Soulbound items

[Bogoris.4035]

Can't be sold, can't be salvaged, can't extract their upgrades to used them to upgrade another item, can't be used by another character, if I don't count that they may have a skin that I don't have yet, the only good thing that can be done with them is destroy them ! I'm doing the story line missions on a level 80 and all the reward gear items are soulbound, of lesser quality and good for nothing. WHY? Why would the game reward useless rewards?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

There are a couple reasons, which boil down to historical, economic considerations.

 

The game launched with few guaranteed rewards, even from story or leveling up. Instances gave more rewards to those who did more damage (more nuanced than that, but that's how it felt). To address these issues, among others, ANet changed it to standardize the rewards from story instances, for leveling up, and similar elements of the game. That represented a considerable buff to rewards.

 

To reduce the economic impact that could be caused by people creating and deleting toons (and the disadvantage that would be to people who don't), ANet reduced the market value by offering a combination of soulbound specific items and unbound generic ones ("bags of loot").

 

That made a lot of sense in 2013-4. It makes less sense now, since there are many more veterans who already have most/all such skins, many who skip the personal story, and so on. It would be worth it for us as players to see another overhaul. Unfortunately, renormalizing rewards from older content requires a lot of time. What replaces the loot? What's the mechanic for offering it? What's the economic impact? How does it affect players who have already done story and plan not to do it again? How does it affect newer player choices?

 

tl;dr it was a good idea at the time; these days, it's less helpful to you or I, but it's probably not worth the trouble to change it.

[Bogoris.4035]

It is very easy to solve that problem, the game can keep the soulbindness of the items, let's think of their intended use as helping the leveling player to get better gear, then if the intended reward is of lesser quality and the skin has already been unlocked, the character should receive extra money that would equate to selling that item to a vendor, not at the market, or an extra bag of loot, that way there is no fear that veteran players will keep creating new characters so they can run story line missions with the only goal to abuse the market. But I still don't get how can anyone try to use this path of enrichment that takes so much time to do that rather than just run around a zone and keep killing the champions that exist in the zone. Loot is so much easier to get that way, especially when doing lower level maps, when those champions can be single-manhandled, than to do long stories, listen to dialog and do all kinds of other activities, that aren't simple combat.

 

[Ashen.2907]

I have never liked account/soulbound rewards. Never will. If I get a drop, the only "good" drop I get all year, and cannot use it. Cannot give it to a friend that really needs it for his main, then it is a lie. It is not a reward. It is a tease. An effort on the game developer's part to rub my nose in the fact that good rewards are out there but that I did not get one.

[Rukario.1695]

I just want the choice to decline any soulbound items from Level Up Rewards or Quests; a visible option "Skip Soulbound Item" - at least this would remove having to drag / drop / possibly type the name of the item you're trying to destroy.

[Bogoris.4035]

I was incorrect when I said that mission items can't be sold or salvaged, but once they become soulbound they can't be.

[Trise.2865]

Some Soulbound equipment can indeed be salvaged. The ones that can't can be dropped into the Mystic Forge and exchanged for something that *is* tradeable or salvageable.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Bogoris.4035" said:

> Can't be sold, can't be salvaged, can't extract their upgrades to used them to upgrade another item

 

That only goes for the items you receive with a Lvl 80 booster _and_ an handful of others. But the majority of soulbound items can be sold to a vendor, can be salvaged and can have their upgrades extracted.

[ShadowGryphon.6257]

Personally I would prefer the ability it revert items to "account bound" so that I can use them on different characters.

The "soulbound" was a pain from the start.

[Daddicus.6128]

Many of them can be used in the mystic forge. Not all, but many. That gives you (usually) one regular item for four of the trash ones. Occasionally, you even get one of higher rarity.