Mikhalia the Picky had the follwing to say about EXP Chains in FFXI:

"It would be one thing if the difference between the high end players and the average players was semi significant, but negligible. Let's say a difference of 9k xp/hr vs 10k xp/hr. This doesn't breed as much necessity for having the best of the best because the difference is minor. More realistically, the difference between a party of average playerss vs a party of high ends is something closer to half the performance or less. Where a party of average players in average gear would make average xp, a party of good players in good gear make great xp. And a party of great players in great gear make awesome xp.

I'm not saying that reward shouldn't scale with performance; it should. I'm saying that reward scales with performance on a pretty steep scale in FFXI. Too steep for some. The difference between inviting a WAR/WHM vs a WAR/SAM for ONE spot in your party could very well mean the difference between 8k/hr vs 14-15k/hr because if it's taking you 40 seconds to kill a mob due to their lower damage and you need 30 to make the chain, you're going to keep losing chains. If you can't kill fast enough to maintain a CONSTANT chain, you're losing out on massive amounts of xp because the chain bonus keeps resetting to chain 0. A party that can only get to chain 3 and keep resetting vs a party that will get to 5+ and maintain the chain will have a HUGE discrepancy in XP over time.

That's a fundamental flaw with XI; if even one single member of your party is not performing sufficiently, the other five will have to perform more work to carry them, or the entire party will suffer. If they can't put out enough killing over time to compensate for the weak link, the group will struggle.

I've seen more than my share of parties that had one member leave and get replaced by someone else, and seen the xp/hr jump or fall by 2-3k/hr, sometimes as much as 4-5k/hr. I've had groups where we were getting chain 50, 60, 70+ without much trouble; one person leaves and is replaced and all of the sudden we can't get past 5 or 6. I've had groups in middle levels where we're stuck on chain 3 and one person leaves, is replaced, and chain 5 every time.

That's exactly the problem: When one person can make that big of a difference in the overall party's xp, many players do not want to fill any of the party spots with anything that would be less than optimal. It's not fair, but it's because the game's mechanics practically force you to do so.

I'll close with an overload of math.

Let's say we have seven parties. Party A can not chain. Party B only gets chain 1 (so chain 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1...). Party C only gets chain 2 (0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2...). D gets chain 3, E gets 4, F gets chain 5 and resets, G gets chain 5 and keeps going infinitely.

Let's assume they get a base XP of 100 XP/kill, to make the math easier.

Let's assume they kill exactly 100 mobs.

Party A's total XP is 100 x 100, or 10,000.
Party B's total XP is (100 + 120) x 50, or 11,000.
Party C's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125) x 33 + 100, or 11,485
Party D's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130) x 25, or 11,875
Party E's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130 + 140) x 20, or 12,300
Party F's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130 + 140 + 150) x 16 + (100 + 120 + 125 + 130), or 12,715

Seems pretty gradual, right? Watch:

Party G's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130 + 140) + (150 x 95), or 29,465.

The difference between a party that can only get chain 5 vs a party that can chain infinitely is OVER DOUBLE. The difference between killing a mob in 61 seconds vs killing a mob in 59 seconds is MASSIVE.

-That's- what I mean about the game turning players into elitists. When the difference between "good party" and "great party" is THAT SEVERE, it all but forces you to be critical of other people who aren't pulling their weight.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being an XP Nazi and attacking the notion of "having fun in a party, even if it isn't the best XP". I've done so myself and would do it again under the right circumstances. I'm just saying that when you want to hunker down and get XP, there is a huge discrepancy between the amount you can get based on your performance. And that -is- at least partially the game's fault.

I'm not saying I don't like XP chains, but I am saying that if there were no XP chains, people would be a lot less critical of other people not performing as well, because it wouldn't have as large an effect."

I find this to be doubly fascinating because I saw its effect on the community first hand. A very observative explaination of the EXP Chain system's flaws.