I guess it's time

[ToniRomo]

That's the point; the highest-tier weapons in game should be crazy to get, not for everyone. Those are the weapons only few players per server should get, like relics in XI and legendaries on World of Warcraft.
Plus hardcore raid gear should be 20+ item level above the casual one (tomestone or whatever). Like I said before, 'dedication', 'skill' and 'rewards': that's where the game is very sick now and poor of contents.

WoW started giving legendaries to everyone two expansions ago. MMOs aren't made for the hardcore crowd anymore because that crowd is not large enough. Players got older (work/families/etc) and the newer people coming into the genre don't want to do those hardcore grinds. Your FFXI glory days are over.

[Fumijj_Gah]

WoW started giving legendaries to everyone two expansions ago. MMOs aren't made for the hardcore crowd anymore because that crowd is not large enough. Players got older (work/families/etc) and the newer people coming into the genre don't want to do those hardcore grinds. Your FFXI glory days are over.

Well,

1) MMOs gonna be for the hardcore crowd, always; offline games are not enough for those players who just want more.
2) Hardcore and hardcore grinds are two different things; actually the only grind we have is this game with extremely boring dailies, weekly clears, beast tribe quests and relics.
3) Fans and hardcore players are those who will sub forever if the game gives what they want, casuals gonna jump around on patch day for few weeks and then freezing their accounts.

'My' FFXI was one of the greatest MMORPG ever, same goes for WoW in their golden age.
New or old generation doesn't matter, a FF signed by Hironobu Sakaguchi gonna be better than Motomu Toriyama games. Bravely Default's numbers (a classic jRPG) moved Square-Enix (thanks to the new CEO) into the old way already (Link), that's why I am Setsuna is coming and I hope the new wind gonna involve FFXIV: ARR as well. If Tanaka can get close again to the game we'll start to see something different (or we just need to wait for the next MMORPG by SE), I really have no faith in this team unless Yoshi-P gets the Squaresoft's core around him.

In a nutshell;
Final Fantasy XI Online was a classic Final Fantasy in an online world, ARR is just a post-WoW pattern MMO with 1/20 of its content and with FF references.

[Velhart]

snip

In regards to everything you have said. The idea of balancing casual, midcore, and hardcore is not finding a piece of content that mashes them all together. That isn't really a thing. What is a thing is how you create content, how accessible it is, and how does it create a lasting appeal in the long run. These are fundamentals in creating balance. Note where I said "accessible", because this is the absolute most important thing for an MMO today. It shouldn't be gated heavily like FFXI nor should it's consequences be like it where if you lost a KSNM, you had to farm the seals to try again. That is a bad type of gating for this type of game.

I don't believe in complete hand holding and yes there is a lack of hardcore content. That I can completely agree with. SE caters way too heavily on the casual side and yes, midcore and hardcore suffers for it. Creating a story mode for Alexander was a mistake in my opinion and the previour tier and this one shows. I would of set it up like this:

Even patch: Alex(Normal) (FCoB level of difficulty) > Alex(Savage) (ScoB Savage difficulty)
Odd patch: Content that will help gear people better for beating Normal.
Even patch: As said above, but do the following to the previous tier: Add an echo buff to normal and tone down the mechanics so casuals can get a win on it. For Savage, keep it at a mandatory ilvl restriction for whatever the cap was during that patch's prime. That way, the difficulty is always there, even two or three expansions from it, it still retains the same level of difficulty as when it came out. This keeps content relevant forever. Add mounts, minions, and titles so when people see it they are impressed and not going "I bet they did it unsynced".

This here alone fixes a lot with what is wrong in the balance of midcore and hardcore. I am sure the people who prefer story mode are going to chase me with pitchforks, but sorry, I believe content made for midcore/hardcore need to be catered to first then casual later. Its a much needed balance unless SE can dish out three difficulty modes. The balance is that casuals will get to play this mode at their level eventually and always welcome to try it without being heavily gated beyond gear checks.

Of course at the same time, we have to balance content in other things to appeal to the casual while it may be beneficial for midcore/hardcore down the line. Its a very hard thing to deal with and FFXIV does have a lot of faults in the system that need to be addressed. However I simply don't believe FFXI's systems are the answer to it. Can simply agree to disagree on that particular notion. I believe FFXIV is in a problematic state, I just can't agree to a lot of the solutions in here.