Rank cap increase every 1-2 years discussion thread

[Nabiri]

More than endgame and collecting gear, I've always enjoyed leveling. Partying and meeting new people. Those were some of my most fun experiences in XI, so I think I'll really enjoy the level cap being raised every 1-2 years.
About gear becoming useless, I couldn't care less. I'll just replace it.
About content becoming unused.. well I hope SE can find a way to have it keep it's appeal for years. I love having many different things to enjoy like XI had.

[kukurumei]

Seeing that some of those major changes to class design brought on by level cap raises made the game a lot better for me (read: I was a ret paladin), I beg to differ.
I forgot about the economic implications. Thanks for bringing that up.
I call it as I see it. And I saw a ton of "situational" gear and "macro pieces" tossed into FFXI because of the developer's fears of outdating stuff from the land kings and sky.
I fail to see the problem. Players get stronger, mobs get stronger, so you need stronger gear. The stuff that got you through kil'jaeden wouldn't have gotten you through the Lich King. It would make no sense if it did. I've done the gear grind myself, so again, I fail to see the problem.
You do realize that all that hinges on gear swapping, a mechanic that is currently not in game, and I hope with every ounce of my being does not make a return in this game, right?
Now I know you're grasping at straws. The e-peen is the same. hell, the elitism and everything attached to it are exactly the same. The only difference is that one involves higher level gear and the "getting stronger" that comes with it, while the other one is simply part of a stagnant and already-over growth cycle.

Something I'd like to toss in is that if Yoshida's team is looking to increase the level caps bi-annually, this means more likely than not the developers will release content to back up that decision on a regular basis. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

PS: Not to be harsh, but the amount of people dominated by their FFXI nostalgia is a little scary.

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.

I can't imagine how much man power talent and resources it needs to pump out that much stuff and revised that much on a seasonal basis. But then WoW has enough subscribers to keep it afloat.

One look at WoW clones tells you how many pitfalls trying to do that an do.

FF11 did a lot more on a lot less, to their credit as well, and for it's era does have a pretty amazing subscriber base.

It's knowing when to be smart, FF14 just wasn't smart enough when it was conceived.

1-2yrs is close to an old school timeline which is quite fine in terms of working out, the problem is what do you and how do you fill those 1-2yrs. Shallow content is shallow content. WoW showed us how millions of lines of quest text is easily skipped over and disregarded because it's never going to be used again.

[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.

[Icopico]

Am i the only one scared about the statement "every 1-2 years"??

LOL 1 year difference is not that little man! you can say 1-2 days... 1-2 weeks, but hell no 1-2 years!!

[Sol_Aureus]

Ichi,

I played XI from NA release in 2002, to the point I capped most jobs at 75, did all the dungeons we had and quit before TAU. I simply got bored of the game, there was nothing new to experience. I came back to XI a couple years later, started a brand new account and did the same as before, repeated to 75's did the same content as before, but this time didnt take me 2 years to get to 75, only took me 3 months for 2 classes to 75 with sub jobs and other stuff. WotG was released and I loved the campaigns, after doing those for a couple months, the game was again stale. Nothing new to do, no reason to grind, no reason to party, no reason since I already had everything I needed. FFXI wasnt releasing anything NEW that interested me or I had to have to continue in the game. I eventually fully merited my PLD and then quit again. I told myself I would never go back to XI, but I went back when abysmal was released. Abysmal ruined what FFXI was. FFXI did well at horizontal progression, but in the end horizontal progression killed the game (slowly made players quit, due to lack of new stuff to do/goals to set).

You cant stay at a cap for too long, this makes people too attached to the items they have, and this creates fear in players that the items they worked hard for will no longer be good. But if you know every 4-6 months, there will be new content and new items, you wont be as attached to those items, but will strive for the next ones. You will want those new items/armors because they will help you with the newest content.

Edit:

There are ways to keep existing content relevant and that is to put caps on it, like CoP did, along with making drops from those part of the upgrades to the newest armors/weapons. This keeps people going back to the older stuff, cause it now has newer stuff in it. And having the CAP on it, will prevent the content from no longer being challenging.

