Anyone wanted to see any kind of merits like FFXI had?

[Wolfie]

Then why should they advance the level cap at all?

Because it's a way of resetting the game and shortening the gap between people who have just joined the game, and those who have been here for a long time. It also makes it easier to ensure that new content is actually played by people instead of it being dropped in favor of familiar, easier content with similar rewards.

[Xatsh]

Because it's a way of resetting the game and shortening the gap between people who have just joined the game, and those who have been here for a long time. It also makes it easier to ensure that new content is actually played by people instead of it being dropped in favor of familiar, easier content with similar rewards.

I disagree with 100% of this post.

New players should not be able to be as good as an old player quickly. They should be able to advance quick enough to get to endgame and be able to do it, but to truly get decked out with the best of the best gear it SHOULD TAKE YEARS. Especially in a game with multiple jobs per 1 character.

XI never had an issue with people playing new content. So the idea people would not play new content because of old is stupid. PEOPLE SHOULD PLAY BOTH. That is what every mmo developer should do. Make it where content compounds on itself. Make it where a game has so much to do no one can ever get bored of it. Make all new and old content relevant.

[fusional]

unique

yeah i mean except for the tens of thousands of others who do exactly the same thing as you in spite of your 'unique' choices, right?

lol never will understand this logic

[Jinrya-Geki]

I think the "Master Class" system Everquest Online for the ps2 is a better system to be used to make yourself a bit more different with playstyle.

In this example I will use Paladin.

Paladin had 2 Major Master Classes and 1 Role Master Class and a Race Master class. It's majors were Crusader and Guardian.

Crusader had a heal spike spell that lasted a minute, but everytime they were hit everyone would recover hp near them, making them perfect to hold hate to a ton of enemies. No one could get hate of this ability, not even a spamming 1 sec cast/recast wizard a full power using all MP. Perfect for multiple mobs at once.

Guardian had a special ticking heal. But had much more defense than crusader making it better to tank one on one with a boss.

The Role of Paladin was Tank, therefore it's role master class was soldier. If you were a human, then the race master class was mercenary.

Each one of these roles required you use Class Mastery points to purchase certain abilities and traits before you could buy the "Master Class" title. When you bought it, certain stats would break the threshold. Allowing a paladin to go from 325 Stamina to 375.

Once you bought the master class you could buy the master class abilities. Which Wizard could become sorcerer and buy 3 unresistable nukes.

The Merit system that FFXI had, I felt like it was a joke compared to this system.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

How does Merit System works? Coming from someone who never played FFXI, I have no idea what is that lol.

[Jinrya-Geki]

Same as exping, but insteading of leveling up, you get a merit point. With enough points you can buy ability or increase stats. You can only spend the points on jobs that are 75 and up.

[Wolfie]

I disagree with 100% of this post.

New players should not be able to be as good as an old player quickly. They should be able to advance quick enough to get to endgame and be able to do it, but to truly get decked out with the best of the best gear it SHOULD TAKE YEARS. Especially in a game with multiple jobs per 1 character.

XI never had an issue with people playing new content. So the idea people would not play new content because of old is stupid. PEOPLE SHOULD PLAY BOTH. That is what every mmo developer should do. Make it where content compounds on itself. Make it where a game has so much to do no one can ever get bored of it. Make all new and old content relevant.

I fundamentally disagree. Being around longer should not make it harder or impossible for newer players to catch up to you. You should get the benefit of having some rare cosmetic choices, titles, or achievements; but to say that getting to the top tiers of gear and content should take years is basically giving the middle finger to all new players. There's a reason why FFXI capped out early at 400-500k players and stayed there for 6 years.

And really, people in FFXI had no problems playing new content? Who in their right mind even did COP Dynamis? Or most of the ENMs? Vrtra (sort of)? Hydra? Several other NMs? There's a lot of high level content in FFXI that went unused.

At least with semi-regular level cap increases, the devs can have planned obsoleteness and not risk creating content that people will have no interest over.

[Cedri]

75 is a good comfortable number to hit before merits kick in.

[Klefth]

And really, people in FFXI had no problems playing new content? Who in their right mind even did COP Dynamis? Or most of the ENMs? Vrtra (sort of)? Hydra? Several other NMs? There's a lot of high level content in FFXI that went unused.

Tons of people did ENMs for money, and CoP Dynamis was pretty damn common. As for the rest, it didn't go unused just because of other older content, but because it didn't have any relevant drops. Who in their right mind went out of their way to kill Vrtra? Or Hydra?

I liked how in XI, they managed to keep both old and new content relevant (before they shat on the game with Abyssea). It always gave you a lot of options to work on. You'd have to have played for many years to run out of content to do. Unfortunately, the way modern MMOs are going, content gets "old" and obsolete within few months, and honestly, I don't know how they intend to keep a stable player base that way. I hope ARR doesn't go in that direction as well.

[Wolfie]

Tons of people did ENMs for money, and CoP Dynamis was pretty damn common. As for the rest, it didn't go unused just because of other older content, but because it didn't have any relevant drops. Who in their right mind went out of their way to kill Vrtra? Or Hydra?

I liked how in XI, they managed to keep both old and new content relevant (before they shat on the game with Abyssea). It always gave you a lot of options to work on. You'd have to have played for many years to run out of content to do. Unfortunately, the way modern MMOs are going, content gets "old" and obsolete within few months, and honestly, I don't know how they intend to keep a stable player base that way. I hope ARR doesn't go in that direction as well.

I think you're vastly over-estimating the amount of people that did higher level ENM and COP Dynamis. Out of all ENMs, only a few were ever used.

You're right on the money about Vrtra and Hydra, and that's a problem of keeping the same level cap. How do you come up with gear that is relevant and that people would want to get for years on end, without blatantly making it have better stats than the previous 'tier' and making it obsolete? Hint: you can't.

You can, however, plan your game so that you know your content has a life of 2-3 years, and that people will want to do every last bit of it, by carefully planning semi-obvious gear upgrades from content that is steadily more and more difficult to do. Sprinkle in some cosmetic rewards that are always available regardless of level, cosmetic rewards for doing the content while it's "relevant" or at the current level cap, and some one-time/server first achievements; and you have content that everyone wants to do, and that distinguishes people who did it the hard way the first time, from people who did it after the level cap was increased.