So after perusing this board for a while I see a lot of people asking for a solution to the low level gear problem. More often than not these threads turn in to flame wars about crafting and the fact that supplying low level players with gear is a waste of time. But...something must be done if we expect to get new players to stick with this game. Linking all the AHs in the upcoming version update is a good start; however, it is still a problem when the gear just isn't there.

Many of the solutions that have been proposed are more or less too complex or just a roundabout way of "sort of" solving the problem. The solution is not to try and come up with some way to get crafters to start making low level gear again...the solution is to come up with something new to address the problem.

I propose the following:

add Rare/EX gear sets that can be purchased with fields of valor tabs.

There would be a set various sets for different level brackets starting at 11:
11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70.
*the reason for this is that 1-11 gear can easily be found from vendors and beyond 70 the gear issue no longer exists. The progression would be that the 11-20 set would have half of the stats be +1 and the other half +2. The next bracket adds one to all of the lower stats bringing everything to +2 for the 21-30 bracket. The progression would continue to add +1 to half of the stats in each bracket thus making the final 61-70 set be +4 to all the attributes. An example of this would be that for the 1st 3rd and 5th brackets the Stats(STR AGI etc) get +1 and the 2nd 4th and 6th brackets would add +1 to skills or attributes(parry attack accuracy)

Within each bracket there would be three sets: Tanking, Damage, Caster.

For example:
Lv 21-30 Head pieces:
Tank Helm: +2 Enmity, +2 VIT, +2Evasion, +10HP
Jobs: All Jobs

DD Helm: +2 Accuracy, +2 Ranged Accuracy, +2 Attack, +2 Ranged Attack,
Jobs: All jobs

Caster Helm: +2 INT, +2 MND, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP

A Full example set would be:
LV21-30 Tank Set:
Tank Helm: +2 Enmity, +2 VIT, +2Evasion, +10HP
Tank Body: +2 Enmity, +2 AGI, +2 Parry, +10HP
Tank Gloves: +2 STR, +2 Guard, +2 Shield
Tank Legs: +2 Enmity, +2 VIT, +2 Evasion, +10HP
Tank Boots: +2 AGI, +2 Guard, +2 Shield

LV21-30 DD Set:
DD Helm: +2 Accuracy, +2 Ranged Accuracy, +2 Attack, +2 Ranged Attack
DD Body: +2 Accuracy, +2 Ranged Accuracy, +2 STR
DD Gloves: +2 STR +2 DEX +2 CHR
DD Legs: +2 Attack, +2 Ranged Attack, +2 AGI
DD Boots: +2 CHR, +2DEX, +2 AGI

LV21-30 Caster Set:
Caster Helm: +2 INT, +2 MND, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP
Caster Body: +2 INT, +2 CHR, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP
Caster Gloves: -2 Enmity, +2 Magic Attack, +2 Summoning Magic Skill
Caster Legs: +2 CHR, +2 MND, MP Recovered while healing +2, +10MP
Caster Boots: +2 Conserve MP, +2 Magic Accuracy, +2 Singing Skill

A System such as this adds a way for new or current players to obtain respectable gear that does not involve crafting or the economy. The gear itself is quite good, but it still allows for current NM drops and some crafted gear to be better than these Rare/EX pieces (such as Lizzy boots are still better than the DD boots until you get to the lv 41-50 set). The tab cost of the sets would be very reasonable such that gloves and boots would cost as many tabs as one equivalent level FOV page awards and the legs chest and helm would cost about as many tabs as two equivalent level FOV page awards.

Note: I think that these sets should be usable by all jobs due to the current state of the game. It is very common these days for people to low man XP or solo XP. It would be great if people had the option to use whatever gear they needed for what they were doing. For example: a WAR could use the tank set to tank in a group and then have the DD set for when they just wanted to solo; or a WHM could use the caster set in a group or sub WAR and use the DD set to solo.

Overall I think this would be a very simple way to solve the lower level gear issue and give lower level players a much more enjoyable leveling experience.