Benefits Of Increasing Level Cap?

I remember reading somewhere that new Egi's wouldn't be brought into the game until a level cap raise had happened, which wouldn't happen until a new class was released (or something along those lines, it was awhile ago).

This got me thinking: What's the benefit of increasing our level cap?

All they have to do to increase progress is to create higher item level (ilvl 100, ilvl 110, etc, etc) and keep going with that.

I can only think of 1 benefit, and that's to give us extra stat points to allocate, but considering it's almost pointless to add anything into a stat other than their main stat they'd be better off just adding the few extra points into higher item level gear.

The argument for waiting until a level cap increase to add another Egi was so they could add the skill for it. They wouldn't have to do that, just make new quests with the people we got our Artifact gear from and let us get skills from there.

Apart from stat points, what's the benefit of increasing the level cap? There's more than likely other reasons that I can't think of, so it would be nice to hear it from others. Extra story as a reason was also one I heard, but that's stupid. You can add extra story without giving everyone EXP for it.

the level cap increase could allow to regulate who wears what gear....just as at level 45 you can't just throw on Darklight...you have to wait til 50. with 50 being the max level, if you continued to add higher gear, someone who leveled another class to 50 could just throw on this iLVL130 gear. you could raise the cap to allow this iLVL 130 to be worn by lvl 80 or higher for example.

Having higher ilvl on lvl 55, they could use that to sync yr armor down doing lv 50 content.

new abilities

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Originally Posted by Genesis88

Having higher ilvl on lvl 55, they could use that to sync yr armor down doing lv 50 content.

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exactly....could you imagine someone going into Titan HM and solo-killing him? it would take the thrill, fun, and hard work away from some of the instances to have such high level gear equipped at the current level cap. even now i have a WAR at iLVL 76 and i can stand in plumes for fun. now imagine if i had gear at ilvl 100+ :\

more levels also means more skills and more traits.

I don't know about you guys, but as a person who plays a PLD often, I really want to see what new abilities they add. The class/job is so boring and incomplete atm.

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Originally Posted by odie

the level cap increase could allow to regulate who wears what gear....just as at level 45 you can't just throw on Darklight...you have to wait til 50. with 50 being the max level, if you continued to add higher gear, someone who leveled another class to 50 could just throw on this iLVL130 gear. you could raise the cap to allow this iLVL 130 to be worn by lvl 80 or higher for example.

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The problem with this is that the speed of leveling is so ridiculously fast, you are only preventing someone from equipping something for a couple of days. It isnt a real roadblock, and the only roadblock would be the difficulty of obtaining such high level gear. Problem with THAT is that there is so much backlash about any sort of difficulty that they cant really do it. You'll end up with people complaining that they cant equip iLVL130 armor while running entry level dungeons.

but at least allow some sort of buffer and difficulty. i feel like its too easy to just overgear instances and you don't seem forced to learn your job. Titan HM is a great example of learning what you need to know for endgame....kind of....Tanks need to learn to manage cooldowns...or they die....healers need to heal their ass off and know when its worth it to heal dps, and keep the tank up at the same time, dps have the heart to kind of test them. By overgearing one would give up learning and farm for higher level gear and then just blow through titan.

I admit, i'm one of those people that didn't know about defensive/damage mitigation cooldowns for WAR until i tanked Titan HM. Mostly because as a healer i was able to farm gear for WAR before it hit 50. I could overgear everything i went into and wasn't forced to learn. There needs to be some sort of separation there.

that just goes back to people backlashing if things are too difficult. How many people here completed Titan HM as intended? in a group of 8 people where no one has relics or myth gear. Not very many at all.

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Originally Posted by Dahdrael

new abilities

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Exactly. By raising the level caps developers can introduce new abilities and job quests. In other words, they can add more content.

