ARR or Heavensward Classic

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

TP was still a thing in both expansions.



This has some major "You think you do, but you don't." energy.

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I mean, yes, it is. Especially if its in patch order.


People don't remember a lot of things from back then. WAR was pretty bad, and had to be changed in 2.1 or 2.2.


Food wore off on death. Raid prog could have you go through half a stack of food. Changed in 2.x somewhere, but still.


No CD reset on wipes or instance entry. Having to wait 6+ minutes every wipe if Hallowed was used just prior.


No auto-dismount when talking to NPCs.


No inventory upgrades. Houses cost 30mil for smalls, 200+mil for larges.



Much, much more.


I mean, the patch notes are all there if you are interested.

Pretty much all those changes happened by 2.1, cept cds which was 3.4. Folks just didn't use Hallowed every pull because generally the fights weren't tuned such that you needed perfect defensive cooldowns (they still aren't, but we're just given so many so fuck it).

Original inventory was 100 vice 140 slots, saddlebag didn't exist, but retainers were still the same, and there were fewer jobs and almost no need for materia (also it was much less prevalent) until 3.2. All that stuff balances out.

Dunno about houses cuz who cares, though this was also a time when personal houses weren't allowed (FC only; they were opened to players themselves sometime in HW.)

The QooL that this game has received over the years is not as substantial as some other games (namely WoW) because it really hasn't needed that. But more to the point, the QooL hasn't significantly CHANGED FFXIV like it changed WoW.

FFXIV has always had PF, always had DF, always had minimal time penalty on death or wipe (and like-infinite rezzes mid combat). It's designed with all these things in mind from the ground up as of 2.0.

The changes people focus on are the actual job and battle system changes that simply removed complexity or certain playstyles while offering little else in its place. Focusing on the QooL changes is kind of missing the forest for what people actually miss about that era.

I have more fun doing the Unreals than modern extremes because they're more fun to play; I have more fun doing old savages MiNE than much of Pandemonium, despite MiNE being very poorly tuned in terms of what damage a good team is able to dish out, because the fight designs then had more than just visual variety. That's, at least, what I'm saying. If I could pay at the Mogstation to play old versions of SCH, SMN, DRK, MCH or AST I probably would, because that's what I miss. Not the game as a whole, because it hasn't changed all that much.

I've listed what I see as irrevocable decisions in a previous post.

Crossword pf wasn't added until late heavensward. I don't think pf itself existed immediately, though I could be wrong. I remember people shouting in mor dhona for parties for things.



I don't know what you mean about hallowed. It was the first CD used in many of the rotations in coil, especially on t13 for flatten.AA wipe after meant a reset.

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Originally Posted by Post

The QooL that this game has received over the years is not as substantial as some other games (namely WoW) because it really hasn't needed that. But more to the point, the QooL hasn't significantly CHANGED FFXIV like it changed WoW.

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I think you're understating how miserable it would be for player now to try out 2.0 or 3.0. They only add QoL occasionally, but over the course of 10 years, it is pretty substantial and we'd miss so many things.

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FFXIV has always had PF, always had DF

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Restricted to worlds and that is a big deal. Allowing us to raid across worlds really changed the game, because there were people on dead worlds and more of a "raid with your FC" culture than a "PF it culture" or being able to form cross-world statics. PFing it on populated worlds led to meeting the same people a lot (this wasn't a good thing, particularly if you were landing in trap parties).

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The changes people focus on are the actual job and battle system changes that simply removed complexity or certain playstyles while offering little else in its place. Focusing on the QooL changes is kind of missing the forest for what people actually miss about that era.

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But it's relevant to a "classic" discussion because going back would lose too much QoL. And as I mentioned before, the things people want from that era weren't actually all that great (that's why they changed). They want something that resembles it but that is better tbh.

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I have more fun doing the Unreals than modern extremes because they're more fun to play

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I agree that Thordan is fun! But I honestly enjoy current extremes as well.

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I have more fun doing old savages MiNE than much of Pandemonium, despite MiNE being very poorly tuned in terms of what damage a good team is able to dish out, because the fight designs then had more than just visual variety.

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I still enjoy current ones, personally. I guess if you see P2S, P5S, P8S and P10S as just visual variety then alright. I don't. And even the others have unique stuff too.

Nightmare 2.0!


