Quote Originally Posted by Tridus View Post
I don't know if wanting it to not get nerfed into the ground was a factor or if people were just nicer this time around, but it never formed the same kind of MSQ brick wall. Thus, SE didn't need to act.
Two issues with Steps of Faith prior to its nerf were, as far as I've heard:

1. Missing a single Dragon Cannon basically spelled wipe barring absurdly high DPS
2. There was no way to wipe the party until the duty failed, thus each attempt could range well over ten minutes.

The latter was likely a bigger factor in veterans leaving en masse. Why wipe for a half hour (or longer) when you could eat the penalty and hopefully get Garuda, who basically rolled over? Shinryu had neither problem, which made people were willing to just stick it out.