Rank cap increase every 1-2 years discussion thread

Depends on how it's done I suppose... WoW did it to the worst end. Negated past content with the implementation of easier content. If you break it up into the various level caps... 60, 70, 80... once you raised it, content @ 60, for example, became obsolete and noone ran it to any large degree. Thus people get to level 70 without learning everything possible from level 70. Cycle continues until naturally you're adding all the new content with the same span of difficulty. Never really building on this, and there is no real sense of progression, but leap frogs of content.

Personally, my preference lies in something similar to Monster Hunter. Levels and Ranks become meaningless, and there is just challenge after challenge after challenge, each requiring gear/skills obtained from the previous. Otherwise FFXIV will become like WoW, where you grind dungeons for a year to get all the best gear, then they implement a level increases that destroys the value of the gear you spent large amounts of time obtaining, just to go and repeat the process.

Honestly, I feel this is a terrible idea, and I hope they would be careful not to follow WoW's formula.

I am really against this just simply because is makes everything obsolete as the level increase came... and SE has a horrible track record on releasing things.

Even in XI every single expansion was stripped down at release to the same degree XIV was... and it compounds the problem if the old content is all negated every level increase.

No one in XI cared about the expansion being released with almost nothing, because it was some content put ontop of thousands and thousands of hours of other valid content which everyone was still doing.

With the current system not only is everything you done worthless... SE is risking not having enough new content, and you lose one of the biggest strengths that FFXI had... the monstrous endgame which kept the playerbase there for a decade, atm the only other game that comes close to FFXI preabysea is EQ honestly in terms of exactly how much stuff there was to do.

Negating all old content is one of the worst things most mmo devs do.... It is sorta a shame that SE is following in this western tradition... because it one of the biggest game breaking elements in mmos now days. you know the whole "well the expansion came I done everything afk till next update."

All I have to say is if SE even thinks about doing this they better release expansions with twice the content XI's where (A year after they came out), or there is simply no way they will be enough content to keep up with the player base... especially if it is mostly casual.

I honestly see no benefit to an incremental level increase, nothing but huge negatives. I just fail to see why devs who work so hard making content, just want to destroy it every 2 yrs.

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Originally Posted by _C-a-e-r-i-t-h_

Did OG MLP have an evil enchantress who does evil dances?

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No, but if you look deep in her eyes, she'll put you in trances.

It keeps things fairly in check, but it depends on the route FF14 wants to be(assuming it has a future next year).

Do you want a game where a population is spread like old school games like FF11, everquest, etc. Where you have a large portion of "feldgings" and "verterans" and only a small portion of "elites" aka end-gamers.

OR

Do you want a game of majority of end-gamers and very few of the rest. Much like the rash of new MMO theories since WoW and the "PvP" groups.

Caps have to raise fast when you deal with endgamers, but rarely have to be raised much for adventurers. 1-2ys sounds like the oldschool method, where you are only raising the cap to keep the elite, elite, and let everyone else move at a normal rate. A good average is usually around 10-15% elites, as a "stick dangling" effect to a game, where the feeling of "glass ceiling" will not arise.

FF11's "glass ceiling" effect was getting much too heavy due to this, and reason why lvl 99 was a little late. Too many people were at the top leading to many unpleasant effect.

WoW's is why you have so much stupidity at the top because everyone is fighting for that rare of rare piece...because there was nothing else to do, and much too many people wanted it. Content became incredibly finicky as it almost always has to catered to endgame and endgame only...because everyone was endgame.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

More content overall in what way? Are you saying that WOW's level 60, 70, and 80 raids are not content?

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No, I'm not. I'm saying there's more to do overall. I never played WOW so I can't really use that as a comparison, but if they made the level 50,60, and 70 raids obsolete with the level 80 raids, I'd prefer it to be a level 50, a new level 50, a new level 50 and a new level 50. That way even the first level 50 raid was still desirable to do, because there was still gear that you wanted from it, as opposed to making that first level 50 raid completely obsolete so no one ever did it. Having 4 options for endgame content is better then having 1.