I apologize if I'm being rude by interjecting here, but I feel like something's odd about that statement.

It seems to me that it's incredibly unlikely that you would have "everything you need." Even for only one class, you had AF2 sets, Salvage sets, Cursed Gear, NM and HNM gear, Limbus gear, not to mention Relics and Mythics, and other stuff I'm probably forgetting. You mean to tell me that you had obtained ALL of the best pieces of gear for every situation?

Maybe a few pieces of gear were outperformed in every way by other pieces of gear, and you decided you didn't need them, that's perfectly fine. I doubt there were that many that were rendered completely obsolete by other gear that was better in every way. There were so many different situations, and since you could gear swap in XI, unless you had the best gear for every situation, you still had something to strive for.

Relic/Mythics, I can understand not going for. They're definitely not for everyone, they require a HUGE investment. But you cannot say that you had nothing to do just because you didn't want to do it. The options were available to you but you chose not to do them because you thought they weren't worth your time.

But the fact remains that you still had that carrot to chase, you just chose not to chase it, and you can't try and pass it off like there was nothing to do, because there was ALWAYS quite a lot to do in XI.

Unless you had all 75s, every relic, every mythic, all the best gear for every situation, and have completed all content in XI, you still had things to do, carrots to chase. The notion of having all of that done is absolutely ridiculous, the amount of time, gil, and effort it would take would be astronomical, and THAT'S WHAT I WANT. Enough content that it is an absolutely ridiculous notion to be able to complete it all.

[Brotech]

Horizontal Progression
- New Items/Weapons/Armors
----Counter Argument: Someone will always want that piece weapon/armor.
----- RE: Counter: You already have the best item and possibly this is rare/ex why even get this item? To drop it?
------Counter: What if every weapon put in is a direct sidegrade that is just as good as the one you have, but for different reasons? i.e. stats; so you have the best one for attack, but there is another one that is better for attack speed; or is BIS the only reason you play

- Old Recipes/Crafting Skills
----Counter Argument: So they can't add in new recipes?
----- RE: Counter: So lets say they add in some new recipes, but you are capped, so you do the recipe 50 times at most, then bored for however long it takes to add in a new recipe. Or you can increase ranks, add in 100's of recipes and have something to achieve.
------Counter: You can add in 100's of recipes at the current cap without increasing it; either way all it does is create an overly long list of crafts; of which people will make some of either to Power Level themselves through the crafting levels to the next cap, at which point they will only make the stuff that is requested or whatever will make them money

- Old Gathering Locations/Items
----Counter Argument: They can't add in new materials?
----- RE: Counter: Sure they can add in new materials, but again, you are capped and cannot grow anymore as a character.
------Counter: And as we all know; higher levels is all that matters? You can add in quests to allow you to gather new materials; make them long and daunting and take like a week, where you have to gather rare/specific materials.

- New Dungeons/Mobs/Challenges
----Counter Argument: So its not fun unless you get drops you need/want? Then once you have it, where is the replayability?
----- Re: Counter: With horizontal progression, there will be less items naturally that you will want/need, resulting in less content to do if you are the one whom likes to grow your character. There will be less variation of new mobs/abilities.
------Counter: With Vertical progression; once your character reaches a certain level you won't need/want to do any of the lower level stuff(assuming there is no level cap/syncing) nor will you want to; thus making anything put in at a lower level not worth doing think old school MC, AQ20/40, BWL.(FFXI never had this issue, you still had people doing sky even when ToAU came out)

- New Maps/Areas
----Counter Argument: This negates nothing. You can still always use the same mobs, just reskinned, how many companies already do this?
----- RE: Counter: So you want to have 6 different areas with the same Goat with different colors of the same level range and abilities? Or would you rather 6 different areas with the game goat, with different levels and abilities/challenges?
------Counter: Again; you don't counter this at all. You can always add in new content; you can justify that same goat to have learned different skills because of the different climate or locales, you can add in different challenges with new zones and such. and look at the map, you can add in new continents to travel to; they didn't make the same mistake as FFXI of giving you the world map.

