How is ilvl an issue while leveling?

[Vstarstruck]

What you missing is playing a healer trying to heal a severely under-geared tank, wipe, and got kicked.

Source: me playing SCH, running lvl69 castrum dungeon, tank died several times a long the way, and we wiped twice on the last boss. DPS started berating me for "not knowing how to heal". When I point out that the tank is in a full set lvl60 gear, (The SB crafted 60, not the poetic 60), the tank went like "I'm poor don't judge me" and the ignorant DPSs start wailing about "his gears is fine you just don't know how to heal!". After a couple mins I was booted out.


Granted, that was the ONLY time I was kicked from a party for that reason, but I lost count how many time I have to burst my arse healing an undergear tank. Under gear DPS is a problem too, because it can mean something mobs are still up after the tank/healer already run out of cool down and MP. Under-geared healer is bad too, although less severe. Do-able? Yes. But by no mean enjoyable.

Why I said this:

People are tried of dealing with drama with people (one person sometimes to defend them "Oh it is not savage it is not a big deal" "Oh do not be elitist over gear despite the person being oneshoted by unlovable damage") with those that are clearly not ready to be in dungeon (insert name)

It is amazing how often people defend this crap. That is a big reason people want change because they are hard to kick at times because people do not understand the game.

[Squintina]

Source: me playing SCH, running lvl69 castrum dungeon, tank died several times a long the way, and we wiped twice on the last boss. DPS started berating me for "not knowing how to heal". When I point out that the tank is in a full set lvl60 gear, (The SB crafted 60, not the poetic 60), the tank went like "I'm poor don't judge me" and the ignorant DPSs start wailing about "his gears is fine you just don't know how to heal!". After a couple mins I was booted out.

One of the reasons why when I decided to level my WHM & AST, I tried to stay out of roulettes as much as possible. I can't even count how many times that happened to me once my hubby tank stopped playing and I had to rely on pugs .

[Enla]

One of the reasons why when I decided to level my WHM & AST, I tried to stay out of roulettes as much as possible. I can't even count how many times that happened to me once my hubby tank stopped playing and I had to rely on pugs .

It's why I tend to bring at least one friend when I do my roulettes. We've gotten a tank just like that who didn't understand how to do their job and was so poorly geared that they might as well have been wearing tissue paper. After trying to talk them through at least using cooldowns so my job would be easier and getting nowhere, we all just eventually sat down until we could kick him. I know the developers are loathe to gate some content, but the dungeons /need/ minimum ilvl caps like the raids. I can live with poorly geared DPS, I already DPS as SCH and can generally make up for the slack. I can't deal with tanks who require constant overheals because one bad hit takes them down to nothing or healers who simply can't keep up at all even with baby pulls, and not for lack of trying.

[Nestama]

What you are missing how lazy people can be. I have kicked a few a few times because they enter expert having under i290 gear (the level 70 job quest gives this) while not knowing how to basic rotation. You are trying to apply logic, and trying you best in comparison to people that want to rush to level to 70 in 5 days or whatever because they do not care about the 3 other people they make put extra effort.

Isn't it impossible for people to enter Expert Roulette below the minimal ilevel? The only time I think you would have ever see someone without/below i290 gear is in Ala Mhigo and... this is the only time I'm (somewhat) fair (I will tell them to do their Job quests the second they're done, since we all know what comes after). Some people just completely forget about their Job Quests... though HQ level 68 and level 69 dungeon gear is still kinda okay for Ala Mhigo.

That's it, though. If someone is a tank and is still wearing their Shire gear in the level 69 dungeon, then they're out of here (Levelling dungeons do not have a minimal ilevel requirement).

[Vstarstruck]

Isn't it impossible for people to enter Expert Roulette below the minimal ilevel? The only time I think you would have ever see someone without/below i290 gear is in Ala Mhigo and... this is the only time I'm (somewhat) fair (I will tell them to do their Job quests the second they're done, since we all know what comes after). Some people just completely forget about their Job Quests... though HQ level 68 and level 69 dungeon gear is still kinda okay for Ala Mhigo.

That's it, though. If someone is a tank and is still wearing their Shire gear in the level 69 dungeon, then they're out of here (Levelling dungeons do not have a minimal ilevel requirement).

... with someone with your experience you think you would know the answer to that question. Seen it in the drowned city of skalla (back when that was expert) and hell's lid. It is easy to carry gimp left side when right is easy to gear up to meet ilevel requirements.....

Overall I really do not care, as long as it is not glaring obvious it is going slow. Seeing that just reinforces the reason why they need be kicked. So maybe I seen it more times then I realize, it is likely I seen it in ala mhigo, but it was done so without being outright bad.

DF needs better gating requirements, maybe this is another problem that does not happen with the Japanese player base so they do not address it.

