Soulbinding - how it could work

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While talking about the game economy, it’s worth noting that we’re strongly opposed to any form of binding of items. Some games cite it as an effective item sink, but we believe that the inability to trade an item after use greatly hinders the economy. We want players to be able to trade for an extremely valuable item without taking a massive hit to their net worth by equipping it.

I read this, and wheels in my brain immediately started spinning. I love being the Devil's Advocate.

So my question was, how COULD you make a value-sink soul bind system work that still encouraged full-on trading of items?

Easy
Add another currency item that manually soul-binds an item to you. NO ITEMS EVER would begin play soul-bound.
The *advantage* of using one of these orbs is that it raises the maximum Quality of the item to 25%.

But 5% Quality is nothing!
That's right! And that's why this system would work. Why in the world would you want to soul-bind that level 35 rare bow you just found? Well, you could eke a bit more damage out of it, but you'd be using up a currency item AND being unable to ever trade the item (double whammy).
But what about that level 60 6-linked socket armor that you lovingly crafted to be just about perfect? Another 5% Quality on it still isn't too massive. But on the other end, do you honestly think you're ever going to trade it? Probably not! Is it worth using a currency item and some Armor Shards to up the quality to 25%? Quite possibly.

Thoughts? Comments?
(And 5% is just my rough guess. If 5% isn't a big enough impact, pretend I said 10%.)

No. Soulbinding sucks.

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dust7 wrote:

No. Soulbinding sucks.

Yeah. I get that you'd want some sort of benefit for gimping yourself, but... if the option is there at all, somebody will eventually be sad at some point in the future. GGG have done a pretty good job of not screwing you over.

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Dreggon wrote:

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dust7 wrote:

No. Soulbinding sucks.

Yeah. I get that you'd want some sort of benefit for gimping yourself, but... if the option is there at all, somebody will eventually be sad at some point in the future. GGG have done a pretty good job of not screwing you over.

And I'm simply arguing in favor of it in order to get some discussion going.

Soul-binding as a mechanic exists to remove goods/currency from the game.
Currently, despite the removal of gold, the system WILL experience inflation. More and more quality items will be found per player, given enough time.

That will decrease the value of an item relative to consumed goods (orbs/etc).
Allowing a potential removal of those goods from the system would help alleviate this inflation. Only a 100% soul-bind system would completely remove the inflation, which GGG is 110% against, as am I.

Thus, my proposal of a middle ground that offers some of the perks of the soul-bind system (anti-inflation), while leaving the choice entirely in the hands of the players.

As a note, if you'd like to contribute to the discussion, can you please actually contribute, not just say "no, that sucks", or "no, cuz GGG said so"?

Conversely, if you can think of a DIFFERENT system that would help to prevent inflation (or, more specifically, the deflation in value of the non-debinding non-deteriorating gear/loot in Path of Exile), please suggest it.
It would be pretty impressive to hear another idea that has sound function and implementation.

Um. Leagues.

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konfeta wrote:

Um. Leagues.

Leagues are a global reset IF they force players to move to new Leagues. Which I doubt that they'll do.

New Leagues will fill specific purposes. But if you play on the "Default" or "Hard-core" League, I don't think they'll be doing any Legacy migrates or such without really good reason.

So while I understand where you're coming from, I disagree that seperate leagues will adequately prevent inflation - namely because there will exist leagues that are not ever reset or deleted.
If the problem exists for 25% of players, it still exists.

Any other ideas?

No, I think Soul Binding on these types of games is just wrong. Trading is a big part of ARPG's :P

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Sacerrex wrote:

No, I think Soul Binding on these types of games is just wrong. Trading is a big part of ARPG's :P

Way to offer insightful opinions and information, instead of just saying "no it sucks". Oh wait, my bad, you didn't.

The point is allowing the free-trade in general while still creating *some* item sink.

Stop and look at the big picture.

When Diablo 2 was released, rares and uniques had value.
Now they don't. Unless they are level 70+ gear and high quality, they are effectively trash.
Why did that happen? Because those items always drop, and there's nothing to actually *remove* them from the system. So after you use it, and you have an alt use it, then give it to another player...
Each additional player that the gear passes through can have a similar item drop, and it snowballs.

So eventually "lesser" items get thrown away, resulting in depreciation in overall item value.

So what I've put forward as an idea is to create a SMALL pool of items that are removed from the trading pool. And to do so by allowing the players to decide whether to do so or not.

If you absolutely must trade every item you get, then you don't have to touch the extra currency item for it.
But if you want a small extra buff on an item, you can get it, in exchange for removing the item from the trading pool.

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wyldmage wrote:

If you absolutely must trade every item you get, then you don't have to touch the extra currency item for it.
But if you want a small extra buff on an item, you can get it, in exchange for removing the item from the trading pool.

When I saw the name of the thread I thought for sure I would be against whatever argument you put forth. However, I must admit, your idea is a solid one and you've managed to convince me for it.

I do, however, disagree with the buff only being 5% for the exchange. 5% isn't very significant and would most likely be ruled out as a viable option amongst higher tier players who often run dungeons and exchange loot with one another. On the other hand, making the buff 10% could possibly make it a bit too significant in the highest tier and give the players who use it an obvious edge in PvP.

Perhaps if we could split the buff around the 7%/7.5%/8% area we could get the desired effect of making it a completely viable option for all players, but not so much as to give a huge advantage to those who use it over those who do not. There would be a small advantage, but the player with the better skill should still (theoretically) be able to pull out on top regardless of the stat increase.