Hey Sev: Let's discuss bound loot

[Grace_ana]

From the Producer's Letter thread:



~ Bound to character space is serialized with the character when the character is sent off to the database, and as we look into lag it is clear that's expensive. We don't have plans, for performance reasons, of increasing that. And yes, we would love it if that wasn't the case because we would *all* like more BtC space. It isn't worth more lag though.

Most people have commented that there is too much bound loot, especially loot that is bound for no apparent reason. Someone (might have been Sev) stated at one point that the loot binding over time has basically been a "whatever that particular developer felt like doing" rule.

While I'm all for artistic license, this policy has resulted in inventory nightmares for players in a 10 year old game and, apparently, lag. I looked at the wiki, and there were over 2200 entries for BTC loot. That's insane. Extrapolate that to every player with every toon they have, and it's got to be a drain on the system. Add to that players often leave more stuff in their TR cache BECAUSE it is BTC and they have no other choice, and the fact that the TR cache also causes lag, and this is a situation that is ready for an overhaul.

I would suggest that some basic loot binding rules be established, all loot is changed over to conform with it, and future loot follows those rules. After a lot of thought, I propose the following:

1. Raid gear should be BTC.
2. Iconic gear should be BTC, if only to avoid people rolling up a character just to grab the free loot for another toon (which is an inefficient use of system resources).
3. Favor rewards should be BTC, because they are, well, favor rewards earned by that character.
4. Voice of the Master/Mantle of the Worldshaper/Master's Gift should be BTC, because they are particularly special loot items.
3. Pre-raid gear (Vault of Night, Twilight Forge, etc.) should be BTA. It's not quite a raid, so it shouldn't be quite BTC :)
4. Crafted gear (sora kell, epic S/S/S, etc) should be BTA unless requiring raid ingredients to craft (like non-base green steel, for example).
5. Things you get from turn-ins (tome pages, scarab powder, challenge gear, etc.) should be BTA.
7. Event loot (cove, mabar, etc) should be BTA.
8. Things you can buy in the store should be BTA. It is kinda ridiculous that you can buy stuff with your account with real money, but then you can't pass it to your other toons.
9. Set bonus items should be BTA.
10. Jack Jibber's blade should be BTA, because it's special - not enough to be BTC, but enough that it shouldn't be passed around.
11. Everything else - and I mean EVERYTHING - should be unbound.

Some people will undoubtedly say that this would unbalance the game. I say phooey. There is not a single non-raid item in the game that I can think of that is so overpowered that it would wreck the game if someone could get it. (Honestly, there aren't even raid items that fall in this category, but for argument's sake blah blah blah). All content will still be run just like now. There is so much content and so much gear now that no one will run stuff they hate for very long just to get something. Also, a lot of stuff that was a Big Deal at one point and is bound is now just leveling gear.

So come on, Sev. Save us from inventory purgatory and lag. Do a loot binding pass!

[Grace_ana]

WARNING: SUPER LONG LIST!!!!

To give people an idea of how bad our loot binding situation has gotten, I took the BTC list from the wiki and edited it using the above rules. I removed anything that (according to those rules) should still be BTC, and I noted stuff that should be BTA. The rest is just listed. Below is the ridiculously huge list of stuff that is currently BTC and shouldn't be. Now imagine it wasn't. That's a lot of inventory and lag.

Eternal Wand of Disrupt Undead - bta
Eternal Wand of Nimbus of Light - bta
Starter Breastplate
Starter Weapon
Eternal Wand of Ray of Frost - bta
Heirloom Spelltouched Dart
Aberrant Robe
Adamantine Cloak of the Bear/Dragon/Wolf - bta
Adamantine Knuckles
Adherence - bta
Adherent's Pendant
Admiral's Tricorne - bta
Adoryn's Malice - bta
Nightforge Aegis - bta
Aegis of Flame - bta
Agile Belt
Alabaster of the Twelve - bta
Alarphon's Staff - bta
Allegiance - bta
Alveo
Amara's Belt - bta
Amulet of Inner Focus
Amulet of Natural Armor - btc
Amulet of the Brute
Anathema
Ancient Band
Ancient Gemstone
Ancient Vulkoorim Dagger
Anger's Gift - bta
Anger's Step - bta
Ann Velsing's Belt - bta
Antithesis
Apprentice's Robe
Aquatic Bracers
Arcane Gloves
Arcane Goggles - bta
Arcane Necklace - bta
Arcane Shard
Archaic Device
Archivist's Goggles - bta
Archivist's Necklace - bta
Arcing Sky - bta
Argenti's Armor
Arkat's Cord
Arlyn's Ring
Arlyn's Staff
Nightforge Armbands - bta
Armor of the Amok
Arrondi - bta
Ash Boots - bta
Assassin Initiate's Leathers
Atonement
Nightforge Avenger Blade - bta
Awanahu Sash - bta
Axe Bane
Axe of Adaxus
Axe of the Unseen Blow - bta
Backstabber's Gloves
Banner Cloak - bta
Barbarian's Spirit
Bastion
Bastion of Fealty - bta
Battered Guardian Shield
Battered Helm
Battered Phiarlan Shield
Battleworn Armor
Battleworn Helm
Battleworn Shield
Beacon of Tira - bta
Beholder Optic Nerves - bta
Beignin's Breath - bta
Bejeweled Letter Opener
Belt of the Defenders of Siberys - bta
Belt of the Seven Ideals
Belt of the Sun Soul - bta
Belt of Thoughtful Rememberance
Belt of Tongue - bta
Benign Breath - bta
Bereavement
Berserker Bracers
Bete Noir
Bijio - bta
Black Dragonscale Armor - bta
Blade of Fury
Blade of the High Priestess
Blasting Chime - bta
Blessed Goggles
Blood's Bellows – bta
Bloodknuckle's Loincloth Waistband
Bloodknuckle's Smasher
Bloodplate Armor
Bloodrage Symbiont
Bloody Cleaver/etc - bta
Blue Dragonscale Armor - bta
Bluefire Necklace
Boots of Nimbleness
Boots of the Innocent
Boots of the Mire - bta
Boots of the Woodsman - bta
Bow of the Elements (Air)
Bow of the Elements (Ice)
Bracers of Assistance
Bracers of Deftness
Bracers of the Claw - bta
Bracers of the Hunter
Bracers of the Sun Soul - bta
Bracers of Twisting Shade
Bracers of Wind - bta
Brakhash's Axe
Branch of Vile Curses
Breastplate of the Shining Sun - bta
Breastplate of Vol - bta
Brimstone Verge
Brine Shaman's Staff
Bronkarz's Cloak
Bronze Ingot Arcanum - bta
Brooch of Waterbreathing - btc
Bulwark of the Storm's Fist
Cacophonic Verge - bta
Calamity's Carapace
Calitomes' Sash - bta
Calomel Banded Heavy Repeater - bta
Calomel Weapons - bta
Cape of the Roc
Captain's Chapeau - bta
Carved Bone Shield
Chain of Conviction - bta
Chainmail Coif
Chaos Band
Chaosgarde
Charoush's Inferno
Chieftain's Spear
Chill of Winter - bta
Copper Ingot Arcanum -bta
Cormyrian Green Dragonscale Armor - bta
Cormyrian Red Dragonscale Armor - bta
Coronation - bta
Coronation Shield
Corruption of Nature
Corsair's Bandana - bta
Corsair's Cufflinks - bta
Corsair's Galoshes - bta
Corsair's Skullcap - bta
Crippling Cleaver/etc.
Crystalline Scepter
Crystallized Widow's Eye - bta
Curative Cloak
Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers - bta
Cyran Guard
Dagan's Mallet
Daggertooth's Belt
Dalorent's Seal - bta
Dampened Greatclub of the Scrag
Ioun Stone (unsuppressed) - bta
Death's Door - bta
Death's Locket
Death's Touch – bta when upgraded
Deathnip - bta
Deathwyrm Cloak
Demonic Breastplate - bta
Desecrated Leathers
Destructive Hooked Blade/etc - bta
Devoted Goggles - bta
Devoted Necklace - bta
Devotion
Devout Handwraps
Dhakaani Shield
Diamond of the Twelve - bta
Dink's Leather Wraps
Dirge's Bulwark - bta
Disc of Acid Warding
Disc of Enhancement
Discarded Ring
Disciple's Robe
Docent of Acid
Docent of Blood
Docent of Corpsecraft
Docent of Defense - bta
Docent of Quickening - bta
Docent of Shadow - bta
Docent of the Claw - bta
Docent of the Flames - bta
Draconic Necklace - bta
Dragon Sword of Acid - bta
Dragoncraft Armor - bta
Dragonmarked Necklace - bta
Dragontouched Armor - bta
Dread Admiral's Tricorne - bta
Dream Cloak - bta
Dream Edge
Dream Visor
Drow X of the Weapon Master
Drow Hunter's Armor
Drow Piwafwi
Drow Smoke Goggles
Dueling Schlager
Dusk
Dusk Heart
Dwarven Thrower
Dynastic Falcata
Eerie Belt - bta
Elder's Cap - bta
Elder's Focus - bta
Electric Haze - bta
Elemental Fury
Elemental Greataxe of Fire - bta
Elemental Khopesh of Water - bta
Elemental Longbow of Earth - bta
Elemental Rapier of Air - bta
Elemental Victory
Elfcraft Armor - bta
Elocator's Habiliment – bta when upgraded
Elven Chain
Ember Weapons
Embrace of the Spider Queen
Emerald Claw Amulet - bta
Emerald Claw Pendant - bta
Emerald Claw Talisman - bta
Emerald Guard - bta
Emerald of the Twelve - bta
Engraved Circlet
Engraved Ring
Epic Antique Greataxe - bta
Epic Big Top - bta
Epic Blademark's Docent - bta
Epic Blasting Chime - bta
Epic Boots of the Mire - bta
Epic Bow of the Silver Flame - bta
Epic Bracers of the Claw - bta
Epic Bracers of Wind - bta
Epic Brawn's Spirits - bta
Epic Brimstone Verge - bta
Epic Calomel Weapons - bta
Epic Chimera's Crown - bta
Epic Chimera's Fang - bta
Epic Cloak of Flames - bta
Epic Cruel Nobility - bta
Epic Darkstorm Helm - bta
Epic Deneith Heavy Chain - bta
Epic Doublecross Bow - bta
Epic Elder's Cap - bta
Epic Elder's Focus - bta
Epic Elemental Greataxe of Fire - bta
Epic Elemental Khopesh of Water - bta
Epic Elemental Longbow of Earth - bta
Epic Elemental Rapier of Air - bta
Epic Elemental Victory
Epic Elyd Edge - bta
Epic Envenomed Blade - bta
Epic Flameward - bta
Epic Full Plate of the Ringleader - bta
Epic Fury of the Flame - bta
Epic Garos' Malice - bta
Epic Gloves of the Claw - bta
Epic Golden Guile - bta
Epic Greatclub of the Scrag - bta
Epic Grim's Bracelet - bta
Epic Illusionist's Garb - bta
Epic Jidz-Tet'ka - bta
Epic Kron'zek's Cruelty - bta
Epic Luminous Truth - bta
Epic Mask of Comedy - bta
Epic Mask of Tragedy - bta
Epic Midnight Greetings - bta
Epic Mirage - bta
Epic Mournlode Armor - bta
Epic Necklace of Venom - bta
Epic Noxious Embers - bta
Epic Noxious Fang - bta
Epic Phiarlan Mirror Cloak - bta
Epic Phiarlan Spy Dagger - bta
Epic Raven's Sight - bta
Epic Raven's Talons - bta
Epic Ring of Elemental Essence - bta
Epic Ring of Master Artifice - bta
Epic Ring of the Mire - bta
Epic Ring of the Stalker - bta
Epic Robe of Dissonance - bta
Epic Rock Boots - bta
Epic Roderic's Wand - bta
Epic Sacred Band - bta
Epic Sacred Helm - bta
Epic Shaman's Band - bta
Epic Shaman's Beads - bta
Epic Shatterbow - bta
Epic Shimmering Pendant - bta
Epic Silver Slinger - bta
Epic Siren's Belt - bta
Epic Siren's Charm - bta
Epic Souleater - bta
Epic Spare Hand - bta
Epic Templar's Bulwark - bta
Epic Templar's Docent - bta
Epic Templar's Justice - bta
Epic Templar's Retribution - bta
Epic Tourney Armor - bta
Epic Utility Vest - bta
Epic Winter's Wrath - bta
Essence of the Scout
Eternal Flask of Death Ward - ?
Eternal Flask of Displacement - ?
Eternal Flask of Free Movement - ?
Eternal Flask of Haste - ?
Eternal Flask of Heroism - bta
Eternal Flask of Stoneskin - ?
Eternal Rest
Eternal Wand of Finger of Fire
Eternal Wand of Spark of Light
Ethereal Bracers
Expeditious Boots
Experienced Evil
Eye of the Beholder - bta
Eye of Vol - bta
Fabricator's Gauntlets – bta when upgraded
Face of the Demon
Fanged Gloves - bta
Fanged Wraps
Fanion - bta
Feather Cloak
Fell Rapier of Ice
Fell Shiv
Fellblade (falchion)
Fernian Wraps
Finger Necklace - bta
Fintan's Bite
Fire Touch Heavy Mace - bta
Firebreak
Firestorm Greaves
First Blood
Flametongue
Flawless Black Dragonscale Armor - bta
Flawless Blue Dragonscale Armor - bta
Flawless Shadow Dragonscale Armor - bta
Flawless White Dragonscale Armor - bta
Flint
Forester's Brush Hook
Forgotten Light
Founder's Helm - bta
Fragment of the Silver Flame
Freebooter's Bandana - bta
Frostbite Blade
Frostbrand
Gargoyle Granite Plate
Garzuul's Bane
Gerard's Mail
Ghost-Waking Cloak
Ghostbane Longbow - bta
Giant Stalker's Knife
Giant's Fist
Giant's Roar
Giantcraft Armor - bta
Giantcraft Siberys Compass - bta
Gilvaenor's Necklace - bta
Girdle of Giants' Brawn
Girdle of Lesser Fortitude
Glimpse of the Soul
Gloaming Philter
Glorious Dawn
Gloves of Forgotten Craft
Gloves of Gnoll Hide
Gloves of the Claw - bta
Gloves of the Falcon
Gloves of the Master Illusionist
Gloves of Titan's Grip – bta when upgraded
Goatskin Boots
Goggles of Insight
Goggles of Intuition
Goggles of Shielding
Golden Greaves
Golem Gem - bta
Nightforge Gorget - bta
Nightforge Gouge - bta
Grave Wrappings
Great Axe of the Chained Soldier - bta
Greatbow of the Scrag
Greatclub of the Scrag
Greater Force Rune Arm - bta
Grievous Blade
Grudgebearer's Plate
Grundok's Boots
Guardian Mantle
Guardian of Stormreach Shield - bta
Guardian of the Liturgy
Guardian's Boots
Guardian's Bracers
Guardian's Cloak
Guardian's Gauntlets
Guardian's Girdle
Guardian's Glasses
Guardian's Helmet
Guardian's Locket
Guardian's Ring
Guidance of Shar
Gwylan's Blade
Nightforge Hammer - bta
Hammer of the Leaden Clouds - bta
Hand of the Tombs
Helm of Freewill - bta
Helm of the Black Dragon - bta
Helm of the Blue Dragon - bta
Helm of the Flame
Helm of the White Dragon - bta
Hero's Breastplate
Hero's Leathers
Hero's Plate
Hide of the Goristro
Hobble's Crossbow
Holy Symbol of Lolth
Hruvayah's Medallion
Hunter's Slayer
Hyena Claw Necklace
Ice Rune Arm - bta
Icerazor
Icy Raiment
Implement of the Deep Woods - bta
Infectious Hooked Blade/etc. - bta
Inferno Bracers - bta
Initiate's Docent
Insurrection
Intricate Field Optics
Iron Beads
Iron Cleaver
Iron Cloak of the Bear/Dragon/Wolf - bta
Ironweave Tunic
Ironwood Khopesh
Ivy Wraps
Jade of the Twelve - bta
Jade Ring
Jeweled Cloak
Jinx's Vexation
Jorgundal's Collar
Kaelth's Touch - bta
Kardin's Eye
Katra's Razor Wit - bta
Kilau's Necklace - bta
Knost's Belt - bta
Kobold Admiral's Uniform
Kormor's Belt - bta
Kwan's Band
Lacerator
Lantern Ring
Leathers of the Woodsman - bta
Leaves of the Forest
Lenses of Doom - bta
Lenses of the Woodsman - bta
Lesser Boots of Striding and Springing
Lesser Pendant of Travel - bta
Lhorne's Blade
Libram of Silver Magic
Light and Darkness – bta when upgraded
Lightning Rod
Livewood Core
Locus of Vol
Lorinthor's Belt
Luck Blade
Lumric's Longbow - bta
Mace of Smiting
Mace of the Wraith
Madooroh's Vest
Madstone Skull
Maenya's Iron Fists - bta
Magestar
Magistrate's Scepter
Maiming Cleaver/etc. - bta
Malchor’s Undersun Goggles - bta
Manacles of Ceaseless Toil - bta
Mantle of Stria
Mantle of the Dragonfriend - bta
Manual of Stealthy Pilfering
Martial Outfit
Master Transmuter's Staff - bta
Master's Riposte
Maul of Malice
Maul of Might
Mechanic's Belt - bta
Medium Shard Trinket - bta
Mentau's Goggles
Nightforge Mesh - bta
Min's Handwraps
Mindfury Symbiont
Minos Legens - bta
Minotaur Hair Belt
Mirage
Mithral Cloak of the Bear/Dragon/Wolf - bta
Mithral Full Plate of Speed (Striding version)
Moldy Light Crossbow
Moldy Quarterstaff
Molin's Great Axe
Moonhowl Axe
Morah's Belt - bta
Morgana's Belt - bta
Morleth's Docent - bta
Mournlode Armor - bta
Mournlode Weapon - bta
Muck's Doom
Muckbane
Muffled Veneer - bta
Mummy Wrappings
Mutiny's Tooth
Mysterious Bauble
Mysterious Ring
Mystic Band
Mystic Belt
N
Necklace of Contemplation
Necklace of Mystic Eidolons
Necklace of Venom
Nether Grasps
Nether Orb
Nightforge Darkhelm - bta
Nightforge Darkscale - bta
Nightforge Docent - bta
Nightsinger's Mantle - bta
Nimble Brooch - bta
Nimble Grasp - bta
Nuushmaar's Adamantine Tooth
Nyoko's Necklace - bta
Oathblade - bta
Obsidian of the Twelve - bta
Oladren's Great Crossbow
Onyx of the Twelve - bta
Onyxhorn
Ooze Guard
Orcish Privateer's Plate
Oremi's Necklace - bta
Ornate Goggles
Orphne's Grace - bta
Outsider's Furs
Pale Rod
Pall of Blood
Pathfinder's Boots - bta
Pathfinder's Necklace - bta
Petrifying Hooked Blade/etc. - bta
Phase Hammer
Phiarlan Veil Shield - bta
Phiarlan's Ring
Planar Focus of Erudition
Planar Focus of Prowess
Planar Focus of Subterfuge
Nightforge Plate - bta
Plate Armor of the Deep
Plume of Adherence - bta
Poison-Tipped Crossbow
Power Evidence - bta
Prismatic Cloak, Blue
Prismatic Cloak, Green
Prismatic Cloak, Grey
Prismatic Cloak, Red
Prismatic Cloak, Violet
Prison Break
Prisoner's Manacles
Protective Gloves
Protector's Brooch - bta
Protector's Gloves - bta
Prysuul's Bane
Quiver of Poison
Quivering Quiver
Quorforged Docent of Battle – bta when upgraded
Rahkir's Sash - bta
Rahl's Might – bta when upgraded
Rahl's Wrath
Raiment of the Fervent - bta
Raven's Sight - bta
Raven's Talons - bta
Razorend - bta
Reaver's Ring
Redemption
Regalia of the Phoenix – bta when upgraded
Renard's Elegant Hat
Resonant Guard Suit
Restorative Gloves
Restored Dragoncraft Armor - bta
Restored Elfcraft Armor - bta
Restored Giantcraft Armor - bta
Reward
Rhakmel's Dagger
Righteous Bracers - bta
Ring of Alertness
Ring of Balance - bta
Ring of Baphomet
Ring of Feathers
Ring of Master Artifice - bta
Ring of Rage
Ring of Resonance
Ring of Shadows
Ring of the Djinn
Ring of the High Priest - bta
Ring of the Mire - bta
Ring of the Stalker - bta
Ring of the Stormreaver Prophecy
Ring of Troll's Regeneration
Ring of Unknown Origins
Ring of Venom
Ring of Waterbreathing
Risk
Roadwatch Bow
Robe of Acid
Robe of Fire
Robe of Resistance
Robe of Shadow - bta
Robe of the Magi - bta
Robe of Winter
Rock Boots - bta
Rocksplitter
Rod of Teleport - bta
Roderic's Wand
Roguebane Breastplate
Royal Scimitar
Rugged Belt
Runed Ogre Femur
Runic Gloves
Rusted Shamshir
Rusty Weapons
Sacred Band - bta
Sacred Helm - bta
Sacrificial Dagger
Sage's Cuffs
Sage's Gloves
Sage's Locket
Sage's Mantle
Sage's Ring
Sage's Sash
Sage's Shoes
Sage's Skullcap
Sage's Spectacles
Sage's Vestments
Sapphire of the Twelve - bta
Savage Sword
Scales of Surety - bta
Scarf of Warmth
Scepter of Healing - bta
Scorching Wraps
Scorpion Tail Shortbow
Scoundrel's Cutlass
Scoundrel's Greatsword
Scoundrel's Longsword
Scoundrel's Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Scourge Choker
Scurvy's Wrap
Seal of House Avithoul
Seal of House Dun'Robar
Seal of House Szind
Seraphim - bta
Sever - bta
Shaagh's Helm
Shade's Hood
Shadowmail
Shadowscale Armor - bta
Shadowsight
Shaman's Band - bta
Shaman's Beads - bta
Shamanic Fetish
Shard of the Shadowfell
Shard of Vollun
Shard Trinket of Greater Restoration - bta
Shard Trinket of Mass Hold Person - bta
Shard Trinket of Mass Protection Elements - bta
Shard Trinket of Mnemonic Enhancement - bta
Shard Trinket of Summon Monster VII - bta
Shard Trinket of Sunburst - bta
Shield of Morning
Shield of Reflecting
Shield of the Scorpion
Shimmering Arrowhead
Shining Devastation - bta
Shintao Cord - bta
Shiona's Pendant - bta
Shrieking Star
Sickle of Sypheros
Sign of Xoriat
Signal of the Silver Flame - bta
Signet of Caustic Persuasion - bta
Signet of the Shining Sun - bta
Signet of the Silver Flame - bta
Silken Mail
Silver Flame Amulet - bta
Silver Flame Pendant - bta
Silver Flame Talisman - bta
Silver Ingot Arcanum - bta
Silver Longbow
Singed Belt - bta
Siren's Belt - bta
Siren's Charm - bta
Sirocco
Skartongue's Ladel
Skin of the Mockery
Skirmisher's Belt
Skirmisher's Boots
Skirmisher's Bracers
Skirmisher's Circlet
Skirmisher's Cloak
Skirmisher's Gloves
Skirmisher's Lenses
Skirmisher's Locket
Skirmisher's Ring
Skiver - bta
Skullduggery Kit
Skullsmasher
Sky Pirate's Dagger
Skyvault Shield
Slaver's Hand Crossbow
Small Shard Trinket - bta
Smedgar's Necklace - bta
Sorrel - bta
Spare Hand - bta
Spear Bane
Spectacles of Spirit Sight
Spider-spun Caparison
Spidersilk Robes
Nightforge Spike - bta
Spiked Boots
Spiked Turban
St. Mu'Ray's Fire
Staff of Inner Sight
Staff of the Necromancer
Stalwart Necklace - bta
Star of Day - bta
Starter Weapons
Stave of the Seer
Steady Handed Armbands
Steel's Eternal Flask of Icy Pumpkin Coffee - ?
Nightforge Stiletto - bta
Sting
Stinkpelt's Hide
Stolen Necklace
Stone Heart
Stormreach Marketplace Shield - bta
Stout Oak Walking Stick - bta
Straw Hat
Strinati's Hand Cannon
Sun Blade
Surefooted Boots
Swabby's Kerchief - bta
Swailing Blade
Swift Demise
Sword of the Giant Slave-master
Sword of the Thirty
Symbol of the Shining Sun - bta
T'Korcha Family Scimitar
Talon - bta
Tattered Cowl
Telvi's Sash - bta
Tenebrous Stiletto
Teraza's Perfect Sight - bta
Terror – bta when upgraded
Terrorweb Chitin Breastplate
Thaarak Fang
Thamor's Belt - bta
Tharkuul's Bane
The Admiral of Bling - bta
The Big Top
The Mad Lute
The Morning Star
The Mountain's Fist
The Turmoil Within
Thera's Rapier
Thick Skin - bta
Thornlord
Thought Spike
Threnalian War Blade - bta
Threnalian War Dagger - bta
Thunder and Lightning
Thunder-Forged Handwraps
Thunderstorm Crescent
Thuranni Stalker's Mail
Tiefling Assassin's Blade
Tinder
Tokala's Belt - bta
Toothpick
Topaz of the Twelve - bta
Torin's Choker - bta
Tortured Livewood Bow
Totemic Lavalier - bta
Touch of the Silver Flame - bta
Tourney Armor
Tradusor - bta
Trapsmith's Crossbow
Treads of Falling Shadow
Trinket - bta
Troubleshooter's Goggles - bta
Troubleshooter's Necklace - bta
Tunnelworm Champion's Belt
Twig of the Giant Mage
Twinblade - bta
Tyrzza's Bane
Undying Gaze - bta
Unkor's Cleaver
Urthullz Petrified Stalk - bta
Valen's Mace
Vambraces of Inner Light
Vampiric Cleaver/etc. - bta
Vengeful Cleaver/etc. - bta
Verik's Necklace - bta
Vestments of Light
Vestments of the Sun Soul - bta
Vorne's Belt - bta
Vulkoorim Dervish Robe
Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers
Vulkoorim Pendant
Wall of Wood
Wand of a Wonder
Wand of Blasting
War Wizard's Amulet - bta
War Wizard's Bracers - bta
War Wizard's Robes - bta
Wayfinder's Armor
Weathered Targe
Weeping Handwraps
Whirlwind
Whisperchain
White Dragonscale Armor - bta
Widow Weave Cloak - bta
Widowblight - bta
Windlasher
Winter Boots
Witching Hour
Wizard's Ward
Wolf Whistle
Wraith's Skin
Wraps of Endless Light - bta
Xachosian Eardweller
Xoriat Forged Blade
Xuum
Yaaryar's Magnificent Band
Yogg-Ratha Plate
Zaramang's Longbow
Zephyr

