Castrum Fluminis and item level

[Iscah]

I just wish they put an actual roadblock prior to the trial itself. You get no warning that you’re undergeared until you’ve just watched that dramatic scene that leads immediately into the battle, and instead you have to break that experience to go shopping, or possibly even grind elsewhere.

It would make a lot of sense to have a gear check before you get on the boat. Perhaps one of your companions says something like “this could be dangerous, make sure you’re well-prepared” and then you get a system message saying you need to be at i335 before you can continue.

[Reinfeld]

I just wish they put an actual roadblock prior to the trial itself. You get no warning that you’re undergeared until you’ve just watched that dramatic scene that leads immediately into the battle, and instead you have to break that experience to go shopping, or possibly even grind elsewhere.

It would make a lot of sense to have a gear check before you get on the boat. Perhaps one of your companions says something like “this could be dangerous, make sure you’re well-prepared” and then you get a system message saying you need to be at i335 before you can continue.

That's the same thing they pulled with Final Steps of Faith. I'm surprised they didn't learn from last time.

[HyoMinPark]

That's the same thing they pulled with Final Steps of Faith. I'm surprised they didn't learn from last time.

Technically, they did: Sohr Khai had an i200 requirement; Final Steps was i205. Swallow’s Compass is i330; Castrum Fluminis is i335. But they’ve removed dungeons from the post-70 MSQ so.

I just wish they put an actual roadblock prior to the trial itself. You get no warning that you’re undergeared until you’ve just watched that dramatic scene that leads immediately into the battle, and instead you have to break that experience to go shopping, or possibly even grind elsewhere.

It would make a lot of sense to have a gear check before you get on the boat. Perhaps one of your companions says something like “this could be dangerous, make sure you’re well-prepared” and then you get a system message saying you need to be at i335 before you can continue.

Sohr Khai functioned as the pseudo-gear check to Final Steps. But, as I said above, they’ve more or less removed dungeons from post-70 MSQ; most are Sidequests now.

[Iscah]

That's the same thing they pulled with Final Steps of Faith. I'm surprised they didn't learn from last time.

Oh goodness. That would have been terrible. That was an amazing piece of story and having to break it off there would be awful.

[Lilseph]

It's super easy to get gear nowdays. I made an alt in another server and got to a decent ilvl in almost no time. You can spam Compass, it's a fast and nice dungeon for easy ilvl 345. You can save up and buy a crafted ilvl 350 weapon and upgrade it to 360 by just spending 700 creation. Easy way to get creation, is to run level 70 content for the first time: Sigma, Delta, dungeons, 24-man if you haven't done any of these. Get your Wondrous Tails, they reward you with tomestones too.

[MistakeNot]

It's super easy to get gear nowdays. I made an alt in another server and got to a decent ilvl in almost no time. You can spam Compass, it's a fast and nice dungeon for easy ilvl 345. You can save up and buy a crafted ilvl 350 weapon and upgrade it to 360 by just spending 700 creation. Easy way to get creation, is to run level 70 content for the first time: Sigma, Delta, dungeons, 24-man if you haven't done any of these. Get your Wondrous Tails, they reward you with tomestones too.

Most of those require you to do a fair bit of gear grinding first, before you can even enter the dungeons you name.

Without doing gear grind, the best one will have is the i310 Ala Mhigo gear that can be bought with Centurio Seals. That alone won't get you far.

[MistakeNot]

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.

Heavensward did have a roadblock back when it was current. Perhaps several depending on when you reached them.
I know I ran into one with Baelsar's Wall - that required i230 gear, but all I had at that point was the i200 gear you could buy with Centurio Seals. That required some gear grinding before I could proceed.
Today, that block is of little consequence - i270 Shire gear can now be bought with Poetic tomestones that you pick up along the way, but that wasn't the case before SB was released.

And I agree, it is annoying. Gear grinding is not only tedious, but incredibly boring - which is why I still have not been able to do Castrum Fluminis despite unlocking it several months ago

[Vaer]

It's not a problem in Core/HW because they give you gear boxes now which were added once they became legacy content. ilvl307 is really low though, I'm not sure you would even want to be in there being that low. (Fresh 70 dungeons drop around that ilvl) Kinda bad if you just want to see the story I suppose, but if it was any lower the gear progression wouldn't matter for people actually playing the patches when it is current. (The ilvl cap is 370 right now, if they tuned it to 305 or whatever it would just be a complete faceroll.)

You can bypass it though if you can find some people to fill a group and queue into it.

[MistakeNot]

It's not a problem in Core/HW because they give you gear boxes now which were added once they became legacy content. ilvl307 is really low though

ilvl 307 is about where one should be after following the MSQ and doing the compulsory dungeons, but not running all the optional duties

That is what makes the ilvl requirement of Castrum Fluminis so annoying, because it is such a huge increase in required item level compared to what the MSQ has required before.
The last required duty before Castrum Fluminis was Drowned City of Skalla with a minimum ilvl of 300.

The jump from 300 to 335 is pretty steep, and comes with no warning.
You are following the MSQ, enjoying the story and then - POOF - you have to break off from the story for a couple of weeks just to grind gear before you can continue.

[Vaer]

ilvl 307 is about where one should be after following the MSQ and doing the compulsory dungeons, but not running all the optional duties

That is what makes the ilvl requirement of Castrum Fluminis so annoying, because it is such a huge increase in required item level compared to what the MSQ has required before.
The last required duty before Castrum Fluminis was Drowned City of Skalla with a minimum ilvl of 300.

The jump from 300 to 335 is pretty steep, and comes with no warning.
You are following the MSQ, enjoying the story and then - POOF - you have to break off from the story for a couple of weeks just to grind gear before you can continue.

Well, when Skalla was out the ilvl cap is 340. 340-40 = 300. And it was a catch up patch where content was dropping up to 330.

The ilvl went up by 10 for the 2 dungeons when the ilvl cap was increased by 40 to 370, this is a gear reset. Not everyone is geared up at that point and to ease returning players the jump isn't that high for the dungeons.

Now it's a catchup patch where content is dropping up to 360. Swallow's is 330. 370-40 = 330. Seems normal to me.

It's disjointed because the other stuff is "optional" but I'm pretty sure they want you to do it. Byakko/Sigma N is i325 and the 2 dungeons after Skalla are 310.

MSQ Final/Kugane/Temple of Fist: 280
Delta N: 295
Skalla: 300
Rabanastre: 305

Hells' Lid/Fractal (Hard): 310
Sigma N: 325
Swallow's 330
Ridorana 335