Revocation and replacement of item level system

[Rubeus]

@Demonjustin: I understand where you're coming from. I do. It's not that I don't. But you're STILL neglecting the whole picture in regards to RDM. Here, I'll do the work for you to prove my point:
pillager/plunderer total +dex: +140

atrophy/vitivation total +dex: +96

hume male base dex on thf/dnc: 97

hume male base dex on rdm/dnc: 89

total difference in dex between a 119 rdm and a 119 thf, visible armor only: 52.

RDM dex in such a case if it were lvl 119 and not ghetto 119: 185

you're telling me that with +96 dex as a NATURAL state before any gear is considered at a REAL 119, your RDM has something to complain about in terms of accuracy/crit? I challenge you to find 1 mob in the game that isn't -real- content (in which RDM should probably be casting and supporting its party as opposed to meleeing) whereupon your dexterity score is going to be the deciding factor between the 1 hit or crit that would've killed said mob vs total defeat for you and/or your group. I would say Einherjar, as that's the only highly-time-limited event in which I can imagine a RDM meleeing being a crucial aspect of defeating all the mobs, but at 99 you're already at capped pdif anyway.

But you're not just saying dex. you're saying all stats. You're getting at the whole ball of wax, and I understand that. It's not that I don't understand that. It's that you don't see (to me) that if your character were wearing an Ark Scythe and Stumbling Sandals and nothing else, you'd still be at 185 dex. And presumably somewhere near 200 on all your other stats, and your pdif would be a non-issue for accuracy/evasion/all those other sprinkled stats involving magic and doing stuff.

No offense, and I have a very high degree of respect for you, but that sounds a lot like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. "But I'm still missing 52 dex over thief. :\" well yeah dude. It's thief. They kind of need it more than you do. 185 isn't high enough for you? ALL your stats being 185+ aren't high enough for you? I'm staring at my RDM/DNC right now and his lowest stat is VIT at 84, so presumably you'd be in the ballpark of 170 VIT at 119 naked. But you'd also have Rapture, Ebullience, and a third strategem charge at the much more useful RDM/SCH combo. I mean, me personally? I'd even be willing to take the same exact VIT I have right now just to be able to do that. That's practically a divine seal and a diffused amplification every other minute.

Yes, it's only +21 to all stats -- for the body piece -- but, and I hate to KEEP repeating myself: so what? Go find me some serious content that can be solo'd or in which YOUR stat differential makes all the difference and tell me that 185-ish to any stat isn't enough. At that rate, why don't we just petition for primeval brews to be a non-temp item? Because that's what it sounds like to me.

People are advocating for the ilvl system with this REALLY slipshod logic. "well, it's not like the bst axes are -THAT- big a deal or -THAT- hard to get." "well, I'd lose X stat that I really wouldn't have in spades if it weren't for ilvl." "well, I'd have to grind a bunch of xp to level up all my jobs."... so you want to keep a system that's butchering the game because it isn't -super- inconvenient? Is it that easy to pacify most players?

Maybe I'm the only one who really sat there and got my first 119 piece by grinding the rem's tales. That's got to be the reason. Clearly, you don't seem to understand exactly what "grinding xp" is all about until you've done that. Go do me a favor and grind yourself exactly 1 piece of Artifact 119 from it's non-109 level and then come back on this thread and tell me exactly how long that took you. Now go do it for 4 other pieces or suck it up and do the SKCNMs and the ark angels. Now do that for 22 jobs.

Ilvl is terrible. How many ways do you need it explained to you and in how many languages?

[Rubeus]

@malithar: that's a lot like saying "we know you busted your rear for this nocturnus set that has a base 5% to convert damage on top of the shadow set and -DT set and makes you a better paladin on the whole, but because it doesnt have ilvl stats, we've introduced fiat lux hard mode that you'll never get to do because nobody does enough campaign even with Trust NPCs and ilvl gear as it is. Please go bust your rear some more for a chance to get Nocturnus+1 at ilvl105 in a ilvl119+ battlefield so you can toss your old nocturnus stuff and keep this nocturnus stuff because we didn't have the foresight to make your actual stats compensate."