[Enoach]

Not a whole lot I disagree with here as far as binding goes.

Bind to character should be for special items
Bind to account should be for nearly special items - crafting
The rest being unbound

[Kebtid]

All the old epic items that have a clickie based mechanic or (uxx use of xxx) can be turned into essences so many items you listed there can be actually put into green bag to save space.
Good thing would be to allow all old epic items the same

[Grace_ana]

All the old epic items that have a clickie based mechanic or (uxx use of xxx) can be turned into essences so many items you listed there can be actually put into green bag to save space.
Good thing would be to allow all old epic items the same

Which can then be duped, so we aren't going to rely on that route here :)

[Kebtid]

Which can then be duped, so we aren't going to rely on that route here :)

Il be honest, i dont need 2 duped epic pharlian mirror cloaks since they are exclusive and i cannot use 2 in the invetory.
Only misleading thing about duping essenced items was another bug that allowed mailing and trading of green bags.
If they fix that, i dont see any wrong in the whole items make into essence mechanic.
If sev alrdy said that more space produces more lag, then there should be a way to turn existing items into "something" that can be put into current bagspace.
I dont know of anything better then essence system.

Also who d hell cares about duping that doesnt exist now, it alrdy destroyed the games old epic items beyond salvage, at let us who worked hard and are emotionally attached to our old epic items put them into storage.
It pains me to see all my old garbage sands items and see no practical use for them.
I like to have them, so i cant really trash them but being able to essence them would save me alot of misery that isnt "delete my old epic bloodstone that i farmed for a year" because its irrelevant even if i could equip it at lv 10.

[cdbd3rd]

From the Producer's Letter thread:



Most people have commented that there is too much bound loot, especially loot that is bound for no apparent reason. Someone (might have been Sev) stated at one point that the loot binding over time has basically been a "whatever that particular developer felt like doing" rule....

Given the intel we have available (Sev's post and current loot lists), that sounds like a pretty reasonable idea.

Seems win/win to me - both for anti-lag and helping those who have crowded inventories.


(I'm out out of greenis juice for today, will try to stop back by and tap that post later.)

[Renvar]

I would agree, especially for the BtCoE gear.

All the MoTU forward stuff that is BTCoE, could definitely be BTAoE (or unbound). Since it is really, functionally the same. If I get a Seal of House DunRobar, It is unbound until I equip it, so I can give it to anyone. Once I equip it, it is BtC. But, I can use the Shard AH to move it to another toon of mine. So, since I can move it to another character anyways, why not just make it BtA? You aren't preventing me from moving the item (And thus impacting grind). you are just charging me 5 Shards to do so and making it inconvenient. At the same time, all those BtC items are, apparently, a problem for something that causes lag.

The BtCoE doesn't lock the item into a single character. There is nothing preventing them from moving, at any time, to another character on this account or another account via the shard AH. All the BtCoE thing does, is create a shard-sink to cause shards to be spent when moving them after they have been equipped. Is that really worth the cost they have on the game?

Anything bought with Remnants should be BTA. Anything acquired in a 3rd run or quest chain end reward list or saga reward list should be BTA, also, imo.

[Hoglum]

1. Raid gear should be BTC.


No thanks. I'd rather be able to share raid gear amongst my characters. It hardly ever drops & when it does it's not always compatible with your current character.

There's no good reason these should be BTC.

It's a valid point on iconics in the sense that people could just roll them up, grab the gear and go but it's not so with raids.

[AnEvenNewerNoob]

No thanks. I'd rather be able to share raid gear amongst my characters. It hardly ever drops & when it does it's not always compatible with your current character.

There's no good reason these should be BTC.

It's a valid point on iconics in the sense that people could just roll them up, grab the gear and go but it's not so with raids.

I've always like that it was btc and was up for roll if someone didn't need it.

And this does NOT mean raid loot crafting stuff, like phlogs and such. Those should be bta.

[SiliconScout]

...You aren't preventing me from moving the item (And thus impacting grind). you are just charging me 5 Shards to do so ....

Aaaand right there is why it's bound, at an average price of about 5.5 cents per shard you are looking at them making somewhere between $0.25 and $0.30 per item moved. If there are an average of 100 items a day moving per server that would work out to something like ~$200 a day for turbine.

heck maybe we should just be quiet here or they will up the minimum shard cost to list it and make even more bound loot. :p

[FAQ]

Great idea!

[Krelar]

It's a valid point on iconics in the sense that people could just roll them up, grab the gear and go but it's not so with raids.

Except all the iconic gear is race restricted to that iconic already, so they would only be able to use it on another iconic of the same type, who already gets the same gear for free.... (I suppose you could stock up on the healing pots but they hardly seem special enough to worry about.)

[UurlockYgmeov]

Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Cursed_Blade_of_Jack_Jibbers) should NOT be BTA - it and lots of other unique items need (IMHO) to remain BtC (including Eternal Flasks).

[LightBear]

Here's my proposal:
Keep things as they are but make everything auction-able.

To battle lag more maybe create a fast inventory/character bank and a slow inventory/ character bank.
The fast is limited in size: 60 inventory and 20 character bank, the slow probably could have twice the normal current sizes.
To be able to access the slow inventory you have to select the character on the selection screen and go to a special bank instance (like the Ebberon and Eveningstar selection), this would have to be the only option to get there.
There you can open, access and swap things from slow to fast and visa versa.
Fast is accessible from within any game area.
The Account bank is also only accessible from the slow area.

This slow area is exclusive, no other instances are loaded on there.

Probably also a good thing to put crafting on that area/instance as well.

[Grace_ana]

Here's my proposal:
Keep things as they are but make everything auction-able.

To battle lag more maybe create a fast inventory/character bank and a slow inventory/ character bank.
The fast is limited in size: 60 inventory and 20 character bank, the slow probably could have twice the normal current sizes.
To be able to access the slow inventory you have to select the character on the selection screen and go to a special bank instance (like the Ebberon and Eveningstar selection), this would have to be the only option to get there.
There you can open, access and swap things from slow to fast and visa versa.
Fast is accessible from within any game area.
The Account bank is also only accessible from the slow area.

This slow area is exclusive, no other instances are loaded on there.

Probably also a good thing to put crafting on that area/instance as well.

This doesn't solve any lag, because the BTC is attached to the character in the database. There isn't a way to not have it be like that because, well, it's bound to character.

Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Cursed_Blade_of_Jack_Jibbers) should NOT be BTA - it and lots of other unique items need (IMHO) to remain BtC (including Eternal Flasks).

I don't think there is much that is so very special it needs to be BTC. There's no real point to it.

The eternal flasks I'm torn on. On the one hand, they are kinda special. On the other hand, making them BTA might even the playing field a little bit between those who were able to get a lot of cards and those who were not. (Please don't devolve this thread into an argument about cheating.)

[UurlockYgmeov]

I don't think there is much that is so very special it needs to be BTC. There's no real point to it.

The eternal flasks I'm torn on. On the one hand, they are kinda special. On the other hand, making them BTA might even the playing field a little bit between those who were able to get a lot of cards and those who were not. (Please don't devolve this thread into an argument about cheating.)

Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers

http://ddowiki.com/images/Cursed_Blade_of_Jack_Jibbers.png (http://ddowiki.com/page/File:Cursed_Blade_of_Jack_Jibbers.png)

Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers


Minimum Level: 1
Bound to Character on Acquire (http://ddowiki.com/page/Bind), Exclusive (http://ddowiki.com/page/Exclusive)
Caster Level: 1
1 Charge (Recharged/Day: 1)

Death isn't always the end.
Once per rest, and while dead, use this item to raise yourself as a Cursed Wraith, gaining Undead traits. After one minute, death will reclaim you.
Can only be used while dead.


It is a UNIQUE item that can be used in raids.... which makes it even more powerful than cake. BtC it must stay, and this clickie should never appear on any other items.


And the 'issue' is fixed and so we can stop complaining about the things from that 'issue'. Eternal flasks should be btc else everyone will have all of them - and have no reason to work towards getting more. That invalidates the time and effort many have put into buying them with remnant or through events. Yes, some got them 'that' way - IMHO that 'issue' is dead and resolved and its time to move past it.

Yes, I want fewer things BtC and instead BtA, or a way like Leomund's Secret Chest (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468129) that allow us to move BtC items from our character and into a storage that doesn't cripple us with lag. In fact, I would gladly forgo having a reincarnation cache if they would bring in Leomund's Secret Chest (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468129). Would make my game play all that much better (no more bank opening lag, double openings, no more having to clear the cache (The Cache is DEAD, *pause* LONG LIVE THE CACHE!)) - but I don't think they will ever.

