Clarification on BoE Removal and Set Items

In the recent interview with Diablo3.CC, it was discussed that Bind on Equip (BoE) items have been removed from the game. Originally, this type of item was added as a way to help remove items from the limitless economy. In DiabloWiki.com - Diablo II Diablo II, a mass of any item, no matter how rare, could and would end up piling up as millions of players collected these items. Over time, it was inevitable that these items would amass and become common place in the economy. In order to correct this problem, ladder resets were used to help "dump" the economy and start back from zero. Occurring periodically, the ladder resets would erase all of the hard work and time put into the game to obtain these items. Blizzard has admitted that this was not the best way to handle this situation and definitely wanted to find another solution to the problem that a loot heavy game like Diablo creates.

This brings us to the BoE items. BoE are items that became permanently attached to that character. When you would un-equip the item, you are not allowed to trade it to another player for them to equip. If no longer needed, the only thing to do with it was to sell it to a vendor, essentially removing it from the economy. To not completely discourage players, it was said that in DiabloWiki.com - Diablo III Diablo III, the BoE items actually bound themselves to your account so you could still equip it with other characters on your account. However, even with this advantage, many people still did not like the system. Whether it was because it discourages the item trading that is iconic of Diablo or because it was too similar to another game (I won't mention the name), not everyone was happy with this decision. Luckily for those people, Blizzard has, through their countless hours of iteration, decided that they to did not like this solution.


Official Blizzard Quote:




Yeah, we realized that binding is kind of a crappy way to pull items out of the economy. If you say that the average player produces 100 items an hour and maybe gets 1 upgrade in that time, then binding at best can account for removing 1% of items from the economy. And that's being very generous at high levels.

Binding isn't really substantial in making a viable economy, but it is really good at establishing item prestige. Which is how it's used in WoW.

We expect salvaging to be compelling enough to remove a good percentage of the most valuable items from the economy. High end components obtained from salvaging high end items are needed for high end crafting and enhancement.

We're not promising anything on patch content, but we also feel that keeping up on introducing new items consistently will keep it from being possible for a glut of the best items from building as 'the best' can be a constantly moving target.
As it stands now, BoE is officially gone from the game. Instead of using this system as a way to remove items, Blizzard has decided that their salvaging and crafting system is going to be much more effective in controlling the amount of items that remain in the game. As stated in the quote, in order to craft high-level items, similar items will be needed to salvage for the materials. So, if a player wants to craft an legendary sword for their DiabloWiki.com - Barbarian Barbarian, then they may have to salvage one or two (just a guess for the example) other legendary items to get the one item they need. This will effectively remove some of these items from the game and, in addition, allow the player to create an item that he can use from these unneeded items.

Another tool they plan on using to help control the economy is through patching of the game. As DiabloWiki.com - Bashiok Bashiok stated, if the desired and horded item that players want is constantly changing, then players are less likely to amass these items. Through patching, they can continuously add new items to the game so that players constantly have a new goal for end-game gear and this will help items from getting stagnant and building up through the years. Whether or not you were happy with BoE, it's nice to see that Blizzard is constantly testing, iterating, and changing the game to make sure that everything works best for Diablo III.

Moving on from BoE items, Bashiok also clarified some information about how set items will work. Just a little bit ago, we had gotten information that how set items were being implemented was still a work in progress. We even held a poll to see what you guys thought about set items and how you would like them to function. It seems that they have finally decided on how they wanted to implement the items (Sign of Beta).


Official Blizzard Quote:



Set items are now legendaries defined by a set bonus. They're crafted items while leveling (recipes can be found that grant the ability to craft all the items in a set), which allows someone to really invest in filling out a set before they out-level it. Then at max level we'll drop set pieces normally.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so, it seems that they have gone with a combination of the two poll options that you guys decided upon was the best solution. While leveling in the game, set items will be able to be crafted through the drops of a recipe. Once obtaining this one recipe, it will unlock the ability to craft an entire set of items. However, it is important to note that you will still need to gain enough materials to craft each individual item through salvaging other items. Oddly, this idea of crafting items was never something mentioned by Blizzard and was only added to DiabloFans' poll because of the idea from Junction3 while I was creating this poll. This is not to say the idea was not tossed around internally long ago, but it's nice to see that our opinion (according to the poll) is an idea that has made it's way into the game.

The second way to obtain set items will be through end-game loot drops. Actual set items will still be dropping in the later levels of the game for players to collect to create their full sets. This adds yet one more goal to complete at end-game, which they apparently still have plans for, so that we still have something to do after completing the game on Hell difficulty. It is important to note though that these set items will be dropping in addition to the crafting recipes so there will still be two ways to help complete a set for your character.

Now for those of you concerned about this increase of importance on crafting, not every item you will have on your character at end-game will all be obtained through crafting. Diablo has been and remains to be a game that is based on gearing your character through random loot drops. As Bashiok states, their plan is to have a well-rounded collection of item types that will be useful for your character.


Official Blizzard Quote:



It's one of the sources. If we do things right we'll see end-game players with a mix of legendary, rare, and crafted items.



Thanks to Cherubdown for bringing this Bashiok quote to my attention. If anyone finds any Diablo related news, you can always PM myself or anyone else on the news team with the info. It is always appreciated.

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