Soul stones really need to be required for 31+ instanced content.

[KageTokage]

I remember queueing up for Trials roulette and getting The Dancing Plague, for there to be a level 73 Pugilist with us. We weren't able to get past the DPS check, although I'm not even sure if it was just because of this one player or if everybody else was doing poor DPS. It definitely took a while though. We ended up kicking him out after a few wipes, and after the replacement came in, the run went pretty smoothly.

How do you go through the whole game without having your soul stone equipped? We asked this person to get their soul stone equipped and they had no idea what we were talking about.

I think only a level-skipped player could have that as a valid excuse.

Basically all of your new skills are tied to the soul crystal for HW onwards so any normal player would realize something's up after not gaining any new abilities for 20+ levels.

[Floortank]

It's so rare to see this happen it will probably never be addressed.

[ItMe]

Stoneless runs can be fun and novel, though it might be prudent to prevent individuals or small groups from entering content without their stone. That way parties that wanna enjoy running content like that still can.

[Brightamethyst]

It's so rare to see this happen it will probably never be addressed.

Yeah. While it would probably be really easy to fix, it's also probably unnecessary. It's not like this is a common occurrence. In 7 years and thousands of instances I can probably count on one hand then number times I've seen a class in anything higher than Brayflox.

[dangadget]

Yeah. While it would probably be really easy to fix, it's also probably unnecessary. It's not like this is a common occurrence. In 7 years and thousands of instances I can probably count on one hand then number times I've seen a class in anything higher than Brayflox.

I'll counter that anecdote with one of my own.
I've seen this at least 5 times just within the past year, in dungeons ranging all the way up to Aurum Vale.
At least two were genuine mistakes, and the player in question apologized profusely, and in one case volunteered to be kicked so we wouldn't be burdened, while in the other cases, the player in question was dismissive of the concerns, or outright hostile to it being called out.

[technole]

All of the instances where this happened for me were with players who already had other classes capped, so it's definitely not a case of not knowing.

Lazy, maybe, but deliberate trolling seems more probable. If people want to do jobless challenge runs they should do it with like-minded players rather then forcing themselves into groups that just want to clear and get out.

Yes, even if I advocated jobless runs of content in my post, I would only recommend it in a full-party. That's how we always did it.

It used to be more fun when there was cross-skills, basically over time they have been dismantling the jobless concept.

It always required doing some things differently. Like at max level CNJ you don't have Cure III and Regen, as those are WHM only, but Medica II is CNJ so that works instead. That goes to show how old and how much work still has to be done to really clean out the class system. It's a lot of entrenched stuff.

[Legion88]

Yeah. While it would probably be really easy to fix, it's also probably unnecessary. It's not like this is a common occurrence. In 7 years and thousands of instances I can probably count on one hand then number times I've seen a class in anything higher than Brayflox.

I counter this with a regular occurance of classes in for that times current raids, 24 mans and expert dungeons over the last 6 years I played. Less then half of them were by accident, most were on purpose to "challenge the party/CoTank/CoHealer" or because they didn't like the asthetic of the job so they stayed by the class, main crafters that only have the class so they can progress MSQ and get carried by other players to reach new content.
But the biggest offender was a healer that shared the information he didn't do any class nor job quest as CNJ because he liked more simple ways of progression aka leveling only but he applied to our raid static for Sigmascape Savage anyway, despite not having Cure II or any WHM skill.

[Fynlar]

I see this often enough that I agree something should be done about it, but I wouldn't make it right at Brayflox or anything. ARR duties aren't so problematic that lack of job is a big deal yet at that point, and tank stances are part of the class now so we don't have to worry anymore about gladiators not being able to hold hate, for instance.

HW (50) and up though, definitely, mainly because that is the point where all new abilities/traits from then on are tied specifically to the job, so clearly that's the point where even the game no longer really considers it acceptable to still be on a base class and is really pushing you to get your crystal if you don't already have it.

And yeah, premades should be able to bypass the restriction if they want. Incidentally, I saw a PF last night for a 24-conjurer run of The Puppet's Bunker. Don't know if they ever filled out; that's a little too masochistic for my tastes, but I would have loved to spectate that somehow.

[Doozer]

There definitely seems to be an increase in this occurring lately. While running around doing FATEs for the Yo-kai event, I've seen at least half a dozen people that were at least level 40 with no job stone and severely low level gear (one was even wearing the Valentione's Day boots with no helmet at all, and the rest of their gear was pretty low). I really think there should be a pop-up when you reach level 30 to say "hey you can acquire a job upgrade for this class! Go to [job-specific location] to begin!"

[Theodric]

It wouldn't hurt as a quality of life feature. The development team already bent over backwards to implement an easy mode for solo duties. They also expect more experienced players to shoulder the burden when it comes to less experienced players - which isn't a terrible thing in itself but would be made much easier if the thread's proposal were to be made mandatory.

My guess is that it happens mostly due to people skipping dialogue/tutorials or just ignoring their job quests altogether.