I want 2.2 to be a "reset" for players in full i90 gear. Make Turn 6 a distant goal.

[Nova_Dresden]

Remember what is was like to hit Lv50 for the first time? Blah blah blah and the annoying use of the word "tombstones" instead of the ACTUAL word which is "tomestones".
Seriously, the word is RIGHT on your screen and you read it daily.

Not a chance. Not. One. Chance. You don't erase gear progression during a patch. What you're wanting is what comes with an expansion and level increase, not with a patch. It's just not happening.

Did you notice that the average item level has four slots, and our HP bars have space for 3 more digits?

Part of that is because it's a LOT easier to program in unnecessary stuff like that now than to have to recode the game later to handle larger numbers. If you ever saw how badly they rigged the FFXI code to handle that kind of stuff after a while you'd understand. Besides a Warrior in higher item levels now can probably break 10k health with Thrill of Battle active let alone when better gear surfaces, but it's mostly to prevent having to jump that hurdle in the future.

Agreed. Not only do they need to reserve ilvs for the next CT
but they'll need space to fit in the new crafted gear as well as gear drops from the new dungeons.

If they add any crafted gear it should most likely be ilvl 80-85, and SE has already drilled it home that there will NEVER be a BiS crafted item to minimize RMT exploitation. New Tower gear will most likely be ilvl 90 since a tier of progression seems to be in increments of 10 (60, 70, 80, 90, etc.) lagging behind the current incarnation of Coil with occasional half-tier in increments of 5 like WP gear and Allagan weapons. It gives you 3 options of obtaining ilvl 90 (coil, tower, and myth tomes) to take on turns 6-10. Assuming they keep the stat weights even where a primary stat is an increase in small numbers then 10 item levels is completely sufficient to be an upgrade from T1-5 coil gear with some new 105 weapon on turn 10.

It takes four months to get full i90 in ONE job, of which we have access to NINE on each character.

Exactly. I have both Warrior and Paladin at 50 and I'm still gearing both of them while working on Monk. If you're a one-job-wonder then yeah, it's going to get stale and really, REALLY fast. That's all on you though, not SE.

Insane FFXI nostalgia.

24-72 hour spawns that resulted in a zero-sum loot system are a horrible, HORRIBLE idea. Several linkshells never needed one drop from those NMs but still claimed them and killed them to sell the drops. If you couldn't afford their prices they just let them hit the floor, no sweat to them. What you're wanting is a gameplay that doesn't exist anymore and for very, VERY good reasons.

I'd like to know why the SE left out a number of ilvl ranges like 60-70, 70-80 and 80-90.
Up to ilvl50 you have a lot of gear choices every 1-3 levels.
But before CT it was ilvl70 -> ilvl90 and nothing in between.
Now it's ilvl70-80 -> ilvl90. But because many players already had ilvl90 gear, the new ilvl80 stuff is pretty much useless to them.

Crystal tower was supposed to be in the game at launch of 2.0 but was held up for some reason or another. Were it in on time then level 50 would have gone in 10 item level tier increments starting at 60 for dungeons, 70 for darklight/crafted, 80 for tower, and 90 for coil/mythology. Half-tier increases of 5 item levels shouldn't be the norm, but WP was 55 and turn 5 dropped a 95 weapon. That's what happened to the other item levels.

You need something to keep your hardcore players pacified.

Current end-game is what is provided for that purpose. When new stuff comes out then that's for them and everyone else gets an easier time at older content.

EQ and XI did just fine without gear resets.

EQ and XI worked on horizontal progression with smaller incremental improvements during large expansions. FFXI was 75-cap for how many years? And all that time there was minimal changes to some slots. HQ level 51 staves were still pretty much best in slot, HQ sky gear was still desired, Fafnir/Behemoth/Adamantoise and their HQ counterparts were perpetually on farm by LSs that didn't need any of the drops to make money, and a relic weapon was forever the last weapon you needed. Most gear provided in every expansion or patch on that game was either just useless or macro fodder. It got real old forever wearing a pair of Ochiudo's Kote and Fuma Kyahan because for over 40 levels there was nothing better in those slots.

When your 10 lvls above the old cap due to an expansion it makes the older raid content a lot easier and allows you to go in with a smaller force to grab the gear to do the newer content.

Maybe on another game, but you're forgetting entirely that this whole game is built around the technology of level sync. Crystal Tower, Coil, and even Odin/Behemoth will forever be synced to be level 50 content (or synced at most to level 52). Forever farming level 50 content as level 50 to take on level 60, 70, 80, etc. is asinine to say the least. Old content becomes old for a reason, it's just how everything works now in an MMO.

don't let FF14 become a stuff oriented game... Skill>stuff! that must stay true.

Every MMO is a "stuff oriented" game. The games that aren't stuff oriented are single-player console games.

The first batch of Full Party content ought to be tuned for i90 average, which means that those of us who are bleeding-edge through the entire level 50 endgame should have a slight advantage in the first round of raids, with the bulk of the playerbase catching up quickly.

No. That's part of what happened at the crossover between Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. Gear dropped in Sunwell was SO good that it was worn from 70-80, socketed with Wrath gems, and used to clear Naxxramas. And sometimes it wasn't just raid gear since some heroic slots were useable for over 5-7 levels in Wrath. It was bad. Very, very bad. That's one of the reasons why Wrath got the reputation of being too easy. When the level cap does increase you'll find your ilvl 90 stuff underwhelming very fast since this is a vertical progression MMO.

I don't think you get how it works. When a level cap raise happens. The item level of 51+ gear will be higher then anything that was equipable at 50.

He's being kind of a jerk about it, but that's not how ilvl works. It is in the most simple of terms (newer levels have high ilvl gear) but that's not what the ilvl does. The item has its own level and quality that define the stat allocation to that item. An item with an ilvl of 60 will have less of all stats and a lower cap to those stats than a level 70 item. It's one of the reasons you can't socket materia to a HQ crafted ilvl 70 piece and bring the stats anywhere NEAR an ilvl 80 piece. Also given identical ilvl on items a purple will have higher stats than a blue, blue higher than a green, green higher than pink, and pinks higher than white.

Properly done for a vertical progression game, the drops of the new expansion's very first raid should be equal to the power level of the drops from the previous endgame's most difficult raids.

Properly done the drops of an expansions first raid should be significant enough to be an upgrade. That's why "green is the new purple" became a way of life. You had to replace your prevous gear and run the race in the first raids again later. It keeps the playerbase at equal footing at the start of an expansion's raid content.