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

[Mogi]

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

[Dyvid]

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.

[ZephyrAM]

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.

[Rhindas]

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.

[Aicasia]

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.

[Ferth]

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.

[NeruMew]

Don't really care.

/threadcontribution

[Vilzen]

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.

[xzanth]

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

[synaesthetic]

*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.

*really, really stupid words*

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