Time for FFXI "Classic"?

[Spicyryan]

Because people who don't adore the 99 cap want a 75 cap server and are giving reasons for why they want it.



Yes it is. Your claim is that the style of 75 cap era content was bad and caused the death of the game. My point is that Abyssea's plenty was far worse for the game than 75's famine. This is an actual important point of contention.



“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there.”



It was because the zero-sum artificial rarity of having everything locked in HNMs slowed progress.



What would you call people who go back to Brood War from 1996 rather than play StarCraft II, because the QoL improvements lowered the skill ceiling and raised the skill floor?

They are never getting those bygone days back. There will be no server.

I never said it caused the death of the game. Time will do that on its own. Though, your whole snowflake accomplishments and timesinks for the sake of gatekeeping are bad design. If alienation is your platform then sure, cool. However, there are more people playing the game for fun than the goons who shout the loudest about their 75 glory days.

Don't care about the quote.

Covered the topic and HNMs.

It isn't 1996, 2006, or even 2016 anymore. This is rather "Make America Great Again"-esque. If you really need an online game to publicly validate your skills then go compete. An MMORPG isn't that sort of platform. Otherwise, the rest of the gamers want to have fun.

[Gredival]

You aren't the authority on 75 cap, if I choose not to discuss it with you that does not mean I can't discuss it with anyone else.

The point is you aren't discussing it. You are here to state your opinion, and re-state it in the face of new discussion points.

And you justify this by saying no one will ever change their minds anyway so debating is a fruitless endeavor.

You keep trying to bait me into a debate with you and it isn't happening. This thread isn't yours, you didn't create it and others can discuss things in it without going through you.

I never said it was. But I am highlighting that your activity in this thread is not debating or discussing. You do nothing in the line of proving or substantiating points. You restate your opinions.

By definition that means your contributions to the discussion are limited to your first impressions, and that is it.

D44 is actually engaging in back-and-forth discussion, albeit doing it simultaneously with insulting and flaming people.

D44k is actually the only one going out of his way to personally attack people in each post. Some can come into the thread and seconds later this guy is there to attack them. He is treating this section and thread like its in a spam thread and anyone saying anything negative about him is as a defense from his attacks.

People are levying equally irrelevant personal attacks on him. As I said the distinction is merely a veil of civility whereas he is just calling people names to their faces.

Then he keeps back seat modding, telling people to exit the thread when they have contributed their OPINION, like everyone else.

He's telling you to "GTFO AND KYS" not being "Teacher teacher Draylo isn't following the rules he should get a detention."

I get you want him in here because he supports your OPINION, but clearly he is doing more damage. People like him are one of the big reasons people don't bother to leave their opinion.

I want him here because he generates discussion. It's the same reason I wanted him in politics and was against section banning him. I don't care about the "damage" he causes, he actually generates a discussion which is a net positive.

I also would have banned D44 outright from BG entirely at one point. That point in time was when he did nothing but shitpost in spam about the mods for kicking him out of politics. At that point he was a net negative to discussion on the forum.

[Karbuncle]

I believe the comparison is everyone starts out equal, obviously not everyone is equal at 75.

I understand the heart of the argument but anyone who truly believes that would be naive or purposefully obtuse. IRL friends getting fast track to a position in a LS, E-Girlfriends I can cite as obvious examples, a high level player Power-leveling. Outside healers were a thing even I experienced with someone, myself included, having a high level friend power-level/heal your party. My brother was a high level RDM who often carried me and my party through the dunes/Qufim leveling new jobs. My little brother had this privilege when he started playing because both my brother and I were 50+ when he started and helped him to buy gear and get started, giving him some hand-me-downs, etc.

Now Imagine if you were the friends with people who actually had some pull in the game. Maybe a prominent crafter who had millions of gil? Or a leader of a "powerful" Linkshell? etc.

Just like in real life, there are always those who start out with an advantage. Now I'm not saying this was some huge problem, don't get me wrong here, I'm only saying that there were absolutely people who started from level 1 with prospects already lined up for them, just like in real life.

Its really a minor minor point.

