This game has serious free-rider problems and it's getting worse. A suggestion.

[dezzmont]

I am not super against, for example, the idea of a 'dungeon par' system (not based on FATE contribution) where basic competent execution of your job by hitting a fairly modest DPS threshold nets you a gold rank and an extra little reward, especially if that is hidden from your party. The fear of damage meters in casual content is very real (I have seen a lot of sad, terrible behavior from vets towards parties full of sprouts getting their first clear in very important story dungeons and trials doing bonkers stuff like pulling mid fight rundown and or refusing to rez people who die), but there are ways to introduce feedback systems for individuals that are far less abusable that would really help people even start chasing mastery.

A big problem with Bozja is less the concept of people leeching needing to be punished and more how there isn't really 'midcore' content in XIV because the basic game doesn't try to help you learn your job at all. Like... the game needs stuff like job tutorials at an even minimally optimal level before we can start talking about holding people to standards, because without external documentation from the community a lot of jobs are just too obtuse to ever really understand on a basic level, forget optimization and rotations and the like. Even extremely simple jobs like Black Mages have non-intuitive traps baked into the kit you won't notice unless you understand the abilities intuitively without ever using them, or someone explains to you what they do or why you should care about certain things. Even something as simple as working with people like The Balance to write a 1 paragraph rundown of each ability you have unlocked in your tutorial tab covering the basic usage of it (without going into crazy optimization) would be neat, we don't need to explain to people the difference between a 'hot flare' and a 'cold flare' but maybe pointing out the ramifications of using fire 1 to reset AF to get more fire 4 casts or the usage of Transpose existing to extend stance rather than as your main method of switching them would be neat. Forget about stuff like SMN or NIN which have a looooot going on in their rotation and its not going to be easy at all to find the actual rotation outside of the core stuff through play. I don't mind seeing people do stuff like drop dots or make a mistake, but its really clear how many people don't know where to START their job, and it isn't their fault they don't.

We are in this awkward space where the casual content is (rightfully) designed so anyone can clear it, and hardcore content basically requires external assistance to even approach, but that creates a big gap in the playerbase and when content comes along that puts the average casual in content that is a bit more demanding they fold and need to be carried, which creates a lot of resentment. But that 'mixer' content is good for the game, like people actually take the time to learn their jobs because Bozja exists. Its just without any in game tools for doing that your just kinda... not going to do that if you don't already know about stuff like The Balance.