Please remove iLevel

[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.

[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.

[Allyra]

HELL NO.

The last thing I want in this game is to have to carry around 40 situational sidegrade items like I did in XI.

BLm alone:
-Enfeebling set
-Nuking set
-Items for day of the week
-Items for weather
-Resting set
-Stoneskin set
-Stun set (fast cast)
-etc.

As it stands the game isn't designed this way either, and never will be, seeing as we can't swap gear mid combat.

I have a spiritbind set of gear on my main, and my highest tier gear, and that is plenty of gearsets for me TYVM.

Sums up my thoughts exactly.

I don't care about outdated content. Once you've done fafnir for 3 years to get one piece of situational gear, I think it's ok to move onward and let him just poop in the aery.

[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.

[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.

[Sixmp]

Wouldn't a mixture of the 2 work out? You use the current method when levelling and when you hit max level the other takes over. Then when a expansion hits with a level increase it switches back until max level is hit once more?

[Dano]

eventually Yoshi and team will HAVE to grow the gears horizontally, as of now it is already experiencing the power creep syndrome.

I've read that they are still trying to tweak stat balance before introducing gears that alter your skills/attributes/passive abilities. So here's hoping future updates will be so.

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

Considering gear score gating will soon be patched into Duty Finder for some content, I think Ilevel is appropriate and needed.

However, they need more training content in early levels that is in the quest line. I mean more than that one gear check quest we currently have -but similar to it and more elaborate. It should explain the differences in Ilevel, stats, definitions of the gear tiers color structure and add it to the materia meld questlines too.

Why? So that people know it is there, get into the habit of appropriately noticing the importance of gear level and gearing their characters long before they ding 50. The way it is now, unless you like spending gil on armor you actually don't need to complete content and don't mind frequently upgrading with the blind speed that we levelup in this game, the "because you can" easiest route factor comes in and people don't upgrade gear because they can complete content with gear several levels lower.

Since gear eventually becomes consequential, they should make it consequential early on so that players are not conditioned to the fact that they can get by with gimp gear, only to suddenly have a rude awakening when they get to higher level content and are kicked/ridiculed/fail/locked out due to gear.

[Sileka]

Snip.

Actually iLvL was invented by players. Blizzard simply added the feature because so many people used an add-on to display a numeral value based on gear. Though that is superficial to the point. My only problem with iLvL comes with how most people end up using it. They want folks to be over geared, not simply 'geared enough' so they cay plow through with as little trouble as possible. While I understand the desire to make a run as easy as possible, it makes it difficult for people to do instances they are geared for when they finally get geared for it. (Without being kicked out of a group or grumbled at.)

Otherwise I cannot say I agree. I have no issues with iLvL/Gear Scores in general since I see it as a way of judging if I am ready for an instance. My problem will always be how players eventually want over-geared and never give someone a chance to prove they are skilled even though they have an instance minimal Gear Score/iLvL.

[Nekodar]

I have no problem with people showing up with less than optimal gear...
But people shouldn't be allowed to enter for example WP with sub-AF gear and similarly low level weapons, if they want the DF to fill out the party. Want to try stuff undergeared? They can set up their own party and enter instead.
That's from actually having entered WP with such people and noticing early on that their damage output just wouldn't be enough for the pudding boss. Which it indeed wasn't.