So as you may all know, the new spellement drops and the new equipment drops added in the Spring 2022 update are level-gated. What this means is that these items will never drop for a characters who has advanced past a certain point in the story. These restrictions are technically based on badges the player has obtained such as "Oni Slayer", "Savior of the Spiral", and "Astrologist". According to the developers, this was done because a max level player would trivialize low-level content.
So far I have a couple issues with this decision:
1. Players who have EoC (End of Content) characters and no remaining character slots are effectively locked out of the best method to obtain spellements. They are also locked out from obtaining certain pieces of equipment. For spellements there are at least some alternatives added for EoC players, but this leads to my second point.
2. Alternatives for EoC players are worse than being able to just farm Arc 1 bosses for spellements. Alternative methods that have been added for EoC players so far are slower, more resource intensive, and less rewarding. Unlocking Elemental and Spiritual Retriever requires raising dozens of pets for the required pet tokens and then running housing gauntlets for the Elemental and Spiritual Retriever tokens required to unlock the talent. Once the talent has been unlocked, it has a 5-minute cooldown for each use and requires 40 pet happiness per use. That's at least one mega snack worth of experience for a single use of a retriever talents. And after all of this work and resources, how many spellements do you get per chest? 8 if you are doing it with chests in DS and possibly MS.
Now compare this with simply farming a boss on a low-leveled character. How much energy does farming Arc 1 bosses require? None. How many pets do you need to raise to farm Arc 1 bosses? None. How many times do you need to run a housing gauntlet to farm an Arc 1 boss? None. What's the cooldown on farming an Arc 1 boss? There isn't one. How much pet happiness does it cost to farm an Arc 1 boss? None. How long does it take to defeat Arc 1 bosses? Realistically, 1-2 rounds if you are either in a full team (which is extremely easy to find these days) and/or being "carried" by a high-level player. How many spellements do you get per run of Arc 1 bosses in MS and DS? 8-14.
So, despite having none of the hurdles that adventure talents have to unlock and use, simply farming Arc 1 bosses on a low-leveled character is just as good as,if not better, than Elemental or Spiritual Retriever. The newly added boss re-matches have the same issue. Each rematch requires reagents, and because the bosses are higher ranked and have a plethora of cheats I can assure you these fights are going to last much longer than 1 or 2 rounds. In the time a player has finished a single one of these boss rematches just a low-level team or low-level alt being carried would be able to defeat a MS or DS boss several time over. It's good that KI is at least trying to provide alternative sources for EoC players, but so far these sources have been more resource intensive and less rewarding in terms of efficiency compared to farming Arc 1 bosses. Unless the rates given from these sources are significantly increased (3x the current rate at minimum) they simply won't be worth it, and if EoC players resort to doing them because it's because it is the only option they have.
3. Content is already trivial. Yes, a max level isn't going to have any difficulty farming bosses in MS/DS, but as I touched upon in my previous point it's really not all that different for level-appropriate players either. Again, a full team of level 30-40 wizards can pretty much take out Zarathax in 1-2 rounds and get 14 spellements per fight. So why is it such a big deal if a max level wizard does the same thing? And as I previously mentioned, nothing stops low-leveled characters from getting spellements if a high-level carries them anyways. So fights are already being "trivialized" and locking EoC players out of the best (and cheapest!) method of getting spellements therefore feels extremely arbitrary.
4. Level-gated gear for stitching has no free alternative acquisition sources for EoC players. So, just like with spellements a bunch of new equipment was added to Malistaire and Morganthe that cannot be obtained by players who've progressed past a certain point. My issue with this is that some of this equipment - specifically the wands - have unique or even previously unobtainable weapon models or colors that EoC players are permanently locked out of obtaining aside from spending Crowns on world packs. Many of these wands such as the ones in Dragonspyre have always been popular for stitching due to their unique appearances and flashy particle effects. Although these wands were previously droppable to all characters regardless of level, KI removed the "legacy" version of these wands so now the only level-gated wands have these models. A couple are still available in Abandoned House, but not all of them are. This means that if an EoC player ever wants to obtain one of these wands for stitching they will have no way of being able to obtain them now aside of buying world packs.
