I remember posting this in the tanking section like a year ago, but it bears repeating. This game is hard for returning players / new players. Gearing up, getting augments, decent weapons - always looking for that extra little boost so you can molo or box your way to level 100 (105 incoming). 1.) Everyone should get auto-flagged to SOD Void E at level 81. It's the perfect next step from Defiant gear and a great helper towards getting through SoD and into HoT (especially for tanks) 2.) Remove all blocks on House of Thule armor (factions, crafted portions). Group in T4, gear up to T4. The perfect way to enjoy HoT and get Ready for VoA. 3.) Remove crafting requirements for T1 VoA gear and remove the language req's. (I'm aware of the quests in RoF that max Alaran... but my god it's boring!) Doing this will remove the "gear gaps" present in today's leveling up, and it will also reward players for trying out expansions beyond heroic adventures. The locking mechanisms made sense when that content was current, but now players jump on the HA bandwagon and don't get off because it's the path of least resistance (gear, and xp) vs inferior XP and roadblocks in level-appropriate expansions. I mean, why discourage players from checking out old content? Level 92 Rec T1 RoF gear drops too infrequently also. I want to play again with an old friend (level 1 to 100, no heroic toons ), but we both look at the game and figure "why bother?" for this exact reason. Defiant gear can get us to level 80 if we're careful.
Leveling, acquiring gear, weapons, augments is called "Playing the Game". As for rewarding players for doing other than Heroic Adventures, see below: Getting through SoD? Just do the various tasks/missions/progression beginning in Oceangreen Hills and Oceangreen Village to acquire http://everquest.allakhazam.com/search.html?q=Paragon That takes care of the so-called "gear gap" quite nicely. If you want 100 Alaran, do the "boring" quests! It might take a couple hours or so if that! You know....Play the game!
Great news! You can already make T1 VoA gear with no Alaran knowledge. Also, you can buy the blanks for T4 HoT gear AND turn in spell fragments for up to level 90 spells with, at best, indifferent faction. I did this just today on a character and was quite startled when the gnome would hand me level 89 and 90 rk. 2 spells and her compatriot would sell me blanks for Lucid armor. Making T2 and above armor doesn't require a crafted bit, by the way. The crafting requirements for VoA T1, well, play on a server other than test and that stuff is in the bazaar. On test, we don't have a bazaar worth mentioning so ask in general and someone will probably make it for you.
You folks are missing the point. I know how you do it. That's why I know if you want to do SOME of the Paragon gear, you're gonna need J5 mercs and level 85. (Have fun getting both in Defiant Gear). That's where people quit and find a different game. It's like I'm trying to tell the rich kids that I can't just go and buy a new pair of shoes, and they are confused and amused.
Rich kids? So the "poor kid" wants the following handed out? "1.) Everyone should get auto-flagged to SOD Void E at level 81. It's the perfect next step from Defiant gear and a great helper towards getting through SoD and into HoT (especially for tanks) 2.) Remove all blocks on House of Thule armor (factions, crafted portions). Group in T4, gear up to T4. The perfect way to enjoy HoT and get Ready for VoA. 3.) Remove crafting requirements for T1 VoA gear and remove the language req's. (I'm aware of the quests in RoF that max Alaran... but my god it's boring!)" Actually, though admittedly with some assistance, you can get a Journeyman Tier V mercenary doing the Korascian Warrens tasks at Level 75. Of course, that would require that you make some effort to make a few friends in game so they can lend a hand in that endeavor. At level 75 with a J5 Mercenary most classes can molo a number of the Oceangreen Village, Oceangreen Hills and Old Blackburrow tasks in Defiant gear or the Glowing Othni or Glowing Athlai from revamped zones sold in bazaar and, presuming your old friend is along, you can duo with mercs all but perhaps the last three Temple portions. As previously said, it's called "Playing the Game". At level 85, one would think you'd be checking into acquiring Rustic gear. often sold in the bazaar, as an upgrade for Elegant Defiant, Extravagant Defiant and/or Paragon. As was pointed out, if you play on Test server, assuredly there are players there who can assist you but it does take some effort on your part.
If you have rain of fear expansion (which will be available for free to free-to-play players once the new expansion releases), you can do 1 easy easy quest to get VoA language to 100. But most gear guides don't have you getting VoA gear anyway (other than some rustic that might be available for purchase in the bazaar). Once a player hits 85, the game opens up to them again (the problem area right now is 70-85, NOT 85+).
I'm not here for suggestions, I know how to do all of this. That's why I'm here to offer suggestions - because doing the gear grind currently is what made all of my level 70s to 80s friends quit back in 2012. I pushed forward to see if the level 100 game was worth the grind. I'm here to give suggestions that I know make the game more streamlined and fun. Fun = natural progression. Fun = more players. Players don't want to beg a high level player to them through their J5 quest. Players don't want to beg a high level to make them patterns so they can get use out of that awesome remnant they had drop. Players don't want to spend weeks in old content doing old content time sinks... that are obvious time sinks. There are plenty of those time sinks waiting for them at level 100+ Players want to play the game, get good at it, and then join the action where everyone else is. Quit defending the 7 year old time sinks.
