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

Entirely sensible posts.

I can see the logic of having T1 essentially being fully tradeable "Bazaar fodder" to supply a large amount of loot for returning players, boxes, F2P players etc and anyone wearing the last expansion's T3 not getting an upgrade from it.

Tier 2 being Required 120 (much like ToV's Tier 2 was Required 115) however doesn't feel right at all.
Tier 3 being Required 120 (as ToV's required 115) sure, totally makes sense to me.

Many prior expansions had a much more gradual "gear progression" but there is no progression without a mid-point in my opinion so both T2 & T3 requiring Max level doesn't really allow for that flow, once you get to 120 why even bother with T2 at all - it is already superceded by better gear and why waste the plat on it, it's pointless.

Either have T1 gear be bazaar fodder, T2 required 116 recommended 120 & T3 120 required

or

T1 is 116 required 120 recommended and is an upgrade in every way to the prior expansion's T3 & remove the middle tier entirely so that T2 is the max level gear and provides an upgrade over T1.

the only time prestige was even mentioned was by Fenthen on page 3 as a side-note

literally no one complained about prestige; this thread isn't about f2p vs subscribers

I'm baffled that anyone would argue there is or could be any kind of core game loop for group tier players post level 75. I mean, there just isn't one, and obviously hasn't been one for a long time.

The level of the gear is irrelevant, because the gear isn't good enough for a group of appropriate leveled and AA'd characters to do the content it drops off of...even when they are already fully geared in that equipment.

You can be in CoV group gear, fully AA'd, with supporting characters or a group, and RoS will give you a run for your money. That's all the evidence that is necessary that there is no "core loop" and can't be without a major overhaul of either NPC difficulty, gear stats, or both.

For a level increase expansion:
T1 - required (previous expansion's max level), tradeable
T2 - required (first new level of the expansion), rec (new max level)
T3 - player made, required (new max level)

For a non-level increase expansion, you only need two tiers:
T1 - required max level, though I suppose an argument could be made for having the required level a couple of levels back as an enticement for casual players to buy the expansion
T2 - player made, required max level

The relative "strength" of the gear is open for debate.

I agree with the post above. That's a solid design that a majority of players should reasonably agree upon.

On the other hand, raid gear tiering needs to be looked at. What's the point of T1 armor if you can acquire T2 armor in the same exact raids? Either remove T1 and increase number of ores that drop initially or have T2 ores drop in T2/3 only.

Question on ToL tier 1 gear being attunable.... when looking up the containers which drop, and the finished items, on Raidloot, they're all listed as NO DROP. Not seeing attunable anywhere.

Or is this an FV-specific reference?

If you mean the armor containers, they apparently fixed them on beta (before it closed) which would indicate it'll be fixed in the next patch. All of the other T1 gear (the stuff I've seen) is already tradeable/attunable.

The ToL Tier 1 gear is not even an upgrade from CoV T3, at non max level. It's not even worth bothering with if you have velium threaded. No idea what the point of it is, at least don't make it 120 recommended for Tier1, that's ridiculous, make it 115 or 116 and have it's max stats. Even then it's a garbage upgrade. Tier 2 is even a tiny upgrade at 120.

What the OP is saying, is why bother adding T2 armor and make most items 120 req, when you end up only being able to use them AFTER you have to beat the hardest part of the expansion. Tier 2 should be 116-120 and T3 120.

Except for rogue pants. The T1 stuff summons the upgraded poison, so raid-geared rogues should get waxing or waning pants ASAP.

This would be an improvement, especially if the T2 gear of current expansion was superior to the T2 gear of previous expansion before hitting the recommended level. However, I don't know of a compelling argument for why the recommended level would be higher than the players intended to fight the encunter.

I've always viewed req/rec levels as anti-twinking mechanisms (which may be incorrect thinking?), and my position is that if a group of level 115s in previous expansion group gear can defeat an encounter in ToL without much difficulty (which is true of all encounters in ToL) they should get the full reward.

The only reason I can think of is the devs don’t want to spend time balancing the gear.

It's just another incentive to get people to level. Leveling itself is nothing more than a visual representation of character progression and really not at all necessary. You can develop ways to progress a character without requiring levels. However, the concept of levels has been a staple for pretty much all RPGs and even outside of that, and I don't see that going away any time soon.

Developing things - AAs, gear, augments, spells, etc - and locking it behind these arbitrary barriers is just to incentivize the players to do the latest content and progress their character.

The req of 116 would be throwing a bone at the player. The rec of 120 is the reason to level up.

The whole min level thing, was to prevent super twinking, when they started doing it. Now it's just abused for whatever reason. Like someone level 116 would be OP, with the few hundred extra hps from Tier 2 armor or the few extra hps from the Tier1 stuff. All that stuff should just be 115 or 116+, with no recommended level.

Personally, I'd be fine with removing required level restrictions on everything and just go with recommended levels. Who cares if someone wants to campfire in their 12th level 1 alt to loot some T2 gear? If the scaling works properly, it would have almost no stats on it so it's not like it would be overpowered. Let people twink out their alts with gear that's probably going to rot anyway. Clicky effects and procs would still have level restrictions just like EQ has always had.

Now it ties into FTP stopping points. So the next expansion will be no new levels and so the same gear will still be 115-120 and new gear will drop that's the same pattern. Just like T/CoV you won't see anyone saying that we should remove the "obsolete" ToV gear. You leave casual people behind, the kind that don't run their own 6 box, beat an entire expansion in a couple weeks, and then come cry on the forums that they can't wear the max level group gear.

There isn’t enough content to support 3 sets of gear. The casuals I play are subbed accounts that typically only use last tier of armor.

only gaining something like 20k hp`s more

For a toon that's fully geared in the previous expansion's tradeskill gear, the only real upgrade is the new tradeskill gear. T1 gear is bazaar/alt fodder, and T2 gear (unless it has upgraded focus effects) either rots or is tribute fodder. None of it is useful if you can farm named and beat missions without it.

T1/T2 gear is really only of use to people that skipped a non-level increase expansion.

There isn’t a reason for two sets of gear to have 120 requirements. T2 should have been T1. There’s no logical reason for me to beat the expansion to use the gear.

Is max level "beating the expansion" now?