Account Bound Mode

TL/DR: Account Bound Mode...
1. Is for players who want to play the game rather than deal with trade chat spam or forum trading.
2. Is for players who want to find their own gear.
3. Allows you to keep your characters and swap them between modes.
4. Is 100% compatible with Default and Hardcore leagues (i.e., no need for a new league).

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Full Description:

In order to gear up efficiently in PoE you currently have a few of choices:
1. Spam trade chat to sell items for currency and/or farm trade chat spam for an upgrade
2. Spam forums to sell items for currency and/or farm forms for an upgrade
3. Buy items or currency from 3rd party web sites

This is effectively the same issue as the Auction House in D3 in that players spend substantial amounts of time doing price checks and/or monitoring trade services in order to gear up rather than gearing up by playing the game. It also means that most players will end up trading away the best item they find in order to buy the best item(s) they use.

I propose the implementation of a new mode called Account Bound Mode (ABM). I’ll refer to the current mode as Normal Mode (NM).

ABM is intended for players who just want to play the game when they log on, who don’t want to deal with the hassle of trading items, and who don’t want to feel like they are being inefficient or penalized for doing so. It is also intended for players who prefer to find their own gear.

Mechanics:
- All items are assigned to the player’s account at the time of drop while ABM is active. These items can never be traded or picked up by any character on a different account or mode.
- Players can only pick up items that are assigned to their account while ABM is active. If ABM is active then a player can not pick up free for all items.
- Players can not trade while ABM is active.
- Players can switch between ABM and NM at any time. Switching between modes requires players to have no items on their character or in that character’s inventory.
- The stash for ABM is independent of the stash for NM (similar to how stash is handled for different Leagues)
- Any rewards from quests that were finished by a character in one mode are available to be reselected by the character in the other mode after the character switches to that mode.
- All previously earned Event rewards should be deposited in the account’s ABM hardcore stash at the time ABM is implemented. All future League rewards should be deposited in the hardcore stash of both ABM and NM at the time they are earned.
- Characters who die in Hardcore League while ABM is active are transferred to that account’s Default League ABM.
- Groups can have a mix of ABM and NM players. Implementing ABM does not fragment the community in any way. See below for how loot distribution is handled in a mixed group.

Advantages:
- You find your gear
- No need to spam trade chat in order to accumulate wealth
- No need to farm trade chat spam in order to “earn” your next upgrade
- No drama or ninja looting while in a party for players with ABM active
- Completely optional
- ABM is compatible with NM -- it doesn’t fragment the community in any way by crating new leagues
- Pay to Win (via 3rd party services) is not possible for ABM
- High level players can not charge a fee to carry low level players in ABM which means players are more likely to experience content the way it was intended (i.e., in a group of players who are the appropriate level).
- ABM is more consistent with PoE’s philosophy of “making your way in a harsh world with few initial resources” since players can’t be handed (or buy) twink gear
- Encourages players to try a new class/build/spec if they find a godly item rather than to sit in town spamming trade chat in order to sell it
- Guarantees a consistent experience for new players in the future. The NM market might become flooded by high end gear in the future making it trivial for new players to gear up.

Disadvantages:
- Not for players who like to trade items or pay to win (but then again its optional so they can just use NM)

Implementation:
The goal is to make gear progression in ABM as close as possible to gear progression using NM + trade chat spam. This goal can be achieved in a number of ways, but a very easy and effective way would be to grant 100% more quantity on all drops while in ABM. Assuming this value (i.e., 100%) then the Effective Increased Item Quantity for a kill (Effective IIQ) can be calculated by the following:

Effective IIQ = IIQ * (nNM + 2.0 * nABM) / (nNM + nABM), where
IIQ = Increased Item Quantity drop rate of the player who killed the mob
nNM = Number of NM players in the group
nABM = Number of ABM players in the group
The 2.0 term is from the 100% bonus for being in ABM mode (i.e., 100% base + 100% bonus = 200% total).

At the time an item drops it would be assigned to a specific ABM player, or as a free for all item using the following:

%Chance(Any ABM Player) = [(2.0 * nABM) / (nNM + 2.0 * nABM)] * 100%
%Chance(Specific ABM Player) = [2.0 / (nNM + 2.0 * nABM)] * 100%
%Chance(Free for All) = [nNM / (nNM + 2.0 * nABM)] * 100%

Remember that ABM players can not pick up free for all items. Also note that all of the above equations are valid for a group with any combination of ABM and NM players, including a group with only one player.

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Edit: Added TL/DR

I see a lot of discussion about "Self Found League", but I think Account Bound Mode has an important advantage in that it doesn't require two new leagues (Hardcore and Default) and therefore doesn't fragment the community.

Drop rates in PoE are adjusted for the global economy, the same as in D3, which means you need to trade in order to progress and not just crawl. Because of this, solo & non-trading play is too handicapped. The difference is that D3 has a nice automated trading system, while trading in PoE is tedious and too time consuming.

I too don't want to play the trading-spam-chat-thing, but the actual game, so I agree on all the points made and would totally rather play PoE in ABM mode!

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morbo wrote:

...I too don't want to play the trading-spam-chat-thing, but the actual game, so I agree on all the points made and would totally rather play PoE in ABM mode!

Good to know I'm not alone. This game is too much fun ... let us play it!!!

"

- All items are assigned to the player’s account at the time of drop while ABM is active.

How does this work with FFA games in pubs? I can't see it.

It sounds even MORE complicated and hard to program than just creating a new league. Note that making a new league involves nothing more than the current coding. This system involves creating an entirely new type of player with a fully different looting mechanic and a batch of formulas that need to be balanced properly.

