Castrum Fluminis and item level

[Nabril]

I finally made it to the end of the MSQ. I have completed every requirement and done every dungeon or trial thrown my way. Then Castrum Fluminis comes along and has an item level requirement of 335 which trumps my 307.

Why put such a huge roadblock in MSQ? It's going to either take me weeks of grinding for Mendacity or millions of gil to buy crafted gear to get an item level of 335. Weeks to be allowed to do the second to last MSQ. Neither Heavensward or the Core game had a huge roadblock like this. I haven't been grinding dungeons. I didn't know that I would need to.

This is quite disheartening. I'm weeks away from being able to do other things because I have to first do enough dungeons to make me sick of them.

[HyoMinPark]

You can farm Creation tomes for easy i330 gear; just do roulettes on level 70 jobs for Creation tomes. After that, you should be able to queue into either Sigmascape NM raids or Swallow’s Compass. Sigmascape drops tokens for i350 gear; Swallow’s Compass drops i345 gear.

You can also just farm Creation gear, and then do Rabanastre a few times for the Rabanastre Coin to upgrade them to i340. There is no weekly limit on the coin, so you can do it enough times to boost yourself from i330 to i335. Rabanastre also drops i330 gear that you can use if you want to buy some with Creation, but not grind as much.

HW did have a similar trial to this: Final Steps of Faith, which required i205. Highest item level at that time was i240 (Midan gear/Augmented Lore gear). Castrum Fluminis is i335, and the current highest item level is i370, so this is actually on par with it.

[OIIIIIIIO]

You can farm Creation tomes for easy i330 gear; just do roulettes on level 70 jobs for Creation tomes. After that, you should be able to queue into either Sigmascape NM raids or Swallow’s Compass. Sigmascape drops tokens for i350 gear; Swallow’s Compass drops i345 gear.

You can also just farm Creation gear, and then do Rabanastre a few times for the Rabanastre Coin to upgrade them to i340. There is no weekly limit on the coin, so you can do it enough times to boost yourself from i330 to i335. Rabanastre also drops i330 gear that you can use if you want to buy some with Creation, but not grind as much.

I wanted to have the above quoted for what I'm about to contribute to this discussion because it is the most relevant thing to talk about. I've played MMOs before and have a decent understanding of how this sort of thing works.

Speaking as a brand new player, I didn't see it coming as well. In doing everything up to here I did hit the dungeon where I needed minimum ilvl of 300. I wasn't close to that and since I hadn't had to spend any gil on really anything, I used almost all of my liquid assets to hit that so I could progress. Now I have another big gap without any warning.

Having played other MMOs I get there'll come a point where you have to grind. it's kinda the thing you work for in leveling up and progressing. This has simply been done very poorly here. Almost universally though this happens after you have attained max level and are beginning to do endgame raids. Coming to XIV as a brand new player and having already realized the stuff I've been blowing through was endgame content at some point doesn't make the situation any better at all. It's a hard stop in progression because... well I don't know. I don't think anyone else really has the correct answer either. Probably not even the developers?

The biggest point I'm going to make is that I found this thread via Google. The reason I quoted the above is because I had NO IDEA that those things actually existed whatsoever. Without any clue that those dungeons exist, of course I wouldn't have the required ilvl to progress. Now it makes sense. It should make sense naturally through the flow of the game. Not through searching on Google and finding the poster that I quoted being genuinely helpful albeit through the rest of the thread somehow defending this. Imagine you're reading a fiction novel/book and you have to stop almost at the end to Google how to finish the book. What kind of experience is that for the reader?

I'll stop complaining here and go figure out where these dungeons are, how to unlock them and how to progress. I have absolutely no idea how to do any of that. I do appreciate the help and guidance that has been given here and none of this was meant to make anyone here feel badly. Except for the people making the game who thinks this is ok. It's not. This is jarring and disjoints the whole experience. It could and should have been done better.

[Hestzhyen]

I'll stop complaining here and go figure out where these dungeons are, how to unlock them and how to progress. I have absolutely no idea how to do any of that. I do appreciate the help and guidance that has been given here and none of this was meant to make anyone here feel badly. Except for the people making the game who thinks this is ok. It's not. This is jarring and disjoints the whole experience. It could and should have been done better.

