Page 5 of 8 FirstFirst ... 3 4 5 6 7 ... LastLast
Results 41 to 50 of 71
  1. #41
    Player Babekeke's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Windurst
    Posts
    2,273
    iLvl gear has it's pros and cons...

    Pros:
    1)You don't need to grind on every job for another 20 levels (well over 1 million exp per job) to reach 199.
    2)You don't need to skill up another 242 levels of skill for A(+) level skills (even the thought of that for summoning magic makes me shudder!).
    3)Some weapons with multiple jobs instantly boost all of those jobs by 20 levels and 242 skill. Even with a grind to accomplish getting some of these weapons is better than that grind of all the exp and skilling up.

    Cons:
    1)Some non-ilvl gear is still not only useful, it's irreplacable. EG. Casting Sentinel's Scherzo in full aoidos' +1 gear will give you the most potent damage reduction that you can get, along with an extra 5 VIT. Sure other pieces can extend that duration, but you lose some of the potency and/or VIT.
    2)Using said non-ilvl gear on lvl 119+ content can very easily get you 1-shotted. And that's not fun.
    (5)

  2. #42
    Player Alhanelem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Bastok
    Posts
    11,111
    Character
    Tahngarthor
    World
    Shiva
    Main Class
    SMN Lv 99
    Quote Originally Posted by Babekeke View Post
    iLvl gear has it's pros and cons...

    Pros:
    1)You don't need to grind on every job for another 20 levels (well over 1 million exp per job) to reach 199.
    2)You don't need to skill up another 242 levels of skill for A(+) level skills (even the thought of that for summoning magic makes me shudder!).
    3)Some weapons with multiple jobs instantly boost all of those jobs by 20 levels and 242 skill. Even with a grind to accomplish getting some of these weapons is better than that grind of all the exp and skilling up.

    Cons:
    1)Some non-ilvl gear is still not only useful, it's irreplacable. EG. Casting Sentinel's Scherzo in full aoidos' +1 gear will give you the most potent damage reduction that you can get, along with an extra 5 VIT. Sure other pieces can extend that duration, but you lose some of the potency and/or VIT.
    2)Using said non-ilvl gear on lvl 119+ content can very easily get you 1-shotted. And that's not fun.
    I think these considerations may be why ilvl items are limited to certain gear slots, while other gear slots do not have any ilvl stuff (or they don't actually add ilvl-related stats)
    (0)

  3. #43
    Player Olor's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    2,134
    Quote Originally Posted by Jerbob View Post
    Thanks for the reply Camate.

    The difficulty that I have with the item level system is a direct contradiction to what you have passed on to us. Item levels are an absolute benchmark when indicating equipment strength in very important aspects such as defensive capability and bonus attribute values. You have yourself admitted that there are many items with extremely special properties that do not possess the highest level item level. As such, using these special items puts players at a disadvantage in aspects where item level is important. They prevent players being at their maximum possible level. This is unquestionably a defect in the item level system.

    Item levels tie into pets, true. Item levels do not tie into pets in ways that function well in all situations. Equipment restrictions in Salvage are a serious problem for summoners and puppetmasters. Finding effective axes that work for master and pet is a problem for beastmasters. Summoning magic skill does not scale. The list goes on. This is not an effective solution.


    Almost all players love the fact that we can swap gear. It's an integral part of this game that is a foundation upon which everything else is constructed. Item levels damage that key functionality by restricting what equipment we can use in ways that have no bearing on the actual capabilities of the equipment itself. Item levels do not just express how powerful an item is - they express how powerful we are as players. As long as this aspect of our characters is not innate to the character itself, there will be problems.
    This. All of this, but especially the bolded. Like I said earlier, I doubt they would even consider removing ilevel - but then they need to change or remove the way ilevel works with pets and specialized skills like blue magic and we DRASTICALLY need to see more older gear upgraded to ilevel or reasonable-to-obtain replacements for those key pieces.
    (4)
    http://photobucket.com/gallery/http://s19.photobucket.com/user/soulchld4/media/Olorinus-Signature.jpg.html

  4. #44
    Player Xerius's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    San d'Oria
    Posts
    190
    Character
    Zerius
    World
    Asura
    Main Class
    THF Lv 99
    How it should work is that your ilvl should be solely based on your weapon since you can't swap those out during battle anyway (I mean you can but for most jobs, except maybe mages where it's not that big of a deal anyway, you'll take a huge hit). This would help all the armor help text because it wouldn't have to have all of those obnoxious stats on it and you can just put the bonus stats for the equipment and you wouldn't be penalized for wearing older gear by losing 100+ HP, MP, MND or whatever stat your particular job needs.
    (0)

  5. #45
    Player SNK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Posts
    438
    Character
    Snk
    World
    Sylph
    Main Class
    BST Lv 99
    Quote Originally Posted by Olor View Post
    So your response is "Don't play BST" very helpful. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been advocating for fixes so BST CAN BE USED IN ILEVEL CONTENT. Saying "who cares if this is broken you wouldn't be a DD anyway" just proves my point. It's stuff like the only +Pet ACC weapon being level 115 that MAKES BST NOT USEFUL. This is part of the problem. Pets should have stats NATURALLY that are good enough to compete in modern content. I shouldn't even need Hunahpu. That Hunahpu is also 115 and locked there is just an additional slap in the face.
    To be fair, I get to use BST in Skirmish III a lot, and I've used it in AA Galka as well. Granted I have a Guttler and I offhand either the new JSE Axe or the Bee Axe depending on the situation but I think you're being too hard on yourself. I like Hunahpu don't get me wrong but it's not like you don't have other options to buff your pet now that the new food helps alot.

