I finally got around to creating another toon and when I went into the style tab I noticed that mats I unlocked with my main character are not there. Does this mean that the shaded comic material will not be accessible to any characters tied to my account then? If so, this is probably the most stingy definition of "account bound" I've ever come across in an MMO. I am not a fan of paying 500+ replay badges for an aura or style or whatever (though I understand the reasoning behind it) but at least that option is there for people to consider. Is this not an option for materials? Will it ever be?
Account bound in the description of any item simply means you can put it into Shared Bank and transfer it between your characters before you decide which toon gets to use it. Materials aren't part of style unlocking. Yet. Maybe someday. Hopefully someday.
Yes, and this is what I meant by a rather stingy definition of "account bound". In many MMOs I've played, account bound meant usable/tradable among ALL characters within the account. Even if the gear had been used by my main, I could pass it down to a new toon to use. DCUO is the ONLY MMO I've played that has such a cheap and almost misleading idea of what account bound means. And I know it wasn't like this before, because when DCUO first launched you could freely trade items between characters, even used items, as long as it was within the account. Shame this is no longer the case. Thanks for that -I appreciate the insight that it brought. So the obvious solution is to come up with a vendor who deals primarily in unlocked materials and allow toons access to the unlocked mats, in whatever that looks like to the devs, as long as they are of the same account. Want shaded comic on your new alt? Pay XYZ with said alt to unlock it (though I'd prefer free of course).
Materials ARE all tradeable between all of your characters. Before you actually open the material on a toon. But the lack of sharing afterwards is, as you note, a product of the style-unlocking function, not a non-existent lack of the ability to choose which toon to give the material to. Which is to say: sure, it's regrettable -- extremely regrettable -- that materials can't be unlocked for more than a single character per material. But that doesn't affect whether or not all of your characters are able to use the material if you give it to them. By definition the material is tradeable (can be given) to whichever of your toons you prefer. This is also the way materials have always functioned. Including all used items? I don't think so. Some used items, yes. All used items? I don't think that was ever the case. This system is as it always was, at least once the game went live, so far as I know. It's certainly how materials have worked from the first material. Most style items have always worked this way: tradeable to any character on your account (and much of the time tradeable to anyone, or sometimes only anyone on the same platform) until used.
Which furthers my point that this isn't really account bound as most MMO players understand it. Granted, this is the only f2p MMO I play so maybe that's common with this kind of MMO but certainly not for ones that require a sub. Oh, but it was that case. I passed gear between characters all the time via the shared bank and that even included iconic gear that was already "used". You just couldn't trade used gear to another player outside of the account.
Forgive me that I'll wait for others to confirm this. I've played since a week or two after "Battle For Earth" dropped, and I don't remember this ever being possible. If it was, it was very much only a limited subset of gear. Either way, I'm not clear why the way other MMOs do things is necessarily relevant other than as a point of possibly interesting information. There's no rule requiring MMOs to all be identical in their functions and practices.
They don't have the tech to make materials account unlockable. Carp did say it was possible eventually. So maybe something in the future? (Is Carp still working with Daybreak?)
You used to be able to pass gear at the start, but I can't recall it being applicable to used gear. Once something was integrated, it was integrated. There WAS a brief time where this could happen, but it wasn't exactly intended and was quickly fixed. I'll try to do a search through the hotfixes and find a reference.
Wait for others for what? I'm telling you now this is how it used to be. I played through beta, then launch, and left in 2013. Dont you have a few trinkets that are integrated but can be shared amongst the toons on your account? Imagine the same thing but with integrated gear. Not too hard to imagine. DCUO used to apply the traditional definition of "account bound" years ago and went away from that for whatever reason ($ is my guess). Now it's disingenuous for the game to imply that "account bound" actually is that when it's actually not.
They changed the gear thing around the same time they removed walking in below CR. Which was probably right before or around Hand of Fate. This was specifically gear above 30 item level. (Think treasure chest gear.) I remember I was pretty upset that they did this. There were still a few items that worked, specifically Iconic gear, but yeah. They were making it more and more alt unfriendly and I was pretty upset. I liked making alts.
I don't know when it changed but you could pass integrated gear between characters on the same account. I know because it reminded me of FFXI in that aspect and helped keep my inventory less cluttered.
