Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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I feel like the people disagreeing with me are missing this part:
I'm not saying "gear doesn't matter" or "play naked" ... I'm saying that the difference between what you can acquire by looting and doing quests vs. the gear you can buy in the tunnel is not noticeable.
In this exact example, you get a free suit of patchwork/tattered armor just by getting the XP. Let's focus on the boots: 3 AC. Instead of wearing them, you could sell belts for 2-3p each (according to the wiki),
Instead of getting 20 belts of XP, you sell the stack, and let's say you make 50p (someone was generous). Then someone else is generous and sells you Dwarven Work Boots for half price.
Congrats, you lost 20 belts worth of XP, a ton of time running around selling the belts (you could have gotten a yellow bubble or more of XP in that time), a ton more time shopping in the EC Tunnel (again, lost bubbles of XP) ... all so that you can +5 AC,
+3 STR, and +5 DEX ... that you will never notice.
But if you'd just killed orcs and turned their belts in, you'd be at least a level higher, and you would notice that level. So look, I'm not saying "never buy gear as a starting player" ... but in general, that should be the rule, and things like a cheap haste belt or HP/AC rings should be the exception that proves the rule. |
You might be the first person in EQ history that cant tell the difference between dropped lowbie armor and rusty weapons and what you can easily buy with just a few hundred pp.
Nobody is recommending that boots would be an item of high importance to acquire.
The amount of time that it takes to run, turn in the belts and run back in my experience nets you virtually no exp gain as you could have just stayed in zone and spent that time grinding more exp.
I never even had to leave the zone to sell the belts and pads just put them up in /auction from time to time while you're killing (and when you go to vendor) and people will buy them as fast as you can acquire them.
Its not uncommon to find someone selling a full set of banded armor (+91AC) for less than 100pp in GFay, again not forcing you to go anywhere or spend time on anything other than getting exp.
The only value I found in turning in belts was for twinked alts who have no use for the money, can acquire multiple people's entire inventory in a matter of moments and make 1 turn in run with as close to 16 full backpacks as possible. And even then the window is small to make that run, before you would be able to do it a 2nd time you'll level out of where the exp you get from the turn ins is even relevant.