Will player level be > ilvl?

[Zumi]

The idea of replacing your hard won raiding gear with quest whites is kind f abhorrent.

Your gear will have to be replaced at some point in the expansion. You won't be using level 50 gear at level 60 cap. It is the nature of an expansion and new level cap. In wow heroic raid gear usually didn't get replaced until like midway through the next level cap. Even in FFXI when they raised the level cap from 75 to 80/85/90/95/99 all that 75 gear became outdated as soon as the cap was raised. Also you got to remember crafters are leveling up to 60 too and they will need to make tons of junk 51-59 gear over and over to get to 60 as well there will be a lot of gear floating around.

[Limecat]

I wouldn't be shocked to discover that there isn't any gear requiring Lv51-59, with everything introduced being more Lv50 + previous raid iLvl and straight-up Lv60 + new raid iLvl.

[Sylve]

Your gear will have to be replaced at some point in the expansion.

In Cataclysm, i was replacing gear from Lich King himself by the end of the first quest zone.
In WoD, That endgame raiding gear is useful for much longer. Around halfway through the leveling process, In some cases, its even good almost up to the new cap.

I am not opposed to upgrading my gear in an expansion.
I AM opposed to stepping out of FCOB(for example) with the best gear available in the game, taking the very quest "go here talk to that guy" quest and getting superior gear for doing so. That just feels disgusting.

A gear reset is fine with an expansion, its useful since it puts everyone back on a level playing field for the new endgame. But, do NOT begin the leveling process with gear that is better than the previously best gear.
This leads to stat bloat of the WORST variety. Again, WoW had that. WoW was forced to "Squish" the stats in order to bring numbers down to a level that made any kind of sense. They had to do that because every time a new expansion rolled out, they began that expansion ABOVE the finest gear available at the end of the previous expansion.
We began ARR with i70/i90 gear and in 2.4, we're at i130. If we get i140 in 2.5, we'd be looking at starting endgame 3.0 at ilvl200 and climbing up from there.

[Jaykos]

I think if you played 2.0 pretty hard core and have gotten some 120/130 ilvl gear it should be used to make your levelling process easier. Although you will have players complaining that every drop in levelling dungeons is useless. Plus 5 years down the track new 50 players will be ilvl 50 or so going into level 51 quests. They cant be expected to grind out 5 year old content to be able to start to level to 60.

And while mentioning wow there the ilvl climb has been way way way higher in FF. We're effectively wearing end game burning crusade gear in vanilla.

[LalaRu]

Most likely,

• iLevel progression of normal gear obtained from duties 51-60, follows from where it had stopped at 1-50
• whatever the max iLevel at 50 may be, greater iLevels than that will have lv.60 requirement
• Actual raiding gear will be good for all your leveling from 51 to 60
• All the discardable green/grey gear from 51+, is useful for the players who starts from scratch and will go level to 60, without the "pause" at 50 we actually have. They will start equip greater iLevels when starting the 60 endgame.

More unlikely:

• Actual endgame content scaled upper to lv.60
• i80+ as normal drops on 51+ regular duties

[Delily]

I AM opposed to stepping out of FCOB(for example) with the best gear available in the game, taking the very quest "go here talk to that guy" quest and getting superior gear for doing so. That just feels disgusting.

Why? Gear is only a means to and end, and not the end itself. Once the end progresses, so does the means.

[Jaykos]

Most likely,

• iLevel progression of normal gear obtained from duties 51-60, follows from where it had stopped at 1-50
• whatever the max iLevel at 50 may be, greater iLevels than that will have lv.60 requirement
• Actual raiding gear will be good for all your leveling from 51 to 60
• All the discardable green/grey gear from 51+, is useful for the players who starts from scratch and will go level to 60, without the "pause" at 50 we actually have. They will start equip greater iLevels when starting the 60 endgame.

I'd be very happy with this.

[Lord_Zlatan]

Why? Gear is only a means to and end, and not the end itself. Once the end progresses, so does the means.

really? Because you spend hours and hours trying to obtain it, only to kill 3 boars and have gear better than when you slayed Bahamut in the Final Coil of Bahamut. That makes no sense.

[Delily]

really? Because you spend hours and hours trying to obtain it, only to kill 3 boars and have gear better than when you slayed Bahamut in the Final Coil of Bahamut. That makes no sense.

First, let me say that I fully understand your point of view, even if I do disagree with it. Since talking about game design is akin to pissing in the wind, I'll say this: considering that Snowcloak needs only ilvl80 and that Coil drops ilvl130, I am sure that the gear from Coil will last a few dungeons into 3.0. But don't expect to be able to start raiding in 3.0 with Coil gear. They're going to put in some gates at level 60 to slow you down.

[Kenji1134]

Odds are the "excessive ilvl creep" is not because they want us to be running around with an ilvl that is almost 3 times our character level, but because it is an easy way to delineate gear.

At launch we had the class gear (50-55), basic DL weapon (55), dungeon armors from Amdapor and WP (60), real Darklight armor (70) and primal weapons (70).
Then we got the relic quest, which "ends" in an i80 weapon, and we were "supposed" to get Labyrinth (80). Instead we got Coil first (90), and the first relic upgrade(90).
Then again, supposed to have ST (100) before SCoB (110). And now we have FCoB (130) and are waiting on the 3rd Crystal Tower zone (120).

So the original progression started with 50-55, 55 weapon, 60 armor, 70 armor, and 70 weapon. Topped off by the job specific weapon quest (80).
After that the progression "was supposed to be" Laby (80) - Coil (90) - Sircus (100) - SCoB (110) - CT3 (120) - FCoB (130).
Notice how it is just a convenient 10 ilvl denomination for each set? That is likely the source of the creep.

Lets assume that we stay at 130 into the expansion. The best way to "normalize" lvl vs ilvl would be to refit the ilvls to the following line:
Class Armor (50) -> FCoB (65) - Cut FCoB's lvl in half. And fit the rest as needed.

This is under the assumption that with the general stat increases that we will get from going from 50 to 60, the new i65 gear (likely new class armor or first round of dungeon drops) will be comparable to FCoB gear.
Thus making FCoB "old content", and removing the need for a new player to have to run through it in order to "be ready for the new early-endgame" and be unable to find a group.