Rank cap increase every 1-2 years discussion thread

[Ichi]

some people just dont want to increase in level, if you could increase in level without grinding exp, say it was event based, would you still think its a bad idea?

I would absolutely still think it was a bad idea i may even go as far as saying that it's a worse idea than if you had to level it. It should take time, we are not arguing against longevity we are arguing for it this type of comment is further proof that the majority of people in thread do not even have their heads around horizontal progression.

[AuctionGirl]

Ichi,

I played XI from NA release in 2002, to the point I capped most jobs at 75, did all the dungeons we had and quit before TAU. I simply got bored of the game, there was nothing new to experience. I came back to XI a couple years later, started a brand new account and did the same as before, repeated to 75's did the same content as before, but this time didnt take me 2 years to get to 75, only took me 3 months for 2 classes to 75 with sub jobs and other stuff. WotG was released and I loved the campaigns, after doing those for a couple months, the game was again stale. Nothing new to do, no reason to grind, no reason to party, no reason since I already had everything I needed. FFXI wasnt releasing anything NEW that interested me or I had to have to continue in the game. I eventually fully merited my PLD and then quit again. I told myself I would never go back to XI, but I went back when abysmal was released. Abysmal ruined what FFXI was. FFXI did well at horizontal progression, but in the end horizontal progression killed the game (slowly made players quit, due to lack of new stuff to do/goals to set).

You cant stay at a cap for too long, this makes people too attached to the items they have, and this creates fear in players that the items they worked hard for will no longer be good. But if you know every 4-6 months, there will be new content and new items, you wont be as attached to those items, but will strive for the next ones. You will want those new items/armors because they will help you with the newest content.

Edit:

There are ways to keep existing content relevant and that is to put caps on it, like CoP did, along with making drops from those part of the upgrades to the newest armors/weapons. This keeps people going back to the older stuff, cause it now has newer stuff in it. And having the CAP on it, will prevent the content from no longer being challenging.

[Sol_Aureus]

Ichi,

I played XI from NA release in 2002, to the point I capped most jobs at 75, did all the dungeons we had and quit before TAU. I simply got bored of the game, there was nothing new to experience. I came back to XI a couple years later, started a brand new account and did the same as before, repeated to 75's did the same content as before, but this time didnt take me 2 years to get to 75, only took me 3 months for 2 classes to 75 with sub jobs and other stuff. WotG was released and I loved the campaigns, after doing those for a couple months, the game was again stale. Nothing new to do, no reason to grind, no reason to party, no reason since I already had everything I needed. FFXI wasnt releasing anything NEW that interested me or I had to have to continue in the game. I eventually fully merited my PLD and then quit again. I told myself I would never go back to XI, but I went back when abysmal was released. Abysmal ruined what FFXI was. FFXI did well at horizontal progression, but in the end horizontal progression killed the game (slowly made players quit, due to lack of new stuff to do/goals to set).

You cant stay at a cap for too long, this makes people too attached to the items they have, and this creates fear in players that the items they worked hard for will no longer be good. But if you know every 4-6 months, there will be new content and new items, you wont be as attached to those items, but will strive for the next ones. You will want those new items/armors because they will help you with the newest content.

Edit:

There are ways to keep existing content relevant and that is to put caps on it, like CoP did, along with making drops from those part of the upgrades to the newest armors/weapons. This keeps people going back to the older stuff, cause it now has newer stuff in it. And having the CAP on it, will prevent the content from no longer being challenging.

I apologize if I'm being rude by interjecting here, but I feel like something's odd about that statement.

It seems to me that it's incredibly unlikely that you would have "everything you need." Even for only one class, you had AF2 sets, Salvage sets, Cursed Gear, NM and HNM gear, Limbus gear, not to mention Relics and Mythics, and other stuff I'm probably forgetting. You mean to tell me that you had obtained ALL of the best pieces of gear for every situation?

Maybe a few pieces of gear were outperformed in every way by other pieces of gear, and you decided you didn't need them, that's perfectly fine. I doubt there were that many that were rendered completely obsolete by other gear that was better in every way. There were so many different situations, and since you could gear swap in XI, unless you had the best gear for every situation, you still had something to strive for.

Relic/Mythics, I can understand not going for. They're definitely not for everyone, they require a HUGE investment. But you cannot say that you had nothing to do just because you didn't want to do it. The options were available to you but you chose not to do them because you thought they weren't worth your time.

But the fact remains that you still had that carrot to chase, you just chose not to chase it, and you can't try and pass it off like there was nothing to do, because there was ALWAYS quite a lot to do in XI.

Unless you had all 75s, every relic, every mythic, all the best gear for every situation, and have completed all content in XI, you still had things to do, carrots to chase. The notion of having all of that done is absolutely ridiculous, the amount of time, gil, and effort it would take would be astronomical, and THAT'S WHAT I WANT. Enough content that it is an absolutely ridiculous notion to be able to complete it all.

