Quote Originally Posted by Demon6324236 View Post
That is not proposing Maat-style fights, thats suggesting slower xp, which is why I made that entire comment about going back to slow xp. Checking someone's gear to see how good or bad they are at a certain job or overall is not that hard, and gives you the same, or better, results. I personally like how things are now, I have an easy time telling who is doing good and who is not, at the same time, I am not in any way potentially being negatively effected by the game attempting to correct the skill level of players who make it to a certain level by the time they reach said level.
If you hit a level cap and you can't get past it, that's not slowing the rate of exp. That's saying "You can't beat this, you go no further.". For that matter, it can apply to L99's as well. Pass this test on your own and you can play in the sandbox with all the other L99's, fail your skill check and you're stuck till you do.

Gate content based on personal skill rather than encounters other players can carry you through and you filter bad players from the system. WoW actually has cases where if you can't show up with sufficiently high item levels in gear, you can't get in on certain content. I'd rather have skill check instead of gear check.

So far as Maat-style fights, I think every job should have a second fight similar to Maat where you get a piece of gear that is powerful for the job, powerful enough it is not easily replaced. If you wanted to really check the skill of a player in that case you could simply ask them to show the gear to you, so that you know they have it, and passed the test. I am talking about a piece of gear for each job like a Mythic, which would boost abilities, traits, or some type of stats that would directly impact the job in a powerful way that is nearly impossible to replace, and useful enough to bother going after. Some of these would be easier to make than others, but in reality we have items somewhat like this to begin with already.
Ala Suppa and other unique bits. I wouldn't mind seeing additional rewards for success at beating a "gate fight".

Black Belt and Evoker's Ring are 2 items like this, where they are exceptionally powerful and are made for only a single job. If gear like this were made but it came from a level 99 version of the Maat fight but without any handicaps or any other party members it would add special gear that would show a certain level of skill as well as benefiting all players who can obtain it, not simply showing an artificial level of skill. Also the fact it is job specific means it would not have an easy job to do it with where you get all of the benefits, such as the WHM Maat fight, where you can breeze through it, and all jobs benefit from the victory.
That's one of the reasons I mentioned not setting these "gates" up with an "easymode job", which Maat does have. Having a piece of trophy gear to go with the victory doesn't hurt either, as it'd let you prove that the player is competent on multiple jobs, not just the one they originally passed the gate in question with.