Personally, I'm perfectly okay with that. Do I wish that some people would try harder? Of course. But I'm not bothered one bit by the way a lot of content is designed.
I think what the game needs is something like WoW's Mage Tower. Challenging solo content that rewards a very desirable aesthetic reward. To get it you need to know your class.
Gives people incentive to really learn their kits without having to throw them into Extreme or Savage content with a group.
The content is design to be done by players who are less skilled or don't need to try. Content gets done by these people. The roulette is design to reward for you doing easy content and yes even carry people. So you can say dishonest all you want, but when the devs says it time and time again how they design df content, and how they encourages players just to have fun in it. Not to worry about being carried or not. I think you have your answer. Accept it and move on.
I don't know why you think I care how the content was designed or why you're so hung up on that strawman.
If player 1 does more work than player 2 or vice versa and they both get the same reward then you're not getting rewarded for carrying anyone, they're being rewarded for doing the content.
I don't mind if you advocate for equity but don't don't hide behind equality.
Almost all of these "innocent" scenarios you described would benefit greatly from what you suggested in the paragraph before: An in-game feedback system that grades your performance and overall contribution level. Ironically, the same people who say "this game will only ever cater to casuals" are the same people who chase you with fire and pitchforks if you mention anything remotely similar to a parsing tool.
There are many many people in this game adamantly against anything that would suggest one player is better than another. We live in a Participation Trophy era.
Honestly, it's not on those saying the game will largely cater to casuals. It's on those who just refuse to accept it. It's a fact, and one that the developers themselves have not been shy about admitting to. I'm also not one to grab my pitchfork every time a parsing tool is brought up, yet here I stand disagreeing with this mindset. I must be an anomaly!
I will bring this up every time this discussion occurs. I want an end-of-instance grading scale that shows you how you can improve. It doesn't show anyone else's data to anyone else, just where you personally rank among your group.
https://whyigame.files.wordpress.com...nze.jpg?w=1200
(It took account of ties too)
(Dont' pay any mind to the bronze reward, it's not for individual performance, but for completing/not completing certain optional challenges in the instance, which is ANOTHER thing I want xiv to do lmao)
Give me a ranking of
#x in survivability. (How much avoidable damage you ate vs dodged)
#x in damage. (pretty straight forward. The game already tracks this *points to UwU*)
#x in teamwork. (Probably have to take into account job/role DPS, cards/strategem usage, and avoiding overheal for healers (whms could get overheal weighted less when using assize), DPS, interjects, Boss stability and party mitigation for tanks, and buffs and role utilities for dps. It would all be weighted differently depending on how much your role has to offer. (yes role, because if a brd has no chance of beating a similarly skilled sam on dps, then they should get somethin' on this ranking))
and then a time to complete.
Each section could have a mouse-over tip of something your play could improve with depending on how they were messing up in the run
Survivability: Remember to dodge out of the way before the cast is finished!" or "Avert your gaze when you see (picture of that eye gaze icon)"
Damage: mind your positionals / Always Be Casting, or even "make sure you use X ability!" if, say, a blackmage wasn't keeping enochian up, or a smn was letting garuda hang out during a boss
Teamwork: yeah it would have to be more personalized like "Use addle if you think a target is casting a magic attack!" or "Warden's paean can help cure what ails you or a teammate!".
Sure it would be some upfront cost in implementation, but damn would it be more useful to the general player than another stone sky sea (yeuck!)
It's just how streaming (used to) beat piracy. Ya can't beat these things by saying "oh golly gosh, pweeze don't use them". Ya beat them by providing an accessible means to their proper function in a place you can control. Proper use of a dps meter and logging sites aren't "to see how big your number is" it's to see feedback on what your doing, how your changes affect your performance, and how others who are performing better than you achieve that success. And that's why stone sky sea is not going to stop anyone from using logs, and why it's not going to help anyone who needs to improve. (well one reason why, the other reason is because it's optional and out of the way. Seriously stone sky sea is the worst.)