Level cap increase every 1-2 years.

[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.

[Ferth]

Byakko's Haidate were still some of the most highly sought after melee pants. There were other options for some people, but really. Nothing came out that beat them until AF+3.

With newer gear and merits sky became easier. Also with the way the game was played. When the first generation of players hit 75 haste gear was limited and largely overlooked.

As players came to understand the system better and as different gear became accessible you no longer needed full alliances to farm sky, and it's true finding 18 people who needed sky would have been a challenge in it's own right. But there still were people who needed sky, and there still were people who would do sky... and Byakko never became so easy that he could be killed by two players. He was still largely worth killing.

True the same may not be able to be said about Genbu or Suzaku or Seiryu beyond the seals needed to pop kirin, but Kirin, even though he could be zerged was still worth killing.

[Shipp]

Byakko's Haidate were still some of the most highly sought after melee pants. There were other options for some people, but really. Nothing came out that beat them until AF+3.

Weren't Haidate replaced with melee pants in Limbus? I could have sworn Omega dropped some, or maybe it was another boss. I distinctly remember LS drama over those pants in Limbus. Even so, giving the benefit of the doubt, that is one item, and one boss, out of all of sky. And Byakko stopped being a challenge at all by the end of CoP. Again, if it's not a challenge at all anymore, then that's the same thing as a level increase making it irrelevant.

With newer gear and merits sky became easier. Also with the way the game was played. When the first generation of players hit 75 haste gear was limited and largely overlooked.

Just like I said before. Out-dated content becomes out-dated. Whether it is through merits, upgraded gear, or level increases, out-dated content became out-dated. It was not Abyssea that did this. It was not a level increase that did this. It was from a few too many side-grades now being actual up-grades from RoZ gear.

As players came to understand the system better and as different gear became accessible you no longer needed full alliances to farm sky, and it's true finding 18 people who needed sky would have been a challenge in it's own right. But there still were people who needed sky, and there still were people who would do sky... and Byakko never became so easy that he could be killed by two players. He was still largely worth killing.

Only reason Byakko couldn't be duo'd is because of his mechanics. It wasn't because he was still relevant. I can't go solo level 70 end-raids on my 85 toons. Why? Mechanics. I still go run them with friends though, because they do still drop -relevant- stuff. How? Enchanting recipes for one. Karazhan has quite a few enchant recipes that are expensive, not because of the mats that they require, but because BC enchants can be placed on heirloom gear (gear that levels with you 1-80, and gives you a 10% XP boost for each piece) while WoTLK enchants require an item above the level of 35. They're about as worth running as somebody running sky for some random piece of gear. And about the same number of people run them. I can't think of any worthwhile drops, outside of -maybe- Haidate (if I'm wrong about the limbus pants being an upgrade), that were still useful in sky after ToAU instances were introduced. Sure, people still ran sky, but people still do level 60, 70, and 80 raids in WoW for the achievements, guild achievements, and for fun. I'm failing to see how this is any different, having played both and doing out-dated content in both.

True the same may not be able to be said about Genbu or Suzaku or Seiryu beyond the seals needed to pop kirin, but Kirin, even though he could be zerged was still worth killing.

So essentially, what this boils down to is, "Even though this out-dated content is old is dirt and we can kill the final boss in under a minute, this is good content, so we should still be doing this for years to come!"? Am I getting that right? When the boss is no longer a challenge, it is time that the gear should no longer be of use. Reward = effort. No effort? No reward. And effort isn't bloated wait times farming for everything just to fight Kirin, nor is it bloated fighting time due to an insane amount of HP. Effort is killing a boss with difficult mechanics that don't seem completely stupid, like AV's.

[Ferth]

You'll have to excuse me if I don't understand your WoW references... as I said the game didn't hold my attention past level 30.

When I initially lost interest in what FFXIV was, while still waiting for news on what it would turn into, I picked up LoTRO again. The level cap since I had left changed from 50 to 65.

