What is the point of "Bind on Equip" and "Bind on Pickup"?

This is a legitimate question. I never understood why this is a thing in games.

Bind on Equip just makes players unable to trade down an item they no longer use. Why? So the market dosen't have a lot of low level items? Why is that a reason? Who does it help? Low level players will be able to find better gear on the market and progress faster while kicking a small amount of gold to the higher levels. Why is this bad?

Bind on Pickup is even worse. This is like i am playing a single player game. "Oh i got this fantastic item for a fighter, but I am an archer so i guess I need to salvage it, yeeey" Who does this help? It just annoys everyone involved.

The only (and I do mean only) reason an item should be bound to a character is if the item is a main quest reward that all players get. There is no need to have them take space in the market place when everyone will get them for free from a main quest.

Any other item should be free to trade even after using it. Can anyone tell me some reasons why they like Bind systems? I am legitimately curious

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arsnn

Well simply to force everyone to go through the same vertical progression path, in games that are mostly linear.
Their quest hubs and kill 200 boars content are simply indispensable experiences you can not miss as a player.

Most MMO economies run into the issue of inflation really fast and binding items to players is a way to prevent them from getting into circulation in the first place.

Tragnar

Those two systems serve the purpose to keep the economy and power progression somewhat separate, because a lot of the games are designed in such a way to keep them separate

If you remove all binding from items then you basically have a pure pay2win game - even if it is even with ingame currency - without binding items you don't have a system that somewhat gives requirements on players to have gear correlating to their achievements

Just grind long enough low lvl materials to get enough currency to buy the best weapon from auction house

Like sure you can make such economy work with durability systems, but that hasn't ever been done successfully afaik

btw - without binding items the only way to play "successfully" the game is to be auction house trader and just gather wealth

Schmuky

arsnn wrote: »

Well simply to force everyone to go through the same vertical progression path, in games that are mostly linear.
Their quest hubs and kill 200 boars content are simply indispensable experiences you can not miss as a player.

Most MMO economies run into the issue of inflation really fast and binding items to players is a way to prevent them from getting into circulation in the first place.

Tragnar wrote: »

Those two systems serve the purpose to keep the economy and power progression somewhat separate, because a lot of the games are designed in such a way to keep them separate

If you remove all binding from items then you basically have a pure pay2win game - even if it is even with ingame currency - without binding items you don't have a system that somewhat gives requirements on players to have gear correlating to their achievements

Just grind long enough low lvl materials to get enough currency to buy the best weapon from auction house

Like sure you can make such economy work with durability systems, but that hasn't ever been done successfully afaik

Why is farming low level materials a bad way to progress? The economy is one of the pillars of an MMO. If someone spend the time to ensure that the market has an abundance of materials, they should be rewarded.

Not only that, but let's not forget that crafted items usually aren't Bind on Pickup, which means they can be sold, and they can be on par with the best in slot items. So your argument is void, because you can already use in game money to buy the best gear

Schmuky

Tragnar wrote: »

btw - without binding items the only way to play "successfully" the game is to be auction house trader and just gather wealth

False, you can still run dungeons and get gear from them, but now you are happy no matter what gear you get.

"Oh i dropped an epic bow, but I am a mage. No matter, i can sell this bow for some nice cash and use that cash to buy what I need"

If all players played like you say, there would be no amazing gear in the shop, bc no one is getting them

arsnn

Hold on though, Inflation is when money is less valuable. But having more low level items in circulation would not cause inflation, because the price of those items will drop, as there are more of them.

And an easy fix is to make salvaging them give some raw materials back. Meaning that crafters might buy them in bulk to salvage and make better gear out of the raw materials.

Inflation can happen in 2 ways, either by inflating the money supply or by depressing the demand.

Well it´s more of a long term effect that happens if 1 asset class drops a lot, the other asset class will have to absorb the increased money in circulation.

More items in circulation, bc everything can be traded -> demand drops eventually to abysmal level as in most mmos -> resell value of items drop in the market -> new players can easilly buy items and will soon have a lot of money left to hike up prices of the few items that are in demand.

In bad mmo economies you essentially never want players to be able to access most items easily, because that means they can skip a lot of effort/playtime and soon they can funnel their economic prowess into the few end game items that are still of value.
Well until.... those items hit a point of no demand as well and you end up in hyperinflation of everything.

