the same level be more or less powerful, they may be more or less useful to one class or another, but no different in power. Item rarity can effect this, so level 10 common, rare, very rare or epic would of course be different, but still all hold to the same itemization rule.
Trivialization is the bane of MMOs, and it needs to be well guarded against. EverQuest is the model to avoid at all costs. Planes of Power trivialized 75% of the game in one release, they removed the need for every racial city, paludal caverns removed the need for every zone from about level 10 to 40ish in the game with XP rates triple that of every zone in it's level range. Don't get me wrong some great fun zones in PoP, but they came at a tremendous cost to the game.
One more point, please do not think I do not want more level 10 zones after release, just the opposite, another one of my MMO beefs is the lack of continued content at all levels, I love content, add another group of zones/dungeons that will bring me from level 1 to 50 after release, and I will make another character JUST to see it! I had many characters in EQ just to ensure I enjoyed all the content, in Vanguard you could level 6 characters from 1 to the 40s and not once double up on content. I am a true content player, I do not play to level, I play to enjoy the content, levelling is a great bonus reward for that.
ImmerseMe said:
For me this will depend on the existence of level caps on items. If someone can hand my twink... I mean my new character a Blazing Battle Axe at level 1, it will be merely another aspect of the game I must force myself to avoid. Accepting weapons well beyond your level range ruins the experience for me, totally. Nothing drags me out of the world faster than breezing through tough enemies with a grossly overpowered tool. However. If level caps, bound items, or similar are in place, they protect me from that, forcing me to value my own items more, to rely on others more, and to exert more effort toward acquiring improved tools. For me, a game with unbound, uncapped items is like a game with convenient teleported in every city and dungeon.
Like Wendidar, I spent a lot of time giving my old gear to newbies. I would like it even better if those same newbies came back to me to say, "That reinforced leather armor chest-piece that you made for me was lost when Emperor Crushbone killed me. I'd like to commission you to create another for me." Don't you think that having items eventually exit the economy would heavily mitigate the problem you describe? People would want to hold onto their extras to use as replacements down the line. Giving something to a newbie would entail real cost, and would thus be practiced much less often.
I would be in favor of having a risk of item loss on death. Item durability would also be an acceptable solution, but I like it less. The former would add a sting to death that would impact even the elites at maximum level. Also, some of those utra-rare drops need not be quite so rare if items eventually exit the system. What say ye ImmerseMe?
All great ideas.
Everything, except rare Artifact style items... should all have item decay. (Knuckle Dusters, Stave of Shielding, etc..)
So that in 5 months time, My monks Stave of Shielding is nearing it's end... and I will have to buy a new one, or start to look for a new weapon. The rate of decay can be different on all items. As the quality goes up, so does the length of it's decay (lower rate).
That alone will solve nearly any long-standing item inflation, within the world.
After that^ mechanic is put in place, then you can discuss Public item vs Private item... and how to handle each of them.
Private items are ones that are no drop, while Public items are Bind on equip. There can be several variation of these types of armor regulation, from nothing at all, to no drop. I don't see what all the fuss is about here. Things like this are uber easy to solve. Specially that we have had years of EQ as an incubator for a better economy.
Beginner & mid-level gear last about 3 months, then it's sent to crafters for deconstruction, or offered to the gods for continued thanks.
Twinks...& Item hording are Playstyles. Both are insignificant to this discussion, because they only define where an item ends up. (Bank, or toon)
Hieromonk said:
All great ideas.
Everything, except rare Artifact style items... should all have item decay. (Knuckle Dusters, Stave of Shielding, etc..)
So that in 5 months time, My monks Stave of Shielding is nearing it's end... and I will have to buy a new one, or start to look for a new weapon. The rate of decay can be different on all items. As the quality goes up, so does the length of it's decay (lower rate).
That alone will solve nearly any long-standing item inflation, within the world.
After that^ mechanic is put in place, then you can discuss Public item vs Private item... and how to handle each of them.
Private items are ones that are no drop, while Public items are Bind on equip. There can be several variation of these types of armor regulation, from nothing at all, to no drop. I don't see what all the fuss is about here. Things like this are uber easy to solve. Specially that we have had years of EQ as an incubator for a better economy.
