Legion has no other entrance requirements outside of an I.Q At or above 50, Which... Lol, Yah, only 1-3% of the Population can enter. I kid i kid.
There's not a single event in FFXI That cannot be done with a pick up group, the only problem is, the term Pick up group is generally synonymous with "Bunch of morons and gimps". These events are only as hard as you make them. This new director is going in the right direction if you ask me, "Event's too hard? Try sucking less." - I'm not saying you need to spend 16 hours a day on FFXI, I'm saying if you walk up to an event in Full Aurore/Perle/Teal with 17 other people in the same gear, You're not going to win.
I think what the gear scale basically looks like right now is something like, from "Lowest" to "Better", in terms or difficulty and "Gear tiers"
Abyssea baseline (Teal/etc)
Emyrean +1/+2
Assorted VW Gear.
Reive Baseline
NeoSalvage
(Skirmish?)
NNI HQ's
(Delve).
When it comes down to it, Adoulin Baseline gear is absurdly good for how easy it is to get. a combo of that + EMpyrean+2 and you have a pretty good baseline set for WS and TP Phase, Its how you use it that makes events easier or not. The reason only 1-3% of a pOpulation might go to these events is because everyone else is either too stupid or too lazy to put in any effort into it, frankly they've been spoiled by easy mode and expect the game to continue suit to where they can jus throw a BST pet on it and call it a day.
Now, In the midst of this, I would like to mention, Even the most casual of casuals can get Reive armor, and Empyrean+2, It make take a few days or weeks, but you can do it. Problem is you'll have to make friends. So either shout for a pick up group a few times, and try not to make people hate your presence, and you can form a static, which might form a friendship, and there you have it. Linkshells are also good for this... some of them.
Once you do that, you can do just about anything, Unfortunately you have to learn the basics.
1) Macro's and Gear Swaps are not "Optional" if you want to be a good player.
1+) Make Macros. WS gear, TP Gear, DT set are pretty useful baseline for DD.
2) Some jobs are useless for some events, sorry.
3) Elitists exists, but theres plenty of people just trying to help and give advice, accept it.
4) You can't be angry at someone for not wanting to invite you cause you're below their standard.
There's a lot of key things in this game that are the same for every MMO, You can't pick up crap gear and expect to steam roll end-game content in FFXI anymore than you can in any MMO on the market. Plus, If you're failing events, its not because the event is too hard, its because you or the people you're with are incompetent, gimp, or not trying.
I also keep using the word Gimp, i should explain, its not "You should feel bad cause you suck and your gear sucks", its more "You can't do this event with the current gear". I know working for something is really hard and it'd be so much easier of jeeves would hand it to you on a silver platter... But working for gear in an MMO is not super hard, you just can't go "Well, I'm fresh out of abyssea, may as well go try NNI" then fail, and complain its to hard. Follow a gear ladder and work towards the best.
Personally, I know most of my jobs are pretty mid-tier on the gear ladder or lower, I try to stick to jobs i can gear well, But Its not always that easy, frankly most of my jobs are gimp (Undergeared). So i understand being ABLE to get the gear, but not just wanting too, though I don't make excuses for my undergeared jobs... well, maybe one, i hate them and don't play them... but outside of that, I Know why they're undergeared/gimp.. cause I'm too lazy to get better gear for em. But thats mostly for sh*t like WHM which i hate to play.
Every player has the ability to be good at the game and progress through all content, period. The only thing holding you back is either your company or your own descisions. Like it or not, FFXI has always had a gear ladder, it just some people circumvented it by abusing Linkshells or so forth, in this day and age, a lot of events can be formed in shouts, so the ladder is skewed and people just try to leech better gear through other people pulling them along. Even if you play 1 hour a day, try to devote some of that time farming a +1 seal or two, or doing a Reive battle or two... Just do your best and don't expect everything to be handed to you or to be so easy you can breeze through it in level 78 armor.
I myself lost a Skirmish just the other day, and I'm not going to let it stop me, We learned something new, and we'll adjust our jobs in the future...Don't give up, and don't look at it as too hard, look at it as "What can i improve to accomplish this goal?".
Also, I would like to mention there are 2 things i hate about some of the endgame content.
1) Accessing it is retarded (Skirmish)
2) Stupid Luck based sh*t (NNI).
Those are understandable complaints, but honestly, if you have the luck based crap, work on Neo-Salvage/Emp+2/Reive gear, Combinations of those, while not SUPERBEST, are adequate and really top tier as far as viable options go, and all can be achieved/completed with under 2 hours per day invested.
Goodluck