Dev response to Server Merge please.

[Olor]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say this game punishes people for being casuals. I can certainly understand how other players do. But if you could elaborate on why you feel the game does I would comment.

Because Normal and below battlefields drop essentially nothing (except chapters), and no, special snowflake jobs with average gear cannot clear higher difficulties. Normal should be at least a reasonable drop rate - or the entry fee for entering lower difficulty fields should be lower so that people can do them more times (so still rewarding higher difficulties by making them more efficient, without making it unrealistic to even bother trying to get items on lower difficulties)

This is a game design flaw, not a player design flaw. Again, look at abyssea - that content was designed to be welcoming to new players and casuals because the entry fee was low and the rewards were able to be shared better (every monster dropping several things pretty much, and then ATMA as an infinitely shareable reward)

Forcing people to use full amount of seals/merits to do lower difficulties means there is a HUGE disincentive to fool around/be causal/help people out. Essentially people are being elitists about it because the time sink to even qualify to enter the content is so large.

[Dale]

Because Normal and below battlefields drop essentially nothing (except chapters), and no, special snowflake jobs with average gear cannot clear higher difficulties. Normal should be at least a reasonable drop rate - or the entry fee for entering lower difficulty fields should be lower so that people can do them more times (so still rewarding higher difficulties by making them more efficient, without making it unrealistic to even bother trying to get items on lower difficulties)

I'm not sure what you mean when you say special snowflake jobs with average gear.

What I do know is you do not need the ideal or cookie-cutter set up to complete difficult content on this game. I know this from personal experience. And difficult content isn't meant for average players anyway. It's not suppose to be easy and is meant to be a test for above-average players. That is the whole reason for having the higher difficulty levels to begin with. And casual players can be just as skilled as other players after all.

All that being said, I really wouldn't have a problem with increasing the drop rates for normal modes though. That's fine by me. So I'm not really in disagreement with you on this point. I'm just clarifying that it's a myth you need certain jobs or certain set ups to complete difficult content on this game. Because you don't.