Level cap increase every 1-2 years.

[Tezz_Xivectro]

Level cap increase & the content that comes with it will be nice (IF THEY ACTUALLY MAKE CONTENT), but i would rather have an outline for the final level.
This probably needs a few more core meetings on their part before it's set in stone.

If it's only 5-10 levels every 2 years then it's going to suck if they keep obsoleting older items. If they can somehow manage to keep some of the horizontal progress to compliment the new content then it could be golden.

Not going to worry much about this for now though, it's a ways off.

[Esk]

I hate level cap raising, its a lazy way to keep people playing.
It means you have a load of people rush though a load of content to hit cap again to start on the new end game.
People complaining that they never finished the old stuff and its obsolete, and any newer players skipping a load of hopefully well designed content.
casual players having to grind huge amounts of content to get to cap again to play with others but finding they don't get to do it as their gear is crap or something.
(I've been casul and hardcore over the years and an officer and raid/fleet leader.
the above is the kind of issues I've had in my ear so may times over the years)

I would much prefer to see systems and content added, a new zone or zones with content from R25-50.
Alterations to the game world changing some of the old R50 end game into new revamped expanded content that fits the progression of the overall story.
New Classes or Advanced classes that require 2 R50 jobs to unlock.
New styles of weapons that have long quest/content chains to be able to use.
and then having to do XYZ to be able to unlock the skills to use that weapon properly.
New crafting features that allow enhanced items or a way to play with the stats of the item.
And then new end game content that just requires better team work/ the new classes or gear with specific *stuff* linked to the new crafting system additions and so on.
Maybe even have the old hi end gear weapons needed to be upgraded so the old (now revamped) content is still used but not boring.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

WoW you guys new to mmo? or just like complaining?

content gets useless once you get all gthe rewards. Or boring. People do not like repeating the same stuff 100000 times. It gets stale. So does level. Cap increases keep the game freash. Just because a cap is increased doesn't make older content useless. You can still do it.

[Jericho]

"You can still do it"? Oh man, thank you so much. I didn't realize I could still do things that are completely useless and boring. Now I know once I hit 50 I can still go outside Grid and kill a bunch of marmots. I was worried that the game would no longer let me.

I'm not stupid, I know I CAN still go do sky and sea and limbus. But it is no longer rewarding, and every single one was still rewarding until the level cap was raised. Maybe some hard-hard-hardcore players literally had obtained EVERYTHING and a had perfect gear sets for every single job, but the majority did not and still found it fun and useful to do, casual-mid-and hardcore alike, until the level cap was raised and all the rewards were obsolete. I think the hardest of the hardcore eventually were trickling out because the game just got old, or because they grew up. Not because they had seen it all and were bored and needed a level cap to excite them. In fact, most stayed away and the remaining left after the cap went up.

I understand that the oldest content became slightly boring and monotonous after a while. But every time I leveled a new job (Yes, leveled, not had Abyssea hand it to me), there were new rewards for me that I had now earned the right to lot, that were at least in some way useful, and it made all the old content worth it again. Not a single person I know didn't feel the same way.

Horizontal > Vertical. I agree 100%.

[Shipp]

"You can still do it"? Oh man, thank you so much. I didn't realize I could still do things that are completely useless and boring. Now I know once I hit 50 I can still go outside Grid and kill a bunch of marmots. I was worried that the game would no longer let me.

I'm not stupid, I know I CAN still go do sky and sea and limbus. But it is no longer rewarding, and every single one was still rewarding until the level cap was raised. Maybe some hard-hard-hardcore players literally had obtained EVERYTHING and a had perfect gear sets for every single job, but the majority did not and still found it fun and useful to do, casual-mid-and hardcore alike, until the level cap was raised and all the rewards were obsolete.

There is a problem with your argument.


