Forge Ahead in the Next Version Update! (04/18/2014)

[Prothescar]

I think what they mean is there's no reason to play a watered down, overall much more poorly implemented iLvl system if they can just go play a more modern version. There's some issues with that argument, but still, they weren't necessarily saying that XIV would prevent iLvl participation.

[Damane]

spoiler alert ffxiv has ilvl too and it jumps all the fucking time

the "level cap" is still 50, the game's been out less than a year, and they've gotten up to ilvl 115 already

hence the reason i said: "might as well jump to FFXIV and play that". infact I do play 14 too since 2 weeks again, the ilvl system works great there, but for FFXI its just garbage and doesnt work very well. I dont see a reason why FFXI should hop on the same ship as 14 with the ilvl system, when the community of 11 clearly doesnt want that.

[Fwahm]

I don't see how you can speak for the community like that. Almost everyone I play with prefers the item level system over the old sidegrade system.

[Karbuncle]

I don't see how you can speak for the community like that. Almost everyone I play with prefers the item level system over the old sidegrade system.

Though, on the other hand, I can say without a doubt almost everyone I speak too liked the old system, which is why they played XI for damn near 12 years, long before I.lv was shoehorned in.

Now, pointless data aside... the I.lv system itself isn't inherently bad, I for instance like the damage boost we get from it, but it has a slew of well known flaws. Power Creep being just one of many. XI was never really built around the idea of an Ilv system either, so its a difficult system to implement in a ~12 or so year old game that was never built to have Item level power scales.

I know most people don't like it, but some people do in fact play the game for the gear and to feel better/more powerful than others, in XIV when it first came out, you had I.lv90 gear from the hardest endgame dungeon, and I.lv90 gear from Mythology tomes, which is basically sprinkled on every dungeon you did endgame... so charity I.lv90 gear. In some cases the endgame set had better stats over the 90 Mytho gear due to say, Accuracy or something (which is funny when you consider how worthless stats like Critical, DET, etc really are). You also had I.lv90 weapons you got from rather menial tasks (Relic+1), which was about on par with the Endgame I.lv90 weapons. It raised a point many people pointed out, why do the endgame dungeons when you can get the same I.lv gear from farming casual tier dungeons?

Now in later updates this was fixed, and since then endgame gear has been given an ever so slight advantage. But it was apparent then, and it so in XI now. If you want evidence of how halfassed the system was original implemented, you need look no further than when Adoulin I.lvs first came out. Since then they've revamped the damage on a lot of earlier added items, completely changed the stats on them (adding I.lv vomit as its known), added skill+ assuming because they forgot to account for that when thinking of making level 130 monsters, had to go back and add Magic Skill+ to all weapons because they forgot jobs like PLD, DRK, BLU, NIN, etc use Magic... and so on. The system needed so many additions and such it was clear the implementation was not well thought out.

So its the implementation that hurts it the most, but at the same time, making an I.lv scale with 119 being the cap, and then adding tons of "Charity 119" gear thats easily obtained negates the idea of having a Ilevel scale to begin with. If you're going to give everyone a "participation Medal" and dish out 119 items, why bother making 117, 115, etc items from content thats suppose to be a "ladder" to the 119 gear in the first place? My only answer must be that SE is trying to accommodate for the community being "119 or gtfo", which in itself is a problem both with an I.lv system and a community. This is even apparent in XIV, a rather young game, where comments and such for groups contain "XXI.lv only!" and such.

Either way I'm having a hard time trying to determine how to say what I mean, so, just read the above a few times and see if you can figure it out.

[arus2001]

I don't think I'll ever understand the hate on "stat vomit" myself.

[Karbuncle]

I use Stat vomit as more a term to describe the clutter, not so much as a demeaning term, as I don't find the phrase synonymous with hating it.

"I.lv stats" could be used to get the point across equally well, I just like the idea of someone in SE vomiting all over a piece of armor and stats appearing on it.

[Priran]

Eh. The fact that they're bothering to do a whole new UI gives me some hope they may eventually put some resources into updating the engine.

[Prothescar]

nah. engine updates would be an entirely different story

[Foldypaws]

I use Stat vomit as more a term to describe the clutter, not so much as a demeaning term, as I don't find the phrase synonymous with hating it.

"I.lv stats" could be used to get the point across equally well, I just like the idea of someone in SE vomiting all over a piece of armor and stats appearing on it.

Yeah, my hate on it is simply for the fact that before you could probably evaluate a piece of gear just by looking at it. now you need to look at whether the random stats happen to be significantly higher than usual for the other pieces of gear in that slot.

[dasva]

Aettir is best for RUN at the moment, but that will undoubtedly change with the RME equivalent weapon. Oboro 119s are a step below REMs for some jobs; for some weapons, like BLU sword, they're a step below Delve augmentables and boss drops.

Of course for some jobs *cough bst* delve augmental/boss drops are also better than REMs lol. Staff too I think

[Prothescar]

Of course for some jobs *cough bst* delve augmental/boss drops are also better than REMs lol. Staff too I think

Huh? Guttler is better than Emxgha in normal DD situations, Aymur is way better in most situations and not far behind in the other ones. Farsha... well ok, you can have Farsha.

[Fake]

I dont like the ilvl system, i rather stay at ilvl 119 and have vertical + horizontal progression on ilvl 119. All those stat vomits etc are garbage. The jump was nice to make it even more easier to solo-destroy olde content, but no more ilvl jump. If they do another ilvl jump i might as well hop over to FFXIV and play that, with much easier ways to get gear then in FFXI.

