"Raid difficulty is difficult to balance" Its not at all.

[JunseiKei]

~snip~

All I get from this post is gear = the gate and balance of the raid. If that is the case, as someone who never played FFXI looking in, it just sounds like the same fight with stat tweaks to make the fight "harder" and that getting gear in the first place was the actual difficulty. That requires very little work, and that's not the case in FFXIV where the difference between "hard" and "extreme" may make one mechanic completely different and introduce completely different ones and then mix their patterns up or add entirely new phases.

The idea of putting Groupers and Solo'rs together to complete the MSQ was a bad idea.

Not to be rude, but, why are those that want to play solo play an MMO? It's like joining Facebook with no intention of interacting with someone else.