Beginner & mid-level gear last about 3 months, then it's sent to crafters for deconstruction, or offered to the gods for continued thanks.
Twinks...& Item hording are Playstyles. Both are insignificant to this discussion, because they only define where an item ends up. (Bank, or toon)
I don't know if a decay system would really work. As we don't know 100% how the drop system will work. There might be people who never get a job and end up naked. I think if there were ways to repair decaying items or increase the life.. then it possibly could work out.
ImmerseMe said:
For me this will depend on the existence of level caps on items. If someone can hand my twink... I mean my new character a Blazing Battle Axe at level 1, it will be merely another aspect of the game I must force myself to avoid. Accepting weapons well beyond your level range ruins the experience for me, totally. Nothing drags me out of the world faster than breezing through tough enemies with a grossly overpowered tool. However. If level caps, bound items, or similar are in place, they protect me from that, forcing me to value my own items more, to rely on others more, and to exert more effort toward acquiring improved tools. For me, a game with unbound, uncapped items is like a game with convenient teleported in every city and dungeon.
Could not agree more!
i have a kind of compromise in mind. voluntary item binding. give the item some kind of extra stat or effect if you bind it at the altar of the gods.
if you leave it unbound it can be given to others but you dont get the added benefits of bound gear. in this situation anything i am going to wear will get bound because i like more stats.
if the gear is bound, then you can only sacrifice it at the altar of the gods, or for crafting mats. Although since the gods know that the item was bound you only get 1/2 of the benefit of the unbound item.
also to the point of item price deflation, if the gear is deflating in price and i see it for sale for 5g when it used to sell for over 100g i am going to sacrifice it for a week long temperance buff in a heartbeat. also i would most likely buy 50 of em (or however many i can get) to keep myself buffed later as well. then when the price goes back up because none are for sale, i will resell one. you guys are missing a TON of what makes an economy work in the oversimplified arguments in favor of Bound gear.
Borumber said:
I never did like bind on equip. I don't remember it being any part of my early eq1 experience until it was forced on me much later. The economy is a tricky thing to manage. The only game I have ever seen do this is eve online. You could literally pay for your subscription if you knew how to play the game.
I am not a fan of bind on pickup, but I have experienced "bound to account" and if I can pass that item on to an alt, or like what was suggested ...sacrifice it to the "god" of my choice for favour with that god...its another way of "getting it out of the game world". Those ways are less painful than having to just delete it. Or sell it for a couple copper at the vendor lol. (I remember that too...kind of a waste.)
Gawd said:
i have a kind of compromise in mind. voluntary item binding. give the item some kind of extra stat or effect if you bind it at the altar of the gods.
if you leave it unbound it can be given to others but you dont get the added benefits of bound gear. in this situation anything i am going to wear will get bound because i like more stats.
if the gear is bound, then you can only sacrifice it at the altar of the gods, or for crafting mats. Although since the gods know that the item was bound you only get 1/2 of the benefit of the unbound item.
also to the point of item price deflation, if the gear is deflating in price and i see it for sale for 5g when it used to sell for over 100g i am going to sacrifice it for a week long temperance buff in a heartbeat. also i would most likely buy 50 of em (or however many i can get) to keep myself buffed later as well. then when the price goes back up because none are for sale, i will resell one. you guys are missing a TON of what makes an economy work in the oversimplified arguments in favor of Bound gear.
This... well spoken.
ImmerseMe said:
For me this will depend on the existence of level caps on items. If someone can hand my twink... I mean my new character a Blazing Battle Axe at level 1, it will be merely another aspect of the game I must force myself to avoid. Accepting weapons well beyond your level range ruins the experience for me, totally. Nothing drags me out of the world faster than breezing through tough enemies with a grossly overpowered tool. However. If level caps, bound items, or similar are in place, they protect me from that, forcing me to value my own items more, to rely on others more, and to exert more effort toward acquiring improved tools. For me, a game with unbound, uncapped items is like a game with convenient teleported in every city and dungeon.
there has been talk about this kind of thing, and from what brad has stated previously this is what conclusions i can draw as to what the devs are leaning twards.
