Encumbrence = Lose 20 levels.

Every time I get hit with Encumbrance, I go from level 119 fighting something that hits me for 120 per hit, to level 99 and taking 1200 per hit.

I understand that Encumbrance should remove gear to make things harder, but now it's effectively removing my levels as well. Can you please set this so that the effect does not strip off iLVL gear? I don't understand why my level 119 character fights a level 99 monster no better than it did at level 99. This would not be the case if I had gained my levels legitimately, and not from gear. It's frustrating and upsetting, and I'm sure that Encumbrance = Delevel 20 times is a bug you have overlooked.

Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Danita

I'm sure that Encumbrance = Delevel 20 times is a bug you have overlooked.

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Pretty much sums up the dev team in a sentence

I told them to just quit with the item levels while it still wasn't too late. I think they might not really care, though.

It's an unintended side effect of having >99 "levels" handled through gear....
One that I don't think can ever be remedied due to the game's engine and the way the iLv system works... but I can't truly say for sure... because I am not intimate with the game's code.

I'm not really sure what else to say on the matter other than... *shrug*

Level down (status effect) isn't new to the Final Fantasy series, however I agree encumbrance causing level down is probably worth looking into adjusting.

Encumbrance and Ilevel are both really crappy game mechanics. They could have used merits to avoid this whole situation.

We realize that enemy abilities that remove equipment or give an encumbrance effect have larger impacts now that we've implemented the item level system, and as such, moving forward we will be doing our best to make sure that these kind of abilities are not used by monsters as much. If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.

On the other hand, content that was released prior to Seekers of Adoulin has been balanced properly so that it can be cleared even when getting hit with abilities that remove your equipment or give an encumbrance effect, so we do not have any plans to make adjustments to this content.

Why not just make encumbrance curable?

Fix the encumbrance so it only locks out 2-3 random pieces of equipment at most, like some normal mobs do, not your entire set of gear.

If it stripped off no more than:
neck, ear1, ear2, ring1, ring2, waist, and back item (and reset your TP to zero), then it would be an Encumberence which would have the effect they wanted without being the horribly debilitating, instant-death maneuver that it currently is.

At any rate, thank you SE reps for taking the time to reply to this. I'm impressed with the new spirit of community interaction.