A lot of it has to do with balance and minimizing any sort of nerfs to do it. Each level change affects the way your stats scale. +1 of any useful stat can be significant to a lv1 class, whereas +1 of any useful stat is fairly insignificant of a change to a lv50 (for the most part). Every occasion that levels get increased, it essentially means the devs are given a reset as to how stat scaling can work in relation to where the gear stats are at. It can also be a time to readjust the way certain stats or mechanics work. There's also the choice by the devs to make players experience new zones or content through the introduction of gaining more levels. Level cap increases typically signify some sort of significant change or hallmark that will revitalize the game, be it a lot of changes at once or one huge change, which is why it usually occurs with expansions. Be it new areas, new spells/abilities, new classes, new play mechanics, etc.

but then when they raise the level cap, unless they cap old areas, they become trivialized. Raising the level cap too soon will pretty much invalidate everything put into the game so far. So a level cap raise needs to be accompanied by a reasonable amount of new things to do scaled for the new cap

i thought the old areas were already capped? most events toward the end tell you "if you're level is over 50 you will be synced".

(sorry if i'm misunderstanding you)

i havent seen anything at level 50 that says anything about syncing.

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Originally Posted by Hanabira

i havent seen anything at level 50 that says anything about syncing.

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its there. you have to keep your eye out for it. (not being sarcastic) i've encountered several instances that told me i'd be synced if over 50. so i think they already thought ahead.

anything significant? like dungeons? or are you talking something like.. uhh.. lvl50 job quests?

i know for certain job quests are like that, but i remember seeing it other places as well. but even for dungeons, if you don't see it mentioned, it doesn't mean they haven't already thought of it. i'm sure it will all be worked out if it isn't by the time a level raise comes our way

Raising the level cap will add a lot more depth to current jobs. If you actually sit down and look at all job's current abilities and compare them to what they could do in previous titles, even ffxi, you'll see these jobs are at their very core of what they're supposed to be. We are missing so many traits / actions right now it's pretty obvious they're headed in this direction. Do you really think a BLM will just have Fire / Fire III / Blizzard III / Thunder III / Flare spam forever ? You think Paladin rotations will always be 1,2,3 ? Give the game a bit of time. It only just started. Not counting 1.0 since the poor thing never really got any major updates.

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Originally Posted by odie

i know for certain job quests are like that, but i remember seeing it other places as well. but even for dungeons, if you don't see it mentioned, it doesn't mean they haven't already thought of it. i'm sure it will all be worked out if it isn't by the time a level raise comes our way

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Yeah but for now, this doesn't affect it. It's going by your actual level, not your ilevel. I did my level 50 DRG quest in full DL with Titan's spear and none of that was synced down. If you are talking about for the future, then yeah maybe. But right now since the level required to wear ilvl 90 is still char-lvl 50, the gear doesn't sync down. Aurum Vale is the last thing you can do in the game at the moment that will lower your end-game gear stats. I helped a buddy of mine who just started recently clear Cape Westwind in my i86 BRD last week. I had the same amount of HP I always have.

Well for one thing it'll give us a good reason to level a job, and hopefully by the end of the lv cap we'll get new traits or abilities.

Like an aoe stoneskin for whm or king mog egi for summoner.

I'd rather lv up a job to complete quests rather than save up tomes/gear to get the ilv needed to complete a quest.

Other than a relic quest there's really not much else to do for me to look forward to other than collecting gear.

Just imagine a FF XI where the level cap increase to 75 never happened

Mostly new level caps help to establish a new benchmark for stats when planning out new content. When they release new level caps and new starter gear that goes along with it they'll generally have a good idea of where players are stat wise and be able to design content around what they feel most players will have at that point. Usually anyway.

Gives people something to do level up all their jobs to the new cap. Lets you add new ability and spells to the game as you level up. Also lets you grind out new gear sets for the new level cap.

Increasing the cap now will serve no benefit other than being a filler. They need to fix other issues.

New skills, a sens of progression/achievement. Suddenly you have one extra motivation to play.

I mean what's more interesting, grinding a dungeon so you can change outfit once in a while or go explore new areas and venture on heroic quests with real reasons to do things. All while doing so your character become more skillful and powerful and become capable of powerful skills that allow for new tactical advantages and undertake challenges you did not believe possible.

What m trying to say is, its a game changer, it keeps things fresh and supplies you with another long term goal.

I must confess however that I have never really been fond of itemlevel as a way of progression in a game. You are basically removing all progression and long term goals without one. Sure its easier to know what to do because you only need to focus on one thing, but it sure isn't as engaging and rewarding.

