Quote Originally Posted by Jocko View Post
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
no, "horizontal" progression sucks because you're expceted to have like 100 pieces of gear to play one job/class. This leads to inventory nightmare and needing complicated macros to change gear all the time. This coupled with the fact that gear swapping isn't allowed in combat.

What is really needed is more special stats / extra effects on gear to create more options within the same ilvl range. You don't need to "remove" ilvl to have options, and removing it won't change that some gear is better than others and the elitists will always demand the mathematical best regardless.