lv99 bitch/speculation/etc thread

[Savanah]

I'm one of the ones who is actually interested in what can happen here. I know SE's track record is less than stellar when it comes to actually implementing things without some massive fuckup, but hey. This is potentially earthshattering stuff if SE, for once, plays their cards right.

I, for one, am actually renewing my subscription for the first time in months, because for the first time in months, the game has me interested again.

[Sin Harvest]

Anyone notice you could always search up to lvl 99 through the search function.....

[Cleverness]

I'm gonna LOVE seeing the xp caps on levels

Level 94: 140k!

And before people talk about getting 30k-40k an hour easy, the merit camps are gonna be fucking PACKED after this, as well as Astral Burns. They did mention changing monster positioning, but even the the mass amount of time spent grinding is gonna be ridiculous unless they increase xp acquired from mobs to ease the transition of leveling for lower level people(yes there are people who don't have everything at 75). And even then, unless SE perfectly places the mobs to accommodate all the overcrowdedness that will occur now with the world merges.

Kinda sucks since I hate leveling but I love all the endgame activities like Assault, Nyzul, ZNM, Dynamis, Sky etc. I even prefer repeating CoP missions compared to leveling in an XP party cause it just gets monotonous at later levels. At least in other games like WoW the quests provided a change of pace with different objectives that always didn't require killing 25 of something(although in the end I prefer FFXI's current endgame compared to WoW, hence why I quit WoW back in September).

Also, I don't see why people make the comparison with WoW when it comes to raising the cap. Every WoW expansion I EXPECT the cap to get increased, and to never look at old content cause they make the old gear obsolete. It's blizzards thing. In FFXI the expansions opened new endgame activities and even original RoZ content is still done because of worthwhile drops, and it gave the playerbase a choice in what events to do. Depending on how they handle this, all they succeeded in doing in wasting several years of peoples time if they make gear obsolete and not carry over.

There is a right way to handle this to make it work out very well, but since SE can't even finish the WoTG expansion in a timely manner, what makes anyone expect that they'll get this right?

[Infini]

Holy fucking shit, i dont care if this is broken or not this is the biggest overhaul to the game in years its DEFINATELY got me interested enough to resub.

[Cesaria]

I could see SE being evil and leaving shit like a 75 cap for things like Dyna and Limbus etc - meaning 2 sets of gear are required. What I'd like is if there's a way to make the high-end, high-cost 75 gear (things like haidates, salvage gear etc) quested to become along the lines of COP rings with scaleable stats between 75 and 99 so it's useable all the way through - thus negating people who are pissed their salvage bodies etc might be obsolete (yes gear obsoletes, but with horrific gil or time costs for some things I think it's a consideration). Kind of like you can turn AF1 into AF+1 and extend its useable life/make it useful at all in some jobs' cases.

Sadly I doubt SE will go that route and we'll end up with inventory/gil meltdowns again.

[TaruMortis]

The only thing that came to mind when I saw the HNM preview pictures was "So here's this giant enemy crab"
http://www.playonline.com/ff11/event...mg/5f_2597.jpg

[Buttons]

This update seems really interesting. In principle raising the cap to lv99 and new gear and endgame zones sounds fun and fresh, however I do have a few concerns.
For one I absolutely hate levelling subs and I don't astral burn, so the thought of having to get lv49 subs is a nightmare. @.@
Shiny new gear is nice as long as it doesnt make all the old stuff completely obsolete. Finally got my char to a point where all I need would be salvage upgrades and am content, don't wanna be totally outdated again.xD

Overall I think it's gonna be a fun ride though. :D

[Ronfar]

They better fucking make it easier for blm to get exp, no fucking way im coming back to spend a year in mount fucking Z.

