Consider Unbinding...

[Tat2Freak]

...this is a word of magic and NOTHING should be permanent. Im not asking for an easy button or a cheap solution, but there should be a way to unbind once bound (by ritual, not raid<--I consider these "artifacts") items.

[jjflanigan]

...this is a word of magic and NOTHING should be permanent. Im not asking for an easy button or a cheap solution, but there should be a way to unbind once bound (by ritual, not raid<--I consider these "artifacts") items.

I disagree. You bind it in order to gain a benefit. If you can then just unbind it later on, then there is no true "cost" with it (no amount of money would be a true "cost" since money is so easy to come by here). You have to give something up to gain the benefits and that something you give up is the ability to trade the item around. There should be no way to undo that.

[Dawnblade]

I disagree. You bind it in order to gain a benefit. If you can then just unbind it later on, then there is no true "cost" with it (no amount of money would be a true "cost" since money is so easy to come by here). You have to give something up to gain the benefits and that something you give up is the ability to trade the item around. There should be no way to undo that.

Agreed. It would totally kill the purpose of binding. Unless in order to Unbind you had to do other rituals that will remove all the effects that you added. So the item would be unbound but it would be a plain, non enhanced item.

[MysticTheurge]

Agreed. It would totally kill the purpose of binding. Unless in order to Unbind you had to do other rituals that will remove all the effects that you added. So the item would be unbound but it would be a plain, non enhanced item.

You're ignoring the other benefit of binding an item: No permanent damage.

The only way I could see an unbinding ritual work is if it also gave the item some significant percentage (say 20%) unavoidable permanent damage.

That would allow people to unbind things if they really needed to, but it would prevent the binding/unbinding system from being a way to simply keep your items in better condition.

[GlassCannon]

You're ignoring the other benefit of binding an item: No permanent damage.

The only way I could see an unbinding ritual work is if it also gave the item some significant percentage (say 20%) unavoidable permanent damage.

That would allow people to unbind things if they really needed to, but it would prevent the binding/unbinding system from being a way to simply keep your items in better condition.

It would also destroy 15% of currently bound items that ought be moved to a different character.

[Impaqt]

There should be a Significant chance for major Permanent damage...

25% Item Survives the Process Unscathed
70% Item Takes 1-100% Perm Damage (D-100)
5% Item is outright destroyed.

[Eelpout]

There should be a Significant chance for major Permanent damage...

25% Item Survives the Process Unscathed
70% Item Takes 1-100% Perm Damage (D-100)
5% Item is outright destroyed.

Nice idea. Then we would also have that game of chance that the gamblers were looking for in their down time

[Dawnblade]

You're ignoring the other benefit of binding an item: No permanent damage.

The only way I could see an unbinding ritual work is if it also gave the item some significant percentage (say 20&#37 unavoidable permanent damage.

That would allow people to unbind things if they really needed to, but it would prevent the binding/unbinding system from being a way to simply keep your items in better condition.

Not ignoring anything. In order to unbind the item you would have to remove all it's ritual given properties including the no permanent damage property. The way I'm thinking is before you do the ritual of unbinding (which would cost you ingredients) you would have to do some sort of purifying ritual once per effect you gave to the weapon. This puryfing ritual would also use ingredients. This way it would be unpracticle to do it unless you have a real good reason.

Not sure if that make sense.

Now that is for craftable items. Items that are bind on acquire should always be bound.

[MysticTheurge]

Not ignoring anything. In order to unbind the item you would have to remove all it's ritual given properties including the no permanent damage property.

But you can't remove the no permanent damage property retroactively. So if the unbinding doesn't actually do perma-damage then you've set up a system where all someone has to do is bind items before they repair them and unbind them again when they're ready to pass them on and you've got eternal, perma-damage-free items.

[Dawnblade]

But you can't remove the no permanent damage property retroactively. So if the unbinding doesn't actually do perma-damage then you've set up a system where all someone has to do is bind items before they repair them and unbind them again when they're ready to pass them on and you've got eternal, perma-damage-free items.

If all they are doing is binding and unbinding plain items with no added rituals and are willing to pay the costs for binding and unbinding sure. It's no different than what other people have suggested in the past to add blacksmiths to the game that would repair without risk of permanent damage. It could be that the unbinding ritual did permanent damage equal to 25% of the item's durability, then the item would be broken after 4 unbindings. Or 35% or what have you.

Who knows, I was just adding to the idea/discussion. Doesn't really matter much to me.

[MysticTheurge]

It's no different than what other people have suggested in the past to add blacksmiths to the game that would repair without risk of permanent damage.

Right, and that's never going to happen either, given the Dev's opinion of the purpose Permanent Damage and Binding serve in the game.

[Gennerik]

But you can't remove the no permanent damage property retroactively. So if the unbinding doesn't actually do perma-damage then you've set up a system where all someone has to do is bind items before they repair them and unbind them again when they're ready to pass them on and you've got eternal, perma-damage-free items.

The way I see it, permanent damage was set up in order to keep people running quests to obtain items better than (or other sets of) the gear they use. Basically, it's a tool to keep people playing. If you allow items to be unbound that results in the removal of all rituals on it, but keep the unbinding ritual expensive (in terms of gold as well as items you need to throw in to unbind it), then it serves to remove gold from the economy as well as keeps people playing while they farm up the ingredients. It's just another way to keep people playing, which really doesn't make much of a difference.