[Gredival]

An aside note and I apologize to whomever this is addressing because I can't find it. someone a page or so back(Sorry it has been moving quickly) brought up the parallels between real life and XI and their philosophies of the two being stark contrasts... they mentioned fair starts or something... I just wanted to point out how absolutely blatantly wrong that was. People who sucked the most Leader dick(sometimes literally) or knew the right people got priority and privilege in drops and events all the time, they got special treatment,

Just like in real life, there were absolutely people who were handed advantages and gear they didn't deserve, or tricked people into giving it to them and then jumping servers... its all been documented several times on these very forums. Old XI wasn't some equality utopia.

I never claimed it was. But it's a far cry from the structured generational inequality of real life.

It's also a lot easier to say that someone doesn't deserve an Adaberk or Ridill or D-Ring if they won't adjust their sleep schedule around HNMs than to say someone should be poor the rest of their lives because they were born poor.

the people with the right cliques all enjoy the fruits of their privilage while those who weren't already in the top 1% had little to know hope of ever joining or getting into those Linkshells once they've been established. It was a rich get richer situation because if you didn't have the gear, you didn't get in the linkshells to get the gear.

Blatantly false. You just had to level RDM, WHM, BRD, or maybe BLM. Support jobs could get into HNMLS with non-HNMLS gear. This is literally what I had to do to get my THF gear because my linkshell was too incompetent and lazy to do HNMs after I got them Sky and Sea and only wanted to do Salvage vs. camping.

[Karbuncle]

I never claimed it was. But it's a far cry from the structured generational inequality of real life.

It's also a lot easier to say that someone doesn't deserve an Adaberk or Ridill or D-Ring if they won't adjust their sleep schedule around HNMs than to say someone should be poor the rest of their lives because they were born poor.

'Gubba nub nub doo rah kah

Its easier to separate fantasy from real life, duh, its still a startling disposition from your normal philosophy. If anything I think its a positive and honestly a testament to the ability of "gamers". Its amazing how well one can balance such stark contrast ideals based on fictional or real settings. So while I personally believe you're wrong in the equality fantasy, doesn't mean i think its a bad thing.

Blatantly false. You just had to level RDM, WHM, BRD, or maybe BLM. Support jobs could get into HNMLS with non-HNMLS gear. This is literally what I had to do to get my THF gear because my linkshell was too incompetent and lazy to do HNMs after I got them Sky and Sea and only wanted to do Salvage vs. camping.

Ugh, mages. Still, I truly wonder if I could have ever have joined one of those infamous Linkshells of old simply by having WHM? Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe I could have joined A linkshell, but none of THE linkshells.

[D44kpunk]

I honestly don't think knowing people at 75 when you started gave you that much of a step up. I would much rather know someone now if I was starting the game.. could just have them afk in escha zitah for an hour and boom they're 99. Give them a bit of Gil and boom they can buy any Merced item.

Maybe I just didn't help people out as much, I would agree starter Gil helps out a ton when leveling but when it came to endgame it's not like they had some crazy unfair advantage. Obviously this argument is a bit hard to digest though because everyone's experience is different. I also genuinely do not remember people selling HNM drops, draylo has claimed several times that they always did but the only ones I remember were black belt items except for at the VERY end of the 75 era.

[Gredival]

They are never getting those bygone days back. There will be no server.

Yes and that clearly is a reason why we shouldn't be allowed to discuss the merits of 75 vs. 99, and why a 75 server WOULD BE good.

I should shut down the politics forum as well because all of our discussion about the idiocy of climate change denial isn't actually going to make these people believe in science.

Don't be asinine. If you don't want to participate in the discussion then don't.

I'm here because I have an opinion, I believe it is correct, and I will defend it against any challengers. That's what debate is.

Though, your whole snowflake accomplishments and timesinks for the sake of gatekeeping are bad design. If alienation is your platform then sure, cool. However, there are more people playing the game for fun than the goons who shout the loudest about their 75 glory days.

Again how about you actually respond to the reasons I give for why gatekeeping IS good design.

Here let me remind you.

