Just played Final Fantasy XI

[Thayos]

Here is the dirty little secret of FFXI though that made it relevant for so long for so many people....

You didn't NEED the best gear to win at endgame!

FFXI was all about group-oriented events -- and anything with a good group is often fun -- that required jobs and strategy more than gear. In FFXI, to have a few jobs at cap was actually more valuable than having amazing gear! Anyone could do Sky, Sea, Limbus, Einjerjar, etc. with stuff bought at the auction house. Good gear just helped down things more painlessly.

This made the game highly engaging and "easy" to keep up with, even if several pieces of gear were incrementally better than what you were wearing. The hardcore HNM groups and event linkshells could grind to their hearts' content without ever hitting a wall, and casual/midcore players could go at their own pace without ever honestly being left behind.

This is why "elitists" in XI had such bad reps... because elitism was literally unnecessary.

The farther I get from a game like XI, though, the more I like it's basic structure. It did cater to a wide range of gamers without sinking into appointment gaming, which is basically glorified smartphone gaming.