You can prolongate this process if you force players to get their own items and not reach full equip in 1 day of playing the game.

Edit:
This is also why item sinks (like items with durability) are always a topic when talking about mmo economies and prevention of inflation.
They artificially hike up the demand for items permanently.

Schmuky

Ok, but rather then put in this weird Bind system, let's think of something else.

Let's take a lvl 10 sword as an example. Let's make it great, so you can use that level 10 sword until you are lvl 15. This sword isn't the basic craft or drop, it needs some rare materials, let's say 4 rare ingots.

Now, if lvl 16 players can put this sword in the market, the following things happen:

-level 10 players can buy this sword and have a useful item for 5 levels
-crafters will not use the rare materials and spam this sword over and over
-lvl 16 players get a bit of money back, maybe 70% of what they payed on it when they bought it.

So we have a small money sink of 30% of the cost, and with each cycle, the price of the sword drops, as none are taken out (so far) from the economy and there will still be crafters that make them.

Now let's add a salvage system. Salvaging this sword will give back 2 rare ingots. If those ingots can then be used to make a lvl 20 sword, it might be worth it for the crafters to buy level 10 one just to salvage, making an item sink as well.

However, the level 20 sword takes 18 ingots, so the miners out there aren't out of a job.

Use this logic for every level of item.

If an item, no matter the level, has uses beyond just its combat combat capabilities, with the salvage, suddenly it becomes important to everyone.

I want to emphases that an MMO like Ashes that has, for all intents and purposes, limitless raw materials, needs both a money sink and an item sink. Otherwise inflation will take over in a crazy way.

Money sink are pretty easy. Housing, freeholds, taxes, etc etc etc. That one, is easy.

Item sinks are a bit difficult. A durability system is good in theory (items degrade over time) but bad in practice, as most of the time you will repair an item, not let it be destroyed, which actually makes durability a money sink (either it being a gold payment to repair, or needing to buy items to repair)

So, the example with the ingots give a reason to destroy items. A proper one. A satisfying one. Not just "i outleveled the item, cannot use it anymore and don't have storage for it".

So, that's what we need to come up with. What reason would be good enough for us as player to intentionally destroy our items rather than sell them?

On this we can come up with crazy stuff. Just from the top of my mind, in order to craft a epic piece of gear you need the "essence" of 5 rare pieces of gear that you get from salvaging. Whatever, something like this.

So, if there is a reason to destroy rather than sell or, even better, have it be a choice ("Do i salvage this for whatever i get it or is better to sell for some coin?"), there is no need for any Bind on Equip or Pickup mechanic.

I am very set on this btw, i really, really, really hate the binding mechanic. So I want to see if we can come up with better solutions that the devs might consider.

Feel free to put your ideas as well here

Percimes

For the bind on equip it's mostly so that the items can be traded but keep their relative rarity overtime. Maybe common items should not require this, but if you want anything to keep a certain prestige or desirability overtime, especially if it's a drop item, limiting it to one user is a simple solution.

For bind on pick up it's a way to make sure the character was there, did the deed or participate in it. Rarer items, certain quest items, that sort of things. It prevent people to easily buy their way to the reward.

They're just design choices and there are other options. I remember the original EverQuest had a quest in which you received XPs each time you gave a Crushbone Belts to an NPC. The belts could be traded and many players either bought them or sold them. Easy XPs if you had the money. Easy money when you were a low level character. But if we want crafting professions to have long time value, gear have to exit the economy at some point.

For durability to be an effective item sink, the item need to lose durability every time it is repaired. Effectively putting a finite number of time it can be repaired. A very skilled crafter doing the repair, new materials and such could minimize this in part, but never completely. Once depleted, the item become a simple wall hanger or house decoration item.

Atama

Star Wars Galaxies is an inspiration for the Ashes devs. That game had a 99% crafting-based economy; pretty much the only thing you looted were crafting materials and credits (money in the Star Wars universe). It was extremely rare to loot real gear or even earn it as a reward for a mission. Gear was made by players and nothing was bound. If you want a new gun, or piece of armor, you make it or find a guy who is selling it.

