Please remove iLevel

[calamityz]

The people that always complain about ilvl and "elitists" are the ones still in af and refuse to spend time to gear up. I'm sure that's why "elitists" are sick of you care bears.

[Jocko]

The people that always complain about ilvl and "elitists" are the ones still in af and refuse to spend time to gear up. I'm sure that's why "elitists" are sick of you care bears.

Please read the thread. Thanks

[calamityz]

Please read the thread. Thanks

All I had to do was look at your gear and already knew why you posted this.

[Jocko]

All I had to do was look at your gear and already knew why you posted this.

I sincerely hope this is parody

[Reiterpallasch]

It was an interesting system for sure, but also a very bad one. You can't just pump more and more sidegrades into the system and expect good things to happen from it. All it lead to was people needing to use 3rd party tools to make macros to utilize it all, and created an absolute inventory nightmare that is still there to this day.

Vertical gear progression and ilvl is a good thing, and one that I'm hoping they stick with. As was already said, you don't need ilvl for people to judge you by your gear. They will already do that. Bad gear will be bad and good gear will be good regardless of what number SE puts next to it.

[Alpheus]

It was an interesting system for sure, but also a very bad one. You can't just pump more and more sidegrades into the system and expect good things to happen from it. All it lead to was people needing to use 3rd party tools to make macros to utilize it all, and created an absolute inventory nightmare that is still there to this day.

Vertical gear progression and ilvl is a good thing, and one that I'm hoping they stick with. As was already said, you don't need ilvl for people to judge you by your gear. They will already do that. Bad gear will be bad and good gear will be good regardless of what number SE puts next to it.

That's a very good point and it's well made personally I think FFXI hit a sweet spot with the Abyssean Af3/VW era/Trials of the Magians/Sky Abjuration/Einherjar Abj gear since it made relevant older gear people may have already had while allowing newer gear to also be obtained, then the momentum was killed because of a drought of content and the 1st glaring instance of having a MMO being upkept by a skeleton crew and a vastly reduced budget. Many of the need to use Spellcast in FFXI coulda been circumvented if SE was willing to put forth the effort to really give the code they had working with, a look over. A lot of the time the then current and now current Dev Team scuttle away ideas at potential fixes simply because it would take too much effort and it was quite appalling to see unfold and even more appalling to hear what could be construed as echoes of that same "We could but it would take too much effort" from the ARR Dev team

[SoullessSvipdagr]

I think ilvl is fine. But I am also used to this simple style. I enjoy that there are few options for gear. Walking into rev toll with allagan and myth, well it's just cool.

[Rivienne]

As a player I agree I would love a more horizontal design. It also allows for a lot more variety in fights, because you have to potentially have a different gear and strategy for each fight, whereas right now it can very much be "use same party, memorize pattern, wear universal best gear". Horizontal opens a whole world of possible content, each with its own unique challenge. (Though note I never played XI, or any other MMO before this one so I am speaking hypothetically and from experience with offline games only.)

And in developer mindset with no deadline I say "that is an interesting problem to solve". In fact a modular more horizontal design is by far the most fun type of project to work on, because it is both concrete in logic like the more vertical approach, and yet far more open ended. It also is the kind of project that works as a basis for either a vertical or more horizontal approach. It is also a great brain teaser because it is going to be so hard to get right, and I love a good puzzle.

But... But... It isn't a no deadline project. It is always on a deadline in fact. And with deadlines and with testing, I shudder in horror at the scope of problems that would be introduced if it wasn't there from the start. Of course the self-centered player in me still wants to say "not my problem give me what I want!" but I can't really separate my own experience here and I am going to be far too sympathetic to the developer team to demand it, even though I think it would be a lot more fun, while also removing the "gear check" attitude nonsense.

Side note: I have started queuing for dungeons partially under geared(I blame Livilda), and only putting on my best gear when I have to. Because it is more fun. It makes things more challenging, and it helps weed out most of the attitudes (but not all). I actually ran the smoothest run of Brayflox yet today, while wearing a mix of level 10 and level 20 gear, right up until the last boss when i switched. (Incidentally this also dramatically cut down on my repair costs.)

[Thunderz]

Either way this is the direction the dev's have decided to take the game its not really something they just up and toss to the curve because the forum folks do not agree

its a pointless thread

[PoiPoiKuroi]

Either way this is the direction the dev's have decided to take the game its not really something they just up and toss to the curve because the forum folks do not agree

its a pointless thread

No, it is not.
I feel like this is certainly something that could be considered and I agree fully with.
There will always be a vertical gear progression, but instead of a fully linear line, it could be a bit more "tree"-shaped. Best of both worlds.