I love this game, but...

[Dreamspeaker]

All these points need support and validation, but there is one in particular that should possibly be urgently addressed:

The power creep is too real, specially as, in opposition to most of Spires' lifespan, progressing far past 200 has become a walk in the park, and 220 becomes the hard cap. There needs to be a more glaring limitation not at how fast PCs are able to climb, but rather, how high.

TLDR you see long developed chars already in their 30's and they're barely 225 or around that

I believe that's actually what makes up for most of the issue, actually. The rates at which we earn checks feel somewhat samey, but... remember when decimals were a thing? PCs that have been around for very long are already an abyss of strength away from most new characters, with every other perk they will have engrossed included, but actually earning a whole RP Level feels like way too substantial a reward.

Of course there should be a disparity between a veteran or ancient character and a more inexperienced one, but I feel as if reaching 220 has become commonplace and no longer the big deal it used to/should be. This, I think, has birthed the dislike that a parcel of our playerbase and administration hold towards aged characters.

It's not difficult to reach 200. It's not that difficult to reach 220 either, provided you have consistent roleplay source (which, as it seems, antagonists actually lack).

RPL is hardly a problem. There's little to do for people if 200 RPL is already easily attainable.

An actual issue is when these old characters (who are already established via hiddens) go out of their way to grime new characters. It's why I abstain from fighting new characters even if it fits my IC, because I realize that it's bad to do - but when RPL is easily achieved (to a certain point of 220), and afterward it becomes titanic effort to gain more (past 220+, effectively hitting almost dead stop), there's... really little to do about RPL itself, nor it's that big of an issue.

It's like addressing an obvious issue, but coming at it from very odd angle.