Every class had several items needed to finish a quest that were obtainable from a level 50 instance or from grinding a newer instance for barter items. Since I was well versed in the 50 instance, I opted to just crank that out for the items I'd need on a new character I had created. During what used to be one of the hardest fights in the game my friend died. The nature of the fight is if you aren't in the arena when the fight starts you can't join the fight midway. Up until that point we were the only two people in the instances, we had duo'd our way as far as we had, and when he died, he was unable to continue the fight. I was able to solo the remaining 3/4s of the fight. I was level 62 at the time.

Yeah, Kirin could be killed in under a minute after ToAU, but it required 18+ people to do it. And yes Byakko could be killed by a skilled well set-up group of 6 people, but to say that it wasn't a challenge is by no means correct. If we had brought 18 people, no it probably wouldn't have been much of a challenge.

The point I am making isn't that with a static level cap old content remains just as relevant as the day it releases. My point is that with a static level cap, content retains relevance purely on a player by player case.

You go back and play raids you enjoyed doing. But how many people who never experienced them are going to bother?

I have memories of FFXI where it was absolutely brutal... Sometimes I hated the game. Other times I loved it. And yeah alot of that is from nostalgia... but when a new player in my ls needed an item that I knew how to get, I was always up for helping...

Alot of what endeared FFXI to me near the end was content that was originally designed to be experienced with a massive group, could now be experienced with a smaller more intimate group.

And I'm sure that remains true in WoW and in lotro. But in FFXI it wasn't JUST my nostalgia that gave relevance to the content. People still needed it. It may have been far less people than when the content was introduced, but the rewards were still valuable. And the content was still enjoyable.

From your perspective I'm sure you could make the same arguments for WoW. From my perspective, I can't.

As Rjain said, both systems have pros and cons... My only goal is to make sure that the dev team recognizes that for 6 years ffxi worked for me. If enough people agree with me, fantastic. But your arguments for your preference hold just about as much weight as my arguments for my preference, and that weight is entirely dependent on our own experiences and opinions.

----

As for limbus pants replacing byakko's haidate, it's just not true. Homam cosciales could be worn by pld/drk/thf/blu.

Byakko's haidate could be worn by war/nin/monk/sam.

The haidate really didn't get anything that even came close until salvage gear, and for the salvage pants to be better you needed the full set, and to get the full set could take years.

Byakko's haidate were easy enough to get and for warriors, pretty much the only option.

The last few linkshells I was in before I stopped playing all had sky as a scheduled event. And yeah sometimes when it was time to do sky we might have had only 4-5 people. But 4-5 people could do alot in terms of first tier pop items.

When it came time to actually fight the four, people showed up. Because on top of the gear that people still needed or wanted, everything dropped salable items, and even if people didn't want anything from the fight, they wanted a cut of the dough.

[Shipp]

----

As for limbus pants replacing byakko's haidate, it's just not true. Homam cosciales could be worn by pld/drk/thf/blu.

Byakko's haidate could be worn by war/nin/monk/sam.

The haidate really didn't get anything that even came close until salvage gear, and for the salvage pants to be better you needed the full set, and to get the full set could take years.

Byakko's haidate were easy enough to get and for warriors, pretty much the only option.

The last few linkshells I was in before I stopped playing all had sky as a scheduled event. And yeah sometimes when it was time to do sky we might have had only 4-5 people. But 4-5 people could do alot in terms of first tier pop items.

My apologies on the pants then. This is still showing what I mean though. When 4-5 people can still do content that required 18 people in the past, it's outdated. Whether it drops needed gear is irrelevant. LL and the hairpin were irrelevant after level 30. Does that mean what they dropped was any less valuable? No. Those two examples, out of many many more show that you can have a cap increase without making old gear obsolete. It also kinda shows how stupid the idea is since you could wear one piece of gear for so many levels. Just my opinion on the last part though.

