Level cap increase every 1-2 years.

[Shipp]

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.

That's pretty much the same way WoW is on boss fights. You're either in the area when someone pulls, and you have about 2 seconds to get in before the doors/gates/magicspikes close or you're left out. It was the same way for many fights in XI, sky gods included. You couldn't teleport to their platform if a fight was already in progress. BCs were the same way.

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.

But you're missing the point. When something no longer requires the full amount of people to perform it, it is then outdated. 10 man Ice Crown Citadel in WoW requires pretty much 10 people to complete, and that is from last expansion. Even with 5x the health, 5x the mana, 5x the damage, 5x the defense, you can still easily die in that raid if you don't pay attention. Is there any loot worth it anymore? No. Is it still fun and run a lot for the achievement and title? You betcha.

I was 6-manning Byakko back before I even got access to Sea, btw. I was also the healer. I wouldn't exactly call it easy, but it wasn't substantially hard either. You treat the boss like a boss and not just another mob.

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 might not be making that point, however Jericho was, and that is who I originally was responding to. Comparing XI to WoW again, relevant content is still relevant for those at that level. Sky for a new player was just as relevant pre-Abyssea as my level 60 running level 60 raids on the way to 85. It simply isn't -needed- so people opt to skip it and go back later to see the content. Sky was not still -needed- during ToAU. There might have been one or two items from Sky that people could actually use as an upgrade to their current gear, but it wasn't so much better than stuff from sea or the instances in ToAU that it was actually worth going back to do.

This doesn't mean people didn't still do it. This means they didn't need to and were already doing outdated content just for shiggles.

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

Many. There are achievements that some people love chasing. There are titles that others love chasing. There are even guild achievements which unlock certain guild items. I never did the Vanilla raids until I was 70 during the Burning Crusade. Level 60 raids still went on for the heck of it, before there were even achievements and titles, before guilds even leveled. People still do them.

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...

I was too. I was in the first NA/EU (JP shells had done it, but only 3 or 4 I believe) shell to kill Dynamis Lord back in either 2004 or 2005. That is probably my most nostalgic memory of XI, feeling like we were making history in the game, proving that NA's and EU's were just as good as JP's who always looked down on us. I still ran old content just to help out, or out of boredom. That still doesn't mean it was any less out-dated though. Those people could have still gotten upgrades elsewhere. One piece of gear for a person doesn't mean it's not outdated. Me going there long after I needed to and getting my Zenith set wasn't needed, yet I did it so I could have 1 HP on my raised SMN and freak people out.

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.

But you could be doing that same content at level 90 with that same small group. If it truly boils down to nostalgia, then you can still go there at any time. However most people claim it's nostalgia while it's really a case of, "I had to go through all this to get to where I am now, and new players don't have to." Call the Whaaaaaaaambulance please. Not saying you're doing this, but I see this a lot on FF sites, and even on WoW.

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.

Enjoyable is an opinion. I -never- really enjoyed sky. I liked the zone, I didn't care for the hoops I had to jump through for endgame. I didn't care for the teleporter to Kirin where you had to click yes at either an even or odd second to get ported to his room, otherwise you end up in a room full of pots and have to go traverse the shrine again. I didn't care for farming Enki or whatever the golem's name was that took 4+ hours to drop a freaking stone. I didn't care for being the first person to check on Faust and teleport into a room within his sight range and get beaten down because I couldn't pan around to see if he was there, I had to get aggro and die to tell. I didn't care for the lag because it was such a small little room where 40+ people were waiting to steal our pull, not counting the other 10-15 people in my alliance. I don't know anyone who liked sky by the time ToAU came out. I'm sure there were people that liked it, but I personally did not know anyone, nor was there much competition by that point. I'd rather them introduce new content at a higher level that is definitely an upgrade instead of forcing players to run out-dated content for maybe 1 piece of gear in a place that they hated. At least if you hate a place and the cap increases, you don't have to be stuck there for years.

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.

And your opinion is perfectly valid. However the point was that side-grades eventually reach a point where they become upgrades, otherwise players won't feel like chasing the non-existent carrot anymore and they'll quit. If you don't agree with this, then that's your opinion. However it only takes one look around the MMO world to see it's nothing but chasing a carrot on a stick. When the carrot no longer is there, or there's only a half carrot left, or you swap a carrot for a squash, people are going to leave. Sure, that half carrot might be a great storyline, but once that's done, you have no reason to log on anymore. Once you halt progression of a character and just offer similar pieces to what is already obtainable, people are going to leave after the storyline.

[Shipp]

----

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.

