Item levels.

[File2ish]

Why do we have item levels?

--I know, to make it easier for us to distinguish the quality of the gears traits and have a means by which we can view other players gear to be suitable for the harder stuff. DPS need the damage output, Healers need to heal the most they can, and Tanks need to absorb as much damage as possible. Better gear = better suited for survivability and output for the respective roles.

But why do we have them so early in the game's life? If the developers raise the level cap to 75 in the future will our item levels be 200+? Are we going to have ilvl 110 stuff at level 50? Will my ilvl 90 gear be completely useless and outdated if the level cap is increased even to 60? Why is there so little horizontal gear progression and mostly vertical?

It's nice seeing the high item levels, but there's room for everything to grow and I'm worried ilvl may stifle the growth of the game somehow (ridiculously hard or ludicrously easy to obtain high level gear for example) or make the players even more disrespectful to each other once the ilvls eventually reach beyond 100. In the end ilvl may not really affect much at all and we'll just see the ilvl200 stuff in the future. Or we may not and ilvl will grow at a slower rate in the future, I really don't know. Just kind of looking for your thoughts on the matter.

[Obysuca]

But why do we have them so early in the game's life?

I just think it's a lazy way for them to never raise the cap. (Not that they need to this early anyways, shame on all of you (you know who I mean) who are asking if the cap is going up soon / asked in 2.1)

"Raise the cap? Nah, here's 10 more ilvl instead"

I'm sure it's also so people can tell what's "better" without having much thought and having to compare gear, which kind of sucks, so many people want mmos with no thought in them now :/

[synaesthetic]

Item level is just an abstract way to quantify an item's relative power, just like your class or job level is an abstract way to quantify your power.

As for the lack of horizontal progression, I have several theories. Mostly I believe it's because the development team, especially the encounter designers, are still getting the hang of designing bosses for this new engine. When MMOs are new, usually the itemization is both very simple and often very bad. Once they get a handle on encounter design, we'll start seeing more variety in equipment as they'll be less likely to put out gamebreaking gear combinations. Yoshida already stated outright that the itemization is very basic because he does not want to force players to spend all of their time farming up ten different sets of gear to beat different fights.

Obligatory tinfoil hat theory: They're keeping itemization and gear progression simple and linear because they don't want to compete with themselves, specifically FFXI. Yoshida seems to be doing his best to avoid doing anything FFXI has done, even if it's a good thing. I suspect this may be the fault of Square-Enix suits who don't actually understand game design, insisting that the development team ensures that XIV is as different from XI as possible to prevent the two products from competing with each other.

[HakuroDK]

*snip*

As someone who has played in a few MMOs, I'm not quite sure that's accurate. Item Levels have become more and more commonplace as a means of stretching out the endgame and keeping people playing longer. Traditionally, someone starts out with what some folks like to call the "Level 50 Default Gear", which includes the full set of Artifact Armor that you get during your Job Quests. From there, superior gear becomes available that could not be equipped prior, thus adding a buffer between a rookie at the level cap and a veteran who has been sitting at the level cap for a while.
Once you hit Level 50, there's a plateau. On that plateau, is 50% of the game you couldn't access before. And a lot of that stuff is really hard. But the rewards are great. Fighting through lots of different dungeons, earning marks, getting new gear, maybe even picking up some rare pieces in those dungeons.

Now imagine if the plateau didn't exist as it did. Same amount of content, same bosses, same difficulty level. But instead of Item Levels, the Level Cap was 90. Now, anyone who's ever capped can probably remark on the sheer exhaustive nightmare it can be to close the gap between the levels of 30 and 50. Those with help find it to be very easy. Those without would call the experience harrowing. Now, if the level cap was 90 instead, and all of the current content was gradually stretched out, there's just not enough content there to make such a grind worthwhile! And even if you did make it to Level 90, what then? What would be the point in playing anymore?

The plateau provides a position of relaxation in players to where they don't have to work so hard because they've already reached the plateau, and therefore can go at their own pace. Some will continue going at a grueling pace, others will instead opt to take it easy and run the dailies for the tomes they need. But usually, after about a week or so at that plateau, much of the content becomes accessible.

I'm probably not making TOO much sense here as I'm on my 22nd hour awake, but I just hope you'll try to understand why there is an item level rather than complaining about the fact that it exists.

Though I should add, to your last line, that with an actual level, it'd be the same anti-intellectual behavior to check someone's level as it would be to check their item level. The only difference is that one affects character stats directly and the other affects equipped gear, which translates to how that affects character stats.

Besides, if they raised the level cap, they'd have to add more abilities and quests every time. I should remark on how Arcanist almost got pushed to 2.1 because it wasn't finished yet, if that's any indication on how much of a chore it can be to do anything more to classes than mere tweaking of code.