Rank cap increase every 1-2 years discussion thread

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

She'll mix up an evil brew.

And then gobble you up in a big tasty stew?

They have to raise the cap every so often to keep the game from getting stale. It's why pretty much all modern day mmos do it. It gives people new abilities, new gear to get, new bosses/NMs to fight, and new goals to achieve.
You can beat around the bush all you want and claim that ff11 was so awesome because the cap stayed at 75 for so long, but really you are just lying to yourself. So basically all you did was Dynamis, Sky/Sea, Assault, campaign, or level other jobs to 75. Wowsers, that is great. After you spent 6 months in Dynamis and Sky and got your gear, you had nothing left to help your character development, unless you had the desire to get relic weapon, which took more gil than most could ever muster. They added bits and pieces more as the years went on (mini expansions, etc.), but realistically you continued to run dynamis and assualt for gear for other jobs. I loved FF11, I did, but I can honestly admit that at 75 I spent time doing the same handful of things, over and over and over, until I completely lost interest in the game. I think Yoshida realises that that is not a good system for a game to have, and wants to use these periodic rank increases to shake up that monotunous cycle people get into.

True, I spent a lot of time at 75 doing the same thing over and over too, but largely because they didn't add any new things that interested me. I probably would have quit out of boredom eventually, and I was not excited at raising the level cap for "oh boy, more grinding!" Leveling != content

Oh, and, why I quit wasn't boredom. It was forced obsolescence. I was working on capping my goldsmithing, was at like 97.8+3, when one of those $10 mini-expansions came out. You know, the ones with the augments or something. At the time, I was spending a lot of time (and gil!) on making koenig. The schaller still broke even, and the schaller-1 sold for several million gil, so that's how I made my money while grinding away at crafting. The expansion's came with a hat where you could pick sets of augments, and one of them was basically the HQ schaller except with haste on it. And with the new abundance of augmented gear from other activities, basically all the crafts were becoming obsolete, and it wasn't long until they announced an new type of crafting to replace the old crafting, so what was I wasting my time on?

Upping the level cap generally goes hand in hand with making everything that came before it obsolete. Who likes having all their time and effort wasted? Besides like 13 million people playing WoW.

[Sol_Aureus]

They have to raise the cap every so often to keep the game from getting stale. It's why pretty much all modern day mmos do it. It gives people new abilities, new gear to get, new bosses/NMs to fight, and new goals to achieve.
You can beat around the bush all you want and claim that ff11 was so awesome because the cap stayed at 75 for so long, but really you are just lying to yourself. So basically all you did was Dynamis, Sky/Sea, Assault, campaign, or level other jobs to 75. Wowsers, that is great. After you spent 6 months in Dynamis and Sky and got your gear, you had nothing left to help your character development, unless you had the desire to get relic weapon, which took more gil than most could ever muster. They added bits and pieces more as the years went on (mini expansions, etc.), but realistically you continued to run dynamis and assualt for gear for other jobs. I loved FF11, I did, but I can honestly admit that at 75 I spent time doing the same handful of things, over and over and over, until I completely lost interest in the game. I think Yoshida realises that that is not a good system for a game to have, and wants to use these periodic rank increases to shake up that monotunous cycle people get into.

I never knew lying to myself could be so fun then

I played FFXI because I thought it was fun. When I stopped having fun playing FFXI, I quit. That process took 7 years. If that fun that I had was me lying to myself about having fun...then, well, I'd like another MMO that has content that apparently isn't fun so I can lie to myself and have as much fun as I did with FFXI

[Sol_Aureus]

And then gobble you up in a big tasty stew?

Soooo WATCH OUT!

[Wolfie]

And then gobble you up in a big tasty stew?

Yeah, so... WATCH OUT!

Upping the level cap generally goes hand in hand with making everything that came before it obsolete. Who likes having all their time and effort wasted? Besides like 13 million people playing WoW.

But is that effort really wasted if people had fun doing it? I mean, it's not like I can take items and money with me when I leave a game.

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

But is that effort really wasted if people had fun doing it? I mean, it's not like I can take items and money with me when I leave a game.

That's a very good question. Some of the things that separate an MMORPG from, say, Unreal Tournament, are a sense of persistence, progress, and the central motif of developing a player character. In Unreal Tournament, you have your fun and that's that, and the next time you log in there's nothing held over from the last time you logged in. Would you play an MMORPG that reset your character every time you logged out? Would you play if all of your progress was lost every day? What if only some of your progress was lost? What if it was just every week, or every six months, or every time a new expansion comes out?

/devilsadvocate

[Punxsutawney]

Or you're a glutton for pain? Haha. I played 11 for years as well, had full AF2 on warrior and most of it for Samurai and Dark Knight as well. But I also had 5 75s and most of the others at 60+, and this wasn't because I am also a glutton and loved grinding out the levels, it because I got bored running the same stuff every week.
And I am not saying that I didn't have any fun in 11, because I wouldn't have made it a year if that was the case. I am just saying, Yoshida realizes that increasing the rank every so often, gives players new direction, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[Wolfie]

That's a very good question. Some of the things that separate an MMORPG from, say, Unreal Tournament, are a sense of persistence, progress, and the central motif of developing a player character. In Unreal Tournament, you have your fun and that's that, and the next time you log in there's nothing held over from the last time you logged in. Would you play an MMORPG that reset your character every time you logged out? Would you play if all of your progress was lost every day? What if only some of your progress was lost? What if it was just every week, or every six months, or every time a new expansion comes out?

/devilsadvocate

But is resetting my character if I'm going UP in levels and I'm getting BETTER gear? Is that regression or progression?

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

But is resetting my character if I'm going UP in levels and I'm getting BETTER gear? Is that regression or progression?

It's progress in terms of numbers, but it's repetition in every other sense. Let's say it takes 1 million exp to go from 1 to 50, and 1 million exp to go from 50 to 60. 1 million exp in grinding coblyns or leves or whatever, followed by another 1 million exp in grinding coblyns or leves or whatever. When it comes to gear, when you start at level 1 you're wearing weathered armor that, frankly, anything you find is better than it. When there's a new expansion, when you start at level 50 you're wearing epic ultra-rare armor you worked really hard for that, frankly, anything you find in the new expansion is better than it.

Is that progress?

In FFXI terms, let's look at Kirin's Osode. All stats+10 and is pretty much the icon of endgame gear. It was the most-coveted piece of gear in the first (Zilart) expansion. What if the second expansion came out and with it there was an NPC who sold Weathered Tunic +100, all stats+20, for 1 gil? What will the player response be?

[Vackashken]

If they raise the rank to 75+ they'll need like 5 power bars to select from :O

[Volsung]

Honestly, I'd prefer SE picked a level cap they want to end with, be it 75, 80, 90, 99, or 100. And go towards it gradually. Once there start making end game. As new content/expansions come out, try to make comparable gear that competes with old gear and may be better in some ways, but not put old content out of business with each expansion. By doing it this way you can make things to do while leveling up, and a ton of events to take part in while near and at the cap.