However, in making things BtA instead of BtC they loose that uniqueness and make even more work for Dev's because now instead of having to quest to get a Jack Jibbers for every character in an account that you want one for - you can have it on all of them. How does this make more work for the Dev's? Because now the lifespan of loot desirability (and related content) is cut in half (probably even more like 1/10th). So it takes significantly less time for loot to become stale and the related content to be old and run infrequently.

IMHO alternatives to reincarnation cache and btc space are the solution. Yes, the 'display case' or 'trophy case' or the Leomund's Secret Chest (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468129) solve the vast majority of the issues with BtC stuff, and making things like Cannith Crafted items BtA instead of BtC, and yes, even some BtC items should now be BtA, but not things like Jack Jibbers.

And doing a 'btc' loot pass would probably (IMHO) take more time and cost more resources and have zer0 ROI compared to things like creating Leomund's Secret Chest (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468129). The CBA says that a BtC loot pass will probably never happen.

Going forward, new loot should only be BtC if it is Raid or unique (like Jack's Blade). Everything else should be unbound or BtA or even BtAoE. Time for the Dev's to be part of the solution, and stop adding to the BtC storage problem (not issue since it is currently beyond simple fixes).

[Grace_ana]

Take a look through that list above. Very, very little of it could be considered unique by any stretch of the imagination.

Perhaps you don't have inventory issues. Many of us do. Perhaps you are unconcerned about the lag. Many of us are. We are talking about something that will help with both of those serious QoL issues. I don't think "but that loot is so cool!" outweighs that.

Note that technically according to my rules, the Jibbers blade should be unbound. The BTA is a nod to the fact that it is, indeed, special. But it's a single clicky. It's not so phenomenally amazing that it should only be BTC.

Changing the binding of items is actually relatively simple. They do it all the time.

I also find the argument that changing the binding "invalidates the work people did" unconvincing and a little elitist. I want to be clear, I am NOT calling you an elitist or saying that you are trying to make that kind of argument intentionally. But follow me down that rabbit hole for a second. It's kind of like when they changed some things to make them more accessible, and people got all upset because they had to work harder to get it than people today. The "I worked hard to get it and therefore you should too" will never be a good argument to use when discussing change. Instead, we should be looking at whether or not it would benefit the game as a whole and most players in general. I think such a pass would do exactly that.

[Uska]

No thanks. I'd rather be able to share raid gear amongst my characters. It hardly ever drops & when it does it's not always compatible with your current character.

There's no good reason these should be BTC.

It's a valid point on iconics in the sense that people could just roll them up, grab the gear and go but it's not so with raids.

Only the character who earned raid gear should get to,use raid gear period

[RD2play]

From the Producer's Letter thread:



Most people have commented that there is too much bound loot, especially loot that is bound for no apparent reason. Someone (might have been Sev) stated at one point that the loot binding over time has basically been a "whatever that particular developer felt like doing" rule.

While I'm all for artistic license, this policy has resulted in inventory nightmares for players in a 10 year old game and, apparently, lag. I looked at the wiki, and there were over 2200 entries for BTC loot. That's insane. Extrapolate that to every player with every toon they have, and it's got to be a drain on the system. Add to that players often leave more stuff in their TR cache BECAUSE it is BTC and they have no other choice, and the fact that the TR cache also causes lag, and this is a situation that is ready for an overhaul.

I would suggest that some basic loot binding rules be established, all loot is changed over to conform with it, and future loot follows those rules. After a lot of thought, I propose the following:

1. Raid gear should be BTC.
2. Iconic gear should be BTC, if only to avoid people rolling up a character just to grab the free loot for another toon (which is an inefficient use of system resources).
3. Favor rewards should be BTC, because they are, well, favor rewards earned by that character.
4. Voice of the Master/Mantle of the Worldshaper/Master's Gift should be BTC, because they are particularly special loot items.
3. Pre-raid gear (Vault of Night, Twilight Forge, etc.) should be BTA. It's not quite a raid, so it shouldn't be quite BTC :)
4. Crafted gear (sora kell, epic S/S/S, etc) should be BTA unless requiring raid ingredients to craft (like non-base green steel, for example).
5. Things you get from turn-ins (tome pages, scarab powder, challenge gear, etc.) should be BTA.
7. Event loot (cove, mabar, etc) should be BTA.
8. Things you can buy in the store should be BTA. It is kinda ridiculous that you can buy stuff with your account with real money, but then you can't pass it to your other toons.
9. Set bonus items should be BTA.
10. Jack Jibber's blade should be BTA, because it's special - not enough to be BTC, but enough that it shouldn't be passed around.
11. Everything else - and I mean EVERYTHING - should be unbound.

Some people will undoubtedly say that this would unbalance the game. I say phooey. There is not a single non-raid item in the game that I can think of that is so overpowered that it would wreck the game if someone could get it. (Honestly, there aren't even raid items that fall in this category, but for argument's sake blah blah blah). All content will still be run just like now. There is so much content and so much gear now that no one will run stuff they hate for very long just to get something. Also, a lot of stuff that was a Big Deal at one point and is bound is now just leveling gear.

So come on, Sev. Save us from inventory purgatory and lag. Do a loot binding pass!

1) Agree
2) Iconic gear is already Race-Exclusive so no need for it to be bound in anyway, If it really has to be bound then BTA would suffice.
3) Favor rewards need to get a look at in general, who need a 2nd Phiarlan time trinket anyway?
4) Agree, yet for the Masters gift there is currently a workaround.
3) (again lol? oops :) ) Dunno could be either way IMO.
4) Agree if we are talking base items, yet the upgraded ones should stay BTC, it is part of the decision making. For which character do I make the item? do I farm another one? This gives a reason to rerun these quests, though the SSS items could use a pass.
5) I think these are fine the way they are, they are not to hard to acquire, so could be thrown away till you need another. ( I know people don't like to throw away stuff, I am like that two, but we should really! )
7) I agree with you kinda, Cove loot is BTA, I would be sad if Mabar gear would become BTA now as I put much effort in getting all the stuff for many alts. Also it makes players run the event more if they "need" to get one item for each character they want it for. I'dd say leave it as is.
8) Agree very much with this!
9) Not really set bonus Items would qualify as rare IMO.
10) Definitely not, I just pulled my first blade today, and want/need one for all my guys. I understand this is quite the chore for some but it is just that good an item!
11) I don't agree, everything that comes from free quests should be unbound, as should RGL. But any Named Item coming from any paid pack should not be available to players who do not own that pack IMO. There needs to be a reason other than having fun running something different to buy these! It is one reason why I loathed the N/H/E system they introduced with GH, it meant players could have the best stuff while never putting in the work. BTA would be fine for these.

[Uska]

Pretty good OP

[Grailhawk]

Only the character who earned raid gear should get to,use raid gear period

Period lol, you really do think your opinion is an absolute truth don't you?

I do actually agree Raid gear should be BTC, but just because we think that is right doesn't actually make it right.

[LightBear]

This doesn't solve any lag, because the BTC is attached to the character in the database. There isn't a way to not have it be like that because, well, it's bound to character.


It will if you put the slow inventory / char bank in it's own db.
The slow and the fast both get fetch and loaded if you opt to go the special bank/craft area on the character selection screen.
Only the fast gets loaded when you go to the normal play areas (Ebberon and Eveningstar) on the character selection screen.
In both areas you'll save your characters fast inv/bank when you log out.
Only the slow gets saved on logging off out of the special area.
That way the normal play area is completely unaware of your chars slow cache.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

From the Producer's Letter thread:



Most people have commented that there is too much bound loot, especially loot that is bound for no apparent reason. Someone (might have been Sev) stated at one point that the loot binding over time has basically been a "whatever that particular developer felt like doing" rule.

While I'm all for artistic license, this policy has resulted in inventory nightmares for players in a 10 year old game and, apparently, lag. I looked at the wiki, and there were over 2200 entries for BTC loot. That's insane. Extrapolate that to every player with every toon they have, and it's got to be a drain on the system. Add to that players often leave more stuff in their TR cache BECAUSE it is BTC and they have no other choice, and the fact that the TR cache also causes lag, and this is a situation that is ready for an overhaul.

I would suggest that some basic loot binding rules be established, all loot is changed over to conform with it, and future loot follows those rules. After a lot of thought, I propose the following:

1. Raid gear should be BTC.
2. Iconic gear should be BTC, if only to avoid people rolling up a character just to grab the free loot for another toon (which is an inefficient use of system resources).
3. Favor rewards should be BTC, because they are, well, favor rewards earned by that character.
4. Voice of the Master/Mantle of the Worldshaper/Master's Gift should be BTC, because they are particularly special loot items.
3. Pre-raid gear (Vault of Night, Twilight Forge, etc.) should be BTA. It's not quite a raid, so it shouldn't be quite BTC :)
4. Crafted gear (sora kell, epic S/S/S, etc) should be BTA unless requiring raid ingredients to craft (like non-base green steel, for example).
5. Things you get from turn-ins (tome pages, scarab powder, challenge gear, etc.) should be BTA.
7. Event loot (cove, mabar, etc) should be BTA.
8. Things you can buy in the store should be BTA. It is kinda ridiculous that you can buy stuff with your account with real money, but then you can't pass it to your other toons.
9. Set bonus items should be BTA.
10. Jack Jibber's blade should be BTA, because it's special - not enough to be BTC, but enough that it shouldn't be passed around.
11. Everything else - and I mean EVERYTHING - should be unbound.

Some people will undoubtedly say that this would unbalance the game. I say phooey. There is not a single non-raid item in the game that I can think of that is so overpowered that it would wreck the game if someone could get it. (Honestly, there aren't even raid items that fall in this category, but for argument's sake blah blah blah). All content will still be run just like now. There is so much content and so much gear now that no one will run stuff they hate for very long just to get something. Also, a lot of stuff that was a Big Deal at one point and is bound is now just leveling gear.

So come on, Sev. Save us from inventory purgatory and lag. Do a loot binding pass!

I definitely agree with most of these. BtC just sticks in my craw. I don't care which of my characters is doing the "work", it's me at the keys for all of them. I especially agree with #8 - I have said many times that I'd buy several store bags at double the price if they were BtA; I won't buy any at half the price if they're BtC (I did buy a colossal augment and ing bag on my crafter during one of their December 80% off sales, but that's IT).

I've never run Twilight Forge, but are there even any items in any pre-raid quests? I can't think of anything dropping in VoN 5 or ADQ, and can't think of any other pre-raids.

I don't much mind raid gear being BtC, but I wish it was BtA/BtCoE. As in, you pull it and it's BtA, and can pass it to whoever can use it, but as soon as it's equipped, it's BtC. Barring that, I wish the gates at the start would come down when the quest is finished so you could switch. I'd even accept post-completion, to keep people from getting "free" completions on their weaker characters (although even then it'd be moot, unless EVERYONE wanted to switch when the boss was close to dead, since you can always get in).

What about all the ToD belts and necklaces? Most people get most of them from the raid, but they're technically quest gear *g*

I really wish EStar comms (and gear) were BtA; my warlock has little need for any of the gear, but he's the one running them for saga renown rewards; my bard would love all his comms to make Stars of Day until she gets what I consider to be the ideal versions. (And it'd be nice if my TRs in a bard life could borrow them!)

IMHO, other than raid (and then only grudgingly) and a few "special" items, there's absolutely no need for BtC. BtA? Sure. BtAoE? OK, fine. But BtC? No. *I* earned the loot, let me put it where I want, and where it'll do me the most good. Which may well not be on the character who actually opened the chest.

DEFINITELY agree on Cove & Mabar & crafted gear being BtA. And I'm including the eternal flasks. If they were BtA, I'd work towards a full set. Being BtC, I don't care enough about any of them to bother.

[nokowi]

Quite simply, they need to find a storage system that doesn't load all our stored items in a way that causes lag. Fix the problem instead of trying to tip-toe around it.

One idea is having a UI screen that lets you collect all the named/raid items and store them outside of inventory space. Give us a few TP for getting complete sets. I would dump all my gear in there in a second, if I could later withdraw it when I needed it. All they need to do is store a "1" or "0" to see if I have an item, and then re-create the item when I decide to withdraw it. Upgraded items could receive a "2", and augment slots would simply be cleared if you choose to store them with augments slotted.

[Yendor_the_pokermage]

i totally disagree

BtA loot has created terrible issues in the game.

Guys just run there main with only friends over and over till they get it and then they dont run the quest anymore except for BB XP.

it kill new content faster.

it kills guys running alts and grouping.

raid and all Epic Mythic loot should be BtC.


Lets find ways to make the content last longer not shorter.

as it is now a week after a new quest comes out must guys have farmed there gear and could careless about running it again except to help there buddies pull loot.

[nokowi]

i totally disagree

BtA loot has created terrible issues in the game.

Guys just run there main with only friends over and over till they get it and then they dont run the quest anymore except for BB XP.

it kill new content faster.

it kills guys running alts and grouping.

raid and all Epic Mythic loot should be BtC.


Lets find ways to make the content last longer not shorter.

as it is now a week after a new quest comes out must guys have farmed there gear and could careless about running it again except to help there buddies pull loot.

Its a matter of how many toons you have.

1 toon: Your going to rerun all content even after you have the gear. If you are reincarnating it often takes you a while to get the new gear.
5 toons: You get your gear immediately and then you may skip this content
25 toons: You don't ever get all of the gear for all your toons, so you will keep playing content for a long time.

I prefer BTC myself, as I feel you should play a toon to acquire its gear, and that you should have the highest chance of rolling for loot if you play on a toon that needs that item. As it stands now, being the only rogue in a group doesn't give you any higher chance of getting passed that BtA rogue item, because someone always has an alt that can use it.

[Gremmlynn]

Here's my proposal:
Keep things as they are but make everything auction-able.

To battle lag more maybe create a fast inventory/character bank and a slow inventory/ character bank.
The fast is limited in size: 60 inventory and 20 character bank, the slow probably could have twice the normal current sizes.
To be able to access the slow inventory you have to select the character on the selection screen and go to a special bank instance (like the Ebberon and Eveningstar selection), this would have to be the only option to get there.
There you can open, access and swap things from slow to fast and visa versa.
Fast is accessible from within any game area.
The Account bank is also only accessible from the slow area.

This slow area is exclusive, no other instances are loaded on there.

Probably also a good thing to put crafting on that area/instance as well.This makes sense as an upgrade and replacement to the TR cache without the whole needing to TR, clear, etc. attached IMO. Basically, give/sell characters outside of game storage to put the stuff they have out-leveled that life and store the stuff they will use at higher levels or other lives.

Though leaving characters with just 60/20 would not be near enough. Many would be able to carry there normal load, much less pick up loot with just 60 spaces and 20 bank would cause logistical hell with to much logging in and out to move stuff to off-line storage. What we have would work, with the elimination of the need for a TR cache giving some reduction. While the off-line storage could have as much size as anyone would want simply by having it's own data-base and server (or sharing the log-in server if that doesn't cause issues there).

[vyvy3369]

BtC storage has been a problem for me for a very long time. In my PC application this was one of my "least favorite" things, and my suggestion to resolve this was pretty simple:

Anything that is bound to a specific character, add an un-bypassable UMD requirement that it can only be equipped/used by the character it is currently bound to.
Convert all bound to character items to bound to account.

The downside to this is that it would effectively remove BtCoE item sales on the ASAH. However, from what I can tell there haven't been any such items added since U21, so that seems to be yet another dead system. If they wanted to keep that functionality around though, they could probably find a way to do so.

The upside to this is that you can offload your effectively bound to character items onto a mule, increasing your storage space and now apparently reducing your lag, but your alts still wouldn't be able to use them.

[Krell]

I'd be fine with changing everything BTC to BTA if it would help with lag. I wouldn't even mind it if it had nothing to do with lag. I could have my raider character that I'm pretty much done with TRing raid whenever I got the chance. Items would go to other characters on the TR/ER/ITR trains. It doesn't matter to me which character I'm doing the raids with. I'm still doing the raids and working towards drops or 20th lists. Looting an item three times on one character or one time on three characters seems the same to me.

[nokowi]

BtC storage has been a problem for me for a very long time. In my PC application this was one of my "least favorite" things, and my suggestion to resolve this was pretty simple:

Anything that is bound to a specific character, add an un-bypassable UMD requirement that it can only be equipped/used by the character it is currently bound to.
Convert all bound to character items to bound to account.

The downside to this is that it would effectively remove BtCoE item sales on the ASAH. However, from what I can tell there haven't been any such items added since U21, so that seems to be yet another dead system. If they wanted to keep that functionality around though, they could probably find a way to do so.

The upside to this is that you can offload your effectively bound to character items onto a mule, increasing your storage space and now apparently reducing your lag, but your alts still wouldn't be able to use them.

I don't think being able to remove certain items will keep storage space free. Most of us will have it filled to the max regardless, and only clear it when it gets full and you need to move things... I only see coming up with a new way of storing items on-character as an option that reduces lag. This would at least give me a way to keep my TR bank with less items.

[Uska]

Period lol, you really do think your opinion is an absolute truth don't you?

I do actually agree Raid gear should be BTC, but just because we think that is right doesn't actually make it right.

On Raid gear yes it does. I will agree though to much other stuff is BTC

[Uska]

I definitely agree with most of these. BtC just sticks in my craw. I don't care which of my characters is doing the "work", it's me at the keys for all of them. I especially agree with #8 - I have said many times that I'd buy several store bags at double the price if they were BtA; I won't buy any at half the price if they're BtC (I did buy a colossal augment and ing bag on my crafter during one of their December 80% off sales, but that's IT).

I've never run Twilight Forge, but are there even any items in any pre-raid quests? I can't think of anything dropping in VoN 5 or ADQ, and can't think of any other pre-raids.