My apologies on the pants then. This is still showing what I mean though. When 4-5 people can still do content that required 18 people in the past, it's outdated. Whether it drops needed gear is irrelevant. LL and the hairpin were irrelevant after level 30. Does that mean what they dropped was any less valuable? No. Those two examples, out of many many more show that you can have a cap increase without making old gear obsolete. It also kinda shows how stupid the idea is since you could wear one piece of gear for so many levels. Just my opinion on the last part though.

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.

Well I sure would love to log into WoW only for bosses and AFK through the trash. Who wouldn't? This is part of the reason why I started hating sky. I was always a farmer with a couple of friends. We'd get pop items and then the whole LS would come up to kill. Did I need anything anymore? No. But it's always the same people doing the same things. It's the same group farming the pop items while the rest do whatever the hell they want since their playtime is so much more important than ours.

Perhaps if FFXI didn't have so many asinine hoops to jump through just to actually have a shot at the boss, my opinion might be different. AV sealed the deal for me though, then fighting Cerb and finding out that if he's not stunned (I think it was stunned, been years), that nearly the whole alliance is one-shotted. Stupid raid-wide wipe mechanics are lazy mechanics, especially in an MMO where death = 2+ hours wasted. It needed more mechanics like WoW bosses where everyone has to be aware of their surroundings, not just some RDM/DRK who's taking a sip of coke at the wrong time and wipes the entire alliance by not chainstunning. Dyna Lord was the same way. The RDMs screw up the staggered chainstuns? Too bad, you all lose.

[Shipp]

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.

The mess-up kinda does matter when the mess-up is the key part of the argument. The reason why people participated in ToAU and later expansions was because of upgrades. People wouldn't be doing that instanced crap over and over for years for simple side-grades. These new upgrades are what led to old content being outdated. That was my original argument since I entered the thread. People stopped doing Sky and Sea outside of the typical farming out of boredom or for that 1 person who might need something, LOOOONNNGGG before Abyssea came about. That was my response to, "Abyssea killed the need to go back to Sky/Sea/<insert any previous expansion>."

This is why I said, "The only people who think this either didn't play before ToAU, or they're looking through rose-tinted glasses." Sky became irrelevant long before Abyssea. Whether there was one piece of gear there or not, it was still out-dated and the vast majority of players had moved on. It's like how kings stopped being spawn camped by every major LS on the server once you could get that same stuff elsewhere. Does that mean nobody does the content? No. But people still do level 60, 70, and 80 content in WoW too, which is why this isn't really an argument about level caps as much as it is an argument about upgrades ruining old content.

[SniperRifle]

My input:

The only reason I ever had to quit FF11 was due to irl issues. I came back several times.
The reason I quit WoW was due to lack of content after clearing TBC. I came back once in WOTLK.

[Ichi]

And your opinion is perfectly valid. However the point was that side-grades eventually reach a point where they become upgrades, otherwise players won't feel like chasing the non-existent carrot anymore and they'll quit. If you don't agree with this, then that's your opinion. However it only takes one look around the MMO world to see it's nothing but chasing a carrot on a stick. When the carrot no longer is there, or there's only a half carrot left, or you swap a carrot for a squash, people are going to leave. Sure, that half carrot might be a great storyline, but once that's done, you have no reason to log on anymore. Once you halt progression of a character and just offer similar pieces to what is already obtainable, people are going to leave after the storyline.

I have to say that this sounds like an argument against vertical progression to me if you increase the level by whatever the new gear is not going to be better because it more closely fits what i want to build in my char but because it has higher stats. To me this just seems like the same carrot. A high str hat is a high str hat regardless of how much str it has relative to other str hats. I think if I'm not offered variety in gear options then the game becomes more repetitive to me because it's not just the repeating of content but repeating new content in order to repeat the same model char i already had 5 levels ago. Id rather do old content for what is effectively varied, different, and new gear (it's new to me because i have nothing like it) than do new content for what is essentially the same gear i had scaled up.

[Ichi]

The mess-up kinda does matter when the mess-up is the key part of the argument. The reason why people participated in ToAU and later expansions was because of upgrades. People wouldn't be doing that instanced crap over and over for years for simple side-grades. These new upgrades are what led to old content being outdated. That was my original argument since I entered the thread. People stopped doing Sky and Sea outside of the typical farming out of boredom or for that 1 person who might need something, LOOOONNNGGG before Abyssea came about. That was my response to, "Abyssea killed the need to go back to Sky/Sea/<insert any previous expansion>."

This is why I said, "The only people who think this either didn't play before ToAU, or they're looking through rose-tinted glasses." Sky became irrelevant long before Abyssea. Whether there was one piece of gear there or not, it was still out-dated and the vast majority of players had moved on. It's like how kings stopped being spawn camped by every major LS on the server once you could get that same stuff elsewhere. Does that mean nobody does the content? No. But people still do level 60, 70, and 80 content in WoW too, which is why this isn't really an argument about level caps as much as it is an argument about upgrades ruining old content.