- Old Skills
----Counter Arguement: None, this is the only one that makes sense.
-----Addendum: However; Once you reach a certain amount of skills; no more are really needed, you can add in quest related skills etc; new classes; cross classes.

Vertical Progression
- New Items/Weapons/Armors
----Counter Argument: And in 6mo to 1 year, will be replaced again, so hurrah for something else to de/vendor/whathaveyou.
----- RE: Counter: This depends on how its implemented, and don't forget about the materia system with turning equipment into materia to better other equipment. If it takes you 2 years to get the item you need, then I could see your point. I would rather have something new to look at than logging in and going "Hey LS wanna do dynamis for the 1000th time, so we can get drops we don't need?" What do you do when you have the best items in the game? And what do you do when you waited 1 year for the next expansion only to find out that all the equipment you have is still the best and you have nothing to strive for? So you do more dungeons again, this gets old quick.
------Counter: again this all depends on how equipment/items are developed. If the weapon you have is +10 to all stats and the new weapon is +12 to all stats but one, which is +2; not better, but equally good for some stuff. Depending on how its done you can always make equivalent gear appeal to someone.

- New Recipes/Crafting Skills
----Counter Argument: And that old stuff will never be made again, except for niche markets.
----- RE: Counter: New crafters coming up will make lower ranked items, quit thinking like no new players will come into the game. FFXI economy was ruined because of this. Why not keep progression for ALL CLASSES, its not just about battle classes.
------Counter: Thats why i said Niche markets; this doesn't dispute what I said.

- New Gathering Locations/Items
----Counter Arguement: Again, niche markets for older materials/locations.
----- RE: Counter: So you want to stagnant the crafting? Make anyone whom reached the cap no longer need materials, no longer create new items for the game, no longer buy your shards/crystals you once were able to sell? Why would anyone want new items/recipes?
------Counter: I only stated that since I had already stated valid arguements for the old areas, no point in repeating myself.

- New Dungeons/Mobs/Challenges
----Counter Argument: Higher level =/= Harder challenge, that same content could be scaled back in level, and given to the current cap.
----- RE: Counter: Higher level does not equal harder challenge and I agree with that, but look at the fact that higher ranks allow for more spells/abilities/counter-abilities and more. Also allows for the ability to create different types of challenges based on new abilities, areas and more. This also creates a small time sink to SP more in parties to get to this new cap, giving players something to achieve.
-----Counter: You can always add new spells/abilities/counter-abilities within a level cap, same with new challenges/abilities/areas and more. If you want a SP sink only; merits are the way to go.

- New Maps/Areas
----Counter Argument: Again, you can still create new maps and new mobs. FFXI did it time and time again.
----- RE: Counter: They did, but sooner or later you will run into a brick wall, and wish you had been growing vertically sooner and release an expansion called abysmal that kills the game it was. If they had not stuck at 75, and didn't do the merit system and kept going with levels we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
------Counter: And when you go with vertical; you will eventually reach the same point. It all depends on how you release the world map.

- New Skills
----Counter Argument: Ultimately ending with every class/job having 70 odd skills plus an IWIN button just in case. How many is too many? When is enough skills enough?
----- RE: Counter: To be honest in an MMO, you can NEVER have too many skills, too many items, too many spells, too many levels, too many mobs, too hard of a challenge, etc... When you LIMIT yourself, you limit your players, you limit creativity, you limit growth, you limit options.
------Counter: Yes; Yes you can, with FFXIV and cross classing skills..Having over 100 skills across 7 classes over 700 skills to choose from; well that would be time consuming in and of itself, and not at all fun when you are limited by AP to place those skills.

