Quote Originally Posted by Aqua_Amaiyo View Post
I don't want to see players who "don't" have that time, punished because they don't.
Again, I see no punishment mechanic in the game for those who don't play frequently. In fact, there is more mechanics that benefit a player that comes in, plays a bit, logs off and waits for the next available day, than anything. Brief-but-frequent seems to best way to play, in fact. However even those who go on hiatus are typically bombarded with catch-up mechanics instilled into the game continually.

When it comes to FFXI, the main "Main" issue I had with XI was the amount of you must be this specific role, and do X amount of damage with X amount of mistakes, with X weapon, etc etc or boot etc etc. And it wasn't an "uncommon" thing, this was happening frequently.
Again, this is a mechanic of the players, not the game, or any game really. You will always encounter this type in the game, this or any others. It's a level of elitism you simply have to separate yourself from. I don't think mechanics from previous games, FFXI included, comes with this attitude-preloaded into it - that's simply the attitude of the players itself. You shouldn't base your logic in opposing something based off of what happened when it was introduced in a fundamentally different game a decade ago.

Hunts, for instance, have the exact opposite problem, buy in large, than a shoving people away from important ranked mobs, we have crowds gathering in excess waiting on still more, while in FFXI, "Claiming" the monster in question was the issue - making it an example of exclusivity to the extreme, rather than inclusiveness to the extreme.

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In the end I don't see the conflict or problem here. Players who are wanting challenge have it, they even have exclusive drops and gear - that will only be helpful in tackling challenges that would still be exclusive. And those challenges are simply additional 'modes' on top of a singular encounter already available for the more casual crowd to experience.

In this situation - stats are merely trophies.

I think our focus should be on how to improve community relations. FFXIV already does a good job of encouraging if not outright forcing players to be charitable.