Replace nocturnus and fiat lux with practically any "butterfly" piece in the game and its acquisition method and you have the current situation. We have every right to be upset. Our gear didn't suddenly become crap overnight. It took stat vomit to make it suck overnight, and nothing else. Any given page of this thread will attest that none of the adoulin gear has any "butterfly" capabilities, just what we should already have at our level.

Yes, I get that gear gets replaced. Yes, I get that every expansion does its job to replace it. But if you as a company come to me and say "we'd really like it if you paid us 12.95 a month and we'd also really like it if you'd pay anywhere from 9.99 to 29.99 for this upcoming expansion we're gonna do which is a skeleton of what it will eventually be as we continue to work on it. That's cool, right?" Then by god, you'd better incentivize me continuing to fork over my dollar bills, because I didn't just bust my rear in the last expansion for ALL my gear to be pointless.

Take a look at relic (NOT reforged relic! JUST RELIC!) Relic was released in, what, Zilart or Promathia? I can still remember when NOBODY had assassin's armlets; you had to be part of a hardcore LS that did dynamis (and not many did!) AND have enough "points" to be able to lot it, AND pray to Altana it dropped. But that didn't make your other gear worthless. Lets use BST as an example:
I spent a week killing Dragonscaled Bugaal Ja for beast bazubands. A week. For the ONLY gloves that, at the time, affected pets. THE ONLY GLOVES.
I spent a month getting all the Monster gear in Dynamis so my BST could call pets and Reward them and not be terrible at it.
I spent a week getting all my BST AF for Charm and Tame and Killer Traits and all that jazz.
I spent another month getting through ASA, AMK, and ACP so I could have -10DT and Haste for my pet and have a reduced Call Beast timer and some pet double attack.
I spent a month getting all my Ferine gear to +2 so that I could have better stout servant, spur, reward, some more pet stats for ear/back/neck, etc.
I spent another month getting the oneiros cappa and moepapa stone and Armada Sollerets augmented (since they're the only boots).
I spent another month getting pet -PDT and +MDB axes in trial of the magians.
So 5 months and 2 weeks at 12.95 a month and you would now like me to grind until my fingers bleed for reforged gear and a 119 axe that effectively doesn't do anything WHILE also telling me that ALL my other gear would make me get 1-shotted.

"butterfly pieces" my foot. You're absolutely right in that I believe I deserve to be able to use what I've worked for. No other expansion eradicated the necessity of any of my other pieces that I've worked for. Not one. To say that I didn't work hard enough for it is arrogant beyond reproach in the first place.

[Demonjustin]

@Demonjustin: I understand where you're coming from. I do. It's not that I don't. But you're STILL neglecting the whole picture in regards to RDM. Here, I'll do the work for you to prove my point:
pillager/plunderer total +dex: +140

atrophy/vitivation total +dex: +96

hume male base dex on thf/dnc: 97

hume male base dex on rdm/dnc: 89

total difference in dex between a 119 rdm and a 119 thf, visible armor only: 52.

RDM dex in such a case if it were lvl 119 and not ghetto 119: 185

you're telling me that with +96 dex as a NATURAL state before any gear is considered at a REAL 119, your RDM has something to complain about in terms of accuracy/crit? I challenge you to find 1 mob in the game that isn't -real- content (in which RDM should probably be casting and supporting its party as opposed to meleeing) whereupon your dexterity score is going to be the deciding factor between the 1 hit or crit that would've killed said mob vs total defeat for you and/or your group. I would say Einherjar, as that's the only highly-time-limited event in which I can imagine a RDM meleeing being a crucial aspect of defeating all the mobs, but at 99 you're already at capped pdif anyway.

But you're not just saying dex. you're saying all stats. You're getting at the whole ball of wax, and I understand that. It's not that I don't understand that. It's that you don't see (to me) that if your character were wearing an Ark Scythe and Stumbling Sandals and nothing else, you'd still be at 185 dex. And presumably somewhere near 200 on all your other stats, and your pdif would be a non-issue for accuracy/evasion/all those other sprinkled stats involving magic and doing stuff.

No offense, and I have a very high degree of respect for you, but that sounds a lot like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. "But I'm still missing 52 dex over thief. :\" well yeah dude. It's thief. They kind of need it more than you do. 185 isn't high enough for you? ALL your stats being 185+ aren't high enough for you? I'm staring at my RDM/DNC right now and his lowest stat is VIT at 84, so presumably you'd be in the ballpark of 170 VIT at 119 naked. But you'd also have Rapture, Ebullience, and a third strategem charge at the much more useful RDM/SCH combo. I mean, me personally? I'd even be willing to take the same exact VIT I have right now just to be able to do that. That's practically a divine seal and a diffused amplification every other minute.

