Level Cap Increase

[Niwashi]

I sure hope there's a quest or something to unlock the level cap increase. It would sort of suck to have to do nearly all the level 50 content at 60 followed by starting the new expansion content already being at 60 rather than getting to advance as you do the expansion content.

EDIT:
(It would be nice if it's a per-class unlock, so as we bring each class up, we can spend a while with it at 50 doing 50 content before moving on. That's probably too much to hope for though. More likely, unlocking the level cap increase will unlock it for all classes at once.)

[Purrfectstorm]

I've been wondering... once the game has a few expansions, there's no way players will be forced to play through hundreds of hours of main quest to get to current content.

What will happen then? I really don't want the story to be "missable" if you don't start playing before a certain expansion comes along, they already did that once and that's enough.

Best way would be to overhaul the story and cut out all the fluff quests I guess. How did FFXI do it?

There was a great reward at the end of the CoP quests at least. SE should've done that with FFXIV story quests too. Then even though you don't have to do the quests, you for sure would want to.

[Taaku]

Best way would be to overhaul the story and cut out all the fluff quests I guess. How did FFXI do it?

When they finally got around to changing it, they uncapped capped fights, allowed you to take in NPC partners (making them soloable if you were not already lv 99) and other minor things, you still had to do the large amount of quests. but it was quicker because of the changes, and other QoL changes they made (easier traveling ect.)

[kyuven]

You will not be able to level to 60 unless you buy the expansion.
Instead of a quest, you will merely have to buy the expansion.
There's no practical reason to include the raised level cap for free, as it's a major incentive to buy the expansion and there's nothing in the base game designed to carry you from 51-60.

[Niwashi]

I've been wondering... once the game has a few expansions, there's no way players will be forced to play through hundreds of hours of main quest to get to current content.

What will happen then? I really don't want the story to be "missable" if you don't start playing before a certain expansion comes along, they already did that once and that's enough.

Best way would be to overhaul the story and cut out all the fluff quests I guess. How did FFXI do it?

Not unless they refund the money we paid for the game. Those "fluff" quests you want to cut out are what many of us are here for.

Anyway, I'm not sure about XI, but I think the most usual pattern is that the content from different expansions isn't dependent on each other (even if each is dependent on the base game). After all, someone may purchase the 4.0 expansion without having purchased the 3.0 expansion. They can't be required to have completed content they don't have access to. On the other hand, since expansions require players to also have the base game, they can require having done the base game's content. (The story is likely to work best if you do all the expansions in the order they were released, and may have some odd gaps or inconsistencies if you don't, but they can't feasibly be required to be done in a specific order if each is a separate purchase that players may or may not have.)

[Lemuria]

DoW jobs will have to visit their respective trainers and imbue their job stones with ancient power. DoM jobs will have to access forbidden magic with their respective trainers to imbue their stones with additional mana.

DoH jobs will have to craft the most exquisite gear in all of Eorzea, only to be told their work is amateur at best by a much-better crafter who then gives you 'advanced training' to become even better. DoL jobs will have to mine/fish/harvest the rarest items in all of Eorzea only to be told there's millions of them if they know where to look. Cue rare item hunter extraordinaire and new training.

DoH jobs still wearing artisans because SE hates us and all the level 60 gear now costs more than the combined wealth of the Ul'dah monetarists.

#predictionsforffxiv3pointoh

[Gralna]

I've never been a fan of lvl cap increases, it's basically a way for devs to reset the entire game instead of building on what's already there.

Played DAoC for 12 years and they never once raised the level cap, this resulted in literally hundreds of items for max lvl characters to sift through to try and create gear templates around one or two items they really liked. Every expansion I looked forward to trying to reoptimize my templates.

This oversimplification of stats, gear slots, and most of all item levels makes BiS pretty much cut in stone with no room for any kind of flexibility, you either have the gear or you don't and aren't optimal. Where as when you have hundreds of items all at the same lvl there is no true BiS, especially if you add skills or spells to those items.

Maybe I'm just too oldschool in my tastes for MMOs, but I'm actually dreading having to level up all my classes again, only to having two sets of highest tier gear to choose from.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

words

I rather have a few more levels and be able to learn new abilities to make the game interesting than to play inventory: the management game, and wonder why am I going nuts over gear if I am just going to be using the same moves regardless.

[Spawnie]

I rather have a few more levels and be able to learn new abilities to make the game interesting than to play inventory: the management game, and wonder why am I going nuts over gear if I am just going to be using the same moves regardless.

this.. games need level cap increases not just play dress up with different armours lol god i wouldnt last long in games like that with no level cap increase

[kyuven]

I've never been a fan of lvl cap increases, it's basically a way for devs to reset the entire game instead of building on what's already there.

Conversely I played EQ1, where they attempted to stop raising the level cap after 65 for several expansions. This created such a massive disparity between players due to the way progression was handled (vertical, basically like FFXIV except more tedious) that adding more AA points or gear was getting increasingly ludicrous, so they upped the cap.
Hell they actually had a real problem when content was too difficult for the playerbase because someone forgot to tell the encounter development team that they weren't raising the cap.
After that fiasco (and many others) it became common practice across the MMO industry to introduce level cap increases with expansions for games that warranted them.
And as for DAOC...Trials of Atlantis?