"Unlocks" Game changers

[Painx]

Basically this. I've played many of the same MMOs OP has along with some not mentioned, and it's far more healthy for the game and community if the gear you get from hardcore content doesn't lead to the same massive gear gap that existed in a lot of those older MMOs. And those now-optional pieces of content would become requirements to even attempt other content where those skills were deemed valuable.

Depending how you play your game. FF14 made MSQ simple with a minimal Item level. I think people forget that a lot and FF14 can have a little bit of unlocks and game changers that can help. Not necessarily needed but good to have, It would not make it unhealthy to add something new and a root from the MMO genre itself but encourage to go and unlock abilities that can help a player who is learning about MMO's and not only that but it also gives the raider a chance to help others who are interested in unlocking new abilities that can help the player.

[TaleraRistain]

Depending how you play your game. FF14 made MSQ simple with a minimal Item level. I think people forget that a lot and FF14 can have a little bit of unlocks and game changers that can help. Not necessarily needed but good to have, It would not make it unhealthy to add something new and a root from the MMO genre itself but encourage to go and unlock abilities that can help a player who is learning about MMO's and not only that but it also gives the raider a chance to help others who are interested in unlocking new abilities that can help the player.

It would make things very unhealthy because these optional abilities wouldn't stay optional if they were in any way useful. Players would have no choice but to do content they may or may not enjoy just to do the content they did enjoy if those abilities were useful there. Because if they didn't have those abilities, they would be excluded on the shallow end and harassed and insulted in game on the deeper end. This happened back when we had cross-class skills where the useful skills were deemed required.

And it would also make things unhealthy if we allowed Savage or Ultimate rewards to trivialize the casual content by being far higher in effectiveness than anything that could be obtained through casual content. We already have enough people who complain that casual content doesn't challenge them enough. We don't need to make that problem worse.