Rank cap increase every 1-2 years discussion thread

[Sorel]

Ladies .... Ladies,

You're both pretty.

What I mean by that is FFXIV needs both Horizontal Progression AND Vertical Progression. Arguing that one is better than the other ... or that we should have one and not the other is like arguing that Mothers are better parents than Fathers ... or all Yang is better than all Yin.

Anyone who REALLY wants Horizontal Progression needs think about what you really loved about FFXI...

Was it the journey to get what you wanted? (Vertical Progression)
Or was it the standing around Jeuno with the best weapons/armor waiting for the 500th trip to dynamis? (Horizontal Progression)

I believe that is somewhat of a mischaracterization of what Horizontal Progression actually is. Horizontal Progression is not repeating the same content over and over again. That's Replayability.

Horizontal Progression is experiencing new content, items, and abilities, but at the same level of power as other content, items and abilities. The new Jobs System is perfect example of Horizontal Progression. Jobs will not make players empirically more powerful ... just more specialized.

I think we may have lost sight of the main topic of this thread which was about the rate at which the cap on Vertical Progression should be raised.

@AuctionGirl: I respect your opinion, but it seems from what you've told us about yourself in your posts that you can burn through content approximately twice as fast as the average hardcore player. Nothing wrong with that at all. But what you consider to be 3 months of playable content would take most of us 6 months to play through. In that light, I can see why you would advocate raising the level cap every 6 months, instead of every year or two.

But, raising the level cap every 6 months is so fast that it actually would disincentivize (yeah ... totally not a word) any Horizontal Progression content that FFXIV may contain. And we need both Horizontal and Vertical Progression content for this game to be fully a success.

[Chezen]

Well, first off, I didn't play FFXI, so that's at least two of us.

Raising the level cap means that you have more opportunities to not only add content and add gear, but also further develop the way your character classes play, or as companies like Blizzard have demonstrated, make really big changes to classes at a core level that would otherwise not be possible.

This is exactly why I quit wow. I want to make that clear here just for the sake of the developers. There are quite a bit of people fed up with the constant upheaval, fundamental changes, etc, that most mmos indulge in. If there is one asset that seems to go completely unoticed by developers, it's the emotional attachment people can give to their characters, items they worked hard for, classes, etc. Emotional attachment creates loyalty, and loyalty keeps people in a game.

I'm not saying that developers can't change anything, but they must bear in mind that whatever they are changing, it could possibly be exactly what a player, or even a group of players, loves the most. Yoshi-P said he wanted us to love Eorzea. I want to love it and feel at home here.

People still did sky 7 years after it came out, and it was still fun 7 years later. With WoW old content goes dry after the new expansion pack hits (annually)... It begs the question why not just take a year off the game then come back in 2 years for the next level cap raise since everything prior would be a waste of time. Why not skip 3-5 years? Why not skip right until they're about the scrap the game so you know you'll be seeing the final end game content and all your hard earned gear will actually be worth it?

I'm not WoW bashing, but I cleared Sunwell pre WOTLK, and a very very good chunk of my guild quit the game 2 months prior to WOTLK. Knowing we beat the game, and all our hard work would be replaced by greens in just a few months, we decided to just move on. Some of us came back in WOTLK I know I eventually did. And played for 2 months and knew that what I had pre WOTLK could never be relived. I'd have to fight my way into a top tier guild again. In 11, you could get a Relic and full AF2... Go run around the world for 6 years, come back, and that relic would be just as valuable as the day you left. (Figuratively speaking ofcourse).

I can't agree with this more, and it ties in to what I said above.

Horizontal Progression is experiencing new content, items, and abilities, but at the same level of power as other content, items and abilities. The new Jobs System is perfect example of Horizontal Progression. Jobs will not make players empirically more powerful ... just more specialized.

Exactly. And I agree it will need both types, for the simple reason of there being different playstyles present here.

[Duelle]

This is exactly why I quit wow. I want to make that clear here just for the sake of the developers. There are quite a bit of people fed up with the constant upheaval, fundamental changes, etc, that most mmos indulge in. If there is one asset that seems to go completely unoticed by developers, it's the emotional attachment people can give to their characters, items they worked hard for, classes, etc. Emotional attachment creates loyalty, and loyalty keeps people in a game.

I don't make the connection here, seeing as my characters stayed the same through the mechanics changes. And the big changes to me meant that ret paladins went from lolret to actually viable in endgame content. So yeah, I'm not going to agree with you on that.

And for comparison's sake, I'm still waiting for Red Mage to become melee viable in FFXI in group content.

Blizzard to it's credit on WoW screwed up a lot but also spent a lot of resources making it what it is. Not many other companies can do that, and those that did try it end up failing badly because following blizzard doesn't mean you are blizzard.

Blizzard screwed up a lot, specially with the hybrid classes. I wasn't the only paladin player that was mad at lv60 when I found myself having to heal and only heal in raids to actually see endgame content.

By the same token, SE screwed up a lot with FFXI, and rather than correct their mistakes in design, they left said mistakes alone and become parts of standard gameplay. That is a LOT worse than spending time shuffling things around in preparation for a level cap raise and an expansion pack.

[Chezen]

I don't make the connection here, seeing as my characters stayed the same through the mechanics changes. And the big changes to me meant that ret paladins went from lolret to actually viable in endgame content. So yeah, I'm not going to agree with you on that.

You don't have to agree with me on it. They were the reasons I left.

Messing around with fundamental game mechanics to that degree for the sake of endgame is playing with fire. How many times do you see people say, "I liked TBC". or "I liked vanilla". Not "I liked wow". Because each expansion changed the game so much as to make it unrecognizable to the first. When you write a book, and print it, you don't rewrite the first book for the sequel to match. You make the sequel compliment the first.