Incentive at 60: Character Growth

[Mraj]

The game already has this. You can level your character to 60 and cap. but you can still progress because of the second leveling system - ilvl.

Increasing ilvl increases your attributes via the gear itself. So you progress your character overall first by leveling the job and second by leveling the gear. Each new patch advances things further.

Going back to ARR when the game landed you could get to level 50 and ilvl 90, by the end of the patch series itwas ilvl 130/135 if I remember correctly. Doesn't this really accomplish the thing you are after without adding to the skill bloat?

The game has progression, no one is disputing this. But there is very much an end to progression for weeks / months at a time, like during catch up patches. There is also the OP's argument that there is no incentive to run most, if any content, after one is at max iLVL.

Example: I have my relic, I have all i240 gear ( tome-based ), and I don't want to raid. And no, I don't want to level every single class up to 60...and gear them....and then level my crafters and gear them...

What if, after I'm fully geared, I can still run any sort of content and still "progress" on my main class ( up to a point ). Why not have that? It wouldn't be skill bloat either. It'd simply be a small bit of text and an overlay over the exp bar / skill bar ( if we went about it that way ).

iLVL only goes so far.

[SilkaN]

Improve your fashion.

[Zojha]

iLVL only goes so far.

As do all progression systems. The issue is that if you make it so that nobody who only plays "one" job ever ends progressing, playing multiple jobs at "endgame level" becomes impossible, undermining the entire purpose of the armory system. It's a bugger even right now with progression stops after like 11-13 weeks. And no, removing caps would not solve that issue, removing caps would only speed up the process.

The best you can do to alleviate this is a "global" progression system that's not tied to your job - kinda what Borderlands 2 does with its badass ranks. But that aside, I don't see many compatible options.

[Mraj]

As do all progression systems. The issue is that if you make it so that nobody who only plays "one" job ever ends progressing, playing multiple jobs at "endgame level" becomes impossible, undermining the entire purpose of the armory system. It's a bugger even right now with progression stops after like 11-13 weeks. And no, removing caps would not solve that issue, removing caps would only speed up the process.

The best you can do to alleviate this is a "global" progression system that's not tied to your job - kinda what Borderlands 2 does with its badass ranks. But that aside, I don't see many compatible options.

Any sort of merits would be capped at certain points. Much like how desynthesis is capped / expanded upon. A broad-reaching "character" merit system wouldn't be awful, but isn't what I'd look for in a merit system. Going back to desynthesis, you can't level up one giant "desynthesis" skill.

Also:

FFXIV supposedly allows freedom to play all classes, but with the tome system it usually means you can only have one best-geared class. So, given that, some sort of merit system might also be a decent way to give alt classes a bit more of an edge...

[Kosmos992k]

The game has progression, no one is disputing this. But there is very much an end to progression for weeks / months at a time, like during catch up patches. There is also the OP's argument that there is no incentive to run most, if any content, after one is at max iLVL.

In effect, you have beaten the current game. Well done. But what is it that you want after that? No developer can continue to provide fresh content at the pace that our hardcore players use it up. So, you can't progress your gear treadmill for a few weeks or a month. Challenge yourself to run things solo unsync'd or something. the game has options, but you capped your level and ilvl already. I just don't see how you think you can continue on progressing levels and gear 100% of the time.