When it came time to actually fight the four, people showed up. Because on top of the gear that people still needed or wanted, everything dropped salable items, and even if people didn't want anything from the fight, they wanted a cut of the dough.

Well I sure would love to log into WoW only for bosses and AFK through the trash. Who wouldn't? This is part of the reason why I started hating sky. I was always a farmer with a couple of friends. We'd get pop items and then the whole LS would come up to kill. Did I need anything anymore? No. But it's always the same people doing the same things. It's the same group farming the pop items while the rest do whatever the hell they want since their playtime is so much more important than ours.

Perhaps if FFXI didn't have so many asinine hoops to jump through just to actually have a shot at the boss, my opinion might be different. AV sealed the deal for me though, then fighting Cerb and finding out that if he's not stunned (I think it was stunned, been years), that nearly the whole alliance is one-shotted. Stupid raid-wide wipe mechanics are lazy mechanics, especially in an MMO where death = 2+ hours wasted. It needed more mechanics like WoW bosses where everyone has to be aware of their surroundings, not just some RDM/DRK who's taking a sip of coke at the wrong time and wipes the entire alliance by not chainstunning. Dyna Lord was the same way. The RDMs screw up the staggered chainstuns? Too bad, you all lose.

[SniperRifle]

My input:

The only reason I ever had to quit FF11 was due to irl issues. I came back several times.
The reason I quit WoW was due to lack of content after clearing TBC. I came back once in WOTLK.

[AuctionGirl]

Every argument here fails to think about the company itself, and how sustainable it would be to cater to those FEW hardcore FFXI people who think 1 hard cap and horizontal progression is the key to success.

Lets use FFXI history as an example... at one time FFXI has subs of up to 2 million characters. 2-3 years later they are down to 500k 25% of their existing subs... why did 75% of the people quit the game? Because there was no longer character progression. Majority of players like to experience new content all the time and see some character progression.

Some of the arguments on here about horizontal progression are pure selfish and don't think about the majority of players.

Failed Horizontal Progression Examples:

Statement: You haven't experienced all the content unless you have capped every job/class...
Rebuttal: 75% of players don't like to repeat the content as often as the hard cores do or even play every class, and don't care about getting that 1 more STR on a piece of equipment.

Statement: You can add dungeons to a game without raising the cap and there is more things to do.
Rebuttal: Semi-true in your example, but the quicker you can get to do those new areas/dungeons, the sooner the content becomes invalid. Cap increases help make sure this content stays relevant longer. People will need to spend time to get to the new caps to experience these new places. This is good for the company which people pay for time to do these. If you can automatically just do this without having to grow into it, you have failed.

Statement: You can add new recipes and other things to suffice other types of players than just battle.
Rebuttal: If you add in 100 recipes that have no value in the game at all, did it do any good at all to add them? Having a rank increase allows for valuable new synths in the game, new ranks for people to achieve and more...

I can go on and on about this, and the facts are in the numbers of subs... why do people stay at WoW? why do they have 10 million subs? Think about it, only a few hard core people who become to attached to what they have vs what they could have are the ones against vertical progression.

This game will die quicker and be limited quicker if they stick to horizontal, vertical is the only way they can keep a game alive for a long long time. and don't use FFXI as an example, it failed when the average player doesn't stay for more than a year... Proof is in the subs. I had many of my friends play FFXI and most quit in 6 months because they experienced all the content (that they were interested in) and moved onto other games. They have been WoW customers for 6+ years because new content, new challenges are always coming.

Don't limit yourself SE... go vertical (small progression without killing off existing content as quickly) on a SET TIME FRAME! people will expect these cool changes, it helps people keeping their characters for these new changes, new areas, new things. Its all about business, not personal feelings.

[danny52844]

Every argument here fails to think about the company itself, and how sustainable it would be to cater to those FEW hardcore FFXI people who think 1 hard cap and horizontal progression is the key to success.

Lets use FFXI history as an example... at one time FFXI has subs of up to 2 million characters. 2-3 years later they are down to 500k 25% of their existing subs... why did 75% of the people quit the game? Because there was no longer character progression. Majority of players like to experience new content all the time and see some character progression.