I think you are looking through shit tinted glasses. The so called upgrades, are circumstantial that is a fact you can't say that people still played ffxi for upgrades when marduk jubbah, kirin osode, and sha'ir manteel all had circumstantial advantages over each other and all came from different eras of the game. Those are just a couple examples of multiple pieces of gear being ideal for the same class. It comes down to preference where as in a game that vertically progresses at too fast a rate would only hold the newest of these items as the best.

You can say whatever you want about those examples but the fact is that each one served better than the other in it's own conditional situation and you can't say which conditional situation is more important because you're not playing for me I know what I need not you.

People may still do the low level stuff in WoW but they sure as hell aren't doing it for gear, and if there's no gear in it then i sure as hell wouldn't do it either. I'm not voicing my opinion in the assumption that i speak for the welfare of the game (and your stupid if you think your opinion is different), i voice my opinion for me and my enjoyment.

[AuctionGirl]

Every argument here fails to think about the company itself, and how sustainable it would be to cater to those FEW hardcore FFXI people who think 1 hard cap and horizontal progression is the key to success.

Lets use FFXI history as an example... at one time FFXI has subs of up to 2 million characters. 2-3 years later they are down to 500k 25% of their existing subs... why did 75% of the people quit the game? Because there was no longer character progression. Majority of players like to experience new content all the time and see some character progression.

Some of the arguments on here about horizontal progression are pure selfish and don't think about the majority of players.

Failed Horizontal Progression Examples:

Statement: You haven't experienced all the content unless you have capped every job/class...
Rebuttal: 75% of players don't like to repeat the content as often as the hard cores do or even play every class, and don't care about getting that 1 more STR on a piece of equipment.

Statement: You can add dungeons to a game without raising the cap and there is more things to do.
Rebuttal: Semi-true in your example, but the quicker you can get to do those new areas/dungeons, the sooner the content becomes invalid. Cap increases help make sure this content stays relevant longer. People will need to spend time to get to the new caps to experience these new places. This is good for the company which people pay for time to do these. If you can automatically just do this without having to grow into it, you have failed.

Statement: You can add new recipes and other things to suffice other types of players than just battle.
Rebuttal: If you add in 100 recipes that have no value in the game at all, did it do any good at all to add them? Having a rank increase allows for valuable new synths in the game, new ranks for people to achieve and more...

I can go on and on about this, and the facts are in the numbers of subs... why do people stay at WoW? why do they have 10 million subs? Think about it, only a few hard core people who become to attached to what they have vs what they could have are the ones against vertical progression.

This game will die quicker and be limited quicker if they stick to horizontal, vertical is the only way they can keep a game alive for a long long time. and don't use FFXI as an example, it failed when the average player doesn't stay for more than a year... Proof is in the subs. I had many of my friends play FFXI and most quit in 6 months because they experienced all the content (that they were interested in) and moved onto other games. They have been WoW customers for 6+ years because new content, new challenges are always coming.

Don't limit yourself SE... go vertical (small progression without killing off existing content as quickly) on a SET TIME FRAME! people will expect these cool changes, it helps people keeping their characters for these new changes, new areas, new things. Its all about business, not personal feelings.

[danny52844]

Every argument here fails to think about the company itself, and how sustainable it would be to cater to those FEW hardcore FFXI people who think 1 hard cap and horizontal progression is the key to success.

Lets use FFXI history as an example... at one time FFXI has subs of up to 2 million characters. 2-3 years later they are down to 500k 25% of their existing subs... why did 75% of the people quit the game? Because there was no longer character progression. Majority of players like to experience new content all the time and see some character progression.

Some of the arguments on here about horizontal progression are pure selfish and don't think about the majority of players.

Failed Horizontal Progression Examples:

Statement: You haven't experienced all the content unless you have capped every job/class...
Rebuttal: 75% of players don't like to repeat the content as often as the hard cores do or even play every class, and don't care about getting that 1 more STR on a piece of equipment.

Statement: You can add dungeons to a game without raising the cap and there is more things to do.
Rebuttal: Semi-true in your example, but the quicker you can get to do those new areas/dungeons, the sooner the content becomes invalid. Cap increases help make sure this content stays relevant longer. People will need to spend time to get to the new caps to experience these new places. This is good for the company which people pay for time to do these. If you can automatically just do this without having to grow into it, you have failed.

Statement: You can add new recipes and other things to suffice other types of players than just battle.
Rebuttal: If you add in 100 recipes that have no value in the game at all, did it do any good at all to add them? Having a rank increase allows for valuable new synths in the game, new ranks for people to achieve and more...