1) Raising the cap in order to "cater to the needs of the many" was actually, in fact, bad for the game. Abyssea boosted subscriptions then tanked them WORSE THAN BEFORE because people got everything they wanted because it was easy and wasn't zero-sum so they quit with nothing to do.
2) Completely horizontal gear progression is actually a better skinner box because our game accomplishments have a terminal rather than temporary benefit.
3) FFXI's slow content release rate depended on infinite shelf life for gear to keep previous expansion content, including Kings, relevant for players to have things to do. In other words making it hard to complete goals was a feature, not a bug.
4) There was plenty of alternate content in the game that gave gear that was 90+% as good as King gear. The only reason people bitched about King exclusivity is they wanted THE best gear, not just things to do, but weren't willing to put in the grind that the HNMLS players were. (The one exception to having alternates was Ridill because it was so much better than Joyheuse, but that didn't even matter once the 2H crutch got instituted.)
5) Artificial rarity is the best way to maintain control of supply of rare gear which should be limited. No further qualification, the most desirable pieces in the game should just be exclusively limited.

Don't care about the quote.

Better to have a good game die as a good game than survive as a monstrosity.

Covered the topic and HNMs.

No, you didn't.

Your first post after I posted that (abbreviated list) was to say that this topic shouldn't even exist, that discussion about population dips are irrelevant, and that 75 was stagnant.

I responded to everything and now you are responding by saying you already covered everything. When you didn't ever respond at all.

It isn't 1996, 2006, or even 2016 anymore. This is rather "Make America Great Again"-esque.

The difference is what one considers progress. Trump thinks Obama ruined America. He can't actually prove that.

I think Mizuki Ito ruined FFXI. I am actually proving that right now.

If you really need an online game to publicly validate your skills then go compete. An MMO isn't that sort of platform. Otherwise, the rest of the gamers want to have fun.

You can have fun without doing HNMs in 75 cap.

If you can't have fun because someone else has a Ridill, Adaberk, Dramatica, etc. and you don't, then that means you want to be on top. You want that validation too.

[Karbuncle]

I honestly don't think knowing people at 75 when you started gave you that much of a step up. I would much rather know someone now if I was starting the game.. could just have them afk in escha zitah for an hour and boom they're 99. Give them a bit of Gil and boom they can buy any Merced item.

Maybe I just didn't help people out as much, I would agree starter Gil helps out a ton when leveling but when it came to endgame it's not like they had some crazy unfair advantage. Obviously this argument is a bit hard to digest though because everyone's experience is different. I also genuinely do not remember people selling HNM drops, draylo has claimed several times that they always did but the only ones I remember were black belt items except for at the VERY end of the 75 era.

Yah, as someone who witnessed the privilege from the outside, it was easy to for me to see that a lot of "endgame" was knowing the right people or persons. You could join some no-name endgame linkshells sure, but to ever truly experience things like Kings you had to be in the RIGHT linkshell, and those Linkshells were very cut off/closed doors/privilege paradise. But I admit that was a very small portion of endgame even at 75 era. Maybe like 4-5 items in total from Kings could be considered real worthy.

Maybe its just the edgy memories of a teenager, I don't think I can recall even 1 Linkshell that was ran in any other way than a strict business with top down obvious privileges to the CEO's/etc.

[Gredival]

Ugh, mages. Still, I truly wonder if I could have ever have joined one of those infamous Linkshells of old simply by having WHM? Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe I could have joined A linkshell, but none of THE linkshells.

I literally did this. I leveled WHM, hopped servers to join a shell that prioritized camping.

95% of people who couldn't get into HNMs refused to level a support job. Why would a shell recruit an unnecessary melee who is going to compete for the rare melee drops? The only reason to recruit a melee player is if they were already fully geared.

Yah, as someone who witnessed the privilege from the outside, it was easy to for me to see that a lot of "endgame" was knowing the right people or persons. You could join some no-name endgame linkshells sure, but to ever truly experience things like Kings you had to be in the RIGHT linkshell, and those Linkshells were very cut off/closed doors/privilege paradise. But I admit that was a very small portion of endgame even at 75 era. Maybe like 4-5 items in total from Kings could be considered real worthy.