I don't much mind raid gear being BtC, but I wish it was BtA/BtCoE. As in, you pull it and it's BtA, and can pass it to whoever can use it, but as soon as it's equipped, it's BtC. Barring that, I wish the gates at the start would come down when the quest is finished so you could switch. I'd even accept post-completion, to keep people from getting "free" completions on their weaker characters (although even then it'd be moot, unless EVERYONE wanted to switch when the boss was close to dead, since you can always get in).

What about all the ToD belts and necklaces? Most people get most of them from the raid, but they're technically quest gear *g*

I really wish EStar comms (and gear) were BtA; my warlock has little need for any of the gear, but he's the one running them for saga renown rewards; my bard would love all his comms to make Stars of Day until she gets what I consider to be the ideal versions. (And it'd be nice if my TRs in a bard life could borrow them!)

IMHO, other than raid (and then only grudgingly) and a few "special" items, there's absolutely no need for BtC. BtA? Sure. BtAoE? OK, fine. But BtC? No. *I* earned the loot, let me put it where I want, and where it'll do me the most good. Which may well not be on the character who actually opened the chest.

DEFINITELY agree on Cove & Mabar & crafted gear being BtA. And I'm including the eternal flasks. If they were BtA, I'd work towards a full set. Being BtC, I don't care enough about any of them to bother.

Raid gear should be BTC when you get it very little if anything else should be

[Cantor]

S/S/S gear becomes unbound under your system, that is unacceptable. Much of it a agree with though.

[rover223]

I think the TS items should be BTA not BTC.

[Grace_ana]

S/S/S gear becomes unbound under your system, that is unacceptable. Much of it a agree with though.

Only some of it does. Anything that needs a shard from a raid doesn't. In the game now, the rest of the S/S/S stuff is really just leveling gear like the rest. It isn't end game anymore. In fact, most of it is pretty underpowered.

I'm fine with the loot binding finally advancing to where the game actually is right now.

EDIT: And none of the S/S/S gear was unbound under my proposed system. It is all either BTC (because it requires a raid item) or BTA (because it is a crafted item). You can see in my binding rules I followed that I listed S/S/S specifically.

[Baylen76]

While I agree with the 'spirit' of the proposal, making most quest-obtained items unbound/auctionable would remove much of the lure for newer people to buy adventure packs. Why buy a pack when you can reap its prizes just by putting some plat towards the auction house? I may be quite the flower-sniffer myself, but I realize most people out there are not.

[Grace_ana]

You still have to play content to level and, you know, play with the loot. Lots of us have (or at some point had) all the stuff and we still play.

[Cantor]

EDIT: And none of the S/S/S gear was unbound under my proposed system. It is all either BTC (because it requires a raid item) or BTA (because it is a crafted item). You can see in my binding rules I followed that I listed S/S/S specifically.

You marked a lot of S/S/S gear unbound in the 2nd post, that's what I was going off of. I can agree to all BTA except those with raid shards being BTC.

[Enderoc]

There is a way to take Bound items and put it in a mostly safe place...in the shard auction at extremely high price with an 8 hour bid. As long as you have the shards to rent a slot at the house you can hold them there less than a day and promptly put them in your new bank once they come in your mail.

It says that you can put bound items as an Astral Shard bid... has that changed?

[Nuclear_Elvis]

First, a Macro concept: Individual Player restrictions vs Open Market. Turbine has an incentive to keep certain things off the Open Market (Auction House, Shard Exchange, or Individual Trades via the rarely used Trade Chat channel or coordinated through these Forums).

We cannot expect Turbine to offer up Open Market options for new at-cost Adventure Packs, going forward. It's simply bad business. However, could they? Of course, just like Sands of Menechtarun has rare Named loot in the Wilderness rare chests that are not at all bound, but there is a disincentive to doing so. Primary reason: if you can take those items Open Market, it takes away the incentive to purchase the Adventure Pack for Turbine Points.

Having said that up front, we then look at Individual Player restrictions - why should Turbine dictate which character inside an Account is forced to use an item? Why -- is the key word here, and why should Turbine do it? Consider - there is no incentive for Turbine to restrict further, an item inside the account to an individual character. The Open Market cannot access it, and it is not up to Turbine or the Game Community at large to dictate how/when/where a player logs into the game and plays. So, if any of you have concerns that this may degrade grouping statistics, or such - that is irrelevant to this issue. Could it change the rate at which players group for certain quests? So what - that is not your concern, that's Turbine's concern, and it is not a good reason to make items BTC vs BTA. Individual people are playing (and often paying) for this game. I want Paying Customer A satisfied and flexible within his/her own means to support their characters, with any/all gear earned (a more diverse and satisfactory gaming experience). Paying Customer A earns a Named item that is Rogue-centric, yet is playing a Wizard main character at the time = opportunity for Paying Customer A to use said item on another Rogue alt, and - what is wrong with that?

I totally agree with abolishing any/all Bound to Character (BTC) items from the entire game. Bound To Account should be the default conversion, to protect Turbine's interests, but there are several arguments being made here about how gear should remain BTC, without any Logic whatsoever put to them. Many 1-liners that simply say something to the effect, "...Raid gear should remain BTC" -- why, for what purpose? What financial incentive does Turbine have to further restrict an item already restricted inside a player's account to do so? Game Lore? Frankly, we need to see that ship sail.

Having said all this, as prior stated in a separate thread, the banking system may need to be overhauled so that it is Instanced away from the rest of the game, to firewall it away. I think Paying Customer A needs to be capable of holding any/all loot ever obtained in an easily organized manner, through TR/iTR/eR and any delete/remake processes that may pose themselves, we simply need a better Bank.

[Krelar]

There is a way to take Bound items and put it in a mostly safe place...in the shard auction at extremely high price with an 8 hour bid. As long as you have the shards to rent a slot at the house you can hold them there less than a day and promptly put them in your new bank once they come in your mail.

It says that you can put bound items as an Astral Shard bid... has that changed?

You can only do this with items that are BtCoE (bound to character on equip) item that bind on acquire or bind to account cannot be put on the exchange.

[Hobgoblin]

You can only do this with items that are BtCoE (bound to character on equip) item that bind on acquire or bind to account cannot be put on the exchange.

yup and somethings are so valuable that people would pay those shards for items

[janave]

1 whatever of btc to bta converter clicky -> 250TPs
2 whatever of btc to unbound converter clicky -> 650TPs

this would limit the overflow of gear on the AH.
they can also limit the purchase per month per account to 3-4 if they really wanna.

I would be very interested in the 1st option, because after 3-4years of fairly active gameplay, im super tired of refarming gear on alts again. Things like old epic items that i built already 2-3 times should be convertable to bta. The grind is tolerable on 1 character but when you intend to play a few more you might wanna cancel your life so you can spend more time grinding.

[Nonesuch2008]

The OP has a lot of merit here, even without Sev's mention of serialized BtC gear causing lag issues. That aspect alone is worth investigating further, though. I have wondered before about why certain toons of mine seemed to take noticeably longer to load than others, but at the time I attributed it to some combination of items or abilities that I had on my toolbars, with weapons being a leading culprit. The idea of it being related to BtC loot is an interesting one.

Whenever I used to do multiple toon swaps, by the third or fourth one, the bar icons were extremely slow to populate, and normally the paired weapon clickies were the slowest to re-populate of all. I never thought about the BtC gear as part of this delay. (And yes, I know this character swapping now causes more instability in the client than ever, so I generally don't do it any more.)

I can't tell you how many times I've pulled bound caster gear on a UMD challenged melee or vice versa, so for purely selfish reasons this potential change has appeal to me. Being able to pass more non-raid BtA gear from one toon to another would be of benefit. I am in full agreement that it is a good idea to keep gear bound to account where it is called for, but if we can reduce lag and improve game performance by converting a portion of BtC items to BtA, I think the idea is worth investigating.

[Grace_ana]

You marked a lot of S/S/S gear unbound in the 2nd post, that's what I was going off of. I can agree to all BTA except those with raid shards being BTC.

Thanks for pointing this out; I apparently missed a section. I edited the post, but if anyone sees any other mistakes like raid gear or whatever, let me know.

[Gremmlynn]

First, a Macro concept: Individual Player restrictions vs Open Market. Turbine has an incentive to keep certain things off the Open Market (Auction House, Shard Exchange, or Individual Trades via the rarely used Trade Chat channel or coordinated through these Forums).

We cannot expect Turbine to offer up Open Market options for new at-cost Adventure Packs, going forward. It's simply bad business. However, could they? Of course, just like Sands of Menechtarun has rare Named loot in the Wilderness rare chests that are not at all bound, but there is a disincentive to doing so. Primary reason: if you can take those items Open Market, it takes away the incentive to purchase the Adventure Pack for Turbine Points.

Having said that up front, we then look at Individual Player restrictions - why should Turbine dictate which character inside an Account is forced to use an item? Why -- is the key word here, and why should Turbine do it? Consider - there is no incentive for Turbine to restrict further, an item inside the account to an individual character. The Open Market cannot access it, and it is not up to Turbine or the Game Community at large to dictate how/when/where a player logs into the game and plays. So, if any of you have concerns that this may degrade grouping statistics, or such - that is irrelevant to this issue. Could it change the rate at which players group for certain quests? So what - that is not your concern, that's Turbine's concern, and it is not a good reason to make items BTC vs BTA. Individual people are playing (and often paying) for this game. I want Paying Customer A satisfied and flexible within his/her own means to support their characters, with any/all gear earned (a more diverse and satisfactory gaming experience). Paying Customer A earns a Named item that is Rogue-centric, yet is playing a Wizard main character at the time = opportunity for Paying Customer A to use said item on another Rogue alt, and - what is wrong with that?

I totally agree with abolishing any/all Bound to Character (BTC) items from the entire game. Bound To Account should be the default conversion, to protect Turbine's interests, but there are several arguments being made here about how gear should remain BTC, without any Logic whatsoever put to them. Many 1-liners that simply say something to the effect, "...Raid gear should remain BTC" -- why, for what purpose? What financial incentive does Turbine have to further restrict an item already restricted inside a player's account to do so? Game Lore? Frankly, we need to see that ship sail.Time sinks. Basically extending how long it takes for a player to "win" the game and move on to something else. Having to play all the content necessary to get the right right items while playing the right characters does that. Game lore and tradition just give a handy excuse to have those time sinks and enough people believe in them for it to work.


Having said all this, as prior stated in a separate thread, the banking system may need to be overhauled so that it is Instanced away from the rest of the game, to firewall it away. I think Paying Customer A needs to be capable of holding any/all loot ever obtained in an easily organized manner, through TR/iTR/eR and any delete/remake processes that may pose themselves, we simply need a better Bank.Hopefully this will be something they learn from and apply when they build the framework for their next game. Because I think we are probably about 12 years to late for this one.

[Gremmlynn]

The OP has a lot of merit here, even without Sev's mention of serialized BtC gear causing lag issues. That aspect alone is worth investigating further, though. I have wondered before about why certain toons of mine seemed to take noticeably longer to load than others, but at the time I attributed it to some combination of items or abilities that I had on my toolbars, with weapons being a leading culprit. The idea of it being related to BtC loot is an interesting one.

Whenever I used to do multiple toon swaps, by the third or fourth one, the bar icons were extremely slow to populate, and normally the paired weapon clickies were the slowest to re-populate of all. I never thought about the BtC gear as part of this delay. (And yes, I know this character swapping now causes more instability in the client than ever, so I generally don't do it any more.)

I can't tell you how many times I've pulled bound caster gear on a UMD challenged melee or vice versa, so for purely selfish reasons this potential change has appeal to me. Being able to pass more non-raid BtA gear from one toon to another would be of benefit. I am in full agreement that it is a good idea to keep gear bound to account where it is called for, but if we can reduce lag and improve game performance by converting a portion of BtC items to BtA, I think the idea is worth investigating.It's not the binding status of the items that is causing the lag. It's the binding status of the storage. Changing items to be bound to account would only help this if one actually moved them to another character or share bank, as otherwise they would still be in the characters BtC storage (equipped, inventory, character bank and TR cache I'm assuming) and thus bloating the code associated with that character.

While changing the binding status would make this more doable, it would need to actually be done by players to help the issue.

[Faltout]

From the Producer's Letter thread:



Most people have commented that there is too much bound loot, especially loot that is bound for no apparent reason. Someone (might have been Sev) stated at one point that the loot binding over time has basically been a "whatever that particular developer felt like doing" rule.

While I'm all for artistic license, this policy has resulted in inventory nightmares for players in a 10 year old game and, apparently, lag. I looked at the wiki, and there were over 2200 entries for BTC loot. That's insane. Extrapolate that to every player with every toon they have, and it's got to be a drain on the system. Add to that players often leave more stuff in their TR cache BECAUSE it is BTC and they have no other choice, and the fact that the TR cache also causes lag, and this is a situation that is ready for an overhaul.


It's not the binding status of the items that is causing the lag. It's the binding status of the storage. Changing items to be bound to account would only help this if one actually moved them to another character or share bank, as otherwise they would still be in the characters BtC storage (equipped, inventory, character bank and TR cache I'm assuming) and thus bloating the code associated with that character.

While changing the binding status would make this more doable, it would need to actually be done by players to help the issue.

What gremmlynn said. You misunderstood Sev's comment about the serialization. Bound to Character space is the inventory, the bank and the TR cache. Whatever is in there, regardless of binding status, is part of the lag problem.
To fix that they need to come up with another way to store the inventory and bank. Nothing players or developers can do. It's up to the tech team.

[Saekee]

/signed
this is a good conversation to have

a lot of BtC stuff doesn't merit that status anymore & the mere fact that it is burdening the system (lag) is ALONE worth making radical changes.


on another note:
I only play one character (sick these past 2 months so out of game) so for me BtA=BtC...And I got so sick of loot management I began a naked heroic run that I intend to finish when I hjeal.

[Grace_ana]

What gremmlynn said. You misunderstood Sev's comment about the serialization. Bound to Character space is the inventory, the bank and the TR cache. Whatever is in there, regardless of binding status, is part of the lag problem.
To fix that they need to come up with another way to store the inventory and bank. Nothing players or developers can do. It's up to the tech team.

No, I didn't misunderstand. I pointed out that 1. people could have fewer copies of the same item, 2. people could move stuff off a toon that doesn't use it to a toon that does or a bank toon, and 3. people would/could clear TR caches the same way. All this would reduce character lag, because it reduces the number of items on a character.

[Faltout]

No, I didn't misunderstand. I pointed out that 1. people could have fewer copies of the same item, 2. people could move stuff off a toon that doesn't use it to a toon that does or a bank toon, and 3. people would/could clear TR caches the same way. All this would reduce character lag, because it reduces the number of items on a character.
No, it doesn't.
1. Because even the empty slots get recorded as "empty" and thus take up space. (the most possible implementation)
2. If people had more empty inventory/bank space they would simply store more trash. 2 stacks of heal scrolls instead of 1, 1 stack of true seeing instead of none, how about displacement scrolls, energy resist potions, shield wands, more DR breakers and specialized weapons, trash loot to be sorted and sold, essences, collectables, etc.

[Cordovan]

While I agree with the 'spirit' of the proposal, making most quest-obtained items unbound/auctionable would remove much of the lure for newer people to buy adventure packs. Why buy a pack when you can reap its prizes just by putting some plat towards the auction house? I may be quite the flower-sniffer myself, but I realize most people out there are not.

We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

[losian2]

We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

As much as binding gear can sometimes be a thorn, it's a necessary thing. Making most loot unbound means an always-increasing number of those items in circulation - players will quit and not sell them, and some will be forgotten, but there's a good reason just about every game has some form of attrition when it comes to items entering existing and able to be traded around. That's one thing MMO devs got right when paying mind to MUDs, mudflation, and EQ's progress. Same deal as money sinks of some kind, it's a necessary thing for any game economy!

[arkonas]

We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

Can i give an idea for future bta items? this is already in DDO atm with the item Pale green ioun stone. when you equip it or put it in the bank it becomes bta. Now before you do any of that you have the option to sell it. now could we get that done on some bta more often? i would think doing this process would help make people feel easier. that has been one of the concerns.

[Grailhawk]

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

Right but the assumption that some of us are making is that having lots of items in are Inventory, Bank, and TR Cache is causing lag.

The idea presented in this thread (with a possibly flawed assumption) is that if you down grade the quantity of BTC items there will be less items in Inventory, Bank, and TR Cache resulting in less lag.

[CeltEireson]

Right but the assumption that some of us are making is that having lots of items in are Inventory, Bank, and TR Cache is causing lag.

The idea presented in this thread (with a possibly flawed assumption) is that if you down grade the quantity of BTC items there will be less items in Inventory, Bank, and TR Cache resulting in less lag.

I suspect that whatever the bind status of items people will always end up filling the available storage space on their characters.

[Grace_ana]

No, it doesn't.
1. Because even the empty slots get recorded as "empty" and thus take up space. (the most possible implementation)
2. If people had more empty inventory/bank space they would simply store more trash. 2 stacks of heal scrolls instead of 1, 1 stack of true seeing instead of none, how about displacement scrolls, energy resist potions, shield wands, more DR breakers and specialized weapons, trash loot to be sorted and sold, essences, collectables, etc.

1. But that has nothing to do with anything, really.
2. I doubt that. People don't like to clutter their inventory overly much because you have to leave room to loot. And people ALREADY carry all of that other stuff.

What it really affects is the bank and the TR cache, both of which people have been begging to increase forever. Instead of increasing it, why don't we decrease the amount of stuff we have to have on a specific toon for no good reason?



We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

I agree with that, except I don't see it happening. People, for the most part (at least from my observation) play because they want to play on their toon, whether it be for past lives, a new build, to hang out with friends, etc. Yes, people play for gear, but not nearly as much as they play to level. And I seriously doubt people would play only free quests, ever, unless they were already going to do that.

I also think people will always run new content, regardless of the loot, unless the content is bad. In that case, no amount of bound loot will get them to do it (See: Caught in the Web).