[Ichi]

Once I do it all I need to get it all. Once I get it all the game needs more content if i got it too fast then the content was too easy simple as that.

To answer your question I liked the raiding I only leveled for a year on monk and 5 other classes each in 3~4 months so out of 6 years that i played i spent less than 2 and a half leveling and the majority going on nm events 6-7 days out of the week with my friends I enjoyed doing all the content even if it wasnt my first time because there was a lot of it to do. I never did the same limbus realm or dynamis or sky nm in one week it was different things every day and different versions every week.

If SE would have raised the cap for salvage then most likely salvage gear would have been so good that i would have stopped doing all the other content all together and only do salvage that to me is much much more boring.

Auction Girl
what's your experience with xi?

[iniside]

some people just dont want to increase in level, if you could increase in level without grinding exp, say it was event based, would you still think its a bad idea?

Yes. I would still think it's bad idea.

This doesn't solve the fact that having a higher ranked crafting class is basically worthless. Just because you add a new recipe in doesn't resolve the need for progression. So you want your OLD armor/weapons to stay relevant, but want to add in new recipes that doesn't negate those OLD weapons/armors? Why craft them? One way or another you negate older content. Vertical Progression keeps all classes growing, keeps new abilities, new strategies, new things coming.

Horizontal there are limits, and if you are too narrow minded to see this, that is sad.

There alawyas will be better and worse things. That's the fact tand there no point to deny it. The point is if the thing is just better because it's better, or it's better because it's diffrent. Do more things, or do things in more efficient way ?
That's the true diffrence between Horizontal and Vertical progression.
In vertical, things are better for sake of beign better. Bigger number, bigger something and bigger e-peen.
In Horizontal progression things are better because they behave better, have characteristic that other things don't have or do some things much better than other things (in other word they are much more specialized and focused on single thing).

[Ichi]

Yes. I would still think it's bad idea.


There alawyas will be better and worse things. That's the fact tand there no point to deny it. The point is if the thing is just better because it's better, or it's better because it's diffrent. Do more things, or do things in more efficient way ?
That's the true diffrence between Horizontal and Vertical progression.
In vertical, things are better for sake of beign better. Bigger number, bigger something and bigger e-peen.
In Horizontal progression things are better because they behave better, have characteristic that other things don't have or do some things much better than other things (in other word they are much more specialized and focused on single thing).

This! I know I'm getting annoying posting so many times in one thread but this deserves notable mention. This is the ultimate summation of this entire argument and should be highlighted in bright yellow.

[Duelle]

Blizzard is not really good example on how the game shoukld be developed. Those guys have no idea what to do with game since TBC.

Seeing that some of those major changes to class design brought on by level cap raises made the game a lot better for me (read: I was a ret paladin), I beg to differ.

But that still doesn't resolve the fact that you no longer have people buying shards/crystals/materials to increase abilities, you soon stump the economy because too many crafters at the same ranks making too many products. Soon crafting becomes a gil loss hobby and makes people quit that aspect of the game. Soon they quit because horizontal can only go so far, then you reach limits. You cant keep something new and fresh and not negate older content/items. ONLY Horizontal Progression is death to an MMO.

I forgot about the economic implications. Thanks for bringing that up.

'sidegrade' is an insulting term for the differences between na'shir manteel, blood scale mail, duelist's tabard, crimson tabard, and dalmatica.

I call it as I see it. And I saw a ton of "situational" gear and "macro pieces" tossed into FFXI because of the developer's fears of outdating stuff from the land kings and sky.

I'm not WoW bashing, but I cleared Sunwell pre WOTLK, and a very very good chunk of my guild quit the game 2 months prior to WOTLK. Knowing we beat the game, and all our hard work would be replaced by greens in just a few months, we decided to just move on. Some of us came back in WOTLK I know I eventually did. And played for 2 months and knew that what I had pre WOTLK could never be relived. I'd have to fight my way into a top tier guild again. In 11, you could get a Relic and full AF2... Go run around the world for 6 years, come back, and that relic would be just as valuable as the day you left..

I fail to see the problem. Players get stronger, mobs get stronger, so you need stronger gear. The stuff that got you through kil'jaeden wouldn't have gotten you through the Lich King. It would make no sense if it did. I've done the gear grind myself, so again, I fail to see the problem.

Other people have said this and I'll say it too your just gonna beat everything in 2 months and spend a year or so waiting for another cap raise. on the other hand if i level a new class 3 expansions in with horizontal progression i have 3 expansions worth of gear to sift through and optimize my brand new class which will take me much longer than just the latest patch with the only relevant level loots.

You do realize that all that hinges on gear swapping, a mechanic that is currently not in game, and I hope with every ounce of my being does not make a return in this game, right?