You are right, and I don't have to agree with you, which is why I'm not, because I don't. Nor does the fact that you are a developer mean you are right. To each their own. I have played just about every mmo out there looking for what I like. And I haven't experienced it since FFXI(From Release till ToAU). When you do any type of level cap increase; you do negate the previous content always. That is a fact. Old endgame becomes worthless. Yes Niche groups like to run the old stuff for fun; yes new players like new goals; so do niche players. If you limit goals; that is bad design not lack of vertical progression.

I'm not saying never do a level cap increase, I'm saying a level cap every 1-2 years is bad idea. Also the fact that you are already almost 50 across the board is also in my opinion proof of a flawed game design. It should take much longer than it does to reach cap on one class. FFXI for a long time had the right idea of making it take a long time to cap out. (Recently ruined or so I hear)

And yes I agree that horizontal progression is a bad idea with the way they did crafting classes and the battle classes in this game. I agree that this game will have to be vertical progression. Again; bad game design. Don't get me wrong I enjoy this game, its a decent way to pass the time. The counters I provided are only because you wrote them as fact; and I was disputing them. Playing the devils advocates as it were. But yes, flawed game design is flawed.

[Physic]

Horizontal Progression
- New Items/Weapons/Armors
----Counter Argument: Someone will always want that piece weapon/armor.
----- RE: Counter: You already have the best item and possibly this is rare/ex why even get this item? To drop it?
------Counter: What if every weapon put in is a direct sidegrade that is just as good as the one you have, but for different reasons? i.e. stats; so you have the best one for attack, but there is another one that is better for attack speed; or is BIS the only reason you play

- Old Recipes/Crafting Skills
----Counter Argument: So they can't add in new recipes?
----- RE: Counter: So lets say they add in some new recipes, but you are capped, so you do the recipe 50 times at most, then bored for however long it takes to add in a new recipe. Or you can increase ranks, add in 100's of recipes and have something to achieve.
------Counter: You can add in 100's of recipes at the current cap without increasing it; either way all it does is create an overly long list of crafts; of which people will make some of either to Power Level themselves through the crafting levels to the next cap, at which point they will only make the stuff that is requested or whatever will make them money

- Old Gathering Locations/Items
----Counter Argument: They can't add in new materials?
----- RE: Counter: Sure they can add in new materials, but again, you are capped and cannot grow anymore as a character.
------Counter: And as we all know; higher levels is all that matters? You can add in quests to allow you to gather new materials; make them long and daunting and take like a week, where you have to gather rare/specific materials.

- New Dungeons/Mobs/Challenges
----Counter Argument: So its not fun unless you get drops you need/want? Then once you have it, where is the replayability?
----- Re: Counter: With horizontal progression, there will be less items naturally that you will want/need, resulting in less content to do if you are the one whom likes to grow your character. There will be less variation of new mobs/abilities.
------Counter: With Vertical progression; once your character reaches a certain level you won't need/want to do any of the lower level stuff(assuming there is no level cap/syncing) nor will you want to; thus making anything put in at a lower level not worth doing think old school MC, AQ20/40, BWL.(FFXI never had this issue, you still had people doing sky even when ToAU came out)

- New Maps/Areas
----Counter Argument: This negates nothing. You can still always use the same mobs, just reskinned, how many companies already do this?
----- RE: Counter: So you want to have 6 different areas with the same Goat with different colors of the same level range and abilities? Or would you rather 6 different areas with the game goat, with different levels and abilities/challenges?
------Counter: Again; you don't counter this at all. You can always add in new content; you can justify that same goat to have learned different skills because of the different climate or locales, you can add in different challenges with new zones and such. and look at the map, you can add in new continents to travel to; they didn't make the same mistake as FFXI of giving you the world map.

- Old Skills
----Counter Arguement: None, this is the only one that makes sense.
-----Addendum: However; Once you reach a certain amount of skills; no more are really needed, you can add in quest related skills etc; new classes; cross classes.