Your argument is begging the question: Did players really have fun in old content before Abyssea? The answer is no, the vast majority, or the very vocal minority (I'm going with majority from experience) were over and done with sky by the time ToAU came out, and they were over Sea before the game was even released. Nobody I know liked Sea except for limbus, and that was only because it was somewhat easy to accomplish in a timely manner. Sky took forever. You had to farm several NMs which didn't spawn but once every so many HOURS and then you had to pray for drops on others. This is with 3+ linkshells fighting over spawns and all spreading themselves over the entire zone. Not to mention the magic and sound aggro that was oh so appealing to die from 6+ years after we had already geared up from there. I just leveled my SMN with a friend and we'd kill pots. That was all sky was useful for to me, and many others. It was where BLMs, RDMs, and SMNs went to cap XP. Then Sea came out and BLMs capped there. Then ToAU came out and BLMs killed puddings to cap.

I quit around the end of ToAU, because I was so tired of all of my classes (mages) being essentially useless due to new mobs. It was not fun. A large part of this is due to SE favoring mages for so long during RoZ (MOAR BLMS) and CoP (MOAR SMNS). Then ToAU came and it was just zerg zerg zerg (MOAR MELEE). Sky was not fun by the time ToAU came about. Making it so Kirin could die in 45 seconds instead of 20 minutes to an hour completely killed the experience. It was fun having epic long boss battles... just not every single encounter being that way.


Having played both WoW and FFXI to cap, I would much prefer a 5-10 level increase about every 2 years. I think every year is a bit fast, because some people do like to go at a slower pace and some have to take extended breaks for RL issues. Every 2 years is about perfect though. If they do not raise the cap, especially past 50, it's going to turn out like XI. There are only so many side-grades you can give to people before it's so minimal that nobody cares anymore. When you start introducing up-grades in gear, then all of that other content is irrelevant anyway. I'd much rather have a 5-10 level increase every expac instead of being led on that there was absolutely NO WAY that the cap would increase due to mechanics (lolsubjobs 40+ oh noes), even when the playerbase has explained HOW these issues can be solved very easily, and then 7 years down the road, "Hey guys, you know how we didn't raise the cap through all of those expacs? Oops, here's 20 levels, have fun. Oh, and leveling means peanuts now in these new zones, rush to the cap NAO NAO NAO!!!"

I'm not trolling, honestly. I just think XI players who are making this argument are either -not- from before ToAU or they are wearing the rose colored glasses.

Level capped areas could have stayed level capped, and a good way to circumvent the problem of not doing them anymore would have been this. RoZ and CoP unlocked zones by completing, or almost completing them. This was a good idea and forced people to complete those missions. However, those zones are no longer worth going to, because it was -only- for endgame. Simple solution? Stop making those zones -only- for endgame. What if an expac unlocked not only a high level endgame zone, but also gave a reason to keep coming back to it once you've surpassed the cap?

[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.

[AuctionGirl]

Horizontal progression has limits, and once those limits are exceeded you will see playerbases just falling off, because repeating the same content is lame. So what if they add in 3 new dungeons in horizontal progression and only 1 of the pieces of weapons/armor are of use because it doesnt benefit you at all. What good did this horizontal progression do?

When you are stuck at a certain rank, you are limited with development and ideas on what you can do with those ranks. Forget adding in new skills that would destroy previous content, you will hear bitching regardless. Vertical progression gives developers and players always something new to think about and do.

With vertical progression, it creates a need to grind on "NEW" mobs, NEW areas, NEW Content, NEW Dungeons, NEW items, NEW everything for those new ranks...

With horizontal progression, you have no need to grind or rank on new mobs, no need to goto new areas, new dungeons may be pointless and new items may/may not be of any use to you... Horizontal progression are for LAZY developers, LAZY players, and LAZY altogether.

Vertical progression is the only thing that keeps NEW alive... OLD will become OLD anyways, and eventually no one wants to do it. Might as well keep NEW alive, and NEW stuff to do...

[danny52844]

Horizontal progression has limits, and once those limits are exceeded you will see playerbases just falling off, because repeating the same content is lame. So what if they add in 3 new dungeons in horizontal progression and only 1 of the pieces of weapons/armor are of use because it doesnt benefit you at all. What good did this horizontal progression do?

