Revocation and replacement of item level system

[Jerbob]

The pet levelling issue is a particular irritation to me. I have an absurd sachet superglued to my ammo slot for everything now, and I'm afraid the BP reduction II effect dumped onto it isn't a huge consolation seeing as it could easily be put elsewhere, or on a macroable piece of ammo. I've also just discovered that I'm not going to be able to do Salvage II as SMN because my avatars are locked at level 99 for a significant proportion of it. Spectacular.

It's these little failures that leak through all over the place that help to highlight that the system really doesn't work properly.

... I would also continue to garner support job spells and functions ...

While benefits like this from a proper levelling system would be really nice, I would honestly just settle for a replica of the current environment in merit point form. I am worried that if we ask for too much then SE will start spouting the usual balance issue excuses rather than properly considering the problem. In many ways I do like your suggestion of attaching the progression to content and battlefields, but we have to be wary in case the "merit levels" become inaccessible to new players. Easy stuff like Records of Eminence should be a perfectly functional route to gain merit levels if indeed the system does rely on content, otherwise we'll end up with a "level divide" among players even worse that the item level divide we have now.

I'd really like an official response on this, as unlikely as it may be, so please keep liking / discussing! And apologies if I'm being a little terse, the Salvage issue has made me pretty ratty today.

[Alhanelem]

Yes, for BST you have to keep a level 119 axe in your main hand. If you change your mainhand weapon, your pet's level changes accordingly, both directions. Fortunately we have a slew of 119 mainhands, so it's not as crippling as it could be.

well that's fine honestly. You don't normally swap your weapons in combat due to loss of TP.

[Damane]

we have now pushed through ilvl, why change back, yes it has some minor flaws here and there, but nothing grave. Going back now would be worse.

Your Barspell argument kinda fails, because it was allready caped at lvl 99 with 500 enhancing magic skill, besides ilvl gear gets m.eva and m.def stats. and barspells still work great.

[Jerbob]

we have now pushed through ilvl, why change back, yes it has some minor flaws here and there, but nothing grave. Going back now would be worse.

Your Barspell argument kinda fails, because it was allready caped at lvl 99 with 500 enhancing magic skill, besides ilvl gear gets m.eva and m.def stats. and barspells still work great.

I genuinely think going back would be much better. I'm not sure what possible negative consequences reverting back could have. Having levels locked into your character, either traditionally or through merits, avoids lots of the issues that the item levels bring. Yeah, item levels work for the basics - I've never claimed that they don't - but that's really not good enough.

Yes, barspells were capped at 99, and while it wasn't very "future-proof" to hard cap them it didn't really matter unless the monsters we faced got massively stronger. Now we've item levelled up with the appropriate magic evasion/defence on our gear to represent those levels, but from 1-99 the barspells would grow in potency as we levelled as well as our innate resistance. Unless the magic evasion/defence on gear includes that which we would have gained from levelled barspell bonuses, which I highly doubt, then barspell protection is remaining static at level 99 potency. And if they've put some kind of hack in with item levels that compensates for this... well, it's just another hack that tries to stabilise the system. I'm not a fan of bandages on top of amputations.

I do understand what you are saying. It would be significant in terms of work and hastle to implement a replacement for item levels. Patching up the holes that item levels bring, however, I think is worth it, and we've then got a much better foundation in-game with which to move forward.

[Mirage]

I too would prefer that iLvl disappeared, but if that never happens, never again touching the current max iLvl cap while continuing to add new gear might eventually make things work themselves out.

[predatory]

Well we've had item level stuff for a year now, and it's totally changed the game. I don't like the system simply because I hate having my gear outdated as fast as I can get the items and get them upgraded, but I do like the content, and I don't want SE to go back and revamp everything about Adoulin, and that's exactly what they would have to do. I like the idea of expanding our merit categories, and I hope they use that route, along with job points to make our characters stronger in the future because those are semi-permanent increases to our stats and abilities rather than the temporary ones we get from gear, and with a few added categories here and there we could make our characters strong enough, (with our current ilevel 119 gear) to match any future content SE put out.

