Suggestion: Remove required level on all items

Really though, I'd have no issue w/ them removing rec/req levels on items.. Wouldn't even have to scale them down. I mean honestly, zones up to probably 100ish+ are virtually empty all the time. No one is competing for camps/drops etc. TBH, there is virtually never a group to be had (outside prog servers) until you hit the point where you can group w/ lvlv 110+. Who cares if you can be god mode while you level. At some point, you will get to the point where gear won't carry you. Only difference is getting to that point wouldn't be nearly as tedious/boring/grind.

Currently most people are twinked or have a higher level toon power leveling them, so it's not like the 1-100 leveling process is really hard/challenging. More of a mind numbing process that most of us have done on 'full difficulty' more times than we would care to remember..

Just my opinion, but a game this old w/ so few new people joining won't be broken by op gear on low lvl toons. Unless you are playing on a 'new' progression server. And there, you can pay cash for twink items you shouldn't be able to get until late game.. IMO, that's really where it matters and if ANYTHING, they should put item rec/req on old world items that never had them. That's a lot more 'game breaking' than no req/rec level on an 'old' live server. But that's what drives the new servers, folks making real $$$ farming w/ their box armies and locking down all the camps. That's still ok though

Is that really the kind of message we want to give newbies on the live servers? "you too can buy godmode for the cheap price of 5 kronos".

Allowing players to wield unscaled level 100+ equipment will completely trivialize 80% of everquest.

You can see in the newbie forum that low level everquest isn't dead on live, they probably came here for the challenge.
Sure it needs adjustment, but pay2win godmode isn't the solution.
Players who wants to join the endgame quickly, already have a choice: They can buy a heroic char.

I feel you're missing the point that 99% of players don't care about that 80% of EverQuest. Even last expansion zones are pretty empty. Outside of Great Divide (ToV, 2 expansions ago) and Frontier Mountains (EoK, 5 expansions ago) being top grindy-botted exp camps, there's nothing going on in the rest of the zones.

Yes, who cares? No one does that content on live servers.

It’s content tuned for groups that doesn’t have any groups. You either get a massive population again or toss out catchup gear to power through.

So, if you want to roam around in low-level zones with level 100 equipment, from the first day of your char, why not do it with a level 100 heroic char?
Will it feel different with a different con-color? XP and levels will not make it feel different with that gear advantage. Red-con and grey-con will feel the same...
When you are that overpowered you will not feel the character grow at all, so you might as well start with a level 100 heroic char instead.

Btw I do see people do low-level content on live servers, mainly those that start an alt, and choose not to buy a heroic upgrade immediately(true newbies does happen on occasion though).

You know Heroic Characters cost real money right?

And you think level 1 newbies can afford that twink gear without spending real money?

The point is to make the gear earnable through normal gameplay, and scale to cover the deficiencies the EQ gear reward structure.

How would a lowlevel player earn that gear through normal gameplay?

I mean, if you can earn it then you deserve to be able to use it too. But this discussion seem to be about excessive twinking instead.

Do you just ignore my past posts about creating new rewards and/or adapting the existing design structure to distribute the gear?

So you want to just put cheap twink gear on a vendor, or add it as rewards for the daily hotzone quests or something like that?

Im not against that, depending on how balanced the rewards are...im against completely throwing away gear-balance though.

So you’re against raid gear being used in group content then?

I admit that I don't fight naked when Im not raiding, if that is what you mean?

Defiant gear is already beyond raidgear, at least on lower levels, and that didn't break the game.(although it makes nameds a bit of an anticlimax, they should drop more defiant than trashmobs do, maybe even a spell or 2).
I am also not against extending the defiant-gear concept beyond level 70, I don't think it should be better than level appropriate raidloot though.
Some servers have an "open raid" scene for non-max-levels, it would be hurt if "new-defiant" gear was too overpowered imo. I remember gearing up on those open raids, it was great fun.

An easier solution could be to simply change various softcaps in the game for the "70-100 level range".

I'm referring to this statement. Raid gear completely throws away the balance in group content. So, do you really care about the gear-balance?

Tbh, I still occasionally die in group content even while wearing raid gear, I still can't molo through TBL group content even as level 120 for example.
If raidgear gave me 6 million hp, I would probably get bored of the group content in current expansions quite fast. I expect a level 1 player with 300k hp would feel the same way about lowlevel content.

There is a big difference between merely having a gear advantage through raidgear, and actual godmode.

There are games that provide a power-fantasy to the gamer by making him powerful against the enemies, and there are games that are about growing you character, EQ is the latter type of game. It wouldn't be a good game without some challenge.

I don't roam around in lowlevel zones and aimlessly wipe out greycons for fun, and I don't think that is a popular playstyle among many highlevel players. (I do plan on completing Artisans Prize someday though, but that is not because I want a powertrip )

To answer your question: yes, I do care about gear-balance.
I stand by my opinion, that trivializing content with excessive twinking would be bad for the game.

I agree that new players have a genuine problem with catching up, but I don't think making them super overpowered is a good solution. If they had a good alternative to shrouding, I would probably try to complete the low-level content that way, but I want it to feel like my own character.

I think this is a very bad idea.

Because of all the coding it would require, we all know when they start messing with existing code, bugs pop up everywhere... even where you might not suspect they would.

Also, because it pretty much removes any effort / challenge (aka reason / attraction to play) from EQ.

Zero sense of accomplishment (everyone can do it, as a matter of little effort, rather than strategy, team work and so forth).

Zero danger, due the overpowered AC / HP.

Zero strategy, as you can just ignore everything (mechanics, strategies) with the over-powered DPS.

Without the challenges and the thrill / sense of accomplishment... well, like the song says, "The Thrill is Gone."

If you want bigger / badder toons, then go Heroic, which will soon mean a boost to Level 100. From there it really isn't that hard to then get to 105, where you can group (with no Level spread concerns, such as with Missions) with Players up to Level 120.

If you want to just wipe out older Expansion zones, you can do that at higher levels, anyway.

And yes, it is fun to do that sometimes. And yes, by that point, you may 'think' the content is irrelevant, but it is not. At least not completely. Perhaps you want the proper flags, the achievements, need the TS items, want certain click items... or just need tribute fodder. At higher levels, the easy-button is built in for those things.

WTS Task Add. Complete content w/o ever stepping inside it! The true EQ effort and Challenge!

Or extend Defiant gear tiers to level 110

I wish they would do a tuning pass on the 65+ game aimed towards molo players.

That is the point when the difficulty gets cranked-up and I wish they would address it. It would be easier if live and TLP didn't share a code base, but that's what we have to deal with for now.

I've proposed a scalable buff that could be used to remedy this issue in the past, but I haven't had any feedback on the idea yet. WoW has a buff that allows solo players to clear legacy raids, as an example that works well.

A scalable buff would be relatively easy to implement and tune as needed until the desired effect is achieved. It would be a singular change that could be omitted from TLP to maintain the existing gameplay. It also wouldn't require changing any drops or items in the database either.