Quote Originally Posted by Ferth View Post
I will agree that ToAU was when the biggest shifts in FFXI started occurring. With the ease of exp gain those areas afforded the general skill level of the population decreased. As to whether it killed sky is up in the air. New players would still need gear from sky, though.

Sea had problems all it's own, I don't think many of them were based on anything beyond it's own poor design. But the gear from limbus was still sought after.

I'm not trying to pretend that in it's entirety FFXI was nothing but sunshine and lemonade. No MMO is.

I think the biggest issue I have with most of your arguments is that you are trying to represent a section of the population you really can't account for.

All of my arguments are based on my personal experience in the game. Things I personally enjoyed doing and aspects of the game that effected me personally.

It's hard to quantify a statement someone makes when they try to speak for other people.
I'm speaking from my own experience, the numerous LSes I had been in over the years, and the general state of the zones when I would walk down memory lane years later.

Most sky gear was replaced by the time ToAU introduced instances. When that happened, they weren't so much side-grades or situational gear anymore. Most of it was a straight up up-grade. This, in itself, even without a level increase, kills off old content.

People can talk about how it would always be relevant because a new person might need something from there, but there are a few problems with that. When there is better gear already out there, that person doesn't -need- to go there. Even if there isn't better gear, the vast majority of people had finished sky and sea by that time and didn't -want- to go back there, especially just for one person. Getting a group together to help one person in XI was like pulling teeth. This doesn't happen in WoW and other MMOs that increase level cap because people are not forced to go through 5 year old content just to catch up to the current gear curve.

I'm not saying one system is necessarily better (I do believe level increases are better) but that is not what I'm arguing here, and I think that's what is being overlooked.

The whole premise of this argument is that level increases make old content outdated. My argument is old content was already outdated years before the level cap increase. If old content is going to be outdated either way, then why not increase the cap gradually instead of potentially ending up in the mud pit of FFXI where you're static 75 for years, being told it will never change, investing months of /played over the years gearing up, then one day the carpet is pulled from beneath you, causing you to rage and quit soon after? Increasing the level cap seems like a much better solution since you don't have 6 years to get attached to gear, nor 6 years trying to obtain everything you need.