Level cap increase every 1-2 years.

[weeble]

nothing u just said i can agree with at all shipp exept how they screwed up kirin battles making them 1min kills. outside that your far from truth and it's all opinions.

[Shipp]

I think I've only seen one post where someone was in favor of keeping the cap at 50.

That isn't what most of us are asking for I think. We just want them to decide on a cap, get us to the cap in a timely manner, and then gear the rest of the endgame content around challenges that will still be challenges 3 expansions down the road.

In a game like WoW, or Lotro, where one character is locked into one class, the only way for them to add new content is to raise the level cap.

The dynamic of the game is you hit the level cap, and then you grind raids for your gear set. Once you have the set You can maybe continue grinding for those impossibly rare weapons and accessories but that's it. They can't really add new raids with different sets. so they raise the level cap, give you higher level raids with higher level sets for you to grind.

The dynamic for a game like FFXI is once you hit the level cap, your linear progression stops and now your character grows outwardly, you level new jobs, you get better gear, some of that gear might inspire you to level a different job, you need to level more subjobs to round out the jobs you have, you gather key items that are beneficial at various stages of growth.

You, quite obviously, do not play WoW. There are numerous raids per expansion, and once my priest gears up, I go in as a mage and gear up, then onto the lock, etc. After they're all geared, there is usually a new raid out which drops more loot. People still do all of the dungeons while they are relevant, and people still go back and do old content.

The WoW class system vs "do it all on one character" doesn't hold weight either. Yeah, in XI and XIV you can go in as any class to get gear, and it doesn't matter if your healing gear drops while you're on a tank role. Obviously you can still roll on it. However there is even more reason to go raiding ad nauseum in WoW. Know why? When I go raid on my priest, and a tier piece drops for my mage, I can't roll on it and just mail it to my priest. I have to actually have the toon in the raid that needs that piece. So in essence, it's no different than running Dyna in XI for years and years and years gearing up every job, because I'm doing the exact same thing in WoW, only it doesn't take years upon years to do, it takes maybe 2 years of CONSTANT progression instead of capping out, strutting around a city for 5+ years and then having the rug pulled out from underneath me.

[Venat]

Rather it be every 2-3 years

[Ferth]

There are two ways I look at the differences between a static level cap, and an increasing level cap, the first is character progression as a tree vs. character progression as a road.

The second is content that's maintains or loses validity purely on a personal level, vs, content that loses validity with every new cap increase.

The character progression in FFXI, was a tree... everything you did branched out from previous achievements, from leveling multiple jobs, to experiencing the multiple storylines, getting various new gear sets, it all contributes to the character.

In WoW, character progression is a road... you walk down the road, you enjoy the view, and when you hit the end of the road... you're at the end of the road stuck with the scenery there until they increase the level cap and you progress down the road again.

In the second aspect, player A may have done and earned everything there is to do in Sky and have no reason or desire to play through sky again. but player B may have only done a few things in sky on one job, and in playing a different job the desire to return to sky still exists... Player C might be a brand new player and is on his first 75 character, the rewards and benefits of sky are still available to him. Player B and C might team up from mutual desire for rewards from sky... and maybe they can talk player A into joining them. They still have the same challenge they had when player A was doing sky, it hasn't changed.

For a game like WoW, how many people are doing the level 50 instances and raids now? most of that content is largely overlooked as people skip by it to gain access to the items and instances for the current cap.

It's hard to write about them objectively, but it really does come back to ffxi held my attention for 6 years with its static cap of 75, and I still had a laundry list of goals when the game no longer became fun for me, and WoW never held my attention for longer than a couple of weeks, and LOTRO peaked for me after a few months...

And I'm not attributing FFXI's ability to hold my attention purely to the fact that it had a static level cap. But I am trying to impress the point that with a static level cap of 75 for 6 years, I never had the feeling that the game had grown stale.

[Shipp]

nothing u just said i can agree with at all shipp exept how they screwed up kirin battles making them 1min kills. outside that your far from truth and it's all opinions.

Please tell me how I'm far from the truth. How many people whined and complained about not having a level cap increase -while- they were grinding for their gear? Tons and tons of people, especially when CoP launched. How many people whined when a level cap increase was sprung upon them out of the blue, AFTER they spent years obtaining their shinies? Near the whole player base. It's not even the same game now, because SE did not implement a correct system. You either have a static high level, or you constantly raise the cap. You do not tell your playerbase it will never happen due to mechanics and then laugh in their faces by throwing 20 levels at them years later, after they spent months of playtime gearing their character and every job.

That -will- happen in XIV if they don't increase caps. It will happen with any MMO. People simply get tired of grinding for side-grades and quit. The people who would quit because of a level increase, which is pretty much a staple of MMOs, are in the minority here. People who want 5+ year old content to be relevant, are in the minority of the MMO world.

