Stowaways in High-End Content?

[Vidu]

I would like to suggest maybe a % track on individual progress. Or perhaps having more fights into checkpoints like doorbosses on the last savage fights you could have a option to set it to people who have made it to that checkpoint.
Perhaps if duty complete is checked by the achievement have a "Half way there" achievement you get for wiping past 50% or higher.

And would that be tracked per job? Or at least per role? Because I can assure you that just because someone reached a certain point in a fight (or even cleared it) as a tank they dont necessarly know how to heal it. Or how to play a DPS well enough to bring the needed damage to the fight. Or how to deal with mechanics that are role-specific. I could enter a farm group for the Second Ex-Primal right now with my scholar and people would be rightfully wondering if thats my first time doing that trial at all - despite me having cleared it multiple times with my paladin. Your system would still allow me to enter.

Its scrappy.. Its slapdash but its honestly better then what we have going here. Not everyone has statics or a group of friends to consistently work with. Square is out of touch if they think everyone does. And with third party illegal software like ACT running the scene on most statics, finding such groups is harder then it should be.

Right, not everyone has a group of friends or a static - but everyone can build or find one. Befriend those people from failed farm/clear groups who showed potential (both in regards to the fight and in regards to being nice enough people). Invite them to linkshells and/or a Discord server for that purpose. Or ask if anyone already has such a linkshell/discord server you could join.

In regards to ACT... in my personal experience its not as present and excluding as some people portrait it - but again: personal experience, anecdotes, etc.
I am a little surprised though that you bring it up as a negative point - seeing how you would like to introduce more ingame-gatekeeping to get rid of "stowaways"... doesnt ACT (and people using it) do essentially the same? Knowing the mechanics and/or the fight up to a certain point is all fine and dandy, but if you hit enrage at 30% because half the people know how to dodge, but not how to deal damage you wont clear the content either.