Why the desire for full Valiant?

To answer the OP question, I raid to gear my toon to be the absolute most OP I can make it. So that includes all heroic AA, Artisan Prize, maxing all the revolvers to raid max if at all possible, getting that 98 AC aug vs the 97 AC version. Yes I understand that the functional difference between T1 vs T2 is negligible. But for me that's not the point, I want the absolute best I can lay my grubby little paws on.

There have been many posts in the past about how the T1 drops are worthless and a waste of DKP to buy, that is how they know what people want.

But that is the thing. They are not worthless. A player could be fully geared in T1 and perform their job exactly the same as if they are in Valiant due to bloated numbers. Players have deemed them worthless, but they are definitely not.

They are "worthless" because there are items with better stats that drop from the same content.

Its like Girplan Hammer of Carnage / Greatsword of mortification / The other 18 2handers that could drop in Anguish / DoN.

Are any of those better than Bloodstone Blade of the Zun Muram or whatever equivalent Inktuta/Txevu/Tacvi drop you want to use in this comparison? Sure. They're a little bit better, Is there any point in spending more than "I'll take it if its gong to rot" when they're all worse than epic 2.0? No.


There is a cost associated with taking the second best drop in most every case.


If two items do roughly similar things to each other, and are a small upgrade over the thing you're already wearing, why would you pay more for the t1 item than you value it at? If I can get a 69 ac, 2100hp, 6 heroic sta, 1 heroic dex upgrade (which is already incredibly underwhelming), do I really even care about getting a 46ac 900hp 2hsta upgrade instead? The only reason Iwant the first one of those is because there is nothing better than it, its not even remotely exciting. Its not a new focus. Its not a different distribution of mod 3s, those were already standardized before I stopped raiding. The ONLY thing that goes up is largely meaningless numbers, so why wouldnt I want the highest possible meaningless numbers when thats THE ONLY THING THERE IS TO GET IN THE GAME THESE DAYS.

Here is the thing, though. The stats are irrelevant. The numbers are irrelevant. Outside of the weapons, there is no reason to *need* T2 armor. The numbers on the T1 allow you to do 99.99% of content, I would venture as far as 99.999%. The extra 1100 HP on a warrior T2 wrist when the warrior has what, 800k hp or something like that? That 1100 hp is irrelevant.

But when a warrior sees a T1 wrist, they flat out refuse to even look at it. Because it is not T2 with an extra 1100 hp. Even though, as you also stated, the numbers mean nothing. Stats are so inflated and so overblown in today's game that is absolutely does not matter if you wear a T1 wrist or a T2 wrist. But it does, as evident by a long thread where people complain about not having valiant drops. Why not just loot the T1 stuff? Why *must* you limit yourself to just T2 when the T1 works just as fine (outside of a dumb magelo ranking)?

And I guess that is my underlying point. It doesn't matter if you wear T1 or T2, with the exception of weapons. But a lot of players will pooh pooh T1 saying it is useless and irrelevant (which is wrong). If T2 did matter, then that is different. But a T1 tank can do everything a T2 tank can do. Same with melee, casters, healers. I think the playerbase needs to look at the very first response by Riou, saying T2 only matters with weapons, and start to buy into looting T1 gear and be happy with it. Players may become happier in the long run by not focusing on the tier but rather just the slot.

Not everyone is a Mage who only needs a single pet focus item.

Did you make this post to learn what others think or preach to them how they should think? In your line of reasoning, you advocate for apathy towards character development.

Why would people sign in week after week to live in a fantasy world, where they still can’t even achieve the best items in game?

You’re advocating for a dead game. Instead of seeing the complaints as a bad thing, you need to see how it’s still a good thing that people are still passionate about their characters.

Apathy kills games.

Because when you're decked in full t2 it feels like you're "done". Because if you're decked in t2 you're as ready as possible to jump into next year's raids in case they get a wild hair up their rear and decide that next year's raids will actually be challenging.

You're right. There is zero reason that anyone *needs* current xpac gear. Or levels. You def don't need to be max level to beat every raid and every raid achievement this expansion. So I'd ask you, why do players feel they need to be max level or max AA? It's not necessary for anything. I bet this xpac could be beaten at level 120 in cov group gear if you wanted.

Maybe look at guild loot policies? This has a direct influence on what pieces people go after.

If someone would link the Raid set comparison from raidloot your looking at very small upgrades 200AC and 10k ish hp/mama/end gains?

Players want T2 items because they care about their chars and want them as strong as possible going into the next expansion.

Current expansion doesn't matter we have beaten that but we want to be strong for the next one.

making up T1 items isn't cheap so rather than upgrade T1 items, most will just go to T2.

As someone else said with T2 items missing from the chest it takes longer to gear the raid. 4 V 6 your going to want the 6 every time.

I don't see the point these days of 2 tiers of loot, nor the number of items per slot. They need more choice. Different clicks and stats would be a start.

Luclin had great itemisation from VT, Sraa, etc. Today's itemisation is very boring.

Hasn't EQ always been this way, isn't there always a carrot to draw your character forwards?

For some that next upgrade could be a game-change with massive stats and a visual upgrade, for the ones at the upper echelons of the gear pyramid, the gains get smaller and smaller to the point where an upgrade is just +1100hp. However, take that away from players and what is the point of actually playing and doing the raids if there is practically no reward. (the mobs die on the first attempt (from what I read), so the only real challenge left is the BiS gear).

The real question should be why is the gear landscape in EQ so stale that people are ignoring T1 because they'd prefer to jump directly to T2 with so little to gain?

Simply put - more better is better.

Myself, I usually spend the dkp to get a few T1 things like wrists, gloves, etc... right away when we start winning raids. Whatever the cheapest pieces are (dkp-wise because of focus effects) and then the rest I fill in with the valiant/ore TS pieces. Once I hit a level that I'm comfortable with, I chill out and look for the occasional steals and fill in everything else with low cost purchases or from the vendor.

Why wouldn't you want a full set of valiant gear?

The EQ game loop *IS* about getting gear and powering up so naturally to *MAX* should be the goal of every person who decides they want to put time into raiding.

With that said, I personally never completely max out my gear every expansion. Early on I get the critical pieces of gear for my class with DKP, then purchase whatever gives me the biggest bang with raid coin, or maybe a rotting piece or two near the end.

I really dislike the scaling reward system where you get 10->20->30->40 coins because it makes the first six months less rewarding than later in the year.

I really, really hate the higher coin prices in LS and "feel" of having the majority of the chests roll 0 valiant drops. It just feels like the developers decided they needed to stretch things out another +20% to keep people "engaged", so rolling a "0" chest feels like a huge let down. Doing that on 2,3 or 4 chests in a row leaves a mark far more than the rare 3x valiant drop chests.

I hate the 10-20-30-40 as well, 20-26-34-40 would be a lot better.

The only thing I go BiS for is my weapons. T1 is fine for everything else. The arm and leg focus effects are the same T1 and T2. The AA clicks are the same level. My BP offensive click effect does the same amount of damage with a T1 as a T2. What I get out of it is not spending as much DKP as others do because I can still do my job decently with T2 weapons and T1 everything else.

Isn't wanting BiS in every spot a bit like this?

Not everyone wants BiS, least for this expansion. I pick and choose this year, click my signature if it shows up, I’m also missing a couple pieces still. I’d much rather have a better selection of pieces to choose from with different focus/effects. These raids arent hard and can be beat by competent raid force in last years gear easy.

Forum lag spike

And it's a nice upgrade for my pally.

Because acquiring the best items available is a cornerstone of MMORPG game play and design.

You're trying to reinvent a wheel as some kind of weird square thing.