This exact same thing happened in WoW during Cata. "Oh boohoo, no more ZG/ZA, but I still run that just for fun Blizzard! Bring it back!" So much backlash that they retuned them to 85 heroics and now the player base is still complaining? Want to know why? They didn't like the instance, they liked the loot, the mounts, to be specific. They didn't care about the lore of the place. They didn't care about the encounters. They cared about mounts and now they whine since they can't solo those mounts anymore, but have to run it as relevant content.

Substitute mounts with AF2, relics, and mats to craft level 70+ endgame gear in XI. Just like in WoW, people didn't do out-dated content because they liked it (the majority I'm talking about), they did it because they got something out of it. The same thing applied to Dyna, sky, and sea (to a lesser extent). By the time I quit in 2007, most people were sick and tired of sky and sea. I was sick of sea the minute I had to traverse the castle with TS mobs. I came back in 2009, and then again in the beginning of 2010. Barely any was doing sky or sea. Only some people were doing them once a blue moon for a person who had to start over and needed something. Same for kings. Why? Because now we have this instanced gear which is essentially an up-grade for many pieces, thus already making sky/sea irrelevant.

Sky had its day. Let's leave 2003-2005ish content die with dignity please. If it's truly about the zone being cool and the bosses being cool, then again, that died with ToAU and 45 second Kirin battles. And again, you could still go back and do them for fun.

The out-gearing content excuse was played in WoW too. The otherside is always greener. Vanilla top tier raid gear was being replaced by greens in outlands. People HATED this, because of the same thing FF players are talking about. All this hard work to be replaced by essentially trash gear over night. What happened over these players whining? WoTLK made sure that if you were in epics by the end of BC (even PvP epics), then you won't have to even think about gear until you're 75+. Hurray, now the playerbase complains because they are tired of looking at the same gear that they have been for months. This is why it was changed back to the "greens replace purples" philosophy in Cata. And no, that's not what is slowly killing WoW, the lack of content coming at a snail's pace (sounds familiar), the overall boring-ness of the expac, and several other factors are why Blizzard has lost 600,000 subs in Cata. Gear, I assure you, is not one of them.

Again, I'm not trying to troll at all, I honestly just want to know what you think I'm wrong about, Weeble. Sure, some things are my opinion. I don't deny that. However, this whole topic boils down to opinions from the player base, and much of my post was the reality of FFXI and not the rose-colored nostalgic memories of people on here.

[danny52844]

Please tell me how I'm far from the truth. How many people whined and complained about not having a level cap increase -while- they were grinding for their gear? Tons and tons of people, especially when CoP launched. How many people whined when a level cap increase was sprung upon them out of the blue, AFTER they spent years obtaining their shinies? Near the whole player base. It's not even the same game now, because SE did not implement a correct system. You either have a static high level, or you constantly raise the cap. You do not tell your playerbase it will never happen due to mechanics and then laugh in their faces by throwing 20 levels at them years later, after they spent months of playtime gearing their character and every job.

That -will- happen in XIV if they don't increase caps. It will happen with any MMO. People simply get tired of grinding for side-grades and quit. The people who would quit because of a level increase, which is pretty much a staple of MMOs, are in the minority here. People who want 5+ year old content to be relevant, are in the minority of the MMO world.

This exact same thing happened in WoW during Cata. "Oh boohoo, no more ZG/ZA, but I still run that just for fun Blizzard! Bring it back!" So much backlash that they retuned them to 85 heroics and now the player base is still complaining? Want to know why? They didn't like the instance, they liked the loot, the mounts, to be specific. They didn't care about the lore of the place. They didn't care about the encounters. They cared about mounts and now they whine since they can't solo those mounts anymore, but have to run it as relevant content.

Substitute mounts with AF2, relics, and mats to craft level 70+ endgame gear in XI. Just like in WoW, people didn't do out-dated content because they liked it (the majority I'm talking about), they did it because they got something out of it. The same thing applied to Dyna, sky, and sea (to a lesser extent). By the time I quit in 2007, most people were sick and tired of sky and sea. I was sick of sea the minute I had to traverse the castle with TS mobs. I came back in 2009, and then again in the beginning of 2010. Barely any was doing sky or sea. Only some people were doing them once a blue moon for a person who had to start over and needed something. Same for kings. Why? Because now we have this instanced gear which is essentially an up-grade for many pieces, thus already making sky/sea irrelevant.

Sky had its day. Let's leave 2003-2005ish content die with dignity please. If it's truly about the zone being cool and the bosses being cool, then again, that died with ToAU and 45 second Kirin battles. And again, you could still go back and do them for fun.

