Is anyone else worried SE has backed themselves into a corner?

So in the live letter they talked about how with the first expansion they are gonna raise the level cap. Now the problem I see with this is, we're already at i90 gear... So either everything they add in the way of content that comes with the level cap will just drop gear level 60 stuff which will just be vanity junk like CT gear, making all that content instantly redundant stat wise. Or it will be i100 gear, at which point you have to wonder what the point of raising the level cap was in the first place beyond getting new abilities. I'm just concerned that when they raise the level cap, there will be no new content that anyone will need cause our gear now is already better. Sure new players will be able to go for it and skip Basically half the current endgame content. But there's gonna be nothing but vanity stuff for current players at i90 to go for.

Raising the lv cap would, make all your high lv 50+ gear sync lower doing 50- content.

You do know SE can make stuff like Item Level 9000 that requires level 99 to equip or something right?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jomoru

You do know SE can make stuff like Item Level 9000 that requires level 99 to equip or something right?

---

That's kind of my point. Either all gear from now on is gonna be Ilvl 100+ or it's gonna be useless to currently capped players. They came out with ilvl gear too early and it's backed them into a corner of release useless content or make it drop ilvl gear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cabalabob

That's kind of my point. Either all gear from now on is gonna be Ilvl 100+ or it's gonna be useless to currently capped players. They came out with ilvl gear too early and it's backed them into a corner of release useless content or make it drop ilvl gear.

---

They going to keep adding gear the next set most likely 100+, its just item lvl. So people get the feel how much stats are on it.

they can always make smaller ilevel increments later on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jomoru

You do know SE can make stuff like Item Level 9000 that requires level 99 to equip or something right?

---

This is a phenomenon called Power Creep. WoW first became aware of it as a developer during their third expansion and now they are in kind of a rocky spot because of their lack of foresight in regards to it.

Of course, SE can do whatever they want, but that argument is a paper tiger at best. They need to consider the best interest of the game when they make changes, and grossly inflated ilvl is not in anyone's best interest. The OP has a pretty valid concern. Given the current time frames involved, 2.2 will come out in March, leaving 2.3 to come out in May or June. 2.4 will be right around the 1 year mark from launch at that rate. They could have an actual expansion by then. That would mean the highest tier grade would still be ilvl 100.

The problem is how do they deal with a level increase? Do they just add more to the current Ilvl? 51-60 starts at ilvl 100 and just goes up? Do they down grade immediate upgrades in the lower ranges? 52-54 being ilvl70-80, 55-59 is ilvl 90-100 and then level 60 starts at ilvl 100 and just goes up from there?

The good news is they have a lot of time. They are early in the games life-cycle. They can still correct problems like this before they get too far out of hand. Provided they even recognize it as a problem. Otherwise, who knows where the game could be in a few years time... level 75 with ilvl 370? Hopefully they can see that isn't the best way to go.

I don't understand the point of item levels, this is the first time I've ever heard the term.

What happened to gear with special effects or niched abilities? Hidden items? They could have secret gear where the requirements to get it change randomly every day so that nobody could really farm it (and that might encourage players to try other content besides raids to try and find it)

I'd rather they release gear that encourages experimentation in playstyles and character builds rather than arbitrarily making all the numbers in the game higher. A boss with 100hp while I'm doing 1 damage is the exact same thing as a boss with 1 billion hp if the new gear lets me do 10 million damage. I don't want the game to become a retread of the same content over and over with just higher numbers.

It's more bad planning and foresight, next item tier will very likely see WARs breaking 9999 without even needing Thrill of Battle for example, the power creep is already taking place and will only get worse. Please look forward to the whoops we screwed up our numbers we could have prevented it and lots of players told us really early about it but we're just now doing something about it patch.

i think i saw a thread with an identical name....when 2.1 hit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roris

It's more bad planning and foresight, next item tier will very likely see WARs breaking 9999 without even needing Thrill of Battle

---

and expect coil mechanics to hit even harder. despite the big number PLD and WAR have similar EHP.

Only time will tell on this i do hope not but i can see your points

I'm thinking SE needs to consider an ilv cap soon. At this pace the ilv for expansion will be 150+ @.@

Start building out not up. Best in slot (BiS) is the best for this method. Add unique traits to armor and weapons, both job and non job related.

I'm... not really sure what the problem is here. Raising the level cap means making new, stronger gear to fight new, stronger enemies. Yes, eventually the numbers get rather high, and while you can point out that WoW started noticing power creep in the third expansion, they're about to release the, what... seventh? And they're still moving along fine. MMO's work this way without problem. It's just a numbers thing; it doesn't really matter if you have 9k health or 900k health, all it does is separate early content from max level content.

I understand that's not how XI worked, or a couple other MMO's, but that doesn't mean it's any less valid of a method.

