Level 100 and Lower Prestige Items Useless?

Certain real life situations have caused some of us to be forced to play Silver accounts. Game restrictions have absolutely destroyed our characters from decently playing, sparingly from time to time in rememberance of a once loved game. Especially, those of us that have been here since the beginning. I am not asking for the same standards as a paying account, after-all, Silver accounts can't use the Bazaar, buy mercenaries, use raid armor, etc. We are useless in raids, high level groups, can't solo namer's and mainly stay to ourselves because of it. It just seems that level 100 and lower, maybe even level 105, "Prestige Items" are useless considering that very, very few players that actually play the zones for no other reasons than camping items and progression. Advancing players is very rarely done anymore using actual zone to zone level progression. They rather create players and have them sit while 2 or 3 maximum level characters power level them and then supply top level player armor once they reach the top. I am sure that there are a lot more pros and cons that go into the game dynamics and rationality that I am unable to consider, after-all, it's just a question/thought. I am sure that this post is going to get a lot of negative feedback then it will positive, just don't be too unkind or insulting in your replies. After-all, I have seen other questions far worst then this.

While I commensurate with your financial woes keep in mind that getting Silver is better than most of the other players that do not drop to Silver but to base F2P. At least Silver can still use General Chat.

Your not asking for the same standards as a paying customer but what is it you want as a non paying customer?

I can't quite figure out from your post since it wandered off into power leveling or something.

Edit
Came across this that may help you if your having armor issues:

Each xpac has t1 non-prestige gear you can aim for gearing - 110 can use the t1 ToV gear. 115 can use t1 ToL gear. IE Snowsquall from COV has 8k hp level 110

While armor does not really seem to be an issue, other than obtaining it, I would like to point out to many of the augments that also go along with the armor and some of the non-visible armor, most of which are old and no longer used by paying customers. Another thing to non-paying customers, AA's are capped at 1000 and AC is capped so low that it takes good effort to work mobs 15 and 20 levels lower than you one on one. Of course, this may also be selective to character. Again, it's one thing to have level specific armor and another thing to not have the available armor class and also the additional abilities to defeat the enemy. Like I hoped to mention earlier, in more of a question, with current game dynamics, is it necessary to have some of the older items listed as "Prestige", or is it really going to matter due to the lack of AC and AA abilities?

One thing I've seen mention is that the prestige tags made sense back when those expansions were first released. Those items marked prestige truly were prestige at the time. But when they are from expansions that are 5 or 10 expansions ago, they aren't prestige compared to the non-prestige items you can get from recent expansions. It probably wouldn't matter too much if they got rid of the prestige tag from the items in the FtP expansions.

Keep in mind that one major aspect of this "once loved game" was that you had to be subscribed just to log in. Having these kind of hassles for free accounts is probably okay since it encourages people to sub.

There are many people in rough financial positions these days, and EQ has a number of players that tend to live closer to the bottom edge than middle or even top (at least in my conversations with people over the years). And since many of those players are older, nearing or at retirement, the chances for immediate income improvement is small. Life sucks sometimes.

But it is disingenuous to claim that EQ game restrictions have "destroyed your characters from decent playing". Either you were paying for a game, then stopped ... in which case you would expect a loss of something ... why else would anyone pay? Or you've been FTP/Silver since the start ... in which case nothing has changed at all about the FTP experience. They have (generally) not given something to FTP and then taken it away. The AA limit has been in since inception. Gear/augments do not flipflop between prestige and non-prestige when introduced (with a few exceptions).

As you get closer to max level, the differences in gear and augments and especially AAs are going to matter more ... it's just how EQ works. But there are plenty of people who play the game at a lower pace as FTP, even towards the top end. I know several couples who play as FTP and are currently having fun doing quests/content in RoS and TBL as 111+ level characters, with the occasional dip in ToV. Their advancement is slower, but they still get stuff done. To be fair, they also subscribe for one month a year to gain the free auto-grant AAs. But that's a really low barrier to entry.

Many people have posted in the past about having prestige disappear from older content as EQ max level goes up. The question has always been, why would the game developers do this? They need to game to make money in order to get a salary. If people are limited in funds to pay for the game, having more gear available does not change the real world for these people. If people aren't limited in funds, then boosting their power isn't going to magically (pun intended) get them to pay for something that they currently are not.

As long as they continue to have a non-prestige gearing tier every 5 levels, it's just not necessary to change.

What you should be posting is ... How Can I Maximize My FTP Experience ... and you will get a ton of responses (or look up one of the several threads on this subject). And then go enjoy the game.

The responses I see here that suggest non-All Access players are not paying customers disregards the other four types of revenue collected for Everquest: ex-packs, loot boxes, gamestore, and perks. Many of the top revenue producing games don't even have either monthly memberships or expansion packs to pay for.

Thats a point but its probably just not worth going through the effort to change them.

