Level cap increase every 1-2 years.

[Murugan]

I'm speaking from my own experience, the numerous LSes I had been in over the years, and the general state of the zones when I would walk down memory lane years later.

Most sky gear was replaced by the time ToAU introduced instances. When that happened, they weren't so much side-grades or situational gear anymore. Most of it was a straight up up-grade. This, in itself, even without a level increase, kills off old content.

People can talk about how it would always be relevant because a new person might need something from there, but there are a few problems with that. When there is better gear already out there, that person doesn't -need- to go there. Even if there isn't better gear, the vast majority of people had finished sky and sea by that time and didn't -want- to go back there, especially just for one person. Getting a group together to help one person in XI was like pulling teeth. This doesn't happen in WoW and other MMOs that increase level cap because people are not forced to go through 5 year old content just to catch up to the current gear curve.

I'm not saying one system is necessarily better (I do believe level increases are better) but that is not what I'm arguing here, and I think that's what is being overlooked.

The whole premise of this argument is that level increases make old content outdated. My argument is old content was already outdated years before the level cap increase. If old content is going to be outdated either way, then why not increase the cap gradually instead of potentially ending up in the mud pit of FFXI where you're static 75 for years, being told it will never change, investing months of /played over the years gearing up, then one day the carpet is pulled from beneath you, causing you to rage and quit soon after? Increasing the level cap seems like a much better solution since you don't have 6 years to get attached to gear, nor 6 years trying to obtain everything you need.

You argument is that a lot of content was old and tired, and easy due to another terrible expansion before Abyssea. Abyssea was the nail in the coffin, but I'll agree that it was downhill long before then in terms of that old content.

You are too focused on FFXI, the lesson from XI is simply that you don't need to do level increase to make new content that people will want to do. They proved that, just because they messed it up on multiple occasions doesn't change that. If they had raised level cap with CoP the game would have started down hill years earlier, instead that was some of the best times many of who played XI remember, playing both new and much old original content and it didn't need a level increase. People could still come into FFXI at CoP's release and enjoy most of what made the game great and enjoyable before CoP while still getting to experience CoP's content. It was a real expansion of the content in game for everyone.