Yes, it's only +21 to all stats -- for the body piece -- but, and I hate to KEEP repeating myself: so what? Go find me some serious content that can be solo'd or in which YOUR stat differential makes all the difference and tell me that 185-ish to any stat isn't enough. At that rate, why don't we just petition for primeval brews to be a non-temp item? Because that's what it sounds like to me.

Well to answer the question of serious content, I quite honestly melee in high end content. I do 119 Delves and Difficult Merit Point NM battles on my RDM with /NIN. The one I have the most experience with is Gessho due to a friend of mine trying desperately for the head piece for his NIN and Gessho is no push over. His EVA is quite high and in my full Accuracy TP set I only cap accuracy with Composure, Gain-DEX, Sushi+1, and Madrigals. While I admit I'm the exception to the rule in this fact since you'd have a hard time finding any other RDM who probably even enters Difficult MPNMs let alone melees in them as a DD, losing some of these stats would truly hurt my ability to participate in the content. I understand where you're coming from but in the end it would hurt the job, 52 DEX for instance is a massive loss to me, that's around 39 Accuracy I believe that I'd lose in the process. Mind you I'm stacking a ton of Accuracy as it is that's not easy at all to make up for. The other thing to look at is the defensive stats which I know the same arguments apply to, that RDM is a RDM not a THF and thus doesn't need the same kinda EVA or DEF they'd get, but it does hurt the job. Right now my gear I use for TPing for instance is 55 over my Atrophy/Vitivation gives, normally not much but even in old content this can matter for RDM since our EVA is really low to begin with, even in this gear I don't cap EVA rate on the pathetic 110 Delve NMs.

I'm not saying it's the most important thing in the world, but it would hurt me if they did this change.



As for the subjob thing... while yes some subjobs would become more powerful potentially such as /SCH getting extra strats and charges(as well as Stona!) I really don't think they'd do that for us anyways. I think they'd more quickly go with the merit leveling idea(one which I like by the way though it'd much more likely be Job Points), if they did that though it'd remove the chance of getting extra subjob abilities and such since our stats would only increase via Merits/JPs rather than a true level up. In either case, it's a nice thought but I doubt if they did remove item level that we'd get that too as a result.

People are advocating for the ilvl system with this REALLY slipshod logic. "well, it's not like the bst axes are -THAT- big a deal or -THAT- hard to get." "well, I'd lose X stat that I really wouldn't have in spades if it weren't for ilvl." "well, I'd have to grind a bunch of xp to level up all my jobs."... so you want to keep a system that's butchering the game because it isn't -super- inconvenient? Is it that easy to pacify most players?

Maybe I'm the only one who really sat there and got my first 119 piece by grinding the rem's tales. That's got to be the reason. Clearly, you don't seem to understand exactly what "grinding xp" is all about until you've done that. Go do me a favor and grind yourself exactly 1 piece of Artifact 119 from it's non-109 level and then come back on this thread and tell me exactly how long that took you. Now go do it for 4 other pieces or suck it up and do the SKCNMs and the ark angels. Now do that for 22 jobs.

While I won't say it's exactly fair, this character I'm using to post actually has gotten quite a few chapters with sparks, it's all I use his sparks for, so that I don't have to do 109 or 119 fights on him till he's ready for it. I don't think it's fair to use him as an example though since his sparks are all from leveling and are really more of a side thing than intentionally farming for them. That said, I have farmed sparks before with the intent of getting 119 armor. No it wasn't all from that and not even close to doing it for all 22 jobs, but BLM can quite easily farm sparks honestly just by repeating the kill multiple mobs and 500+ DMG ones. I do get your point though, and I admit they are flaws to the system.

Ilvl is terrible. How many ways do you need it explained to you and in how many languages?

I agree it's terrible in many respects, but they are trying to fix it up, and there would be damage done to the game, jobs, pieces of gear, and player's time spent on gear were it removed. I'm not saying I necessarily want to keep it, but I won't lie and say if they removed it tomorrow part of me wouldn't be angry that they did. Part of me wants it to stay, part of me wants it to go, I honestly do think at this time that keeping it does less harm though.

