Well, that would fix the problem of people constantly dying and respawning to trade them, but it does nothing to prevent people from constantly relying on them. They STILL need to be balanced to be nearly useless. Infact, they could even have infinite durability; the key is to make it so that people only want use them as a last resort.
Starter tools are nearly worthless. If you start with tool crafting and scavenging, you can make better tools as soon as you have the recipes.
Pre-order weapons are not the best in the game. I can scavenge and make weapons that are better in every way except durability. And you can bet I'll be using Pioneer tools to make the highest quality, lowest durability weapons possible because I want repeat customers.
Ravelli
I don't think its a good business plan to design weapons that are effective and fragile. Both durability and efficacy will be important for repeat customers.
As for starter soulbound tools -- make it so you CAN NOT gain skill on them. Darkfall figured this out a little too late -- at launch, people would take their soulbound starter staves and cast magic into nothing for hours to get skill, and they would swing their soulbound starter swords on people and get maxed weapon mastery.
Anything people start with, respawn with, and can't break, trade, or loot, should NEVER get skill from using them. They should be for the sole purpose of getting to the point that they can make good tools or products with.
They could do away with giving starter tools entirely - if they made recipes for the starter tools which didn't require tools at all. A rock, string , and branch makes a hammer.
I don't want any starter tools on death. People can forage and scavange and trade for tools. 20 nails get you a decent tool and some guys, like me, offer free tools to new starters.
If there crap tools who cares.
I want tools which fix the server crashing today, have lost 3 HQ finds and 5 recipes that I haven't gotten before... grrr
Yeah and some A hole is going to have to chop down his trees again and leave them.
If they're crap tools that never go away but still give skill gains, it destroys the need for those tools in the market, killing the demand for them due to an infinite supply, which hurts the economy. The only purpose for new tools would be for making fine products. By breaking tools in the process of learning of craft skills, more tools are needed and a demand is created that supplements the demand created by the need for higher quality items.
This economy has an abundance of supply but it needs more demand.