People are bad at this game

[ColorOfSakura]

Square also has a problem with putting low item level in endgame dungeons too. Example: Haukke Manor (Hard) is listed as iLvl 48. You really can't complete it with iLvl 48 unless your DPSes are just completely and totally on their best game ever.

Like, my friend and I ran it last night (I'm iLvl 55 WHM and he's iLvl 62 PLD) and wiped six times against Halicarnassus because our two DPSes were running lower level gear and just couldn't output enough damage to down the adds quickly enough.

I'm all about helping new players out, but I think Hard Mode dungeons and certain other endgame content should probably have higher iLvl restrictions in place, because otherwise its just frustrating to run things. Not because the players are terrible (some are, but most aren't), but because the mechanics can just be unforgiving for people who don't have decent gear.

[Alcyon1]

I'm all about helping new players out, but I think Hard Mode dungeons and certain other endgame content should probably have higher iLvl restrictions in place, because otherwise its just frustrating to run things. Not because the players are terrible (some are, but most aren't), but because the mechanics can just be unforgiving for people who don't have decent gear.

The restriction is the minimal gear to pass the dungeon. If you need to overgear the game to complete it, you are terrible.

[ColorOfSakura]

The restriction is the minimal gear to pass the dungeon. If you need to overgear the game to complete it, you are terrible.

That's....very much not how things work though. Because in theory, yes, you should be able to clear things like Haukke Hard and Pharos Sirius with the required item level. The reality is that generally that's not going to happen.


Why? Because Square is good at underestimating item levels. Some of them are set a little low. I ran Haukke Hard with some FC members who are experienced (but hadn't run Haukke Hard yet) and were running tomes for new classes, and we dropped to Halicarnassus multiple times despite being somewhat over the iLvl 48 requirement. I was doing fine healing everyone, but the DPS had trouble burning down Lady Amandine in time to avoid the final Blood Rain. None of us are terrible MMO players and they've run Coil before with their mains. But getting to the final boss and being unable to clear it regardless of whatever tactics we attempted seems to me like "The iLvl restriction is set lower than feasible to clear this."

I'm not saying it should be a cakewalk (it shouldn't - its endgame content afterall), but it should be at least somewhat possible with a full team at the minimum required item level, and at least with Haukke Hard, it's very likely to not happen.

[Alcyon1]

I was doing fine healing everyone, but the DPS had trouble burning down Lady Amandine in time to avoid the final Blood Rain. None of us are terrible MMO players and they've run Coil before with their mains. But getting to the final boss and being unable to clear it regardless of whatever tactics we attempted seems to me like "The iLvl restriction is set lower than feasible to clear this."

LB ? Tank LB ? Saving CD's for Amandine ? Tanking the boss where she spawns to switch on her faster ?
-"The iLvl restriction is set lower than feasible to clear this." is not true, it can be "we are not good enough to pass it with the correct iLvl restriction".

[ColorOfSakura]

LB ? Tank LB ? Saving CD's for Amandine ? Tanking the boss where she spawns to switch on her faster ?
-"The iLvl restriction is set lower than feasible to clear this." is not true, it can be "we are not good enough to pass it with the correct iLvl restriction".

Considering a vast amount of high level fairly hardcore players agree that the iLvl for Haukke Hard is set too low, I'm disinclined to agree with you.

- We kept tanking the boss to where the next set of adds spawn. We used multiple tactics and kept getting killed right then. The Tank LB wouldn't have helped us, Amandine wasn't down far enough for us to even survive a damage mitigated Blood Rain. The Tank saved all his cooldowns. Seriously - we tried multiple ways of tackling it. It wasn't just "LOL WE LOST" and quit. We tried like 7 times or so before we decided it wasn't going to happen. The DPS just couldn't out put the required damage to get her down fast enough.

Honestly, if we were that bad at it, we wouldn't have even made it past Ash.

