2 item categories that Binding status could change to improve the game.

[Aelonwy]

As title... I think if they changed the Binding status from BTC to BTA of ALL Dragonscale armors, & Minor Artifacts the results would be a vast improvement in convenience, QoL, and reduction in storage.

Right now I have a character with 8... EIGHT minor artifacts because I keep having to shuffle build and gear and I know I have 3 wiz lives, and maybe some others to run on her so keeping alternate Int artifacts. Its ridiculous...but...but I can't depend on RNG dropping them again for that character... EVER... so it encourages me to hold on to them indefinitely because absurdly they are BTC.

Oh yeah and Dragonscale armors, very few of my characters have less than 2, but they're BTC despite not being all that special anymore except to look at... and I've been seriously thinking of just Mirroring the ones I like best and tossing almost all of them. Really sad since they took significant effort to acquire in the first place... but I can't mule them because BTC.

Honorable mentions to Eveningstar Commendation Turn-ins, GH/Wheloon/Stormhorns BTC difficulty stratified items. These would also benefit from a binding status change but in their current form most aren't really worth using so ? *shrug*

[eightspoons]

It's about time they stopped leaning so heavily on BtC, at least for anything that's not raid related (and even that's pushing it slightly), especially with a level cap increase looming. Not to mention that it would resolve a very large number of storage issues.

At this point the excess of BtC items just seems plain stupid.

[SlowDM]

BTC raid items makes players pass them. Raids a different to quests usually need a team. However nothing else should be BTC , it’s completely absurd they are. Someone please explain why

[Mindos]

Why not make all of these into BTA? Raid runes are BTA, why are all of these things BTC?

https://i.imgur.com/DbFhpn7.png

[Oxarhamar]

Bring back BTCoE items and update old stuffs that’s BTC & BTA to be BTCoE so we can have tradable gear again

I never liked BTA anyway because it feels like a half baked storage solution instead of truly for shared across the account

Still I agree with the concept

[Aelonwy]

Bring back BTCoE items and update old stuffs that’s BTC & BTA to be BTCoE so we can have tradable gear again

I never liked BTA anyway because it feels like a half baked storage solution instead of truly for shared across the account

Still I agree with the concept

I really can't support BTCoE but... if you simply want loot that can be traded there does exist a binding status that is seldom used but would make us both happy... BTA on Equip (BTAoE) such as is used on the Pale Green Ioun Stone.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Pale_Green_Ioun_Stone

I'm sure they wouldn't want all loot to be tradeable because that devalues purchasing packs and expansions but having a handful of slightly rarer items per pack be tradeable but once equipped BTA would make fun chaser items allowing people that own the packs to choose to continue to grind for said item or trade for it with another player.

I have never once looted a Pale Green Ioun Stone but I've bought 5 of them, 2 for myself and 1 for each of my family members.

[Oxarhamar]

I really can't support BTCoE but... if you simply want loot that can be traded there does exist a binding status that is seldom used but would make us both happy... BTA on Equip (BTAoE) such as is used on the Pale Green Ioun Stone.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Pale_Green_Ioun_Stone

I'm sure they wouldn't want all loot to be tradeable because that devalues purchasing packs and expansions but having a handful of slightly rarer items per pack be tradeable but once equipped BTA would make fun chaser items allowing people that own the packs to choose to continue to grind for said item or trade for it with another player.

I have never once looted a Pale Green Ioun Stone but I've bought 5 of them, 2 for myself and 1 for each of my family members.

BTCoE or BTAoE no matter to me what’s important is those remain tradable either before equip in AH or after on Shard Exchange

I understand the wanting BTAoE because it functions as a half baked storage solution


Yeah pushing packs is why we have so much BTA BTC and stale in game economics silly really

It was also how we got the stat squish after it got out of control

[Bjond]

I actually played on the "Firona Vie" server in EQ1. Among other unique rules, it had NO bound items at all. You could trade raid items. You could even gear a L1 with all raid items. My L1 guild raid bank mule had something like 5k HP (50 was normal for a L1) from random unwanted raid drops.

Forum whingers went ape over the idea saying it would kill the game, unbalance, etc etc etc.. In actual effect, it was immensely fun and I never saw a single case of absurd lowbies other than bank mules. Besides, unlike EQ1, DDO has an ML for items. A L1 can't wear end-game gear.