Vertical Progression
- New Items/Weapons/Armors
----Counter Argument: And in 6mo to 1 year, will be replaced again, so hurrah for something else to de/vendor/whathaveyou.
----- RE: Counter: This depends on how its implemented, and don't forget about the materia system with turning equipment into materia to better other equipment. If it takes you 2 years to get the item you need, then I could see your point. I would rather have something new to look at than logging in and going "Hey LS wanna do dynamis for the 1000th time, so we can get drops we don't need?" What do you do when you have the best items in the game? And what do you do when you waited 1 year for the next expansion only to find out that all the equipment you have is still the best and you have nothing to strive for? So you do more dungeons again, this gets old quick.
------Counter: again this all depends on how equipment/items are developed. If the weapon you have is +10 to all stats and the new weapon is +12 to all stats but one, which is +2; not better, but equally good for some stuff. Depending on how its done you can always make equivalent gear appeal to someone.

- New Recipes/Crafting Skills
----Counter Argument: And that old stuff will never be made again, except for niche markets.
----- RE: Counter: New crafters coming up will make lower ranked items, quit thinking like no new players will come into the game. FFXI economy was ruined because of this. Why not keep progression for ALL CLASSES, its not just about battle classes.
------Counter: Thats why i said Niche markets; this doesn't dispute what I said.

- New Gathering Locations/Items
----Counter Arguement: Again, niche markets for older materials/locations.
----- RE: Counter: So you want to stagnant the crafting? Make anyone whom reached the cap no longer need materials, no longer create new items for the game, no longer buy your shards/crystals you once were able to sell? Why would anyone want new items/recipes?
------Counter: I only stated that since I had already stated valid arguements for the old areas, no point in repeating myself.

- New Dungeons/Mobs/Challenges
----Counter Argument: Higher level =/= Harder challenge, that same content could be scaled back in level, and given to the current cap.
----- RE: Counter: Higher level does not equal harder challenge and I agree with that, but look at the fact that higher ranks allow for more spells/abilities/counter-abilities and more. Also allows for the ability to create different types of challenges based on new abilities, areas and more. This also creates a small time sink to SP more in parties to get to this new cap, giving players something to achieve.
-----Counter: You can always add new spells/abilities/counter-abilities within a level cap, same with new challenges/abilities/areas and more. If you want a SP sink only; merits are the way to go.

- New Maps/Areas
----Counter Argument: Again, you can still create new maps and new mobs. FFXI did it time and time again.
----- RE: Counter: They did, but sooner or later you will run into a brick wall, and wish you had been growing vertically sooner and release an expansion called abysmal that kills the game it was. If they had not stuck at 75, and didn't do the merit system and kept going with levels we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
------Counter: And when you go with vertical; you will eventually reach the same point. It all depends on how you release the world map.

- New Skills
----Counter Argument: Ultimately ending with every class/job having 70 odd skills plus an IWIN button just in case. How many is too many? When is enough skills enough?
----- RE: Counter: To be honest in an MMO, you can NEVER have too many skills, too many items, too many spells, too many levels, too many mobs, too hard of a challenge, etc... When you LIMIT yourself, you limit your players, you limit creativity, you limit growth, you limit options.
------Counter: Yes; Yes you can, with FFXIV and cross classing skills..Having over 100 skills across 7 classes over 700 skills to choose from; well that would be time consuming in and of itself, and not at all fun when you are limited by AP to place those skills.

You are right, and I don't have to agree with you, which is why I'm not, because I don't. Nor does the fact that you are a developer mean you are right. To each their own. I have played just about every mmo out there looking for what I like. And I haven't experienced it since FFXI(From Release till ToAU). When you do any type of level cap increase; you do negate the previous content always. That is a fact. Old endgame becomes worthless. Yes Niche groups like to run the old stuff for fun; yes new players like new goals; so do niche players. If you limit goals; that is bad design not lack of vertical progression.

