My friend the "content locust" :(

[Clavaat]

The first expansion, by plan/design, will make EVERYTHING prior to it irrelevant.

I really don't know why people think this way. Maybe because I didn't play WoW? I don't know. What I do know is, there was "irrelevant content" all over the place in FFXI as the years went on. If you're referring to NM items, they would become "irrelevant" after like, 10 levels anyway typically. If you're referring to Sky/Sea etc, they were both expansionary zones. Content is only as relevant as you want to make it.

Also, what in 2.1 made things "irrelevant"? If you are just starting the game at this point, do you not still have to get your relic and collect philo along the way? Sure, it's easier to do now, but that just makes it less tedious, not irrelevant. I still have to do AK/WP w/e for Duty Roulette, I still fight HM's for relic, and I still FATE grind between DR's on my alts, though now I have a better option with Battlecraft leves as well. In other words, I believe we're getting the terms "irrelevant" and "less tedious" mixed up, which is easy to do when FFXI was your last reference.

[chococo]

I really don't know why people think this way. Maybe because I didn't play WoW? I don't know. What I do know is, there was "irrelevant content" all over the place in FFXI as the years went on. If you're referring to NM items, they would become "irrelevant" after like, 10 levels anyway typically. If you're referring to Sky/Sea etc, they were both expansionary zones. Content is only as relevant as you want to make it.

Also, what in 2.1 made things "irrelevant"? If you are just starting the game at this point, do you not still have to get your relic and collect philo along the way? Sure, it's easier to do now, but that just makes it less tedious, not irrelevant. I still have to do AK/WP w/e for Duty Roulette, I still fight HM's for relic, and I still FATE grind between DR's on my alts, though now I have a better option with Battlecraft leves as well. In other words, I believe we're getting the terms "irrelevant" and "less tedious" mixed up, which is easy to do when FFXI was your last reference.

Well in XIV you achieve everything so fast, things would also lose their relevance just as fast. Surely when you start out there's lots of things to do, no doubt. But when you can level up your jobs in a very short period of time and be able to progress, there's no longer relevance in obsolete content. Further down the road in patch say 2.4, you've probably leveled all classes by then, gotten your relic or whatever, and there's Turn 20. Would you still be doing WP, AK, or even the labyrinth of the ancients?

XI content had replay value because achievements were not obtained that quickly. Even if you do not need a specific drop, you could always do content to farm and sell, thereby gaining something during the process. In XIV if you're done with, say primals, you're done, period. There is no reason for you to go back there. This is apparent when PF (on masamune) is only filled with training parties. There's even fewer clear parties on the day of reset cos people don't even need those primal weapons anymore.

[Clavaat]

-snip-

Thank you for your answer! To answer your question, I don't know if I would be doing WP/AK/CT by patch 2.4, as I don't know if they plan on making changes to it. However, if they keep the DR basically functioning as is, then yes I would be. I have almost all of my classes leveled already, but I definitely do not have them all geared for all high level content. From what I can tell, tomestones will keep a pretty sufficient bottleneck in actually improving your gear. Which is a good thing. I can't predict the future, neither can anyone else in this thread, which was kind of my main point with making a claim of irrelevancy this early doesn't make any sense.