Revocation and replacement of item level system

[Malithar]

(On top of your offhand always being about 3 levels behind your mainhand because SEs till thinks Dual wield is overpowered for some reason.)

What are you trying to refer to here?

Whole ilvl debate is a lost cause for both sides, love it, hate it, whatever, either play the game or don't. SE voted to go this route, and for better or worse, it is what it is. Was a rough start no doubt. Was extra silly having half the weapons have 119 options for a long time, while the others had 117s at best. Hell, it was beyond silly having the the current ilvl cap available one month after SoA came out. Skirmish aug wiping fiasco, RME rage, etc. It's been rough, but after a year of it, it's not so bad at this point.

[Demonjustin]

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.

You picked a bad example. You could literally just swap to your BLU skill gear at the end of the fight so far as I know and you'd get the same benefit as you would fighting from start to finish in that gear so staying in it full time would really be meaningless no matter if they did this or not.



That out of the way. I doubt we will see another expansion any time soon especially one with such mistakes as the item level system was. There was a level of complaints spawned from that system and other changes Adoulin made in terms of pacing that is unmatched by anything in recent history of this game outside of possibly VW's drop rates. I can't see them making this same mistake again so easily, in fact, I'd say the team as of late has been much quicker to learn from mistakes they make and incorporate fixes or workarounds to those issues. We've seen a lot of situational gear, we've seen the Reforged gear sets all be meaningful in some way with hardly any pieces falling through the cracks, every update seems to bring something to the table and hardly ever do they make drastic errors such as a lack of reason to do a piece of content. While they're not perfect, they've fixed a lot of things and been getting better with their design of things in this game over the last year in my opinion, so to think they'd go back and keep progressing with item levels even though it was quite possibly one of the(if not the) single worst received features in the game's history is just insane. I won't say it's impossible, I'd never rule something like that out with this game, but I really don't think it'll happen again after the response we saw upon it's initial release.

At this point it's also somewhat unrealistic to ask for it to be undone because of the amount of gear it's already effected as well as systems implemented that are based off of it such as Trust, Adventuring Fellows, pets, and so on. Another thing is that some of the current pieces would become sort of worse for losing their stat vomit and thus lose their appeal, making some pieces that were sought after much less valuable and angering players who 'wasted their time' getting them. I'm one such person as one example comes to mind, Umuthi Gloves currently beat out my Buremte Gloves in every way basically but when you look at them while ignoring the stat vomit the Umuthi Gloves hold little value. Getting a pair of Augmented Gloves from Skirmish with 4% PDT is a cakewalk and their DEF would have been 1~2 lower. In the end removing it at this point is sadly a bad idea. I honestly hate that it is, I don't like the system and I think overall it's terrible it was ever put in, problems with things like Trust and pets do stem from these issues especially for pieces of gear that aren't 119 but are still optimal which drag our average levels down, and thus weaken those things. Sadly, we're stuck with it, and changing it now could create more issues than it'd solve in the long run besides the fact it'd slow down updates for a few months while they go back and change it all which could also cause people to once more get bored.

All in all, I'd like to see it go, but it's not going to happen, and I think now that it's here it would be more problematic for it to be removed in favor of merits raising our levels even if I do like the idea more than what we've got now.

[Alhanelem]

Yes but that also means we can't use any of the good axes.

A problem easily solved by introducing more ilvl axes. I'll agree that PUP/SMN have the better dal on this one though.

[Jerbob]

To be honest quite a lot (though certainly not all) issues with item levels could be solved by a massive injection of item level capped gear for all occasions, but for that to work then SE must never increase the cap again, or we'll just run into exactly the same problem each and every time. This is also assuming that SE is capable of designing new capped gear appropriately, which I'm not sure I trust to be the case, and is willing to release it in sufficient quantities, which again I don't think we can rely on. It also ignores the myriad other issues with item levels that can't be solved with just pushing the system harder. To sort out all of the issues, it must be replaced with something more stable.

At the risk of repeating myself for some of the naysayers, I think we can all acknowledge that SE don't like admitting mistakes and rectifying them by moving backwards, but there's no reason why people can't express their dissatisfaction with the current system. If enough people lend support or give rational points that disfavour item levels, then SE may listen - even if that chance is slim. The mechanisms for implementing merit levels are already at least in part in place in the form of our existing traditional merits, and item level stats are all calculated mathematically - they can be easily reversed. No content needs to be altered. It's not a big of a task as it first appears!

I will admit that there are problems intrinsic in items that are only "good" because they outlevel other items of a similar type. There's no way to "fix" these items once stat vomit is removed - they will be worse than alternatives. However, it's always been the case that some gear is better than other gear, even newly released - it will certainly require a period of adjustment for players, but the foundation that is created as a consequence will be much more stable for forward movement.

There's also no reason why gear couldn't have a level requirement above 99. I'm not sure if this would be a positive or negative thing overall, but it's something to consider.

[Olor]

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.

Unfortunately many of us don't have access to these... and not all of the good axes (Hunahpu is the axe I like to grind) have max ilevel.... which is stupid.

There is a solution for BST which doesn't ruin the playstyle we used for years - and that is have pet levels determined by BST affinity only and give us more gear with affinity on it. Also, no more dynamic scaling of my pet stats, it's seriously irritating.

[Rubicant82]

Unfortunately many of us don't have access to these... and not all of the good axes (Hunahpu is the axe I like to grind) have max ilevel.... which is stupid.