Then again, another fairness about paying or a complaint about it would be: why are we paying when automated players are controlling raids, guilds.. gear.. krono prices.. ect.
Play of a live person vs a live person using programs to play are noticable. They make a player faster then we do.. and guilds are taken uber vs sub uber. You can be paying to play for 2-3 years before a couple month program player has better gear and aa then you.

We, that don't break these rules, are idiots. Fact is fact. This game is flawed. and I honestly didn't want to chose the word ' flawed '.
It is a caution to play the game with these program players, they are extremely careful and worried who you are.. wanting to know you really good so they can trust you won't turn them in. Rumers.. talk..find out more about this person.. even stop you going into guilds making rumers up.

This is all the fault of lack of results to deal with these issues. GM's don't get a handle on it. There is another thread about forage and they want it automated, and fishing automated. It doesn't end. There are pages and pages and pages on it, the thread should have been killed. So you have a lot more to be worried about, you already are at a block with prestige, journeyman merc, general chat (if not silver) and lack of /baz ( as you said ).. your at a point where your grinding for years.
So as Bernal said, you don't have to pay to log in, but it sure isn't fair when you do.

Expansions that are FTP need to have the group-level gear equip-able by FTP characters (silver or green). Prestige makes no sense at this point. NoS T1 group gear exceeds all of ToL group gear, so why is there stuff characters cannot equip before Ascending? Do we really care about the characters sitting at level 110 or 115? No, we do not.

Be nice if you could be a trader on ftp then i could drop to two accounts there's a reason they wont do it though lot of accounts would drop.

That has nothing to do with "prestige" items.

The devs really need to update at least some of the prestige items to normal or change the way prestige works.

Casters can memorize type II spells and then use them without being All Access, so why can't prestige augs only be able to be added to armor when All Access, but do not go yellow or purple when dropping back down to Silver or FTP?

This would not only save the developers time in changing old prestige items, it would also give players of melee classes an incentive to do a monthly All-Access from time to time like casters do when learning type II spells.

Some hassles are ok, but the prestige and AA issue force players to quit the game entirely.

If you are spending money on those other sources there is no reason why you can't spend the money for a subscription instead.

Opportunity costs are a zero sum game. Like it or not, many young game players are not going to pay five different ways for Everquest.

That doesn't change the fact that if you have they money to buy items from the marketplace you also have money to pay for a subscription. In the end you are going to be getting more for your money by purchasing a subscription as it also provides you with DBC for purchasing things in the marketplace.

Off the subject a bit but is there a detailed list of the best Non prestige items per slot. I know visibles are 106-110 Conflagrant,110-115 Faded Snowbound, 115-120 Faded Waxing, and 120 is Faded Ascending. I'm having a heck of a time finding the best "non visables" and most of all non prestige augs for other slots. Sorry if I derail the thread. I can always make my own thread if too much negativity comes from this reply. lol. I do keep one account all access but my other five accounts are all ftp.

Item Search - (raidloot.com)

Use raidloot and exclude Prestige.

DPG is missing out on lots of ways to create micro transaction opportunities to get around paying for all access but still getting benefits from gear (like buying the ability to use rank 2 spells). They could do this with augments and gear too ($5 to unlock a single item for FTP, but make some items unlockable like pet focus earrings), but I'm guessing the programming time to do this compared to the expected revenue just isn't worth it. It certainly wouldn't be worth it to change coding on old gear, but if they wanted to do it going forward it would be a pleasant addition (assuming it's not too tedious to make those sort of options available).

I guess it all depends on whether you think Everquest as competitive or not. A case could be made for the raid game being competitive to some extent. The rest of the game, at least in my opinion, not really.

I am less worried about what players automating can get that I don't have and more concerned about disruptive play from automated and non automated players. Automation can let some be more disruptive then non automative. And by disruption I mainly mean those who don't recognize camps (as most do on Live) or who monopolize zones.

All I care about is whether folks are messing with me or others in the game.

Anything Daybreak wants to automate is fine by me. I can't think about any big objections to the past QoL changes they have made. Yes I hate Overseer but I can see the need it fills based on other changes they made like concentrating exp for missions in level cap increase expansions.

I wish more folks could see the difference between changes they don't like to changes that are good or bad for the game. I can dislike a change and still see the benefits from it.

Automation for instance. I think we have to be careful to not go too far or there won't be much of a game left that we actually play. BUT some automation by DBG could make folks less reliant or less likely to try third part automation. I don't see automation as inherently good or bad its all about how it is used. Daybreak has to think about what will give them better long term engagement from players ie subs and buying expansions and marketplace items.

On the contrary I think they are trying to ensure that a subscription is the most attractive way to play. Everquest is not primarily a micro transaction game it is still mainly a subscription game so it makes sense that is what they try to encourage folks to do. Free to play seems to be intended to just try the game out or a way to play when you have to unsub for a while. Free to play does not seem intended as a method to play on an ongoing basis unless you are fine with the current restrictions on it.