Item Level vs. Level Requirement

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Delmas wrote:

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ernestus2001 wrote:

item lvl should stay, but it should be visible on the item. eot.
that was the case with diablo 3 - they added item level on items with quite early patch, after community feedback.

Diablo 3 did it so PoE should? Pretty bad logic imo.

I think it is perfectly fine as it stands.

No it's not perfectly fine.

I have dozens of white rings/amulets in stash. If I roll new toon, I don't want to alch level 60 item, because it will most likely become item I can't use with low level toon. On the other hand if I decide to upgrade gear for some high level toon I don't want alch iLvl6 ring because stats will be worthless.

Going trough dozens of items via "/itemlevel" is just pointlessly much work. Especially when adding it to tooltip from coding point of view is couple minute job. Bit harder if you make it optional via settings or key toggle but still very simple thing to add.


However as others has stated the level requirements vs itemlevel is fine as is.

Get get rid level requirement and keep it stat reqs only!

I would love to see Ilvl on the tooltip.. last night before bed i thought i would sort out my stash... well after checking all the rings i had with /itemlevel i looked at the time... it was nearly 2 hours later...

iLvl on the tooltip is a must please!!!!

I believe one of the reasons cited by GGG that they don't show iLvL is because "it could be too confusing to new players."

It's true that "Item Level", by itself, isn't very descriptive. Maybe using the wording "Item Attribute Level", "Item Mod Level", etc. might be less confusing to newbies.

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Skivverus wrote:

I'm not entirely sure what your logic is here.

Item level is used to allow (without guaranteeing) drops by higher-level monsters to be correspondingly higher-level in their affixes and base type.

If we remove item level, you either have level 60 items dropping from level 1 enemies, or you don't have anything but level 60 items dropping from level 60 enemies. Neither option is palatable.

How about a third option:

Make level 60 enemies drop items from level 50 to 60.


I kind of like this suggestion.

If you are "supposed" to fight monsters at similar levels than you, why should you be rewarded if you fight them at lower levels by getting gear you can wear but is as "strong" as the level of the monster?

EDIT: GGG do seem to think this way, considering the EXP cap that happens if your level is way lower than the place you are in.

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Sexcalibure wrote:

I dont care, i've played 10 years of D2 under this kind of item generation and it was fun.
If the game is configured like D2 there are Ilvl (item level) which is an aray based on Mlvl (monster level) which is based on Alvl (Area level)+ Char Diff ( number of player in the instance, but very low impact). Not to mention Treasure class which determines the possibility of rare/unique to drop. but this is not the topic

The topic is that if we remove ilvl it will scrap the looting dynamic, even worse than D3's...
If we show Ilvl, we kill the randomness of the game... we will only seek Highest ilvl and craft out of them creating almost perfect stats everytime. Please Dev, leave the ilvl determination to the players experience and knowledge

Ehmm....you can see the itemlevel by typing "/itemlevel".
It only makes it more frustrating for players that want to see the level of an item.
Either put it in an easy to visualize area, or take it out.

I don't like the "include the mechanic in the game, but make the process of using it as painful and frustrating as possible" mentality with some of the issues in this game (this ilvl thing, the trading, etc).

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SL4Y3R wrote:

This destroys lower lvl PvP.

Since ilvl determines sockets. If item level were required lvl, you couldn't have a 5L in lvl28 PvP.

Why should it be possible to have a 5L if you are lvl28?

The idea to take out level requirement altogether may work too (but I'm not that sure).

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

Level Requirement and Item Level serve different functions.

Level Requirement - relates to base item type and intrinsic stats
Item Level - relates to affix capabilities, and socket count/links

Sure they could make it 1-dimensional by combining these two things, but it's not like that would be without its own problems. I'm going to take an example of a Rustic Sash and walk through both methods of reducing it to 1-dimensional level, and show why both of them have problems.

Option 1) Suppose you overwrite Item Level with Level Requirement.
The issue here is that all items of the same type will be identical to each other in terms of their potential. So the Rustic Sashes you find in Act 1 Normal could be just as good as the Rustic Sashes you find in Act 3 Merciless. There is no progression. Once you get to a zone that can drop the item you want, there is no incentive to go to a higher zone to get a better version of that item. For things like jewelry and belts that is a big problem. But even for gear it can be an issue. Finding a weapon that is 1 tier back cannot possibly be useful once you've upgraded beyond it. There is literally no chance whatsoever that a lower tier item could ever compete because it is constrained by its lower level. So a higher percentage of items that you find will be garbage due to their incapability of improving beyond their base stats.

