Level cap increase every 1-2 years.

[Ferth]

You'll have to excuse me if I don't understand your WoW references... as I said the game didn't hold my attention past level 30.

When I initially lost interest in what FFXIV was, while still waiting for news on what it would turn into, I picked up LoTRO again. The level cap since I had left changed from 50 to 65.

Every class had several items needed to finish a quest that were obtainable from a level 50 instance or from grinding a newer instance for barter items. Since I was well versed in the 50 instance, I opted to just crank that out for the items I'd need on a new character I had created. During what used to be one of the hardest fights in the game my friend died. The nature of the fight is if you aren't in the arena when the fight starts you can't join the fight midway. Up until that point we were the only two people in the instances, we had duo'd our way as far as we had, and when he died, he was unable to continue the fight. I was able to solo the remaining 3/4s of the fight. I was level 62 at the time.

Yeah, Kirin could be killed in under a minute after ToAU, but it required 18+ people to do it. And yes Byakko could be killed by a skilled well set-up group of 6 people, but to say that it wasn't a challenge is by no means correct. If we had brought 18 people, no it probably wouldn't have been much of a challenge.

The point I am making isn't that with a static level cap old content remains just as relevant as the day it releases. My point is that with a static level cap, content retains relevance purely on a player by player case.

You go back and play raids you enjoyed doing. But how many people who never experienced them are going to bother?

I have memories of FFXI where it was absolutely brutal... Sometimes I hated the game. Other times I loved it. And yeah alot of that is from nostalgia... but when a new player in my ls needed an item that I knew how to get, I was always up for helping...

Alot of what endeared FFXI to me near the end was content that was originally designed to be experienced with a massive group, could now be experienced with a smaller more intimate group.

And I'm sure that remains true in WoW and in lotro. But in FFXI it wasn't JUST my nostalgia that gave relevance to the content. People still needed it. It may have been far less people than when the content was introduced, but the rewards were still valuable. And the content was still enjoyable.

From your perspective I'm sure you could make the same arguments for WoW. From my perspective, I can't.

As Rjain said, both systems have pros and cons... My only goal is to make sure that the dev team recognizes that for 6 years ffxi worked for me. If enough people agree with me, fantastic. But your arguments for your preference hold just about as much weight as my arguments for my preference, and that weight is entirely dependent on our own experiences and opinions.

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As for limbus pants replacing byakko's haidate, it's just not true. Homam cosciales could be worn by pld/drk/thf/blu.

Byakko's haidate could be worn by war/nin/monk/sam.

The haidate really didn't get anything that even came close until salvage gear, and for the salvage pants to be better you needed the full set, and to get the full set could take years.

Byakko's haidate were easy enough to get and for warriors, pretty much the only option.

The last few linkshells I was in before I stopped playing all had sky as a scheduled event. And yeah sometimes when it was time to do sky we might have had only 4-5 people. But 4-5 people could do alot in terms of first tier pop items.

When it came time to actually fight the four, people showed up. Because on top of the gear that people still needed or wanted, everything dropped salable items, and even if people didn't want anything from the fight, they wanted a cut of the dough.