Quote Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna View Post
I honestly disagree. I don't think harsher penalties make success any more rewarding, unless you honestly don't care about succeeding and only care about avoiding peril. Imo success is success, the only thing that determines how great that success feels is the challenge. Greatest example is, say a really difficult crossword puzzle. OR maybe a ridiculously hard game of sudoku. Or maybe being able to spin a basketball on your finger. Heck, how about making it into the NBA? None of those things have a harsh penalty for failure (unless you were a dropout). Despite this, success still feels overwhelmingly good. Of course if you're an adrenaline junkie, you need high risks. Though any real adrenaline junkie wouldnt be playing MMO's to get his fix (though some do and claim hardcore status..makes me lol).
Ok, sorry to say this, but those are horrible analogies. What makes that success so rewarding is that it's so hard to achieve. It's not hard to level. It's not hard to spam your abilities/attacks. And, thus, it's not hard to achieve anything in this game right now. And there are* usually penalties for failing to make it to the NBA and failure to achieve a lot of the success ppl seek out. Most of those ppl build their whole lives off of that plan. They make plans around it. If they fail, they may not have anything else. They may condemn themselves to a life of mediocrity by failing.

But, anyway, that's not the point. XIV isn't the NBA; it isn't a "hard game of sudoku;" and it sure as hell isn't "spinning a basketball on your finger." XIV is an MMORPG, and while their can't be a "game over" and a loss of w/e progress since you last saved, there should still be some sort of penalty for failing to measure up to your fellow-players.

Otherwise, as mentioned earlier, there's nothing to stop ppl from continuing to suck. They get to maintain their levels; they get to leech spots in end-game fights even if they've died enough to be several levels under what they need to be; they waste the time of the ppl they party with b/c they can't perform well; and they whine and b#%^ everytime someone mentions how much of a burden they are on the party.

Exp-loss/deleveling is one of the MANY features from XI that needs to be initiated in XIV in order to maintain any sort of "ranking system." It also gives ppl a reason to focus more instead of just playing half-a$$ed.