[Rubeus]

... your atrophy/vivation ALREADY is 52 dex shy of what THF gets. Your argument doesn't make sense. And if the gear you were using did have any +DEX on it, you could make up that 52 dex without having to sacrifice a whole bunch of other stats that vitivation/atrophy gives. You can tapdance around it all you like, but if your RDM had the INT/MND/CHR that atrophy/vitivation gets without actually having to wear atrophy/vitivation+1 sets, you could feel free to wear +accuracy and +dex sets with a greater degree of freedom. You're still missing the forest for the trees. Again, I really do have the highest respect for your opinion, but if your argument has holes in it, people like me are going to hole-punch them. This is one such case.

Removing it now might do more harm in the short term, but you really feel that the long-term would suffer for it? How? If anything, we'd be stronger. Your gear choices rise exponentially with the removal of ilvl in favor of actual levels, in ANY form. merit levels, actual levels, I couldn't really care less. Anything would be better than this.

What about people who don't have BLM? What if you only have, say, Dancer. How does a person who only has DNC farm sparks effectively? You can't even break 500 damage except on weaponskills. That's fair? I have a Maat's Cap, so, I couldn't really care less personally. But if your job can't do it, then -you- can't do it without spending time getting a job that can. That amounts to time spent leveling some job you can't gear properly without a ton of effort that you don't really care about (spells aren't cheap, I'll remind you) in order to get the job you DO care about to top shape. Hardly fair.

edit: DNC is the go-to for Dynamis currency farming (for obvious reasons) so assuming your end-goal is to have a relic to get you into the invites to the top-tier events, DNC would be the job to do. Assuming you realize that before leveling anything else and therefore monopolize on your kill/time ratio, it behooves you to increase your survivability and DD performance. Doing so on just DNC is nigh impossible though. I have a THF mule, and in 24 hours of farming she -might- get 20k sparks. Maybe. Sometimes. That's with trying to stack RoE goals to everything possible in Ceizak (including drops) and killing the Mandragoras until they become an endangered species. Your argument is that I should spend 200k+ in gil and 3 days in Bostanieux Oubliette getting her to BLM 99 so I can swarm my way through Abyssea-Vunkerl's Helter-Skelter until I can farm 50k in 6 hours so I can do this 4 times to get a single piece of 109?

Sounds awesome. I'll get right on that.

[Vold]

we do not have any plans to change or remove the item level system at this time.

Hmmm. Looking at your position amongst the NA community team, wouldn't you be considered...the leader? Perhaps, the "admiral" of the bunch? Curious, because: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZu-gOeBF8s

[Rubeus]

I could not explain it any more thoroughly than I already have. I haven't heard 1 good argument supporting it, and Camate has already said they don't have plans to change it, which is a nice way of saying "get over it." So that said, I believe I'm done beating this dead horse -- we already have enough Animal Glue here to make an alchemist rich. Maybe if I unsubscribe for a few months, they'll put a few more band-aids on our decapitation and this'll be within tolerable limits again.

Jerbob, I wish you the very best of luck fighting the uphill struggle that is "their vision" of FFXI versus what the players have asked for since the crystal war and beyond. At this point, I'm convinced the developers use keyboards made of traverser stones -- for how else do you explain the Atomos-like vacuum of our pleas for a better game, other than the Avatar of Time himself replacing all our cries for fairness with .gifs of cats chasing laser pointers?

[Genoxd]

Apologies, I was not very clear. I was talking about Salvage II. If you're talking about Salvage II then apparently I just suck!

I was talking about Salvage II. Salvage I is level 75 content.....it's a total joke and I could probably do it with just perpetuation gear and no ilevel stuff at 99...

Edit: To be clear. Last time I did Salvage level 75 version I killed the bosses in 2 blood pacts. All but two NMs died in 1 BP.