And the #1 biggest issue with trade is in how easy it is to get The Best Items. I don't think the answer is to make it just as easy for non-traders to get them. Bah, WHY would you bother trading at that point since it'll be easier to just be account bound?

It also goes against the philosophy of PoE which is "it shouldn't be easier than Standard." and being able to find godly gear at nearly the rare that trading does without having to gather the needed currency, find the right person, and make the sale is very much Easier Than Standard.


I can see the merits behind it. However, I'm fully against "All the easiness of trade.. without the trading!" Loot increasing ideas.

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Courageous wrote:

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- All items are assigned to the player’s account at the time of drop while ABM is active.

How does this work with FFA games in pubs? I can't see it.

Good question. ABM players' loot drops would be independent of FFA players. The math for how this would work with (assuming 100% more IIQ for ABM players) is in the "Implementation" section of my original post.

In general, the game would first determine the total number of drops (accounting for the increase in IIQ for each ABM player in the group). Then the game would randomly assign each item to a player. The presence of ABM players in a group would increase the total number of items that drop (on average), but ABM players would have a greater chance to have an item assigned to them.

For example, lets say there are 2 NM players in a group and 1 ABM player. If we assume that ABM players have 100% more IIQ then and we ignore other sources of IIQ then:

The total number of items that drop increases by [(1 + 1 + 2) / (1 + 1 + 1)] = 1.333, or 33.3%
The chance of an item being assigned to the ABM player is [2 / (1 + 1 + 2)] = 0.5, or 50%
The chance of an item being assigned to one of the NM players is [1 / (1 + 1 + 2)] = 0.25, or 25%
The ABM player would never be able to pick up an item assigned to one of the NM players, and vice versa.

Please let me know if it still isn't clear.

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Dakarian wrote:

It sounds even MORE complicated and hard to program than just creating a new league. Note that making a new league involves nothing more than the current coding. This system involves creating an entirely new type of player with a fully different looting mechanic and a batch of formulas that need to be balanced properly.

And the #1 biggest issue with trade is in how easy it is to get The Best Items. I don't think the answer is to make it just as easy for non-traders to get them. Bah, WHY would you bother trading at that point since it'll be easier to just be account bound?

It also goes against the philosophy of PoE which is "it shouldn't be easier than Standard." and being able to find godly gear at nearly the rare that trading does without having to gather the needed currency, find the right person, and make the sale is very much Easier Than Standard.


I can see the merits behind it. However, I'm fully against "All the easiness of trade.. without the trading!" Loot increasing ideas.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that implementing ABM could require more work than implementing a similar feature as a new league. On the other hand I wouldn't expect it to be too complicated. The benefits of AMB over creating new leagues is that ABM doesn't fragment the community, players who want to try ABM could do so with their existing characters, and players could swap back and forth. For example, a player might like to use ABM when soloing and when grouping with pugs, but use NM when grouping with friends.

I also strongly agree that ABM shouldn't make the game easier. In my perfect world ABM would be considered more "hardcore" than NM.

Looking back, my statement that "The goal is to make gear progression in ABM as close as possible to gear progression using NM + trade chat spam" was poorly chosen. I think that gear progression is currently too fast and easy for players who are willing to actively trade in PoE and I wouldn't want gear progression to be that fast in ABM. On the other hand, I think there are some opportunities to enhance drop rates in PoE for players who don't want to trade.

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Please let me know if it still isn't clear.

Clear enough, but no. I think this cannot be. If someone makes an FFA game, a player that cannot abide by those rules should not be able to play it. You are directly thwarting the will of the party lead. I think you'd need to change it to "can only play instanced loot games". That would work.

I'd contemplated something similar for self found league a while back. You could have the "league" inside of Default itself, insofar as the "league" players could not trade, and could only play in instanced loot games.

One thing you'd need to make sure happens is that if another player drops loot on the ground, an ABM player can't pick it up.

With regards 2 SFL, and its implicit loot buffs, I see some complexities in that in the drop code (making it so that only an SFL player benefits from SFL drop bonuses would likely be tricky), but that's an implementation issue.

You'd also need to make it so that an ABM sub-league player had a separate shared stash than his HC/Default counterparts. That would be yet another implementation issue.

Overall I like this idea. While it's considerably more complex than a new league, it does have the advantage of not fragmenting the player base.

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Courageous wrote:

...If someone makes an FFA game, a player that cannot abide by those rules should not be able to play it. You are directly thwarting the will of the party lead.

Agreed. Party leaders with NM enabled should be able to create a FFA group which would inherently exclude ABM players. Similarly, party leaders with ABM enabled should be able to create an "Account Bound" group where all item drops are account bound. This would prevent NM players from joining with the intent of ensuring that there isn't any loot drama or pay-to-win players in the group.

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Courageous wrote:

One thing you'd need to make sure happens is that if another player drops loot on the ground, an ABM player can't pick it up.

Yes, players with ABM enabled could only pick up items that were already bound to their account. They could never pick up an unbound (i.e., FFA) item. Similarly, no other player could pick up an item that was bound to some other account (regardless of whether they have NM or ABM enabled).
ABM players also couldn't open a trade window and NM players couldn't open a trade window with an ABM player.

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Courageous wrote:

Overall I like this idea. While it's considerably more complex than a new league, it does have the advantage of not fragmenting the player base.

Thanks. GGG seems like a group that is eager to do what is best for their game and its players. Hopefully they will appreciate our desire to find our own loot and eliminate the prevalence of trading in PoE.