I would really encourage you guys to take a look at the BTC list and whittle it down. Even after my pretty extensive revisions, there were still several hundred BTC items. Do we really need more than that? If so, why?

[Hoglum]

Cordovan,

Heroic past lives
Epic past lives
Twists
Destinies
Thunderforged
etc.

How much harder do you want it to be for those of us who like playing alts? At least let us pass raid treasure to ourselves.

[Faltout]

2. I doubt that. People don't like to clutter their inventory overly much because you have to leave room to loot. And people ALREADY carry all of that other stuff.
I could carry many more utility items than I do now. Many many more items. And from what I've seen and knowing human nature I really doubt what you're saying. If you have more space, you'll use more space.


What it really affects is the bank and the TR cache, both of which people have been begging to increase forever. Instead of increasing it, why don't we decrease the amount of stuff we have to have on a specific toon for no good reason?
Except we already carry many of those items you listed for NO GOOD REASON except as trophies or to be prepared in case we (n)ever need them. People have been asking to increase BtC space, but not because they have must items to carry. One could do with 1 bank slot and 3 inventory pages. No, they ask for more space to put more "trophies" in.

It is very naive to think that if you reduce the amount of BtC items people will suddenly create bank toons and care about how many items they carry.


I agree with that, except I don't see it happening. People, for the most part (at least from my observation) play because they want to play on their toon, whether it be for past lives, a new build, to hang out with friends, etc. Yes, people play for gear, but not nearly as much as they play to level. And I seriously doubt people would play only free quests, ever, unless they were already going to do that.

I also think people will always run new content, regardless of the loot, unless the content is bad. In that case, no amount of bound loot will get them to do it (See: Caught in the Web).

I would really encourage you guys to take a look at the BTC list and whittle it down. Even after my pretty extensive revisions, there were still several hundred BTC items. Do we really need more than that? If so, why?
People play for various reasons. To deny that you play for loot is a lie. You play to see your character improved. You play to see some progress no matter in what form. And you want that progress to mean something to you. For many people giving away raid gear for free or changing any raid gear to unbound would be a devaluation of their progress. Not to mention that people would always loot raid items from the chest to sell them instead of passing them to raid members making this a game of wealth.

As Cordovan said, they could certainly revisit the bind status of many pieces of loot, but what would such an effort produce? Absolutely nothing.

[Enoach]

We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

Thank you for taking the time to post this.

While I agree that not making things bound to character does not mean we won't still fill our bank with unbound loot, I do think that there has been an excess of BTC and BTCoE. I do think that a review is needed and I would not be surprised is there is a good chunk of BTC and BTCoE that should be BTA.

I agree that there are some items that you want the players to play the content to earn/acquire and I'm all for this. This is the exact reason why I don't want to see unbound raid gear (Notice I did not say ingredients as I think this should not be bound - at least not all of it. I like Heroic shroud for this reason)

However, I think one possible solution to the Bank inventory lag is to merge the Kundarick Character Bank, TR Cache and the Shared bank. This in itself would reduce the time it takes to open the bank and it would only need to load the current tab. It would also get the search capabilities to all banking options. Currently we can't drag from bank to bank anyways so being able to view a particular tab will work.

[Grace_ana]

I could carry many more utility items than I do now. Many many more items. And from what I've seen and knowing human nature I really doubt what you're saying. If you have more space, you'll use more space.


Except we already carry many of those items you listed for NO GOOD REASON except as trophies or to be prepared in case we (n)ever need them. People have been asking to increase BtC space, but not because they have must items to carry. One could do with 1 bank slot and 3 inventory pages. No, they ask for more space to put more "trophies" in.

It is very naive to think that if you reduce the amount of BtC items people will suddenly create bank toons and care about how many items they carry.


People play for various reasons. To deny that you play for loot is a lie. You play to see your character improved. You play to see some progress no matter in what form. And you want that progress to mean something to you. For many people giving away raid gear for free or changing any raid gear to unbound would be a devaluation of their progress. Not to mention that people would always loot raid items from the chest to sell them instead of passing them to raid members making this a game of wealth.

As Cordovan said, they could certainly revisit the bind status of many pieces of loot, but what would such an effort produce? Absolutely nothing.

First of all, I don't think you have the ability to tell me why I play, so let's just drop that bit of ridiculousness right now.

I never suggested unbinding raid loot. I specifically said it should remain BTC. I strongly recommend you actually look closely at the list of BTC items on the wiki. A large number of them have absolutely no reason to be bound. Unless you really want to defend having BTC loot out of Kobold's New Ringleader, or Spawn of Whisperdoom?

I carry as much as I need. On some toons that is a lot, on some it is less. It really depends on the toon and its utility. Maybe you are a space filler, but not everyone is. That's not "human nature." Just like you have some people who are packrats and some people who regularly go through and clear everything out in real life, the same goes for in game.

I don't think it's naive to think that people will have bank toons. People already do have bank toons. I have bank toons. I would love to be able to move some stuff to them or other toons that can use things.

This all is especially a big deal to people that have played a long time and have a lot of alts. For example, my rogue used to use shortswords. Then the enhancement pass came, and now she doesn't really because of knife specialization. I have BTC shortswords on her that I would love to move to another toon that can use them, because she never will. Or, I have toons that have changed similarly over time and have hard-to-get loot that they no longer use and I would like to pass over. I'm not really a loot grinder and never have been, so I'm not really willing to go play the same quests over and over to get the item on that other toon. It kinda wrecks my fun (because, as I pointed out already, I don't actually play for loot).

I also have some leveling gear that I have multiple copies of on different toons. I would prefer to have only one or two and pass when needed. It would save a lot of space.

I have a lot of stuff. That's true. I also have 20-some toons and a lot of different builds after playing for several years. I usually have a few in TR mode at any given time, some on hold for when I finish another, and some as bank toons for now (until I decide I want to make them real toons). I've accumulated, but I generally only keep things if I think I will need or use them. Problem is that BTC screws me up badly, and I'm not the only one.

None of this is made-up ideas about how people would react. Certainly everyone would not react the same way, and some may very well fill up all that extra space. If so, they are no worse off than they were, and probably at least a little happier. But a lot of us would in fact clear out some unneeded loot, shift stuff around, and reduce a lot of stress on ourselves and the game engine in general.

[QuantumFX]

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

When I read Sev’s comment, I was under the impression that the issue was with all the storage from the regular bank and the TR cache. So, I'll bring up these ideas again:
- Give us real Bags of Holding. I could live without the 2 extra Coin Lord tabs if I got a BtC Bag of Holding that could straight up hold 50 items. Even the “Inconvenience” of having to pull it out of a bag and into your inventory to use it is ok, if I can put stuff into it as well. Heck I wouldn’t even need the TR Cache after a couple lives.
- Give us the Shrink Item spell. And allow us to stick the shrunk BtC item into an ingredient bag. It would be nice to be able to justify a Colossal bag purchase for once.
- Allow us to put stuff into a Safety Deposit box. This would be separate space from the bank interface. Make it cost 1% to deposit the item, so people don't go too crazy.

[pjw]

The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

If BtC items were tradeable (but not useable by anyone other than the original owner), I would move a bunch of them to other characters. Would that improve game lag and/or character load times?

Also, can you introduce a character 'vault' that is free, with no size limit, that *only* takes bound BtC gear and is not loaded when the character is loaded? Would it help? If this were done, I'd move all my TR cache to it (it's 98% BtC) so that my bank load times improved...

A lateral solution that solves more than one problem seems ideal.

[HuneyMunster]

The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage.

Why not remove material components required for spells. This would remove some inventory space used by character's and a check made to cast them. Surely this would have some effect on game performance.

It would make 1 feat worthless, but I can't see a problem with that as there are plenty of worthless feats that no one would use.

[Ague]

/signed

The excessive binding of items not only hurts lag (I honestly never would have guessed that was a contributor to overall game lag, but stranger things can happen), but also damaged the in-game economy, but that's a topic for another thread...

my 2cp

[Nuclear_Elvis]

We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

Cordovan,
Short/mid-/and long-term solutions/recommendations/points to make:

Short term: You could simply vocalize more officially what "exactly" causes the lag for inventory and it becomes a well-known thing. Without coding a single thing into the game, we as players could make a conscious effort to do our part. While I appreciate your response here, we clearly need a single Dev-initiated post at your Official Announcements at some point to lay this out for us in a summary paragraph up front with more detail after for those that want more info. Having said that...

Mid-term: Move away from any/all new BTC item development in game, and move on a plan to convert all BTC items into BTA items. With a player-base informed of the issues, we will do our part to offload the Main Characters we login and play most, of the excessive converted BTA items not needed at the time. I think you are highly underestimating how much movement could take place here, to unload a main character's inventory to Bank/Mule Characters and into the Shared Bank (which currently disallows BTC, as reminder) of items that could be converted from BTC to BTA.

Long Term: Develop an entirely new Banking system for the game. New player interface, complete overhaul to incorporate individual character bank, account/shared bank, and TR Cache into one single interface. If necessary, make Banking into an Instanced area transaction to remove the banked items away from the game, even if they are the current character's items (which could potentially solve this entire issue of a currently logged in character's total data cost).

[Ague]

<snip>
This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

Perhaps the database coding could be looked at closer for inventory/banks (assuming it already hasn't)? Seeing as how one of the more recent fixes to renown causing lag was from a wonky piece of database code, maybe (stretching a bit here) it would be worth it to take a look (which I assume has already been done and I'm talking out of my hind quarters right now)...

[Hafeal]

Whether it fixes lag or not, it would fix inventory management by giving me better options. So I am for the OP.



T
Note that technically according to my rules, the Jibbers blade should be unbound. The BTA is a nod to the fact that it is, indeed, special. But it's a single clicky. It's not so phenomenally amazing that it should only be BTC.

Not to mention the drop rate being as abysmal as a SoS shard, I am not worried about it being overly plentiful.



There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

I think, with unlimited resources, re-visiting "old" content and redoing binding status would be a good thing. Alas, it is low priority v lag and new content, no doubt. As a "quality of life" and "nice to see" and "refresh" feature - yes. Making sure the latest content is the driver for sales and has a good life behind it, understandable as well.

[Uska]

/signed

The excessive binding of items not only hurts lag (I honestly never would have guessed that was a contributor to overall game lag, but stranger things can happen), but also damaged the in-game economy, but that's a topic for another thread...

my 2cp

They just said it's not the binding of items it's the storage of items so removing BTC won't change anything except maybe make it worse since people would be able to move the few items they may have been forced to delete to Mukesh for,storage increasing lag

[AnEvenNewerNoob]

If something as basic as inventory causes lag............you've done some **** coding.

[JOTMON]

They just said it's not the binding of items it's the storage of items so removing BTC won't change anything except maybe make it worse since people would be able to move the few items they may have been forced to delete to Mukesh for,storage increasing lag

Which brings up the question.. would a separate storage instance where we can go and store all the unused items we don't want to throw away or need currently improve this lag situation..

..The need for storage space isn't going a way, so a means to store items that does not impact the current gaming would be useful..

Something like a Storage Vault instance maintained separately from the gaming instance. or Player housing Instance...

[Uska]

Which brings up the question.. would a separate storage instance where we can go and store all the unused items we don't want to throw away or need currently improve this lag situation..

..The need for storage space isn't going a way, so a means to store items that does not impact the current gaming would be useful..

Something like a Storage Vault instance maintained separately from the gaming instance. or Player housing Instance...

Except if players accessed it constantly it would make lag as bad or worse

[JOTMON]

Except if players accessed it constantly it would make lag as bad or worse

Private instance lag should have no impact on regular gaming.
Like the crafting lag we get in the crafting hall doesn't impact questers..

[Aelonwy]

If they just reduced the BTC items by making more of them BTA or BTAoE, I know it would personally help me with storage space. I rarely raid (couple times a month) so most of the BTC stuff that could easily be BTA or BTAoE for me includes:
All Eveningstar commendation gear (Just don't have it equipped long enough to justify BTC)
Muckbane/Muckdoom (Seriously why was this made BTC?!)
Upgraded Cannith Manufactory items (Magewrights,Alchemists,Fabricators sets)
Upgraded Mindsunder loot
Heroic level 3BC items, why BTCoE/A why not BTAoE?
Heroic Sands non-raid items
Heroic Necropolis non raid items
Restless Isles items
Heroic GH items, although with the whole N/H/E mess i don't know what would need to be done here.
I would have included heroic Red Fens but honestly I can't think of a single item in that pack worth keeping anymore.

Most of these require purchase of the adventure pack for access or someone pay for a guest pass so why not BTAoE? BTAoE allows for some trade value but also encourages purchase of the Shared Bank feature.

I like to play quests for fun as I'm leveling. I almost never farm/grind for any particular item, but I will repeatedly run things like heroic Shroud, cannith challenges, where I know no matter which character I'm on - most of the ingredients I pick up will benefit not just that character but any of my alts. I can understand raid items being BTC, its kind of a pride/trophy thing. I don't understand so many heroic items, especially purchased adventure pack items, being BTC.

[Cordovan]

If BtC items were tradeable (but not useable by anyone other than the original owner), I would move a bunch of them to other characters. Would that improve game lag and/or character load times?

Also, can you introduce a character 'vault' that is free, with no size limit, that *only* takes bound BtC gear and is not loaded when the character is loaded? Would it help? If this were done, I'd move all my TR cache to it (it's 98% BtC) so that my bank load times improved...

A lateral solution that solves more than one problem seems ideal.

Just theoretically, the lag would happen when people opened their character vault, and it would probably impact everyone in the instance. Ultimately, it has to do with loading and storing the database after it gets to a certain size, so any system that links an item to a character would likely suffer this issue. That said, I am the last person to discuss technical issues like this, so it's possible I am mistaken.

[Nonesuch2008]

I would be curious for anyone that has experienced crippling lag on Lamma before to copy those same toons over the next time that it is up. Delete every last bound item & re-run the same content, and let us know the results for comparison. Should be a harmless test to perform, if anyone is willing to do so. I haven't raided on Lamma, so I haven't experienced anything more than stutter lag there.

The whole bound item deal may not factor into the lag equation at all, but it won't hurt anything to do some testing on the subject. None of this topic detracts from the overall consideration that there is a large amount of bound to character items in the game that could be made BtA.

[Uska]

If they just reduced the BTC items by making more of them BTA or BTAoE, I know it would personally help me with storage space. I rarely raid (couple times a month) so most of the BTC stuff that could easily be BTA or BTAoE for me includes:
All Eveningstar commendation gear (Just don't have it equipped long enough to justify BTC)
Muckbane/Muckdoom (Seriously why was this made BTC?!)
Upgraded Cannith Manufactory items (Magewrights,Alchemists,Fabricators sets)
Upgraded Mindsunder loot
Heroic level 3BC items, why BTCoE/A why not BTAoE?
Heroic Sands non-raid items
Heroic Necropolis non raid items
Restless Isles items
Heroic GH items, although with the whole N/H/E mess i don't know what would need to be done here.
I would have included heroic Red Fens but honestly I can't think of a single item in that pack worth keeping anymore.

Most of these require purchase of the adventure pack for access or someone pay for a guest pass so why not BTAoE? BTAoE allows for some trade value but also encourages purchase of the Shared Bank feature.

I like to play quests for fun as I'm leveling. I almost never farm/grind for any particular item, but I will repeatedly run things like heroic Shroud, cannith challenges, where I know no matter which character I'm on - most of the ingredients I pick up will benefit not just that character but any of my alts. I can understand raid items being BTC, its kind of a pride/trophy thing. I don't understand so many heroic items, especially purchased adventure pack items, being BTC.

Read again it's not BTC or BTA it's all items in storage

[Enoach]

Just theoretically, the lag would happen when people opened their character vault, and it would probably impact everyone in the instance. Ultimately, it has to do with loading and storing the database after it gets to a certain size, so any system that links an item to a character would likely suffer this issue. That said, I am the last person to discuss technical issues like this, so it's possible I am mistaken.

realizing you are not the technical mind behind this, my observation is that the current shared bank only loads the tab that is visible, thus in theory combining the characters bank and cache into the Shared bank UI would mean that 3 calls to inventory db to get the list of items before the UI becomes responsive can be reduced to a single call and avoid not loading data that may not be needed to access as many players visit the bank but not always to pull something from the Cache.

I think a good short term fix which will also be a QoL benefit is to combine all of the bank into a single UI

[JOTMON]

Perhaps this would be a good time to introduce sentient weapons that consume your BTC items..
Then we have a nice weapon that levels with the player, is customizable to suit the player needs, and deals with all those pesky BTC items to make itself more powerful...
and.. Players willingly feed their best items to it ...
thereby solving a few issues all at once.. reduced inventory storage, elimination of stored BTC items, and appeasing players by providing them with an alternative and viable method of utilizing the BTC items in a new meaningful way..

[dunklezhan]

Just theoretically, the lag would happen when people opened their character vault, and it would probably impact everyone in the instance. Ultimately, it has to do with loading and storing the database after it gets to a certain size, so any system that links an item to a character would likely suffer this issue. That said, I am the last person to discuss technical issues like this, so it's possible I am mistaken.

I wonder - are bank or inventory tabs separate tables in the database? From what you're saying, maybe if they aren't, they ought to be, and tabs ought to be introduced to the other storage systems?

NB - I'm not a coder, but I know that several small objects are generally easier to load up efficiently than single large objects, depending of course on how many small objects you're talking about. So, thinking it through from what you've said, I wonder if the one large object filled with many small objects is the problem. Maybe a series of small objects filled with much smaller series of small objects would be easier. Knowing DDO history I would bet even if that would help it would be a 'mare to actually introduce!

As I say, I'm no coder. But sometimes even idiots get lucky, so I may as well put it out there, neh?

