Quote Originally Posted by Matsume View Post
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.
No, that wasn't a good thing. It was an awful punishment and a timesink. If they ever put de-leveling in this game, I'm quitting. Sometimes death isn't always your fault, as your example even mentioned. Sometimes it just takes one member of the party to screw up and everyone dies. I've died more times than I can count on shitty pulls and hell on Ifrit alone it's dozens. This is not a game made for such hardcore players. I don't want progress taken away from me just because someone screwed up, or even if I screwed up.

You want to know what my motivation is for playing well? To not suck and bring the party down. What a novel concept, playing well for the sake of playing well. What happened to that? Do we really need to be kicked in the nuts every time we die? Can't we just die and accept that as a failure and work to better ourselves? Do we really need to be punished for every death?

If there's one thing I can't forgive in a game it's wasting my time and XP loss/de-leveling is a huge waste of time. If people need that kind of thing to play well, I'd rather not play with them at all.