Gear level, the final nail in the games coffin.

[Themule]

I really don't understand the rage in this game concerning other players. My LS is full of casual players that help each other all the time. If you are going through the whole game with PUG's and saying things like "this game is doomed..." you are doing it wrong. Help some people do things that don't directly benefit you, make some friends, join an LS with like minded people and proceed. Its really not that hard to make friends and find people who share your values. Literally everything that people like the OP are complaining about can be solved by making some friends and joining an LS that fits your play style. Believe it or not, their are TONS of people playing this game who are more than willing to help you learn or gear up and who aren't just concerned with gear score and completing everything as fast as they can...

[Chili1179]

I hate the elitism that this brings but I also in turn hate it more that ignorant people expect to just press buttons and win with no thought put into updating their abilities or equipment. This is a good thing.

[Parodine]

Will we see shouts about gear levels now? Yeah, probably. But they'll only replace the vague words like 'veteran' and 'well-geared' terms people are using now. At least people will be able to formulate gear goals instead of going into something completely ignorant to what they might need to accomplish it.

[Amocoru]

Ehhh AK is doable with af. Asking for more than af from pugs for AK is the kind of elitism OP is talking about.

So much this. I cleared AK my first time in nothing but AF with an Ifrit weapon. I've gotten a few pieces of Darklight since, but it's really not that hard. It's just a simple DPS race in the end. If you're avoiding needless movements and DPSing as much as possible it'll go smoothly.

[Powercow]

For those opposed to this: have you ever run Amdapor with people who aren't even in AF gear and using level 30 weapons? Demon Wall is not a fun fight with that setup, I can tell you that.

I don't think SE is dumb enough to say "you must have 3 pieces of Darklight and a Garuda weapon to pug Amdapor!" I think the gearscore requirement is more so you don't see people trying Titan hard with level 44 vendor weapons and wondering why they can't kill the heart fast enough.

[Mishakai]

Final nail? What were the other ones? I am curious now.

Beat me to the punch on that one. I'm fine w/ GS being in for DF groups, it might cut down on some of the current DF drama, even if only to replace it with new and improved DF drama.

I just hope that the system lets fully pre-made groups bypass the GS rating. If me and 7 of my friends want to try difficult content in not-so-up-to-par gear, that's our choice.

[Sunarie]

A minimum gear requirement by itself is a good thing. Ampador Keep is doable with a group of fresh 50's in AF armor, but it requires coordination and skill that many pugs just don't have. The class composition of your party can also come into play. Gear score becomes bad when players themselves basically start requiring you to have the gear from the dungeon in order to run the dungeon. Now, if you want to form up your own group and spam shout for people over whatever ilevel, then you have every right to do so and I wouldn't necessarily consider that elitist. However, if you use the duty finder to random group and then are a jerk to the people in your group because they don't have the ilevel you do, or the ilevel -you- expect, when they can clearly do the dungeon otherwise... that's just silly on your part, and I'd say elitist.

[Drakzen1]

I Kinda hate this also...While i do have level 70-80 gear for my main jobs maybe more darksteel and weapon fully materia. But still it doesnt matter it just puts up a nice wall like you aren't good enough...i dont know just dont like that idea very much if i was new i think it would be a turn off.

[Vanidin]

based on what 100% accurate damage parsing method, exactly?

Probably using a parser? They are available already.

[Coris]

Gear score is completely fine if it is internal and can't be seen by other players, the system is possibly being put in place so you can't enter level 50 raids/dungeons with gear that is 20 levels below you. If it is external though, get ready to welcome in the elitism that people are mentioning. I personally love internal gear score (being used for duty finder and things like that) and hate external gear score (something you can view while examining a character).

^ This and Suellen's post on page 7.

If it's just like that quest when you had to put on Gear for level 5, otherwise the quest icon would be locked red, then I think it is perfectly fine.
Don't get me wrong though. I am not against this, I just have the strange feeling that people will start using this score on content it actually isn't needed for :/