Something else that would help a lot is if some crafters made some of the lower level gear, shoved them into the wards and priced them accordingly and not at the ridiculous NPC selling price that ANY new player wouldn't be able to afford. They could probably afford one piece from an NPC, but they all cost like 40-70k a piece.

Since this game is more gear dependent than before, new players are wearing the default gear up until 20, (Unless they get lucky and get a piece from a leve) in which they might as well be wearing nothing. The current NPC prices are astronomical for new players. This is probably contributing to the difficulty they are having.