Please remove iLevel

[Seig345]

Not sure how it was any better in FFXI... seemed like half the classes had to band together to form their own parties because nobody wanted them.

Every time I read about how horizontal progression works, it seems to come down to having 100 different ways to augment one class so there's no gear obsoletion and 100 special snowflake combinations. That's cute and all, but the playerbase will simply find the most optimized option and throw the remaining 99 ways in the garbage and refuse to play with you if you use any of the discarded combinations.

Even if they threw in being able to swap gear even in the middle of battle, then the playerbase would find the most optimized 4-5 of them, and throw the remainder by the way side. Everyone would simply look up the recipe for the best cookie cutter. Even if, on top of that, you threw in them rebalancing the game every month, aka flavor of the month, you're only making it harder for those who don't want to min/max and the elitists will only thrive all the more.

In the end you wind up back where we are now, only with a bunch of wasted development, and very likely a playerbase that has been refined down to the players willing to jump through the hoops to continue playing as they're playing right now.

[Rivienne]

......

I agree with a lot of what you are saying but the sticking point for me is this: "being carried".

So rant mode on:

I disagree with the idea of being carried if you are undergeared in this sense: if the team would fail without you, it doesn't matter that you required an above average healer to keep you up, you were still contributing. Not as much as perhaps is ideal, and yes the healer contributed more than usual, but nevertheless.

Carrying implies you might as well not be there: in my experience whenever this arguments comes up "oh you only did it because you were carried" the person in question still contributed to the fight. Just not as much as they could have.

I have seen the cases where a person was carried, I have been one of those people. And there is a huge difference between the time I was dead during every boss fight in cutter's cry (as healer), and the times where I could barely keep anyone alive because I wasn't geared enough but we won anyway.

As a healer (I don't know if I am "average" or not. I usually think I am fairly bad, but I am obviously my own worst critic) I have definitely seen both cases on the other side as well. Where I just left someone down because it would be a waste to res them, and I could ill afford the MP. That was carrying. We won without. Other cases I keep a person up with a lot more effort, but we couldn't have won if I hadn't. Because that person contributed.

The difference is this: one is being carried because you are literally useless, and not contributing anything, the other you are making things harder than they could be but still contributing to the overall success of the party. There is a difference, and people need to stop confusing the two because it just makes the whole argument worse.

As far as Titan: I agree first timers should probably try to get the best gear they can get. Once they get it down however the actual requirements drop. Not as much as most dungeons (because of HP), but a fair amount. Why? Because within the limits of what is possible, skill trumps the gear. Which is the whole argument people keep missing here.

And as someone else above mentioned, I have come across players who were amazing, more than holding their own, while being ridiculously under geared. Not to mention that this attitude of gear requirements and levels and "carrying" dismisses them sight unseen, and is part of what makes end-game so potentially toxic to new players, no matter the skill level.

Anyway end rant. (Also this whole argument completely misses the point of the OP, and is a bit of a distraction. So..)

[CianaIezuborn]

Because within the limits of what is possible, skill trumps the gear.

100% and is why we've pulled some of our folks from other games into Garuda the day they hit 50, as their skill from playing multiple mmos will more than cover for a gear deficiency up to that encounter.

...

I think we might be mostly in agreement, just that I use the term carried to include 'non equal contribution'. I also don't consider it to automatically have a negative connotation, I picked it up years ago when we would run back up raiders or alts through content so that they could join up with the main raid team eventually. I think it's now seen not only as negative, but as an insult however I haven't adapted my vocabulary to match unfortunately. It's just the way I picked up the term, and just stems from the full raid of you principal. If a full raid of people in your gear and skill couldn't clear the content, then you're not contributing to the average needed to succeed.

The important thing is realizing when your gear level isn't up to par that you're causing someone else to contribute more in order to succeed, which you said yourself you've been on both ends of. The problem is when people don't realize it, then form a party full of people that don't realize it, then pound against a brick wall for 8 hours straight when they could have spent those 8 hours gearing on easy content then tearing that wall down.

