What happens to our iLevels?

[StouterTaru]

Yoshi said it was going to be a larger than normal ilvl jump from level 50-60 gear. I would expect 51-59 gear to be ilvl 120-140, and level 60 gear to be 150-160, possibly 170 from Alexander Hard.

[Deviant1]

If i had to guess, i would expect the new gear to be more of a transition then reset. It has to be better then what we have now but not so over the top that the current gear we have serves no purpose.

IE: new heavensward Lvl 50 dungeon gear would have an ilvl of about 120-125, have another AF set at about lvl55/ilvl130 and then at lvl60 have a 'tower' like set for 140 and a 'coil/tomestone' set for ilvl150.

This way we could have a few more options for while we level, and then it just blends in with the current ilvl increases.

I would doubt they would reset the ilvls, as it would require a lot of work for no gain. (all the DF is set to the values already) Since all the other 'new gear sets' bump up by 20, i would expect it to be the same, just stretched out to make the leveling worth it.

[Picori]

I think whole thing is going to reset. So like right now its level 50 Ilevel 130, but next set would be like level 60 ilevel 70-90
It would still be stronger as its now level 60 and otherwise we would be getting to ilevel 200's and shit in future.
This way they can keep that number low and still be stronger gear.

[Fitzy]

Chances are the first few quests might reward you with some approximately i90 gear while the first few dungeons in the expansion will probably have the Soldiery and poetics gear moved into them as rewards. There may be some new gear from dungeons depending on how high the ilvl cap is going to go but you can almost guarantee their will be 2 new tome sets similar to darklight (entry level raid gear) and then maybe the new AF2 (since Yoshi said its not from quests) as the weekly capped set, as well as the raid gear.

[Ilitsa]

I'll jump in then and point out that WoW didn't do this. At least not with Mists. It took a few levels before the quest greens overtook the cataclysm (4.3) epic gear in ilvl. Most people were switched out to quest greens and blues by level 88, but it didn't happen at level 86.

I'm in the "around 55" camp for FFXIV as the level most players will trade out their gear. Maybe 56 or 57 for 135 gear.

They didn't do it in Warlords either. I had my legendary cloak from Mists all the way until I hit 100, and still some of the stats were better than most of the blues I could find, and was replaced more for the ilvl requirements in content than the "omgleetstatz"

[aerolol]

What if they incresed the actual level required to wear darksteel/myth/allagan/(un)weathered/high allagan/ironworks/dreadwyrm (and LotA/ST/WoD) gear from 50 to 60?

Meaning you'd be naked as a "fresh" 50 when expansion hits and you'll need to grind 10 levels to reach 60 so you equip your gear again.
Meanwhile you'll have to use 1* crafted stuff and eventually some new level50-59 gear that becomes available...

Then you reach lv60, and you can be item level 130 again... just to grind the new set of lv150+ gear >.<

[Felis]

pretty much the same with any other MMO level 51 gear > all 50 gear. All ilvl 130/135 will be beaten by standard 51 gear.

Required level is not bounded to ilevel in this game.
There can exist required level 50 / ilevel 120 (have to farm CT3 for this) and required level 51 / ilevel 53 (have only to do the first dungeon after 50 for this) at the same time.
While the current players have already with lv50 equip the needed ilevel for lv 60 content, it allow newer players to gear up without farming gear in lv50 content first.

[Fenral]

What if they incresed the actual level required to wear darksteel/myth/allagan/(un)weathered/high allagan/ironworks/dreadwyrm (and LotA/ST/WoD) gear from 50 to 60?

That would make non-expansion players unable to do most level 50 content.

[SpookyGhost]

There needs to be a way for everyone to progress from 50-60 at an absolute minimum of ilvl, so while i130 gear will certainly help initially, it will get replaced as you continue leveling. It's possible the first 1 or 2 dungeons will just drop i130 gear, but there's going to come a point where you get i140, i150, etc. AF2 will definitely be better than your Dread/Poetics set, at the very least.

[KisaiTenshi]

pretty much the same with any other MMO level 51 gear > all 50 gear. All ilvl 130/135 will be beaten by standard 51 gear.

That's not how it works. Go look at the Green and Pink gears. Their ilevel is higher than the level. All "ilvl" does is allow power-creep on the gear without power-creep on the character.

What will most likely happen is that Level 51,55 and 60 crafted gear will beat the current ilevel 70/80/90, 100/110 and 120/130 "tome purchase" gear. The current gear you get from WoD is max ilevel 120. And the result of this? Everyone who isn't playing FCoB is wearing the exact same Poetics gear, not crafted gear, as none of the crafted gear beats it.

Most other games have extreme problems with power-creep, which is off-putting to new players, because what one player spent two years on, another player who just started the game looks at the 2 years ahead and goes "no thanks, forget that grind"

The Relic weapon is already one uber-grind I doubt most players have more than two they actually want to put in the time for, let along every class/job. The Tome gear ~should~ only ever match the top-tier crafted gear without materia (so HQ crafted gear with Materia is better, and less affected by levelsync nerfing,) otherwise nobody would bother with the crafting jobs in the first place.

On the other hand, some (admittedly freemium) power-creep comes from features that are meant to make BiS gear though RNG, which I hate entirely (look up "reforge".) This is currently seen in some stages of the Relic Weapons. These are designed to be gold-sink/time-sinks, and utterly waste the players time and money, especially when newer content makes it obsolete.