Quote Originally Posted by Ichi View Post
I think you are looking through shit tinted glasses. The so called upgrades, are circumstantial that is a fact you can't say that people still played ffxi for upgrades when marduk jubbah, kirin osode, and sha'ir manteel all had circumstantial advantages over each other and all came from different eras of the game. Those are just a couple examples of multiple pieces of gear being ideal for the same class. It comes down to preference where as in a game that vertically progresses at too fast a rate would only hold the newest of these items as the best.

You can say whatever you want about those examples but the fact is that each one served better than the other in it's own conditional situation and you can't say which conditional situation is more important because you're not playing for me I know what I need not you.

People may still do the low level stuff in WoW but they sure as hell aren't doing it for gear, and if there's no gear in it then i sure as hell wouldn't do it either. I'm not voicing my opinion in the assumption that i speak for the welfare of the game (and your stupid if you think your opinion is different), i voice my opinion for me and my enjoyment.
Old WoW dungeons still drop things besides gear that is of value to this day. I've already given an example of that.

Whether you are about the same in terms of overall damage done vs boss' health doesn't matter. The fact is that you are progressing, even if it's only an illusion. It gives you a sense of character progression instead of stagnating on one level for eternity. What happens after you merit everything and level every job you want? Your character progression is halted outside of gear. That's not an opinion, that's simply the way it is. You don't gain more stats, you don't fight harder mobs. You fight different mobs with varying difficulty and eventually so many side-grades are added that things like 45 second Kirins are possible.

So again, your argument isn't that sky was great content, thus should always be relevant. Your argument is, "I only do sky because there is a piece or two of gear that is still situational, at best." There is min-maxing in every MMO, don't get me wrong. It's prevalent in WoW too. However the level of min-maxing in FFXI was ridiculous. When you are changing more gear per 1 spell class or ability than is available in 1 macro slot, that's just bad design. Granted, I did this too on my character. But this is why "situational" gear is largely a bad idea. When you level so many jobs, and each one has to have situational gear, you end up with inventory issues. You even say yourself that you wouldn't be doing sky if people didn't need gear from there. That doesn't mean the content should still be relevant, in fact, that's even more of an argument to increase the level cap, because people aren't doing the content for fun anymore, they're doing it to grind for a piece or two of gear.

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.
I addressed this earlier in the thread when I stated that those wanting a static cap are in the MMO minority.

I do agree with your post though.