Revocation and replacement of item level system

[Alhanelem]

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.

well that's fine honestly. You don't normally swap your weapons in combat due to loss of TP.

[Louispv]

well that's fine honestly. You don't normally swap your weapons in combat due to loss of TP.

Yes but that also means we can't use any of the good axes. The pet damage taken- axes for instance drop your pet down to level 99. SMN and PUP can still use their staves and H2H though. Or the Hunahpu which as absolutely necessary for your pet to ever hit anything because it has pet acc+ on it, is level 115, so either lose 4 pet levels, or offhand it at all times, crippling your own stats by making your offhand 4 levels below your mainhand. (On top of your offhand always being about 3 levels behind your mainhand because SEs till thinks Dual wield is overpowered for some reason.) Plus this locks you into /NIN and no other acceptable subjob, since SE in their infinite wisdom decided BST should be the only job in the game without Dual Wield or a two handed weapon. So Fencer will never have even the tiny use it used to have when you were /WAR.

The whole Item level thing just has too many problems. They still haven't even fixed them all. It would have been much better if they just added Merit category 3 to each job, that cost 10,11, 12 continuing merits in that vein. Have each one increase the stats appropriate to your job by that of a level, and all your skills equivalent to your level, and your pets' stats equivalent to a level. (Which we know they can do, since that's what satchets/animators do.) 10 merits, you're level 100, 11 more merits, you're level 101, 12 more merits, you're level 102 and maybe get a new Job ability or spell in with this one! No R/E/M upgrading nonsense, no comepletly worthless gear because next month they add higher item levels tuff, no dropping 12 levels and taking double damage because your ws gear is a lower level than your melee gear, no having encumbrance drop you back to level 99, No having to reforge... everything, no need to rebalance every damned thing around stats double what they were planned to be, all the problems go away!

Plus that way, you can't jump from 99-119 on every single job at once by just getting the gear on your BRD. You'd actually need to level each one, and SE would get more monthly bills out of us while we did it.

[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.

[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.

[Rubeus]

What you're basically referring to in D&D terms would be Character Level vs what we're currently using, which is Class Level. I like this idea primarily because if I really were lvl 119, I would also continue to garner support job spells and functions. I forget where I read it, but when FFXI was in the development phase in Japan it was suggested that the level cap actually eventually reach 255 (which keeps with Enix's crazy RPGs wholeheartedly). Honestly, if they added a third type of point acquisition specifically for high-tier mission battlefields, achievements, or "end-game bosses" and called it character points, I'd be delighted. Their long-standing reason for not raising our maximum level has been that the on-screen display can't handle it, but we know that the game's data is capable of supporting it.

It could even show up as little +1's on your character, maybe underneath where the game's read-out identifies support job. But SE seems to think this would be catastrophically game-breaking and/or unfair -- a sentiment they alone seem to believe, as the entire player base already knows that if all merit categories were completely uncapped for jobs and stats, and you had all your +1 reforged AF/Relic and your +2 empyrean, you're looking at, what... -40 seconds of recast on a 15 minute ability for any given job, amounting to 1 pDif of accuracy/attack/evasion/etc for merited magic and combat skills?

Let's also not forget the magic accuracy testing done by the BLM community during the TOAU days, when exact values were hypothesized for the qiqirn in Alzadaal for the "sleep>nuke>sleep" method. I myself leveled BLM way back then, and it was common knowledge that if your M.Acc and skill didn't reach, what was it.. 650? That your resist rate would go through the roof. Now here we are with iLvl gear that supports direct magic accuracy and evasion but doesn't provide you with any of the other pDif benefits of being that level. In fairness, I understand that they've stated Adoulin's 104+ mobs won't be subject to as harsh a pDif penalty, but they haven't stated exactly what that reduction implies.

[Jerbob]

The pet levelling issue is a particular irritation to me. I have an absurd sachet superglued to my ammo slot for everything now, and I'm afraid the BP reduction II effect dumped onto it isn't a huge consolation seeing as it could easily be put elsewhere, or on a macroable piece of ammo. I've also just discovered that I'm not going to be able to do Salvage II as SMN because my avatars are locked at level 99 for a significant proportion of it. Spectacular.

It's these little failures that leak through all over the place that help to highlight that the system really doesn't work properly.

... I would also continue to garner support job spells and functions ...

While benefits like this from a proper levelling system would be really nice, I would honestly just settle for a replica of the current environment in merit point form. I am worried that if we ask for too much then SE will start spouting the usual balance issue excuses rather than properly considering the problem. In many ways I do like your suggestion of attaching the progression to content and battlefields, but we have to be wary in case the "merit levels" become inaccessible to new players. Easy stuff like Records of Eminence should be a perfectly functional route to gain merit levels if indeed the system does rely on content, otherwise we'll end up with a "level divide" among players even worse that the item level divide we have now.

I'd really like an official response on this, as unlikely as it may be, so please keep liking / discussing! And apologies if I'm being a little terse, the Salvage issue has made me pretty ratty today.

[Damane]

we have now pushed through ilvl, why change back, yes it has some minor flaws here and there, but nothing grave. Going back now would be worse.

Your Barspell argument kinda fails, because it was allready caped at lvl 99 with 500 enhancing magic skill, besides ilvl gear gets m.eva and m.def stats. and barspells still work great.

[Jerbob]

we have now pushed through ilvl, why change back, yes it has some minor flaws here and there, but nothing grave. Going back now would be worse.

Your Barspell argument kinda fails, because it was allready caped at lvl 99 with 500 enhancing magic skill, besides ilvl gear gets m.eva and m.def stats. and barspells still work great.

I genuinely think going back would be much better. I'm not sure what possible negative consequences reverting back could have. Having levels locked into your character, either traditionally or through merits, avoids lots of the issues that the item levels bring. Yeah, item levels work for the basics - I've never claimed that they don't - but that's really not good enough.

Yes, barspells were capped at 99, and while it wasn't very "future-proof" to hard cap them it didn't really matter unless the monsters we faced got massively stronger. Now we've item levelled up with the appropriate magic evasion/defence on our gear to represent those levels, but from 1-99 the barspells would grow in potency as we levelled as well as our innate resistance. Unless the magic evasion/defence on gear includes that which we would have gained from levelled barspell bonuses, which I highly doubt, then barspell protection is remaining static at level 99 potency. And if they've put some kind of hack in with item levels that compensates for this... well, it's just another hack that tries to stabilise the system. I'm not a fan of bandages on top of amputations.

I do understand what you are saying. It would be significant in terms of work and hastle to implement a replacement for item levels. Patching up the holes that item levels bring, however, I think is worth it, and we've then got a much better foundation in-game with which to move forward.

[Mirage]

I too would prefer that iLvl disappeared, but if that never happens, never again touching the current max iLvl cap while continuing to add new gear might eventually make things work themselves out.