The out-gearing content excuse was played in WoW too. The otherside is always greener. Vanilla top tier raid gear was being replaced by greens in outlands. People HATED this, because of the same thing FF players are talking about. All this hard work to be replaced by essentially trash gear over night. What happened over these players whining? WoTLK made sure that if you were in epics by the end of BC (even PvP epics), then you won't have to even think about gear until you're 75+. Hurray, now the playerbase complains because they are tired of looking at the same gear that they have been for months. This is why it was changed back to the "greens replace purples" philosophy in Cata. And no, that's not what is slowly killing WoW, the lack of content coming at a snail's pace (sounds familiar), the overall boring-ness of the expac, and several other factors are why Blizzard has lost 600,000 subs in Cata. Gear, I assure you, is not one of them.

Again, I'm not trying to troll at all, I honestly just want to know what you think I'm wrong about, Weeble. Sure, some things are my opinion. I don't deny that. However, this whole topic boils down to opinions from the player base, and much of my post was the reality of FFXI and not the rose-colored nostalgic memories of people on here.

plz tell me how is grinding for sidegrades and grinding for upgrades any different?

[Ferth]

You, quite obviously, do not play WoW. There are numerous raids per expansion, and once my priest gears up, I go in as a mage and gear up, then onto the lock, etc. After they're all geared, there is usually a new raid out which drops more loot. People still do all of the dungeons while they are relevant, and people still go back and do old content.

The WoW class system vs "do it all on one character" doesn't hold weight either. Yeah, in XI and XIV you can go in as any class to get gear, and it doesn't matter if your healing gear drops while you're on a tank role. Obviously you can still roll on it. However there is even more reason to go raiding ad nauseum in WoW. Know why? When I go raid on my priest, and a tier piece drops for my mage, I can't roll on it and just mail it to my priest. I have to actually have the toon in the raid that needs that piece. So in essence, it's no different than running Dyna in XI for years and years and years gearing up every job, because I'm doing the exact same thing in WoW, only it doesn't take years upon years to do, it takes maybe 2 years of CONSTANT progression instead of capping out, strutting around a city for 5+ years and then having the rug pulled out from underneath me.

I never got higher than level 30 in WoW.

In LoTRO I hit the level cap on several characters... And then I hit the more recent level cap on several more characters.

Going back to my previous post about the tree and the road.

In WoW or Lotro you can go down the road on many different characters but they all have the same linear progress.

Yes you can still experience everything in the game, but my point was more that I had a stronger emotional attachment to my one character in FFXI than the 6 I made for LOTRO.

And yeah in FFXI you could potentially run dynamis as one job for years and get gear for a whole range of different jobs, never experiencing the content from any perspective than the one job you took, but I don't know many people who did that, and at the same time, doing so was the personal prerogative of the player, it was their choice.

Your argument about adding several new raids per expansion doesn't really counter my point. I'll admit my argument was over simplified but when the new raid with the better gear comes out, how many people are going to continue grinding the previous raid? Even if the cap isn't increasing, if the gear straight up replaces old gear for a given class the previous raid loses value. And it loses value for the community as a whole.

Whereas if something replaced an item for a given class in FFXI it didn't necessarily replace it for every class. The items from sky were still relevant in the face of the newer gear. The content only lost relevance based on personal preference.

But as we discovered with my debate with Rjain, it comes down purely to personal preference. Unfortunately I can't write about lotro or wow in comparison to ffxi without rhetoric heavily in favor of ffxi. I just can't do it, because of what FFXI was to me compared to my experiences in WoW and LoTRO.

We can defend our opinions all we want, we won't really change the opinion of someone who disagrees with us if they feel strongly enough about it.. It now just comes down to representing our respective points of view and seeing that the Devs can accurately weigh their decisions based on how many people feel a particular way.

[Murugan]

plz tell me how is grinding for sidegrades and grinding for upgrades any different?

They aren't except one destroys content for new and old players alike, while the other allows it co-exist.

The people with rose colored glasses here are those who think people actually play low-mid level group/raid content. People grind to whatever the new cap is and skip over it. The result is your game after expansion IS the expansion, and that is just a silly way to design an MMO when it isn't necessary in order to keep people who have been playing all along progressing.

[Shipp]

plz tell me how is grinding for sidegrades and grinding for upgrades any different?

Because when you grind for upgrades, the sky is the limit, and you're actually advancing. You are not advancing by making different gear with nearly the same stats. Eventually, all of those minor +1 to stats on new gear is going to equal +10, which happened in XI. Guess what? You no longer have side-grades, you have upgrades. If you have upgrades, even with a static cap, you're still making old content irrelevant.

[Ferth]

I never saw anyone complaining about a lack of a level increase when CoP came out. None of the people I played with were expecting to see a level cap raise. I'm sure there must have been people making noise about it because the dev team did decide to make the statement that they had no plans to increase the level beyond 75.

If there was a schism in the ffxi community over the issue, I never saw it.