Of those, I have only played FFXI. It had several YEARS to build it's horizontal progression. In fact, it took it 3 expansions to offer you real choice of gear and not only "the-best-gear vs the-gear-I-can-afford", which is not...a choice.
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I found the title of this absolutely hilarious. I don't even care about the post, just that title had me in tears.
OK, read OP.
It gives us players some bragging rights, I guess. "Back in my day, T1-5 was a weekly lockout, we went weeks without loot...". Plus, while new players are busy doing T1-5, we'll have T6-9 to keep us busy.
I've been doing Coil for months now, probably been running 1-4 weekly to get drops for my SMN for 2 months, and each time something I needed dropped (which has been about 2-3x) it was literally stolen from people who didn't need it (i.e a BLM who was already BIS and just took it because he knew I needed it. I still remember your name, if you're reading this.) That's a whole other story, I guess. Wound is still sore. All the times I've ran it, and not had my stuff drop, or have had it "stolen", kinda all went to waste but I really don't care because 1) it's a game, 2) I have T6-9 to look forward to and gear up in, 3) it's a game. I don't feel like we've been "shagged" at all. Hell, I enjoyed doing Coil. It's a run dungeon. I'm sure the FCs who got world first/etc and worked oh so very hard on everything enjoyed it too - or else they wouldn't have done it in the first place.
Rewarding players more for completing the same task on a higher difficulty is NOT special treatment! That is how games with different levels of difficulty work. They took on a greater challenge for what they got. What is the point of taking something on a higher difficulty if the reward is the same? No intelligently made game does this. On top of which the devs have taken that chance away from you.
Also, you do have access to the content. Access does not imply that you should be able to complete the encounter without difficulty. Yes, there should be an easier version so people with less time can see the content, but not at the cost of an entire difficulty level of play that we already payed for. Nor should the players on easy mode be rewarded the same thing as those who did it hard mode. at least give the hard mode a version of the gear that looks different.And, repeating my last statement, they have forever STRIPPED YOU of access to the content you payed for by replacing the encounter with a watered down version. You no longer have access to the original fight.
I don't mind this change at all. As part of a group that likes to push content as hard as possible, people get burnt out after awhile. The lockouts taken off will just mean, to me, less time to gear up a replacement when someone gets burnt out.
Out content will always get reworked when new comes around. It is all about the community progressing. Sure my static and I spent forever grinding and learning coil, but that was for those that could challenge new content and spend more than a few hrs a day on the game. Those that can barely spend any time on the game need a way to progress or they get bored, so what do you do? Simple, you let those that were on the "top" end get their shiny gear wear it around "semi" exclusively for a few months, then with an update you change that content since it is no longer "end game" and let us face it 1-5 was never actually meant to be end game, so that those that have limited time can still progress through the game. So when the new coil expansion comes out players that again can dedicate time to it will again be top end with the shiny gear that will again in the future that content will be reworked.