Come next patch 1.4, we know that a big problem that will come along with it is that all the gear we have invested in will soon become obsolete.

I don't have much experience with MMOs, only this and DAoC and I myself dread gear turning obsolete but after reading some of comments on these forums i've come to understand that it's a fair and needed component for the good of the game. The problem lies in, in my opinion, the rate at which gear turns obsolete and the cost/effort required to re-acquire gear.

This game has been released for less than 6 months, and we will be having our second level increase which effectively means a gear obsoletism cycle once per three months.

On the other hand, the effort to re-acquire legendary mats, for simplified math is roughly:
1legendary mat /100raw mats. 100 raw mats take, for a conservative estimate, 30mins to acquire. You need at least 56 mats to complete a full set (minus the kuta). That means it takes around 56 hours of gameplay to reaquire a full set. To some, that is one week's worth of game time but to many others could be months of gameplay - doing nothing but gathering. Also practically, it can take much more raw mats to get 56 leg mats, depending on how much RNG hates you. Personally i have once refined 600 shadowhide scraps in one shot and gotten only 1 wax.

Or, you can simply buy the mats from other players but
1. Sellers are rather uncommon. I mean sellers that are willing to sell at reasonable prices like 2.5-3k and have more than 10 pieces at once.
2. Gold is not exactly easy to earn in this game. Again time is also required to either farm trials for Signets; or relog-farm recipes/motifs or whatever it is that people do

This to me, is not balanced. The obsoletism is waytoo quick compared to the effort required to replace them but it's for a good cause because we get more content, more character progression, more achievements, equipment etc. All those good stuff.

The solution: make it easier for players to obtain legendary mats.

And here is how i propose it be done. Let players upgrade our upgrade mats from lower tier upgrade mats. Here are some arbitrary numbers to begin with but i believe is a good start:
4 Honing stone = 1 Dwarven oil
3 Dwarven oil = 1 Grain solvent
3 Grain solvent = 1 Alloy
That way 4 * 3 * 3 = 36 Honing stones for 1 Alloy. Going by current rates, the ratio of costs for the mats are also in that ballpark.

This serves a few purposes, all that stacks of honing stones in our banks finally have some use. Players can start accumulating legendary mats easily from a lower level or even while playing with their alts. Gear replacement becomes less tedious but not that much easier (you still need 36x 56 = 1500+ green mats for a full set).

In general, if there were such a mechanism in place I believe people will be more willing to accept and appreciate ZOS's new content that they undoubtedly spent so much effort in creating. Right now, I look at all the content and I feel that it's great but the thought of all my legendary mats spent going obsolete just feels like a thorn in my heart.

I would appreciate any comments/feedback anyone has to offer. I only have one request: please be civil and courteous - If you think my idea is dumb, tell me why and how you think it can be done better but save the condescending comments. Thank you for reading, i apologise for the long post and my poor english.