Maybe its just the edgy memories of a teenager, I don't think I can recall even 1 Linkshell that was ran in any other way than a strict business with top down obvious privileges to the CEO's/etc.

All the top linkshells used DKP. The biggest issue of contention is if the systems were zero-sum DKP that penalized people for skipping events (i.e. you not only don't gain points for not attending, you are penalized for it).

[Karbuncle]

I literally did this. I leveled WHM, hopped servers to join a shell that prioritized camping.

95% of people who couldn't get into HNMs refused to level a support job. Why would a shell recruit an unnecessary melee who is going to compete for the rare melee drops? The only reason to recruit a melee player is if they were already fully geared.

What Linkshell? Not that I don't believe you, I just figured most OG people here on BG were in .. well... BG

if you must know the reason I ever got into any "end-game" activity was because of Nether Blast, actually. Summoner of all the jobs... as I was one of the first and very few Summoners who had Diabolos back when he was released, like the only thing I ever had going for me at one point in time was being probably one of only under ~50 summoners to have Diabolos on Asura. I admit it felt nice.

Also one of the first to form a cohesive group to kill Carbuncle Prime with 18 summoners... I used my Carbuncle's Pole until they outdated it. Let it never be said I wasn't sour as fuck when I lost a special piece of my level 75 gear too. Both my Maat's Cap and Carbuncle's pole. Oh, did I mention i had Maat's cap? yah, having useful jobs wasn't a problem for me.

Edit: Frankly as I spell out above I think I can only speak for myself in saying that I Just hated Linkshells. back then, probably a classic case of "Problems with Authority". I'd probably not that that issue today. At the same time it could go deeper than that in that I found FFXI to be a fun game I enjoyed playing and I never liked the idea of turning it into a job... Lets not sugar coat it for a moment, endgame was a Job, and Linkshells were your business, and DKP was your salary.

[Gredival]

iiZerg on Sylph.

I was on Asura originally. I turned Maverick, my social shell, into a Sky shell, then a generic "End Game shell" that didn't camp. I got people Sky access, Sea access, did Limbus, did Jailers, did Bahamut II, did Einherjar, did KS99s... Even did Jorm just to test our ability to beat a high level mob. I literally took people in AH gear who did their first Genbu to fully decked out in Sea gear.

After all that, Kings were the only thing left. And it was what I personally still needed gear for. But I couldn't get anyone to give a shit. They would skip camps, take off pearl, AFK during windows, wouldn't read up on the fights (we lost 6 out of 30 total claims in Aery, including a Spike Flail from a BRD singing on the tail).

I had PLD leveled and I passed on our Valhalla gear for our main PLDs for the good of the LS. I sacrificed for the shell but no one cared about camping. So I ultimately said fuck friendship and left my own shell to chase gear. I wasn't going to spend more years getting people Sky, Sea, and everything else for them to bail out of camping.

Leveled WHM because it could be geared well enough on non-HNM gear for a top level shell.

I ended up getting my D-Ring just because I had so much DKP since I never missed a single camp even after I finished my THF gear.

[D44kpunk]

Lets not sugar coat it for a moment, endgame was a Job, and Linkshells were your business, and DKP was your salary.

I think this is still true, as far as engaging gameplay/combat goes FFXI not your best option. WoW had more interesting gameplay and more engaging combat. PVP in FFXI was basically non existant.

That being said, I still preferred FFXI. I enjoyed endgame being a job, LS being a business and DKP being my salary. It was an awesome feeling accomplishing anything in that era of the game. There are people who like that style, just like there are people probably at the job that you hate(if you hate your job) who enjoy it. I have enjoyed everywhere I've worked, I like working hard, I like getting rewarded for my work, I like learning new shit. I've worked with lots of people that were just there to collect a paycheck.

