RANT ON :mad:
I'm not clear why we can't have a simple rule.
"Larger Item Level Means Better Gear."
Why is this not the case?
Why is it not the case that the "Recommended Gear" button on the Character panel should just be able to choose the gear with the higher item level.
So, apparently, now White gear can have a higher item level, but lower stats and therefore not be as useful as "yellow" [is that what it is? Higher Quality? From quests?] gear. So item level 285 White gear from a vendor is CRAP compared to IL 279 gear from quests that has a yellow shading across the top. I don't mind that the 279 gear is better, only that it has a lower Item Level. Shouldn't it be IL 290? Why is it not IL 290?
Let's just have a future patch where we fix this so that higher item level means "Better" and the "Recommended" button agrees. How about we do that?
- Is there some other religion around "Item Level" that I am not aware of that prevents this?
- Is there some dependency around Item Level that would prevent this change from occurring?
RANT OFF :p
Item Level? I'm not clear
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06-30-2019, 01:03 AMWindyGamerItem Level? I'm not clear
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06-30-2019, 01:43 AMFelis
Vendor gear is NQ and Quest gear is HQ
On HQ gear the stats on it are at the max cap of the ilevel, while on NQ gear you have to put in materias to bring the stats to the cap. -
06-30-2019, 01:48 AMNezeriusNow? That's how white gear, which is nearly always crafted gear, has always worked. The shiny/gleaming thing in the item icon indicates that a piece of gear is High Quality. Crafters are able to HQ the gear that they craft, allowing players to get the most out of a piece of gear, stats-wise.Quote:
Originally Posted by WindyGamer
It doesn't change iLvl, because an iLvl increase would also increase the materia melding cap to be higher than intended.
Quests, as of Heavensward, have technically been rewarding players with HQ crafted gear.
1. There isn't. Any crafted gear (which can be white, green or blue) simply has normal and high quality version. High quality has more stats.Quote:
Originally Posted by WindyGamer
2. Yes. The entire crafting system is built around getting enough quality to turn an item into its HQ version. -
06-30-2019, 02:09 AMWindyGamer
ooooooooooooooookkkkkkkkaaaaaayyyyyyyyy
But none of that appears to answer the question. If you add stuff to the item, or craft a better item, why doesn't the item level just change to reflect the new stats?
If I understand what you've said, the item level is set before we set the stats. Which does not make any sense to me. If you craft HQ gear, or meld something in, then why not just change the item level to match the new stats. But it sounds like we have a "forced error" regarding lack of Elasticity regarding "Melding". So if we make HQ gear, and increase the IL to match, then we can't meld? Well that's easy. "Make it so" Change the item level, but allow enough elasticity in the Melding rules to allow the melding. Geee Are these levels really that close so that the jump to HQ would break melding? And we still want to meld low quality items to that new HQ gear item? I'm surprised that these limits are really so close that moving to HQ prevents a meld you want.
Surely, the devs have a Polynomial [been wanting to use that word all day long, I admit.] relating stats to DPS [Damage Potency] and Healing Potency and therefore to Item Level. AAAAANNNNDDDD I am suggesting that this polynomial which obviously is related to stats, [and quality] and we could easily add melds, should be a monotonic [Another cool word] function related to Item Level. The example above indicates a glitch in that curve relating the two. Let's remove these glitches, shall we?
Right? -
06-30-2019, 02:45 AMColdGuy
ILvl = Maximum statistics capacity (Max stat cap).
Nothing else, nothing more. You're over-complicating for no reason. -
06-30-2019, 02:46 AMNezeriusBecause it would increase the stat caps past the amount that the devs intended for that item.Quote:
Originally Posted by WindyGamer
The item level determines the stat caps on an item. For example, an iLvl 380 crafted healer robe would have a stat cap of 301 crit. The NQ starting at 190 crit, while the HQ version starts at 211 crit.
Increasing the iLvl would also increase the stat cap. The devs intend for a piece of gear to have a specific stat cap.
It's also possible that:
Their system simply isn't able to have two of the same items with the same name, but different iLvls
-and/or-
Their crafting system can't give out one of two different iLvl version during a craft (for example, i380 NQ/i390 HQ from a craft). -
06-30-2019, 04:57 AMSpiritMuse
In the current system, ilevel is a fixed property of an item, and it determines the maximum to which you can adjust its stats. What you're asking for is for the game to calculate the ilevel according to the item's current stats. That's a very different system, and I doubt it would be easy to change it.
That said I do agree the Recommended button sometimes has some strange ideas on what gear is best. Like it keeps wanting to put the aetheryte earrings on my level 1 characters when the Ala Mhigan earrings have far better stats (as the aetheryte earring syncs to level 1 stats while the Ala Mhigan earrings are fixed at +5 everything). -
07-13-2019, 03:08 AMZohar_LaharIt does however make the way crafted equipment work really silly and dumb, as the topic creator laments.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiritMuse
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07-13-2019, 03:14 AMRivxkobe
HQ has always been vastly superior to NQ gears. Look at lower level gear and compare them, there are many MANY times that when you are leveling at a low level and you have a HQ piece equipped you aren't going to need a new piece for a while because a HQ piece is usually better than the NQ of the next level piece.
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07-13-2019, 03:57 AMKaethra
Here's how it works. And its not how anyone has described in this thread or by how the devs have said it is. You can see it yourselves ingame when comparing items.
item level determines stats on an item, but color quality enhances that. The colors rank from lowest to highest:
White
Pink
Green
Blue
Purple
Then you have normal quality and high quality. And from my experience this can be on white or blue (usually crafted in my experience). This enhances the stats further. Sometimes better than same item level but higher color, sometimes not. Its not very consistent.