    Also I don't have a 119 yet, but I will at some point, (working on JSE weapon) and even the loss of 2 item levels is a HUGE and NOTICEABLE difference. I also shouldn't have to ignore my pet DD output in order to have decent DD output from me. I need both to be an acceptable DD - hence why BST is not invited to events - because we are expected to gimp one half of our damage or the other to play.
    The general idea of the pet back in the day was them to be a tank and you to support it. Nowadays it's solid jug pets which make BST really easy for a lot of stuff. I know that however having a relic isn't going to get me invited to everything which is why I leveled COR, BRD and WHM for shit where I'll get the gear I want for the job I love. I know you hate the idea of pickups but maybe you should reconsider them if they're being led by people who constantly get wins.
    (2)

  6. #46
    Player Rubeus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Bastok - Fairy/Sylph/Bismarck
    Posts
    146
    Character
    Carcer
    World
    Shiva
    Main Class
    THF Lv 99
    The fact that BST has to buy pet food and waste even more inventory space while .. oh you know what, this has been beaten to death in the "stop ignoring pet jobs" thread, I'm not even going to bother. Just go read that thread and come back -- and then we can hear your argument advocating the awesomeness of the ilvl system when clearly this thread is dedicated to its abolition. This dark chapter of FFXI's long and storied history should be removed and forgotten about as soon as humanly possible.
    (2)

  7. #47
    Player
    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Posts
    1,098
    Quote Originally Posted by Rubeus View Post
    If I were willing to agree that the top 3 body pieces favor MND/INT/CHR and the bottom piece favors STR/DEX/VIT, you're ignoring that your RDM would already be ~+21 to all stats, and so would the thief. Left without the stat fluff, the top 3 pieces would then have INT+11, MND+11, CHR +7. Assuming your HP/MP values also would rise with these changes, that leaves the bottom piece with HP+5 and no MP bonus, being the bottom of the bunch. But that's just the body piece; what about your head/hands/legs/feet? If you take the combined stats of all 5 pieces as a norm and combine them and then apply that to what the job should have, along with the relevant amount of MDB and EVA/MACC/MEVA, you're left with just the extra MACC and MAB. The atrophy tabard would therefore have +10 MAB/MACC, 17 enfeebling skill, 3 haste, and 2 refresh. Oh, and obviously its defense. That's still a great body piece. That it has +14 MP is just icing; but that said, the piece would only read "+14 MP, +11 int, +11 mnd, +7 chr, the 10 MACC/MAB, the enfeebling, haste, and refresh." That's still an easier read than the whole thing, and if your job naturally had the combined stats of the 5 armor pieces and the weapon fluff (including what skills should've brought our accuracy and parrying and so on up to at 119)... what I'm saying is, if you took the unnecessary slag off of the weapon slot, can you really tell me it'd beat out a Magian elemental staff?
    You still seem to be missing the point though for a lot of this. It's not so simple as stripping the stats off like you suggest. You see, now that you've removed all but that 11 INT/MND and 7 CHR for base stats on the mage pieces guess what? All other mages are getting that + as well. Now when you look at their gear they have different pieces with different stats which might set a higher or lower bar for those stats and that messes everything up. It's done like this because the way it's all designed is the item level stats are meant to simulate the stats that the jobs on the gear would have at that level. The body piece I mentioned is a Light DD body, were SE to remove the stats on it RDM would likely end up with less STR/DEX/so on as a result because the way it's stats scale aren't like that of jobs like THF or NIN. It's much more likely that RDM would only get the +21 to each, which you did say but you don't seem to understand how that hurts RDM either. We'd lose valuable DEX, that's valuable Accuracy especially for RDM which struggles with that stat as it is. In either case I'm apparently failing to explain it properly so I'll just leave it be. I don't think the benefits would outweigh the downfalls in some aspects and I doubt they'd ever do such an update after all this work in the first place, I leave it at that.
    (0)

  8. #48
    Player Alhanelem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Bastok
    Posts
    11,111
    Character
    Tahngarthor
    World
    Shiva
    Main Class
    SMN Lv 99
    Yeah, I'd be happy to trade the stat vomit for stats that matter,
    As was previously noted, the stat "vomit" you refer to is to adjust the stats of your character to reflect the base stats that he would have if he was actually level 119 (Indisputably, as a level 119 job you would have more CHR at level 119 than at 99 whether you were a beastmaster or a black mage). As such, taking those "vomit" stats away would not mean more of the stats you want- those "vomit" stats only exist to adjust those stats to what they would be if your character was level 119. That is, they're not going to take the CHR away and give you more STR or INT.

