Please remove iLevel

[Armond]

FF11 at its peak had 680k players, when abyssea released it was still around 490k, on average only lost 3% a year. After abyssea the game started losing 20% a year, the people who played 11 knew what they liked, if they wanted WoW, they would have been playing it.

Source? Sorry when you start using specific numbers I start wanting to see specific evidence.

[Xatsh]

Source? Sorry when you start using specific numbers I start wanting to see specific evidence.

/sea all and many of the database sites tracked log-ins numbers throughout the day.

the game lost very little of its population each year, abysea drastically changed the game. That combined with XIV caused multiple mass exoduses.

Even if there is no 100% definite proof, only SE knows the exact impact. The game went through 2 server merges in about 16months after abysea, that alone is enough to say how many people left. The game went from 2-3k players online at the peaks to only breaking 1k on weekends.

The majority of the XI's population was extremely against the changes the devs did with abysea and the level increases, and they paid for it with a huge chunk of subs that never returned even after XIV 1.0 more or less tanked.

XI was an oldschool game. The people who wanted WoW were on WoW. The majority of the players on XI did not want what WoW had. Most of them hated what WoW was doing to the genre. Making XI more mainstream when 99% of its subs were not mainstream at least to me seems like a bad business decision.

[Jeronlmo]

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

Horizontal progression is a far more interesting design style than vertical progression in my opinion. Leaves room to design sidegrade equipment for people to individualize their characters, as well as blurring the line between what gear is acceptable or not for pieces of content, allowing a player's own identity and skill to shine through

Ilvl has nothing to do with horizontal progression, for it or against it, the type of game SE is making actually requires it. Horizontal progression only worked in 11 because you had gear swaps and literally hundreds of BIS (best in slot) gear for each job depending on mob/weapon type/mob type/ws/weather, this game has none of that and none of the options, the pool of BIS gear is literally only as large as the number of items you can equip at once currently, horizontal progression only works if they can spread BIS gear between lots of events and considering you can only equip 11-13 pieces of gear at a time, they can only have so much, "current", actual relevant content will always be limited to basically what it is now, new will obviously come out, but the endgame will stay this size. Hence... Linear progression will have to stay. People literally asked for this.

[Dreamer]

iLevels are symptomatic of a larger problem with the game - gear treadmills are tedious and boring at best. I really hope they either give us some form of horizontal progression or open up the materia system to allow for better (or as would be the current case, ANY) customization.

[Felis]

iLevels are symptomatic of a larger problem with the game - gear treadmills are tedious and boring at best. I really hope they either give us some form of horizontal progression or open up the materia system to allow for better (or as would be the current case, ANY) customization.

Or bring endgame recipes with the same ilevel as the endgame raid equip, not 20 ilevel lower.
And new materias with stats that are not on normal equips, like "+5% DoT damage"

[Johnist]

iLevels are symptomatic of a larger problem with the game - gear treadmills are tedious and boring at best. I really hope they either give us some form of horizontal progression or open up the materia system to allow for better (or as would be the current case, ANY) customization.

There is Customization. Instead of spending Philo Tomes on iL70 Darklight, you can level all the crafters, and buy Philosopher Tomestone items, craft yourself iL70 gear you can then equip materia into.

[Soukyuu]

There is Customization. Instead of spending Philo Tomes on iL70 Darklight, you can level all the crafters, and buy Philosopher Tomestone items, craft yourself iL70 gear you can then equip materia into.

...which costs you a LOT more tomes: 9x125 tomes for Potash for one vanya silk. Robe requires one, that's already 1125 tomes. Breeches require TWO. That's 2250 tomes for ONE SINGLE PIECE that is still inferior to DL until you meld it. Can't really count it an alternative, it's currently designed very badly.

[Johnist]

...which costs you a LOT more tomes: 9x125 tomes for Potash for one vanya silk. Robe requires one, that's already 1125 tomes. Breeches require TWO. That's 2250 tomes for ONE SINGLE PIECE that is still inferior to DL until you meld it. Can't really count it an alternative, it's currently designed very badly.

And Customization costs more on most things IRL too. Shocking really that it would be the same in game, yes?

[Soukyuu]

And Customization costs more on most things IRL too. Shocking really that it would be the same in game, yes?

It costs you already to level the several crafts, spiritbound gear to materia, yet you are required to farm double the tomes as well. I'm fine with it costing more, but not twice to thrice more. This might be customization, but not viable customization. It should be a real alternative to the mind numbing tome grind, not a more excessive grind for tomes.

[Cigaran]

While I dislike the system, too many big name MMO's have featured this so it's become a "must have" feature for many players. I just hope that it serves zero purpose beyond the Duty Finder. If my Free Company feels like a challenge one night, we ought to be able to attempt anything we'd like with any gear we've got. If iLevel is mandatory for every single instance, it's going to take a lot of fun out of the game for me and I'm betting quite a few others as well.