New loot and pay to play model

[lugoman]

I am curious how Turbine will handle loot in the upcoming expansion. In a traditional subscription mmo it was no big deal if loot from a previous raid/quest becomes obsolete as they continue to make money each month. This isn't true for a pay as you go mmo. If the loot from Von becomes obsolete, why would anyone buy the pack? So far they have gotten around this by making the good loot in new packs very situational. This cant go on for much longer, the loot in the new expansion pack will have to be better than the stuff in the game now.

One way to keep people buying the old packs is to use the loot in them to upgrade loot in new content. The new pack could drop a slightly better weapon than a gs weapon. Combine your gs item with the new weapon and get a much better weapon.

[Dagolar]

I've already tossed out a suggestion of being able to farm upgrades that can be applied to old weapons; IE, epic packs would treat items much like characters, in adding expansions to their overall abilities (IE, Stone of the Blue Wyrm: Adds Heart of the Glacier to any item. An item may only have one epic enchantment applied at any time. This enchantment increases the item's minimum level by 3).

Whether that's an ideal route to take, or even worthwhile at all is hard to say.
But your points on escalating items, as well as items becoming more and more worthless as you go back through the packs, that's all certainly valid.
After all, end-game is the goal for character-oriented players. If better items come out, there's no point for them in farming lower level items. Greensteel has been excellent in this, due to being able to, in some senses, compete with epic items- and, of course, all the more so for the accessories.

[TimethiefXVI]

simple: dont make any more uber items, but keep the powerlvl.
This makes the variaty larger, but keeps the overall stuff usefull. Honestly i think it lately has become a get the latest gear to be on top thingy instead of hey the new stuff allwos me to ditch in....
We are at a point where the same builds run arround with the same loot, cookie cutter like.
Id prefer a bigger spread in equipment over getting the next +15 greater killing everything weapon or +15 spell pen dc item with superior potency 40.