Risk Factor. Can I have it?

[Malachite]

Again I ask, why do we NEED a harsh death penalty to be good players? Can't we just play well so that we don't suck? Can't we not want to die simply so we don't die? Especially in the instanced content, if all players die you lose essentially. Isn't that enough? Why must we lose our hard earned XP? What does that accomplish really?

It adds a horrible timesink, getting back the XP you already earned once. Then you have people afraid to take any chances or use anything other than the easiest party build because they are afraid to die. Then class stacking becomes even more of an issue because no one wants to branch out and try something different. As if we needed another reason for people to stack Archers, lets add lower risk of death and loss of XP to the list.

I'm just curious as to why we must be harshly penalized for death. I just don't see why we must have a reason to not suck at the game.

For me, it really doesn't have anything to do with having a reason to not suck at the game. It has more to do with how engaged I feel. In the early days of XI, I found that putting together a competent exp group, and pushing that particular group's abilities to the limit was immensely engaging. By engaged, I mean involved and as an extension of that, focused (something that XIV's combat system just doesn't require). The combination of XI's inherently closely matched fights (someone gave an example earlier of an even matched fight against a mandragora being a challenge) and the relatively harsh death penalty are just two of the many factors that lead to engaging play, but they were particularly important ones.

Death in XI was anathema and exp parties were as much about not dying as they were about gaining exp. This lead to dynamic groups and engaging play. Because staying alive was such a key factor to gaining exp, small changes in party makeup made a large difference. Your tank is slightly under geared or slightly underleveled? The group's strategy (a combination of trying to maximize exp gain, while staying alive at all costs) changes accordingly. Crappy healer? The group's strategy changes accordingly. Unusually effective group that comes together cohesively? The group's strategy changes accordingly.

One of the most exciting things about all of this was that groups didn't always change for the better. Maybe your RDM just couldn't keep his debuffs on the mobs you're fighting, and the tank ends up taking a beating because of it. So, their NIN tank can't keep his shadows up because the mob isn't being kept slowed/paralyzed and the group disbands. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Any time you bring a group of people together, it is not a given that said group will be able to work well together. This is a fact of life. Because of this, groups that do work well are just that much sweeter. I play these kinds of games for a variety of reasons but the level of engagement experienced has a lot to do with how long I stay. In MMOs it is usually provided through the combat system. This is my main beef with XIV. You can toss virtually anyone together in an exp group, barely pay attention to what is happening and still do well. Walk away from the keyboard for a few minutes and die, so what? You don't lose anything and the party still goes on without you at practically the same pace as it did when you were there.

MMOs are a time sink by their very nature. So what if it takes me 100 hours or 500 hours to reach level cap. Furthermore, so what if I can't maximize exp gained in every single situation? I wouldn't want to do so even if I could. Where's the fun in that? There's fun, but also humanity in diversity. And what I described above leads to diversity. FFXI's partying system, whether the developers planned for it or not, was dynamic and diverse.

I went a bit further with this post than I intended, but oh well. I hope it made sense.