Even with unbound gear, I'd still want full sets on each character for end game. Swapping and gear sharing between characters only works for me sub-cap, since I typically only work on PLs for a single character at a time with all the rest parked up at cap for raiding. It would be prohibitively time-consuming to tell a raid "hey, wait 30m while I shuffle gear to my tank!"

So, I see no problem with retagging all BTC as BTA or even making everything unbound. It works wonderfully. Will there be a glut of items on AH? Yes, at first. But, people will be far more willing to clear storage when it's possible to buy a replacement later on the AH. And, it will solve the biggest problem with chest-looting -- passing inside the chest is buggy.

[Aelonwy]

As far as the Commendations gear goes, right now we're really busy working on other very cool stuff, but in the meantime we can at the very least make those specific Commendations themselves BTA rather than BTC.

This is an awesome QoL change (from another thread), would it be possible for the 2 categories in the OP to get discussed/put on a list for change of binding status in the future?

[SlowDM]

I really can't support BTCoE but... if you simply want loot that can be traded there does exist a binding status that is seldom used but would make us both happy... BTA on Equip (BTAoE) such as is used on the Pale Green Ioun Stone.
https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Pale_Green_Ioun_Stone

I'm sure they wouldn't want all loot to be tradeable because that devalues purchasing packs and expansions but having a handful of slightly rarer items per pack be tradeable but once equipped BTA would make fun chaser items allowing people that own the packs to choose to continue to grind for said item or trade for it with another player.

I have never once looted a Pale Green Ioun Stone but I've bought 5 of them, 2 for myself and 1 for each of my family members.

Still have 2 on a bank character as well as some other items. Would it help astral shard sales? Other games do this all the time.

[Enoach]

I do feel the BTC was over used and should have been limited to Raid and Solo only* quest special loot.

Many items added with BTC or BTCoE really should have been BTA or unbound.

*I'm including Solo only as a category to include quests like the Dragon Mark quest that grants a free feat exchange. I think it is a good thing to keep this as an option.

[Wizard1406]

I have to agree with making most gear unbound or bound to account on equip. If you want to keep quest pack usefulness, add a "requires RL/Sharn/Fey etc." flag to be able to wear it.

It would revitalize the economy and make inventory space troubles a bit better. (I'd say increase astral shard post limit too, using many auction alts is tedious too)
I'd imagine items from TR train quests would then almost always be available. You can then just keep the items from quests that are rarely run for later TRs or alts and buy everything else that you need.

At least once the level cap increases, it should really be considered... we already don't have enough space for 1-29 items.

[Chacka_DDO]

Yes, artifacts should be BTA like every other item unless there is a good reason to make them BTC (like the VIP ticked from Saltmarch every character is intended to get only one time).
And I include explicitly also raid items especially when you acquire them with raid runes there is no reason to have them BTC, most likely the only reason why almost everyone thinks raid items have to be BTC is some kind of odd tradition for that rule.
I see no reason why a player should not freely decide on which character he wants to use his items just only because some players think they know better what to do with the loot/items of others.
And yes I know if you play a caster and someone else loots the item you are looking for especially if his current build doesn't need that, it feels most likely not good but I know for myself such feelings are wrong and everyone has the right to decide what he wants to do with his items.

[Riffolk]

Huge support for swapping Artifacts to Bound to Account, would be a huge QoL upgrade.
Really hate pulling an artifact with boosted stats on a toon that will never use it.

I was pretty sure a dev had mentioned changing EStar Commendations to BtA in an upcoming update but can't seem to find it in the dev tracker.
*Off looking for clues*...

[Valerianus]

totally agree with OP


artifacts should have never been btc, RNG btc drops, it's awful.

also all that old stuff OP and other posters have mentioned


also turning all btcoe in btaoe would be awesome



please unclog storage in any way possible. please.

[Aelonwy]

artifacts should have never been btc, RNG btc drops, it's awful.