FFXIV is nowhere near WoW's level yet, but to make gear appear "better," yes, we will see much higher stats than we have now. That's the big thing: players need the illusion of becoming ever more powerful. Otherwise the content won't seem "worth it" to the masses. It's already happening here. With or without item levels, which are just arbitrary numbers, this would happen.

And speaking of which, yes, it is very likely we will see item levels push past the level cap (because they're already doing that now), and that quest/battlefield rewards will probably not be good for us until the middle-to-end of the new content if we're higher than iLvl80 before it hits. This is done for two major reasons: 1) so as not to undervalue the gear we worked to get up to that point and 2) so people don't whine about their gear being undervalued after working to get it. But someday, those relics/allagan/whatever we all got will be useless compared to new gear. It *will* happen. It already is for some classes. That's how games like this work.

But it's all relative. There's no reason to fret over item levels and damage going into millions. The numbers may be super-hyper inflated but since the mobs will have massive HP pools to match as the content increases, PvE at cap is never any different from Lv 1, and the game's only variations tend to be in the battle strategies as you gain new abilities. Again, it's just an illusion of becoming more powerful. Nearly every RPG in existence does this, and we all love it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LioJen

I don't understand the point of item levels, this is the first time I've ever heard the term.

What happened to gear with special effects or niched abilities? Hidden items? They could have secret gear where the requirements to get it change randomly every day so that nobody could really farm it (and that might encourage players to try other content besides raids to try and find it)

I'd rather they release gear that encourages experimentation in playstyles and character builds rather than arbitrarily making all the numbers in the game higher. A boss with 100hp while I'm doing 1 damage is the exact same thing as a boss with 1 billion hp if the new gear lets me do 10 million damage. I don't want the game to become a retread of the same content over and over with just higher numbers.

---

ilvl has always and will always exist as long as there are stats on gear of any kind. It hasn't always been visible, but it has always been present. Even if you couldn't see it, and they added new fun and exciting stats to gear, each piece of equipment would still have an item level dictating how it is budgeted.

I believe the OP is referring to the time frame in which new things come out and the gear selection this leaves us with. If each update is a straight mathematical upgrade from prior content there is very little in the way of user choice. It's a static choice, pick the mathematically superior piece. There is nothing wrong with new gear coming out and replacing old gear, but the timeframe of usefulness is important, as well as the appearance of player volition in selecting gear.

Right now allagan/mythology is mathematically superior to CT gear is mathematically superior to darklight. This is a very mundane carrot on a stick up a ladder approach. Allagan paired with mythology does give us some interesting options, but the method of acquiry is very limited and the choices are gated by accuracy capping.

Personally I think SE has a very narrow field of vision for many things in the game, and each facet of the game is very compartmentalized and separated from all the other facets.

Why not allow for more options that can be earned via treasure maps or beastman reputation grinding? Why not implement more gear from dungeons that is not clearly inferior?

Simple answer is the work required for this type of progression is exponentially more involved. But honestly, this is what I was hoping for after the game established itself. It creates a much more engaging overall gaming experience as well as allowing for more depth from a player perspective.

Don't really care.

/threadcontribution

There is way to much concern over ilvl. That number does not matter. It's just an easy way to tell what piece of gear is better and give que requirements to instances. What matters is how much str/vit/dex/mnd/int and secondary stats we get per piece. Those numbers are increasing slowly. There is like a 3 stat (primary) difference in 70 and 90. Even with that the numbers don't really matter. The reason you don't want insane numbers is more of server side hardware reasons than anything else.

only read a few posts. this makes sense : raising the level cap to 55 adding i95 gear maat wil be there ypu can not grind this experience, it has to be gained through fighting garuda titan ifrit leviathan hm and em. coil 1-9 to gain one level. Next fight is 2 primals at once with a ct boss. mixing and matching promals witj other bosses like moogle amd ads lol. they can do anything because they have many other titles they can back this up with for new content., and many more bosses frpm all fonal fantasiws.. and summons

typing with toich keyboard. and to gain this level. the foght needs tp be 1 shotted.. 4 primals. hm and extreme. ultima coil 1-5 all in one go

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rhindas

*beautiful, lovely words*

---

You are a fabulous person and I love your post! More of this sanity, please, and far less of the whining, sniveling crybaby tryhards who are butthurt that they're going to lose their specialness when 2.2 drops.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xzanth

*really, really stupid words*

---

This is a fantastic idea on how to get FFXIV shut down in an extremely short period of time.

This is a problem of the genre. WoW's item levels and stats have gotten so out of hand that they're going to trim everything down the next expansion by squishing all the gear's levels and stats, primarily stuff that's awarded by outdated content.

