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

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?

Content means a lot of things. Adding new content does not mean combat content only.

Chocobo racing, Golden saucer, Housing, Party crafting, etc. Are also new content.

SE pls add lalafell hunting as content... there are just too many of them.

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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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Sure why not , the only thing will be they will need to lock out players who aren't geared . Pretty simple . Which makes you think why even have lvl 1 to 50 , just have no levels at all just gear levels .

Considering it takes zero skill to get 50 grinding FATES right :)

The reason for raising level caps is to even the playing field. As item levels continue to rise, the amount of people doing earlier content falls... it makes it a lot harder for new players or slower paced players to find enough people to get involved.

I think that not raising the level cap at some point will kill the purpose of the game. It will raise... the story has to continue, new primals have to appear... (more) epic battles have to come, and more skills have to become accessible (i still hope for some kind of skill tree.... unless what ppl claim it was present in many FF games... why not on this one?)

If they keep going with item levels as you said... well guess what? lower item levels will become useless even more that it would be with a level cap raise because at least, you would need the items to help you leveling your char. Those quests based on item levels... what would they bring to your char? new items? like.. you'll end up with a char full item 150... but being level 50? doesn't make sense.

As of new gears we could get... it would mean either gear higher level (i repeat imo it makes no sense)... or it could mean new gears with different stat allocation. I would LOVE the latest option.... It would show that finally SE team understood they have to bring more diversity into their game, and this game needs it a lot Clone Fantasy14 ;p
So yes in this respect they could keep adding new gear sets without raising the level cap or gear level, it would give the oportunity for everyone to customize their character as they wish, finally the game would become interesting with more pve builds and pvp would have a slight chance of becoming something. -> this is called horizontal progression. They should take exemple on GW2 best game out in the market when it comes to that (and they didn't need 2years to add content and diversity.)

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Originally Posted by HumsterMKX

SE pls add lalafell hunting as content... there are just too many of them.

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Hehe, they should do the same with Miqo'te :P

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Originally Posted by HumsterMKX

SE pls add lalafell cuddling as content... they are just too cute.

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Fixed your typo for you ^^;;

I don't see why not. FFXI did it for like 7 years.

i really hope this game doesnt become like dcuo.....

I don't know where you read that, but I think you misunderstood. There was an interview where Yoshi-P said he didn't want to raise the level cap too soon, because there are multiple classes to level already and he wants people to use the HL content.

But that doesn't mean he won't ever raise it. On the contrary, he said multiple times that the level cap will be increased, giving new job quests, new skills, etc...

He even said it again recently when asked about news egis based on remaining primals for the summoner.

Not necessarily. Horizontal progression is MUCH more interesting than vertical progression. We already have ZERO character customization - increasing the level cap without adding some form of horizontal progression would only make this worse.

Not to mention the never-ending cycle of obsoleting your previous gear is REALLY annoying. Quite frankly, I've done that non-sense now in several other games. I'm barely tolerating the silly gear treadmill they currently have us on. If they exacerbate that by releasing a level-cap raising expansion less than a year after launch, that will be the end of my sub, period.

As much as I agree with you.... I still really hope to see new part of the story being revealed... more maps... more dungeons... new Primals... and more skills (with choice) and this within 1 year. I don't know if this could really happen without a level cap raise. But ye... Horizontal Progression and stat diversity is the way to go... every other game producers but SE seems to got it right ;x

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Originally Posted by Mykha

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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This is how DCUO does it, almost all 2/4/8 man content has an item level requirement.

This keeps a MMO from raising its lvl cap, it is wise considering IMO, raising a lvl cap in an MMO is one of the last things you want to do.

I don't entirely disagree with the methods used. Players without the required gear are kept from dungeons they shouldn't be in, that's a good thing.
On DC, your overall item level is refereed to as CR, so normally shouts for a role would have a required CR number attached, you'll see that here soon.

As for the whole item lvl vs lvl cap and how they affect content well, that's debatable for sure.

If they take to long to raise the cap after a long period of time, lets say years. I predict a lot of people is going to rage when all their year old precious gear becomes obsolete. I think SE shouldn't wait to long and they shouldn't do it to soon.

Old games had it right... The initial level cap took about 5-7 months to achieve (not 1 week), Then you would need another 2 - 3 months of hardcore farming to get your desired gears... during this time, after u get level cap you spend about 6 mounths (3 mounths with you maxed gears) to farm big world bosses, pvp, and exp your guild and this nearly always in open pvp maps to create competition betweend guilds. (no maxed FC in 3 days). By the time you achieved that without a sigle time having to feel like you have nothing to do... 1 year passed and your body was ready for a level cap raise! (your old equipment wasn't useless then... as you would need it to level and farm new equipment)
Ohhhhhh old mmos, i miss you.

Increasing level cap is a good thing. Why people are against it, I have no idea.

Levels are arbitrary. Nothing but time delays to essentially create filler content. Level grinding (like in a lot of old mmos) was nothing but cheap fill for a development team. A dungeon/raid/new area etc. take a lot more time and effort to create than a grind mechanic. Back on track, there is no reason why anything has to be gained from leveling up. Want new gear? Add more ilvls, make it possible for all to fluidly progress to that tier though. Want new skills? Have them unlocked through quests or rewards (game already does this anyways). The only real advantage of a level increase is it gives that feeling of a massive update to players, but that is more a thing on just how MMO players have been conditioned to always be looking for that next level.

Good examples of progressions without a level cap raise are found in GW (horizontal progression), GW2 (horizontal with some vertical), and Tera (vertical).

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

Increasing level cap is a good thing. Why people are against it, I have no idea.

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It negates content and removes peoples work.

Would you rather have 16-20 different things that are worth doing at endgame or 2 things that are worth doing after 2-3yrs in a mmo. It is the difference of being able to play 70hrs a week and not get bored and be able to do all valid content every week in 8-10hrs. It allows a game to be truly endless and give everyone no matter your playstyle enough content to continue subs for an indefinite time.

Level increases have almost no positive attached to them besides removing the currently players hardwork to remove the gap between new players and old... which to me is a horrible way of doing it.

Game should not be at 50 for long...but next few level cap increases they should just raise it and leave it there for the remainder of the games existence.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

It negates content and removes peoples work.

Would you rather have 16-20 different things that are worth doing at endgame or 2 things that are worth doing after 2-3yrs in a mmo. It is the difference of being able to play 70hrs a week and not get bored and be able to do all valid content every week in 8-10hrs. It allows a game to be truly endless and give everyone no matter your playstyle enough content to continue subs for an indefinite time.

Level increases have almost no positive attached to them besides removing the currently players hardwork to remove the gap between new players and old... which to me is a horrible way of doing it.

Game should not be at 50 for long...but next few level cap increases they should just raise it and leave it there for the remainder of the games existence.

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Negates content? What? That doesn't make any sense. Gear itself will negate content, not the levels.

All it does it provide a progression "reset" which allows new players and casuals to feasibly catch up with end-game players so the cycle begins anew.

I want a Lalafell throwing contest...

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.