Also every LS that I was in except Zenmetsu operated off a DKP system, including LS' I created. I believe they were fairly common, probably the status quo. Only times I remember DKP getting vetoed was when I made an unpopular decision in an LS on bismarck and said no to a guy who had WHM + melee jobs getting a dalmatica. Looking back Idk if I made the right choice, he was rightfully salty but the piece didn't really benefit him as much as it would a RDM or anything else basically.

[Gredival]

The best entertainment is when it is so engaging that you forget it was supposed to be entertainment.

If something is so immersive, so engaging, that you can literally lose yourself in it.

It's like when a sport stops being just a game to professional athletes.

Only times I remember DKP getting vetoed was when I made an unpopular decision in an LS on bismarck and said no to a guy who had WHM + melee jobs getting a dalmatica. Looking back Idk if I made the right choice, he was rightfully salty but the piece didn't really benefit him as much as it would a RDM or anything else basically.

Many LS had "qualifications" to lot certain pieces of gear that went beyond the mere ability to equip it.

The least controversial, of course, would be D-Ring requires PLD or NIN even though it's an All Jobs item. Ridill for WAR is another given.

I think Dramatica for BRD or RDM, and not WHM is quite reasonable because WHM had AF2 body.

[D44kpunk]

I think we had similar rules in more established linkshells. This one that I made we did not. It was my fault, had to make the decision in 5 minutes.

Ffxi is still largely character progression. Most people wouldn't play if they had to start over. It builds and attachment to your character because of how crazy some of the requirements are. That has mostly stayed true when it comes to RMEA, but it still didn't give the high of seeing e. Body drop after waiting for a month. RMEA you're working towards them so you know what you're going to get. It's just different with HNM drops.

[Mythe_Seraph]

No other game has given the same feeling of having a relic in the 75 cap era that’s for god damn sure. The only other comparable feeling was when another LS mate achieved it too and you knew your shell became that much more prestigious.

Played a lot of games since then. Done a lot of cool shit. Nothing has ever even come close to the accomplishments you felt from FFXI. Not even a fraction.

[Kanriel]

I've not read the last page or so because as has been said, everything keeps getting repeated. The main point I'd like to once again repeat is Abyssea isn't what "killed" FFXI. FFXI died before that. Abyssea finished it off. Adoulin caused a rebirth of sorts, and it's stayed fairly steady since then. The "great 75 days" ended during the ToAU era. That's part of why none of the classic servers even include WotG content, when ToAU came out is when people started catching up to aspects of the game, and most of the people got their fill, got sick of it, or both, and moved the fuck on. I bet if we could get a survey of all the players who played "serious" endgame in FFXI, they mostly would have quit before Abyssea was even released.

As well, Abyssea was MEANT to be a "goodbye" to FFXI. So it makes total sense that it was "dead" during/after its release. Abyssea existed purely as a swan song for the game. It was a final round of updates to cap off the game, change things up a little, and get everyone to transition to XIV.

So I don't get why Gred has the sig saying "Abyssea killed FFXI" and continually brings that up as a point in this thread. THAT WAS THE POINT. THAT WAS ITS ENTIRE PURPOSE. THAT'S A MISSION ACCOMPLISHED FROM SE. Voidwatch was added cause, "Well, people are still here so..." and then Adoulin came out because "SHIT FUCK XIV TANKED QUICK KEEP THEM ON XI WHILE WE FIX THIS". And people actually came back for Adoulin, numbers leveled out, and even with ARR coming out, people stayed. So eventually SE realized...oh hey, we can...keep this going...? And things have leveled out since then.

So using Abyssea as "bad content design" is already an unfair point to make, it wasn't created under the same goals as things like Sky and HNM's.

Also, about relics and other rare drops...that was still mostly specific to certain people. That's why I haven't really come back to argue with Gred, he and I clearly have a massive difference of opinion on what is "good", and his is clearly restrictive and not in line with a "popular" game like people want to claim 75 would be, so the argument feels so pointless. I had a relic in the 75 days, it was great when I was working towards it, had a great honeymoon era...and then...it all felt like a waste. The relic curse hit me, as it hit so many others before me. The amount of grinding for digital items was too much in the 75 days, and only a small subsection of people were really keen on the system. Not enough people to make the game that popular if released again today. And since I consider that the whole point of this thread...that's where I don't see the point in repeating the argument over and over (even though I am by making this post, but eh...)

