Average item level calculation needs fixing, as does lv50 gear progression

[therpgfanatic]

I originally posted this into the thread about people stealth spirit bonding in Syrcus Tower but it may need to be its own thread to get developer attention.

The way item level is calculated in this game is wrong and allowing people very, very undergeared for the encounters able to enter the party and screw everyone else over.

I'm so tired of wiping constantly on daily Primal DF trials like Titan HM or King Moogle because noob level 50s were able to enter the queue despite wearing primarily level 45 Artifact Armour. In most cases they don't even have a GC lv50 weapon either. DPS checks are impossible if your party ends up with a couple of these folks, which they tend to.

I was in a Crystal Tower run where the undergeared healers were being one-shot during unavoidable AoE like the foot stomps during Archeron / Phlegethon.

I also see people in the Expert DF all the time who aren't geared for the encounter manage to get in because they bought like one i90 accessory item, like that's all they need. The rest of their gear will be pre-level 50 stuff or maybe i60 at best.

The progression for a new lv50 should be that they run Main Scenario and High Level DFs until they have at least all i70 items in every slot.

They should not be able to enter the queue for Expert, HM Primals or CT until they have at least i70 in every slot.

I also think some dungeons like Haukke Manor HM are not identical difficulty level as, say, Amdapor Keep. You should probably re-examine whether all those dungeons belong in the same DF. I don't think they do.

And telling me "just kick those people" isn't a valid solution, they will be stuck in your party for 15 minutes causing everyone else to wipe when they shouldn't have been able to enter the duty to begin with. And then you have to sit and wait for god knows how long until someone else is added to the duty to replace them.

And what is worse is that the difficulty level of Dungeons doesn't even match the item level of the gear dropped in them. Main Scenario dungeons should have loot chests to gain Darklight, and High level dungeons should be dropping the new i80 greens that are dropping in Expert.

You can't even tank the Expert dungeons like Hullbreaker and Stone Vigil HM unless you already have i80 gear; this gear progression makes absolutely no sense at all.

PS: If someone's item level drops below the min. required for the encounter the game should popup and tell them they need to put their real gear back on in one minute or be instant ejected. Don't force players to police your bad game design for you. We didn't design the spirit bonding system, you did so please police it yourself using game design such as auto-kicking players out of a Duty if their items drop below a certain threshold -- and penalize them for it, too. Don't let them queue for 30 minutes as a penalty for wasting every other player's time.

[Zumi]

The only time the game checks ilvl is when you queue up after you are in the zone you can change to whatever gear that is where there are so many people in CT using ilvl 55 spirit bond gear. Dev post said there is no rule against spirit bonding however it does make players mad at the person spirit bonding.

[therpgfanatic]

The only time the game checks ilvl is when you queue up after you are in the zone you can change to whatever gear that is where there are so many people in CT using ilvl 55 spirit bond gear. Dev post said there is no rule against spirit bonding however it does make players mad at the person spirit bonding.

Spirit bonding is one thing but people are rolling into stuff like Titan HM in level 45 Artifact gear and lv 47 weapons.

It's been particularly annoying for me because I have been running Trials all day trying to get weapons for my alts and discovering we can't even clear the DPS checks because people literally turned level 50 and went directly into the harder content without so much as going to their GC for a weapon or running Main Scenario until they can buy some tome gear, like I had to do when I was gearing up.

A lot of players are trying to get carried by everyone else and they shouldn't be able to queue to begin with.

Edit: Just popped into Haukke manor HM with people in AF gear, great.

Update: Can't even kill the Jester, fantastic.

[Nekodar]

Do you tell these people that they really should get some better gear before taking on the higher level stuff?

While some probably look to get carried, there might also be people that simply don't know better.

My experience with DR: Trials since 2.2 have been different from yours. While some groups have been terribly bad, most of the time it's a oneshot even for Titan HM and one or two people new.

[Giantbane]

ilvl should not be based upon the gear's actual ilvl but some measure of "useful" stats to that class. It should count weapon damage, VIT, main DPS stat (STR/DEX/etc) and any appropriate secondary stats (for instance parry would not count for a non-tank class and piety does not count for DoW classes). In such a system, crafting gear would count the same as an empty slot for a DoW class.

Just healed a tank in Haukke wearing a mix of i70 to i90 on the left and wholly inappropriate gear on the right (crafting and mage accessories). Very squishy.

[therpgfanatic]

Do you tell these people that they really should get some better gear before taking on the higher level stuff?

Yeah I tell them, and often try to do the dungeon anyway just to show them why I'm getting on their case. All the deaths tend to make it really obvious but some people honestly just sit there and expect to be carried, especially if it's a trial. I've watched Dragoons purposely leap off Titan's platform at the start of the battle.

The problem is they are always like "I have x item level and could queue" and I can understand that reasoning but the problem is SE designed the item level requirements way too low for the difficulty of the dungeons, and on top of that it's too easy to exploit if they just get one i90 item.

[Vaara]

The progression for a new lv50 should be that they run Main Scenario and High Level DFs until they have at least all i70 items in every slot.

They should not be able to enter the queue for Expert, HM Primals or CT until they have at least i70 in every slot.

The problem is (as you said) that getting i70 to get into CT doesn't match the drops that SE have set. If your only options are AK/WP and main scenario, all you are getting is i55 stuff and i90 stuff. So you are either under-geared, or you have all i90 stuff and there's not much point running CT more than once.

I think your requirements for Hard mode Primals are too high though. Full Darklight and Garuda weapon was overkill for Titan HM even when it came out. As long as you have the HP to survive stomps and a decent weapon, you're fine.

[Verranicus]

Awful idea, to be honest.

[therpgfanatic]

I think your requirements for Hard mode Primals are too high though. Full Darklight and Garuda weapon was overkill for Titan HM even when it came out. As long as you have the HP to survive stomps and a decent weapon, you're fine.

I remember tanking Titan HM for my relic weapon in darklight with a GC weapon. It was by no means easy, and after all my cooldowns were popped, I had to time those Flashes perfectly to dodge Mountain Buster or we'd wipe. So there's no way you can convince me full Darklight was "overkill".

A tank can't have the HP to survive Titan's Mountain Buster + Bombs exploding near them while they are decked out in AF armour and some pre-lv 50 rings. Even with my own tank's gear (i93) I tend to have trouble if the bombs spawn in a weird pattern so that two are on top of me. Which I've noticed is happening more often than it used to .

Oh, and the DPS sure can't clear the heart phase either if they are in AF gear.

The biggest thing about Titan HM's difficulty is that you have to be 100% on the ball and if you have even the tiniest bit of latency he's going to knock you off the edge. He can also entrap one of your healers in a Gaol, which can result in a severely undergeared tank instantly getting KOed. But while you're dodging all that crap you also have to be clearing the DPS checks, which is why you need decent gear.

Even with 40% boost from Echo, by the time you get to that point you'll have 10 minutes on the clock and it's not enough time to beat Titan anyway.

But yeah the gear progression in this game makes no sense at all. By the time you are *actually* geared for a dungeon none of the loot it useful to you. I still don't understand why they got rid of Philosophy tomes.

[Solonuke]

You can't even tank the Expert dungeons like Hullbreaker and Stone Vigil HM unless you already have i80 gear; this gear progression makes absolutely no sense at all.

It's completely doable to tank the dungeons you mention with minimum requirement (ilvl 70).