I apologize for the use of the word carry though, this actually isn't the first time I've accidentally given offense by using it in a discussion.

As to the OP, I'd love to see more variety in gear especially in the form of skill boosts but in practicality someone is always going to do the math and determine the best set for any particular situation. Which generally leads to homogenization of gear again. The alternative is carrying around a large amount of situational gear, which is cool in concept but could quickly lead to inventory management explosion if you play multiple classes.

[Nadrojj]

The monk we pugged to fill a dps slot in our Garuda the other day agrees with op, cobalt weapon, lvl 38 belt, one of the lvl 30 rings and a crafting ring.

ilevel is needed, it doesn't have to be super difficult to hit hte level cap, but coming into the fight that severely gimped hurts the rest of the group.

[Zantetsuken]

You want an example of fantastic horizontal gear progression?

Monster Hunter

There was so much creativity and versatility in gear design. Players could endlessly mix-and-match to create the best setup for their own playing style or for whatever hunt they were on.

I had always hoped ARR would adopt something similar, but instead the devs went the opposite direction and used a blunt, vertical, biggest number = best-gear-for-job route. (which is clearly an appeal to the lowest common denominator among players). They even went so far as to remove elemental weaknesses, which is a baseline expectation for any fantasy rpg.


Let's hope they change course as the game begins to grow and expand -- there really is so much potential in this game.

[Tofumaro]

ilvl not needed... Tanked an AK for my friends and we decided to Duty Finder a healer. We got a healer all right, all 20-28 gear.... Yeah, we don't need gear check.

[BobbinT]

Want to get rid iLevel huh?

This is what happens in XI several months before XIV-ARR officially launched :

Me so excited with this new toy on my back:


And here's the toy's stat:


Here's me having fun with it:


Btw, bonus of new completed Rune Fencer AF gears display:


And this is what happened when I bring these bad boy totally soloing campaign in Windurst Crystal War era (I won btw, totally all on my own. Find out on your own stat of each RUN AF gears, but believe me this: it was nasty!):


Proceed with your own judgement. lol

[Kantide]

I think what the OP wants is more out of certain gear. For example in 1.0 gear had meaning like this (pic stolen from another thread):


See that "Increases Jump Damage".

I think the game would be more interesting with gear that rather than giving flat stats gave bonuses to effects. Even weapons with "chance on hit to paralyze/posion/slow", armor with "Increases healing potency" or "increased dot duration" would be nice.

[DSN]

It's nothing but a feature that railroads itemization into a very dull linear path, and breeds a very gear elitist community as a result. It's sad when people are looked at as nothing more than a number next to their gear

I hate to break it to you but there has always been an item level we just never knew it in previous games such as XI or 1.0 just because you can't see it doesn't mean it is there. This is how stat itemization is planned for gear to make sure it scales properly with content from the development side of things.

On top of which using the iLVL as a gauge for what you should be capable of is no different than the old shouting based on stats X Str, X Vit, X Mnd. iLvl simplified this as when you are shouting for a group and there is a minimum gear requirement you want to meet you can just say iLVL Blah vs. a whole string of stats for each and every class.

[Delsus]

The problem with ilvl as we have it now is if people want to do a good job they must use Darklight post 50, then they must use mythic as they go through coil because these are the highest ilvl we have. In FFXI (I know I know) there were loads of possibilities, and all jobs looked very different, now we are the Darklight army, I don't personally mind ilvl, but with one or two sets as best for each job we all look just the same (even the different jobs darklight have huge similarities.)

What FFXI did right imo was the more situational gear, you would get the same jobs looking very different a lot of the time (except mages because they had decent af) because of the mass horizontal progression in addition to vertical progression.

Removing ilvl wouldn't stop elitists, they would crunch the numbers to say what gear everyone should wear, but SE could easily make more gear with very similar stats but looked different so you might hut for 1 damage every WS lower but that very small difference could make it the same ilvl so it would be accepted and people would just look different.

(I know this can be solved with vanity slots but it still feels wrong knowing we are all wearing the same gear.)