Change the way minimum item level works

Currently the game only checks if the the average item level of all equipped gear is higher than the minimum ilv of a duty. This is, in theory, to assure that people are properly geared for content they queue for. However, in practice, one can intentionally or unintentionally end up in duties with gear that is too low to be acceptable for said duty

The most common example, generally done by new players and (hopefully) done without malicious intent, is to queue for a duty with mostly fine gear except for one or two extremely low pieces of gear (god forbid it be the healer's lv30 weapon while everything else is over i120 and the duty becomes unclearable)

Other more extreme cases are completely missing several pieces of gear. Due to item level inflation across expansions, you can technically qualify for the minimum ilv despite missing half your gearset. For instance, using level 80 gear, i could queue for all content up to Castrum Abania without even having gear on my entire left side

While this is exaggerated, a particularly lazy or oblivious player could just do their roulettes without pants or a similarly important piece of gear because they technically qualified the minimum item level, despite them not qualifying for it after being level synced. Even without going to such lengths, a lv60 player with some 270 pieces can queue for a good chunk of heavensward content without having several other pieces of gear (why buy gear ill only use for 1 lv cuz ill do HoH amirite /s)

Proposed solutions:
- Make the game check minimum ilv of each piece of gear instead of average minimum ilv
Pros: Most straightforward
Cons: New players will have a harder time getting through endgame content. I remember being new to endgame and having to farm sohr khai only so i could queue for nidhogg normal and the alex raids. This change wouldve made me grind the whole gearset instead of a few pieces

- Make the game secretly calculate the standard deviation of your gearset. If the deviation is too high, it would mean one or more of your pieces of gear is too low and youre trying to overcompensate with a high ilv piece
Pros: Fixes all the aforementioned problems
Cons: False positives?

- Make the game secretly check for minimum main stat (vit,str,dex,int,mnd) depending on job
Pros: Ensures the player has the required stats for the duty regardless of item level
Cons: You can still end up with someone with a subpar weapon

In all three scenarios, if average ilv gets past the minimum but not the failsafe, the game could show a message such as "One or more pieces of your gear do not meet the item level requirements for this duty."

Regardless, the game should also calculate average item level of gear after being synced to the duty. Being able to queue for stuff you cant even beat once synced makes no sense (and this gets around the alliance raid roulette ilv cheese too while we're at it, so thats 2 birds with 1 stone).

Cons to your second and third option: lack of transparency to player leading to situations where people are confused why they're blocked when they meet minimum ilevel.

The only additional ilevel requirement I would add is a minimum main hand (and offhand for Paladin) requirement.

And add tiered ilevel requirements for alliance roulette based on the highest raid you could have access to so people can't cheese the queue to Crystal Tower as much. E.g. if you're level 70 you have to meet the level 70 alliance ilevel to queue for the roulette regardless of whether you unlocked the raid. They'd still be able to not unlock the later raids to force CT, but at least they couldn't do it by equipping a bunch of ironworks, or worse.

Yes to both of you, there need to be certain walls before the endgame or ppl just stop there as suddenly they need to farm gear which they didnt expect. so many ppl use like 50 lvl lower weps jsut cause they didnt bother for an npc or do quests or anyhting...

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Originally Posted by Mhaeric

Cons to your second and third option: lack of transparency to player leading to situations where people are confused why they're blocked when they meet minimum ilevel.

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I just suggested they be secretly calculated to not confuse the user with statistics, but i am not particularly opposed to showing the information if its useful. Moreover if someone thinks "but i meet the min ilv!" and on closer inspection theyre wearing a lv 12 ring while everything else is lv 50+ gear, the problem would be obvious.

I remember originally in 2.0, displayed ilvl was equal to your weapons ilvl, though this was before they imposed minimum ilvl on content at all. I think reverting to that would be the simpliest of all checks, since weapon ilvl is the most powerful piece of gear, regardless of job.

Of course, going off just the weapon means people could queue naked with just the weapon heh. Of course, there's nothing that stops people from unequipping gear once inside of a dungeon anyway. Unless they lock in your gear, you'll still meet griefers, regardless of what change they make.

I think it'd be simple enough for them to implement something like, check the ilvl of the weapon, and check that every equipment slot is in use. I mean, they have a queue warning that checks gear durability levels, so I don't think implementation of a better ilvl checker would be too hard to do.

This thread reminds me of when I cleared Heavensward on an alt during the time Nidhogg Ex was new. I bought a few i220 crafted accessories to queue into Aetherochemical Research Facility without upgrading any of my other gear. This meant that I was still in i130 left side gear, and boy-o, was it noticeable. I had to keep pulls small and was still getting hit really hard hehe. Maybe if they added in something in the MSQ lines early on that went over the importance of gear upgrades, particularly weapons. Of course, it doesn't mean people will pay attention to it. Oh, for the days when not having Beetle Earrings +1 would get you kicked out of a Qufim Island party hehe.

The last days i did some nice Ruby ex runs, ppl farming weapons... so they join with 480/500 gear but 430 wep...

And i had a Holminster run where the heal and dps had some 290 parts and 365 wep... no fun. I got in there as replacement tank, 26 min in they havent even beaten Tesleen...

Yes it needs to be changed, even on premade you should not allow a lower level then the duty. Also the min. level for the highest unlocked duty needs to be enforced for rouletts do ppl cant cheat anymore.