How do you not have access to them?
Unless you are a "I will only play BST and nothing else no matter what" you most likely have another job that can go to delve.
Delve is a 6 man event now, and it is incredible easy if your group has it down for your play style. Yes I know pick up delves can still be a pain ... oh do I know that all too well, but I digress, Right now you can get beads from the log in campaign that when used (if not used in actual delve to remove NMs) give you 1500+ plasm* These beads come from the field NMs so even if you do not have a delve party/static you can still get the beads, and as long as you have gotten the win once, you can buy the axes you want with Plasm*. Now back to the scenario where you only play BST and nothing else ... well then that is a choice you made. I personally have made relics for a job I don't enjoy playing so I can get what I want for the jobs I love to play. Sometimes to get what you want (item) you have to make sacrifices (play jobs you don't like) or ultimately do without.

[Olor]

My LS has not been able to clear them yet. Some members have, with pick ups, but I personally don't usually do content like that with pickups, especially on support jobs (which is all I have fit to use in this content) because if anything goes wrong I inevitably get yelled at, and it's stressful and I don't play games to not have fun.

The 119 skirmish axe is something somewhat more within reach (have the +1 already) but no one ever shouts for Raz skirmish anymore and my LS mates hate it, and given that I don't know the event well enough yet, I don't really feel comfortable leading it.

At any rate, it still doesn't solve the problem that the best axe for the situation isn't always 119... yet we get seriously punished if we try to use anything else. Anyway please show me a 119 axe with the accuracy and haste of Hunapu? Cause I don't think there is one. For some stupid reason SE decided the 119 version should remove all that desperately needed Accuracy and 1% of the haste: http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Izizoeksi

[Malithar]

Some members have, with pick ups, but I personally don't usually do content like that with pickups, especially on support jobs (which is all I have fit to use in this content) because if anything goes wrong I inevitably get yelled at, and it's stressful and I don't play games to not have fun.

Content like what? 6 man groups? Progression? I can understand the "not familiar with skirmish so I don't want to lead" bit, sure, though I'd look into finding a friend/LS mate/complete stranger who'd lead if you provided the entry KI. But to simply say you don't usually pug current content thats 6 mannable simply because of the "stress" of running with bads, or not being up to par on said support jobs, is just a cop out for not being able to obtain the gear.

You also left out the AA MR axe, JSE axe, and the 119 plasm axe from something in Marjami. All of which more than serve their purpose of a main hand 119 and are easily acquired. See you mention the bit about the 115 having better pet stats often. If that's the case, what's so wrong with off handing it? I can't remember the last time I saw someone on Bst that wasn't /Dnc.

[Olor]

Content like what? 6 man groups? Progression? I can understand the "not familiar with skirmish so I don't want to lead" bit, sure, though I'd look into finding a friend/LS mate/complete stranger who'd lead if you provided the entry KI. But to simply say you don't usually pug current content thats 6 mannable simply because of the "stress" of running with bads, or not being up to par on said support jobs, is just a cop out for not being able to obtain the gear.

You also left out the AA MR axe, JSE axe, and the 119 plasm axe from something in Marjami. All of which more than serve their purpose of a main hand 119 and are easily acquired. See you mention the bit about the 115 having better pet stats often. If that's the case, what's so wrong with off handing it? I can't remember the last time I saw someone on Bst that wasn't /Dnc.

I've been working on the content with my LS mates, sorry just not interested in going with pickups (have tried 2X, wasn't fun don't want to do it) - I mean I might if I am in the perfect mood and I have all night to do it etc, but no, generally that's not fun and I don't play games to not have fun. I PUG tons of content but Delve is not fun with PUGs.

As for "what's wrong with off-handing it" - I dunno do you offhand level 115 weapons while trying to DD? No? Well then you tell me why it sucks to offhand something with significantly less accuracy etc.

Fact is they suck at giving real levels to the items. Hunahpu is a fantastic axe, has exactly the stats I want for my pet and it's trapped at 115. This is what sucks about ilevel. In olde FFXI the only penalty I'd suffer for an axe like this is maybe it has a lower base damage or higher delay. Now it causes me serious accuracy issues as well. Its fine for lol Abyssea or w/e but for real content it's a drag.

[Malithar]

As for "what's wrong with off-handing it" - I dunno do you offhand level 115 weapons while trying to DD? No? Well then you tell me why it sucks to offhand something with significantly less accuracy etc.

Fact is they suck at giving real levels to the items. Hunahpu is a fantastic axe, has exactly the stats I want for my pet and it's trapped at 115. This is what sucks about ilevel. In olde FFXI the only penalty I'd suffer for an axe like this is maybe it has a lower base damage or higher delay. Now it causes me serious accuracy issues as well. Its fine for lol Abyssea or w/e but for real content it's a drag.

What real content is it such a drag in? By your own posts, Bst isn't useful in any BCs, Delve, Skirmish, etc. So what real content are you doing that A: your pet needs acc and haste, B: you're DDing yourself, and C: the loss of acc in your offhand (which isn't even much of a loss at all, as you state not having access to a 119, let alone 2) is causing you serious accuracy issues?

As for if I offhand 115s when trying to DD, no. If DDing is your goal, then why are you so hung up on what the axe provides the pet? If you're doing content where it's best for the Bst to stand outside and send the pet in, have at it with whatever axe is best for the situation. Exact same applies to if you are DDing, use what's best for that.