My vote is don't mess with the system, don't raise item levels any higher, just give us more merit and job point categories and let us use more merit points per category

[Rubeus]

And when the next expansion raises the ilvl to 150 and then they have to go through and revamp relic/mythic/empyrean weapons again and AF/relic/empyrean gear again and more players quit the game again, will you then change your mind about undoing the damage that has been done? Removing the stat-vomit off of our current gear lineup would make it infinitely easier to read, and there is no downside to raising our actual levels. None. There IS a definitive downside to keeping things as they are -- right now, my BLU has to use mavi tayt +2 in order to maximize blue magic skill and therefore have the highest chance of learning WKR spells. This severely limits both my survivability and my accuracy, -mostly- because of the stat vomit. Not because the defense value is weaker, not because the gear is worse. Simply because of the stat vomit.

Reflect on that while they wrap up seekers and if you're around for the next expansion (and Adoulin's got an airship dock. Think about that.) I'll still be around to tell you I told you so.

edit: not trying to sound condescending. Simply food for thought; there's myriad continents we haven't explored yet and if they do continue to support the game into the future, ilevels will eventually stop cutting it. Maybe they're working on changing the level interface right now for all we know, but I seem to remember them saying "Aegis and Gjallarhorn would be ~180 if they had ilvls already." This does not bode well for the future of the game.

[Mirage]

next expansion

nope, sorry

[predatory]

And when the next expansion raises the ilvl to 150 and then they have to go through and revamp relic/mythic/empyrean weapons again and AF/relic/empyrean gear again and more players quit the game again, will you then change your mind about undoing the damage that has been done? Removing the stat-vomit off of our current gear lineup would make it infinitely easier to read, and there is no downside to raising our actual levels. None. There IS a definitive downside to keeping things as they are -- right now, my BLU has to use mavi tayt +2 in order to maximize blue magic skill and therefore have the highest chance of learning WKR spells. This severely limits both my survivability and my accuracy, -mostly- because of the stat vomit. Not because the defense value is weaker, not because the gear is worse. Simply because of the stat vomit.

Reflect on that while they wrap up seekers and if you're around for the next expansion (and Adoulin's got an airship dock. Think about that.) I'll still be around to tell you I told you so.

edit: not trying to sound condescending. Simply food for thought; there's myriad continents we haven't explored yet and if they do continue to support the game into the future, ilevels will eventually stop cutting it. Maybe they're working on changing the level interface right now for all we know, but I seem to remember them saying "Aegis and Gjallarhorn would be ~180 if they had ilvls already." This does not bode well for the future of the game.

God I love scanners, look for keywords and miss the true meaning behind what's written

[Louispv]

well that's fine honestly. You don't normally swap your weapons in combat due to loss of TP.

Yes but that also means we can't use any of the good axes. The pet damage taken- axes for instance drop your pet down to level 99. SMN and PUP can still use their staves and H2H though. Or the Hunahpu which as absolutely necessary for your pet to ever hit anything because it has pet acc+ on it, is level 115, so either lose 4 pet levels, or offhand it at all times, crippling your own stats by making your offhand 4 levels below your mainhand. (On top of your offhand always being about 3 levels behind your mainhand because SEs till thinks Dual wield is overpowered for some reason.) Plus this locks you into /NIN and no other acceptable subjob, since SE in their infinite wisdom decided BST should be the only job in the game without Dual Wield or a two handed weapon. So Fencer will never have even the tiny use it used to have when you were /WAR.

The whole Item level thing just has too many problems. They still haven't even fixed them all. It would have been much better if they just added Merit category 3 to each job, that cost 10,11, 12 continuing merits in that vein. Have each one increase the stats appropriate to your job by that of a level, and all your skills equivalent to your level, and your pets' stats equivalent to a level. (Which we know they can do, since that's what satchets/animators do.) 10 merits, you're level 100, 11 more merits, you're level 101, 12 more merits, you're level 102 and maybe get a new Job ability or spell in with this one! No R/E/M upgrading nonsense, no comepletly worthless gear because next month they add higher item levels tuff, no dropping 12 levels and taking double damage because your ws gear is a lower level than your melee gear, no having encumbrance drop you back to level 99, No having to reforge... everything, no need to rebalance every damned thing around stats double what they were planned to be, all the problems go away!

Plus that way, you can't jump from 99-119 on every single job at once by just getting the gear on your BRD. You'd actually need to level each one, and SE would get more monthly bills out of us while we did it.