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

No, I'm not. I'm saying there's more to do overall. I never played WOW so I can't really use that as a comparison, but if they made the level 50,60, and 70 raids obsolete with the level 80 raids, I'd prefer it to be a level 50, a new level 50, a new level 50 and a new level 50. That way even the first level 50 raid was still desirable to do, because there was still gear that you wanted from it, as opposed to making that first level 50 raid completely obsolete so no one ever did it. Having 4 options for endgame content is better then having 1.

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WoW has very little reusable content. Old dungeons are novelties no one cared for once they done it a few times unless it's endgame.

The only thing about wow, is that it was so often "rebalanced" that people made multiple toons to replace a bit of that old "non-endgame" content.

WoW is very broken in this way. Only the new shinny is ever appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

No, I'm not. I'm saying there's more to do overall. I never played WOW so I can't really use that as a comparison, but if they made the level 50,60, and 70 raids obsolete with the level 80 raids, I'd prefer it to be a level 50, a new level 50, a new level 50 and a new level 50. That way even the first level 50 raid was still desirable to do, because there was still gear that you wanted from it, as opposed to making that first level 50 raid completely obsolete so no one ever did it. Having 4 options for endgame content is better then having 1.

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Having four options is nice, but I don't want to be doing the same raid five years later any more than I'd want to do a rank 50 raid when I'm 80. Doing Dynamis every week for a year and a half before I quit was too much, I feel sorry for those who kept at it for years more. When content doesn't become obsolete the developers can be lazier and not add as much new stuff.

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

No, I'm not. I'm saying there's more to do overall. I never played WOW so I can't really use that as a comparison, but if they made the level 50,60, and 70 raids obsolete with the level 80 raids, I'd prefer it to be a level 50, a new level 50, a new level 50 and a new level 50. That way even the first level 50 raid was still desirable to do, because there was still gear that you wanted from it, as opposed to making that first level 50 raid completely obsolete so no one ever did it. Having 4 options for endgame content is better then having 1.

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I was using WOW as an example because it's the only MMO I've played where this level cap increase was common and frequent.

On one hand, I agree with you that making older content obsolete sucks. But on the other hand, I think it's much, much more important for new content to not risk being unused right away. That's a waste of developer time and money, and brings nothing of value to the game. Repeating old content gets boring fast for a lot of people. Level cap increases are a way to equalize the play field for everyone and to keep things feeling fresh.

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Originally Posted by Shikaree

This is completely different! This is old school MLP! I'm not really much into the current Brony fad because it ruined my image of the original. Which I think Chezen's sig was hinting at too, the preference to the older style.

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*Whistles dixie* :p

Back on topic...

There are a lot of people who live for endgame dungeons and gear, and it would be easy for FFXIV to follow that route. But as was kinda hinted at in another topic, doing what everyone else does, even if they manage to do it a little better, will not keep FF on top of the gaming world. Course, now I'm getting into whether people think FFXIV is even capable of that, but that's beside the point.

This is something devs still have time to plan for. As many say, it just depends on what they plan, like anything.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

Having four options is nice, but I don't want to be doing the same raid five years later any more than I'd want to do a rank 50 raid when I'm 80. Doing Dynamis every week for a year and a half before I quit was too much, I feel sorry for those who kept at it for years more. When content doesn't become obsolete the developers can be lazier and not add as much new stuff.

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That's debatable. Since developers are only as lazy as they get subscriber base. The fact you did dynamis for so long allows them to be lazy or lower staffed.

There'd always a balance. If you wanted a new shinny and they didn't have enough time to do give you a new shiny, would it have been any different? You still would have quit. Content, good content, doesn't magically appear.

Unless you play Guildwars where the whole point of is content...for you money...literally.