Quote Originally Posted by Shyd View Post
I laugh at gear damage especially because of all the STACKS and STACKS of dark matter i have from doing primals. So death is really only an inconvenience in this game, in the fact i have to un-equip gear, repair it, put it back on, and wait a few mins for timers to be up. Plus weakness, but all this does is make you wait a few mins.
Another point i meant to bring up. No one cares about dying in FFXIV, where as in FFXI if you died you lose exp and *gasp* sometimes DELEVELED!!!

This was actually a good thing. It provided the "push" part of the "push and pull" towards end game and long term interest. The "pull" was the fact that it was hard to level up, so being lvl 75 anything was an achievement in it's own. Low level players looked up to lvl 75s in their shiny AF armor and attracted them as much as did the hard to get weapons and gear that also provided a "pull" towards end game.

The exp loss per death coupled with the difficulty of gaining exp provided the perfect balance between incentive towards lvling up and disincentive against carelesness that would cause death. And, considering that if you died your party was likely to die and EVERYONE would be penalized, that alone was another incentive pushing people towards paying attention, gearing themselves out, and being extra careful with top notch strategy and awareness.