I can go on and on about this, and the facts are in the numbers of subs... why do people stay at WoW? why do they have 10 million subs? Think about it, only a few hard core people who become to attached to what they have vs what they could have are the ones against vertical progression.

This game will die quicker and be limited quicker if they stick to horizontal, vertical is the only way they can keep a game alive for a long long time. and don't use FFXI as an example, it failed when the average player doesn't stay for more than a year... Proof is in the subs. I had many of my friends play FFXI and most quit in 6 months because they experienced all the content (that they were interested in) and moved onto other games. They have been WoW customers for 6+ years because new content, new challenges are always coming.

Don't limit yourself SE... go vertical (small progression without killing off existing content as quickly) on a SET TIME FRAME! people will expect these cool changes, it helps people keeping their characters for these new changes, new areas, new things. Its all about business, not personal feelings.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

unless they plan to raise the cap by like 50 lvs every time ur just going to get cap within a few weeks thus making all the previous stuff obsolete while only making u have to wait 2 weeks to start doing the new stuff making it obsolete along with everything else 2 weeks later than it would if u just kept the lvs the same just instead this time ull only have the new end game to do not the old stuff

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

[AuctionGirl]

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]unless they plan to raise the cap by like 50 lvs every time ur just going to get cap within a few weeks thus making all the previous stuff obsolete while only making u have to wait 2 weeks to start doing the new stuff making it obsolete along with everything else 2 weeks later than it would if u just kept the lvs the same just instead this time ull only have the new end game to do not the old stuff

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

So if my rebuttals are so bad, then come up with some other reason why horizontal progression doesn't limit growth of the game.

Another statement: You can add in new weapons/armor that doesn't negate the existing.
Rebuttal: If you add in new weapons that are better, you just negated the old content anyways, and if you add in something that isn't better. Then why even get it? Your limited on inventory spaces anyways... With vertical progression, you will need these new weapons and armors, new recipes, new gathering locations/materials.

The problem with horizontal progression, is you are limiting the game to potential growth. Horizontal can only go so wide before it must go vertical. If you wait too long to go vertical, you lose all the players who don't like to repeat the same content 1000 times, and then you lose all the people who did and feel like they accomplished something by having +1 STR items over everyone else. If you do the merit system like FFXI, you are negating old content anyways, its another form of vertical progression, except the fact that now those old Rank 75 things are now super easy because of those merits.

People who had level 100 crafting after 1 year of the game, still had level 100 crafting after 7 years of the game. They were done crafting. With vertical progression, you can keep all players growing.

Here is an idea on how to keep older content relative... make existing weapons/armors upgradable by new and existing items. Capped areas, and update the existing content with new expansions (rank increases).

So list out all the pro's and con's for horizontal progression, and guaranteed that vertical progression pro's and con's will outweigh everything horizontal does (from a business perspective)

[darkstarpoet1]

So if my rebuttals are so bad, then come up with some other reason why horizontal progression doesn't limit growth of the game.

Another statement: You can add in new weapons/armor that doesn't negate the existing.
Rebuttal: If you add in new weapons that are better, you just negated the old content anyways, and if you add in something that isn't better. Then why even get it? Your limited on inventory spaces anyways... With vertical progression, you will need these new weapons and armors, new recipes, new gathering locations/materials.

The problem with horizontal progression, is you are limiting the game to potential growth. Horizontal can only go so wide before it must go vertical. If you wait too long to go vertical, you lose all the players who don't like to repeat the same content 1000 times, and then you lose all the people who did and feel like they accomplished something by having +1 STR items over everyone else. If you do the merit system like FFXI, you are negating old content anyways, its another form of vertical progression, except the fact that now those old Rank 75 things are now super easy because of those merits.

People who had level 100 crafting after 1 year of the game, still had level 100 crafting after 7 years of the game. They were done crafting. With vertical progression, you can keep all players growing.

Here is an idea on how to keep older content relative... make existing weapons/armors upgradable by new and existing items. Capped areas, and update the existing content with new expansions (rank increases).

So list out all the pro's and con's for horizontal progression, and guaranteed that vertical progression pro's and con's will outweigh everything horizontal does (from a business perspective)

what part is hard to understand that most people do not want true horizontal. i do not want it to stay at r50 forever, but i do not think a set time frame on when to increase caps ia a good way to keep players involved. yeah i would like to see the cap raised in a year or 2 by a few levels, but it should stay there for a while and not say a year or so later it increases again. that ruins the chances at any long term goals and becomes a constant grind throughout the lifetime of the game.

grinding levels are not what will keep a person there long term. it is the content and it doesn't matter if it is at the same cap or higher cap, but things to do are what people need.