I fail to see the problem, the content difficulty will still be tuned in exactly the same manner, just the numbers will be larger and obsolete content will be easier on those turning up late to the party. Power creep is not all bad, you only have to look back at the fun newer players had trying to break into the raiding scene in FFXI during ToAU, you needed Sea access for the majority of active end game shells, but getting the missions done without an active shell to get you through was the stuff of nightmares. Keeping difficulty as is and not inflating player stats would see the same thing happening with T5/Twintania. That's just not the way to run a popular and accessible console mmo anymore.

The problem is the exponential power/ilvl growth. If they had been smart, each new set would only be 5ish or less ilvl apart. Now that we've already gotten to ilvl 90 and they have an established growth rate, stats will quickly get out of control and so will ilvl requiring higher and higher levels just like WoW did. People value any increase in stats they can get, so even if that item had only +1 STR to it it would be something people grind to obtain.

Stat inflation is not a problem at all until the numbers are so big it's hard to grasp or simply too much trouble to display/relate to, e.g. I have 103,632 VIT and my HP is at 535,246,258 and boss hits me for 14,353,000 per hit.

IIRC Yoshi-P had stated long time ago that FFXIV follows the clean-slate methodology. This will be achieved by a jump in item level each time a new expansion comes out, so every single piece of old gear becomes irrelevant at the new level cap. This allows new players to quickly catch up to current content, instead of having to grind. So yes, if 2.2 iLv is 120 and 2.4 iLv is 150, then it's entirely possible that at 3.0 the expansion, the first end-game dungeons for your daily grind will give items at iLv200.

I think the OP is confused with the item level and required level. It's entirely possible to have a item level 200 item that can be equipped by a level 1 character, if devs put it in, it will be there. The whole reason item level is displayed separate to the level required to equip the item, is so that they can develop independent of each other. Of course, for ease of management and design, devs standardize the iLvs for each tier of content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LioJen

I don't understand the point of item levels, this is the first time I've ever heard the term.

---

Eh, some people say it's the best system to ever exist and it allows them to make "more powerful gear", though XI never needed 'item levels' to make powerful gear, only once the game hit 99 cap and they wanted to go beyond level 99 without raising the cap numerous times. It's mostly to "Gearscore" and "Item level score" basically, since every piece of gear in this game is basic stat gear.

Even the most generic mass produced Korean MMORPG has better gear than this game and not all uses "item level" to designate it - most utilize "item sets". SE did back themselves in a corner but they wanted ARR to be standard, after all.

I thought this game was built around the concept of power creep?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dedayius

The problem is the exponential power/ilvl growth. If they had been smart, each new set would only be 5ish or less ilvl apart. Now that we've already gotten to ilvl 90 and they have an established growth rate.

---

This is touching on what I'm worried about, it's more that the item level is too high too soon, they really shouldn't have gone beyond ilvl 60. Cause now all gear from now on is going to have to be ilvl90 or be useless, when 60 cap hits there's gonna be a ton of level 51-60 gear on market boards, will any of it get touched? No, cause we already have gear that is better than that by 20-30 levels. Gear level 60 equipment should be better than gear level 50 equipment we have now, or at least only slightly worse in the case of top end worked hard for allagan etc. but the only way that's gonna happen now is if the gear is already ilvl 100+ and the ilvl is still gonna go up before the first expansion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tupsi

though XI never needed 'item levels' to make powerful gear

---

The issue there is that gear was assigned stats entirely by hand with absolutely no yardstick, much like in Everquest, you had pieces of gear that were 'best in slot' or at least very close for a long long time, I was still wearing my Robe of the Azure Sky when I was raiding in Planes of Power, many other high end pieces of Kunark gear were the same lasting through 3 expansions worth of content before 100hp/mana was no longer the golden standard to aim for. In some respects FFXI was even worse, some rather low levelled pieces of equipment were good right into the end game, whereas a good amount of high level gear had absolutely no purpose or worth whatsoever. Some pieces were so strong that they pretty much locked down a slot and almost any alternative was a novelty at best (HQ elemental staves spring straight to mind). Even pre expac WoW had similar issues despite it's mix of generated stats sprinkled with 'novelty' effects. Some of those items were incredibly strong for their level purely because of those secondary effects (Skull of Impending Doom, Invulnerable Mail, Green Whelp Armor) regardless of how bad the stats on them where.

Whereas with this system, items are fairly consistent with only the Aetherical gear throwing up the odd (but still not very dramatical) surprise, lets face it, compare any of the 'useless' ilvl 90 pieces in this game to something like Claustrum from FFXI.

Whilst yes, it'd be nice if gear got spiced up just a little, it wouldn't take much to repeat the HQ stave scenario. I'm not sure if SE have the manpower to balance itemisation like that.

Since the different between 70->80 and 80->90 gear is so minor, as long as it continues the trend, I have no fear in power creep. As long as there are no HUGE jumps, like 85->90 gear in WoW. I think they'll do this just fine.