Option 2) Suppose you overwrite Level Requirement with Item Level.
Now the problem is when you find that Rustic Sash in Act 3 Merciless, and it has no mods on it, then it still has an equip requirement of Level 50+, even though equipping it as is, there is no difference between that sash and the one you found in Act 1 Normal. If it rolls with an awesome mod that is possible to roll at level 20 but you happened to find the item in Merciless.... too bad. You found it in Merciless so it can only be used in Merciless.

Both options of making the level 1-dimensional introduce new problems. Neither of these problems are interface problems- they are instead gameplay problems. Not displaying item level is an interface problem, and should be treated as such. Promoting an interface issue into a gameplay issue is not a good solution.

Hmm, I see the problems now.

I think (2) is the way to go.
Why would you want to use an item you found on Merciless on Normal? I mean, besides "because I can"?
Why should that be a restricting part of gameplay, that restricts GGG from making this change?


The solution would be increase the "intrinsic stats" of the item with said ilvl as well. Thus you'd never roll an item on Merciless that has the same stats as you do on Normal.

If a Rustic Sash on Normal has "+3% increased damage", one in Merciless would have "+15% increased damage" (or something).
You'll see right away which one is which (because of that change of stat, and the level requirement is higher), and both serve their purpose in the place they dropped.


Alternatively add different "types" of belts and stuff and change their name (without changing their artwork)
So a ilvl 1-20 would be called "Rustic Sash", a ilvl 20-50 would be called "Warrior Sash", a ilvl 50-70 would be called "Sash of Gods", and a ilvl 70+ would be called "Glorious Sash" (of course you can name them whatever you want)


The way it is now it adds a lot of confusion in my mind. If you get a Rustic sash in Normal and put it in your stash, then get a Rustic Sash in Merciless and put it in your stash, if you come back later and want to see which one is which you get a headache and may fuck up (like what some guy above said, alch'ing the wrong one)

I would like to see item level listed alongside character level requirement without having to click and type /itemlevel.

Diablo 3 lists both item level and character level on items so it is visible at a glance.

Please implement this feature !!!

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Wolfis2 wrote:

I would like to see item level listed alongside character level requirement without having to click and type /itemlevel.

Diablo 3 lists both item level and character level on items so it is visible at a glance.

Please implement this feature !!!

Do note however that Diablo 3 only lists it for iLevel 50 items and higher with the game having a hard cap of 63. I think PoE's hard cap is much higher. Anyways that's not really relevant tbh. Show iLevel on items once you reach Merciless or disable all methods of determining iLevel and make it a completely hidden value.

Also to the requests to ditch iLevel or to change it so that enemies drop an item of a random iLevel (Within a specific range), both of those are terrible ideas that would either make the game very dependent on RNG or a lot more bland/lacking in item variety.

We've already seen what a random iLevel does (See: Diablo III, everyone would rather the auction house over finding loot themselves...) and pretty much no one has ever ditched iLevel because of how drastic such a change would simplify the loot system.

I like to look at PoE's implementation of iLevel as a compromise between the RNG dependent iLevel that Diablo III (And maybe Diablo 2 and other games?) uses and the absence of iLevel and I think it does a good job.

I still don't get why you just can't have the requirement level be the same as ilvl.

I mean, the only other options are that the ilvl is higher than the requirement level, or lower:

If ilvl > req lvl:
This means you can wear "better" gear than your level permits.
But....why would you fight so hard to keep this in the game? What's the benefit?
If something drops with ilvl X, it means you are in an area with lvl X,X-1 or X-2. GGG's idea is to "punish" those that go underlevelled to these areas (for fast farming and stuff) by both reducing the percentage of EXP they get and the loot from orbs they get.

If you follow this same ideal, then GGG's idea is to "punish" those that get gear that they can just use (via lvl requirement) yet has higher ilvl (since the only way to get that is to go farm an area with higher level than yours). Yet this doesn't happen (people can theoretically farm these places at low level for high ilvl gear)
Therefore removing this shouldn't be a problem right? And would actually be a solution and "fix" to the idea GGG has, right?
Or am I missing something?

If ilvl < req lvl:
This means you can wear "worse" gear than your level permits.
Well, 2 things:
1)Can this actually happen in the game?
2)Even if it can.....is there a point to this?
Unless I'm missing something important, I don't see what's so special about getting gear with lesser ilvl than the level requirement (assuming your level is the level requirement of the gear).
If so, then there's no problem getting rid of this as well, right?


Therefore, there is no problem getting rid of both ilvl being higher, and lower than the requirement level.
Thus there is no problem in "fixing" ilvl to the level requirement.

There is no problem with the solution, yet there are lots of benefits (easy and less complex system to understand, system that makes more sense imo, etc).


How would this work then?

