4.1 - The emptiest patch yet.

[Elkanah]

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Horizontal progression. Or do neither of you see that if you actually played XI? Cause it doesn't seem to be the case. Okay, so let me re-explain this, as apparently you two hadn't thought to read the past post I made two pages ago. Saying you played XI or still do, and still can't see the type of content that released pre-SoA, and the current generation after 2-5 years in expansions compared to 10 years passing, says a lot about what you hadn't done or had played very long. All you basically said without saying much, is that you prefer content exactly as it is and never changing. And I'm putting these words in perspective of your post, as you have not said or done anything yourselves, to make yourself relevant to the discussion on what can be done differently and beyond what we already have gone through THREE TIMES. I repeat, THREE TIMES in THREE DIFFERENT headlines of the SAME CONTENT. I'm not even gonna point out the garbage that was 1.0. Other than hamlet defense, which was actually enjoyable for all classes at once.

Let's look at XI through the years:
FFXI:
Base game, story missions for the nations.
Burning Circle Notorious monsters
Notorious monsters (basically hunts with loot drops for epic gear depending on NM and time)
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Rise of the Zilart:
Sky.
Dynamis.
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Chains of Promathia:
Dynamis.
Sea.
Limbus.
Empty Notorious monsters
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Treasures of Aht Urhgan:
Salvage
Einherjar
Assaults
Zeni Notorious Monsters
Nyzul Isle Investigation
Nyzul Isle Uncharted Area Survey (level 99)
Imperial Seal Notorious Monsters (ISNM)
Salvage II (level 99)
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Wings of the Goddess:
Stronghold Notorious Monsters (SCNM)
Allied Notes Notorious Monsters (ANNM)
Meeble Burrows (Meeble)
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Abyssea:
Most of this was gear based content for better gear and upgrades
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Seekers of Adoulin:
Skirmish
Delve
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Rhapsodies of Vana'diel:
Omen system
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Now again, I'm not saying I want XI reborn. These are mostly examples of endgame content that could be added. Not THESE specifically. But NEW content that's not re-hashed based on old content. A lot of the content still remained relevant to the game after the ilvl and level went up to 99. Yes, it got repetitive AFTER Seekers of Adoulin released. But at that point, you already lost your player base or most of them. So you want that path to happen? Wait till everyone leaves BEFORE you decide it's a good idea to add content? Sky remained relevant to the game even after abyssea was added, as was sea, einherjar AND limbus. Also Assaults, Salvage and Notorious monster hunting. You'd know this if you actually played back then before abyssea and up till Seekers of Adoulin. You know how many expansions that is? THATS THREE EXPANSIONS. Not 1. Not 2. THREE. We're on expansion TWO, and the content remains exactly the same format after ARR, HW and now SB. FFXI > RoZ > COP > TOAU.

Gear STOPS being relevant after 5 minutes. That's sarcasm, just so you know. But it still holds water. We have 1 full set of endgame content and gear. That's it. It's the ONLY max level ilvl gear in the game. Everything else is below it or worse. How is that okay? There's not much to do after you do your endgame farming content after many hours in the week. Or progression. With FFXI as an example, there were too many things you can do on the off days or outside of it.

Dynamis was your weekly raid. So think savage content.
Same with Einherjar. So we'll call that savage as well since you had a time limit of when you can go back in next. What happens when you finished for the night?

Options:
Well, there was Assaults for better gear, weapons and weapon skills for those weapons.
There was Nyzule Isle which also helped in progressing gear outside of the content. No lock out though. Just depended on the people and points for nyzule. Think of this as POTD but with gear and progression.
There was salvage. Also gear but the cost of gear could be pricey and rng was more or less a pain, but still something you can do outside of Dynamis.
NM's, also referred to as hunts in FFXIV, but gave out drops for gear. Now, the original system spawned easy mobs and incredibly difficult ones, but the rewards were amazing and not just a set of points for GC that just sat there.
Burning Circle Notorious monsters - this can be gear and/or gil. Depends on which one you do. Almost like going into a primal fight with a set amount of players but with circumstances and pretty epic rewards outside of rng.
Sky - fighting the gods themselves that fell into slumber and re-awoke. Also dropped gear.
Sea - fighting beings from another world. Also provided gear.
Limbus - which while it had some time syncs, it was a 18+ person fight and coordinating to get epic drops and/or loot for drops.
Abyssea - provided gear and upgrades for gear.
Limbus - more gear in the same content.
Let's not forget the Apoc nigh, which provided gear at the end.
Also Warriors of the Crystal, aka Warriors of Darkness, that also dropped gear for content.

FFXI released May 2002 in North America. (we're not counting JP since they had to re-roll JP server and english servers together, and some other features that were pushed back).
Rise of Zilart released a year later in 2003. Expanding areas and creating new jobs and content listed above.
Chains of promathia released 2004 just a year later, and expanded on new places/zones and new content both casual and hardcore "endgame" in this case.
Treasures of Aht Urhgan released in 2006 that expanded even FURTHER on endgame content, but you know what? CoP and RoZ content STILL remained relevant.
I can go on further with the other expansions that released that was also both casual and endgame enabled, and still had things to do further. But those came down later in the years.

We now have PF or Party Finder and DF or Duty Finder. Making and matching people who want to do content, is more than acceptable. And guess what? You can still circle other ideas into these two type of things people can use to play the game. Casual and/or endgame for high end rewards. Now, you didn't have to do Dynamis. You didn't have to do Einherjar. But you know what? You had a ton of options in the game. Always changed from expansion to expansion, but kept the gear and content relevant as 3-6 years passed before TOAU released. And being bored was almost never a problem with endgame. You know what is though? FFXIV structure.