In Horizontal progression things are better because they behave better, have characteristic that other things don't have or do some things much better than other things.

Now I know you're grasping at straws. The e-peen is the same. hell, the elitism and everything attached to it are exactly the same. The only difference is that one involves higher level gear and the "getting stronger" that comes with it, while the other one is simply part of a stagnant and already-over growth cycle.

Something I'd like to toss in is that if Yoshida's team is looking to increase the level caps bi-annually, this means more likely than not the developers will release content to back up that decision on a regular basis. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

PS: Not to be harsh, but the amount of people dominated by their FFXI nostalgia is a little scary.

[kukurumei]

Seeing that some of those major changes to class design brought on by level cap raises made the game a lot better for me (read: I was a ret paladin), I beg to differ.
I forgot about the economic implications. Thanks for bringing that up.
I call it as I see it. And I saw a ton of "situational" gear and "macro pieces" tossed into FFXI because of the developer's fears of outdating stuff from the land kings and sky.
I fail to see the problem. Players get stronger, mobs get stronger, so you need stronger gear. The stuff that got you through kil'jaeden wouldn't have gotten you through the Lich King. It would make no sense if it did. I've done the gear grind myself, so again, I fail to see the problem.
You do realize that all that hinges on gear swapping, a mechanic that is currently not in game, and I hope with every ounce of my being does not make a return in this game, right?
Now I know you're grasping at straws. The e-peen is the same. hell, the elitism and everything attached to it are exactly the same. The only difference is that one involves higher level gear and the "getting stronger" that comes with it, while the other one is simply part of a stagnant and already-over growth cycle.

Something I'd like to toss in is that if Yoshida's team is looking to increase the level caps bi-annually, this means more likely than not the developers will release content to back up that decision on a regular basis. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

PS: Not to be harsh, but the amount of people dominated by their FFXI nostalgia is a little scary.

Blizzard to it's credit on WoW screwed up a lot but also spent a lot of resources making it what it is. Not many other companies can do that, and those that did try it end up failing badly because following blizzard doesn't mean you are blizzard.

I can't imagine how much man power talent and resources it needs to pump out that much stuff and revised that much on a seasonal basis. But then WoW has enough subscribers to keep it afloat.

One look at WoW clones tells you how many pitfalls trying to do that an do.

FF11 did a lot more on a lot less, to their credit as well, and for it's era does have a pretty amazing subscriber base.

It's knowing when to be smart, FF14 just wasn't smart enough when it was conceived.

1-2yrs is close to an old school timeline which is quite fine in terms of working out, the problem is what do you and how do you fill those 1-2yrs. Shallow content is shallow content. WoW showed us how millions of lines of quest text is easily skipped over and disregarded because it's never going to be used again.

[Ichi]

I am for Horizontal Progression and needed to post this so that the devs know the opinion is strong. I think it would be a mistake for SE to ignore that aspect because it made ffxi very unique and enjoyable as a long-term mmo. I realize that this is not the most urgent topic atm but if we could get some sort of dev post regarding vertical and horizontal progression that would be great for me. I have been sticking with this game for a long time but if I start to see vertical progression I may be gone as it makes my achievements insignificant and that's not why I play FFXIV.

The majority of the counter arguments for horizontal progression seem uninformed on the actual topic perhaps you haven't experience such a system. Any argument of 'new' be it content, areas, raids, classes, none of those things require a raise in level cap, and if you don't think so I must assume that you have not experienced a game with horizontal progression and if you have and did not enjoy it, oh well.

SE could raise the cap to some level and leave it static for a long period of time (3 years or more) and the game can stay fresh without completely wiping out old content utility, or even physically wiping it off the face of the world a la cataclysm (not that anyone missed it).

I strongly urge the fans and devs to keep this topic strong we need horizontal progression to create a more immersive experience with the longevity of such games as XI.

edit: 'sidegrade' is an insulting term for the differences between na'shir manteel, blood scale mail, duelist's tabard, crimson tabard, and dalmatica. (point is different gear is just as highly sought after as 1 piece of gear, and if you only want one piece of gear per slot you would be severely lacking in your ig effectiveness)

[AuctionGirl]

Ichi,

Horizontal Progression like FFXI did with Merits was the same as Vertical Progression, except for the fact that new armor/weapons added into the game really made no difference to the game at all. The devs basically wasted their time making this new content that no one wanted to do 1000 times because they wanted this sought after weapon/armor.

Anyone who REALLY wants Horizontal Progression needs think about what you really loved about FFXI...

Was it the journey to get what you wanted? (Vertical Progression)
Or was it the standing around Jeuno with the best weapons/armor waiting for the 500th trip to dynamis? (Horizontal Progression)

I know for me the journey to get these items are A LOT more fun than it was once I achieved it all. Once you do it all, whats left to do? Guess its time for a new MMO.