Quote Originally Posted by Ibi View Post
By at least an order of magnitude.
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FFXI was essentially impossible to progress in solo, compared to WoW where you've always been able to go all the way to the level cap without ever interacting with another person if you choose. FFXI was very slow progress even when you were interacting with other people, and that progress was 95%+ though grinding away levels on the same mobs for hours at a time.
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It's certainly possible that FFXIV lets us get too much stronger too fast, but if they slow it down it greatly restricts what they can do with new content. It's a tough balance to strike.
That was my whole point. The person I quoted was arguing in favor of FFXI style MMO and saying SE should focus less on...
SE should stick to what they do best and deliver an experience with as much horizontal gameplay as there is vertical.
My biggest issue with the game isn't the fact that we have ever-increasing item levels, but rather that there's no point to having anything except those high item levels.
I already know some of my friends who have left the game because they were bored of the same treadmill.
This is a minority opinion. The world has already voted for what they want (with their wallets) and WoW was a cash cow while FFXI, not so much. Can't Fault SE for emulating and tweaking the model (which I think they've done well). I assume this person wanted Kraken Clubs and various amazing items that you could get and hold onto for a long time. Unfortunately it just wasn't as popular as new gear every so often, despite being a cool concept.

I personally think XIV has found a lovely middle ground between XI and WoW, and that's why its doing so well in MMO's when so many others are being created and closed (since 2.0 obviously).