I hit the same wall every time I come back

Will not call it garbage but protecting their income, giving people incentive to become all access.

Eh, prestige items I wish they would either do away with or make it so any items that can be gained with ftp expansions weren't prestige or even 4 expansions back like they do with autogrants. Rk spells I also wish they'd allow current highest version you have if you lapse to ftp rather than putting you at rk1 / rk2 with the spell purchase.

aa cap alone is enough incentive to go from ftp to p2p imo. Kind of dumb to lock things like PoP raid gear to paying memberships only.

Diagree that aa is enough incentive. What is to prevent goint all access for 1 month autogrant. Then back and be able to use all equip.

It is simply protect your investment, I would do the same, after all it is business.

What I did was have one main character that I did endgame with, current raids, missions, farming, etc. Then, have an ALT that I intentionally kept at level 75 or 70 solely for the purpose of revisiting old content within level range. For me bringing my main to that old content, I absolutely obliterate it. On my ALT, he can go in there with his merc and progress through content, mostly for fun as I turned all of his experience into AAs since his gear is pretty good for a 75 toon. It's fun in both aspects.

Because those people would get bored or be forced to level due to having maxed aas = forced regular experience by doing the autogrant. So they'd end up experiencing new content or quitting after forking over a month for all-access rather than quitting after not forking over a month for all-access.

From a business model, I honestly think it would attract more business if they made everything in the current 2-4 expansions prestige and left everything else non-prestige. People who are interested in the older content won't pay for a membership unless they really decide to go on TLP. Buying membership for aas is what usually has them stick around . But just personal experience really dictates my thoughts on this. I have friends and family who get discouraged about trying EQ again because of some of the restrictions when they log on or start from scratch.

My personal experience about what discourages people from playing is the mountain of AA they need to catch up on, and the flagging of things.

In regard to the AA, I have to say that with EOK, the mountain has become twice the size it was prior to the expansion.

The inflation of prices on AA has become too high.

Years ago they came with autogrant to minimize the mountain, but that seems to be forgotten a bit. Yes people need something to do I know, but not all got the time that required.
With that in mind, yesI am maxxed.

I love the game too currently from 1-70 and then again from 95-105 when playing my alts.

Since I have been playing my warrior non-stop since release, the game has always been fun and challenging but never a wall like the OP mentions because of the amount of people in my level range at each increase.

A possible solution might be like EQ2 has done recently with heroic characters/ Maybe they could make a new "Legendary" store characters that start at 95 for purchase for returning players.

Nailed it. Of the ~12K new AAs for my class, over 4K are just for tradeskills. About 4K are for focus AAs, and for how I play, 80-90% of those are low priority. Of the final 4K, 3K are in General, so not that big of a deal, for the most part. 1K AAs are in the Archetype and Class tabs, and those are the major ones to get first. How long does it take to get 1000 AAs in the current game? Not very long at all.

Tat

get all your alts in a fellowship and turn on shared exp OP, then you can grind using vitality exp bonus' to help get you through 70-85 ( aka hell levels lol )

also at lvl 75 you can group with lvl 105s, so dont be shy, try to make some friends, they could come in handy

He's right though. Mercwars are still way too weak for intended content.