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

[Lego3400]

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trim everything down the next expansion by squishing all the gear's levels and stats, primarily stuff that's awarded by outdated content.

[Sebazy]

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.

[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, 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.

[Zfz]

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.

[Tupsi]

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.

[Billie21]

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

[Cabalabob]

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.

[Sebazy]

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.

[Avenol]

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.

[Imapooonu]

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.