[Lauf]

Just theoretically, the lag would happen when people opened their character vault, and it would probably impact everyone in the instance. Ultimately, it has to do with loading and storing the database after it gets to a certain size, so any system that links an item to a character would likely suffer this issue. That said, I am the last person to discuss technical issues like this, so it's possible I am mistaken.

I think the man is onto something.... if instead of loading the players' TR cache every time the bank is opened, it had a separate dialogue with the banker (i.e. 1: Show bank 2: Show Cache 3: End Dialogue) you will have reduced instance lags, as there would inevitably be less database retrieval needed with every bank access.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Just theoretically, the lag would happen when people opened their character vault, and it would probably impact everyone in the instance. Ultimately, it has to do with loading and storing the database after it gets to a certain size, so any system that links an item to a character would likely suffer this issue. That said, I am the last person to discuss technical issues like this, so it's possible I am mistaken.

Then the solution might be (and I am the same - the last person that you would want to discuss technical issues like this with) that when you open your Leomund's Secret Chest that you step into a private instance that then would open the LSC and grant access to the BtC storage :P

[Uska]

Then the solution might be (and I am the same - the last person that you would want to discuss technical issues like this with) that when you open your Leomund's Secret Chest that you step into a private instance that then would open the LSC and grant access to the BtC storage :P

Wouldn't adding more instances especially for each person opening their secret chest cause even more lag?

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Just theoretically, the lag would happen when people opened their character vault, and it would probably impact everyone in the instance. Ultimately, it has to do with loading and storing the database after it gets to a certain size, so any system that links an item to a character would likely suffer this issue. That said, I am the last person to discuss technical issues like this, so it's possible I am mistaken.

Well, since there aren't any bankers in any private instances, and that's where most people complain about lag, maybe it's time to code things so they are, indeed, separate instances between public and private. And clear the cache (er, not the TR cache, the virtual memory type of cache) when entering a quest or wilderness, because does anybody really care what's in their bank when they're questing?


I think the man is onto something.... if instead of loading the players' TR cache every time the bank is opened, it had a separate dialogue with the banker (i.e. 1: Show bank 2: Show Cache 3: End Dialogue) you will have reduced instance lags, as there would inevitably be less database retrieval needed with every bank access.

I've wanted something similar to this (a button on the bank instead of dialogue, but that would certainly work) ever since the first time I TR'd. I don't want to access the cache *every time* I open the bank. 90% of the time I'm opening the bank, it's to put something in or take something out of the SHARED bank. 9.9% of the time, it's to do something with my regular bank. 0.09% of the time it's because I accidentally clicked the bank instead of the tavern or the AH (which are on either side of the bank on my ship). That's 99.99% of the time, leaving a measly 0.01% I want to access my cache. (Note that these numbers aren't entirely accurate; it may be as much as 0.05% of the time...) And yet, the cache loads EVERY TIME, even when I quickly close the bank because I didn't mean to click on it. Having a button (or a dialogue option) for when I actually want to open the cache would help *immensely*, and it sounds like it would help general lag a significant amount as well.

[ThePrincipal]

My only request is that starter rags be BTA. Please thanks!

[TBot1234]

My only request is that starter rags be BTA. Please thanks!

Oh ya, I want that too!!!!! Thought I was the only one.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

My only request is that starter rags be BTA. Please thanks!


Oh ya, I want that too!!!!! Thought I was the only one.

You actually kind of CAN have BtA starter rags. There's a guy in Wheloon... (http://www.gamergeoff.com/stormreach-fashion-week-ragged-rags/)

[RD2play]

Just theoretically, the lag would happen when people opened their character vault, and it would probably impact everyone in the instance. Ultimately, it has to do with loading and storing the database after it gets to a certain size, so any system that links an item to a character would likely suffer this issue. That said, I am the last person to discuss technical issues like this, so it's possible I am mistaken.

What if when opening the Character bank it only opens the "personal bank" initially and then only open and load the Shared/Deposit/TR-cache on request? So it does not need to load all Items in there. I personally only need to have access to either the shared bank or TR cache at any one point and don't mind having to click to open them separately, after loading the bank interface.

I suggested something like a bank pass in the past. It would entail an entire rework of the bank GUI, but maybe some idea's could be implemented early
http://i.imgur.com/Fr2qUsQ.png

[AnEvenNewerNoob]

How about an option like the auction house guy has to open either the auction house or shard house.
Open personal bank, open TR cache?

[Zzevel]

From the Producer's Letter thread:
Most people have commented that there is too much bound loot, especially loot that is bound for no apparent reason. Someone (might have been Sev) stated at one point that the loot binding over time has basically been a "whatever that particular developer felt like doing" rule....


I am definitely reading this as mostly a BINDING thread with a splash of lag, what are the GUIDELINES around items and how/when they are coded to bind. If I were laying out guidelines I would have laid them out almost EXACTLY the same way.. You will always have those one off items (Jibbers blade) that fall into a grey area and I can see them being coded differently (BTC) and they can be debated till you are blue in the face, this isn't that thread. This is about the overall revamp of the "STANDARD" of how items are coded and how they bind and the OP did an awesome job of laying that out +1. PLEASE do an item pass and clean up the binding of existing items.. heck, hire me for the weekend, ill get it done.

I would maybe have taken it a step further and went into the ingredients binding and even he S/S/S and proposed an update to those as well (I think all ingredients should be trade-able, even if it is 'shard exchange' only for the high end ones, Turbine could get theirs as I get mine.. idc).. people will complain at first but after a week people will be happy and it will be business as usual.

Some people including Cordovan are too focused on this being ONLY about lag, it is not only about lag it is a LOT about item bind freedom and the freedom to move thins around and the ability to lose the horder mentality on every toon. Keep something once instead of 4 times on 4 chars...

Great post/discussion...

[Cordovan]

*snip*

Some people including Cordovan are too focused on this being ONLY about lag, it is not only about lag it is a LOT about item bind freedom and the freedom to move thins around and the ability to lose the horder mentality on every toon. Keep something once instead of 4 times on 4 chars...

Great post/discussion...

You are correct, I was focusing on the lag part of it. It's absolutely valid feedback to recommend that we go through the named loot tables and make some adjustments. (Also, yeah - good thread!)

[Aelonwy]

Some people including Cordovan are too focused on this being ONLY about lag, it is not only about lag it is a LOT about item bind freedom and the freedom to move thins around and the ability to lose the horder mentality on every toon. Keep something once instead of 4 times on 4 chars...

Great post/discussion...

Thank you. Exactly. If the Drow Pwafwi, just for example, were BTA or unbound I'd only need to keep one for my six alts that occasionally sneak instead of one BTC on each. That would be five less things in my storage and that is only one item. There's a slew of heroic daggers and rapiers that are now BTCoE that used to be unbound, if they had been BTAoE I could keep just one or two and switch them as needed between my rogue, my swashbuckler and my tempest ranger instead of having so many heroic BTC weapons I might use for just 2-4 levels each. Yeah I'm a hoarder but I'd hoard a great deal less if I could use my Shared Bank Feature more for heroic named items.

[TBot1234]

You actually kind of CAN have BtA starter rags. There's a guy in Wheloon... (http://www.gamergeoff.com/stormreach-fashion-week-ragged-rags/)

Awesome! Thank you so much!

[QuantumFX]

I could get behind a lot of stuff becoming BtA to help keep the individual character banks cleaner. Perhaps this could happen with a pass to align the old named loot with the current loot generation system.

[Calinthus]

In my honest opinion, no loot should be bound, in any way (to character, or account), on acquire, unless it is cursed (that would hold with pnp D&D). However, you definitely should be able to bind an item, if you want. That system is already in place, via Stone of Change.

[ice584]

I suggested something like a bank pass in the past. It would entail an entire rework of the bank GUI, but maybe some idea's could be implemented early
http://i.imgur.com/Fr2qUsQ.png

I like your pseudo interface, though I REALLY dislike the "Page Selector" functionality in DDO. Every time I have to use the current shared crafting storage it makes me sad. Luckily that isn't too often because the barter interfaces generally pull from crafting storage automagically. However, I do have to go clean out duplicate stacks of things now and then. With 700+ slots in my crafting storage, if there's something in slot 700 I need to look at I have to click through like 30-something pages...and that interface is really slow. If it was faster, or if I could manually tell it which page to skip to, it might be better...but I would much rather just have a long list that I can scroll through like the TR cache's current implementation.

[RD2play]

I like your pseudo interface, though I REALLY dislike the "Page Selector" functionality in DDO. Every time I have to use the current shared crafting storage it makes me sad. Luckily that isn't too often because the barter interfaces generally pull from crafting storage automagically. However, I do have to go clean out duplicate stacks of things now and then. With 700+ slots in my crafting storage, if there's something in slot 700 I need to look at I have to click through like 30-something pages...and that interface is really slow. If it was faster, or if I could manually tell it which page to skip to, it might be better...but I would much rather just have a long list that I can scroll through like the TR cache's current implementation.

The reasoning behind page selecting would be to decrease initial load times, thus possibly decreasing the lag caused by loading to many Items in one go. This is why I added search as a function and the idea to invert the lists to "Last In First Out" so the last item you add would show up in the first page, first spot. Like you I loath having to click through every page when I want to pass over an item through the current Shared Bank, inverting the list would solve this. The search function would solve this for items that are in the bank for a longer time.

You do realize the "Bank Deposit" does already have a search function implemented? So to find those duplicate stacks you could use the search already.

[Grace_ana]

I am definitely reading this as mostly a BINDING thread with a splash of lag, what are the GUIDELINES around items and how/when they are coded to bind. If I were laying out guidelines I would have laid them out almost EXACTLY the same way.. You will always have those one off items (Jibbers blade) that fall into a grey area and I can see them being coded differently (BTC) and they can be debated till you are blue in the face, this isn't that thread. This is about the overall revamp of the "STANDARD" of how items are coded and how they bind and the OP did an awesome job of laying that out +1. PLEASE do an item pass and clean up the binding of existing items.. heck, hire me for the weekend, ill get it done.

I would maybe have taken it a step further and went into the ingredients binding and even he S/S/S and proposed an update to those as well (I think all ingredients should be trade-able, even if it is 'shard exchange' only for the high end ones, Turbine could get theirs as I get mine.. idc).. people will complain at first but after a week people will be happy and it will be business as usual.

Some people including Cordovan are too focused on this being ONLY about lag, it is not only about lag it is a LOT about item bind freedom and the freedom to move thins around and the ability to lose the horder mentality on every toon. Keep something once instead of 4 times on 4 chars...

Great post/discussion...

Thank you, this is exactly what it was meant to be. Binding needs a very serious look, because it has become absolutely overwhelming with no rhyme or reason. I would hoard a lot less if bindings were changed.


You are correct, I was focusing on the lag part of it. It's absolutely valid feedback to recommend that we go through the named loot tables and make some adjustments. (Also, yeah - good thread!)

Thanks Cordovan!

[Baktiotha]

~ Bound to character space is serialized with the character when the character is sent off to the database, and as we look into lag it is clear that's expensive.

How often does this occur? How often is it necessary to send the character off to the database?

Is it an issue of what happens client side and what happens server side? Would it be more efficient to store character data on the client side while the game is in progress and to only send the data to the server side when the character logs off? What is the risk?

If server side data is cross referenced to client side data and most up-to-date data is only loaded at login is it possible to eliminate regular database updating?

It seems to me the two obvious risks are players hacking client side data and players losing items if they disconnect rather than log off. Perhaps there are others. Are there tools that would mitigate or reduce the probability of these occurring?

OTOH, why is it more expensive to note a BTC or BTA item than a regular item? Why aren't all items simply a hex value that calls the appropriate display and why aren't BTC, BTA and unbound simply attributes of the referenced item?

Is it really BTC that is the problem or is it the way in which the objects are designed and referenced?

[Baktiotha]

In my honest opinion, no loot should be bound, in any way (to character, or account), on acquire, unless it is cursed (that would hold with pnp D&D). However, you definitely should be able to bind an item, if you want. That system is already in place, via Stone of Change.

I tend to agree with this. I was running LOD chain the other day with someone that wanted the parts for Templar's Retribution. I had both a shard and a seal in my ingredients bag. I'll never make the weapon because, to me at least, it isn't worth having. But it was to him. Sad thing was I couldn't just give him the items.

Honestly, what would it hurt? In spite of OP's perspective I'm not convinced that anything really *needs* to be BTC or BTA. If it is really that expensive vis-a-vis lag then why not just eliminate it altogether?

While I'm at it, how about allowing everything to sell at the vendors? Why do I get BTC rune arms that I can't even sell, or tomes, or anything?

[DougGlyndwyr]

From the Producer's Letter thread:



Most people have commented that there is too much bound loot, especially loot that is bound for no apparent reason. Someone (might have been Sev) stated at one point that the loot binding over time has basically been a "whatever that particular developer felt like doing" rule.

While I'm all for artistic license, this policy has resulted in inventory nightmares for players in a 10 year old game and, apparently, lag. I looked at the wiki, and there were over 2200 entries for BTC loot. That's insane. Extrapolate that to every player with every toon they have, and it's got to be a drain on the system. Add to that players often leave more stuff in their TR cache BECAUSE it is BTC and they have no other choice, and the fact that the TR cache also causes lag, and this is a situation that is ready for an overhaul.

I would suggest that some basic loot binding rules be established, all loot is changed over to conform with it, and future loot follows those rules. After a lot of thought, I propose the following:

1. Raid gear should be BTC.
2. Iconic gear should be BTC, if only to avoid people rolling up a character just to grab the free loot for another toon (which is an inefficient use of system resources).
3. Favor rewards should be BTC, because they are, well, favor rewards earned by that character.
4. Voice of the Master/Mantle of the Worldshaper/Master's Gift should be BTC, because they are particularly special loot items.
3. Pre-raid gear (Vault of Night, Twilight Forge, etc.) should be BTA. It's not quite a raid, so it shouldn't be quite BTC :)
4. Crafted gear (sora kell, epic S/S/S, etc) should be BTA unless requiring raid ingredients to craft (like non-base green steel, for example).
5. Things you get from turn-ins (tome pages, scarab powder, challenge gear, etc.) should be BTA.
7. Event loot (cove, mabar, etc) should be BTA.
8. Things you can buy in the store should be BTA. It is kinda ridiculous that you can buy stuff with your account with real money, but then you can't pass it to your other toons.
9. Set bonus items should be BTA.
10. Jack Jibber's blade should be BTA, because it's special - not enough to be BTC, but enough that it shouldn't be passed around.
11. Everything else - and I mean EVERYTHING - should be unbound.

Some people will undoubtedly say that this would unbalance the game. I say phooey. There is not a single non-raid item in the game that I can think of that is so overpowered that it would wreck the game if someone could get it. (Honestly, there aren't even raid items that fall in this category, but for argument's sake blah blah blah). All content will still be run just like now. There is so much content and so much gear now that no one will run stuff they hate for very long just to get something. Also, a lot of stuff that was a Big Deal at one point and is bound is now just leveling gear.

So come on, Sev. Save us from inventory purgatory and lag. Do a loot binding pass!

Agree with all but the Jibber's Knife. It really is that special.

[Baktiotha]

Wouldn't adding more instances especially for each person opening their secret chest cause even more lag?

Depends on what is going on and what needs to be loaded.

Why is it that a public instance can be full of lag but when you step into a quest the lag goes away? Why is it in other cases that the public instances are all lag free but when you go into the quest the lag monster comes with you?

Certainly every "bank" has its issues. I've noticed that Turbine is addressing that by only loading the list when you open the "bank." I put bank in quotes because the basic principle applies to bags, jars, folders, etc. All of them access a data base and list the items stored there.

I think the suggestion that shows the most promise is the one that turns all of the bank activities into separate tabs and populates them only when a specific tab is opened. I think the other suggestion that makes most sense is to do away with bound items -- particularly if binding is really "expensive" as has been claimed.

[Baktiotha]

Agree with all but the Jibber's Knife. It really is that special.

It isn't that special. I've got a character with 43 past lives and I've never owned one (nor even wanted one). To be absolutely honest, there's not a single item in the game that is *that* special.

[Baktiotha]

We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

This makes sense. To be honest I wasn't clear on how marking an attribute as "bound" v "unbound" could cause an issue. It seemed to me that there had to be serious coding issues if it were. This explanation makes more sense.

I see the problem that Turbine faces. We players want more storage space, more stacking, etc. How does Turbine deliver that and how does it make the communication from server to client most efficient.

Elsewhere there is an observation that loading small things is generally more efficient than loading large things. This argues for the suggestion that everything be handled as tabs within each *bank* rather than as one large listing.

If the most efficient size is a display of 20 items then code every *bank* like our inventory and load each tab when we click on it. Inventory seems to work fairly well. Maybe do that for every *bank*.

When I open my gargantuan bag display tabs of 20 items each, fill the space as I open each tab. When I open the bank display tabs of 20 items each. Same for TR cache and so on.

If the efficient number is 30 or 25 or 80, whatever works efficiently, is workable as a display, do that. I still have access to everything and it is transparent to me that you are only loading the tabs as I open them (or mostly transparent). Once on the client side I can move stuff and rearrange and search through it all as I want. Then when I close the *bank* it writes it all back to the server in discrete steps and doesn't let me reopen until complete.

Seems that you have the bulk of the solution already in front of you and it is just a matter of implementing.

[Faltout]

How often does this occur? How often is it necessary to send the character off to the database?
2 options:
- Every time your bound space changes form (you moved an item, you consumed an item, you got an item)
- Periodically every x minutes.
Option #2 is more likely to be true, but in that case they certainly need a cache storing all the temporary changes before hard committing them to the DB. Why? See below.


Is it an issue of what happens client side and what happens server side? Would it be more efficient to store character data on the client side while the game is in progress and to only send the data to the server side when the character logs off? What is the risk?
Of course it would be more efficient. But: There are huge risks.
And the risks are...

