Why does battle high exist?

[KageTokage]

Coming from WoW, I'm used to a PvP system where killing players has little to no benefit outside of getting them out of the way so you can claim objectives.

It worked out better because it discouraged people from farming the other team save for the odd event where they're dominating enough to be occupying every single objective simultaneously and thus are able to focus entirely on defense. It also made people a lot more willing to engage when there was little to lose from death outside of a respawn time if you're already in a disadvantageous situation.

Losing engagements in XIV is doubly punishing due to giving your points to the other team AND making them get battle high to give them an advantage in future engagements. It's the main reason why people are reluctant to even try to fight a superior team if they don't have to, even though it usually comes back to bite them in the butt when the dominant team shifts their focus to them.

It's really not just the player mentality in PvP that's the issue, the mechanics are also questionably balanced. I think a start would be making it so you lose more points from dying with battle high so it actually functions as a proper double-edged sword because half the time the team with a significant amount of highs is so far in the lead already that the extra points people gain from killing them really isn't enough to level the playing field. If they actually had a shot at turning things around from depriving them of their highs people would be less prone falling into a defeatist mentality and "playing for second".