Square, Don't let the Community ruin this game

[Darkillumina]

As a legacy player I'll be the first to say screw speed runs. It was lame in 1.0 and it is lame here. It kills all the joy in doing a dungeon run.

You should be rewarded adequately for completing the run properly not burning through the run skipping everything for the seals. The problem is that the game is unbalanced in the distribution of seals and equipment at the moment. People will naturally gravitate to the easiest way to get the most seals in the least amount of time. With everyone rushing to end-game to experience the mindless gear-grind this leads to a less enjoyable experience overall.

Also FFS if you want to do a speed-run don't queue up for it on the duty finder. Go to Uldah or ask in your free company chat. Don't expect the duty finder to make the perfect party for your selfish needs. There are what 6 legacy servers and like 100000000 new servers.

Funny part is that these are the same people who kill most modern MMO's. They finish crap so quickly that they get impatient when the devs simply cannot keep up with their demand and leave the game only popping up during a new patch. However, the returns are diminishing and they generally move on over time. As old-school as FFXI was we wouldn't have been having this discussion in 2002, because most of us would have probably just been entering Qufim. It's a delicate balancing act, but spammable MC-Content is not the way to go and I will argue that until the day I die.

Edit: Also 1.2x was not more of a gear grind than 2.0. The gear was much more horizontal. Yeah the drops rates were crap, but that's because there wasn't a lot of content and they had to stretch it out until the server shut-down. I saw people with varied gear doing a plethora of content. Some people utilized pieces of AF efficiently along with triple melded crafted gear and pieces of darklight. Others utilized the Grand Company gear in conjunction with sanction and the bonus's to try and maximize certain stats at the expense of others. There was variety in the gear. Now everything is tiered. Everything. There is a firm line of progression and you follow that path until you get to the top. Then you wait for the next patch to release.

Tiered content is a breeding ground for people who need to speed run. You get pressured (even if you don't overtly notice it) to get geared to keep up with your FC'mates and keep the treadmill rolling. At least with the 1.2x system. New players were able to catch up efficiently enough thanks to the more horizontal system and tweak themselves in a variety of ways. They could try their hand at melds or grind out seals for GC gear. They could do some dungeons for Darklight drops or even explorers pieces. Was the 1.2x system perfect? Hell no, drop rates were abysmal and the crapshoot that was materia melding was irritating but at least it presented us with the illusion of choice with how we desired to gear ourselves. If you go back to the 1.0 forums and go to the job forums you will see proof of this. People were messing around with builds and what not until literally server shut-down.

[Duelle]

Tiered content is a breeding ground for people who need to speed run. You get pressured (even if you don't overtly notice it) to get geared to keep up with your FC'mates and keep the treadmill rolling.

False. Tiered progression teaches people to try to be efficient during combat and prepare themselves accordingly within a structured model. Developer oversights are breeding ground for speed runs. Since you played in 1.0, surely you remember groups rushing through the instances ignoring trash because all trash mobs were leashed.

If you go back to the 1.0 forums and go to the job forums you will see proof of this. People were messing around with builds and what not until literally server shut-down.

I'm surprised you demonize tiered content for the sake of a sub-group that basically went "my drg stackz crit and not str/dex. i r uniqu3". What you're asking for creates a balancing nightmare when it comes to boss design, not to mention that keeping the "variations" in line is way more trouble than its worth. Illusion of choice is just that, and as such should not exist.