It could actually be of a benefit, since being unable to unbind an item means that now I have to try to get that item on another character. This shoehorns players into running the same quest over and over trying to get it. If you vary the ingredients and the quests they must run to get them in, then it actually lets people run different content in the attempt to unbind the item that I already managed to get once. I for one would much rather run 10 quests once than 1 quest 10 times, especially when I've already run that one quest to death just trying to get the item in the first place.

Actually having a meaningful ritual to unbind would mean that people won't just do it every chance they get, so you wouldn't have to worry about people binding then unbinding just to repair things.

[MysticTheurge]

The way I see it, permanent damage was set up in order to keep people running quests to obtain items better than (or other sets of) the gear they use. Basically, it's a tool to keep people playing.

Given Eladrin's responses during the debate of the Death Penalty Change, the Devs see permanent damage as a system to keep items circulating out of the system over time.

Which is why Binding is an acceptable alternative to permanent damage, since it instantly takes the item out of circulation. If you implement unbinding, you allow people to put the item back into circulation, which means that it needs to be affected by permanent damage again.

But if you don't incorporate permanent damage into the unbinding process, then you've created a system where people can simply bind, use, unbind, transfer, rebind and repeat while still never dealing with the permanent damage system. And you've circumvented the entire point of both the Permanent Damage and the Binding systems (to take items out of circulation).

[Gennerik]

Given Eladrin's responses during the debate of the Death Penalty Change, the Devs see permanent damage as a system to keep items circulating out of the system over time.

Which is why Binding is an acceptable alternative to permanent damage, since it instantly takes the item out of circulation. If you implement unbinding, you allow people to put the item back into circulation, which means that it needs to be affected by permanent damage again.

But if you don't incorporate permanent damage into the unbinding process, then you've created a system where people can simply bind, use, unbind, transfer, rebind and repeat while still never dealing with the permanent damage system. And you've circumvented the entire point of both the Permanent Damage and the Binding systems (to take items out of circulation).

But what does taking items out of circulation do for you, MysticTheurge? It makes you run the quests again to get the items again. By binding an item, it just means that any character that you would want to get it for has to run that quest over an over until they get it. At the deepest sense, all taking an item out of circulation means is that you have a reason to keep running a quest (or quests, for non-named items). So, if you make the requirements for unbinding an item the equivalent of running a number of quests to try and get the ingredients, what have you changed? Either way, the player is continuing to run quests, meaning that they have something to do and will keep p(l)aying. Allowing unbinding at the cost of running different quests, you get the added benefit of actually not seeing LFMs for the same 3 quests all the time as people are just trying to get the same items for their other characters.

Additionally, you could even make binding (with the option to unbind) more expensive in terms of requirments. Instead of just requiring dragonshard fragments, it could also involve some rarer ingredients in order to have the option to unbind it later. Or you could go the cheap route and just make it unbindable by spending shard fragments.

[MysticTheurge]

But what does taking items out of circulation do for you, MysticTheurge? It makes you run the quests again to get the items again.

That's one of the things it does.

Just for one other example, it also allows the devs to control the prevalence of an item in the game (i.e. have rarer items and not-so-rare items). In a world where nothing ever leaves the system, that's not the case. Any given item simply builds up over time until everyone who possibly wants one has one.

There are a lot of intertwined game-design reasons to take items out of circulation. Getting people to keep playing is just one of them (and a small one, if you ask me).

[Dawnblade]

That's one of the things it does.

Just for one other example, it also allows the devs to control the prevalence of an item in the game (i.e. have rarer items and not-so-rare items). In a world where nothing ever leaves the system, that's not the case. Any given item simply builds up over time until everyone who possibly wants one has one.

There are a lot of intertwined game-design reasons to take items out of circulation. Getting people to keep playing is just one of them (and a small one, if you ask me).

Well, unbinding wouldn't in theory make an item less rare. If you trade it to another character, there is still just one of the item in the game. My warrior wielding that +5 paralyzing machine gun of easy button forever is the same as your warrior running around with it. Only by adding the cost of unbinding and perhaps raising the cost for binding, we would have money being removed from circulation.

I understand where you are coming from. I also understand what the devs have in mind. But it doesn't mean that it couldn't be reevaluated.

[Tat2Freak]

Nevermind

[Tat2Freak]

I disagree. You bind it in order to gain a benefit. If you can then just unbind it later on, then there is no true "cost" with it (no amount of money would be a true "cost" since money is so easy to come by here). You have to give something up to gain the benefits and that something you give up is the ability to trade the item around. There should be no way to undo that.

Yeah I like how you just skipped over the whole part where I said I didnt want it easy or cheap and went right into arguing with me "Just because", you gotta come better than this...

[MysticTheurge]

I really like this idea

Um, that's basically the exact same idea I suggested, only it's a bit more random while mine was a bit more static.

[Tat2Freak]

Um, that's basically the exact same idea I suggested, only it's a bit more random while mine was a bit more static.

But its funny how you wont make suggestions/elaborate on your idea, but you will respond negatively to everyone elses ideas...in escense making it seem like you oppose my idea...which I think you do...correct me if Im wrong...