Some of the arguments on here about horizontal progression are pure selfish and don't think about the majority of players.

Failed Horizontal Progression Examples:

Statement: You haven't experienced all the content unless you have capped every job/class...
Rebuttal: 75% of players don't like to repeat the content as often as the hard cores do or even play every class, and don't care about getting that 1 more STR on a piece of equipment.

Statement: You can add dungeons to a game without raising the cap and there is more things to do.
Rebuttal: Semi-true in your example, but the quicker you can get to do those new areas/dungeons, the sooner the content becomes invalid. Cap increases help make sure this content stays relevant longer. People will need to spend time to get to the new caps to experience these new places. This is good for the company which people pay for time to do these. If you can automatically just do this without having to grow into it, you have failed.

Statement: You can add new recipes and other things to suffice other types of players than just battle.
Rebuttal: If you add in 100 recipes that have no value in the game at all, did it do any good at all to add them? Having a rank increase allows for valuable new synths in the game, new ranks for people to achieve and more...

I can go on and on about this, and the facts are in the numbers of subs... why do people stay at WoW? why do they have 10 million subs? Think about it, only a few hard core people who become to attached to what they have vs what they could have are the ones against vertical progression.

This game will die quicker and be limited quicker if they stick to horizontal, vertical is the only way they can keep a game alive for a long long time. and don't use FFXI as an example, it failed when the average player doesn't stay for more than a year... Proof is in the subs. I had many of my friends play FFXI and most quit in 6 months because they experienced all the content (that they were interested in) and moved onto other games. They have been WoW customers for 6+ years because new content, new challenges are always coming.

Don't limit yourself SE... go vertical (small progression without killing off existing content as quickly) on a SET TIME FRAME! people will expect these cool changes, it helps people keeping their characters for these new changes, new areas, new things. Its all about business, not personal feelings.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

unless they plan to raise the cap by like 50 lvs every time ur just going to get cap within a few weeks thus making all the previous stuff obsolete while only making u have to wait 2 weeks to start doing the new stuff making it obsolete along with everything else 2 weeks later than it would if u just kept the lvs the same just instead this time ull only have the new end game to do not the old stuff

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

[AuctionGirl]

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]unless they plan to raise the cap by like 50 lvs every time ur just going to get cap within a few weeks thus making all the previous stuff obsolete while only making u have to wait 2 weeks to start doing the new stuff making it obsolete along with everything else 2 weeks later than it would if u just kept the lvs the same just instead this time ull only have the new end game to do not the old stuff

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

So if my rebuttals are so bad, then come up with some other reason why horizontal progression doesn't limit growth of the game.

Another statement: You can add in new weapons/armor that doesn't negate the existing.
Rebuttal: If you add in new weapons that are better, you just negated the old content anyways, and if you add in something that isn't better. Then why even get it? Your limited on inventory spaces anyways... With vertical progression, you will need these new weapons and armors, new recipes, new gathering locations/materials.

The problem with horizontal progression, is you are limiting the game to potential growth. Horizontal can only go so wide before it must go vertical. If you wait too long to go vertical, you lose all the players who don't like to repeat the same content 1000 times, and then you lose all the people who did and feel like they accomplished something by having +1 STR items over everyone else. If you do the merit system like FFXI, you are negating old content anyways, its another form of vertical progression, except the fact that now those old Rank 75 things are now super easy because of those merits.

People who had level 100 crafting after 1 year of the game, still had level 100 crafting after 7 years of the game. They were done crafting. With vertical progression, you can keep all players growing.

Here is an idea on how to keep older content relative... make existing weapons/armors upgradable by new and existing items. Capped areas, and update the existing content with new expansions (rank increases).

So list out all the pro's and con's for horizontal progression, and guaranteed that vertical progression pro's and con's will outweigh everything horizontal does (from a business perspective)