Gear just has a level. This is both the level of the gear and the level required to wield it.

When you go to an area whose monsters have level X, then they drop gear with level X (or X+1/X+2 if blue/rare).
Since rares and stuff dropping gear higher level may "screw things up", just make every monster drop lvl X gear.
The "base type" of the gear depends on the zone it is dropped then. You can only get lvl 50 base type gear from lvl 50 zones or higher, not when you are lvl 50 (it works this way now I think, right?).

Assuming you always stay on the target lvl (you are lvl 50 in a lvl 50 area, etc), then game continues on like normal.
If you are overlevelled, then everything keeps going on as normal as well
If you are underlevelled, well you won't be able to wield the stuff that drops from a higher level zone as it does.

Hmm, well yeah the other choice is to make lvl X areas drop lvl X-3 up to X+2 (for instance) and stuff gear (maybe). This way if you are both underlevelled or overlevelled you can get stuff that works for you, and doesn't punish slightly underlevelled chars as much (considering the "penalty" for EXP and currency is >4 levels basically, makes sense to put that same "penalty" to the lvl of gear).

The only thing I can see this not working that well is in races, and those guys that want to beat Vaal in lvl 1 or something.
Other than that I don't see the game changing that much (well, it does change, but I don't see the enjoyability of it changing that much).




....alternatively put the damn ilvl on the item for christ's sake :P
I would also say that it'd be nice if they put a way to know all the affixes from a rare/unique item as well, but that may be too "noob" from me.

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gonzaw wrote:

I still don't get why you just can't have the requirement level be the same as ilvl.

I mean, the only other options are that the ilvl is higher than the requirement level, or lower:

If ilvl > req lvl:
This means you can wear "better" gear than your level permits.
But....why would you fight so hard to keep this in the game? What's the benefit?
If something drops with ilvl X, it means you are in an area with lvl X,X-1 or X-2. GGG's idea is to "punish" those that go underlevelled to these areas (for fast farming and stuff) by both reducing the percentage of EXP they get and the loot from orbs they get.

If you follow this same ideal, then GGG's idea is to "punish" those that get gear that they can just use (via lvl requirement) yet has higher ilvl (since the only way to get that is to go farm an area with higher level than yours). Yet this doesn't happen (people can theoretically farm these places at low level for high ilvl gear)
Therefore removing this shouldn't be a problem right? And would actually be a solution and "fix" to the idea GGG has, right?
Or am I missing something?

If ilvl < req lvl:
This means you can wear "worse" gear than your level permits.
Well, 2 things:
1)Can this actually happen in the game?
2)Even if it can.....is there a point to this?
Unless I'm missing something important, I don't see what's so special about getting gear with lesser ilvl than the level requirement (assuming your level is the level requirement of the gear).
If so, then there's no problem getting rid of this as well, right?

....alternatively put the damn ilvl on the item for christ's sake :P
I would also say that it'd be nice if they put a way to know all the affixes from a rare/unique item as well, but that may be too "noob" from me.

Well as has been pointed out, the current system lets you get loot that can be useful/awesome for an alternate character that isn't quite up to the same point as your main character in the game. By removing iLevel You are restricting players to only getting average loot and never awesome loot as awesome loot will always instead have high level requirements.

So you are removing the "thrill" of the item hunt and making it boring/monotonous. Your gear improvements are restricted to your character level and by restricting gear stats to Required Level you are dramatically reducing the pool (chance) of (finding) awesome gear for all players, late game, mid game and early game.

Also yeah I hate that they combine similar item mods together like if an item rolls 2 +IIR mods it will only display one blue text label showing the combined value, making it needlessly harder to determine why you can't add more mods to the item via Orbs.

Well I dunno

I only check the "req level" for stuff I get.
If I see a gear with "Req level = 51" then I assume the "level" of that gear is indeed 51.
I have no idea whether the ilvl of it is 51 or 1000000, so that "thrill" does not exist at all in my specific mind.

Considering how it's almost impossible to know the ilvl of the item (by that I mean...it's impossible to find it without being frustrating as hell so you just don't do it)...where is the thrill there?


ilvl determines the tier of mods right? Isn't there RNG on those tiers as well?

If you get a +10% fire resist you can also get a +20% fire resist (yeah don't really know how the exact mod works lol, it's just an example). There's already enough RNG in those tiers to satisfy your "lust for awesome items!" (you can get the "perfect rolls" for those mods...in which case there's the awesome item you want), and that seems to be the whole point about them to me!.

If you want to fix this, then add more variance to said tiers of mods and you solve that problem.

ilvl as it is now is either frustrating or nonexistent or frustratingly nonexistent (when you would really like to know about it for something but you don't)