I'm not saying never do a level cap increase, I'm saying a level cap every 1-2 years is bad idea. Also the fact that you are already almost 50 across the board is also in my opinion proof of a flawed game design. It should take much longer than it does to reach cap on one class. FFXI for a long time had the right idea of making it take a long time to cap out. (Recently ruined or so I hear)

And yes I agree that horizontal progression is a bad idea with the way they did crafting classes and the battle classes in this game. I agree that this game will have to be vertical progression. Again; bad game design. Don't get me wrong I enjoy this game, its a decent way to pass the time. The counters I provided are only because you wrote them as fact; and I was disputing them. Playing the devils advocates as it were. But yes, flawed game design is flawed.

pro
counter
re counter
counter counter
mega counter
counter smash!
cross counter evade -10
kai o ken counter
oiwjjs

lol jk but thats not the most readable format of debate i ve seen

[Ichi]

In vertical, things are better for sake of beign better. Bigger number, bigger something and bigger e-peen.
In Horizontal progression things are better because they behave better, have characteristic that other things don't have or do some things much better than other things (in other word they are much more specialized and focused on single thing).

The above is something that Inside said and I think it deserves not to be drowned out Duelle clearly does not understand the difference here as he believes that it's the same.

I'll break it down. In vertical progression the new gear is better because instead of having 10 strength it has 14 the only reason you wanted the old gear is for the 10 strength and then the only reason you'll want the new gear is for the 14 strength. The only reason the mob is stronger is because SE (some celestial being of eorzea) came in and magically made new things in the world twice as strong as everything else.

In horizontal progression the gear is better because it has 10 more evasion and our tank is absent (time to show my pgl stuff) still other gear is better as it has strength, yet another piece is valuable because it enables me to use abilities faster.

You don't need macro swaps for this I already do it in XIV (that's right i have 3 pieces of gear about per slot per class) so no this is not about macro swapping gear at all. You don't get this kind of development with vertical progression because your options are diminished you don't get to choose between 6 varying pieces of gear your choices are narrow to one or two pieces and they are not very flexible pieces either.

[AuctionGirl]

In horizontal progression, you eventually outgrow the same content, but only in the fact that it now becomes too easy to do, and you are "crying over losing" your existing items you obtained.

Lets think about Horizontal Progression - FOR THE AVERAGE USER - Not myself, not yourself, because the average person gets bored of a game that offers nothing new/growth in their eyes.

Using FFXI as reference...
You obtain Emperors Hairpin +10 stats, you keep it for awhile, soon they release Emperors Hairpin2 (would be different name used for sake of arguement) which is +12 stats because you need new stuff to try to get in the game. Then a year later they release Emperors Hairpin3 with +15 stats... now you go into these old dungeons and you are soon a god to the content make it not a challenge anymore. You have negated that content, unless your someone who just likes to show off your best stuff.

Growing this game ONLY vertically would be a bad thing, and ONLY horizontally worse, but growing this at a constant speed vertically and horizontally, kinda like a pyramid, will only make the game better.

Part of the reason you are getting upset about Horizontal Progression vs Vertical Progression is you are looking at every CAP RANKED thing as End Game. You need to understand that there should NEVER BE END GAME! If you never end the new stuff, you never have to worry about only doing horizontal progression. Once you stick at a cap for a long time, you create only horizontal progression from that point forward.

I myself played WoW also, and that was far worse than FFXI, it took me 3-4 months to cap characters and after doing so many of the same raids, I found myself in the bored boat much quicker.

Look at FFXIV and how there were a lot more players in the beginning and soon once they realized that there was no content to do, AT ANY RANK, they quickly went and played other games. Only so many times you can repeat the same content for the average person. Of course there are exceptions to every rule and that is why FFXI still has subscribers. But look at WoW only in the aspect that they release new content, new stuff to obtain, new things every so often and that keeps more subscriptions glued to the game.

How you change the previous content when a new cap raise comes in (You are required to do rank cap dungeons/level sync, etc) OR else you fail like WoW in negating all previous content. If you keep the old dungeons still a challenge regardless of rank, you don't negate it. When you keep drops in those dungeons that are required to upgrade the newer ranked weapons, then you don't negate it. When you release content that just forgets about the past (WoW) then you better have 100 times more new content or you will fail. In the end, re-playability is a different number for each person, for you it might be 1000 times, for me it might be 50-100 times. Think about the health of the game and not just yourself, keeping more players in the game, gives more challenges, gives SE more money to create more content and in the end it creates and overall better game. Vertical Progression is a must, Vertical + Negating old content != Must.

