Now, I'm not sure if anyone has made a suggestion precisely like this one, but I think that it's something worthwhile to think about.

It was the devaluation of 4* and 5* items and the overall decreased play longevity that prompted OOO to shackle those items to players unless they paid "roughly equal to the cumulative cost of crafting that item" to unbind it (a feature I've been unable to find, actually. Was it supposed to be implemented by now?). Plenty of people were unhappy with this, many up and left, but that really isn't a point that needs belaboring here. I want to suggest an angle on compromise that won't necessarily fix the frustration, but will mitigate some of the fallout of this patch for people who crafted for their guild's sake.

To the point, what if items could be crafted to be guild-bound instead of character-bound? Let's explore some hypothetical options.

-On your crafting screen, you get a little tickbox that asks whether or not you want to bind the 4* or 5* item to your guild. This condition on the item disallows it from being traded to people outside the guild.
-Leaving a guild destroys all guild-bound items in your inventory.
-Perhaps, guild-binding an item costs a low (maybe 10 ce) fee to the crafter.
-Also perhaps, the eventual unbind store could fully unbind guild-bound items for the unbind price the crafter would have paid. After all, look at whom the current system is punishing. Instead of discouraging players from buying their way into 5* equips, there is instead a fine imposed on crafters who might sell or give items to their guildmates. And all in all, the price crafters are paying to unbind their wares are in the end transferred to the player who buys them anyways, since the costs of those wares shoot up. Look at it another way: A crafter wanting to profit the most would prefer this system, since it confers the burden of cost directly to the player. A player would not prefer this system, since it creates a new cost barrier to obtaining an item and being able to use it independently of a guild.
-Perhaps guild-bound items could not be leveled past a certain extent, or could not be upgraded until unbound in the case of 4* items.
-Perhaps, though not ideally, and only if the system were abused, there could be a guild-wide restriction on the number of guild-bound item trades that could be made per day, i.e. 10. While this probably becomes messier to implement, maybe a guild master would have to approve a guild-bound item transaction before it could be made, and they get 10 approvals per day. If that becomes too limiting (say a guild's GM is rarely online), perhaps give officers a variant of this that allows them to approve a single guild trade a day, which counts against the GM's 10 approvals.
-Perhaps, though again not ideally, guild-bound items can _never_ be auctioned, even after being unbound. I can imagine some corner cases where someone would _want_ to do this, but all in all it would defeat the purpose of this system.

The ideal usage of this would be: a player in a guild, requiring _just one more_ item in their set to get to t3, can be helped out by a guildmate who wants more people to do t3 runs with, and has learned the recipe that the junior player needs. Both parties benefit.

The worst case usage of this would probably be: crafters create "point-of-sale guilds" where they can sell people invites and guild-bound items and rake in profits at less cost to them, while guild-bound buyers remain content with their guild and restricted items, or simply purchase the right to take that item with them when they leave. OR, crafters who are also guild leaders can sell guild-bound items to people, then boot them from the guild, removing their guild-bound items. Now we have a new form of scamming, one which discourages players from joining point-of-sale guilds that can rip them off in the first place. A double edged sword, since guild masters now hold power over the inventories of some players, but ultimately it doesn't radically mutate the relationship that guilds and their GMs should already have: players should join guilds that respect their players, and players should respect the ability of GMs to take away benefits conferred by being in that guild. Even better: perhaps guild-bound items cannot be traded to recruits. Sure, it doesn't make much of a barrier between point-of-sale guilds and their goals, but it at the very least gives gravity to the status of being a "member" of a guild.

Now, I can see some of reasons why implementing this would be a bad idea. The system would have to be pretty bug proof from the get-go, because even a small exploit could really have harmful effects on the market. Players would still probably fall for guild-trade scamming on occasion, unfortunately. It adds some complication to trading and guild management that might not be worth the benefit. And it probably wouldn't be worth the work to OOO in the first place, when they already have content to make and a failing energy market to revive and a slew of other problems.

It'd be good to see some thought on how this might improve or hinder SK, though. I think it's a worthwhile idea, though I admit the possibility of there being something glaring error in my thinking. What do you all think?