Is it actually possible for them to keep adding content without raising the level cap

I'd rather to see a level cap increase on the new expansion, not until then.

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Originally Posted by Cobayn

I want a Lalafell throwing contest...

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Damn straight, we'll soon find out which Lalafell can throw things the furthest then... I think the competition should involve throwing balls of string off cliffs. With free catnip-based beverages for spectators!

As I understand it, the plan is to flesh out the game for the first year. That is what the 3 planned major updates are for. After that there will be a major expansion where there is a probability that the level cap will be raised.

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Originally Posted by Rizon

As I understand it, the plan is to flesh out the game for the first year. That is what the 3 planned major updates are for. After that there will be a major expansion where there is a probability that the level cap will be raised.

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This is correct.

Personally we have way too much Ilvl gear and dont need anymore for a level cap of 50., not too mention that the question of inventory or exchangeing old gear for tomes has yet to be answered. A level cap increase and a ilvl increase at the same time. Now those that would say just toss it but in fact tossing it isnt an option as you and the devs would be saying your time isnt worth it. So before they decide to release more ilvl gear they need to address a few things like: lvl cap increase, storage, inventory, convert to materia or exchange for tomes. Besides everyone looks the same there is very little room for customization regardless if they release the vanity system.

In traditional MMORPG (and FFXIV is a 100% traditional MMORPG in this aspect) character progression has 2 forms:

1. Level up
2. Gear up

Some games have what is called "alternative advancement" that is just a fancy name for leveling up, giving your character a different "level" to progress other than the character level. Leveling up also includes the skill-level based games.

So it is perfectly possible for Square Enix to continue to add content without raising the level up. The current available content already shows us how they're handling it: by dishing out higher item-level gear. I.e. #2 above.

In the end it doesn't really matter which route. Both #1 and #2 are going to result in stat inflation. It's unavoidable as long as they design tiered content. It is also a easy to understand measurement of character progression, which is the single biggest reason why games use this: players demand such easy to understand measures.

They already said once, pre-launch, that they wanted to wait a while before raising level cap. Not that they would never raise it. It'll probably happen with the first expansion.

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Originally Posted by Mykha

I had read that yoshi didn't want to raise the level cap, and that approach to the game would interest me a lot more than having a raise each new expansion and making older content unused and ignored.

If they keep going with item levels, and stack content based on item level, add quests that are accessible based on item level etc. it could get pretty interesting.

How do you guys think they'll handle it?

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City of heroes did for years. They lasted a good 8-10 years. The only reason the game died was due to issues in their management where many of their big time developers split off to do other things.

It worked great in FFXI because gear in that game worked fundamentally differently compared to modern day MMOs (gear swaps + horizontal gear progression). However, FFXIV's item progression is similar to WoW's and is vertical progression, so at some point your older playerbase will simply stop running older content because the items won't be of any use to them anymore (in contrast to people in FFXI still running Sky even years later for stuff like Haidate).

I loved FFXI's item progression but I just don't see it happening in this game. They have to either rehaul how stuff works in this game or eventually raise the level cap.

I'd expect to see a level cap raise every 1.5 to 2 years. I'm sure people don't want what happened in FFXI after they finally raised the level cap from 75 after 7 years to happen again here.