That's not really true. It can be done. It does take a significant time investment however. The amount of time (or money) really depends on how long you've been gone, what your goals are, how many friends you have that can help you achieve them, and how patient you are.
Yes, technically it can be done without spending money but that is super misleading. The amount of game time required, in order to match the power of your wallet, is unrealistic. For example, If I tried making a t1 dps at the beginning of this expansion, with the intention of raiding, and spent little to no money, I would maybe but doubtfully be able to upgrade my character enough to meet raid stat requirements by the end of the expansion. I'm perfectly fine with our wallets allowing instant gratification, simply because DP will never ditch the idea. It just becomes an issue when it's your only viable option to be competitive, since the play time requirements to match are absurd.
Sure, but it's not reasonable to come back from years away and think you're going to just jump right in to end game raiding without spending a ton of time or money.
But if you have 23 other people who want to spend a bit of time and energy getting a new person geared up, they should be able to do it within current content. The way you have to go back to 2 or 3 xpacs ago for a buff, and last xpac for runes, is kinda stupid. I believe there is some agreement with this, and Kander mentioned amalgamating buffs from flags into a rune. If this comes to fruition I would expect this to coincide with new achievement rewards to supercede the old stuff. The real money sink is in the spell quality and merc/mount training. Personally I would advise anyone coming back to tough it out with experts and not be tempted into sinking too much DBC into upgrading spells. It seems like an impossible task to get all your spells up to speed, but prioritise intelligently and you can get the few really important ones done fairly quickly, and the other ones will follow gradually with overseer luck and research reducer events. As for mounts and mercs, again just slug it out with the overseer and you'll get your first mount and merc upgraded in no time. Trying to get raid ready in the first week is going to be expensive.
I think people are completely missing my point. Let's say player A and player B both came back to the game this expansion. They both have the intention of raiding. Player A chooses to spend money on their character in order to meet raid requirements and Player B chooses to play more in order to meet raid requirements. Obviously Player A is going to be raid ready first, there is no argument or issue there. The problem is Player B is going to have to invest an impossible amount of play time in order to reach the same level. Likely never reaching the same level as Player A, even though they invested way more time into their character. There has to be some trade off. Why can't both options be viable? Why is spending money the only viable option? I don't think Player A is going to complain that Player B had to put in an extra month worth of effort to catch up, but if Player B has to put in 6 months work or more, that's just ridiculous. The time investments on spell, mount and merc research, trying to RNG adorns, and then the best infusers coming from purchasable crates (the 1 free crate a day is negligible) just creates way too large of a gap between your wallet and play time. New or returning player with little play time, skill, and game knowledge, but has a fat wallet > Vet player with skill, game knowledge and high play time, doesn't open wallet.
All that said, if the Vet player doesn't open their wallet at all, the game runs out of funds... There's just probably a better way to balance it.
1. I think most people (silent majority) are just glad the game's lights are still on. EQ1/EQ2 are different animals - not vaporware or games in maintenance mode. New content, no-paywall updates (free GUs: Diaku Corral, Fabled Plane of War). 2. Bottom line, Daybreak needs revenue to maintain operations (and to hire or keep talent). $35 for a basic expansion in 2020 doesn't cut it. That's like 2 movie tickets and popcorn or a dinner for 2 at a mid-range steakhouse? Unless EQ2 radically changes their cash model to the Fortnite/Valorant model (tons of skins and/or Battle Pass), they need a source of revenue (Pay-to-Win for some, optional Pay-to-Shortcut for others). 3. Solution: I've long been an advocate for moving away from the F2P/Marketplace revenue model and more towards incentivizing All Access. Up to 30 crates a month (+Jadeite Medallions) with All Access is a step in the right direction.
