Quote Originally Posted by fm_fenrir View Post
The main issue with Morale is that it gives a cheap ilvl bump to create a gear wall between entry-level players and people who Play PVP Religiously, and it's not very fun to be on the wrong side of that exchange. That's why SE effectively deleted it, since every popular PVP mode uses ilvl sync (negating Morale).
That's actually not exactly why or how the Morale stat disappeared.

Morale didn't work this way back before 2.4. Before patch 2.4 (the Shiva patch) Morale actually directly effected your attack and defense power within PvP settings. Level sync did not effect that increase the same way. Further, level sync was almost irrelevant, as the general item level at that time was substantially lower. The stats on the PvP gear meant a lot more, because you weren't vastly above the cap when wearing any of the gear (including PvE gear). Average item level was only around 90-100 at the time.

After 2.4, they changed the morale stat to provide a flat increase to item levels which dramatically watered down the PvP environment. With the addition of Ironworks and Dreadwyrm gear, the PvP gear became completely obsolete because it no longer did anything special over what you were already getting with top end PvE sets. They did this almost exclusively because Secure and Slaughter were the most popular game modes at the time, and the previous Morale stat tipped the playing field towards the veteran players. By changing the stat allocation to a flat item level increase, they basically leveled the playing field in Secure/Slaughter so that casual players wouldn't be flat out destroyed by seasoned PvP'ers, many of whom ran in Pre-made groups at the time. It made sense, but it didn't do anything healthy for the game mode on the whole. To keep PvP queues alive (and by "alive" I mean shuffling out of the grave with two rotting fingers) they sacrificed an entire stat, materia, and a huge chunk of gear. That said, it did allow for casuals to play the game mode without fear of being squashed by hardcore pvp'ers just looking at them.

It's for that exact reason, though, that I specified Ranked modes for Morale, only. I'm not recommending that Morale players get to face up against non-morale players. I'm recommending that it be implemented specifically in a game mode in which you are faced against other players who are just as committed and interested in winning as you are. Personally, I would love to see Morale returned to it's previous status of directly increasing attack and defense, but if they insist on keeping it an item level thing than the level sync for Ranked modes should also be adjusted (or even flat out removed).