It seems to me the two obvious risks are players hacking client side data and players losing items if they disconnect rather than log off. Perhaps there are others. Are there tools that would mitigate or reduce the probability of these occurring?
No, there are no tools to mitigate that. Because Turbine cannot have access to the user's setup. It can't really set emergency messages in case the internet drops or a backup generator in case power drops. And really ANYTHING can go wrong all the way from the client to the DB. Trying to set up safety measures is a fool's errand. If they want to keep the data up to date and safe, they have to manage them themselves. And they do: They have backup generators, backup files, redundancy in hardware and people working 24/7 to make sure that the servers and DBs are up and running.


If server side data is cross referenced to client side data and most up-to-date data is only loaded at login is it possible to eliminate regular database updating?
No idea what you're saying here.
It's possible to reduce database updating by keeping a much faster cache for each character. (cache is a temporary fast memory serving as the middle man between the fast paced changes and the slow changing database) You record the changes in the cache the time they happen and every x minutes you take the contents of the cache and update the DB.


OTOH, why is it more expensive to note a BTC or BTA item than a regular item? Why aren't all items simply a hex value that calls the appropriate display and why aren't BTC, BTA and unbound simply attributes of the referenced item?
I don't know if the items are a pointer to the actual structure, but if I were designing the system, they certainly would be. The item structures would all be already stored in the client files and the server would simply tell the client "You have the items 1, 7, 42, 3 in your inventory" and the client would then display the actual items.

[Baktiotha]

2 options:
- Every time your bound space changes form (you moved an item, you consumed an item, you got an item)
- Periodically every x minutes.
Option #2 is more likely to be true, but in that case they certainly need a cache storing all the temporary changes before hard committing them to the DB. Why? See below.


Of course it would be more efficient. But: There are huge risks.
And the risks are...

No, there are no tools to mitigate that. Because Turbine cannot have access to the user's setup. It can't really set emergency messages in case the internet drops or a backup generator in case power drops. And really ANYTHING can go wrong all the way from the client to the DB. Trying to set up safety measures is a fool's errand. If they want to keep the data up to date and safe, they have to manage them themselves. And they do: They have backup generators, backup files, redundancy in hardware and people working 24/7 to make sure that the servers and DBs are up and running.


No idea what you're saying here.
It's possible to reduce database updating by keeping a much faster cache for each character. (cache is a temporary fast memory serving as the middle man between the fast paced changes and the slow changing database) You record the changes in the cache the time they happen and every x minutes you take the contents of the cache and update the DB.


I don't know if the items are a pointer to the actual structure, but if I were designing the system, they certainly would be. The item structures would all be already stored in the client files and the server would simply tell the client "You have the items 1, 7, 42, 3 in your inventory" and the client would then display the actual items.

All of your answers are what I would have expected. It has been over 15 years since I taught databases at the Army Signal school to senior enlisted and junior officers and I haven't kept up with technology. That there are no efficient tools to mitigate risks does not surprise me. OTOH part of risk management is deciding if the risk is worth it. How pervasive would problems be, etc.

As to what I was saying about client side v server side and cross checking, what I meant was this -- what if the data was kept client side and on log in and at key points in the game it was cross referenced to the server side data? Is it too much work to see if the client side changes are consistent with expectations given time that has transpired, quests that have been played, etc. Or, does the client suddenly have a catalogue of things that ought not to be expected triggering some sort of monitoring.

Probably moot if there are not efficient/effective tools for addressing client side risk.

Lastly, most of my questions seem to be moot considering Cordovan's comments that BTC isn't actually the problem but rather *bank* size and numbers of stored items is the issue. That suggests that a more efficient method of displaying is what is really needed and that BTC is just a smoke screen. The way you indicate you would handle things ("items 1, 7, 42, 3") is precisely my point about gear just being a hex value. It *should* just be an inventory number and when called on *should* then trigger an appropriate object that provides all the needed attributes including visual depiction, BTC/BTA/unbound, prefix, suffix, whatever. Otherwise why code in C++ and/or C# (which is, I think, what DDO is primarily coded in).

[Nuclear_Elvis]

There is nothing in the game that is "so special" that it needs to be beyond BTA. BTA isolates the item to the player's account, period. The player only plays one character at a time, on one server. Why should any of us care that another player has options to move around gear that is BTA to any character on that server? It is up to the player (in some cases, a "Paying Customer") to determine which of his characters will be the "Main" character at that given time. Let the player reap rewards and use gear as they choose.

There is not one single good argument here about why any gear should remain BTC, instead of being converted to BTA. There are many many good reasons why BTC/BTA gear should NOT become unbound, as that is not in Turbine's interests to open the door to loots in content that are for-cost. The other arguments are not worthwhile, frankly, about players "Not playing content..." - that is not of our concern and it's not Cordovan's concern either. Players either play, or don't play, and they either pay, or don't pay.

I am sensitive to Turbine's needs to generate revenue, and yet remain attuned to the need for a Paying Customer to have some gaming satisfaction. Converting all known BTC items to BTA would be the single-greatest move the Game Developers could make this year, if they do it. It would bring back players, not drive them away. You'd have returning players to see what their Alts could do with some of that former BTC gear that is now accessible to other characters in their accounts, and you'd have simply more game enjoyment than grinding going on.

Want to see what quests are the most fun to play? Convert all BTC gear to BTA, and then watch as players play in the gear of their choosing within their Account center their gameplay toward those quests instead of grinding yet another time for yet another BTC item.

So, in closing, this is more than just about BTC vs BTA, and it is more than just about Lag implications -- it is about the "Grind" vs "Enjoyment."

[ice584]

The reasoning behind page selecting would be to decrease initial load times

Yeah, I get that, and if it would actually decrease lag, then it's worth doing. It would just be nice to be able to look at the full list all at once. Being able to split the list up into categories like your interface showed can be helpful though.


You do realize the "Bank Deposit" does already have a search function implemented? So to find those duplicate stacks you could use the search already.

I do, and it's great, however it doesn't help me when I don't know what I'm looking for. How do I find out which collectible/ingredient is taking up all my space? Do I have 30 stacks of Vials of Pure Water? Prayer Beads? Funerary tokens? etc. I can't easily look at everything at once, I can't filter by item type, I can't even sort by name or stack size.

All I CAN do is go through one page at a time or search each collectible and ingredient, one at a time, to see how many of each thing I have. Needless to say, that is a long and terrible process. Last time I did a full roundup of everything I had I think it took 3-4 hours. Now a couple months later it's about time I need to do it again and I'm dreading it. :(

[JOTMON]

We would not want to create an environment where people played "only" free quests to earn enough plat to buy all/most of their named items off the Auction Houses, rather than run new content, if for no other reason than it disincentivizes the creation of new content. There are quite a few reasons for having Bound to Character, BtCoE, BtA and Unbound loot, including how best to support various crafting systems, design goals, and financial/business goals. That said, I'm sure if we went through our entire loot list, we'd find places where the binding status could be adjusted.

This thread seems to be focused on Bound to Character loot "causing lag." The issue is the amount of storage, not the binding state of the items in storage. If making items unbound caused more items to go into storage, that would increase the problem rather than lessen it. To the extent that people hoard BtC items in case they might need them, that does contribute to the overall issue, but I don't know that making all/most non-raid named items unbound would improve things.

I tend to look at my loot as stepping stones, constantly moving up the scale to the next better thing.... Unbound>BTA>BTC.
I keep loot for TR lives to hit benchmark tiers and I also have 35 alts on my main account.
Some are pack mules to store neat gear that I may use someday, some are only played at certain levels, some are set to play with friends that play infrequently and I level them as they level theirs.

Gearwise most BTC loot has little value through the TR levelling process, there are some key ones like Von Gear, Reaver Gear, Abbot gear, Heroic Shroud Gear, that I would want static on every toon..
Things like Quiver of Alacrity, Kundarek Delving boots, most of the rest I can replace with BTA crafted gear(I maxxed crafting to 150x3) that I have 1 or two sets of to pass around for incremental levels, anong with an assortment of decent unbound items..
Other BTC gear like SOS only applies on melee lives, and yet I have 1 or 2 on every TR toons(casters and rogues and all) for those just in case future TR lives..
It may take years before I even get to playing some ofthese alts through TR lives.. so the 1 year rule doesn't really apply.. and I am sure the casual players are set into longer term goals..

Now. If I had a way to take some key BTC gear and convert it to BTA There would be less need for various pieces of BTC items for all my toons and I could dispose of many collected items in favor of sharable items.
Orchard BTA has filled this gear range quite well for level 28+, I have tossed a lot of BTC comparable gear in favor of these.
If we had something like 10,000 Tokens of the twelve, or BTA token for 100 Epic runs/DDO store..(or whatever other ingredient grind method) and my BTC item in a crafting alter to make it BTA I could dump several sets of BTC gear tied up in storage for those 'just in-case' on the right TR life..

or

even a BTA Sentient weapon that consumed my SOS and picked up the SOS traits...
Then I can build the transition weapon I want and pass it around..


Give us the means to transition items and we will do a reasonable grind to make them work..


There are some items I just have a hard time throwing away.. like my now useless chattering ring that took 200 runs..
I may just have to give up and throw it away instead of hoping that it will get revamped and made worthy of the status it used to have..
same with Icy rainemnts.. used to be an aweseome item for the dodge bonus.. now.. meh... no one even does Garamol runs anymore...new players don't even know who Garamol is let alone how to get there.

[Uska]

I tend to agree with this. I was running LOD chain the other day with someone that wanted the parts for Templar's Retribution. I had both a shard and a seal in my ingredients bag. I'll never make the weapon because, to me at least, it isn't worth having. But it was to him. Sad thing was I couldn't just give him the items.

Honestly, what would it hurt? In spite of OP's perspective I'm not convinced that anything really *needs* to be BTC or BTA. If it is really that expensive vis-a-vis lag then why not just eliminate it altogether?

While I'm at it, how about allowing everything to sell at the vendors? Why do I get BTC rune arms that I can't even sell, or tomes, or anything?

Again it's not binding causing lag so unbinding won't help

[nokowi]

There is not one single good argument here about why any gear should remain BTC, instead of being converted to BTA.

BTC gear forces you to play the toon you get the gear on. This has several advantages

1. Players play a larger variety of characters (rather than just their most OP main).
2. Players playing a specific character have a higher chance of having an item for that build passed to them. If you want that bard item you play your bard.


#1 one makes content that is not challenging on your main a challenge on your least equipped toons. This is good in a game that can't challenge the top builds.

[JOTMON]

BTC gear forces you to play the toon you get the gear on. This has several advantages

1. Players play a larger variety of characters (rather than just their most OP main).
2. Players playing a specific character have a higher chance of having an item for that build passed to them. If you want that bard item you play your bard.


#1 one makes content that is not challenging on your main a challenge on your least equipped toons. This is good in a game that can't challenge the top builds.

and more disadvantages.

1. have a more difficult time getting the item for the toon that actually has a use for it.
2. rolling against others, including those who may be collecting for TR lives
3. Drops are random.. so...sometimes items drop that are useful to an alt, but not to anyone currently in the group... ends up left in chest or taken by someone with no real need for it.
4. Drop rates are not good enough to get the item reliably enough on an indivudal basis, relying on group goodwill and good roll luck.
5. many 'friends' and guilds often pass within their own circles before opening to pugs.
6. have to play the toon you want the item on for the raid, instead of bringing the best fit for the group. resulting in higher chance of not getting into the group since they took the better fit toon.

Ultimately we are the same player behind the toons we play on the account, so does it really matter what toon we are playing when we join groups..
There have been many occasions where I have been in a pug group waiting to start for a key toon (cc, healer, lever/rune puller whatever..)and I have switched to an alt to get the raid going..resulting in the toon I wanted to run the raid not getting what they wanted.
Now I run content enough that it is not a big deal, but many players do not have the opportunity to get the ideal groups.

I do see value to BTC from a gaming perspective, it encourages buying packs, actually running the content the stuff comes from, etc... but we don't have the populations to support jumping into one of twelve open LFM's for the same raid..
We have many BTC items that have no real reason to be BTC outside of raids,
we have mechanics where chain end rewards have a chance of dropping BTC items while the individual quests drop BTA and BTCoE.. which baffles me to no end.. the chain reward is worse than the quest one.. Its easier to rinse/repeat 1 quest than it is to farm the whole chain..
I would of had the chain end reward be BTA/BTCoE while the quest is BTC. besides the chain reward is only selectable by the player there is no swap to party option here, so then it becomes open to move around/sell/whatever without buthurting a party member....

The way I see it is as long as I am running the quest on one of my toons and my account owns the pack, the items I am looking for should somehow be available to me for use by my main or alts.
Would even prefer to see more BTA fragment drops where I have to collect a bunch of fragments than can buy the item I want after so many runs/collected fragments(like Legendary TS/Hound)..

Moreso now with the abundance of TR lives and players not really set on final lives, we are cycling and storing a lot of gear that may have no transitionlife/endlife usefulness, BTA at least makes the items useful across the account and not stored off life maybe use items..
If the item is BTA I don't need a BTC version on every toon, I will keep BTA items on the toons that have use for them and trash the BTC versions.

[nokowi]

and more disadvantages.

1. have a more difficult time getting the item for the toon that actually has a use for it.
2. rolling against others, including those who may be collecting for TR lives
3. Drops are random.. so...sometimes items drop that are useful to an alt, but not to anyone currently in the group... ends up left in chest or taken by someone with no real need for it.
4. Drop rates are not good enough to get the item reliably enough on an indivudal basis, relying on group goodwill and good roll luck.
5. many 'friends' and guilds often pass within their own circles before opening to pugs.
6. have to play the toon you want the item on for the raid, instead of bringing the best fit for the group. resulting in higher chance of not getting into the group since they took the better fit toon.

Ultimately we are the same player behind the toons we play on the account, so does it really matter what toon we are playing when we join groups..
There have been many occasions where I have been in a pug group waiting to start for a key toon (cc, healer, lever/rune puller whatever..)and I have switched to an alt to get the raid going..resulting in the toon I wanted to run the raid not getting what they wanted.
Now I run content enough that it is not a big deal, but many players do not have the opportunity to get the ideal groups.

I do see value to BTC from a gaming perspective, it encourages buying packs, actually running the content the stuff comes from, etc... but we don't have the populations to support jumping into one of twelve open LFM's for the same raid..
We have many BTC items that have no real reason to be BTC outside of raids,
we have mechanics where chain end rewards have a chance of dropping BTC items while the individual quests drop BTA and BTCoE.. which baffles me to no end.. the chain reward is worse than the quest one.. Its easier to rinse/repeat 1 quest than it is to farm the whole chain..
I would of had the chain end reward be BTA/BTCoE while the quest is BTC. besides the chain reward is only selectable by the player there is no swap to party option here, so then it becomes open to move around/sell/whatever without buthurting a party member....

The way I see it is as long as I am running the quest on one of my toons and my account owns the pack, the items I am looking for should somehow be available to me for use by my main or alts.
Would even prefer to see more BTA fragment drops where I have to collect a bunch of fragments than can buy the item I want after so many runs/collected fragments(like Legendary TS/Hound)..

Moreso now with the abundance of TR lives and players not really set on final lives, we are cycling and storing a lot of gear that may have no transitionlife/endlife usefulness, BTA at least makes the items useful across the account and not stored off life maybe use items..
If the item is BTA I don't need a BTC version on every toon, I will keep BTA items on the toons that have use for them and trash the BTC versions.

That's your perception. Mine is different. As someone who typically plays only one toon, I can unequivocally say that BTC gear is better for that toon.

Do we design the game entirely around your preferences, or do we consider the preferences of all players by having some (but not all) BTC gear?

[JOTMON]

That's your perception. Mine is different. As someone who typically plays only one toon, I can unequivocally say that BTC gear is better for that toon.

Do we design the game entirely around your preferences, or do we consider the preferences of all players by having some (but not all) BTC gear?

well then this whole thread is pointless to you since you only play 1 toon.
IF you haven't divided your time between toons at the same level ranges this entire thread is pointless to you..
BTA means the same thing as BTC to a person who only plays 1 toon.

and we are discussing the preferences of all players not just the ones who only play 1 toon and don't care about alts or others.

[Grace_ana]

Again it's not binding causing lag so unbinding won't help

Storage of BTC is, though, so it is still an issue.

[Sobriquet]

While we're on the subject of loot/inventory modification. Could we please have an overhaul to the inventory management system itself? Sortable by type, name, effect, level, etc? Such a laborious process trying to find out what a character has/can use at any given level.

If you could start on this today, that'd be great.

[Uska]

Storage of BTC is, though, so it is still an issue.

No you are misreading as I took it since it is all storage and not BTC in particular and BTC of raid items should only end 1 year after the game ends

Some claim removing BTC would allow them to only have to have one of those per account but that logic doesn't decrease how many items are storage and causing lag because they would just store something else. No the easy solution but not a happy one would be to reduce all storage space.

[Hoglum]

That's your perception. Mine is different. As someone who typically plays only one toon, I can unequivocally say that BTC gear is better for that toon.

Do we design the game entirely around your preferences, or do we consider the preferences of all players by having some (but not all) BTC gear?


This guy probably likes it because people who can't use the gear pass it so he gets to get other people's treasure. I'll bet he hardly ever passes any himself, if ever, because he can say it'll be used in a future life.

Pay attention to this Cordovan and you can see why it's so wrong to pin BTC on players.

[QuantumFX]

It isn't that special. I've got a character with 43 past lives and I've never owned one (nor even wanted one). To be absolutely honest, there's not a single item in the game that is *that* special.

The other amusing thing that people seem to be forgetting: The Jibbers Blade is exclusive. A BtA version would just be a novelty item like the Scooty-Boots.

[Nuclear_Elvis]

BTC gear forces you to play the toon you get the gear on. This has several advantages

1. Players play a larger variety of characters (rather than just their most OP main).
2. Players playing a specific character have a higher chance of having an item for that build passed to them. If you want that bard item you play your bard.


