iLv needs to change

[Gilraen]

Okay, a thought experiment. Some archer goes full Dreadwyrm. By the assertion of too many in this thread, that means they can do anything because they're in the best of the best that you can get, the iL says so! Their stats are sublime!... at least, that's what the iL says, right? Well, thanks to some miqo'te named Ariyala we can see if this is true. Sparing you the Google search I can tell you, it's not. Sure, your Dexterity is going to be over 660, but your accuracy is just enough... for Turn 9. And your crit... well, you might impress a fresh level 50 with it but you'd be laughed out the room by anyone else who ran Coil to Turn 13. iL is NOT a measure of potential. It has never been a measure of potential. It's an unlock. Further, not all relics are good... until novus where YOU set the stats.

[synesthetic]

And it does not really meant to be. ILVL is just an indicator. Simple indicator.
[...]
It's not super important. Your skill to put out reasonable dps/heal/agro/sustain damage/follow mechanics/etc or ability to clear FCOB is super important
[...]
Bad skill is what brew bad blood. Especially inability to follow mechanics.
And weapons are just a minor problem and you most likely than not will just receive advice how to improve your weapon and no offense if you play perfectly for your gear setup.

And as I've said before, that's fine if iLv is not a measure of strength or potential..
if they give something that is a worthwhile indicator. Whereas right now, iLv is mistaken as an indicator and is one of a few things that contributes to poor gameplay.

Informed, experienced, skilled, etc. .. -good- players know how gear up, how to play their job effectively and efficiently, know the flow of fights and can respond accordingly, are observant and adaptable, keep team dynamics in mind, and generally are fun to be around.
And they probably read a lot outside of the game, or were given a lot of advice and feedback from other friends, have had a lot of fights hammered into them, know what to look for, care about their performance, etc.

Skill is a vague term that encompasses a lot of traits that make a player "good". And knowledge of various things about the game is part of that.

I am criticizing the game for its lack of conveyance on various things that it pressures players to know more about, and then tries to foster a "casual" atmosphere that's so casual that people know it's okay to not try because you'll still clear and progress.
People on NA servers know and recognize that DF is a cesspool of "bad" players. Some of them have really bad attitudes, but my impression (hope?) is that most of them are just either inexperienced or uninformed. I can still have fun playing with some of the latter, but the game would be overall more fun if this group of players had more experience and information to work with, instead of the game relying on other players to teach them everything. I'll teach when I see someone receptive to advice, but I do still get tired of teaching.

I would love for there to be a -lot- of changes made to the game to teach people more about how to play, like job-related solo challenges that really push you to learn what skills to be using in practical scenarios, or something that divulges how enmity and initial aggro work in the game, or the amazingly-usefulness of Focus Target, and other stuff that good players already know because they stumbled across it or were taught about it (or were unfortunately yelled at to learn).
But right now, I'm just asking for this one improvement.

[Felessan]

if they give something that is a worthwhile indicator. Whereas right now, iLv is mistaken as an indicator and is one of a few things that contributes to poor gameplay.

My point is - it's much better to fuel this efforts into actual education about "how to play" via tutorials and stuff instead of creating more sophisticated ILVL calculation, that still will be pretty much useless.

I am criticizing the game for its lack of conveyance on various things that it pressures players to know more about, and then tries to foster a "casual" atmosphere that's so casual that people know it's okay to not try because you'll still clear and progress.

Most people are casuals and you can do nothing about it.
This game would have 1/10th of population if it would not cater to casual population. They are invisible and silent, but there really are a lot of them.

People on NA servers know and recognize that DF is a cesspool of "bad" players. Some of them have really bad attitudes, but my impression (hope?) is that most of them are just either inexperienced or uninformed.

First - DF is a pool of "normal" players and knowing what to expect and not having way too high expectation from general crowd helps a lot with gaming experience.
Second - most of DF players are just outright ignorant. They do not play this game to achieve something or to be a "good player", they just having fun in a way they think is most appropriate for them. It's clearly visible if you try to educate people in non-offensive way - you point out mistakes, you tell what should be done, tell about obvious improvements, ones that require minimum efforts to up performance significantly. People listen to you and then revert to pretty much what they were doing before.