[Demonjustin]

... your atrophy/vivation ALREADY is 52 dex shy of what THF gets. Your argument doesn't make sense. And if the gear you were using did have any +DEX on it, you could make up that 52 dex without having to sacrifice a whole bunch of other stats that vitivation/atrophy gives. You can tapdance around it all you like, but if your RDM had the INT/MND/CHR that atrophy/vitivation gets without actually having to wear atrophy/vitivation+1 sets, you could feel free to wear +accuracy and +dex sets with a greater degree of freedom. You're still missing the forest for the trees. Again, I really do have the highest respect for your opinion, but if your argument has holes in it, people like me are going to hole-punch them. This is one such case.

See this is why I think there's a miscommunication here. If you take off the extra stats from the gear you have to determine how much of it is from the stats itself and how much is from the assumed stats of the jobs at that level for the jobs that can use it. Comparing my current TP set(Lithelimb/Karmesin/Umuthi/Osmium/Battlecast) to what seems to be a RDM's 119 stats(Atrophy/Vitivation) base stats I'd lose roughly 22 DEX.

Looking at head pieces it seems like most have 20+ DEX on them in higher item levels when it comes to a job like THF, Lithelimb has 20 DEX, this means Lithelimb would probably end up without any DEX & RDM would lose 6 DEX as a result. This doesn't open up other options as this is the highest Accuracy head piece for RDM anyways and is our only 8% Haste piece for head besides Zelus. The point I'm trying to make is that it's not a matter of what our Atrophy/Vitivation is lacking, I know it's melee stats aren't high, that's why I wouldn't ever use it for meleeing. The point is that the light DD gear we have been getting has been giving us a lot of stats we'd otherwise not have because SE likely wouldn't balance it around RDM's stats and instead would base it off of a job like THF. As a result RDM would end up with the short end of the stick, losing stats from the light DD gear we've been getting that has made it so nice for the job.

I admit, maybe I'm just seeing things here where there are none, but to me it makes perfect sense. They'd likely look at the jobs on it, see it as a light DD piece, and then remove stats from it that the majority of light DDs already have whilst leaving little on it of the sort. This would result in jobs like RDM who are put on these pieces even though they don't necessarily fit the common paradigm of the other jobs listed on the piece without those same stats, as a result the stats of the job would go down.

Removing it now might do more harm in the short term, but you really feel that the long-term would suffer for it? How? If anything, we'd be stronger. Your gear choices rise exponentially with the removal of ilvl in favor of actual levels, in ANY form. merit levels, actual levels, I couldn't really care less. Anything would be better than this.

In the case of some jobs yes, I admit this would be true, for instance Thaumas Coat would become much more viable again as a result of such a change. For RDM, I can't really remember anything I used to use I'd want to use again. The only item that might stand out really is Kudzu Aketon, it's the only piece I'd remain in long enough for it to matter to me what it's level was. I use some old 99 pieces for things like Fast Cast or Enhancing but nothing long enough it truly would benefit me one way or the other if this change happened.

The main reason I don't even like item levels is the fact that it makes the Trust system suck in a lot of ways for me since I have to melee to use them at level 119. This is really part of why I'd be mixed either way though. If it's left as it is I still see some issues popping up with item level that wouldn't have happened if it were never even done and I do think it was always an issue to begin with. That said I also have changed how I play the game quite a bit, I've dropped some old gear, I've come to realise the benefits of it such as light DD gear benefiting my job more, and the fact that in a way item levels really don't impact the overall game that much for me anymore, at least not in a negative way that's nearly as noteable as before.

I won't lie and say my want for it to stay isn't entirely selfish, it is. My entire basis for why I'd want it to stay is because it does actually benefit RDM from my point of view and thus the removal of it would actually damage my job. At this point however I really don't feel like I'm even arguing for keeping or removing it so much as trying to explain my point of view on how I think it hurts RDM so that unless I'm seeing things it's clear that while it'll help some jobs, it's possible some jobs will also be hurt.