I know right?! I argued for BTA on these on Lamannia but I guess they didn't realize how players would cling to them because of gear shuffling and TRing and how much they would fill up storage. You just cannot guarantee that any specific character will get any specific artifact without tremendous grind because RNG and because there is not a particular quest to run for any specific item you can end up running whole series, repeatedly, still without any progress toward your goal item. Then just because you are tired of playing that character you might run your other character through... get it on that character and curse RNG among other things.

[Carpone]

The BTC status of minor artifacts is a vestige when shortly after Sharn, this new item type was no longer exclusive to raids.

The problem is, there are plenty of minor artifacts w/o an associated raid. So treating all minor artifacts as BTC doesn't make sense. Ironically, when the new Morgrave University minor artifacts were first released one of them was BTA instead of BTC. I had one in my shared bank. The world didn't end.

[Assassination]

And I include explicitly also raid items especially when you acquire them with raid runes there is no reason to have them BTC, most likely the only reason why almost everyone thinks raid items have to be BTC is some kind of odd tradition for that rule.
.

Raid items used to be pretty special, with the stat squish they are barely better than quest items. Saltmarsh quest items included 2 augment slots, one of raid items biggest advantages, so if that continues raid items even less special. I think all of it should be bound to account.

[Certon]

BtC and BtA and even item level restrictions are *SO* anti-D&D. It makes no sense at all.

"I'd give you this sword that I no longer use, but I can't." Because...???
"One day, I'll be able to wield this super-light, finely crafted blade, but until then, I'll just keep using this poorly made, unbalanced, heavy monstrosity." You'd think that better made equipment would be EASIER to wield.
"I'm sorry sir, you can't put this item into our THAT part of our bank because it's bound to you but you can put it in THIS bank space over here. That would be just fine." Huh?

[Mindos]

Horrible, but! What if we remove ALL binding? Nothing is bound, everything is freely tradeable, etc.
Catch? Item damage increases 10,000 percent?

[dredre9987]

Horrible, but! What if we remove ALL binding? Nothing is bound, everything is freely tradeable, etc.
Catch? Item damage increases 10,000 percent?

You put item dmg up that high and you will need multiple weapons for almost every other fight.

[ahpook]

BtC and BtA and even item level restrictions are *SO* anti-D&D. It makes no sense at all.

I am not certain that harkening to the spirit of D&D is a convincing argument. While BtC and BtA may not be desireable game mechanics, they may be (poorly) doing what a DM would have done:



"I'd give you this sword that I no longer use, but I can't." Because...???

So you think any DM you played with would go along with:
"Dave, my level 10 fighter that was playing in the other campaign is going to come over to the tavern and give his +5 mithral short sword to my rogue!"
Dave: "Uhh, no."



"One day, I'll be able to wield this super-light, finely crafted blade, but until then, I'll just keep using this poorly made, unbalanced, heavy monstrosity." You'd think that better made equipment would be EASIER to wield.

"Dave, my level 1 rogue is going to use this +5 short sword that he got from a guy in a tavern!"
Dave: "Sure. When you leave the tavern, you find a group of level 5 thugs waiting for you. You recognize one of then from tavern who watched you lovingly caress your new sword."



"I'm sorry sir, you can't put this item into our THAT part of our bank because it's bound to you but you can put it in THIS bank space over here. That would be just fine." Huh?

"Dave, I am going to put this stuff in my bank here in the borderlands keep".
Dave: "OK"
"Dave, now that we are in Greyhawke, I am going to take out the stuff I put in the bank".
Dave, OK, it will take you three weeks to get back to the Keep and then 3 weeks to return. We can roll for encounters tomorrow. Tonight the rest of the group will continue the adventure here in Greyhawke. You can spend the night updating your character sheet, I guess."

Of course, Dave may have been a jerk.

[Ulfo]

Horrible, but! What if we remove ALL binding? Nothing is bound, everything is freely tradeable, etc.
Catch? Item damage increases 10,000 percent?

It's good idea really. Bound status must provide bonus, not only obvious bogus, and choice between bound/unbound status must be well informed.

You want to trade stuff freely? Keep unbound status at risk of permanent damage.
Do you want to keep stuff safe from the risk of such damage? Move to bound status with the loss of free trade.

/Signed! 8)

[Wizard1406]

Good idea, actually. If you don't need it, sell it. If you wear it (can also send to alts), you better bind it, otherwise it will take way too much damage. In practice, it's the same as bind to character on equip.