We already have ilvl 95 gear in the game... they would have to significantly raise the level cap in order to offer a substantial amount of new gear and choices. Unless of course, we continue forward and get to the point where we have lvl 70 characters with item level 500 gear. Which is kind of silly.

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Originally Posted by Senfei

We already have ilvl 95 gear in the game... they would have to significantly raise the level cap in order to offer a substantial amount of new gear and choices. Unless of course, we continue forward and get to the point where we have lvl 70 characters with item level 500 gear. Which is kind of silly.

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ilevel and character level are 2 different things. and of course they could just resort to lowering the ilevel increments

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Originally Posted by Senfei

We already have ilvl 95 gear in the game... they would have to significantly raise the level cap in order to offer a substantial amount of new gear and choices. Unless of course, we continue forward and get to the point where we have lvl 70 characters with item level 500 gear. Which is kind of silly.

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Item level and physical level are 2 different things. For example in wow their lvl cap is 90 but the item level of the current gear is around 550. In FFXIV the new level cap could be 60 and ilvl could start at 200 for lv60 gear

I'm not a fan of the ilv gear progression either. it'll be nice if they increased lv caps incrementally per patch. And make sure it takes a while to lv up.

That way dungeon grinding will serve a better purpose.

depending on how each major update handle the increase in ilevel required for Main Story Quest we may see a raise in level cap sometime in 2.4 or 2.5 because of need for new gears and higher level dungeons.

Well only if they increase ilvl required for normal story content is increase 5 ilvl per update since 2.1 story quest needs ilvl 54 to progress in 2.1 story. We may see Leviathan fight require ilvl 59 for normal mode which is required to progress story quest.

Yoshi-P has already confirmed he does have plans to raise level cap through major update if it is deemed necessary.

ilvl is just a number, technically it doesn't matter what that number is. But the larger the ilvl range gets, the harder it will be to balance it with physical levels when those are eventually raised (which would be necessary to balance the introduction of new skills and/or classes).

At the current rate of expansion, I would guess that we'd end up with ilvl100-110 gear before the level cap is raised. To maintain balance, all existing end-game contents up to that point would be synced to lv50, while newer end-game contents would start at lv51-55 (assuming that's the new cap), and all newer progression gear starting from ilvl110 (or whatever) would require lv51+ to wear.

Going any higher in ilvl with lv50 gear and you risk making the older lv50 contents faceroll easy (some already are) and slap people with a huge difficulty jump when going from lv50 content to lv51+ stuff.

I just hope they don't make the new gear super easy to acquire so that all the old content become obsolete. An mmo should add content and progression options, rather than removing a big chunk of content so you are just switching the grind to something else.

I like what ffxi did that it gave you a trial each time you wanted to increase the level cap. That way you had to balance getting gear and learning your class until you can master the trial and unlock your newfound potentials.
Trials should be something tailored to your class. For example tanks maybe have to stay alive for x minutes, healers need to keep x amount of innocents alive by healing them in an effective manner etc.

Increasing the level cap will in no way make current endhame content easier. At least from what I'd expect. My reasoning for this is the current level syncing system that is in place. Once they raise the cap the current content will automatically sync you down to 50.

Benefits:

- Having to level up and feeling you can become stronger. As an ilvl 90 Black Mage with really good dps, I sometimes dislike playing as BLM. I use the same two rotations over and over and there is no room for growth. I'll be relieved when they raise the level cap. It will give me something new to do with my BLM and allow me to become stronger. Higher ilvl gear does that, too, but leveling up means I get new gear AND more stats from leveling up.

- More difficult content. As of now, the content being released can be done by anybody with a decent ilvl. If they increase the level cap, they have to add content to go along with it. So when they raise the cap and release content for that cap, it's going to offer that "omg i have to level to do this content" feeling...which I like. I sucks when new content is out and I can beat it within an hour because I'm too overpowered. And for this, I HOPE it takes a really long time to hit level cap when they increase the cap.

- New skills/traits! They may offer a different way to play with your favorite job.

- Yoshida said he will increase the level cap when he adds a new class. So if he sticks by those words, then we'll have a new class to play with as well.

- Potentially new job quests. I enjoyed doing job quests and it doesn't seem like we'll get new ones till they raise the level cap. I'm curious to see what will be added if they decide on adding more.