What about people who don't have BLM? What if you only have, say, Dancer. How does a person who only has DNC farm sparks effectively? You can't even break 500 damage except on weaponskills. That's fair? I have a Maat's Cap, so, I couldn't really care less personally. But if your job can't do it, then -you- can't do it without spending time getting a job that can. That amounts to time spent leveling some job you can't gear properly without a ton of effort that you don't really care about (spells aren't cheap, I'll remind you) in order to get the job you DO care about to top shape. Hardly fair.

edit: DNC is the go-to for Dynamis currency farming (for obvious reasons) so assuming your end-goal is to have a relic to get you into the invites to the top-tier events, DNC would be the job to do. Assuming you realize that before leveling anything else and therefore monopolize on your kill/time ratio, it behooves you to increase your survivability and DD performance. Doing so on just DNC is nigh impossible though. I have a THF mule, and in 24 hours of farming she -might- get 20k sparks. Maybe. Sometimes. That's with trying to stack RoE goals to everything possible in Ceizak (including drops) and killing the Mandragoras until they become an endangered species. Your argument is that I should spend 200k+ in gil and 3 days in Bostanieux Oubliette getting her to BLM 99 so I can swarm my way through Abyssea-Vunkerl's Helter-Skelter until I can farm 50k in 6 hours so I can do this 4 times to get a single piece of 109?

Well no. I admit I didn't really address that outside of a very anecdotal answer consisting between the 'mule' this account uses and the way I farmed sparks for my GF's chapters.

My real answer in all honesty would be to pick up some of the Bayld/Sparks 117 gear and trade in seals for SKCs, do them on Very Easy or Easy solo and farm them that way. Between the Login Campaign points and general farming done whilst leveling & so on you can easily amass enough points to get them. I won't say soloing AAs is exactly the easiest thing in the game but it's also doable if you try on some jobs.

In the end I'll say it does suck having to upgrade these to get to 119 gear but I'm also somewhat amiss at your point in it all. The 119 gear for each job would likely be scaled down to 99 gear with similar stats but without the stat spam all the same and would become just as valuable to the job. You could say this is a way of leveling them up to 119 in a sense but then it's really just another form of grinding with you already said shouldn't be as much an issue to get rid of item levels in the first place when you addressed the whole idea of pros/cons on the system and one of the pros being you don't have to grind levels again.

Really though the last 2 parts of this post are more or less just answering because I didn't want to feel like I wasn't replying to all of your post. The original bit about RDM was really the only thing I intended to reply to so if you want to ignore this bit then please do as it's not something I really feel to strongly about.

[Malithar]

So 5 months and 2 weeks at 12.95 a month and you would now like me to grind until my fingers bleed for reforged gear and a 119 axe that effectively doesn't do anything WHILE also telling me that ALL my other gear would make me get 1-shotted.

"butterfly pieces" my foot. You're absolutely right in that I believe I deserve to be able to use what I've worked for. No other expansion eradicated the necessity of any of my other pieces that I've worked for. Not one. To say that I didn't work hard enough for it is arrogant beyond reproach in the first place.

Just quoting that, the rest of the drivel is par for the course it seems with you. Have you thought about focusing your attention on single player games that never advance forward in any degree or anything? It's as if you expect everything you ever worked for to remain relevant because you worked sooooo hard for it that it some how validates your entire argument. If you had talked about, idk, Ebody augments, or Legion +1 gear, or camping Niddy for years to get your Ridill back in the day, or anything that actually involved any meaningful amount of time or investment, I'd agree, say that's too bad, the game is moving forward, and leave it at that. But you're bringing up relic armor? Empy gear? Gtfo. No one has claimed anyone hasn't worked for what they have. But this is an MMO. Guess what you have to do in an MMO to remain relevant as time goes by?

What's even more asinine is most of the stuff you mentioned in that very post is still relevant! Cool, you got your AF, relic, and Empy, that's one less incredibly time devouring task of terribleness that you have to worry about.

Cancel like you said, one less person demanding handouts in the form of 0 gear progression at least.

[predatory]

I got pissed off and took a 5 month break over the whole Ilevel thing, but then I came back, and when I did I leveled brd on my current char, and now I look forward to doing delve so I can get that Item level gear for my jobs. A better system would have been to let us level through merits granted, but I can't even imagine how much I would hate spending 304958094358043985 years in aby just straight meriting to get all the buffs I get from my various pieces of gear, the only way it would even be feasible to match my various pieces of gear would be if the unlocked the entire merit system and raised the cap from current levels to at least 50.

I have gear for my different jobs that would require me meriting chr, int, mnd, str, dex, vit, weapon levels, accuracy, hp, mp, I'm talking the full gamut, and I hate, I mean I really hate meriting, I always have. I hope they leave the cap at 119, and I hope they open more merits and categories over time, (this coming update shows they have a willingness to do that0, there is no way at this point I want to go back to the old system, just no