[Sibyll]

Considering a vast amount of high level fairly hardcore players agree that the iLvl for Haukke Hard is set too low, I'm disinclined to agree with you.

Do you have a source? I've seen a lot of people complain that the ilvls are too low, but I'm inclined to believe that they just aren't very good, or are doing the encounter the wrong way as with Garuda Extreme.

Just curious, but was the healer helping with DPS? Also, the importance of things like primary stat potions and food becomes more noticeable as the difference between the minimum ilvl requirement of the instance and the average ilvl of the party decreases. It wouldn't surprise me if the developers designed those minimum item level requirements around the idea that their players were utilizing those stat buffs to help meet DPS checks, but frankly I can't see that being the issue if your party was any more than 5 item levels above the minimum given the design of stat potions/food.

I think the restriction means you cannot enter below that level because most probably you would make the group wipe (that is, just one player under that ilevel would probably make the fight too difficult to win reasonably.) This does not mean that a group composed with everybody at the minimum ilevel would be expected to win, but rather than a group with only one player at the minimum ilevel, if the rest are not, can be expected to win if played reasonably well enough.

There are videos of someone soloing some of these instances in gear that I'd say is pretty common amongst most DF groups. Doing the content at the minimum simply requires that everyone knows how to get the most out of their class and that means DPS that know how to save CDs for DPS checks, proper rotations, keeping DoTs and buffs up etc.

[Fendred]

Sybill, they aren't "bad" players. They just don't have the same number of hours many of us core players have to put into the game. That results in a gap in understanding of the encounters. The system as it is right now turns all the core players into ticking time bombs ready to go off because while we are doing dungeons purely for the loot and tomes, they are doing them for the first time. At the same time they are pushing for people of all the different groups to play together with party finder and duty finder and it just doesn't work. If they want the entire community to play together, they need a very different encounter structure that what is being proposed. We are going to be vastly outnumbered by casual players, so it practically guarrantees we will always get paired up with people who are not as well informed and need direction. It quickly descends into a never ending task of explaining to every human being we encounter how to do a fight, and on the hardest fights there is no hope of victory.

[ColorOfSakura]

Snip

My source is people from my FC and other FCs I've chatted with along with a lot of posts in the FFXIV subreddit and tags on tumblr (almost all by players who have at some point run Coil and EX Primals with their main class. I figure if they've been able to handle Coil through Turn 5 and Extreme Primals, saying "This is set way too low" is probably valid at that point) and a couple other MMO forums.

I was the healer, and yes, I was helping with DPS, but I still have to manage my own MP to keep up with heals at the same time. Shroud of Saints and an Elixir only helps so much. I was DPSing where necessary (the twin adds and some on Amandine). Again, the Tank and I had no problems keeping up, but we were also at iLvls 60 and 55 respectively. The DPSes were both barely high enough iLvl to get into the dungeon and they literally couldn't pull the required damage to burn down the adds and the boss fast enough. Honestly, had we managed to down Amandine without much of an incident, I don't think we would have taken Halicarnassus down before Final Allure hit and wiped the party anyways.

[JonBigwood]

The restriction is the minimal gear to pass the dungeon. If you need to overgear the game to complete it, you are terrible.

I think the restriction means you cannot enter below that level because most probably you would make the group wipe (that is, just one player under that ilevel would probably make the fight too difficult to win reasonably.) This does not mean that a group composed with everybody at the minimum ilevel would be expected to win, but rather than a group with only one player at the minimum ilevel, if the rest are not, can be expected to win if played reasonably well enough.

[Viridiana]

I think the restriction means you cannot enter below that level because most probably you would make the group wipe (that is, just one player under that ilevel would probably make the fight too difficult to win reasonably.) This does not mean that a group composed with everybody at the minimum ilevel would be expected to win, but rather than a group with only one player at the minimum ilevel, if the rest are not, can be expected to win if played reasonably well enough.

I'm confident in saying that the dungeons/trials are winnable with the party at the minimum ilvl.