iLv needs to change

[synesthetic]

Item Level should be the first stat people can look at to judge their relative strength, but as is, it's just a prerequisite stat people look at to allow them to enter instances or join Party Finder groups, or compare as an epeen between people with optimal weapons. It does not reflect a character's strength, and misleads players who don't understand the importance of their weapon into thinking that they are comparable to someone with a strong weapon.


It's too common to find a player with a full set of i130 Augmented Ironworks gear and an i90 Zenith. (Or an i100 Atma weapon, which really should be marked as an i90 because its weapon/magic damage is no higher than a Zenith until it's completed and turned into an Animus--the secondary stats added by books do not justify the i100 label at all.)

A player like this will have an item level of 123.

They can technically enter T13. But if they're a DPS, for example, their damage output will be about half or less significantly less than what someone with an i135 weapon and full i120 gear + one i130 ring (also amounting to an overall iLv of 123) can do.


I strongly suggest a change in how Item Level is calculated.
Currently, each piece of gear is equally weighted, as far as I know.
Instead, weights should change to be based roughly on how much weapon/magic damage and primary stats weigh in the damage formula.

I don't have an idea of how much that would be, but I do know that Valk has had approximate formulae for auto-attack damage and weaponskill damage at his site for a long time now. And as far as I know, they're still relevant. Even if they're not, it should be somewhere to start, if the devs really don't have their own means to determine the stats' relative weights.


For the sake of helping uninformed players make better decisions about their gearing progression, and for the well-being of players who know they've been carrying these other people with tiny weapons, I hope the devs can find the time to address this soon. Especially with so many players resubscribing or joining in anticipation of 3.0, and making poor choices in gear upgrades.

[DarkmoonVael]

I came here thinking it would be another of these threads about people moaning about ilvl is a silly way, and actually found one of the rare threads that has a lot of legitamacy in what its saying . I think you have it right with the weapons ilvl needing to have more of a significant contribution to the ilvl etc. the example you state is a little rare of t13 with zenith, but even so, situation where the person has full poetics and a zenith is actually really common in DF for various content (WoD for example, where it seems to be very common for people to be in there with a zenith and everything else at i120+).

The one thing i would have to say (and this is coming from someone who has no understanding about how hard all of this would be to program into the game), is it going to be worth implimenting with the the time/resources that it would take? Although, even with this, i think its a very good idea.

[LalaRu]

The fact the weapon is the most important piece of gear, is nothing new, really.

iLevel is just an head-on, the only way to judge a player is witness his/her skills and not looking the gear, but this is nothing new too

[kyuven]

I think people misconstrue what iLevel is actually supposed to convey.
It's not a measure of your power, it's a measure of your dedication and resources.
Given i130 gear is either locked in coil, requires something with a weekly cap, requires a VERY long quest, or all 3, getting above 120 at the LEAST takes time. It requires you to experience enough of the content to get a basic grasp of your class.
After that, you can start getting the RIGHT gear.
iLevel is your "entry fee" to content. Just like entering any kind of tournament or competition, though, just because you meet the entry requirements doesn't mean you're actually qualified to be there.
iLevel, as it stands, is based on the stat weights on the items and calculated as such. However, it DOESN'T account for whether or not the item gives the RIGHT stats. That's up to the players to decide.
Moreover, what is the "best stat" can change. For example, the absolute best BRD chest piece right now is the one from WoD, because the two i130 pieces give skill speed, which is nigh useless for bards when crit and det are an option. However, there are strong rumors of changing the way Skill Speed (currently the most useless stat in the game) and Spell Speed affect abilities, which means those skill speed pieces will suddenly be more valuable. Maybe
As for weapons? Even those can be garbage. The BRD shiva bow gives stats that contribute very little to the bard's performance, to the point that, despite being an i115 weapon, any i110 weapon with det or crit rather than skill speed is a better option.
iLevel is just a guide and your entry fee. It's up to you, the player, to take a look and see if the people you're with are geared correctly for what they're doing. Changing the way iLevel is rated is pretty much like asking for the moon at this point. It would involve changing a LOT of variables as well as basically coding in an exception for weapons in the iLevel calculation.

[Stupiduglytaru]

Ilvl is just a number, had a friend once say woo i70 crafter like bro trade in artisan sucks xD

[JimboTCB]

It's never going to be anything more than an incredibly crude metric to prevent hilariously undergeared people from getting carried through content. Hell, when my paladin hit 50, I just slapped on all the strength accessories I'd previously farmed with my DRG, equipped a couple of random-assed pieces I'd collected on greed rolls, did my zenith relic and that was enough to get me into WOD even though most of the DPS had more health than me.

