Returning after *many* years - some basic questions.

Nope, we would have told you to infuse your armor. There's plat infusion, and there are crafted infusers. That's in large part how you had to get POT up. Then you needed to get lots and lots of weapons, so you could crack them and use the essence to imbue the weapon you are using to Planar Level 10.

Sounds tedious and horrible. Certainly not something worth paying a monthly subscription for.

Heh. Some, and what Sig said, and then horse clothes, and then join a guild to take pity on you, and and and ugh. But you're in position to start the new expac and should be able to get gear and groups after the initial sig line. Guild will help in that regard, regardless.

Agreed 100%, I'd go as far to even say those of us who pay daybreak by even having a sub if we lfg for a entire week to no avail should get that week slapped onto the sub extending it for free -.- but yeah i know -.- **** me for wanting to "play" the game and not just sit there and look at the screen and ***** at general chat or the forums cause of the res wall....fun?.....

Falcon wrote: "...Agreed 100%, I'd go as far to even say those of us who pay daybreak by even having a sub if we lfg for a entire week to no avail should get that week slapped onto the sub extending it for free -.- but yeah i know -.- **** me for wanting to "play" the game and not just sit there ..."

You can't com back and expect to solo your way to max. You need friends and a guild to really max out your class. Not to mention access to people who know their way around the game and for grouping. There is a massive learning...even re-learning curve (for peeps that have been gone for several years) in the game now.

Leveling really is a team effort these days. You'll need all the craftspeople, tinkerers, adorners, people who like to harvest and be willing to pitch in somewhere yourself.

We came back late too. Took us 3 months before we could even run a guild group in T1's.

Three months of tedious character building and subscription fees before you even get to run a tier 1 heroic?

Sounds barbaric.

Yes, sounds like this really isn't your type of game. Perhaps Runescape or WoW would be more up your alley?

That said, I like the journey to max level as much as being there. You really appreciate that one piece of gear or prize all that much more knowing how hard you worked to get there.

Some games focus mostly on the so-called "endgame" and everything before it is just a time sink you need to plow through to get there. Some games have things to do at maximum level but you really should spend a *lot* of time at lower levels either to see the world and the story or get things that will be very useful or even essential even quite a few years after they were introduced.

LOTRO is a game where you can skip to level 120 and be ready to get "endgame" gear with little going back to earlier content. But what a waste to miss all the story and exploration of Middle Earth - the "endgame" just isn't that good compared to getting there.You can, however, do no content before 120 and still get good gear and have all of your important abilities just by questing in the newest zones.

EQ2 from what I remember and have seen since coming back focuses heavily on doing older content to get you ready for the latest content. Unless you use a level-boost that gives you high-end gear and abilities you cannot just speed-level to 110 or 120, buy a few things at the broker, and then jump into the content at that level and expect to have a very capable or well geared character.

There is a 110 level boost if you buy the new xpac. But while it comes with expert level spells & no ascension abilities. It has really bad gear and still needs a lot of work put into it before it is viable.

But the new xpac puts everyone almost back to square 1 as a lot of the new gear starts out much better than even bis gear. At least from from what I can tell from the Beta forums (nvr play betas. spoils the surprise of a new xpac for me)

PoP had too big of a step from the solo to heroic content. The only reason the main population did not rebel and storm San Diego with torches and pitchforks is that, at the time of release, there was a reforging bug: you could Experiment 5 times on Academic armor, boosting ABMod, then reforge that into an improbably amount of Potency (normally you can only get 1-2 points of Potency via reforge). That bug allowed most people to get to heroics, then they fixed the bug.

If you raided in PoP, you just had to get used to harvesting a lot, and crafting stuff to either break down for mats for adornments, or shards for infusers, or weapons essences. Every piece of gear you got new you had to fully plat/Loyalty infuse AND infuse fully with crafted infusers. Normally Heroic players don't have to do all that stuff, but this time, to do well in Heroics you really did have to level a weapon and infuse your gear.

I'm really hoping that BoL doesn't have the same ridiculously difficult step into heroics.

mats equals materials ?

Otherwise, I'm confused again.

Mats = harvested items

Not exactly. If you Salvage a planar item that meets the criteria, you get back an infuser shard, then those can be crafted into infusers. If you learn how to break Planar weapons for weapons essences, you get back weapons essences. "Mats" in this sense is really "crafting materials of divers types".

Never considered those items as "mats" personally. But hey, call em what you want.

Ah, thanks for the info. Now I am less confused, if thats possible.