There is a similar issue with the "Sword and Shield" wands dropped by various bosses in the Shadow Palace. Previously there were 5 of these wands that dropped in the Shadow Palace for Fire, Life, Myth, Balance, and Death. The shield on each of these wands matched the school's respective color schemes. For whatever reason there was never a "Sword and Shield" wand for Ice and Storm, and as such there was never a shield with Ice or Storm colors that was available to players. Since the new gear has been added, there is now an Ice-colored version of the "Sword and Shield" wand called the Frostbound Sword and Shield. But like everything else this too is leveled-gated and is therefore inaccessible to EoC characters outside of buying world packs. Unlike the Dragonspyre wands, players do not even have a "legacy" version of this wand to use instead because a sword and shield with this particular color-scheme simply didn't exist before. EoC players now have less options for wand stitching because these wands will never drop for them. Why? What good reason is there for doing that? Why not at least leave the legacy version of these wands on drop tables? Why not add an alternative source for previously non-existent weapon models like the Frostbound Sword and Shield? Once again EoC players are just permanently locked out from being able to access certains wands for stitching just... because...?
Anyways, to summarize my feelings: Level-gating drops feels like a completely unnecessary barrier that punishes EoC characters with full character slots by locking them out of being able to access certain content. The alternatives KI has provided thus far are either worse than what "level appropriate" players have access to, or have no alternative at all outside of buying world packs.
So as you may all know, the new spellement drops and the new equipment drops added in the Spring 2022 update are level-gated. What this means is that these items will never drop for a characters who has advanced past a certain point in the story. These restrictions are technically based on badges the player has obtained such as "Oni Slayer", "Savior of the Spiral", and "Astrologist". According to the developers, this was done because a max level player would trivialize low-level content.
So far I have a couple issues with this decision:
1. Players who have EoC (End of Content) characters and no remaining character slots are effectively locked out of the best method to obtain spellements. They are also locked out from obtaining certain pieces of equipment. For spellements there are at least some alternatives added for EoC players, but this leads to my second point.
2. Alternatives for EoC players are worse than being able to just farm Arc 1 bosses for spellements. Alternative methods that have been added for EoC players so far are slower, more resource intensive, and less rewarding. Unlocking Elemental and Spiritual Retriever requires raising dozens of pets for the required pet tokens and then running housing gauntlets for the Elemental and Spiritual Retriever tokens required to unlock the talent. Once the talent has been unlocked, it has a 5-minute cooldown for each use and requires 40 pet happiness per use. That's at least one mega snack worth of experience for a single use of a retriever talents. And after all of this work and resources, how many spellements do you get per chest? 8 if you are doing it with chests in DS and possibly MS.
Now compare this with simply farming a boss on a low-leveled character. How much energy does farming Arc 1 bosses require? None. How many pets do you need to raise to farm Arc 1 bosses? None. How many times do you need to run a housing gauntlet to farm an Arc 1 boss? None. What's the cooldown on farming an Arc 1 boss? There isn't one. How much pet happiness does it cost to farm an Arc 1 boss? None. How long does it take to defeat Arc 1 bosses? Realistically, 1-2 rounds if you are either in a full team (which is extremely easy to find these days) and/or being "carried" by a high-level player. How many spellements do you get per run of Arc 1 bosses in MS and DS? 8-14.
So, despite having none of the hurdles that adventure talents have to unlock and use, simply farming Arc 1 bosses on a low-leveled character is just as good as,if not better, than Elemental or Spiritual Retriever. The newly added boss re-matches have the same issue. Each rematch requires reagents, and because the bosses are higher ranked and have a plethora of cheats I can assure you these fights are going to last much longer than 1 or 2 rounds. In the time a player has finished a single one of these boss rematches just a low-level team or low-level alt being carried would be able to defeat a MS or DS boss several time over. It's good that KI is at least trying to provide alternative sources for EoC players, but so far these sources have been more resource intensive and less rewarding in terms of efficiency compared to farming Arc 1 bosses. Unless the rates given from these sources are significantly increased (3x the current rate at minimum) they simply won't be worth it, and if EoC players resort to doing them because it's because it is the only option they have.