Sort of, but not like a scared gazelle backed up against a cliff watching the wolves eyeball them as their meal for the day...

It's more like someone who offered to babysit for a friend only to realize what a rotten brat their friend's kid is.

Eh... I've always thought of iLvl as an additional means of progression as rather dull (and somewhat convoluted) personally. If you need to stretch progression out further, just let items fall where they may and extend normal levels (or add alternative ways to boost stats). If you want to go with an official system of item levels, then make skills unlock via quests and get rid of the standard leveling bit entirely. I'm not a huge fan of the latter, but eh; it would keep things somewhat sensible...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aicasia

ilvl has always and will always exist as long as there are stats on gear of any kind. It hasn't always been visible, but it has always been present. Even if you couldn't see it, and they added new fun and exciting stats to gear, each piece of equipment would still have an item level dictating how it is budgeted.

---

If you mean an intrinsically-defined (though possibly hidden) iLvl, that hasn't always been the case, nor does it need to be.
Items can have stats specifically associated with them on a one-by-one basis; you don't need to have them divied up into defined tiers which all balance to an exact standard within.

Item level was an intrinsic part of the itemization design in this game. It's an internal statistic that determines how much of a primary attribute an item can have as well as the maximum grade of materia that can be attached to it. Materia attribute caps are also determined by item level. An item level 90 body and leg slot item cannot have more than 29 of its primary attribute, and this determines the caps for secondary attributes (accuracy, crit, etc) as well as things like weapon rating for weapons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

If you mean an intrinsically-defined (though possibly hidden) iLvl, that hasn't always been the case, nor does it need to be.
Items can have stats specifically associated with them on a one-by-one basis; you don't need to have them divied up into defined tiers which all balance to an exact standard within.

---

One item is comparable to another in some manner.
One item will be better than another. One item will be as good as another. One item will be worse than another.
There are certain guidelines the devteam has to follow to ensure where an item is in relation to another, such as "10 Crit is as good as 20 Skill Speed".

Item Level itself might have not existed mechanically at any point, but the development guidelines do. Thus Item Level exists at it's most base form, the guidelines on how to compare an item to another.
Sometimes the developers fumble, yes, and make an item horrendously overpowered or underpowered by misjudging the intricacies of their own game, so a system of hard-locked formulae that dictates how much of something an item can have has been created, and it was named Item Level

Technically, SE COULD just change the numbers from increments of 5, to increments of 1.
(Such as i55 becomes i51, i60>i52, i70>i53, i75>i54, i80>i55 etc. Even 0.5 increments work too. i55 could be i50.5 i75 could be i52.5)

This of course doesnt stop them from making numbers get too high in other stats.
Which I hope they lower the drastic changes, but by doing so, hinders their ability to lock people out of content based on numbers. (which we know they want to do.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roris

It's more bad planning and foresight, next item tier will very likely see WARs breaking 9999 without even needing Thrill of Battle for example

---

I really, truly, do not see why this is a problem. It's just a number. Its significance is in proportion to other numbers, not the number on its own. Can scaling get out of hand? Probably, if the jump between the end of one expansion and the beginning of another is just waaaaay huge. Is power creep innately bad? I don't think so.

It's called vertical progression, OP. Not much of a corner, since they intended to go the vertical progression route. When they raise the cap, they keep raising gear level just as they've been doing.

We will never have iLevel 200+ because PS3 can only count to 199.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skies

One item is comparable to another in some manner.
One item will be better than another. One item will be as good as another. One item will be worse than another.
There are certain guidelines the devteam has to follow to ensure where an item is in relation to another, such as "10 Crit is as good as 20 Skill Speed".

---

Hence why I said intrinsically-defined. A general, "thiis item is stronger than that one" is distinctly different to everything falling into a defined 'tier' that dictates its stats.


And even then, items don't have to be universally comparable. Look at PSO:
Bringer's Rifle - Special Attack fourths HP.
Anti-Android Rifle - Special Attack paralyzes enemies.
Heaven Punisher - For half of the day (based on internet beat-time), the special attack rains giant purple death lasers on up to (IIRC) 12 enemies.
Frozen Shooter - Freezes Things.
Yasminkov 9000v - Strong raw attack, but shotgun-level range.

To compare the weapons in terms of raw stats would be folly. The item level there was essentially "SPECIAL WEAPON" vs. "Not". There were some exceptions to the rule and there were some special weapons that were clearly more useful than other, but it wasn't a clear-cut X = Y > Z or anything like that.

And it. was. good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aureliami

We will never have iLevel 200+ because PS3 can only count to 199.

---

255 as per memory limitations :P

I'm glad to see people are brining up Power Creep. Hope this video can help explain the very heavy and very real issues surrounding it to those still fuzzy on it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

"Incomperable" in this case would be things like horizontal progression and ELEMENTAL EFFECTS.