When you are stuck at a certain rank, you are limited with development and ideas on what you can do with those ranks. Forget adding in new skills that would destroy previous content, you will hear bitching regardless. Vertical progression gives developers and players always something new to think about and do.

With vertical progression, it creates a need to grind on "NEW" mobs, NEW areas, NEW Content, NEW Dungeons, NEW items, NEW everything for those new ranks...

With horizontal progression, you have no need to grind or rank on new mobs, no need to goto new areas, new dungeons may be pointless and new items may/may not be of any use to you... Horizontal progression are for LAZY developers, LAZY players, and LAZY altogether.

Vertical progression is the only thing that keeps NEW alive... OLD will become OLD anyways, and eventually no one wants to do it. Might as well keep NEW alive, and NEW stuff to do...

thats a perfect way to think of it as long as u have the mindset of other MMO's with FF14 u can play as everything so yes thier might be 1 peice for this job 1 for that other job but add it up thats alot of peices u can get from just 1 place and they dont even have to give items to every job because ppl arnt limited to just 1 job thats y this game can have wonderfull horizontal leveling

[AuctionGirl]

thats a perfect way to think of it as long as u have the mindset of other MMO's with FF14 u can play as everything so yes thier might be 1 peice for this job 1 for that other job but add it up thats alot of peices u can get from just 1 place and they dont even have to give items to every job because ppl arnt limited to just 1 job thats y this game can have wonderfull vertical leveling

While I semi-agree with your comment, you fail to recognize not everyone likes to play every job out there, nor do they want to repeat the same content 10000 times. You are talking about a small minority that like to repeat the same stuff, or care to have the VERY best of everything, and will play something 10000 times to get it. MMO's in the end are about making money and more money in satisfying more of your audience. Look at XI for example, yes it did well, but not as well as it could have if the content never ended, and new levels, new areas etc... Blame stale old content/stuff to get/do for people quitting. Few players stuck around even through this because they felt like leaving the game, they would lose some kinda FAKE status.

XI did horizontal progression well, and eventually they hit a cap. This is where the playerbase kept falling off.

Vertical progression is the key to keeping things fresh and new. Vertical too fast or without regards to past content will also kill off a game, but if you didnt have to work 5 years to get some item, you are less attached, and you are looking forward to the new items to get...

If you think we should set a limit and go horizontal, set a limit of rank 9999, and just dont make content for it until later.. cap every area with a certain rank so you cant exceed it, but know that you will never reach the end rank in the game and your character will always be growing.

Character growth is one of the best parts of MMO's. Everyone loves to see new ranks, new abilities, new stuff. It creates new strategies.

[danny52844]

While I semi-agree with your comment, you fail to recognize not everyone likes to play every job out there, nor do they want to repeat the same content 10000 times. You are talking about a small minority that like to repeat the same stuff, or care to have the VERY best of everything, and will play something 10000 times to get it. MMO's in the end are about making money and more money in satisfying more of your audience. Look at XI for example, yes it did well, but not as well as it could have if the content never ended, and new levels, new areas etc... Blame stale old content/stuff to get/do for people quitting. Few players stuck around even through this because they felt like leaving the game, they would lose some kinda FAKE status.

XI did horizontal progression well, and eventually they hit a cap. This is where the playerbase kept falling off.

Vertical progression is the key to keeping things fresh and new. Vertical too fast or without regards to past content will also kill off a game, but if you didnt have to work 5 years to get some item, you are less attached, and you are looking forward to the new items to get...

If you think we should set a limit and go horizontal, set a limit of rank 9999, and just dont make content for it until later.. cap every area with a certain rank so you cant exceed it, but know that you will never reach the end rank in the game and your character will always be growing.

Character growth is one of the best parts of MMO's. Everyone loves to see new ranks, new abilities, new stuff. It creates new strategies.

i dont get ur ppls arguement why cant they just keep adding dungeons or w/e to keep it fresh and yet we still have the old dungeons available that still give us good stuff so yes we keep doing the old dungeons over and over again but we also get new dungeons again and again
so without the old stuff going out of date they just have more and more on end game to do