Castrum Fluminis and item level

[WhiteArchmage]

I think this is a result of people saying the MSQ takes too long, so they pulled the stuff out to shorten it. (When SB is legacy you will be able to skip all this stuff due to the gear boxes they add, shortening the leveling process instead of being forced to do all this stuff to get to the next xpac)

Stuff like this makes me feel like SE is fighting a losing battle trying to please all their players. People complained Coil was too hard and they were missing out on the story: they did Normal and Savage, then people complained they had to do Normal and it was too easy and since they had the same story they had no reson to do Savage; then they complained they wanted to unlock everything at once so we got several sidequests with the Four Lords, Omega, and Ivalice; and now they're complaining that they just want to rush the story without the sidequests and can't because iLvl...

[Kazgrel]

With the time one spent complaining about the non-issue, people who really wanted to do the MSQ would’ve gotten to 335 by now. How do I know this? My FC has a couple of brand new players who just made it to level 70 last week who were running Ridorana Lighthouse last night. Myself nor any o our other crafters made them a single piece of gear; they hit up hunts and ran dungeons/roulettes for a few days and are well on their way.

Is it a fairly large ilvl jump? Yes. Is it this insumountable wall of grind that will take up to next patch (4.4) to clear? Goodness no.

[Iscah]

The problem (to me) isn’t exactly how long it takes to get the upgrade, it’s that you are allowed to reach that very climactic pre-battle cutscene and then can’t progress into the battle itself. Instead you have to walk away, at very least go shopping for gear, and possibly go through entire other storylines before you can get back to that urgent moment where you were about to fight Tsukuyomi, and you’ve lost the flow of the story. “Less than a week” is not a small amount of time in this context!

Yes, people will prioritise the MSQ and come back for ‘sidequests’ later. The game doesn’t point out that you should be pursuing them because you need the tones/gear. There’s no halt between patch stories - you just get the next quest icon straight away, and you’ve usually just been left on a cliffhanger. Of course people are going to do it first and come back for side stories later.

[HyoMinPark]

The problem (to me) isn’t exactly how long it takes to get the upgrade, it’s that you are allowed to reach that very climactic pre-battle cutscene and then can’t progress into the battle itself. Instead you have to walk away, at very least go shopping for gear, and possibly go through entire other storylines before you can get back to that urgent moment where you were about to fight Tsukuyomi, and you’ve lost the flow of the story. “Less than a week” is not a small amount of time in this context!

Compared to the claim that it would take “weeks” to get the gear needed, less than a week is nothing. I would have no problem if they decided to give item level locks on actual patch MSQs (i.e., Patch 4.3 MSQ requires i335 to even start it), but then you would have the same complaints.

Yes, people will prioritise the MSQ and come back for ‘sidequests’ later. The game doesn’t point out that you should be pursuing them because you need the tones/gear. There’s no halt between patch stories - you just get the next quest icon straight away, and you’ve usually just been left on a cliffhanger. Of course people are going to do it first and come back for side stories later.

I believe the developers changed important sidequest icons to the Blue Quest Marker with the Plus Sign to try and signify “You should do this”. Before, they were just regular sidequest markers.

[splinter1545]

I don't really see the issue here. Sure, it's a big ilvl jump, but It's also 3 patches in to the expansion. This game throws gear at you like at just about every corner with minimal effort. And thanks to creation being uncapped, you can just farm that for a couple days and you'll be fine.

Like, it just sound like you're complaining about doing end game content, to do end game content. It's really hard to believe that the devs would make MSQ, and a trial associated with it, around ilvl 300-310 when the cap is 370 currently.

[Aylis]

It's because this game is built primarily around the MSQ and there will never really be a happy medium between those that kept up to currant vs the ones just starting/progressing through the story through multiple patches. Around 80'ish percent of the games content is worked into the MSQ and the other 20'ish percent being the games "optional" content. The devs did this presumably to save time and money by shoehorning as much new content as they can into the MSQ instead of a 50/50 split of story content with content that exists outside the story. They act like they want to assume everyone is currant and caught up with the story. Meaning when they release a new patch they assume every player has done the previous story patch, farmed the last two story dungeons into oblivion to get the item level needed to do the same thing again in the new story patch.

Sadly every player just going through the story as fast as they can will eventually encounter this. There's no real answer or way around it aside from older dungeon grinding for tokens and money and daily hunts along with working the auction house for more money to get crafted gear.

[Vaer]

It's not like they even hide the "optional stuff", it's just a purple quest. They decoupled some of the stuff off of the main quest so the people playing a couple years later down the line don't have to trudge through extra stuff and can get through the old stuff quicker. People complained so hard about the old format (2.x, you know all the random silly tataru stuff which is literally in a sidequest this time instead of the MSQ like it was in 2.x) we have jump potions now. Even if they moved the lock to the actual quest before you can start the new arc you would still be locked.

You get level locked while leveling up in the MSQ, too. I remember hitting Abania and I wasn't the level so I had to go grind the previous dungeon or do sidequests. I remember a jump at the end of ARR and even HW before they added the EXP bonus and the preferred server buff.

Could it flow better? Sure. You're still going to get locked at some point if you skip most of the content.

[Hestzhyen]

I don't want to be dismissive but this is an MMO with gear progression. At some point you do have to gear up to be able to do the stuff that has been added since the launch of the expansion.

That said I do have sympathy for OP since gear progression in this game is just bigger numbers. The gear treadmill exists to keep subs; they could have the i310 Ala Mhigan gear be the only gear with stats and have all subsequent gear released be glamour for all the tiers matter. There are no sets to work on for bonuses, no pieces of gear that augment or complement how you play, no gear that even gives noticeable boosts in performance- it's just inflated stats so you meet the threshold set by SE. Feels pointless to keep up if all you're after is the story and maybe some of the side content. Dumbing down the gear system to this point so people don't have to be worried about which sets to buy means that it pisses people off when they suddenly have to care because their numbers aren't large enough to meet seemingly arbitrary thresholds.

[Zsolen]

On Gilgamesh, everyone can show you where to unlock things. Just ask anyone. The vast majority would know exactly what to do. There are multiple ways to level up, and the grind has always been a thing. This game makes it incredibly easy to increase ilvl. If anything, the gear is too easy to replace.

When the ilvl of your main is significantly lower (or even just lower) than that of top tier crafters and gatherers, you need to grind. Seek out unlocks. Ask for help. You can do pvp, HoH, roulettes, 24 mans, and/or Eureka. You can level crafting and gathering, so you can make your own gear. I never heard of a mmo, where you do one straight questline and then simply log off.