#1 one makes content that is not challenging on your main a challenge on your least equipped toons. This is good in a game that can't challenge the top builds.

Simply put, none of these are your concern. The theoretical reasons "why" players play the game and more specifically "why" they play a specific character at any given time is not a valid logic basis for which to deny changing BTC items to BTA.

Look at it this way - Turbine either makes a quest pack that is enjoyable to play once or it is not enjoyable to play even once (to you individually, and potentially to the collective whole if the stats/surveys are conducted). And in addition, that same quest pack is either enjoyable to play repeatedly, or is not. It's not your concern, or Cordovan's concern, or Severlin's concern, or the Warner Brothers' CEO's concern as to why exactly a paying customer is playing a particular main vs alt within that quest pack that they developed, it simply isn't. So as result, the Paying Customer should have access to earned loots across their paying Account (if we really have to go there, it could be a Premium or VIP only feature, but I'd like to see BTA to BTC conversion for all to include FTP).

Turbine's concern: Make the game fun. Make the game enjoyable. Make the game flexible for recurring gameplay of the same content. This BTC to BTA conversion has absolutely no negative consequence on those issues, none whatsoever, regardless who pulls theoretical red herrings into the discussion here.

[Uska]

Simply put, none of these are your concern. The theoretical reasons "why" players play the game and more specifically "why" they play a specific character at any given time is not a valid logic basis for which to deny changing BTC items to BTA.

Look at it this way - Turbine either makes a quest pack that is enjoyable to play once or it is not enjoyable to play even once (to you individually, and potentially to the collective whole if the stats/surveys are conducted). And in addition, that same quest pack is either enjoyable to play repeatedly, or is not. It's not your concern, or Cordovan's concern, or Severlin's concern, or the Warner Brothers' CEO's concern as to why exactly a paying customer is playing a particular main vs alt within that quest pack that they developed, it simply isn't. So as result, the Paying Customer should have access to earned loots across their paying Account (if we really have to go there, it could be a Premium or VIP only feature, but I'd like to see BTA to BTC conversion for all to include FTP).

Turbine's concern: Make the game fun. Make the game enjoyable. Make the game flexible for recurring gameplay of the same content. This BTC to BTA conversion has absolutely no negative consequence on those issues, none whatsoever, regardless who pulls theoretical red herrings into the discussion here.

Well I enjoy some gear being bound to particular characters especially if it's recognizable gear it shows that character did that quest

[Uska]

There is nothing in the game that is "so special" that it needs to be beyond BTA. BTA isolates the item to the player's account, period. The player only plays one character at a time, on one server. Why should any of us care that another player has options to move around gear that is BTA to any character on that server? It is up to the player (in some cases, a "Paying Customer") to determine which of his characters will be the "Main" character at that given time. Let the player reap rewards and use gear as they choose.

There is not one single good argument here about why any gear should remain BTC, instead of being converted to BTA. There are many many good reasons why BTC/BTA gear should NOT become unbound, as that is not in Turbine's interests to open the door to loots in content that are for-cost. The other arguments are not worthwhile, frankly, about players "Not playing content..." - that is not of our concern and it's not Cordovan's concern either. Players either play, or don't play, and they either pay, or don't pay.

I am sensitive to Turbine's needs to generate revenue, and yet remain attuned to the need for a Paying Customer to have some gaming satisfaction. Converting all known BTC items to BTA would be the single-greatest move the Game Developers could make this year, if they do it. It would bring back players, not drive them away. You'd have returning players to see what their Alts could do with some of that former BTC gear that is now accessible to other characters in their accounts, and you'd have simply more game enjoyment than grinding going on.

Want to see what quests are the most fun to play? Convert all BTC gear to BTA, and then watch as players play in the gear of their choosing within their Account center their gameplay toward those quests instead of grinding yet another time for yet another BTC item.

So, in closing, this is more than just about BTC vs BTA, and it is more than just about Lag implications -- it is about the "Grind" vs "Enjoyment."

Your opinion mine is very different

[Gremmlynn]

Simply put, none of these are your concern. The theoretical reasons "why" players play the game and more specifically "why" they play a specific character at any given time is not a valid logic basis for which to deny changing BTC items to BTA.

Look at it this way - Turbine either makes a quest pack that is enjoyable to play once or it is not enjoyable to play even once (to you individually, and potentially to the collective whole if the stats/surveys are conducted). And in addition, that same quest pack is either enjoyable to play repeatedly, or is not. It's not your concern, or Cordovan's concern, or Severlin's concern, or the Warner Brothers' CEO's concern as to why exactly a paying customer is playing a particular main vs alt within that quest pack that they developed, it simply isn't. So as result, the Paying Customer should have access to earned loots across their paying Account (if we really have to go there, it could be a Premium or VIP only feature, but I'd like to see BTA to BTC conversion for all to include FTP).

Turbine's concern: Make the game fun. Make the game enjoyable. Make the game flexible for recurring gameplay of the same content. This BTC to BTA conversion has absolutely no negative consequence on those issues, none whatsoever, regardless who pulls theoretical red herrings into the discussion here.Um, yeah sure. If Sev or WB feel BTC loot makes their game more profitable, I'm sure they are going to let your opinion that it isn't their concern get in the way of having it.

Frankly, what kind of loot the game has is solely their concern, as is everything else in the game. Your, my and everyone else's only concern is whether or not we choose to play whatever game it is they are offering.

[nokowi]

Simply put, none of these are your concern. The theoretical reasons "why" players play the game and more specifically "why" they play a specific character at any given time is not a valid logic basis for which to deny changing BTC items to BTA.

Look at it this way - Turbine either makes a quest pack that is enjoyable to play once or it is not enjoyable to play even once (to you individually, and potentially to the collective whole if the stats/surveys are conducted). And in addition, that same quest pack is either enjoyable to play repeatedly, or is not. It's not your concern, or Cordovan's concern, or Severlin's concern, or the Warner Brothers' CEO's concern as to why exactly a paying customer is playing a particular main vs alt within that quest pack that they developed, it simply isn't. So as result, the Paying Customer should have access to earned loots across their paying Account (if we really have to go there, it could be a Premium or VIP only feature, but I'd like to see BTA to BTC conversion for all to include FTP).

Turbine's concern: Make the game fun. Make the game enjoyable. Make the game flexible for recurring gameplay of the same content. This BTC to BTA conversion has absolutely no negative consequence on those issues, none whatsoever, regardless who pulls theoretical red herrings into the discussion here.

I said I like BTC gear. That is what is the most fun for me. I explained why.

My post is directly tied to your description of turbines concern.

Your preference has no weight on my preference, sorry. Nor does my (or your) preference invalidate the others.

[Gremmlynn]

BTC gear forces you to play the toon you get the gear on. This has several advantages

1. Players play a larger variety of characters (rather than just their most OP main).
2. Players playing a specific character have a higher chance of having an item for that build passed to them. If you want that bard item you play your bard.


#1 one makes content that is not challenging on your main a challenge on your least equipped toons. This is good in a game that can't challenge the top builds.You missed the big one and the reason Turbine really cares. Any loot found on the "wrong" character doesn't lesson the grind for the "right" character. So, for example, getting that SoS to drop for your wizard doesn't mean your barb wont have to grind for it.

EDIT: It also means that if you want an item for several characters, each has to grind one, not just find one and pass it around.

[Nuclear_Elvis]

Um, yeah sure. If Sev or WB feel BTC loot makes their game more profitable, I'm sure they are going to let your opinion that it isn't their concern get in the way of having it.

Frankly, what kind of loot the game has is solely their concern, as is everything else in the game. Your, my and everyone else's only concern is whether or not we choose to play whatever game it is they are offering.

You may have missed the point I was making, so I will reframe it...
In my argument, I have already made the initial binary assumption that I am willing to play the game. So, that binary decision is a foregone conclusion, either I do or don't want to play (and in this case - I do).

Then, further, let's say I have 5 characters per server x 8 = 40 total characters across my DDO landscape. Of those 40 characters, I decide to play on a particular server, on a specific character. What concern is that for other players here, and what concern is it of WB/Turbine, if I have already decided to play (and in my case - pay)? It really isn't their concern, I've chosen to be a customer, and my choice then was to play a particular character. If I decide to play solo, that is an additional choice. If I decide to play in a group, yet another choice. If I decide to join a Guild and be social in Guild chat - etc etc.

Why should I have gear that is isolated to that one character of my 5 on that server? Why does BTC really exist, in Turbine's interests? If we also know that total slots occupied could be contributing to lag, then even more so - why isolate gear as BTC instead of making it all BTA that then only causes me to hold one single Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers per server instead of up to 5 (no matter how "special" some may think it is...)?

Does Turbine really think that because I don't have the Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers yet on characters 2-5 on a particular server, that I am motivated to play the game more? I really hope this isn't the marketing logic applied inside WB/Turbine, because it would be off the mark.

And if you don't want to buy this (players or Dev's) -- then simply post or mail a survey to the existing player base. Find out how many players are staying in the game because they don't yet have BTC gear on the "right" character. We really aren't playing the game to grind out BTC gear, and this is one of the lore holdovers from D&D that should have sailed away long ago.

[Uska]

You may have missed the point I was making, so I will reframe it...
In my argument, I have already made the initial binary assumption that I am willing to play the game. So, that binary decision is a foregone conclusion, either I do or don't want to play (and in this case - I do).

Then, further, let's say I have 5 characters per server x 8 = 40 total characters across my DDO landscape. Of those 40 characters, I decide to play on a particular server, on a specific character. What concern is that for other players here, and what concern is it of WB/Turbine, if I have already decided to play (and in my case - pay)? It really isn't their concern, I've chosen to be a customer, and my choice then was to play a particular character. If I decide to play solo, that is an additional choice. If I decide to play in a group, yet another choice. If I decide to join a Guild and be social in Guild chat - etc etc.

Why should I have gear that is isolated to that one character of my 5 on that server? Why does BTC really exist, in Turbine's interests? If we also know that total slots occupied could be contributing to lag, then even more so - why isolate gear as BTC instead of making it all BTA that then only causes me to hold one single Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers per server instead of up to 5 (no matter how "special" some may think it is...)?

Does Turbine really think that because I don't have the Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers yet on characters 2-5 on a particular server, that I am motivated to play the game more? I really hope this isn't the marketing logic applied inside WB/Turbine, because it would be off the mark.

And if you don't want to buy this (players or Dev's) -- then simply post or mail a survey to the existing player base. Find out how many players are staying in the game because they don't yet have BTC gear on the "right" character. We really aren't playing the game to grind out BTC gear, and this is one of the lore holdovers from D&D that should have sailed away long ago.

Disagree as much as it is possible to disagree.

I think there is a place for BTC and raid gear is it.

We will never agree on this in this or any other life time or dimension

[Nonesuch2008]

I think there is a place for BTC and raid gear is it.

I concur with this sentiment. But a lot of the other non-raid BtC items out there could at least use a review.

[nokowi]

You may have missed the point I was making, so I will reframe it...
In my argument, I have already made the initial binary assumption that I am willing to play the game. So, that binary decision is a foregone conclusion, either I do or don't want to play (and in this case - I do).

Then, further, let's say I have 5 characters per server x 8 = 40 total characters across my DDO landscape. Of those 40 characters, I decide to play on a particular server, on a specific character. What concern is that for other players here, and what concern is it of WB/Turbine, if I have already decided to play (and in my case - pay)? It really isn't their concern, I've chosen to be a customer, and my choice then was to play a particular character. If I decide to play solo, that is an additional choice. If I decide to play in a group, yet another choice. If I decide to join a Guild and be social in Guild chat - etc etc.

Why should I have gear that is isolated to that one character of my 5 on that server? Why does BTC really exist, in Turbine's interests? If we also know that total slots occupied could be contributing to lag, then even more so - why isolate gear as BTC instead of making it all BTA that then only causes me to hold one single Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers per server instead of up to 5 (no matter how "special" some may think it is...)?

Does Turbine really think that because I don't have the Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers yet on characters 2-5 on a particular server, that I am motivated to play the game more? I really hope this isn't the marketing logic applied inside WB/Turbine, because it would be off the mark.

And if you don't want to buy this (players or Dev's) -- then simply post or mail a survey to the existing player base. Find out how many players are staying in the game because they don't yet have BTC gear on the "right" character. We really aren't playing the game to grind out BTC gear, and this is one of the lore holdovers from D&D that should have sailed away long ago.

My guildies do Jibbers runs until everyone has one on every alt. It helps prevent a lag wipe, and is important for everyone to have, even on their gimpy characters. This content has seen many many more times the gameplay specifically because Jibbers is BTC.

I'm sorry you can't see it.

I don't feel you have any special right or privilege to not have to get BTC gear. If you enjoy the game, you can run the content.

[Nuclear_Elvis]

Disagree as much as it is possible to disagree.

I think there is a place for BTC and raid gear is it.

We will never agree on this in this or any other life time or dimension

Okay, then please make a good argument as to why Raid gear must be BTC. Haven't heard a single one yet. You're simply saying it should be...why?

[Nuclear_Elvis]

My guildies do Jibbers runs until everyone has one on every alt. It helps prevent a lag wipe, and is important for everyone to have, even on their gimpy characters. This content has seen many many more times the gameplay specifically because Jibbers is BTC.

I'm sorry you can't see it.

I don't feel you have any special right or privilege to not have to get BTC gear. If you enjoy the game, you can run the content.

So, what is the logic to running the content multiple times for the same BTC gear? It's not about "rights" or "privilege" it's about whether it makes sense to force BTC gear in this game, vice simply making it BTA. Do you not see the unnecessary grind you are arguing for? I don't want to "see" the grindy time-sink you're apparently happy to wallow in.

[Gremmlynn]

You may have missed the point I was making, so I will reframe it...
In my argument, I have already made the initial binary assumption that I am willing to play the game. So, that binary decision is a foregone conclusion, either I do or don't want to play (and in this case - I do).

Then, further, let's say I have 5 characters per server x 8 = 40 total characters across my DDO landscape. Of those 40 characters, I decide to play on a particular server, on a specific character. What concern is that for other players here, and what concern is it of WB/Turbine, if I have already decided to play (and in my case - pay)? It really isn't their concern, I've chosen to be a customer, and my choice then was to play a particular character. If I decide to play solo, that is an additional choice. If I decide to play in a group, yet another choice. If I decide to join a Guild and be social in Guild chat - etc etc.

Why should I have gear that is isolated to that one character of my 5 on that server? Why does BTC really exist, in Turbine's interests? If we also know that total slots occupied could be contributing to lag, then even more so - why isolate gear as BTC instead of making it all BTA that then only causes me to hold one single Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers per server instead of up to 5 (no matter how "special" some may think it is...)?From what I get from the dev comments, it would make no difference if you had one you pass around or one on each character as the one that is loaded into the game is the only one that matters.


Does Turbine really think that because I don't have the Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers yet on characters 2-5 on a particular server, that I am motivated to play the game more? I really hope this isn't the marketing logic applied inside WB/Turbine, because it would be off the mark.

And if you don't want to buy this (players or Dev's) -- then simply post or mail a survey to the existing player base. Find out how many players are staying in the game because they don't yet have BTC gear on the "right" character. We really aren't playing the game to grind out BTC gear, and this is one of the lore holdovers from D&D that should have sailed away long ago.It's mostly a matter content longevity. It's just a cheap and easy way to keep content relevant longer.

[Gremmlynn]

Disagree as much as it is possible to disagree.

I think there is a place for BTC and raid gear is it.

We will never agree on this in this or any other life time or dimensionDifferent perspectives. One is that of the player, the other of the individual characters.

[Gremmlynn]

So, what is the logic to running the content multiple times for the same BTC gear? It's not about "rights" or "privilege" it's about whether it makes sense to force BTC gear in this game, vice simply making it BTA. Do you not see the unnecessary grind you are arguing for? I don't want to "see" the grindy time-sink you're apparently happy to wallow in.That's because you are playing the game, not making it. Yes, those are grindy time sinks because time sinks are necessary for content longevity and grind is a cost effective way of adding them. It's basically the same thing as TR from Turbines perspective, a way to get the most out of whatever content they invest resources to make as a means of lowering the amount of resources they need to invest overall to keep players occupied playing the game.

The logic is that the more players have to run content, the less content they need and the fewer people they have to pay to generate it.

[nokowi]

So, what is the logic to running the content multiple times for the same BTC gear? It's not about "rights" or "privilege" it's about whether it makes sense to force BTC gear in this game, vice simply making it BTA. Do you not see the unnecessary grind you are arguing for? I don't want to "see" the grindy time-sink you're apparently happy to wallow in.

There is not enough content in the game to keep a good portion of players actively playing without grind.

Providing grind while offering $ means to reduce grind is the economic basis of this game.

If you are upset by it, you can spend some $ to reroll the chest, or simply use the resources you have obtained while doing the non grindy things that you enjoy.

[Robai]

Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Cursed_Blade_of_Jack_Jibbers) should NOT be BTA - it and lots of other unique items need (IMHO) to remain BtC (including Eternal Flasks).

^this^

I don't mind that useless BtC/BtCoE named items would become BtA.
But I wouldn't want that special items like Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers or Mysterious Bauble (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Mysterious_Bauble) and many other useful items would become BtA (Devs should work on increasing BtC storage (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/475758-Producer-s-Letter?p=5838528&viewfull=1#post5838528) instead, because there will be nothing to do in this game if we get such an easy access to rare loot).

Btw, I hate that U24 (https://www.ddo.com/en/update-24-release-notes) increased drop rates of many rare items (including bauble).
When lvl cap was 20 and we had no ED I worked hard on my Wiz to get that bauble, it was fun. Now lvl cap was increased, we got EDs and thus it become so much easier to farm that item. On top of that, by some unknown logic drop rates were increased. *sigh*