An Updated Thought (would love a dev response/opinion)...

After playing for a few weeks, here's my updated thoughts on what I'd like to see happen to this server...

1. Give everyone max L&L gear. If the idea of the server is to put everyone on the same playing field right off the bat, this make sense. As it is, the disparity between having crate gear and max L&L gear in DoV content is extreme, and it basically makes grinding it a requirement for anyone wanting to participate in that content. It is also a futile exercise for a casual player to have to keep equipping, unequipping, equipping, unequipping etcetc new pieces over and over again, especially when the stat differences have no applicable effect in most circumstances outside of DoV.
2. Put every adornment slot/color on the L&L gear.
3. Make every proc that exists on gear from 1-90 a turquoise adornment. Considering that this was done once, it seems fully reasonable that it can be done again without much of a cost in time or money for the dev team/company. Doing this has two primary benefits...
   1. People who want a form of gear progression, or wish to min/max their toons, would then have a massive depth of options with which to use, hunt for, or otherwise experiment with.
   2. This would make a large bulk of heroic and raiding content across numerous expansions relevant to all players. With this, people who have already gotten the achievements for completing certain zones may still derive some benefit/reward for running them again, and raiders will have reason outside of achievements to run numerous zones. It also makes all of the various expansion currencies valuable and usable.
4. Iron out the mechanics and glaring issues unique to the server. I'm not suggesting make the gameplay on this server balanced and perfect (I get that's too much to ask), but there are many simple issues that are really big problems, and off-putting for anyone trying to understand how to play on Kael. An example of some of the most egregious issues...
   1. Certain aa abilities literally have no effect (crusader and enchanter lines, BL warder specialization aa, etc)
   2. Stat caps are nerfing certain classes too hard (Channeler's are the pinnacle of this example)
   3. Temporary buffs - specifically tank buffs centered around modifying avoidance stats - have zero effect. This isn't just limited to tank buffs, but also other class's major buffs. Some examples include...
      1. Shadowknight's Furor, Dragon's Reflexes, Tsunami, Warden's Sandstorm, a variety of Swashbuckler temps, Time Warp, and many many more.
5. Give some transparent indication as to what the caps are from gear and spells in each zone. Requiring that the players figure it out on their own when there are so many influencing variables is simply inviting irritation and confusion. It would be appreciated and amazing if we could see a system implemented in game that would indicate when we've reached the caps on each stat from both gear and abilities, and the contribution/breakdown thereof (something similar already exists, so this seems like a reasonable ask). If that kind of development time is not possible, then a forum post with a basic guideline would be immensely appreciated by those that care about that kind of thing.
6. (*adding this as an edit*) Further increase the payoff/rewards for completing achievements. I appreciate the recent additions to the L&L merchant, and those kind of changes should continue to be considered by the dev team, and constantly updated/refreshed/appended to encourage engagement in the focus of the server - obtaining achievements.

I want to make a quick attached note and say that, imo, converting all of the procs to adorns shouldn't have a negative effect on the TLE servers, and it may even make Varsoon more engaging for people as it opens up more farming options and customizability for players (being free trade and all this seems like a plus). It of course would have 0 impact on live.

I also want to note that, when it comes to a concern for balancing issues, it's clear and evident at this point that kind of class balance is never going to be looked at or worked on. As it is right now, there is a stark tier-list for what classes are viable and which ones are not (from a serious, "hard core raider" perspective), so who cares if certain adorn combinations become busted? In my mind it makes little difference since there are already "busted" and broken mechanics within the server as is, AND it's meant to be a casual-esc focused server anyway. I've also always been one of the opinion that it's better for something to be busted, than for something to be worthless, and with Daybreak's approach to EQ2 design is seems like we have to chose one or the other in almost every case.

(*edit*) To rephrase the idea above a little clearer: The game is not in a state of balance atm, so worrying about whether a change will break or adversely affect gameplay balance, seems trivial and unnecessary.

(*another edit*) Just because a server is casual, doesn't mean the mechanics of play don't matter . That's a conflation and a false definition/perspective I feel like I've been seeing and reading a lot of here and on discord recently.

So, if you start off with the max level gear, why would you keep playing? It's my general feeling that most MMORPGs are games that are primarily about "power shopping" for bigger, badder weapons and gear.

I've been saying for awhile to add adornment slots to L&L gear and add procing adornments to the L&L merchant or as achievement rewards receive an effects adornment or be able to buy level 90 version of HQ items with effects on them at the L&L merchant. Ideally these would scale or be % based.

That said, no to having max L&L gear at character creation. Also, we don't need to know stat caps at zones, it's pretty easy to determine them, although some are poorly done (such as capping resists under 10% in zones under level 80). Yes to the rest.

The broad depth of adornments (aka, every proc that exists in 0-90 content) would be the things to hunt for with regard to gear progression. With the design of the server (stat caps and the ratio/relationship with L&L gear), adornments wouldn't be required to participate in any content (including DoV), but rather would be a way to add additional utility or performance to you toon if you wanted. This is a far more engaging and interesting form of gear progression than the linear and (imo mind-numbingly boring) L&L gear-crate progression, and would keep people engaged and "power shopping" for far longer (which is what Daybreak as a company would want).

I want stat cap breakdowns shown so that we know what % of our cap is attributed to abilities. With that kind of knowledge, I can better know what kind of buffs are worth using, and can try to learn how to play better around that ruleset. As it is now, having to manually test and figure that out, for ever single zone, between different classes, which all have different aa's/tier of L&L gear, etc, is excruciatingly painful and unreasonable. It just feels like bad and unnecessary imposition on players (imo).

fix LoL server bugs or it will die off due to poor mechanics and bugs. Tired of hours of grinding and achievements not showing!