Quote Originally Posted by Zantitrach View Post
That was my whole point. The person I quoted was arguing in favor of FFXI style MMO and saying SE should focus less on...
Right, I was agreeing with you and elaborating.

Quote Originally Posted by Zantitrach View Post
I personally think XIV has found a lovely middle ground between XI and WoW, and that's why its doing so well in MMO's when so many others are being created and closed (since 2.0 obviously).
It's got a solid foundation, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to do some building on that foundation.

To bring it back to the thread topic, I don't see a problem with item level in principle, but it does make things very uninteresting that the only things about any given piece of gear that matter to any significant degree are 1) the item level and 2) how much accuracy it has.

Vitality and primary stats simply increase predictably with item level and secondary stats other than accuracy (and possibly spell speed for black mage) contribute so little to your output that the choices between barely make any difference.