Rank cap increase every 1-2 years discussion thread

[Sorel]

Ideally, with each new increase in level cap, it would be accompanied by new content AND new Classes and/or Jobs. That way, it's not only about getting levels 51-60 of your current Class, but also about possibly going back to get 1-60 of a new class, and going through lower level content as that Class if you want.

Just off the top of my head (so don't expect balanced classes or specifc items)...

1st Cap Raise:

• Add Musketeer, Arcanist, & Fencer Classes.
• Add Sniper, Scholar, & Red Mage Jobs.
• Add more Level 30 content (quests, NMs, rare equipment).
• Raise Level Cap to 60.
• Add Level 60 content.

2nd Cap Raise:

• Add Whip-User (Lasher), Tachi-user, & Mace-User Classes.
• Add Summoner, Samurai, & Ninja Jobs.
• Add more Level 40 content.
• Raise the Level Cap to 70.
• Add level 70 content.

Rinse and repeat every year or two for 5-10 years.

As long as the cap raise has:

1. New Classes
2. New Jobs
3. Max Level Content (calcuated after raise)
4. Mid Level Content (calculated after raise)

There shouldn't be a problem with veteran players racing to the cap, and thus making their old gear obsolete, as long as new Classes/Jobs/Content/Recipes are introduced that can make use of that gear at the same time.

[Sol_Aureus]

game definately needs a level cap increase soon, and if its 1-2 years between, id ere to 1 year, and 10 levels at a time. just speaking about now.

The endgame model of MMOs in general is a bad idea. sure you should probably minimize early levels, but later on, you should have interesting gear options while you play and enjoy content. Id give better upgrade options for hard to obtain gears, and honestly you do want progression.
Take a look at ffxiii, all gear could be upgraded to an ultimate level, with different status spreads, some gear needed more upgrades than others, but some you only got later in the game. none of your gear was really worthless, except the pieces you didnt want or need.

the idea should be progression. as in, the stuff you do as you level matters for the next progression. So gear wise you would have the new gear, that looks new and exciting, has a slightly different stat spread, or special effects on it, and the old gear which you could update to be competive with the new gear, but offering different stat spreads special traits, or even just a different look.

by having that type of model, your mid level acquisitions matter more, thus making the game less endgame heavy, and making it so content of various levels matter, over all i think it makes the whole game better at all levels.

This is also something I've seen brought up a few times, and I completely agree with.

The level cap raise in and of itself I don't really have a problem with, it's the rendering old events and gear useless that I am very strongly against.

If they were to go with something like this with constantly upgradable gear, to me it'd be almost as good as keeping the cap the same. While the prospect of being able to have almost complete gear customization is awesome to me, the old content would become laughably easy to do (since it would be built for lower levels). While people might still run through it for the gear, there would be no challenge, unless they upgraded the dungeon as well. And over time, upgrading ALL endgame events EVERY level cap raise is a lot of work.

[Sol_Aureus]

Isn't it a bit early to discuss level cap increase anyway? I mean look at the condition of the game; how much is changing and how much still needs fixing and stuff added (like content). That in itself might take 1-2 years. By then everyone's opinions would have changed anyway.

I can see why you'd think that, however like I said in my original post:

First off, I'm aware that Yoshida has said that this is only in the concept stage at the moment, and is quite a long ways off, however, I believe it's an important enough topic to discuss now, before they start working on content with this in mind.

[Chezen]

This sorta reminds me of anime.

"My super-awesome weapon of last year doesn't work anymore. I must power-up!"
"Really? I thought last year's weapon was the ultimate weapon."
"Well it's not anymore. I need new! New will sell more toys!"
"...Where was this new super bad guy last year? What would you have done then?"
"Uhhhh...."

[Physic]

This is also something I've seen brought up a few times, and I completely agree with.

The level cap raise in and of itself I don't really have a problem with, it's the rendering old events and gear useless that I am very strongly against.

If they were to go with something like this with constantly upgradable gear, to me it'd be almost as good as keeping the cap the same. While the prospect of being able to have almost complete gear customization is awesome to me, the old content would become laughably easy to do (since it would be built for lower levels). While people might still run through it for the gear, there would be no challenge, unless they upgraded the dungeon as well. And over time, upgrading ALL endgame events EVERY level cap raise is a lot of work.

not exactly, they would have to make the gear that is upgradeable be gear obtainined from level caps, as well, making some of the drops for upgrading come from new content, or some other thing, like buyable from beastcoins, or with a certain level of fame.
the idea is you can upgrade your old gear, or save a step and get new gear. The idea is certain special gears gotten with great difficulty, become upgradedable.
you could go back and do the level capped stuff, but it will always be capped, and thus should always be somewhat difficult. then youd have to upgrade, you may need to do a quest, or craft it, but it will involve some of the new content, or using some resource you built up over your playtime.

no need to remake the dungeons, just make use of level caps.