3. Content is already trivial. Yes, a max level isn't going to have any difficulty farming bosses in MS/DS, but as I touched upon in my previous point it's really not all that different for level-appropriate players either. Again, a full team of level 30-40 wizards can pretty much take out Zarathax in 1-2 rounds and get 14 spellements per fight. So why is it such a big deal if a max level wizard does the same thing? And as I previously mentioned, nothing stops low-leveled characters from getting spellements if a high-level carries them anyways. So fights are already being "trivialized" and locking EoC players out of the best (and cheapest!) method of getting spellements therefore feels extremely arbitrary.
4. Level-gated gear for stitching has no free alternative acquisition sources for EoC players. So, just like with spellements a bunch of new equipment was added to Malistaire and Morganthe that cannot be obtained by players who've progressed past a certain point. My issue with this is that some of this equipment - specifically the wands - have unique or even previously unobtainable weapon models or colors that EoC players are permanently locked out of obtaining aside from spending Crowns on world packs. Many of these wands such as the ones in Dragonspyre have always been popular for stitching due to their unique appearances and flashy particle effects. Although these wands were previously droppable to all characters regardless of level, KI removed the "legacy" version of these wands so now the only level-gated wands have these models. A couple are still available in Abandoned House, but not all of them are. This means that if an EoC player ever wants to obtain one of these wands for stitching they will have no way of being able to obtain them now aside of buying world packs.
There is a similar issue with the "Sword and Shield" wands dropped by various bosses in the Shadow Palace. Previously there were 5 of these wands that dropped in the Shadow Palace for Fire, Life, Myth, Balance, and Death. The shield on each of these wands matched the school's respective color schemes. For whatever reason there was never a "Sword and Shield" wand for Ice and Storm, and as such there was never a shield with Ice or Storm colors that was available to players. Since the new gear has been added, there is now an Ice-colored version of the "Sword and Shield" wand called the Frostbound Sword and Shield. But like everything else this too is leveled-gated and is therefore inaccessible to EoC characters outside of buying world packs. Unlike the Dragonspyre wands, players do not even have a "legacy" version of this wand to use instead because a sword and shield with this particular color-scheme simply didn't exist before. EoC players now have less options for wand stitching because these wands will never drop for them. Why? What good reason is there for doing that? Why not at least leave the legacy version of these wands on drop tables? Why not add an alternative source for previously non-existent weapon models like the Frostbound Sword and Shield? Once again EoC players are just permanently locked out from being able to access certains wands for stitching just... because...?
Anyways, to summarize my feelings: Level-gating drops feels like a completely unnecessary barrier that punishes EoC characters with full character slots by locking them out of being able to access certain content. The alternatives KI has provided thus far are either worse than what "level appropriate" players have access to, or have no alternative at all outside of buying world packs.
I am not a power gamer by any stretch. I have one Max level wizard, two higher level wizards, and three just getting started wizards. I enjoy Wizards enough that I play daily. I also love playing and video chatting with my Grandkids (an aside, you have never truly toured the Commons until you have followed a three-year old attempting to "follow the arrow" for the first time).
All this said so one can understand my perspective. I have no desire to run numerous accounts. I do not spend hours farming for just the right gear nor days on end training and retraining pets. W101 is an escape from the drudgery of my mundane every day life and a time for me to connect with my kids and grandkids who no longer live close by.
I fell in love with Spellements when they first came out. I have been able to craft some very nice spells for my various wizards. I was saddened when it was announced that First Arc spellements would be level-locked? Why? I still get gear my high-level wizard will NEVER use when I'm assisting a low-level wizard in Arc 1. So when it was announced that there WOULD be a way for my Life to get First Arc spellements, I was elated. I crafted the Lord Nightshade Gauntlet and was surprised to discover that he was a level 20 Boss. Ok, not a problem, my Life Wizard needs a challenge, this shouldn't be a one-punch knockout fight. I don't mind a challenge.
REALLY? a 1,000 point Deer Knight EVERY round? There's a difference between a "challenge" and "I don't need to keep spending reagents to do this".
Alas, it seems that KI is focusing SO much on making the game interesting for new players, that they seem to be ignoring the folks who have kept playing it for years.
No worries though, I'm not quitting the game. I enjoy the time with my family too much. But I do not look forward to the day when we have maxed out the current characters and are left just waiting on the next world.
