iLv needs to change

[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.

[Gilraen]

Honestly, iL needs to go. As a metric it's very poor, and is actually only serving to hurt players now. Blue Garter cleared Turn 13 in crafted gear, crafted gear! By iL standards now, crafted gear is 'too weak' for Turn 13. Even now my only hope of ever getting to those vaunted heights is by finishing relic, another thing that wasn't available when Blue Garter got their win (before anyone asks, I'm speaking of Zeta). I dare not imagine how bad this will be in Heavensward.

[Valkrist]

Honestly, iL needs to go. As a metric it's very poor, and is actually only serving to hurt players now. Blue Garter cleared Turn 13 in crafted gear, crafted gear! By iL standards now, crafted gear is 'too weak' for Turn 13. Even now my only hope of ever getting to those vaunted heights is by finishing relic, another thing that wasn't available when Blue Garter got their win (before anyone asks, I'm speaking of Zeta). I dare not imagine how bad this will be in Heavensward.

I completely have to disagree that iLVL needs to go. iLVL isn't now and have never been a measurement of how good players are. iLVL is there, and should continue to be there, to gate progression in a way that forces the player base to strive for better gear so that they can participate in harder events.

The current trend of the game is get just enough gear to bypass the iLVL check and then get in. If you remove iLVL checks entirely, you will without a doubt start seeing fresh level 50s entering dungeons like the newest three DFR-E or doing T5. Unless the goal of removing iLVL checks is to create an even weaker general playerbase, then I don't see the point of doing this.

Using a minority to explain the difficulty and how good the player base is the worst kind of example you can give. This is like saying that the richest 1% are doing fine and you should be too.

[Waeksyn]

Frankly I think everyone is over thinking this. Yes the weapon is more important. However, there should be no problem with anyone being able to do content that has a minimum iLvl requirement as long as they meet that level - and that is it's only purpose. Seems like a simple, effective mechanism.

[Gilraen]

Using a minority to explain the difficulty and how good the player base is the worst kind of example you can give. This is like saying that the richest 1% are doing fine and you should be too.

I think you may have read a little too much into things there. I'm saying that iL is gating content, yes, but not as a measure of a player's ability. That has never been tied to iL as anyone who ran Turns 1-5 when they first came out can attest. But what iL IS doing is forcing players into chasing gear that, frankly, isn't necessary to complete the content. When iL first came out I had to gear up to do dungeons I didn't have any problems doing, and now I'm having to do it again just to make sure I can qualify for Coil. It's annoying and unnecessary given people have been farming Turn 13 before it's inclusion on the Duty Finder in Demon's, Ironworks and Soldiery gear, things that don't add up to iL123.

And while I don't personally use iL as a measure of player ability, the community at large does which only aggravates the damage iL has done.

[Valkrist]

I think you may have read a little too much into things there. I'm saying that iL is gating content, yes, but not as a measure of a player's ability. That has never been tied to iL as anyone who ran Turns 1-5 when they first came out can attest. But what iL IS doing is forcing players into chasing gear that, frankly, isn't necessary to complete the content. When iL first came out I had to gear up to do dungeons I didn't have any problems doing, and now I'm having to do it again just to make sure I can qualify for Coil. It's annoying and unnecessary given people have been farming Turn 13 before it's inclusion on the Duty Finder in Demon's, Ironworks and Soldiery gear, things that don't add up to iL123.

And while I don't personally use iL as a measure of player ability, the community at large does which only aggravates the damage iL has done.

When First Coil first came out, or second or even final... These content were locked to the general public not by iLVL, but by forming parties on your own to get these done. Everyone had to gather in the same place and you had the time and opportunity to inspect each and every person in the party. You could even hold a conversation with these people to get strategies or see if you're of like mind to tackle what's ahead. Everyone expected a certain level of gearing before entering. Just take Titan HM when it first came out. You checked each and every party member before even pulling Titan. If that person had less than 3k HP, they're out the door regardless of how many times they've claimed to have cleared Titan before. I'm not saying that they couldn't do it and haven't done it, but I'm saying that for both Coil and Titan alike, you tackle these fights [with pugs] with a minimum amount of gear in mind for your party.

The option to check gearing or people in general isn't there for DF. Even though the majority of these fights are not endgame, you still enter these fights expecting a minimum. You don't have the option to just leave the dungeon without getting penalized. You can't just randomly kick someone for not being geared enough for DF. This is why iLVL is important. iLVL's meant to prevent people from wasting each other's time by the people who aren't geared enough to a to possibly complete the dungeon.

When Final Coil was unlocked, an iLVL requirement was slapped on without consideration for the actual difficulty, but instead were given iLVL requirements based off of a progressive scale. It is quite unfortunate that iLVL cap has gated capable people from farming T12 and T13, especially now that Echo is in effect making the gearing not as important. Now don't take offense to this, but a pretty small amount of people are affected by this if compared to the general population of the game. I'm quite sure though that everyone doing Final Coil with people they don't know would want their party members with a minimum of i121 or close before entering to test their skills. Any less than that, even if they're the best player, their gearing will severely effect their DPS and their HP to even survive.

Before I even make this example, I know I'm going to get chastised for making a real world example when we're playing a game. But put up with the example and try to picture the scenario without bias. As an employer, you set "minimum requirements" and "recommended skills" for the applicant. These are in place to weed out people from applying before they waste the employer's time and resources. What if the same employers are looking for a skilled employee but didn't do the initial screening process and let everyone through the front door and try the job the first day to assess them? The employer will obviously be naive and lose lots of time and resources trying each and every applicant. With this example, they're not applicants, they're really employees for a day. The losses and frustration would pile up needlessly. Well what if there was still the screening process using minimum and recommended requirements and someone was still qualified to do the job, but didn't have the credentials? They'd be turned around and escorted back out the door without a second thought. What if the qualified person was friends with someone high in the company? Lenience may be allowed and they'd be given a shot. Every single facet of the example I gave could immediately be ad-libed to reflect making a party in this game. People don't want to be spending time sorting through people that don't have the documentation saying that they're qualified. Friends within the party will vouch for certain people and give them a chance.

iLVL is the game's version of "minimum requirements". A problem that has been talked about in this thread is saying that the current iLVL requirements are not weighed properly. While it's not unilaterally agreed what to be doing with iLVL, everyone agrees that something has to be done to better reflect what's minimally expected.

[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.

[KaedrianLiang]

/opsnip

I'm thinking they should detach Main-hand ilevel from the armor and accessories, give it its own category of ilevel rating/requirements and make it so that this only applies to extreme trials, and the higher tier of raids outside of 24player.

[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.)