Esoteric cap

[Zfz]

The weekly cap is a hard cap on the fastest progression. Because it's easier to earn the top-tier tomestone the further you have progressed, the gap is naturally high. So the emphasis was on limiting the top-end. There's nothing that can be done for someone who isn't earning their tomestones, so the assumption that you will at least do the Expert Roulettes 6 times a week is not a bad one.

People (including me) have been pushing for an allowance-type system with the weekly caps since 2.x, and only recently the devs have responded saying that it's difficult to do, and they might be looking into it now. But yes your doubts are valid. Caps limit the lower end of the progression much more than it limits the top-end.

It's basically like a flat tax regardless of your income so that the top-earners don't earn too much, but it huts the lower earners much more. It's a catch-up mechanism that doesn't allow catching up.

Also, most people wont miss whole weeks. They will miss a day or two (or just have fewer hours to play on some weeks) and can still easily cap for the week.

They do. I have friends in the armed forces who are on mission rotations and sometimes spend 10-15 days a stretch on missions with no access to FFXIV. So even if the weekly caps are changed to bi-weekly caps of 900 or monthly caps of 1800, it will be worlds different for them and they would actually be able to progress twice as fast as they could have.

Of course, one could say that they don't deserve playing MMORPGs if they can't clock in everyday, which is really what this genre have become---it tires to get players clocking in everyday using all sorts of limits and daily caps. There are valid reasons for it, I'm just saying that it could be taken too far if devs aren't careful where they drop these caps.