iLevels: Why I'm hoping they aren't raised in 2.4

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Originally Posted by Rex

Except, after that decade, it all became questionable with the introduction of iLevels in XI recently. :/

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No argument there. It happened a lot earlier than that with the level cap increase which sent like half the player base packing.

As much as I agree with the OP, I believe one reason for wanting gear longevity is due the lockout system.

New gear is introduced for new content, cool, get one chance at it once week if your "lucky," not cool (seeing the same loot drop weekly that we already have gets old -_-). Once a new patch is introduced, the embargo is lifted on the previous, and you're given a chance to catch up... rinse and repeat.

I honestly think lockouts aren't necessary, we will continue to play the game despite SE's fears of leaving. Without lockouts, we can actually get use of the gear for the entire span of the patch rather than being "blessed" with the chance to catch up when the gear is already obsolete once the next patch is introduced. Or, maybe that's just me.

I think without lockout, we'd just have, "SCoB: T1 burn strat 4m run for gear". It'd be like that for every turn, every week then offline until lockout is lifted. Not much different from now.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

I think without lockout, we'd just have, "SCoB: T1 burn strat 4m run for gear". It'd be like that for every turn, every week then offline until lockout is lifted. Not much different from now.

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There needs to be more raids, not just coils. I know a lot of people who do coils in a day, then have nothing to do for the rest of the week because everything else in the game is trivial or for casuals that a lot of people don't have interest in.

Given that we know that 2.4 will be the end of the Binding Coil story arc, I believe the iLevel will finally reach its max point. Afterwards, people will be able to gear up as they want with as much time as they want. As a game developer, I speculate that after 2.4 vertical progression will halt (gear-wise that is) and horizontal progression will be introduced. The next step of actual vertical progression would come with the level cap raise and not from gear iLevel (giving players more time to work their way up the ladder).

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Originally Posted by Exstal

I think without lockout, we'd just have, "SCoB: T1 burn strat 4m run for gear". It'd be like that for every turn, every week then offline until lockout is lifted. Not much different from now.

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Even with this, I think people would still play since it could actually encourage leveling other jobs to raid with. More people would have a chance to play within our free company as well since we would be able to mix in experienced players with those that may need some assistance. I can see the party finder having tons of those posts, though.

Personally I hope the next patch is horizontal with new challenges, but with the same rewarded ilv. Instead of higher stats, make the incentive be bonuses to specific skill damages, slight GCD adjustment (x% chance of haste for 10 seconds on hit,) you see where I'm going with this.

Every other major patch for an ilvl increase works great. That way the dev team can take turns trying to cater to the hardcore and casuals without giving too much attention to one group. OP, if you want to play casually, that's fine, but don't suggest that they slow progression for all of us just because you can't catch up. That's being a bit unfair :p

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Originally Posted by Velox

Given that we know that 2.4 will be the end of the Binding Coil story arc, I believe the iLevel will finally reach its max point. Afterwards, people will be able to gear up as they want with as much time as they want. As a game developer, I speculate that after 2.4 vertical progression will halt (gear-wise that is) and horizontal progression will be introduced. The next step of actual vertical progression would come with the level cap raise and not from gear iLevel (giving players more time to work their way up the ladder).

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The Binding Coil will end, but we'll get another endgame raid in the expansion with an ilvl increase along with (more than likely) a level increase. All signs point to the expansion being released after 2.5.