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I found that a lot of the "difficulty ratings" in Vanguard seemed to be pure guesswork.

For example, some three dot mobs were nothing special, and some of them should have been given four.

Quests would tell you if intended for group or solo, and that wasn't always much of a guide either. The upper 20s were kind of a dry spot. At 29, I found, on any kind of a character, that, even though I couldn't use the rift, I could walk up to Falgarholm and kill trash mobs for good xp, but couldn't get the quests until 30. At 30, you could rift to Zossyr Hakrel and get quests, which sent you into the canyon. Solo quests. I found that the second group of mobs, ant lions, would either burn up my healing, or outclass my dps in an embarrassing way. Fast respawn as well. Because these were the prequel to the ZH dungeon, nobody ever played it. It was just too tough to solo, at that level, but would have been trivial as a group, even of two.

I am not sure about the "breadcrumb" quest, which was unnecessary, but you could get the Graystone dungeon quest at 37. Probably even with six people @ 37, that would fry you. Similarly, you could pick up the RI helm quest at 43, which...wouldn't give you a realistic chance at any progress. You could key for PotA at 50, but no actual group of 50s would be able to do that. Now, for a group, I realize it's not like...we all hit 37 at the same time and start Graystone immediately, but a 50 heading for PotA is nothing but a "carry". However, on a solo basis, I think if you can kill the stuff, you should be able to quest on it, and if you can't, it shouldn't stand out on the map as the next thing for you to do.

Did anyone else experience this? Think some quest availability should be adjusted up or down??

A lot of what you're listing was very dependent on class, level, gear, player knowledge, and player skills. For example, those Antlions you mentioned were extremely weak to fire. So any class that had any kind of fire based ability, or had any kind of way of using fire (Such as clickies), could easily beat them.

My druid had extreme difficulty killing ettercaps because they were immune/buffed by physical and arcane attacks. But I had no problem killing them on my rogue. Which was a complete departure between rogues and druids for solo ability.

There's more to it than the mobs need to be tweaked, because some classes can literally steamroll the entire game, and some classes can barely limp through an open field of trash mobs. So those ratings are based on the average player and the average mob. It's not good to compare them to individual players or individual classes.

A lot of mobs that people thought were much tougher than they should be usually had some trick with them that the player had yet to figure out. So I don't think it's a good idea to make any changes over something like this.

By sunset, people could easily do all the dungeons you're mentioning at the level you get them. But I also think that the quests were given early so you'd have them on you if you could find a group to do them. The chances of everyone going in being the same low level is very slim because of the population. And most groups would let in a lowbie toon just to fill a spot than leave it open if they needed more players.

The only thing I'd suggest tweaking is POTA's difficulty, because it's true that level 50's would have extreme difficulty doing it, and they would have to be in APW gear to do it. Supposedly POTA was made for level 50's in swamp armor which was sadly not the case at all. The only groups that could breeze through POTA were those already in POTA T3 or better gear.

And I say this because I would recommend to all my guildies to get through POTA at level 50, because once you're in KDQ grinding for your POTA faction, you're at least getting XP at the same time. It was easy to walk a level 50 through POTA with everyone else in T3 gear. But there's no way a group of full APW geared 50's could get through all the trials, esp as buggy as they are.

I'm not too terribly worried about POTA right now since it's not really on the dev's to do list at this time, though.

That's a pretty good explanation. I never went after ant lions with a fire caster. But by comparison, the stuff at Falgarholm was generic and weak enough that it didn't slow down any kind of character. I found the "miss" penalty was not too bad until you attacked something four levels higher. So it seems if four levels would make it impossible for anyone due to missing, that should be the cutoff. If "someone" can squeak it out at three levels difference, they should be able to get credit. I usually went back to ZH canyon at 32 or 33, and I have no problem if a lot of quests work this way. A large part of the draw of Vanguard was that it would make you gnash your teeth and work your way to victory, not in fifteen minutes, but over the course of days or weeks.

I am not saying to tweak the mobs, or set it where a druid and rogue are equivalents. Probably pre-20ish, it needs to be a little softer, but once you grow some teeth, the difficulty option should be there. You always have the "easy" option to go after stuff that is below you, but I don't find this entertaining. As a generalization, if the quest mobs start at 31, then 28 would be a good level to make the quest available--if that *particular* quest is easier for a sorc than a cleric, there's probably another one that works the other way, so that's fine. If it means walk instead of rifting, also fine. I don't want a game where you enter a level 30 area and everything just falls under your belt. Plenty of those out there.

This is mainly about solo quests, as most of the dungeon quests are already set where you get them on the edge of suicide. Notwithstanding the sunset factors of powerful items, fast xp and such, which I'm thinking are going to be cleaned up anyway.