Quote Originally Posted by ArnoMorley View Post
It's because THAT's what makes success more rewarding. It's because you face a dreaded penalty that you don't want to die. That's what made death respectable in FFXI, and added extra adrenaline to fights.

And I'm sick of people using the term time sink as if it's a bad thing, it's not. If things weren't spoon fed to everybody then the game would feel rewarding. If Ifrit/Moogle were once a week fights but guaranteed a drop people would not be as sick of them as they are after their 100th fight.
I don't get how that makes things more rewarding but I guess we're just on completely different wavelengths there. I consider a win a win, if I didn't die it really doesn't matter what the penalty was. Honestly it just pisses me off more when I do die knowing that I've lost even more than my own time.

If Ifrit/Moogle were once a week fights I would not have a single win yet lol. There are good timesinks and bad ones, XP loss and level down were not good ones. Every death is precious time wasted, lost forever. Work and effort down the drain for no reason.

If anything all of what you said further encourages class stacking and all as it promotes using the path of least resistance, the easiest party build/strategy. If people are afraid of death they'll resort to any methods to avoid it, even shunning all non-conventional strategies. People wouldn't try different things since it could end in death which everyone is afraid of. It stifles creativity in strategies and builds.