Basic info here: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Dungeons
Swallow's Compass is a side-quest, you'll need 330 to get into it. The dungeons that preceeded it - Fractal Continuum (Hard) and Hell's Lid - drop i325 which can give you a boost as you need it. You'll mostly want to run them for the tomes though.

Rabanastre (drops 330 gear) is a side quest as well, requires i305 to get in. No limit on how much you can get but RNG drops + rolls will foul you up a bit, guaranteed.

Creation tomes drop from all level 70 content, you can buy 330 gear and use the coins from Rabanastre to upgrade them to 340 like Hyomin mentioned. (A coin is given to you at the end of each Rabanastre run, no luck required.)

Personal opinion: buying a 350 weapon is probably a good idea since weapons are the most difficult pieces to get if you don't raid. Body gear comes easily through normal grinds.

And of course there is the latest 360 gear from Mendacity, those tomes drop in lvl 70 content and especially from Roulettes. They drop in small amounts though and you probably won't have access to the roulettes that give the most due to ilvl.

Those are the most time-efficient methods; there are longer grinds like Eureka, Pagos, Heaven on High, and raids too.



I think they should stop pretending stat inflation matters enough to force people to grind for it but it is what it is at this point.

[Vaer]

I'll stop complaining here and go figure out where these dungeons are, how to unlock them and how to progress. I have absolutely no idea how to do any of that. I do appreciate the help and guidance that has been given here and none of this was meant to make anyone here feel badly. Except for the people making the game who thinks this is ok. It's not. This is jarring and disjoints the whole experience. It could and should have been done better.

The game used to flow better and made more sense, people said the MSQ took too long (saying how their friends quit midway because of so many quests and having to play for 50-100 hours to get to the end) so they pulled stuff out of it where it isn't mandatory, but if you ask the devs they probably want you to do it. Ironically, this change was supposed to help the new players later down the line, but it seems now the new players have to deal with it.

[Sacred_Nym]

The biggest point I'm going to make is that I found this thread via Google. The reason I quoted the above is because I had NO IDEA that those things actually existed whatsoever. Without any clue that those dungeons exist, of course I wouldn't have the required ilvl to progress. Now it makes sense. It should make sense naturally through the flow of the game. Not through searching on Google and finding the poster that I quoted being genuinely helpful albeit through the rest of the thread somehow defending this. Imagine you're reading a fiction novel/book and you have to stop almost at the end to Google how to finish the book. What kind of experience is that for the reader?

I mean, you hit the maximum level and you know by now that Blue+ quests unlock stuff right, did it not occur to you that it was time to stop blitzing the MSQ blindly and start working your way through the end game progression curve? I do apologize if this comes off as rude but the game changes once you hit the level cap. It has to or there wouldn't really be a game for those of us who are max level, and all I'm seeing is a failure to realize that.

[valho]

I'll stop complaining here and go figure out where these dungeons are, how to unlock them and how to progress. I have absolutely no idea how to do any of that. I do appreciate the help and guidance that has been given here and none of this was meant to make anyone here feel badly. Except for the people making the game who thinks this is ok. It's not. This is jarring and disjoints the whole experience. It could and should have been done better.

In the menu, go to Duty > Recommendation, open it everytime you are in a new area, it will show you everything you can do in an area, quest with + sign will always be on top. I think that it's even set to auto pop by default when ever you go into a different area. Like what most have said it used to flow naturally, but since players been complaning about too much dungeons during MSQ, it was remove so yeah, it's the players that wanted those dungeon to be optional rather than part of the MSQ.

[Rufalus]

There are roadblocks like that every patch basically, if you're doing them at the time of release. Gearing for a current patch always takes much longer than the breeze of catching up on old patches. Whenever you are caught up to the latest stuff, you have to engage in the endgame currency grind or farming instances for loot. Acquiring gear is one of the biggest carrots to keep people repeating content until the next patch is released.

[MistakeNot]

Acquiring gear is one of the biggest carrots to keep people repeating content until the next patch is released.

Not carrot. Stick. It forces you to repeat content when all you want to do is continue the story. Which is Not Fun.

[Deceptus]

You have to understand that this content has been out for over a year. You're not going to go from content that is a year old to current content in an MMO in the same day.