Quit looping things out of context. DarthTaru is only stating one example as to why FFXI was good, and a death penalty WAS one of the many many things. It kept people on their toes. Using sneak and invisible to move stealthly. If you implored bad judgment, death was inevitable and it came at a price. It made you think twice in terms of imploring a great strategy to defeat XP/HNM/Dynamis/Etc enemies without having to die. Now if you wipe on an NM, oh well. Let's fall twenty to thirty times because we can just zerg it with no penalties.......No.

That's what he means about it takes a certain level of challenge from the game. If you wiped on an HNM in FFXI you were SoL. If you constantly died, you deleveled. With a death penalty involved in the equation it added a sense of survival to the gameplay. It made you flee when you were in over your head, and spam your two-hour abilities when available to at least try to defeat the enemy. I'm a long-time FFXI player and I despised the death penalty, but looking back now.........Wow. It adds a bit of difficulty when you think about it. If I died while leveling blm solo, that's more time chalked onto leveling. It made me fight to the best to avoid dying.

Don't care who you are, or which other previous MMO you came from. This is Final Fantasy. I didn't buy this game to play a gimmick of other MMO games. I bought it because I thought it was a Final Fantasy MMO. So in a way I'm glad that the team from FFXI is now holding the ropes of this new installment. Maybe now I'll find that feeling that became lost when I first starting playing FFXIV.