Dont get me wrong I like progression, but FFXI doesnt go well with too much vertical progression and ilvl gear when you have to gear 5 jobs that all use different equipment. The game just isnt designed for fast vertical progression, might as well just trash the game entirely if you go fast vertical progression.

This is all irrelevant to my point though.

We do have an ilevel system in the game regardless of our feelings on it. SE isn't implementing though because it hasn't moved vertically at all since it was introduced. Doesn't matter if they call the remake of Apoc Nigh level 190 content if it still drops ilevel 119 gear.

Also I'm not really sure you've even looked at ffxiv, there is far less RNG/lotting against people in current ffxi because all relevant high end gear has a token system (plasm, skirmish wings), gear is very easy to get in ffxi atm.

[dasva]

Huh? Guttler is better than Emxgha in normal DD situations, Aymur is way better in most situations and not far behind in the other ones. Farsha... well ok, you can have Farsha.

Bah keep forgetting about the hidden effect. Still I wouldn't say it's "way" better. Almost was more referring to Izizoeksi.

Also I think there is some misunderstanding when I'm saying some of these can outdo some rems I mean a Oboro weapon can beat a rem. Not that it can beat a relic and an empyrean and a mythic

[NynJa]

Not all REM"s were created equally though...

Saying Oboros are better than some RME's is pretty strawmanish because those certain RME's are almost as bad as eminent weapons.

[dasva]

No more strawmannish than saying REMs completely blow out almost all of Oboros.

That is somewhat of my point. Saying in general rems are x good is a fairly ambigous and misleading phrase to begin with.

[Damane]

This is all irrelevant to my point though.

We do have an ilevel system in the game regardless of our feelings on it. SE isn't implementing though because it hasn't moved vertically at all since it was introduced. Doesn't matter if they call the remake of Apoc Nigh level 190 content if it still drops ilevel 119 gear.

Also I'm not really sure you've even looked at ffxiv, there is far less RNG/lotting against people in current ffxi because all relevant high end gear has a token system (plasm, skirmish wings), gear is very easy to get in ffxi atm.

plasm, skirmish wings etc equal tomestones of mytho or soldiery. and ffxi gear is harder to get because there isnt an instant party finder or duty finder to run stuff instantly to get your plasm, skirmish wings etc. Mind you hardmission battle drops are still on a RNG. in FFXI you are fucked without competent people (luckily we get stuff done in the shell), but people that just returned to FFXI have a really really really hard time trying to play catch up with the ilvl system, where as in FFXIV you can get to ilvl 90+ in a matter of 2-3 weeks playing occasionally doing your daily roulettes via DF.

the whole party mechanics and group finding in FFXI is so much more time consumeing that it doesnt support fast vertical progression.

[Darkmagi]

XIV is time gated, FFXI is not besides old content such as mythics.

[Fake]

plasm, skirmish wings etc equal tomestones of mytho or soldiery. and ffxi gear is harder to get because there isnt an instant party finder or duty finder to run stuff instantly to get your plasm, skirmish wings etc. Mind you hardmission battle drops are still on a RNG. in FFXI you are fucked without competent people (luckily we get stuff done in the shell), but people that just returned to FFXI have a really really really hard time trying to play catch up with the ilvl system, where as in FFXIV you can get to ilvl 90+ in a matter of 2-3 weeks playing occasionally doing your daily roulettes via DF.

the whole party mechanics and group finding in FFXI is so much more time consumeing that it doesnt support fast vertical progression.

And ilvl 90 gear is now the equivalent of eminent gear now, the best gear still requires you to have competent people. Good luck using duty finder to complete high tier content, by the time duty finders are doing it there is new higher level equipment elsewhere.

You're trying to represent ffxi the way it was pre-abyssea, its nothing like that anymore.

[Damane]

And ilvl 90 gear is now the equivalent of eminent gear now, the best gear still requires you to have competent people. Good luck using duty finder to complete high tier content, by the time duty finders are doing it there is new higher level equipment elsewhere.

You're trying to represent ffxi the way it was pre-abyssea, its nothing like that anymore.

i think you are missing what I am saying, ilvl gear progression works if you have people at hand to go along with (even with PUGs), however the populations on servers are so small that big quick jumps in ilvl gear will destroy whats left. If people cant catch up they might not even bother. FFXI fails in that department big time, either by not giving enough incentiv/reward to repeat the content for people that allready cleared it, or by not haveing enough players around to do it (either by population or what what I said before). I am not saying progression is bad, i actually welcome it, but the ilvl vomit shit we had was a total catastroph, especially if you have multiple jobs geared that use all totally different gear (for example blu cor whm sch war) and you have to regear them in quick succession every 2-3 months from scratch.
FFXIs job system, skill system, ability system and gear system werent designed with ilvl vomit shit in mind.

And no I am not trying to represent pre-abyssea bullshit, stop implying wrong things, i loved the lvl cap raise and all it brought. The cap raise was done very well with content that could be done very quick and with low amount of people, makeing it possible to keep up with various jobs you had equiped. The ilvl vomit shit however feels like a drag to keep up to and is sometimes limited by other factors too: Orbs, Merits, Jobs/Members avialable.
Its not like in 14 where you just can roll in with 1 tank 1 healer 2 DDs, or 2 tanks 2 healers 4 DDs and the jobs dont matter (in most cases) for Delve 2.0 and hardmission battles at VD (in some cases even D).

you know what, fuck it, just spit out whatever you want, i donz ze care, game is done anyway

[NynJa]

game is done anyway

The game was done in 2007, then it was done in jan 2009 when hundreds of top tier players across all servers were banned for salvage duping, with quotes of "this game wont survive without us", then it was done with WotG, then it was done with Abyssea...