What is the point of having Item Levels?

[Depakote]

I've never really understood that. To me in sort of encourages a sense of elitism and that in the long run can't be healthy for any game..

[Genju]

I've never really understood that. To me in sort of encourages a sense of elitism and that in the long run can't be healthy for any game..

Ilvl is just the stat budget of an item. It wasnt shown originally, but addons revealed them, so blizz made it standard to better compare item quality.

i dont see your problem.
"in the long run"...the past i dont know 5 years we have them? When does your "long run" finally arrive.

[ablib]

Without item levels, we have gearscore...which is worse.

[Drotain]

What Genju said. Item Level determines how much of stats appear on an item. It's a technical number that was unfortunately popularized because it's singular and simple to see x > y. While the different stats on items could vary and offer different advantages, to most people it just boils down to item level alone because it is such a simple comparison.

[Depakote]

Ilvl is just the stat budget of an item. It wasnt shown originally, but addons revealed them, so blizz made it standard to better compare item quality.

i dont see your problem.
"in the long run"...the past i dont know 5 years we have them? When does your "long run" finally arrive.

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

[Leih]

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

Addons did this before the actual ilvl on items was visible. Namely, Gearscore (a term you are clearly familiar with already!)

If Blizzard removed visible ilvls from items, addons would simply emerge again to calculate it for you and the situation would be the same. There is always going to be elitism based on minimum gear/perceived gear levels. If you want to "fix" that you have to remove gearing.

[Genju]

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

Its not the games fault if the people are stupid.
If there was no item level, you would have "gearscore".
If there was no gearscore, those same idiots would require "LF ONLY DD WITH MORE THAN XXX INTELLECT/STRENGTH".

[Vetis]

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

now? thats been a problem ever since achievements and the very first gearscore addon. its not a new issue.

[Forgettable]

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

It's really not. I host pugs like that. I don't care to carry some undergeared person who may or may not know what they're doing. I want to recruit a raider who for whatever reason didn't have a chance to kill all the bosses on a given week and are just looking to fill those last few slots they're missing. Item level has nothing to do with this behavior.

[Depakote]

Then why not just remove gearscore and ilvls from the game? They really don't serve any purpose...

[Eace]

I agree with what people here have already said. If item levels weren't visible, addons like Gearscore would be used again. Also, visible item levels are a great way for Blizzard to gate LFD/LFR content.

[Travio]

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

Then why not just remove gearscore and ilvls from the game? They really don't serve any purpose...

That existed before ilvls were visible on items when people made addons to assign their own values to items based on the hidden ilvls. The ilvl has to exist, in some fashion, in order for the item to have a stat budget - even if it doesn't exist as an official number, seeing enough items will let players determine stat budget and assign their own values to it (such as when Gearscore was popular).

ilvl serves the purpose of giving of a rough estimation of gear progression. If you're blindly using it as a gauge of how good someone is, you're doing it wrong. Then again, it's also a good determination of roughly how well you should be performing (because you can directly compare one player with ilvl630 to another).

Additionally, I've yet to see anyone asking for higher than 655 for Highmaul, but I have seen people asking for the achievement - would not, then, the idea of achievements be just as bad?

[Genju]

Then why not just remove gearscore and ilvls from the game? They really don't serve any purpose...

You cant remove something that isnt even a feature. ilvl is just a technical number of the overall stats budget of an item.
You could just add all stats on an item and create your "own" item level, that is what gearscore (with some factors for int etc.) did prior official item lvl.

Blizz just made it official to guide (new) players. You know where to find upgrades, places where you get it, by looking at the ilvl.

[cskx2001]

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

Yeah, back in Wrath, GS (GearScore) was a BIG thing, Blizz released iLVL of equipment instead as public for reasons above, and people are requiring an iLVL higher than the raids loot-tables. Most likely they are looking for people geared to quick clear, or the leader is undergeared and looking for higher iLVL people to carry him somewhat.

Either way you go about it, we will have the same problem in the end. There is no fixing it and other games have their own playerbases with their own requirements...such as having so much of X type of gear or something along that.

There is no inherit reason why WE need to see the ilvls, aside from Blizz being able to set out a standard instead of the wonky GearScore system, but either way, people will complain. I find people complaining less with iLVL than GearScore overall.

[foxHeart]

Better yet. Let's remove achievements. And make it so you can't inspect anyone. And you can't see their names. And make it so you can't see the actual gear a character's wearing. Let's make all the other character appear as little blue and white checkered cubes. Let's also disable players seeing damage. So no body can possibly be distinguished from another person or be disregarded because of elitism.

Or just remove ilevel. Cause that'll put a stop to everything, too. Because you can really stop someone from being an "elitist" that way.

[Leih]

Then why not just remove gearscore and ilvls from the game? They really don't serve any purpose...

"ilvl" is just the stat budget of the item. If it was not visible, then addons would attempt to calculate it using a guesswork formula (which is what gearscore is).

Asking to remove "ilvl" from the game as a concept is basically saying "remove all stats from items."

As long as items have stats, and some items are more powerful than others, then there is a concept of ilvl/gearscore, whether it's displayed by blizzard or an addon.

[WskyDK]

Or just remove ilevel. Cause that'll put a stop to everything, too. Because you can really stop someone from being an "elitist" that way.

Can't tell if sarcasm...

OT: ilvl cannot be removed, and people will find a way to use it as a roadblock/invite requirement.

[Serissa]

*points to regular raid runs now that require a person to have a gearscore much higher than the loot table of certain raid has.. Ya that's not a problem...

Make your own raid. Problem solved.

Too lazy? It's your problem.

[Deleted]

Elitism? It's just quick way to see if someone might be decent. Earlier we had "Inspect at Aldor bank" and you would have to sort through every single dude in there, see if he enchanted/gemmed correctly etc. This is just a quicker way.

[Deleted]

Its not the games fault if the people are stupid.
If there was no item level, you would have "gearscore".
If there was no gearscore, those same idiots would require "LF ONLY DD WITH MORE THAN XXX INTELLECT/STRENGTH".

Ahaha i remember before ilvl, and gearscore it used to be "LINK EPIC!" (achievement -> "Equip an epic item in every slot with a minimum item level of 213.")