Soul bound Item Restoration for Hacked Accounts

While I strongly believe in keeping good account security, I would like to propose a suggestion for a partial soft restore, as described below one of the one reasons why no item restoration is currently done is to prevent the in-game economy being flooded with duplicated items.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/115464

Unfortunately, we cannot restore any items lost to theft. One of the most important things about Path of Exile is its online economy, and if we performed restorations on demand then the economy would be flooded with duplicated items. We've seen this in other games (where the game companies restore compromised items and create a massive economic problem in the game).


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Soul bound Item Restoration for Hacked Accounts

* Character Equipment is restored to a 'Soul Bound' state

Items which are 'Soul Bound' can not be traded, dropped or modified by any Orb (Mirrors, etc)

* Armour + Weapons in stash are also restored but with the 'Soul Bound' flag active

* No Currency or skill gems are restored to prevent any economic impact with duplication

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The idea is very simple (but does require having records of player equipment and restore functionality), by having this process available characters are able to be very quickly restored to a playable state without suffering complete loss of time with an account which has been completely stripped.

While good security is always recommended being pre-emptive against the risks of being hacked, there is also the very real risk that it can happen to nearly everyone very easily and in order to assist players such a process would help to keep them playing and with the value / rarity of high-end items much more important to safe guard.

Another idea may even be to allow players to 'Soul Bind' items themselves in-game (before they ever get hacked) - Effectively removing the items from the game economy but adding some security for the player.

You know what would be funny DirkAustin is if you got hacked and lost all your gear... +1

Yes many players would prefer a full restoration without any 'Soul Bound' status flags but this will never happen in this game for the simple reason that it would create item duplication which is tradeable on the in-game market.

The suggestion simply provides a compromise between getting nothing back at all - as happens now, with getting back at least your character equipment 'Soul Bound' allowing a player to get back into the game after any potential security hack.

Of Course the best solution is just don't get hacked... :D