[Physic]

In vertical, things are better for sake of beign better. Bigger number, bigger something and bigger e-peen.
In Horizontal progression things are better because they behave better, have characteristic that other things don't have or do some things much better than other things (in other word they are much more specialized and focused on single thing).

The above is something that Inside said and I think it deserves not to be drowned out Duelle clearly does not understand the difference here as he believes that it's the same.

I'll break it down. In vertical progression the new gear is better because instead of having 10 strength it has 14 the only reason you wanted the old gear is for the 10 strength and then the only reason you'll want the new gear is for the 14 strength. The only reason the mob is stronger is because SE (some celestial being of eorzea) came in and magically made new things in the world twice as strong as everything else.

In horizontal progression the gear is better because it has 10 more evasion and our tank is absent (time to show my pgl stuff) still other gear is better as it has strength, yet another piece is valuable because it enables me to use abilities faster.

You don't need macro swaps for this I already do it in XIV (that's right i have 3 pieces of gear about per slot per class) so no this is not about macro swapping gear at all. You don't get this kind of development with vertical progression because your options are diminished you don't get to choose between 6 varying pieces of gear your choices are narrow to one or two pieces and they are not very flexible pieces either.

the game currently has, as you say, multiple options for different stats. there is nothing to stop them from making multiple gear options based on the level cap, they already do and have done that. You can still make situational gear with level cap increases, and if you do what I and some others have suggested, it even works into the design, by having upgradeable special gears.

Say for example you have the new hax drop from the level 50 capped dungeon:
Monks burning hand. Its a rare skin of weapon that actually puts a tattoo on your hands and arm in the shape of fire.
stats
141 attack
160 accuracy
180 crit rate
160 parrying
+3 evasion +3 dex

looks like best weapon in game, even though its parry is low, but then again its probably not better than a +3 hade hora for everything. (jade +3 will have higher attack and comparable ACC most likely with more parrying, but much lower crit rate no dex and no evasion bonus)

boom cap raises, and new dungeon/content adds a new level 59 knuckle.

Iron Fists looks like a metal arm sheath with some mechanical tech accents

stats

170 attack
160 acc
175 crit rate
190 parrying
+4 vit +4 str
new best in game right?
yeah but you can upgrade burning fists if get 2 more items one from finding and defeating the new hidden monster in a the new dungeon, and the other by turning in grand company points to the new NPC in the new far off area, that you have to beat the new story mission to get to, and allowing a level 55 crafter to combine them for you.
the new stats are weaker attack wise than the new weapon, but favor it in ACC and parry


the point is you can create new content, and horizontal gear choices while also increasing the cap. in fact with upgrade systems, i would by and large tend to make the upgrades generally horizontal. This will keep old content usuable, but not required, give new things to aim for, while at the same time progressing the game. I WANT new reasons to play the class i like the most, i want to get new and interesting looking gears, and get new skills. There is not as much fun in being at cap forever, with content designed to take insane amount of time to achieve anything.

Another thing to note is in this game, monsters have tiers, and learn new skills, and have advanced abilities as you get higher, any human type will have more skills at its disposal when you get higher. Cockatrices get an AoE that does multiple status effects and petrification, high level sheeps got sleep snot bubbles. Monsters so far, in this game, actually do get tougher, with more skill as you level, not just higher HP and the ability to do more damage. Also with the different SP for species types, they add more difficult species in the same level ranges that give more sp, and are worth it if your team has a lot of power.
While they could do some of these things without a cap raise, just the fact that you arent getting sp while doing most of it, would make people do it on their other jobs, and on different classes, and many would rarely get to play the classes they enjoy. For most people in ffxi, once you got a job to max merit, and exp, you rarely got to play it.