    You will subsequently notice that there are then some modifications to individual stats. These can be taken to be the actual bonus stats conferred by the item. e.g. say an item has +40 INT and its a 119 item; if they wanted the item to give a +5 bonus, it would say +45 INT- 40 being the base value increase for being level 119 with the extra 5 being a bonus from the gear)

    The item level system was created most likely because technical limitations would have made it difficult for them to simply increase the level cap by 20 (of note, the search window would have to be significantly altered to accomodate 3 digit level values). This is also the reason the final level cap was 99 and not 100. Thus, the item level system was really put in in place of increasing the level cap- And increasing the level cap would have caused the same issues- Some older gear would become less useful.
    (2)
    Last edited by Alhanelem; 06-05-2014 at 05:08 PM.

  9. #49
    Player Jerbob's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Posts
    314
    Character
    Jeral
    World
    Phoenix
    Main Class
    WHM Lv 99
    Quote Originally Posted by Genoxd View Post
    I can solo every salvage zone on SMN.
    Apologies, I was not very clear. I was talking about Salvage II. If you're talking about Salvage II then apparently I just suck! The original Salvage I have done (and enjoyed) as SMN, but it still stands as an example of why item levels don't work - one slot influences a massive change in power for my job that, by the design of the job, should not be affected.

    Quote Originally Posted by Babekeke
    iLvl gear has it's pros and cons...
    Agreed, there are benefits in reduced grinding with item levels. However, I would be happier with a fully functional, extensible system that requires a traditional period of levelling up than a broken system that doesn't. Perhaps just down to personal preference. At any rate, a merit point system can be built to incorporate some of the benefits of item levels as part of its functionality.

    Quote Originally Posted by Alhanelem
    I think these considerations may be why ilvl items are limited to certain gear slots, while other gear slots do not have any ilvl stuff (or they don't actually add ilvl-related stats)
    The trouble is, a lot of the specialist gear is in the visible armour slots that are all item levelled. I don't think SE considered the importance of specialised equipment at all when concocting item levels, sadly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Alhanelem
    The item level system was created most likely because technical limitations would have made it difficult for them to simply increase the level cap by 20 (of note, the search window would have to be significantly altered to accomodate 3 digit level values). This is also the reason the final level cap was 99 and not 100. Thus, the item level system was really put in in place of increasing the level cap- And increasing the level cap would have caused the same issues- Some older gear would become less useful.
    This is true to an extent. Some gear is always made obsolete with changes in level cap - it is the nature of the rare spurts of vertical progression that we've had to endure in FFXI. However, the differences in the gear are far less significant with standard level cap increases or differences - for some jobs, even some AF was still useful at level 75, and lots of our level 75 gear remained useful, even just as macro gear, well into the 75>>99 cap increase. No-one worried about using a level 68 Noble's Tunic at level 75, or 80, or 85. Of course, this was predominantly true for mages, as indeed is the case now.

    Item levels make this impossible due to the massive increases in gear power that they bring. No mages would dream of gearing for the defence stat on their gear at 75 or 99, but that's precisely what we have to do these days if we don't want to be one shot. It's lunacy.

    I think we all accept that there are technical limitations that prevent the game from levelling in the traditional sense. SE have made that clear, and that's fine - they were honest about that, and I can accept it. It is their method of implementation that I take issue with, not necessarily the cap rise itself - that's an entirely different kettle of fish.
    (2)

  10. #50
    Player Malithar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Posts
    447
    Character
    Malothar
    World
    Bahamut
    Main Class
    GEO Lv 99
    Quote Originally Posted by Jerbob View Post
    The trouble is, a lot of the specialist gear is in the visible armour slots that are all item levelled. I don't think SE considered the importance of specialised equipment at all when concocting item levels, sadly.
    I don't understand where this idea comes from. Is it because ALL of the older "special" gear we used hasn't been converted to the ilvl system yet? We know Empy gear is on the way at some point. Beyond that, there's only a few select special butterfly pieces that I'm sure will be replaced at some point. It takes time, it's a process.

    If anything, it might even be an intentional process. Maybe they're testing the waters for future expansion to see just how we gear when we're given the option of massive stat bloated ilvl gear in comparison to the +Blue Magic skill gear mentioned above, or a max Refresh set, or Summoning skill, etc.

    Thaumas body is another good example. I know plenty of light armor DDs that rage at not being able to continue using Thaumas effectively in some content due to the liability of it not having the defences of an ilvl body. At least now, they've given those jobs an adequate alternative that is a fair compromise when it comes to offence and the defence given by ilvl gear. It's still interesting to note just how many walk around in it and become more of a hinderance just to gain that additional multi attack.
    (0)

Page 5 of 8 FirstFirst ... 3 4 5 6 7 ... LastLast