I got a nearly a full set of paragon while working on getting my J1 and J2 merc (getting the earrings was a surprise that I soon found out was part of a complete set). I did the J1 at 75 and J2 shortly after to build up to getting the J5 at 82. I did not even have a full set of level 70 defiant. My leveling from 75 - 80 was a bit slower than any other point of 60-100, but I felt more purpose doing the quests for the paragon armor than at any other point of that journey. This was just about 12 months ago.
I'm confused at what Void E access is supposed to do at Level 81. So if they have 1485 Chrono they can buy a 400ish neck and at the same level they could buy 900ish Thule gear in Bazaar. Did you also mean to drop all the prices to 1 Chrono with no sell-back? The J5 timesink has already been eliminated, it's a single quest in Feerrott now. T4 Lucid Armor is req90 and 1500ish, T1 VoA Armor is req85 and 1500ish, Plated Deathshroud is attunable req85 and 1500ish and Pestilient Breastplate is attunable req90 and 2000ish. Put consigned No Trade versions of attunable gear on an NPC vendor that is at least X expansions old or offer them as rewards for Franklin Teek quests or whatever other method that guarantees supply and either caps the price in baz because of a competing NPC vendor or lowers the baz price due to increased supply. If the Devs wanted to make it easier for new players it wouldn't still revolve around camping named mobs in T4 Thule or T1 VoA, if players can do that we know they can gear up, it would be about helping players unable to kill those mobs.
The bigger issue here is tuning. Most classes will do fine with a mishmash of gear and a couple of key focii. This is not the case for tanks. People have been saying this forever on these forums but it's never been addressed and tier 1 of any expansion is tuned for people with max level/aa/previous expansion gear. We really need to see another "bottom-up" expansion aimed at progressing new/returning/heroic characters to max level, with particular attention paid to the capabilities of Heroic tanks.
Well "bottom" is Level 80. Gear with a req level 79 or lower except for Paragon, Necro Epic and some clicks and augs is terrible and content is tuned according to that terrible gear. If you want to giggle at the insane gap go here: http://raidloot.com/Search.aspx enter Level 79 and then 80 for any search, especially if you do a Group or Bazaar search, it's truly absurd how much it jumps. http://raidloot.com/Search.aspx?slot=Ear&type=Armor&level=79&source=Group&order=AC Hey look, it's a Luclin ear near the top of a list. http://raidloot.com/Search.aspx?slot=Ear&type=Armor&level=80&source=Group&order=AC Hey look, one more level and the Luclin ear is halfway down page 2. SoF begins the crossover but group gear still has major issues like the jewelry slots having terrible AC and you don't really have readily available req80 gear until Thule or Paragon since getting that gear out of Underfoot without already having it is likely more trouble than it's worth. Paragon was one of the more recent efforts by the Devs to do exactly what the OP is asking for, if the OP holds a common opinion it could be time to make it even easier to obtain. If you're having problems leveling to 80 which can be done in zones that existed when the best possible group gear was 200ish the problem exists between keyboard and chair, turn out auto-grant, do Frankin Teek's quests daily that you can handle and find some more mobs you can kill if you feel like playing longer.
Conveniently, this is what a heroic tank gets, so that's a great place to set the bar and exactly why I suggested the entry point of heroic tanks in my previous post. Unfortunately this "bottom" gear is only good enough to tank low tier content that is about to become four expansions old. If a Heroic tank wants to tank their upgrades, they will need to replace their entire suit of armor many times over before they hit max level. This situation exists because mobs are tuned to require tanks have previous tier gear rather than the previous expansion's gear in the same tier. While augs have a bit more staying power, a Heroic tank should expect to loot somewhere between 200-300 incremental upgrades before catching up if they expect to tank their way into current content. That number will only get higher as more expansions get released. The easy way is to slice that number significantly by tuning tier 1 mobs to only require tanks geared in tier 1 gear of the previous expansion, and a one-time "catch up" tier below that as a stepping stone for heroic tanks to enter current expansion content. Obviously higher tiers can still use the existing progression model to preserve challenge when an expansion is current. Do this, and I guarantee SOE will sell more expansions when they are current.
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:Progression_Through_Call_of_the_Forsaken So 5 levels higher than a level you agree is a fair assessment of "bottom" you can do what for another week is the most recent expansion in the game. If you need to replace every piece of Heroic gear at 85 that's 21, 21 at 90, 21 at 95 and 21 at 100 and 2 sets of augs for 42 means you get to Level 105 with 126 drops. You would only need Level 105 drops to level to 110. I guess they could cut it down by making the req90 gear req85 and otherwise unchanged and then the req100 gear req95 with the release of TDS and you would only need 2 sets of gear to get from 85 to 105 and even replacing the augs twice be down to 84 upgrades. If Heroic Tanks can't do any of the Heroic missions effectively to even get the req85 gear that would be a tuning issue.
