Quote Originally Posted by Caraway View Post
Did FFXI do it this way with iLVL gear?
FFXI didn't have item levels, and it allowed you to switch gear in the middle of combat. People would carry around multiple gearsets, like a set for damage dealing, a set to macro into when pulling off a big weaponskill to take advantage of STR modifiers on damage and then switch back to their other gear, mages would have a debuff gear set and a healing / damage gear set, etc. The gear didn't have every single stat pasted onto it either like FF14 does, so you'd have good ACC pieces, good STR pieces, some gear with Haste, gear with unique buffs like giving you a % to double attack, gear that augmented your job abilities, etc. FFXI was set up in such a way that you didn't replace every single piece of gear each time new content came out, and there was still reasons to run old content for great gear. There were plenty of sidegrade options that if you didn't like one endgame activity, you could do a few others and get comparable gear, and compiling a gear set was a matter of looking at what you have, what you could get, and what stats you needed.

Conversely, FF14 is just get the best for your level > get your artifact > get your darklight > start working on Coil and myth gear.