The Nerfs, the nerfs, the nerfs are on fire....Follow

Gbaji,

I agree with you 100%. As a matter of fact, if you look, more and more items are getting recommended levels of 65!! I think the new changes to Flowing Thought and Mana Regen were to pave the way for 2 things...

1) Better limit twinking

2) To INCREASE the caps on these abilities.

I can be wrong about #2, but I doubt it. GoD mobs are NASTY and I think mobs are only going to get nastier and to help with that, gear has to get better. The new trade-skill Velium Gemmed weapons are a good indication of improvements in items(They originally didn't have a recommended level, but are now Reco-65), as well as the GoD dropped items and such. The next logical steps are to increase the Regen and FT caps, but to still keep those off twinks. The new changes to the way FT and Regen were handled now scale the ability down based on character level in a way they didn't before.

The point obviously being to introduce great new gear and to not let it greatly effect the earlier levels. Yes a lvl 1 twink might still be able to own all the great gear, but it won't be too effective. The only real point to wearing it as a twink will be so you don't have to buy better gear later and it will grow as you do.

Just my

The shared bank slot was introduced to help tradeskills.

Got anything official from Sony stating this?

And you can. There are still tons of very nice and affordable items out there that may not be "uber", but are certainly plenty good enough for a lower level character to use, all without required/recommended levels on them.

If you really did play back then, then you'd know that you don't really "need" that uber gear in order to level up a new character. Knowing what you are doing is 90% of leveling at a good clip. Gear is nice, but not nearly as important. I'm fairly certain that I could level a character wearing nothing but 200pp worth of non-level restricted bazaar purchases faster then most of the players buying now level restricted gear could.

I also played back when level 20 characters were happy to have an almost full suit of bronze armor, and finding a weapon that actually had "magic" on it was amazing. Mobs at those levels are not really any tougher then they were back then. Gear that can be purchased *cheaply* and still with no level restrictions on them are abundant today. Someone's new twink does not need to be competing with level 65 charcters for gear purchases (which is what this whole thing is about). They do not need a windblade and full set of ornate armor in order to level up their new beserker.

But some folks think they do, and that's why we're seeing level restrictions being applied to more items in recent expansions. Like I said, this is a good thing. I have no problems at all with twinking. However, I also accept that by putting level restrictions on higher level items, we can put a bit of sanity back in the process. It's not about "stopping twinking". It's about making those items more available to people who actually need them. An "uber" set of items probably wont allow that new character to level from 1 to 50 any faster then he would have with mid leveled gear. That same gear is hugely needed by someone who's already in that higher level range. What we're seeing right now is that higher level folks are having to compete for gear purchases with everyone (even level 1 twinks). Increasing demand automatically increases price. Thus, we are forced to pay higher prices on our gear (which we need), then we would otherwise. Putting level restrictions on gear allows those who are level appropriate to the gear to have a better chance of actually getting that stuff. It lowers the prices on that stuff. It's a good thing...

I have a problem with it!

Heh.. just kidding. Actually, my main gripe with recommended level oriented stuff is that most of the levels are too high, in my opinion. You wind up getting items with a recommended level of, say, 56 on an item you might have used from lvls 30-45. Takes an item that may have been decent twink gear or sellable to a lower level and makes it near worthless. I've noticed the LDoN drops are notorious for this. The old adage used to be that by the time you can camp an item, you're usually past the point of wanting it. That still holds true, only now no one else wants it either.

I'm not sure if that was tongue-in-cheek or not,but I'd rather loot usable gear (by me or an alt) than Tribute fodder

SirKerik,i would just like to congratulate u on writing the best well thought out posts ever to flame/help/inform someone about your opinions or the truth.

Don't go hog wild on those training points though. They do cost money after a certain point in addition to the points themselves. Your best bet is to use those points to jumpstart new/low skills. Using them to update skills you already have is pretty much a waste (unless you have tons of cash to blow). IIRC, the only non-starting skil that I ever spent points on was research with my wizard (back when you actually needed research for stuff). Today? I'd say just save them for putting that first 20 points into tradeskills.

Every single other thing in the game you can get more of. You can always make more money. You can always gain exp back. You can always get more AAs. You only get 5 training points per level. That should be plenty to be honest (I've never come close to using them all), but why use them if you could just increase your skills by using them instead? It's just that at low levels, the skills are easy to increase, and at high levels, they cost a noticable amount of cash.

Oh. They're useful for jumpstarting a low weapon skill as well. Since weapon skills only go up when using them against lt blue or higher opponents, often you really need to dump some training points into a long neglected skill to get it going.


Ah. Samiria. On the other hand though, do you really care that much if all the stats on that gear is maxed at level 1? "Growing into your gear" works just as well if the gear gets better each level. The "higher level folks starting alts" is not really the problem. It's the "new player with a fistful of plat from IGE" that's a pain in the butt right now.

Yeah. But that's my take on why SOE has been more militant about putting recommended/required levels on higher end items lately. I think it was either that, or tag more items with no-drop. They definately didn't want to do that with the tradeskill items (would kinda defeat the whole point, right?).


It's hard to say how many of those folks are higher level alts and "new" players. But I honestly don't think that the level restrictions on gear pose any serious impediment to folks leveling up their alts. If you can't level a character up to 50+ using currently unrestricted items, then you probably don't have the game experience to deserve to level the alt in the first place. And if it's your main, then I doubly agree with the restrictions.


But that's just me...