I would love for there to be a -lot- of changes made to the game to teach people more about how to play, like job-related solo challenges that really push you to learn what skills to be using in practical scenarios, or something that divulges how enmity and initial aggro work in the game, or the amazingly-usefulness of Focus Target, and other stuff that good players already know because they stumbled across it or were taught about it (or were unfortunately yelled at to learn).

The problem with educating is that it requires desire to learn and commitment. And most does not have them. And for them changes in ILVL calculation will do nothing. And those who are committed - they do just fine even with current way of ILVL calculation.

[UBERHAXED]

I would love for there to be a -lot- of changes made to the game to teach people more about how to play...

We have this. It's the 50 level tutorial that every apparently skips somehow. Make me think that the leveling process should be longer...

Of course, if you are talking about party play and not individual play, then we have those too (courtesy of some additions in the beta); they are called guild heists. They are literally party play and mechanics tutorials. There are 14 of them.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

We have this. It's the 50 level tutorial that every apparently skips somehow. Make me think that the leveling process should be longer...

Of course, if you are talking about party play and not individual play, then we have those too (courtesy of some additions in the beta); they are called guild heists. They are literally party play and mechanics tutorials. There are 14 of them.

The tutorial that teaches you absolutely nothing. Lol.

[Niwashi]

My point is - it's much better to fuel this efforts into actual education about "how to play" via tutorials and stuff instead of creating more sophisticated ILVL calculation, that still will be pretty much useless.

They aren't mutually exclusive. I do agree that some more useful job-related instruction would be good to have, either within class/job quests or separately, but that has to do with skill and learning your job.

Item Level, and in particular your average Item Level, isn't purported to have any relation to skill. What it is in theory supposed to be a rating of is how good your gear is. The current version, however, which gives as much weight to your rings as to your weapon, doesn't really do that.

The problem with educating is that it requires desire to learn and commitment. And most does not have them. And for them changes in ILVL calculation will do nothing.

I think those are the people it's most important for. Those who don't really care enough to learn much are the ones who are going to rely on simple numeric scores like iLvl. If they're being told that their rings are as important as their weapon and their bracelet as important as their chest armour, then they're going to believe that's true, even if their actual stats don't reflect that rating.

Even here on the forums, where people clearly have at least some interest in learning how the game works, I see lots of posts recommending that people buying tomestone/seal gear should upgrade their accessories first, since they're the cheapest. Of course, when measured in terms of the amount of stat boosts you get per tome/seal, they're actually by far the most expensive since they give the least in stat boosts. (There might be a few exceptions, but only if your previous accessories were way too low of a level, and the purchase is making up for that.)

[Catsby]

It doesn't help that up to date weapons are far more difficult to obtain than any other piece of gear. If you aren't motivated enough to save up those 1300 credits and a tomestone you are probably just going to spend them as soon as you can on a new ring or gloves or whatever.

[Zaft]

It doesn't help that up to date weapons are far more difficult to obtain than any other piece of gear. If you aren't motivated enough to save up those 1300 credits and a tomestone you are probably just going to spend them as soon as you can on a new ring or gloves or whatever.

That's because weapons are by far the strongest factor in your output of any piece of gear. This is less important for casual groups who aren't pushing serious progression, but for serious groups, 1 or 2 weapons in a group will quite literally make or break the fight.

Most important piece of equipment = most difficult to obtain.

[Maero]

Many players seem to think ilv=skill which is so far from the truth.
So many pf groups ask for like ilv120 + for even easy instances
Also one has to consider that some players have crafted gear which is usually like ilv110 for example
And actually Radioactive_lego, light farming is not at all the most grind, the step afterwords is far far worst at least for myself and others it has been, and atmas Pre drop rate increase was just hell

[Niwashi]

I certainly agree with the OP that the average Item Level needs to be computed as a weighted average to better emphasize the gear that has the most effect.

Besides that, even in individual items, the Item Levels don't always compare correctly. In crafted gear, for instance, High Quality crafted gear is in most cases far better than its Normal Quality version (typically more on par with the next 5-level tier up, or in some cases better than that), but doesn't get any indication of that in its Item Level, which will be the same as if it were NQ.