It's why I tend to bring at least one friend when I do my roulettes. We've gotten a tank just like that who didn't understand how to do their job and was so poorly geared that they might as well have been wearing tissue paper. After trying to talk them through at least using cooldowns so my job would be easier and getting nowhere, we all just eventually sat down until we could kick him. I know the developers are loathe to gate some content, but the dungeons /need/ minimum ilvl caps like the raids. I can live with poorly geared DPS, I already DPS as SCH and can generally make up for the slack. I can't deal with tanks who require constant overheals because one bad hit takes them down to nothing or healers who simply can't keep up at all even with baby pulls, and not for lack of trying.

They prob did not expect people to be so willing to enter places being obviously under geared. Going by the comments with the greed all wide in raids, it is likely they will never address this since it never happens with the Japanese player base with the defense is being given why that greed wide change is happening.

(small edit for the post below as i feel it is not worth a post quota)
I said "they enter expert having under i290 gear (the level 70 job quest gives this)" It is quite obvious it meant right was over to carry ilevel since level 70 quests don't gear the right -.-. I did not see ALL slots as in average where under 290, I said having under 290 gear. So in my view, I def explained everything.

You never saw people gimp the left for the right to carry them to meet the requirements, never? This is done because game makes right so much cheaper, like 3 right = body. 8 man you can get 2 right per week while getting none left. It is semi common maybe you never look enough.

[Nestama]

... with someone with your experience you think you would know the answer to that question. Seen it in the drowned city of skalla (back when that was expert) and hell's lid. It is easy to carry gimp left side when right is easy to gear up to meet ilevel requirements.....

Then you should have specified that, since you specifically said 'below i290.' It's easy for me to mistakenly assume you're talking about someone who is a fresh level 70 (I've honestly never encountered anyone who would have a decent right side, but a crummy left side. That's just bad sportsmanship, especially as the weapon is the single most important equipment when it comes to upgrades).

[Iscah]

I've got a few classes to Lv70 now - while playing Stormblood MSQ I was leveling both summoner and white mage, so I tended to be a bit haphazard with upgrading gear via quest rewards because you generally have to pick between casting OR healing gear. (Healing usually got priority for gear upgrades, but I tended to go into new dungeons as summoner because there's less pressure if you don't know what's going on.)

So then I'd collected all that healing gear, and leveling astrologian to 70 seemed the next obvious choice, and I didn't need to get any new gear because I had enough from leveling and dungeon drops, right? So I never paid much attention beyond equipping the recommended gear when I leveled up, and it somehow slipped my mind that I did need to upgrade my star globe as well.... and so I got into Castrum Abania still with my Shire Astrometer.


Down the other end of the scale, I'm realising it can be a problem in ARR because a surprising number of the later game dungeons (and thus gear drops for people who don't buy them) are optional. Story dungeons are at 15/16/17, 24, 28, 32 but then not until 41 and 50. Though on the other side of that, i-level can be quite wonky - eg. dungeon gear does have stats equivalent to higher-level vendor gear (eg. Lv15 i17 Novice gear has same stats as Lv23 vendor), and currently my alt-character dragoon is apparently undergeared because 'upgrading' from Lv32ish scale mail armour to other DPS gear is a defence loss.


I feel part of the issue of keeping up with gear in this game is that there are, firstly, so many places you can get gear, and no easy way of checking if all your classes are up to date. In a standard RPG you'd just go to the item shop in the highest-level town you've reached, compare their items to your party's items, buy your upgrades, off you go. Here the vendor equipment is rarely what you actually need, and you can only compare to your currently equipped class.

[Hasrat]

You could also argue that part of the problem is ARR's gearing. You mention DRG's scale mail, but that's one of those times when DRG's gear is a bit awkward. It's somewhere between tank and dps gear. Different types of shields for PLD. One- or two-handed WHM/BLM. The weird body+head or legs+feet combo gear.

It is a bit disappointing that they've moved away from all that variety. But at least the simplifying makes it easier to tell when you're falling behind.

[Iscah]

Ooh yes, I'd forgotten about the weird two-slot items. I never used them specifically because it was too hard to actually compare stats. (Well, that and they're ugly armours and there's nothing to glamour replacement shoes onto...) And I've never ever understood which shield I should be using or how much difference it makes.

Mage wands on the other hand... as much as it's simpler to just have the one type of weapon, I liked the look of some of the white mage wands, and I think the casting animation was a bit different. Would be nice if there was some option to trade in your standard two-handed staff for an equivalent one-handed version so the old ARR wands can be used as glamours.

[AxlStream]

As having leveled all my tanks on SB. Unless you're playing Tanks at a high level of proficiency, you will not make it through the dungeons during the leveling process without higher level gear. I've stressed more than my fair share of Healers going in my Creator gear the whole way through on DRK and PLD. Thankfully, rotating my cooldowns and adjusting my playstyle for survival instead of damage got the job done.