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Thanks @noworries#8859 for work on a feature that was requested since the bind status exists.

I see everytime the endless debate about "everything should be unbound" vs "you must earn your items and everything should be bound". I want to say few things about this:

- The game originally was designed in the "everythign should be unbound" scenario, and one of the reasons we have the backlog in the ZAX now is the changes to most of the items being bound. There is no motivation to change ZEN for AD because you cant buy anything for AD that is not in the ZEN store.
- When most of the items are unbound, people have allways motivation to run content, the game is much more active and "live" because the people who already have everything, still have motivation to run content, not only to be richer, but also to teach new players in his alliance the mechanics and help them gearing, or make giveaways in guild / alliance. If all is bound, you run the content until you have the items and thats it. That content is dead for lots of players.
- All the items should be obtainable in a reasonable amount of time or money. Is unnaceptable to have items that you can never get because of RNG and bind status. In the worst case we should have a limit in runs or some currency to get the items. The actual system only frustrate players and thats the worst feeling in a videogame.

I know I wont make anyone change his opion about this, but people should keep in mind that the Free to play model is not the same as other models, and neverwinter was allways a "pay to fast" model, and buying items for real money to skip running the content was one of the core features of this game from the beta. Maybe you dont like it, but it worked well in the best years of NW.

Unbind tokens can work if they target the correct items. Gear from hunts, rings and reagents from VOS are examples that can work, making people run the content to sell items, making people buy zen to make items unbound, and making people buy zen to exchange for AD to buy this items. But if they target other kind of items, it will be a total fail and waste of manpower.

The idea of putting a requisite in items is not bad, and used in other games, for example, if you could unbind reagents for ring of air, a restriction should be run VOS Hardcore 20 times (just an example), but I think it can be a lot of work for developers unless they already have implemented stats of the runs for each character.

If I had to make everyone happy, I would put rare transmutes BOUND in dungeons / hunts / etc. That you cant sell (unbound tokens should not work with this items), and all the items that make your character progress, unbound or unbound with this new tokens, so the fashion is what tells people that you grinded for something or made a hard task.

I like the idea of completely unbinding stuff that can be placed in your bags to be able to sell or trade it. The idea of people just buying stuff from others who have farmed it being bad is ridiculous.

I also like the AD sink idea of BTC -> BTA token. I have tons of character bound stuff I could move to alts.
What I want to be able to unbind: dungeon/trial/treasure chest drops, event drops, previously equipped gear, transmutes, treasure cache items, quest items (BTC -> BTA at a minimum), profession items, enchantments, runestones, weapon/armor enchants, stronghold vouchers/shards.

IIRC when T9G dropped the reward chest that dropped into inventory was unbound. They sold around 30k on the auction house. Players who couldn’t or didn’t want to run the content were buying them up as fast as I was listing them. Those who could run the content were doing it nonstop. The player population was different back then, but the reality is a lot of people were playing a lot. We had motivation to run the content.

I have plenty of alliance mates who want a rib cage. So we farm for the lure and trade coal wards for the lure. But we’ve had strings of hunts where it didn’t drop. It gets to the point where people don’t want to spend the time or money to get nothing and take their chances with someone selling the drop. Unbinding it and allowing it on the auction house will get players farming it, players safely buying it, and removing 10% of the transaction AD from the economy. Win-win-win.

“But players should work for everything,” bull HAMSTER. Let players play how they want. I have plenty of inactive guild mates who liked playing but hated the grind, who are willing and able to drop cash for stuff.

“This will only make the rich richer”, so what? If they can provide a product in game people want and are willing to pay for, then let them. If an enterprising new player wants to grind for stuff and sell it to get rich, let them.

“This will make my high profit items less profitable,” perhaps. It’s supply and demand, let the market decide.

Will this drive up the AD backlog? Initially, I expect it will as people want unbind tokens. Long term depends on the demand for AD to purchase items.

My worry is with the introduction of an unbind token even more stuff will drop as bound. Doing this will put a bad taste in player’s mouths.

Some questions/topics that have been brought up:

"Is this an excuse to make more things bound and then make people pay to unbind them"

The game has been steadily making fewer things bound to character instead of account. And even making more things account wide reclaims. So that doesn't match up with what has already been happening and this feature doesn't change any designs on what is bound or unbound in the future.

This is also one of the most requested features over the years. We held off implementing it for a long time as it has risks to the game economy (concerns players have raised in this very thread). But then we came up with a good solution that allows us to limit the number of items that can be turned unbound as well as a system that helps retain the value of items in the game.


"I'm concerned about making things unbound that are hard to get as people will be able to get them without playing the content"
"Make everything in the game unbound by default"

Hopefully seeing both of those types of statements in the same thread shows that there are players with very different views on this topic. Some want everything to be unbound in game by default so things can be traded/sold/acquired without having to do the content, or to allow a way to make AD from doing content. Then there are people who want things to stay bound so that players have to achieve certain accomplishments to earn specific items.

This is why we are not turning this on game wide, and instead are flagging items on a case by case basis with varying unbind costs to items in order to help retain their in-game value to players.


"Don't you think 800 Zen to unbind a 1000 Zen item is too expensive?"

If you're buying it for 1000 Zen, it is unbound and you can do what you want with it from the get go. Yes, if you have a coupon or wait for a sale you can get it cheaper than 1000 Zen. On the other side, if you get a bound coal ward from invocation, or from a free giveaway, and you don't need it, then now you have an option to unbind it and trade it off at a fair value. We wouldn't turn around and make something that costs 1000 Zen to buy, have a 100 Zen unbind cost after you got it for free. That would devalue the entire item, including all the ones players already own.

And that will be one of the areas we will be looking at with this feature over time, the costs to unbind items. It is a new system Neverwinter hasn't had before and prices will likely get adjusted over time as we work to find the spot that feels good to use and retains the value of items players have worked hard to earn.



Lastly I want to thank everyone for their suggestions in this thread. There have been some great suggestions and ones that have been mentioned by multiple different people which we will look into allowing some of those items to be unbound.