I don't believe they are going that far but hopefully they embrace the "everything can be sold" concept. I'd also like it if it was possible to break any item into components for crafting, which would take things out of circulation... That low level sword might be trash to you but it can be dismantled into some metal scrap that you can include as reinforcement for a breastplate.

BaSkA_9x2

In my opinion, there are some reasons to have BoE and BoP, but it doesn't mean I like them:

Hinder RMT, botting, account hacking and other similar individuals
Force players to go through the same content countless times, i.e., play the game more and, sometimes, pay for a subscription
Make players feel (more) rewarded when they finally drop something, since they can't buy it
Encourage crafting (crafted items can be BoE)
Encourage some social interactions (running dungeons for example) while destroying others (trading for example)

I am not a fan of any sort of equipment binding, I actually hate it, but sadly I learned to accept it. My favorite MMORPGs did not have any sort of equipment binding, OSRS comes to mind. I enjoy being free in MMOs, including no equipment binding, and even though I understand there are drawbacks, it's still worth it IMO.

bloodprophet

Fortunately for us Steven and Intrepid agree most gear should not be bound. While I see a lot of the theme park MMO's that do it mainly to force people to ride the rides as a way to get gear I think it is short sighted and leads to community problems.

While it was a while ago is a very good answer from them. I am hoping they stay true to the course they originally set.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Gear_binding

There may be some gear binding (BoE or BoP) but it will be an exception rather than the rule, as this doesn't facilitate the objectives for the economy.[1]

George_Black

Very few cases world wide will be bop or boe in this game. Not even worth talking about it.

Taleof2Cities

BaSkA13 wrote: »

In my opinion, there are some reasons to have BoE and BoP, but it doesn't mean I like them:
Hinder RMT, botting, account hacking and other similar individuals

Force players to go through the same content countless times, i.e., play the game more and, sometimes, pay for a subscription

Make players feel (more) rewarded when they finally drop something, since they can't buy it

Encourage crafting (crafted items can be BoE)

Encourage some social interactions (running dungeons for example) while destroying others (trading for example)

^This.^

BoP creates some exclusivity in running different types of content within an MMORPG.

Some players like dungeons, other players like end game raiding ... still other players enjoy PvP.

Which does have side effects as others in the thread have pointed out already:

- Forced into a playstyle you don't enjoy just to get gear,
- Mindlessly running content until the gear set is complete,
- No option for resale if you don't need the gear and another player does.

3Snap

I actually think BoP and BoA was introduced to combat account thieves and then eventually turned into gated progression. I still think there's a place for it, if you don't want to do the content that's your choice.

truelyyy

The real reason is because game devs could not deal with gold sellers, so people that bought gold would be able to trade their way up in power so to combat this they made equipment bind on equip/pickup. It's a poor solution imo.

Boanergese

Tragnar wrote: »

Those two systems serve the purpose to keep the economy and power progression somewhat separate, because a lot of the games are designed in such a way to keep them separate

If you remove all binding from items then you basically have a pure pay2win game - even if it is even with ingame currency - without binding items you don't have a system that somewhat gives requirements on players to have gear correlating to their achievements

Just grind long enough low lvl materials to get enough currency to buy the best weapon from auction house

Like sure you can make such economy work with durability systems, but that hasn't ever been done successfully afaik

btw - without binding items the only way to play "successfully" the game is to be auction house trader and just gather wealth

Exactly. Without doing something to get the gear people could just grind money and then buy stuff or they could buy in game money with real money which hurts the game economy. In Eve Online you had ships that got destroyed and so players had to make new ships and the economy balanced itself fine. In this game gear is not destroyed so eventually you can save up your money and buy stuff. I don't like bind on pickup, but I see why they do it. From a role play perspective you wouldn't trade gear because your armor would be you own armor designed to fit you and you would use it as long as it was usable. Perhaps if you found a better weapon you might trade it out.

I would like a player crafted system in this game where you can make high end items with time that are almost as good as raid items. I think Steve mentioned that one person might mine the best ore, a second person might craft the armor, and a third person might enchant it. I think he said that no one person would be able to do everything, and you would need the community to craft items. Remember this is still an alpha. Let's wait till we get to Beta 2 and see how the game progresses. Let's also try to give constructive feedback and ideas to the developers to make this the most robust MMO ever.

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