I would like a grace period when you put something on that it will not bind to you for one hour, so you can test it out to see if you really want it bound to you.

Also, don't you hate when you accidentally equip the wrong item and now it is bound to you?

I don't see a problem with that. Even if there is a problem, even a 10 minute grace period would eliminate the NO!! Damnit, the other helmet!!!

Agreed. But couldn't this lead to exploiting the item? You could get the item, use it for whatever you need it for, and then sell/get rid of it again, without having to actually keep/bind the item to you.

Granted it does give you some slack, but I would not call it exploiting. It just gives a little leeway.

If it's meant to be for the "Oh [censored], bound the wrong item" type of thing, then I think it should probably be only 10 minutes. Enough time to wield/wear the weapon/equipment and go test it on a few mobs quickly if you need to. An hour seems a bit too much :/

Also, has Zenimax stated whether the items will be BoA (bind on acquire) or BoE (bind on equip)?

I can't foresee an instance where you'd need an item for less than an hour. It'd be neat to see a 60 minute timer on gear that counts down. Equip it and fight a boss, or beat up some training dummies and see how things change vs older gear, then unequip and the timer pauses. 10min, 20, 30... whatever. Just enough to see how it performs.

But it doesn't look like gear will have the same typicall MMO min/max type stats, so gear might be a bit more straightforward.

Yes and no. It's a cool idea, but if there's a grace period, should it reset or should total time equipped be tracked? Imagine tracking the item timers for hundreds of millions of items over millions of players.

Alternative: Give the equipment screen a "preview" function, where you can see how the item looks with the rest of your gear, and provide a side by side comparison of the previewed stats against your current stats. Weapons should display both damage range and speed, with an estimation of DPS (fan sites will mine/extrapolate this info anyhow, so make it official and put it in the game).

What if you equip for 55 minutes and then take it off? Then put it back on again? What if you give it to someone else after having equipped it for 55 minutes? Do they have 5 minutes to equip it or 60? What happens if they equip it for a while and give it back to you, or someone else?

Some games offer a preview option which lets you see if you like the look of an item. That takes care of the cosmetic element of this problem. In terms of functionality, items almost always detail their statistics so I've never been unable to tell if I want to equip something or not.

Item 1 has 100 damage, 30% chance to crit (+10%) for double damage

Item 2 has 100 damage, 20% chance to crit, but crits do 50% more damage (250 instead of 200)

Which is better? Is there a practical crit % cap? Diminishing returns? All this stuff that is not obvious, and is best determined by testing it out.

Hmmm, I'd rather some other system be in place to reset the bound status of an item. Maybe enchanting? Let them unbind the item at a small cost to overall stats on the piece.

Once you try it on, the count does not stop.

Any new person who gets the item would be like getting a new item. However, for you if you got it back, the timer is still on it and if the timer is up, it is bound to you.

Covered this.

I like the way WoW did it. They gave you two hours to trade any BoP item you got to anyone that was apart of the group. If you don't feel like it was a major upgrade or you found something better during your run you could still give the item to your groupmate within that two hour frame.

In general, I'm against random gear (no matter how good it is) being bound. I understand why games do it, but I don't have to like it. Quest/PvP rewards, yeah, those should be bound. Ultra-rare drops, maybe. But that random Elven Dagger of Bear Shaving? Not so much.

Or by factoring crit rate and bonus damage into the average DPS, and displaying that number (transparency in what the gear actually does for you, it's a good thing). Because of the nature of RNG and crit rates, that number may vary from player to player, but overall it provides a fairly accurate estimate as to what to expect. The system already knows how to calculate everything, my issue is when DPS calculations have to be figured out (when the devs aren't transparent about the calculation), or even worse, judged by feel (when you don't get all the relevant information and have to suss it out by field testing).

Of course, it took them a few years to get around to giving players even that much.

Yeah it took them till WotLK before they even implemented it, but it was a very nice feature that they added.

Every MMO I've played either explicitly details caps, diminishing returns etc. or players test it and publish those details so they're either well known or easy to find.

Unfortunately I don't find your example item 1 at all clear. Modifying it slightly so we can work with it.

Item 1 has 100 damage, 30% chance to crit (for +10%)

Item 2 has 100 damage, 20% chance to crit (for +50%)

On average over 10 hits, item 1 would do:

100x10 + 3x(100x0.1) = 1030

On average over 10 hits, item 2 would do:

100x10 + 2x(100x0.5) = 1100

All other things being equal - i.e. we're not accounting for player based crit chance modifiers or modifiers from other equipment (which could also easily be factored into the equations) - item 2 is a clear winner.

Do-able but it would require additional database resources and that information to be communicated between the game server and clients. Just me personally, but I don't see enough unique benefit in the feature to justify those.

I dont really like this idea. Its not a big deal. If anything i would love to see training areas where you can test out items. Have test dummies to test items damage and so on. If you use the item in that area it wont bind,only if you leave.

How about no bound items that [censored] is stupid.

Eh, its got its reasons. It helps keep fresh gearing flowing through the game. And honestly since crafting is such an important aspect, its not a bad thing imho.

I think that's a more eloquent solution than a timer. Plus they could also (like in The Secret World) allow you to try out new abilities there, i.e. you can purchase abilities and use them but purchases are refundable until you leave the training area.

I get that but still it's stupid. I'm a fan of passing gear down to new lower lvl players weather in my guild or just a stranger. Bound equipment doesn't allow that form of cummunity building. Kind of like the sword passed down over the generations.