[arus2001]

You can succeed economically by peddling shit games. You capitalize on market booms before people move onto something else. They won't be lasting games because that's not what is profitable and what the largest market share is in

Fortnite and PubG for instance

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

And what actually defines a shit game? Because in the war of MMOs, I could call XI the shit game because we're not running around calling things XI clones. There's gotta be more to it than just, "I don't like it!" which is the crux of the anti-cap raise masquerading opinion as fact.

This isn't the first time I've brought this up, but the whole elitism/rankism rhetoric is something I'm also seeing people push on Blizzard's forums when it comes to Diablo 4's production. You've got people who earnestly believe everyone shouldn't be able to reach the level cap. You've got others that push the narrative that punishing players for mistakes will magically make them better at the game. You've got dipshits that sincerely believe that restricting character respecs actually facilitates more build variety and experimentation. Some want no power creep ever so they can not play for 2 years and come back and still be OP. Unconditional PvP also needs to be a thing because we gotta make the world dangerous. Also those that think you need exponentially rare items that only a small handful of people would have in a population of millions is also great design.

Whatever they're trying to push, their logic still isn't adding up to me. What I see is devs wasting resources pandering to a small percentage of perpetually insatiable players with a bullying fetish. Often I just see people puffing their chest trying to come off as more badass than they really are, or underselling the collective accomplishments of their given groups as their own merit. End of the day, I have no issue with the concept of effort translating to reward, but when we start pushing aside accessibility with some sort of "life isn't fair, so our games don't have to be" rhetoric, I'm just going to continue to pump the brakes and remind that this shit is about escapism and entertainment. The ability to have fun without fucking others over is seemingly a lesson some of us still need to learn.

[atom0s]

I'd wager a handful of people hating on private servers and/or 75cap old school retail don't really pay attention to the private server scene. Yes, it is a total shit show, not denying that, but the player numbers on certain servers completely invalidate a handful of opinions shared in this thread.

There's a lot of hate towards the original FFXI game and playstyle. However, you can take a quick look at the two highest populated private servers (Nasomi and Eden) and see 75cap old school retail is what the majority of the players not on retail exclusively want. The rest of the servers do not even come close to the numbers these two servers have put up over the year(s). The simple fact that Nasomi alone sits at a player count higher than majority of the current retail servers and has competed with Asura numbers in the past pretty much seals that. When Eden launched, before all the drama that has happened, they were right behind Nasomi in player counts as well peaking a bit under concurrent 1k players, with an average of around 400-800 online at a time. Between the two servers combined, they are well over Asura's typical player count.

If SE did create a classic server, it would easily hands down be more popular that current retail. The data/numbers that are available from past peaks on both servers, as well as their every day peaks and distinct connections provide clear proof this is still the case, by far.

The player count would vary over time as people quickly level up and hit end game. One of the biggest issues back then was the leveling gap which is why level sync was introduced and why both Nasomi and Eden have it. Some QoL was good for the game, while others killed the enjoyment/incentive people had. If this were to ever be a thing from SE, I would agree some QoL would have to come into play to deal with certain aspects of things, but I would probably see them adding it as time goes by and things become needed. (Again for example, level sync. There would be no reason to add it from the start at all if they were to ever add it in this kind of situation.)

Burn out would happen a lot faster than it did when the game originally released as well, which is something WoW Classic is dealing with already. While everyone loves classic and wanted it back, the game overall didn't have much in terms of content to really keep people playing long term outside of the fact of being 40man raids, lockouts, and slow leveling. Now that everyone knows all the ins and outs of the game, knows the best strats/setups for raids to lowman things, and to burn through leveling/content, the lifespan of the classic game is cut in such a small chunk compared to how it played originially. Most of the major players have already unsubbed because they've hit level cap, done Molten Core and so on and basically 'beat the game' again already. Which comes into the next situation of adding expansions again as time goes on which is something Blizzard is planning on doing to keep Classic going now that it's back.

