Sometimes when I level my alts, I actually just use equips I find. This generally works perfectly well until around L40s, when I find it's useful to get like 3-5 weak jewels, check my ring and necklace and upgrade my pet. The free equips work until there are no more chests, although I do look in chests and auction about every few levels, just to see if there is anything cheap I can upgrade to. I limit my equip spending, until I get to the level I want, to no more than 1k gold per item. Chests I spend no more than about 500g per chest. There is no point in spending a lot of gold for stuff I will switch out.

Today, I would also pick up a cheap artifact and of course, maybe an awaken item w/ my primary stat.

In the past, I have limited my alts just to equips I find from mob drops and chests I drop. I also prohibit myself from using my Stash. It seems to work well until around L30s/40s, though yes, it is a bit more difficult than a toon with trading available and endless stash available.

I think around Nordr is where killing is noticeably slower and moving forward more difficult.

Jewels such as damage and a good pet help a lot around L30s/L40s. Perhaps some kind of dialog about damage/stat jewels and advice about how to go about hunting for such eggs like Ribbit and Malison. Most people level so fast these days, they never hunt for Ribbit or Malison, which are great stat pets for those mid-levels. Most current players have never hunted in maps for good pet eggs.

It actually does not help new players to get advice from your usual player, because all those players just advise getting Nekro or some other expensive pet and buying like dragon staff, completely unrealistic for a new player. A mid-level pink pet that drops in the maps and normal pink equips is perfectly fine for normal leveling and pve killing within their level. Most players no longer know how to hunt for pink egg drops in maps and do not bother getting them. They would much rather just get the eggs from auction or trade and that is what they advise the new players, i.e. get trade.

Since I did not start completely new accounts, I do not know about the traders' permit dialog, but there should be one. People should also always get Shazbot's free gift. The chances are good that there will be 10 Story Tokens.

The more I think about how much content in the maps is no longer used - hunting for pink boss drops, hunting for egg drops, hunting for chest drops - the more I think maybe the traders permit should return to being a barrier. Instead of awarding the traders' permit earlier, perhaps more dialog on where to hunt for x or y. Kraken has some beautiful drops that I often hunt for alone. For those people complaining about low levels not having gold, many of those items to hunt for actually can bring in quite a bit of gold (once they get trade enabled), except of course, almost no one hunts them.

New players get their xp, level to 50+ and never know that much of the stuff in auction or that they require to play the game is free in the zones for time investment.

Anyways, just another thought.

I suppose if all people care about is endgame, which right now is swamps, then why not just insta-level to endgame? Otherwise, it would be good to have some dialog that hint at hunting for various things in the various maps. I don't think anything tells new players about the arcane weapons chests, that jewel crafting, awaken kit crafting can be an ok income, about various eggs, various equips. I am not even sure whether there is clear dialog about skill masteries, equip awakens, pet egg slotting, and the different types of jewels unless you check in auction (after getting the trader's permit).