Why ToL's Group Gear Level 120 Requirement Sabotages EQ's Core Gameplay Loop

T1 loot is only an upgrade to people using previous T1 loot. T2 loot should be intro level to the expansion requirement, and include luck/better stats. T3 should be the best for the expansion and require max level for the expansion.

ToL, CoV and ToV were very much garbage in the scope of content vs player progress. The expansions were tiny. ToV/CoV should have been 1 expansion, and anyone who wants to say otherwise is kidding themselves. Trying to use them as examples to prove "The model works" is a failure on our part. It doesnt work. At best it makes something for us to do, with little input. We are making excuses for half arsed development and release.

We had these same complaints when we got ToV and didnt have something like Slot 3s on release. We had these complaints when Kael was stomping us into the ground, because we needed that content to level and very few were capable of handling it effectively. Telling us "I didnt have an issue"...BS... BS and you know it. If that was the case then zones like Velks and Kael wouldnt have been complete ghost towns save those needing hunter or progression.

In OPs comments, they show a great model for enjoyable content... Had they taken the time to follow it, the game could have been something like EW/Kael 110/111-112, GD/Veks 112-113 CC/RM Filler 111->112. WW/CS 113-114,SS/ST Filler-> DN/ToV 114->115. -----It was all one expansion before, it should have been again.

ToL is a continuation of a broken game model. If they took the time to listen to the players and added the QoL improvements (Like Aug exchange, this shouldnt be a mini game and hours of work, one click->Move augs to Item. Boom.) I Didnt need a teleport ring, But I sure as heckin want an expansion that lasts more than 3 weeks.

Silly, gearing new apps was so easy in RoS, they got the chest diamonds to make their raid gear

Thanks. I literally skipped the rest of your post.

T1 gear is level 115 required. Even guys with ToV-only can equip it. That's better than CoV T3 group gear. Even better, T1 in ToL (Waxing and such) is non-prestige, so FTP get to enjoy as well.

T2 stuff I loot for tribute, except the waning armor containers I just leave on the chest/mobs. It's pretty useless otherwise. No one is using it for progression and it's pretty pointless to keep making it. Just give us T1 gear + group nugget gear.

So two things here,
1. Finishing the quest and getting reward thats max level but they're not max level yet.
Maybe have an option, xp instead of loot. So they can get to 120 faster and redo if they want the loot.
2. Finishing the latest expansion with previous expansion gear pretty much, so whats the point of the req 120 gear?
Maybe make content that is not raid but also not group, mini raids, think 18 players max.
Mini raids would get boxers to play with others too.
With these miniraids, have people earn currency like old man mackenzie. So there is no competition of which of the 18 players is going to get the loot.

But basically if you have full top of line the group gear of the latest expansion, its used to do raids.
req 115 rec 120 gear is suppose to help you get the req 120 gear and the req 120 group is suppose to help you with the complete raids.

It hasn't been a month yet since this expansion has been live, so maybe they make xp slow for a reason, thats why you have 120 req gear and not 120 yet.

Lastly they have to balance the with every player, its not just balanced the very best.

I think since the game is box heavy, they should make miniraids, 18 players, some content where you don't have to be in a raid but its still difficult but doable. You've beaten the game by yourself with your 7 box, now time to make friends/ play with others and do miniraid. 18 players is doable to find and get it done at moments notice.

This is obvious hyperbole.

Obviously you don't read threads.

T1 gear is good - level 115 and tradable. ( good so far )
T2 gear should be 116 required and 120 recommended ( should be refactored )
T3 BiS gear should be 120 required ( ok )

The T1 stuff isn't worth the cost of moving augs so its either tribute, given away, or put in the bazaar.
The T2 stuff can't be worn till 120 by which time I had enough TS mats to make the really important upgrades to weapons, focus.
The T3 stuff will take a while to finish farming.

It feels like almost all T2 gear is just tribute fodder. ( except augs )

I keep forgetting that part. Good catch. I had some CotF raid stuff and when I came back I went into Conflagrant group and diamond stuff.

It's attunable. So if it doesn't sell in the Bazaar, I'll give it to my pet. As it is, on FV the price you get for tier 1 gear is next to nothing, so my pet at least will be happy.

The problem in RoS was the T2 raids not the gear, the TS option was T1, we geared our apps fine with dropped diamonds and used some of chest money to create the droppable item for them.

I'd be happy to see T2 be deleted in future expansions and all droppable gear just be the attunable T1 gear with the occasional TS ore. Would be a big improvement to the game overall and reduce developer time that could be diverted to making TS gear more unique ( https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/top-tier-generic-named-gear.280259/unread ).

free to play should only be applied to and up to the heroic character expansion tbh. you wanna play eq you should sub. making bot armies in free to play gear clogging up zones with em queue bot armies injecting into packets causing zone lag is bad for the game from start to finish.

nothing to do with the subject of this thread, go rant on a blog or something

has everything to do with this thread. yall complaining the gear is Prestige and required 120. am hinting at why it is not non-prestige/req 115.

T1 armor should prob be req 115, no rec lvl. T2 should prob be req 116 rec 120 or deleted. T3 should prob be req 120.

All that said, t3 tol is barely an upgrade to the cov t3 so I'm not sure what the huge fuss is about to begin with.

All about best in slot with a lack of honesty in why and how to attain it.

I'd have no issue making all armor from the last two expansions be kept as prestige and having that fall off afterwards. If DPG going to have a laissez faire attitude with FTP bot crews on live, at least make them pay to have them and inject some more funds into the game.

I'd be really curious about how many characters actively in ToL zones are f2p and what percentage of them are bots. I have no idea what the #s would be.

I wouldn't personally be impacted by having the last two expansion's gear all being prestige, but I wouldn't want to ruin a f2p player's current setup.

LOL exactly

I like the idea of lowering the required level and adding a recommended level on the T2 gear. It does feel a bit awkward that starting in ToL at the appropriate level (say 115.99) and progressing linearly through the content will have you seeing drops that you cannot use if you stop to kill named along the way.