[Aelonwy]

In practice, it's the same as bind to character on equip.

Ug no more of that please. BTAoE. Bound to Account on Equip solves so many issues.

[Wizard1406]

Ug no more of that please. BTAoE. Bound to Account on Equip solves so many issues.

Good point, maybe change the binding mechanic in the stone of change, so it goes from unbound to BTA instead of unbound to BTC like currently.

Anyway, being able to trade equipment (and not just mostly outdated items) again would be great IMHO, revitalizing the economy.

[ahpook]

Good idea, actually. If you don't need it, sell it. If you wear it (can also send to alts), you better bind it, otherwise it will take way too much damage. In practice, it's the same as bind to character on equip.
They don't even need to increase the damage. Back in the day I bound a few items (WOP rapiers, rings with good clickies) that I didn't want to get permanently damaged. I don't know if anyone has done that in a long time since unbound gear is almost always just a placeholder for named items that are damage immune. I think the damage factor may be a sufficient trade off that almost everything could be unbound.

The only question then is do they allow expansion gear to be sold and used by non-expansion owners. If they need the gear as an expansion purchase carrot, they could allow sales and trades but have a equip requirement of owning the pack.

[mbartol]

They don't even need to increase the damage. Back in the day I bound a few items (WOP rapiers, rings with good clickies) that I didn't want to get permanently damaged. I don't know if anyone has done that in a long time since unbound gear is almost always just a placeholder for named items that are damage immune. I think the damage factor may be a sufficient trade off that almost everything could be unbound.

The only question then is do they allow expansion gear to be sold and used by non-expansion owners. If they need the gear as an expansion purchase carrot, they could allow sales and trades but have a equip requirement of owning the pack.

It is clear that BtA status on all expansion loot was to prevent people from acquiring the gear without buying the content. I really like the idea of owning the pack to allow equipping the item.

As far as any binding status goes, I would love to convert all BtC to BtA status. I would likely never use the TR Cache again. Even though it is a workaround, I’d buy more slots for mules and additional inventory/bank tabs.

[Wizard1406]

Gear would only need a flag "requires content xy to equip". Then it wouldn't diminish the value of expansions / quest packs.

[Aelonwy]

It is clear that BtA status on all expansion loot was to prevent people from acquiring the gear without buying the content. I really like the idea of owning the pack to allow equipping the item.

As far as any binding status goes, I would love to convert all BtC to BtA status. I would likely never use the TR Cache again. Even though it is a workaround, I’d buy more slots for mules and additional inventory/bank tabs.

I would love for them to change all QUEST loot/widget turn-in loot to BTA or BTAoE but they will never change raid loot to BTA if only because they need something to entice the whales to buy Wishes. And I'm fine with that.

[Zhyano]

/signed

[scut207]

I actually played on the "Firona Vie" server in EQ1. Among other unique rules, it had NO bound items at all. You could trade raid items. You could even gear a L1 with all raid items. My L1 guild raid bank mule had something like 5k HP (50 was normal for a L1) from random unwanted raid drops.

Forum whingers went ape over the idea saying it would kill the game, unbalance, etc etc etc.. In actual effect, it was immensely fun and I never saw a single case of absurd lowbies other than bank mules. Besides, unlike EQ1, DDO has an ML for items. A L1 can't wear end-game gear.

Even with unbound gear, I'd still want full sets on each character for end game. Swapping and gear sharing between characters only works for me sub-cap, since I typically only work on PLs for a single character at a time with all the rest parked up at cap for raiding. It would be prohibitively time-consuming to tell a raid "hey, wait 30m while I shuffle gear to my tank!"

So, I see no problem with retagging all BTC as BTA or even making everything unbound. It works wonderfully. Will there be a glut of items on AH? Yes, at first. But, people will be far more willing to clear storage when it's possible to buy a replacement later on the AH. And, it will solve the biggest problem with chest-looting -- passing inside the chest is buggy.

Bjond, which guild were you in?

I was in Esoteric Order.

[Bjond]

Bjond, which guild were you in?