Item Scaling- simlilar to recommended levels for EQ i can give you a level 100bp but if you are at level 1 you will only get 1% of the stats and ac from it, while it may be marginally better than the items you can get until you reach that level it wil not be overpoweringly so. (give or take a stat point here or there)
tiering - those higher level downsized items may not always be the best in slot for you character. if you have for instance a tier 2 high level item, while it may be better than the tier 2 low level items because it will grow with you, it will not be better than a tier 3 low level item which can only be obtained thru quests.
Bound gear - it has been stated that some things just do not make sense to be able to trade or sell, like those high end raid drops or quest gear. most likely there will be stuff that is still bound or nodrop whatever the devs want to call it. but before this is set in stone it will have to be tested out in alpha/beta.
CelevinMoongleam said:
ImmerseMe said:
For me this will depend on the existence of level caps on items. If someone can hand my twink... I mean my new character a Blazing Battle Axe at level 1, it will be merely another aspect of the game I must force myself to avoid. Accepting weapons well beyond your level range ruins the experience for me, totally. Nothing drags me out of the world faster than breezing through tough enemies with a grossly overpowered tool. However. If level caps, bound items, or similar are in place, they protect me from that, forcing me to value my own items more, to rely on others more, and to exert more effort toward acquiring improved tools. For me, a game with unbound, uncapped items is like a game with convenient teleported in every city and dungeon.Like Wendidar, I spent a lot of time giving my old gear to newbies. I would like it even better if those same newbies came back to me to say, "That reinforced leather armor chest-piece that you made for me was lost when Emperor Crushbone killed me. I'd like to commission you to create another for me." Don't you think that having items eventually exit the economy would heavily mitigate the problem you describe? People would want to hold onto their extras to use as replacements down the line. Giving something to a newbie would entail real cost, and would thus be practiced much less often.
I would be in favor of having a risk of item loss on death. Item durability would also be an acceptable solution, but I like it less. The former would add a sting to death that would impact even the elites at maximum level. Also, some of those utra-rare drops need not be quite so rare if items eventually exit the system. What say ye ImmerseMe?
Amg, fullscreen view ftw.
What you describe in your example of a newbie losing a piece of armor to a difficult boss is exactly what I am looking for; item attrition. It doesn't matter how it occurs; you can remove an item from the gameworld by binding it to characters, by making it break, or by losing it to tough as nails content. You could even make an item useless to a newbie (relative to a level appropriate weapon), i.e. level capping, and this would remove the added benefit that is at the core of this issue.
Bottom line, as long as I have level appropriate tools, I'm happy.
In fact, your example is very reminiscent of EVE Online, as others have mentioned. I have personally lost almost six hours worth of "farming" in that game, in the form of ships and equipment. Few things add quite so much value to your remaining possessions...
So yes, any form of item attrition is a big deal to me, and would serve to reduce the risk of spoiling my gameplay.
On your second point, I agree that handing an item to a newbie is a form of item attrition. However, I'd either need it to be done in a way that doesn't spoil my gameplay, level caps, etc, or I'd have to avoid it manually. The latter option is very viable; it's merely that in my current MMO the flood of high level items is enormous, so one is constantly invited to partake of the feast.
The other argument here, that people like giving and accepting gear, especially if one has previously experienced the content and wishes to speed it up, is out of my experience, I'm afraid. The moment I don't want to take my time to experience something, even again, is the moment the game begins to die. This is the primary reason I support horizontal content additions with expansions.
There are exceptions to this. Other than your example of a reduced rate of twinking, consider rather a reduced degree of twinking. If a character has twelve equipment slots it won't mean so much if one of those slots is grossly overpowered. I think if we take your example of rare and meaningful twinking, and add on top minimal degrees of twinking, I think I would be perfectly happy.
I had forgotten about breaking down gear for crafting components as a means of removing items from the economy. Now that we know crafting will be included, such a means of item attrition is an option. In trying to wrap my mine around all these issues, I feel compelled to admit that engineering a system to roughly balance items in with items out (over time) will be no trivial task. Properly incentivizing the removal of items from the game will be vital to the long term health of the item economy. Once testing opens up, I shall give my best effort to scrutinize these issues and provide the feedback that will be needed to fine tune the balancing of these mechanics.
