Do you know why the average pf player is so bad?

[LilimoLimomo]

If you're the sort of gamer who's not the least bit curious about anything, can't be bothered to think your way through a problem, and expect to have the game spell everything out to you on a silver platter, maybe you're just not the target for FFXIV's harder content.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that this is true; maybe this is genuinely the aim of CBU3's design. And if so, congrats, it's working! But I also vaguely recall Yoshi-P lamenting about how he'd like players to give harder content a try, and if that's genuinely how he feels, the craft of game design is there with some well-documented tools that his team could use to make that a reality.

Experience is a great teacher, if you're open to it.

"I know how one stack marker works. So two stack markers is easy! We stand together! *SPLAT* Well, that didn't work... maybe we should stand in two separate groups? Not sure what else we could do there..."

Oh I 100% agree. But this goes back to the point I brought up in my original post: these mechanics are often not introduced or repeated in ways that truly test whether every member of a group understands a mechanic. As a designer, you can develop scenarios where it's nearly impossible for players to progress until they have demonstrated that they've learned a concept. But in FF14, if enough of your group has grokked it or gets lucky, then those who didn't figure it out can frequently progress past that content without that moment of learning.

If CBU3 wants to gate off harder content from certain kinds of players, then that's not an issue. But if they want to foster growth in such players, it's a missed opportunity.