Something easy to fun to implement, -- Time Trials --.

[jars]

Time trials have a positive and a negative.

Positive: Better rewards, possibility of mounts.

Negative: Newer players would be singled out for not going fast enough. Everyone would expect a speedy completion.

I think this would reduce the effects of #2 actually, provided there is a separate queue

[Doo]

Everything fun promotes elitism.

[Ryuko]

Time trials existed in 1.0, but there were two parts of the trial. If you defeated the dungeon within a reasonable amount of time, you were given an achievement and an extra chest for completing it within a certain amount of time. That extra chest contained the gear everyone was after, though I forget exactly WHICH darklight pieces could be obtained from there. Then there was an EVEN FASTER time trial for the relic quest. If all of the people in your group didn't play perfectly (and didn't have MULTIPLE jobs to push through a dungeon at the fastest speed possible), you wouldn't make the time trial. You needed to complete each of the required two dungeons THREE times to get the items to continue your relic quest. Legacy players who got the achievement for opening all five chests in each dungeon still have that achievement -- and it can't be obtained again.

Buuuuuut... 1.0 had a few drastic differences.

First, they were placing arbitrary limitation on content to slow down progression. They were already working on 2.0 and didn't want 1.0 players to complete relic quests too fast (that's why the hamlet requirement existed). Second, they allowed people to switch jobs in dungeons... So, in AV for example, people would go BLM for the first boss and MNK for the second boss (most effective jobs at the time). In 2.0, they took away this possibility, because they want the game to be more friendly toward casuals who only want to gear ONE job. I remember the 'having more than one class at 50' requirement was brutal for a lot of people who just didn't have the time to do that. I lucked out because I was the static WHM and solo-healed everything so I didn't need any other jobs.

Will they introduce time trials in 2.0? Maybe. But, I don't think we'll get any real REWARD from it outside of a shiny achievement, maybe a minion. I think even a mount would be stretching it a bit for the mission statement of this game. Would I like those things? Sure... but I am also trying to be realistic. SE has introduced many measured to counteract the class stacking that occurred in 1.0, such as the LB bar filling slower.

[Provoke]

snip

Damn 1.0 sounds pretty awesome.

[Delsai]

Damn 1.0 sounds pretty awesome.

1.0 was a financial disaster.

[Wilan]

This maybe won't contribute mich to the discussion, but...

No.

[Kirinichibon]

I would support daily/weely record time rewards for certain guildhests but never for dungeons.