[Byrthnoth]

FFXI was always a chat client with RNG that required minimal "skill" and a lot of preparation/domain knowledge. Often the difference between a good and a bad player was just understanding how a game mechanic worked. SE got a lot of free content mileage out of people hunting new gear due to changing norms or understanding how stats affected a new part of their job.

For me, enjoyment of the game was driven by the community (in that our continuous standards creep drove continued content participation for increasingly minor improvements) and to some extent new content releases.

I can't imagine wanting to go to a private server and . . . farm B.Haidates for life:
1) none of my friends are there
2) static content
3) they probably haven't emulated the full complexity of FFXI's mechanics
4) 75-cap FFXI endgame was terrible except Assault/Salvage/Dynamis-Tav

[Gredival]

And what actually defines a shit game? Because in the war of MMOs, I could call XI the shit game because we're not running around calling things XI clones. There's gotta be more to it than just, "I don't like it!" which is the crux of the anti-cap raise masquerading opinion as fact.

This isn't the first time I've brought this up, but the whole elitism/rankism rhetoric is something I'm also seeing people push on Blizzard's forums when it comes to Diablo 4's production. You've got people who earnestly believe everyone shouldn't be able to reach the level cap. You've got others that push the narrative that punishing players for mistakes will magically make them better at the game. You've got dipshits that sincerely believe that restricting character respecs actually facilitates more build variety and experimentation. Some want no power creep ever so they can not play for 2 years and come back and still be OP. Unconditional PvP also needs to be a thing because we gotta make the world dangerous. Also those that think you need exponentially rare items that only a small handful of people would have in a population of millions is also great design.

And my counterargument here has always been that popularity is not an indicator of quality.

Twilight is not a good book series. The writing is, on an absolute scale, poor. The characters are shallow and do not develop. The Edward and Bella relationship is downright abusive. The Jacob and vampire baby relationship is problematic on a dozen levels, the most egregious of which is grooming. Several plot points are contrived. The heroine is the very definition of a Mary sue.

But it is a best seller. It has tons of fans. Hundreds of thousands in the world will probably say that it is their favorite book series.

Me being elitist that I am, will tell you that Joyce's Ulysses is a masterpiece. It has levels of depth that scholars are still dissecting to this day. You practically need a hornbook to get the full experience of reading it. And for these reasons it's a better book that Twilight is, even though people who have read Ulysses are a mere fraction of all of those who have read Twilight

Whatever they're trying to push, their logic still isn't adding up to me. What I see is devs wasting resources pandering to a small percentage of perpetually insatiable players with a bullying fetish. Often I just see people puffing their chest trying to come off as more badass than they really are, or underselling the collective accomplishments of their given groups as their own merit. End of the day, I have no issue with the concept of effort translating to reward, but when we start pushing aside accessibility with some sort of "life isn't fair, so our games don't have to be" rhetoric, I'm just going to continue to pump the brakes and remind that this shit is about escapism and entertainment. The ability to have fun without fucking others over is seemingly a lesson some of us still need to learn.

Let's flip the script. Here's the question I've asked that has yet to be answered.

Why is it bad for a game to be designed with exclusive top tier content that, by design, less than all the players will complete? What is the affirmative reason why everyone should be able to 100% every single game?

You see the very existence of difference, of the potential for stratification as oppression and bullying. But the choice to 100% something is internal. No one was making people in Jeuno go camp for Ridill and Adaberk.

There is no reason the fact that Person A spending 1000 hours to get better gear than Person B ruins Person B's entertainment and escapism... UNLESS Person B cares about having the best stuff for the sake of having the best stuff themselves.

Consider this. What is the reason to object to having a 75 cap server? Why are you getting in the way of OUR escapism and entertainment by preventing us from self-segregating and playing our "masochistic" elitist e-peen war in the Aery? We aren't going to reset your precious 99 servers to 2010 pre-Abyssea, as much as I wish it could happen.

The only explanation is that you don't want a 75 server because it's very existence invalidates your own 99 servers.