[Konda]

The only thing that came to mind when I saw the HNM preview pictures was "So here's this giant enemy crab"
http://www.playonline.com/ff11/event...mg/5f_2597.jpg

lol, bubbly bernie is now a hnm


"IN YOUR BASE STEALING YOUR CLOCKS"

[Rowe]

Best thing they could do to not obsolete gear would be adding the ability to augment gear at lvls. So add one augment at 85 a second augment at 95 and a third at 99. That would prevent a lot of bitching and would negate more gear sets being needed.

I haven't played since July but this has me interested once again.

[TheMysteriousX]

THE ORIGINAL POST

Holy shit you're right, someone better call SE, there's no way that they've considered this.

[Konda]

Holy shit you're right, someone better call SE, there's no way that they've considered this.

they haven't? ...shit.



It's obvious they will have, but as time has proven, they dont really know their own game at times.

I'm not the only one who is wondering how they're going to do it without totally turning the game on it's head, which might not be for the best.

[Tulun]

Is there a full summary of this crap somewhere?

[Lucavi]

That dragon in the middle of that pic looks badass, I'll admit.

And Bubbily Bernie on roids. Will we ever see a super Leaping Lizzy? I'm surprised they never did more with that mob type.

[Kyo]

This is not exciting.

[crux]

This is clearly NOT an experiment... This is something they have been working on for 2-3 years at least. Unless, of course, you think these are all random unrelated decisions that happen to fortuitously coincide with raising level caps.

First of all, let's take a look at your argument. Adding more inventory, in a game where players can and do level a multitude of jobs on a single character. Inventory that they've been adding for the last seven years, nonetheless. Level synching, in a game where grouping is forced and the level disparity can be enormous (Guide Beret existed in, what, 2003? 2002 even?). Creating new exp. areas? I'm not even sure where you're coming from with that one. The areas added in every full expansion, as they've done since 2003, and as every MMO does?

If you think that those obviously necessary features were indicative of a rising level cap, you sound like a conspiracy theorist. After all, they managed to raise the level cap by 25 levels so many years ago without one iota of convenience. Secondly, does a long-term plan exclude the possibilities of an experiment? Your logic is fundamentally flawed in the first place. Clearly the level caps being raised, after more than six years, isn't entirely fortuitous. After this large of a stretch of time, the foregone conclusion that such a big change to the system is anything less than an experiment is beyond my understanding. If anyone thinks that SE is going to be able to completely predict the outcome of this enormous endeavor (thus indicating that it's anything less than an experiment), they give SE far, far too much credit.

[arus2001]

I welcome a level cap increase, and honestly felt it inevitable even with the merit system in place.

[Priran]

if it weren't for the verified by visa thing (and that my character is deleted by now), these announcements would have gotten me to resub

[Cymmina]

Level cap increases is something World of Warcraft has been doing with consistency since early 2007, meanwhile reaching subscriber populations in the tens of millions. Final Fantasy XI, on the other hand, hasn't raised the level cap in nearly seven years.

So? What's the difference between being level 75 and fighting level 85 mobs vs being level 99 and fighting level 109 mobs? It's the same shit. It's just a lot more obvious when you're doing MMM because the only thing changing is the level of the group. Same mobs, same scenery.

FFXI is not WoW and doesn't need to be. Know what happened when they raised the level cap in City of Heroes from 40 to 50? Instead of having to carefully decide which skills you want when you level up because you can only pick a few, you're able to take every reasonably useful skill and still have room to take random useless shit skills.

Now that everyone can solo farm Dynamis with their level 99 jobs, they'll be FORCED to instance Dynamis for real in response to the congestion of every RDM on the server trying to get their stupid hat.

[Spira]

you guys don't know the half of it until you see the video of the NMs.. that Antlion shoots lazerzzz...

fosho!

I'm looking forward to the Lv cap raise. I'm certain that they've been looking at the option for the longest time but decided against it seeing as there were so many other ways to inject life into the game back then.

As is, FFXI IS getting a little stale since everyone has 'figured' everything out with so many years of lv75hood.. so with little other choice, they've decided to reinvent the wheel.