As a returning player myself, and for any other new or returning players, the player level gap in EQ is unbelievable. By player level gap, I mean how top heavy the game has become on live servers with a level 1 having to essentially solo 1 to 90+ before being able to find groups reliably. Obviously, EQ was not made to be a solo experience, and past developers have tried to work around the lack of players by adding Mercs. A fine step. However, it does not go far enough - because the skills are spread out (tank/heal/cc-util) players can't get the skills to crawl through dungeons with just one added role. Many/most players still have a need to box a second account and sometimes more to have the tools available to experience the game, especially lower level content. Then, you run into having to look at group compositions (for people who don't even know what their main character will be like at 115) and investing time into characters that may not be what you want 50, 80, 100 levels in. My suggestion: increase and improve the # of Mercs available. If I could pick even 3 mercs (a full group would be best), of whatever classes I need, the leveling and exploration experience would be 100x more enjoyable than having to run multiple instances of EQ, have to alt+tab between them and juggle back and forth, handle loot for multiple characters, etc. Let them fade in strength from 80-90 or just stop leveling at a certain level so nobody wants them at endgame and people have to group up. I for one would be happy to pay for a "quality of life" mini expansion and this could open up the game to many who wish to return to EQ or have difficulty running 2-6 instances of EQ and micromanaging everything at once. Similarly, if a class isn't performing how you want, you can trade the merc for another class merc to try out the compositions without feeling like you're throwing away months of work. As an alternate idea: Put in "Merc quests" to gain the use of a certain class and have that merc start at level 1 and level up through exp. You could then level and gear your mercs just like if they were regular characters and build a stable of mercs for whatever situation you need, with them running on their own AI. I welcome any comments or suggestions others may have to help improve the situation also.