I was in Esoteric Order.
Esoteric Order sounds familiar, but I could be confusing it with another "esoteric" label from somewhere. 20yrs is a fair bit of time to recall guild names. I even had to look up the ones I was in, one of which I did guild leader for a bit (AD): Ancient Darkness (AD) mostly with a little Fire & Fury (FnF) just before punting EQ1 for FFXI. Both were what was called "uber guilds" or "raiding guilds", but all that was meant by that back then was that instead of making alliances with other guilds to do a raid, they'd field the entire force from their own guild. I'd have rated AD as 3rd and FnF as 1st due to difficulty of the targets we were killing.

[Mofus]

I agree, same for old greensteel weapons and armor.

[Aelonwy]

Bumping because I still feel strongly that the binding status of Minor Artifacts and Dragonscale armors would be a huge QoL upgrade if changed to BTA.

[LightBear]

The thing is, a lot of minor artifacts are also raid items.
Personally I'd rather have em drop of the raid-items list and be made into BTA if there is some general rule in the system that prevents them from being BTA because of that.
As a side-effect this would give you a higher chance of the actual raid items, hopefully.


I think I have 80 items in my green sack that are BTC, most of them are runes.
I pick em up whenever I'm in Reaver's Reach but never use them to craft an armor of any kind.

The Bound on Equip system is not preventing the clogging up your personal inventory and bank space over multiple lives.
Also the dark-blue bordered items should be made into BTA.

[Josielynn]

I doubt they will change the binding status of Minor Artifacts due to wanting us to buy the Wish of Inheritance.

[ChrisTOTG]

Bumping because I still feel strongly that the binding status of Minor Artifacts and Dragonscale armors would be a huge QoL upgrade if changed to BTA.

I would be quite happy to have all non-raid named items - except for Very Special Items like jibbers - be converted to Account-bound, especially old items. Maybe it's a database change they're willing to make, or maybe it's a Stone of Change recipe to cut down on database load.

They already did it for cosmetics!

[Aelonwy]

The thing is, a lot of minor artifacts are also raid items.
Personally I'd rather have em drop of the raid-items list and be made into BTA if there is some general rule in the system that prevents them from being BTA because of that.
As a side-effect this would give you a higher chance of the actual raid items, hopefully.


I think I have 80 items in my green sack that are BTC, most of them are runes.
I pick em up whenever I'm in Reaver's Reach but never use them to craft an armor of any kind.

The Bound on Equip system is not preventing the clogging up your personal inventory and bank space over multiple lives.
Also the dark-blue bordered items should be made into BTA.

I'm not 100% percent certain without researching it but are there ANY minor artifacts that are RAID-ONLY? Or just also accessible from raids associated from the same content group? See I'm fine with Raid-Only Minor artifacts being BTC but there is no reasonable justification for quest minor artifacts to be BTC. That just promotes hoarding BTC items, which then worsens storage issues... oh look what we have here? the horrible inventory tetris which is the state of the game.

[Aelonwy]

I doubt they will change the binding status of Minor Artifacts due to wanting us to buy the Wish of Inheritance.

Lmao. Seriously,*laughing till tears leak out the corners of my eyes*

These greed items are roughly 30$ apiece to move one item from one character to another PERMANENTLY. Single action event for 2995 pts. I don't know if I would even consider it if it made a single BTC item BTA at that price. That just doesn't fall into my category of reasonable price for convenience or reasonable for a leisure activity item/action.

I personally will not EVER buy a Wish of Inheritance, however, the thought of using such an over-priced feature on a Minor Artifact is extra-laughable because most/perhaps? all minor artifacts are quest items that drop randomly throughout a set of content. So how would a person feel if they paid 2995 pts to schlepp a minor artifact from one character to another only to randomly get the same minor artifact the next time that character ran that content just to level? I'd feel cheated, and annoyed. The difference with raids is usually once you have what you want from a raid you very seldom go back.

I'm guessing most players do what I do with Minor artifacts... hoard each and every one that has dropped to that character that they might use on this life or another in the future. Hence causing inventory issues. But I'd rather use those 2995 pts for more inventory than a single-use action for an item that might drop for that character while leveling again later.

[Josielynn]

...I'm guessing most players do what I do with Minor artifacts... hoard each and every one that has dropped to that character that they might use on this life or another in the future. Hence causing inventory issues...

Yep