Revocation and replacement of item level system

[Camate]

Greetings,

Items levels are not an absolute benchmark for indicating equipment strength. There is a lot of equipment that has extremely special properties, and this creates situations where even equipment with lower item levels may be useful depending on the situation and your job. FFXI is a game where you are able to swap out equipment on the spot to better suit the conditions you are faced with and we feel that having equipment such as this is fitting. Item levels serve to express the core stats of weapons and armor and the values also tie-in to pets, adventuring fellows, and alter egos. As such, we do not have any plans to change or remove the item level system at this time.

[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

[Jerbob]

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.

Reconsidering this standpoint is really important. Please consider all the factors very carefully before making a judgement to retain this moronic system.

[Genoxd]

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.

I can solo every salvage zone on SMN.

On the first floor (other than bhaf) I can kill any mob in 2 BPs w/o ammo. With ammo I can 1 shot nearly every mob. NMs die in 1-2BPs.

I'm confused, what's the issue with pets in salvage?

[Jerbob]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Malithar]

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.

[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.

[Olor]

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.

[Babekeke]

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.

[Alhanelem]

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)