We must master the item-economy-beast. In listening to the ideas put forth by the development team, I am convinced that they know what they are doing. Their ideas have been thoroughly polished by lifetimes of experience and hard thinking. Now that crafting is in at launch, I see all the ingredients of a recipe to success. I hope pantheon will have a decade long lifespan. A properly balanced item-economy must-needs be an essential part of that recipe. I intend to do all in my power to facilitate that, and I suspect that many (if not all) of you share my sentiment.
I have been continually surprised by the quality ideas put forth on this forum. While many of those ideas still need testing to be proven, I look forward to the experiments. All of a sudden I have found myself in a community of truly dedicated gamers. I see idea people all around me. People who will argue all sides of the argument, and then almost unanimously get behind the best ideas that rise to the top. If VRI is able to prove this community driven model; I foresee a very positive, widespread impact on the greater gaming community as a whole. Perhaps I am just riding on stolen glory, but this forum and this game have surprisingly come to fill a very real first-world existentialist need in my life. Such is the power of hope. Heres to a long and prosperous future for VRI.
I would like most items to be non bound.
However, I want much of the raid gear (and to some extent really hard to get group encounter drops) to be bind on pickup for the simple reason that I want the raid gear to be hard to come by and have unique looks so people can tell from the gear where someone got it from and be sure that the person actually was present at the time.
Also, epic/longish quest rewards should also be bound on pickup (at least the items that comes from rare mobs or rare "spawns spots etc". Just to avoid people monopolizing stuff for profit.
I can't remember which game had it but an item was tradeable within the raid for a hour or so and after that it became bound. I like that feature to prevent accidental looting of bound on pickup items.
Hieromonk said:
So that in 5 months time, My monks Stave of Shielding is nearing it's end... and I will have to buy a new one, or start to look for a new weapon. The rate of decay can be different on all items. As the quality goes up, so does the length of it's decay (lower rate).
That alone will solve nearly any long-standing item inflation, within the world.
I disagree with item decay at different levels based off uniqueness/epic-ness. After the first expansion, the whole item decay system would be trivialized. I'll use EQ as an example. If my Bloodfire from EQ launch took 5-6 months, then my Blade of Black Dragon Eye fom Kunark took 9 months, then my Sceptre of Destruction from Velious decays in 12 months, the item decay becomes just another feature.
If you were going to have item decay, and have it as a system that truly removes items, you would have to have all items decaying at 2-3 months tops (probably even less than that unless you truly emphasize money sinks into repairs). Any other way it is simply an annoyance, which I personally would prefer not to implement.
*Edit - Also, if items were not bind on equip and you sold some/gave some of your items to a newbie assuming there was 2 1/2 months left of durability, they could burn through low level content much quicker than the 2 1/2 months. It will ultimately remove the item, sure, but not at the rate that it can be replaced by more unless the item is extremely rare and/or the item decay is extremely quick for each item <2 months.
*Edit2 - Also, what would classify the 5 months? Would it poof based off only swings while in game? If so, most items would last much longer (or shorter) than 5 months as 5 months to one player would not be the same to another.
Khuul99 said:
I would like most items to be non bound.
However, I want much of the raid gear (and to some extent really hard to get group encounter drops) to be bind on pickup
Please do not take offense to this, but man this statement burns me sideways. As a crafter I put forth how important BoE is, and raiders all scream bloody murder its wrong, but then in the same sentence scream for BoP on every raid item. (not entirely directed at you mate, this has been an issue since EQ)
Sorry plain an simply No. If we are going to have a tradable all item world, then it must include raid gear and drops. Why is it sanctioned only for raids to enjoy a clear and unbreakable hold on a certain tier of gear while screaming for freedom on ever other tier? That's simply hypocrisy at its worse.
So if unbound fully tradable gear is the game design, it must be for all gear. If we are going to simply mud-deflate our game eceonomy to the lowest NPC denominator, then I want to be able to save up and buy that raid gear.