The other tricky part is how item level is mostly level based. So there's level 71+ greens with same stats than level 70 blues. But they have a higher item level. Simply because the required level is higher. I think some may even have less stats.
To put it shortly, item level isn't very consistent. I believe it should be. But I don't key in the attributes. Thankfully the inconsistencies will have zero impact on gameplay as they only happen during the beginning of expansions and don't involve gear that would be low enough to bar entry into dungeons (despite possibly having the stats to be alright). But I do think they should consider a more consistent system so that there isn't any confusion. -
07-13-2019, 04:06 AMHyoMinParkGenerally while leveling, higher item level gear is better. What you’re experiencing here is the discrepancy between High Quality white gear and Normal Quality white gear. High Quality will always beat out Normal Quality, sometimes even for gear that is a higher item level. For example: normal quality weapons from Stormblood (e.g., i350, i380 weapons) were worse than a high quality weapon of a lower item level to them (e.g., an HQ i350 weapon was actually better than an NQ i380 weapon because its stats were capped, where as the NQ i380 weapon’s stats were not capped).Quote:
Originally Posted by WindyGamer
However, once you start getting into level capped gear (so, in this case, level 80 gear), things actually get a bit more fuzzy, and higher item level may not always be best for you. Sometimes gear of a lower item level is better than gear of a higher item level depend on the stats on each piece of gear and the job you are playing. For example, my i430 weathered gloves on DNC are better than the i440 Goetia gloves because the i440 gloves have undesirable substats for the job (mainly, skill speed). Last expansion, tanks used pentamelded crafted accessories over the accessories that dropped from Savage (20 item levels higher) because they could meld them and they would turn out to be better (albeit, by a small margin, but still better).
So, higher item level does not necessarily equate to better gear. There are a lot of caveats to consider such as Quality and, at level cap, substats. Of course, Recommended Gear has a funky algorithm to it, but for the most part it gets things right while one is leveling with a few exceptions (e.g., as someone mentioned, the Ala Mhigan earrings versus the Aetheryte earrings on sub-level 50 jobs). -
07-13-2019, 04:09 AMBarraindIlvl reflecting the actual stats of gear makes more sense than the maximum stats of gear, but 14 uses it solely to prevent minimal gains from being able to meld even_more_crit.Quote:
n the current system, ilevel is a fixed property of an item, and it determines the maximum to which you can adjust its stats. What you're asking for is for the game to calculate the ilevel according to the item's current stats. That's a very different system, and I doubt it would be easy to change it.
Nope!Quote:
So there's level 71+ greens with same stats than level 70 blues. But they have a higher item level.
Every item in any given slot of the same item level with the same usable classes has the same primary stats, and the same numerical allotment and distribution pattern of every other item at that item level in that slot.
The caveat is that IF the item has an HQ version and an NQ version, the HQ version will have the maximum initial stats, where if an item DOES NOT have a HQ version, its normal version will have those stats.
https://i.gyazo.com/bffba45aebd304eb...9b6d94ea42.png
4 different rarities (Purple, Blue, Green, crafted HQ green), same damage, same primary stat, same secondary stat allocation (excepting the eureka weapon secondary stats because shootmeinthehead . I mean because RANDOM IS FUN)..
14 is not in any way creative with how its item generation scheme works. Ilvl is ilvl unless its crafted, in which case the NQ version is sub-par.
To directly address level 71 gear, it is the same as every ilvl 390 piece.
https://i.gyazo.com/90bfd0b384a21b59...56398ff54c.png -
07-13-2019, 04:17 AMMistakeNotItem level is just a fixed number for each piece of gear that is not terribly important in and of itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by WindyGamer
Item level matters in exactly three cases:
1) Determining which levels of Materia can be melded to the item
2) Your average item level restricts which duties you can enter through the Duty Finder
3) For DoW/DoM retainers their item level determines how good items they can bring back.
For all other purposes Item Level can and should be ignored. It does not matter - the stats an item provides matter.
It is indeed not always the case that higher item level means better gear. In particular for low level gear where some of it is wearable by all classes, the item with highest item level is not necessarily the item with the best stats for your class.
For crafted items there have always been Normal Quality and High Quality versions of the same item. The HQ versions is significantly better, but keeps the same Item level because it is the same type of item.
In short, the answers to your questions is: Because that is not how Item Level works.
Sure, the game could be changed to have it work the way you'd like it to work, but why should it? Just to fit your preconceptions? -
07-13-2019, 04:20 AMSylveHrmm. I'll try to answer what I think your issue is stemming from.Quote:
Originally Posted by WindyGamer
Item Level determines the stat cap. The cap itself is an individual figure, which is then divided amongst the stats that are present. The total combined present stats are not using 100% of the stat cap though. It leaves room for customization via Materia Melds.
Vendor Gear is Normal Quality. Crafters can make High Quality versions. NQ vs HQ is essentially how much of the stat cap is available.
Now, to use some example numbers to illustrate what you see happening, Lets assume an i285 item has a stat cap of 500, and the i279 has 450.
In this situation, the NQ i285 is only utilizing 70% of its stat cap, leaving it with 350 usable stats.
But since the i279 is HQ, it is utilizing 90% of its Stat cap, leaving it with 405 usable stats.
The result is that the HQ i279 has more available stats to give you than the NQ i285, which is why the Recommended button equips the i279 over the i285.
Another way to describe it, I guess, is that the NQ is a stat penalty, while HQ is the removal of that penalty. The HQ stats is what the piece SHOULD have for its Item Level, but the NQ applies a 30% penalty because the crafter (vendor in this case) wasn't skilled enough to make a quality piece.
An IRL example would be Chinese imitations/knockoffs of a product. It looks the same, it sorta works the same, But its build quality is junk so its inferior to the product it was imitating.
Does that make sense?