That's a bit of an extreme case, but anything that works on averages is going to be susceptible to people cheesing the system and ending up 10-15 ilvls either side of the requirement in certain slots, and there's no way of even ensuring that your "good" slots are the important ones or that what's equipped is relevant to the job they're queuing as. Short of putting a hard ilvl requirement on specific slots like your mainhand, there's not a great deal they can do, and frankly I don't think it's really down to the devs to police who can and can't queue in duty finder to that extent - there's always going to be such a wide variation in terms of player skill that their equipment is the least of your problems, and if you want more control over who's in your group you've always got the option of party finder.

[Sartori]

Yes I agree, depending on gear somebody with an ilvel of 121 could do more damage then somebody with 130....

[synesthetic]

I think people misconstrue what iLevel is actually supposed to convey.
It's not a measure of your power, it's a measure of your dedication and resources.
[...]
iLevel is your "entry fee" to content. Just like entering any kind of tournament or competition, though, just because you meet the entry requirements doesn't mean you're actually qualified to be there.
[...]
It's up to you, the player, to take a look and see if the people you're with are geared correctly for what they're doing.

Point taken.

But then a problem still stands about what to do about this suddenly-common occurrence of big-armor, little-weapon players?

You can't do much to change who DF matches you with, and I don't think it's really fair to just exclude people like the ones I saw in Expert Roulette with Ifrit weapons (i60) but decent armor. Because they're technically still capable of completing the dungeon, albeit at a much slower pace. And if they can't enter bigger dungeons, unlock roulettes, it'd be more difficult for them to get tomes to upgrade their gear, and instead they'd have to rely on dungeon gear drops more.

I'm more concerned with the probably-returning players I see with, as I described earlier, full Augmented Ironworks but i90 or worse weapon. (And then new players who would have the same mindset.) I accept the possibility that they could've spent all of their poetics on armor before quitting, and then never got an Encrypted Tomestone from FCoB before they quit. From there, it would take them a max of three weeks to get a Tome from WoD and 1.3k poetics to make an Ironworks weapon. But in the meantime, couldn't they at least make an i100/i110 soldiery weapon instead of fulltiming a Zenith (or worse)?
I can only guess that these people either don't care or, more likely, don't know how much a weapon matters.

I -could- try to inform them all about it and some options available to them, but there's also been a marked increase in players who take any question, comment, or genuinely constructive advice as a hostile attack on their person, and I really don't want to waste my playtime getting kicked and needing to requeue again, because I'm not a tank. Plus, it doesn't feel good when someone's mad at me, or punishes me, for no good reason.


If not through Item Level, then something should still convey how much more important keeping weapons up-to-date over armor is, without needing another player to come out and say it.

I have the most fun when I get to play with friends, or nice people, who are skilled and decently geared. I think everyone can agree with this.

Lately, it's common for DF to match me with one or two people with Zenith weapons (but soldiery/poetic armor), or maybe Atma weapons (even in non-book dungeons) and I can tell when they're not bringing out their job's potential. To make it worse, they often ignore dungeon mechanics, like in all of Halatali-HM's boss fights, and ignore explanations or offers to help.
And.. it's not fun. I think a lot of people can agree with me on this, too.

Since you can't filter players by skill level and personality here, I would have more fun if DF only matched me with people whose weapons are within 10-15 iLvs of my own, but I don't think that'd be fair.
So I think, as a small bandaid to a bigger unsolvable problem, implementing more means to gently inform players how to play the game is the only option.

For this particular case of weapon-ignorance, if not by Item Level, then maybe how?
I welcome more discussion.

[Valkrist]

I think the topic's been greatly derailed from the op. They're not talking about epeen or a number that's weighing someone's ability. They're talking about how people are cheating their way into fights by getting armor pieces that inflate their iLVL.

A player's weapon shouldn't be factored into iLVL. Dungeons in general should have a minimum weapon iLVL to enter aside from armor iLVL. Like the example above, nowadays you'll constantly see people who are fully geared with augmented gear and enter with an "unfinished" relic. Not even a Zenith weapon entering DFR-Expert. There's no reason why obtaining a weapon should be difficult at this stage of the game where everything's given away so easily.

Animus dungeons should require at least an i70 weapon level to enter. As ridiculous as that sounds, this would lock out a significant amount of people who thrive on being carried through the dungeons. There's no reason for a DFR-Expert run to find experts with unfinished relics in their possession.

Yes, I'm saying that people should be gated to progress with the game. It's unfair for everyone who has spent time to get themselves a weapon to be held back by people still using grey items.

[Dererk]

Too many party's I make lately have people with diamond weapons il 115 its not good now I'm just going to make my party finders have a requirement of il 125 no exception.