[Reika]

If they do the same thing WoW does with it's expansions, raising the level cap every 3-4 years would work. Meaning, even tho they raise the level cap and release new content with new gear at end-game stage, they don't release all of the content. Instead, they make tiers of equipment, raids, and dungeons released every 10 months-1 year. so within the same level cap, you still change equipment.

At least I liked how they did it that way.

[tachikoma]

The 1.19 materia system has the potential to easily handle lvl cap raises, being able to materialize the epic gear you spent lots of work getting and putting that into your next lvl caps top drops sounds really cool to me. Also seems that everyone agrees the lvl cap raises are fine as long as they have the necessary content to match.

SE has always been the best with making sure not to break gear along your progression, many items are BIS(best in slot) at a variety of ranks. Some even lasted you start to cap. My only concern atm is that with everything being crafted and bosses dropping crafting mats it compounds the difficulty in obtaining a "true" BIS item. Take for example what we have now for head as a mele most would agree the silver tricorn is the best right now. But for the true BIS you need a crafter to +3 it which can take upwards of a few hundred synths. Not like everyone needs +3'd gear but if your goal is BIS then as content gets more end-gamey its gonna get harder and harder.

[kukurumei]

If they do the same thing WoW does with it's expansions, raising the level cap every 3-4 years would work. Meaning, even tho they raise the level cap and release new content with new gear at end-game stage, they don't release all of the content. Instead, they make tiers of equipment, raids, and dungeons released every 10 months-1 year. so within the same level cap, you still change equipment.

At least I liked how they did it that way.

Not on FF14's budget. WoW has vasty...VASTY more man power working on their game.

WoW's throw away content formula only works for wow...it would never work for FF14. WoW is only known for 2 things. Leveling up to cap, and do endgame with everyone else at cap. When you're bored make a new toon to power level up to endgame, repeat.

WoW has practically zero use for old non endgame content. That's not very good on a tight waist belt like FF14. It needs reusable content. Things that players don't mind repeating, because frankly, we already know at this point FF14 isn't even popular enough to get a dungeon out much less a expansion.

[Evenstar]

Nice thread, with a great first post. I wish people would do this more often. I normally quit reading after just 2 sentences since most of the time someone is trying to present his/her opinion as a fact. So, great first post this time, which made me read the whole post.

That said ... I agree with the first post. I played and actually am still playing FFXI. I liked the approach of FFXI way more than the approach of WoW. WoW raised the level cap with every big expansion, which made the world before the expansion kinda useless. The gear you got was worth nothing, it was not worth to revisit some awesome dungeons it felt like everything you did was for nothing. You had to start from scratch every single expansion.

FFXI did it in a totally different way and in my opinion the better way and I think FFXIV should take the same approach. By raising the level cap slowly every few months you keep people on the edge. You also give the development team lots of time to fine tune everything in the game. I really do not like the idea of making everything you worked for completely uselles because the level cap was raised. I am not against raising the level cap, but I strongly believe it should be done step by step in a short period of time and then totally stop. We are now at level 50, make it +5 every 2 months and one year later we are at 80. Keep it at 80 for at least 5 years (and/or 3 expansions). After that do the same trick to get to 99 and keep it there forever.

If they do it like WoW it would be in my opinion a huge disaster and I might even reconsider playing the game. I am still playing FFXIV even with all this shit going on, so I am as dedicated as it can get, but if they do the same thing as Blizzard it would hurt the game a lot ....

[Roaran]

Was mentioned by someone that it is necessary to raise the level cap to prevent the game from becoming stale. Reason being, without a level raise, you would be stuck with the same skills and abilities forever.

I'd just point out there are other ways of obtaining these skills...

I would much rather see a system that offered challenging quests with REAL story involved, and at the end of said challenging quest you will have gained a skill and feel as though you have actually accomplished something; as opposed to, "Finally I have killed X monsters for Y Experience so now I feel a little stronger, but nothing is really different."

Another point against keeping a static level cap is how people will constantly be doing the same content forever. In reality, players who have played for 2+ years or people considered 'veterans' will always be on the newest content, regardless of level. However, the newer players would, in a simple progression system, still have to go through the beggining steps/stages before entering the new content. The biggest problem though is whether there is a sufficient number of new players to get them through this content and into the newer stages without any significant problems, in relation to the first veterans who engaged in these encounters. If you consider the 4 & 8 player party sizes, it is less likely there would ever be such a problem.

I think, if the world expands, it would be more necessary for a rise in the level caps. Other than that, I don't really see any good reasons.