Article: The Shrinking Endgame of Final Fantasy XIV

[Aulayna]

The natural course of progression of an MMO is that the gear ceiling will constantly be raising, and those on the bleeding edge of progression will still generally be around 5-10 item levels higher than people running around in vendor bought gear. There is also the theorycraft aspect, in that vendor bought gear may not necessarily be the most perfectly itemised item for that slot. 2 players may have a similar item level, but one of them may be better itemised for their role leading to higher overall efficiency. In all reality, gear that just required running a set amount of dungeons each week to obtain currency for, was never hard to obtain in the first place - and is replaced with new "hard to obtain" gear every ilvl step. The progression curve is always there.

However. Gear in an MMO will always be fleeting. ilvl 135 weapons from Turn 13, which are the créme da la creme now, will be replaced while levelling in Heavensward for example. That's just the very nature of a progression based game.

It is a very dated design to make a new player go through the entirety of the same gear treadmill that someone playing for over a year has. A design that most MMOs released in the past 5 or so years have rightfully ditched. Providing catch-up mechanics and ease of access makes it easier for people to bring their friends into the game and play together. There is an age old saying "friends that play together, stay together." In MMOs this holds very true, friendships are often what will tether people to an MMO long after they've actually grown bored of the majority of the content itself. To be honest I'm actually still surprised that Second Coil of Bahamut is still gated behind requiring a Turn 5 clear (likewise FCoB requiring a T9 clear) and that Ramuh EX and Shiva EX are still gated behind requiring Leviathan EX and Thornmarch EX clears, as those actually seem like major hinderances for newcomers when it comes to getting into the latest tier of content.

That being said, I think Square Enix have struck a decent balance by adding "first-timer" bonuses to older dungeons and adding parts of the relic line to those dungeons too, giving even the highest ilvl players an incentive to re-run that content, rather than just leaving it behind. Likewise by adding things like mounts to EX Primals, and a special mount of obtaining all of those mounts, all of those little things add incentive for players to re-do that content long after the gear reward itself may have become irrelevant. I think FFXIV has done a better job than most of keeping older content relevant.

These catch-up mechanics also aid existing players by providing them with multiple options, making it easier for them to gear up jobs that they might not regularly play as much as their main job, opening up the avenue to be more flexible and fulfill multiple roles in higher tier content.

The end game when XIV was first released was 2 level 50 dungeons, 3 Hard Mode Primals and Binding Coil of Bahamut and Tomestones. The current endgame right now (assuming you are doing the latest level of content and disregarding everything that came before it) is 3 level 50 dungeons, 1 Extreme Mode Primal (2 if Ramuh EX's rings are best in slot for your job), The Hunt, Penta-Melded Crafted Accessories, World of Darkness, Final Coil of Bahamut, Zodiac Weapon Saga and Tomestones. Quite how that's "shrinking" is beyond me.