This is steep? Let me put this in context before everyone else laughs at you:
  • Previous MMOs required a corpse run. That is: all the stuff you had? You don't have it anymore. Go find your dead body, lying next to the thing that killed you, and get it back without dying so you can get your stuff back.
  • Previous MMOs docked you experience when you died. Like, a quarter of your TNL. You could level down.
  • Previous MMOs had permanent stat loss if you died a lot.
  • Previous MMOs had weakness of five minutes or more.
Death penalties are good:
  • They create incentive to play better.
  • They prevent you from zombieing your way through challenges.
  • They add some bit of realism in lieu of permanent death.
FFXIV's death penalty is really really mild. You're "weakened" for three minutes and you have to run back from your last crystal. It takes more than 3 minutes to do that, so it's really just one penalty. At least weakness doesn't slow your movement speed down like it does in some previous MMOs.