He never wants to improve his armor. At first, my friend and I levelled them only in beastman controlled regions for a long time, everywhere from Fei'Yin to Upper Delkfutt's Tower, to Newton Movalpolos, etc. and got nowhere. They just kept wearing level 1 RSE, lizard, doublets, scale, etc. For a while, mine made it up to RSE2, but then dropped back down to level 1 RSE again.
Then we tried levelling in areas that were currently beastman-dominated, regardless of the region owner for that week. The only area that really worked for us during that week was Garlaige (which was owned by San d'Oria but was beastman-dominated), so we just levelled there. My friend's NPC made some progress on the San d'Orian line of armor. Maybe Garlaige is just special or something.
This week, we go to Ro'maeve because Li'Telor is San d'Orian controlled, since my friend wanted to try to get Adaman since Scorp Harness wasn't working out. Her NPC shows up in Eisenbrust, which seemed like a good sign. But next time she called out her NPC it was in level 1 gear again. Garlaige was Sandy controlled last week when we levelled there, and is beastman controlled this week. Li'Telor is Sandy controlled this week, and we went there last night after the tally.
The worst part is, my friend's NPC *had* Adaman armor once but didn't lock it in. She's not sure how she got it, but all she did with it was call it out to kill the birds in Misareaux Coast (Sandy controlled for a few weeks) until we decided to start levelling our NPCs together. When we went to Movalpolos (also Sandy controlled at the time) to level our NPCs, he showed up in Adaman armor, but went back to level 1 on the next call.
Anyone know how we can beat some fashion sense into our NPCs?