Quote Originally Posted by BunnyHop View Post
Firstly, not every player knows about side quest give gear. And I don't think that there are side quests in every new area, (every 3 levels or so) that give gear. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I find it hard to imagine that someone could progress far enough to start unlocking dungeons and story instances and manage to not know of at least one non-dungeon way to obtain gear. Especially since there's a required quest early on that actually tries to teach you about maintaining your equipment and explains that you can find stuff on vendors and the market board. Also, since most all of your equipment has come from quests at that point it would be really outside the norm for someone to not know quests give you gear by the time they hit lvl16.

I actually don't remember off the top of my head how they distributed quest rewards in ARR (and I know they made alterations once HW launched to help people catch up faster), but 90% of the 3.0 HW quests give you HQ equipment of some kind and if you do all of the quests each hub has to offer you often end up with a full set quick enough. You can also buy the NQ versions from vendors in each zone. The only things you have a harder time getting you hands on are weapons and jewelry because those show up less often.

They certainly give you something useful often enough that you should never be wearing something 10+ levels old like the people this thread is talking about.

Secondly, you seem hostile, chill out a bit...
How so?

... And your last sentences are not correct. When there is a max ilvl people do abuse that mechanic.
I didn't say there wasn't abuse. The thing is, when someone is building their own PF group they're more than welcome to make whatever requirements they see fit, even if you or I think they're being unreasonable (everyone's seen at least one guy who sets a minimum ilvl that he doesn't even meet himself). They have the option to make stupid requirements just like we have the option to not join them. That's always going to be true, minimum ilvl or no.

And again, it's really unlikely someone would kick you from a random DF group for barely meeting the minimum ilvl. I didn't say it was impossible or that it doesn't happen (I'm sure there's some moron who's done it), I said it was unlikely. We have plenty of ilvl restricted content right now and as long as your gear is appropriate for your class, if you're getting kicked from the group it's almost guaranteed to be for some reason other than your minimum ilvl equipment.

How about you correct your attitude first, and help people understand that they're not properly geared.
I do try to help people find appropriate upgrades if I see them wearing something wildly outdated or otherwise wrong for their class. I've even gone out of my way to craft them HQ equipment for free if they were on my server. I still think the game needs to do a better job at keeping people from being sandbags with wildly outdated or inappropriate gear.

Story content DF is fine as it is, we don't need more hostile players raging to new players because they know less about the game than you do!!
I'm still not understanding how someone could have made it far enough to join dungeons and still not know about maintaining their gear. It's especially troublesome since most players that are seen wearing really poor gear are at a high enough level that they should definitely know better. It reaches a point where it's no longer "knowing less about the game" and starts getting into the territory of being willfully ignorant and not even trying. A lvl20 THM wearing vitality accessories might just not know any better. A lvl52 DRG in Dust Vigil with a lvl45 spear isn't even trying.