Maybe ARR wouldn't be so bad with our significantly smaller elitist population these days. :rolleyes:

I don't even know how to seriously answer the question because ARR and Heavensward were basically the same just Heavensward had more jobs and levels. It's like asking me if I want a vanilla milkshake or a vanilla milkshake with whipped cream on top.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

I don't even know how to seriously answer the question because ARR and Heavensward were basically the same just Heavensward had more jobs and levels. It's like asking me if I want a vanilla milkshake or a vanilla milkshake with whipped cream on top.

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I'll take Heavensward, because it wasn't just more levels and more jobs. It was more jobs and five more skills that fundamentally altered every job's rotation and the fundamental perception of tanks.

Prior to Heavenward you had that old FFXI brainset of, "Tank only need VIT accessories. Tank no need worry about damage. Tank just HP sponge that takes hits. I only use DPS stance if OT(and only PLD had an actual stance in OG Sword Oath)" If you swapped out of Defiance prior to HW, you got yelled at, and if you used STR accessories even in a mix, you'd get yelled at. I remember vividly causing a lot of butthurt out of some folks in the ARR 24 mans by using pure STR accessories on PLD. (everyone always neglected that STR accessories or hybrid made enmity a lot easier to manage, because even Flash was based off of ATP)

Other than that, it remains the only expansion to only add to jobs, not to take away from them, so there really wasn't a lot of talk like what plagued future expansions other than, "I wish BRD didn't cast!!!!!" (people really said I want the skill floor for BRD to be minimal). You never saw anyone say, "I want ARR DRG back!" or "I want ARR Monk back!" (and you still don't, really)

As far as QoL goes, everyone rejoiced at cooldowns resetting at wipe, but I vividly remember my own statics first rejoicing, but then kind of cursing, because if you were using PLD (many groups weren't in HW, mine were), then waiting however long sort of enforced a break time to get a drink, smoke, maybe talk about what went wrong a little more seriously than people do these days, because the option to pull was there, but alternate cooldown rotations almost always felt bad (usually for healers).

I think as far as this QoL goes, and also some other QoL, this playerbase has an issue with seeing the value in void minutes. I.E. If you can't do the main objective, then the best use of your time is to be constructive in another path or way. Socialization has never been strong in this game when actively engaged in the content, but those void minutes "lost to cooldown timers" had times where people cracked jokes or re-explained/examined strategy.

There can be value in something being "inconvenient."

Heavensward easily. I was having a lot more fun with the so called janky job design of that era.
But at some point I'd lose interest just because with how XIV works you really need more content beyond what was in the game by 3.58.

I find the hate for TP really stupid. You realise even though they removed TP its function got replaced with every flippin job having its own dumb gauge to spend anyway, right?

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

No.

The qol changes from later on are immense. No one would want arr classic or hw classic.

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You don't get to speak for everyone, Blizzard.

I just don't see why a classic ARR/HW would be worth the effort. The story exists and is required to go through to level up your character and with NG+ you can go back at anytime and relive the story. The raids exist and can be done synced/min ilvl if you want a bit of the original challenge. The only real thing you are missing out on is how the jobs played back then and I'd rather they take that effort and make jobs better for DT and future expansions.

The reason Blizzard went back to the classic days was the content from vanilla wow stopped existing in game when cataclysm expansion launched and the original wow world was rebuilt completely. There was a lot of nostalgia for the old days and people wanted to go back and experience content that didn't exist anymore combine that with how disjointed the story had become and how leveling itself had completely changed and there was a real reason to recreate the old experience in WoW.

Well I do have to agree I miss the early stuff too,

Yeah there have been QoL... but I cannot recall many QoL that really impacted me that much. Moreso it was just.. nice. But not so nice that it made any real noticable change to the way I approached the game. While I certainly don't miss the "Elitists" they're talking about from back during the time period as I agree they were equally annoying...but the reality is... a lot of those QoLs removed a lot of challenge, immersion, diversity of strategy, and fun from the game.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

Nightmare 2.0!


Maybe ARR wouldn't be so bad with our significantly smaller elitist population these days. :rolleyes:

I don't even know how to seriously answer the question because ARR and Heavensward were basically the same just Heavensward had more jobs and levels. It's like asking me if I want a vanilla milkshake or a vanilla milkshake with whipped cream on top.

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You want the vanilla milkshake with whipped cream on top. You know it ! ADMIT IT !