Let me first state that I personally I am not in favor of decay in the game, having suffered from it on live, it made the game more grindy which I assume SOE liked as it kept people subbed, but we all have less time to play than we did back then and I feel it is not a good idea anymore.
I can understand in a way why you might have originally thought adding decay on these sliced items, making them effectively a temporary boosted item then you lose the item. Admittedly you might be dialing back your thoughts on this, but I felt I'd still like to post this message, as it might be useful in a way for future decisions to avoid bad press initially.
I think the risk versus reward aspect you originally envisaged for the slicing whilst also adding item decay might have had some benefit in a way, depending on what the reward aspect was, unfortunately you only offered the players the risk side of it, i.e. you lose the item after so many deaths. Let me explain.
Where I could have seen this working is if the reward aspect meant that you could slice a weapon (I am using weapon as the example as I feel it maybe has the greatest risk verses reward impact) not an uber mega capped and expensive weapon, but maybe one that did not quite cap but is still a decent weapon, and because it did not cap would hopefully have been a lower price. If slicing the weapon in this example got the player a weapon as good as or slightly better than something capped albeit it was essentially a short term item as it would eventually become unusable maybe had benefits especially for newer or less rich players as they get a decent weapon for cheaper albeit only temporary.
While players could also slice a mega capped weapon too they risk the losing of that weapon to get a potentially overpowered weapon, again on a temporary basis.
I again state my personal choice is no decay, the fact you only laid out the risk aspect without touching on the reward side maybe gave the community a negative introduction to the idea.
Thanks for allowing me to state these thoughts, whether you agree with them or not.
