Harder to enjoy ARR as a 1.2X-era FF14 player?

Am I the only one finding it hard to enjoy ARR because of the things I miss from the original FF14?

I'm not just being nostalgic, I know that the original FF14 was really messed up. But by the time 1.2 came, the game had come a long way and I enjoyed it a lot.

These are the things I miss from the original FF14:

-The superior opening cutscenes
If there's anything the original FF14 team did right, it was those lovely opening cutscenes for each city. The parade in Ul'dah, the storm-battered ship to Limsa Lominsa, the memorable characters of Gridania. They were all much more exciting, well-animated, beautiful, and perfectly voice acted than the dinky, weird opening scenes we have now. ARR's beginning story quest cutscenes seem just as lame so far.

Please tell me the cutscenes get better at higher level story quests or something??

(continued in next post)

-The music
This one could be just me. I loved the original FF14 music by Nobuo Uematsu. Not to mention I've developed a bond to that music during my time playing 1.2-era FF14.

Did they really need to scrap all that?


-The UI aesthetics
Yes, overall the UI is way better now. But to me, the "modern" look of the UI clashes with the fantasy feel of the game. The original serif font and FF-ish UI aesthetic fit the world much better than the glowy, sci-fi-ish, sans-serif stuff we have now.

-The higher resolution textures
Don't go all apesh*t on me. I know this game is still beautiful. But the lower-res, granier textures on everything now are really distracting to me. I used to love how I could zoom in on little details in the original FF14 and it'd still look gorgeous.

I heard a rumor somewhere that they'll bring back the higher resolution textures for PC users when they release the PS4 version of ARR, at least...

-Not having to do boring quests to unlock everything
As a player who had already sunk tons of time into FF14, I really expected to be able to have my mounts, inn access, and so on unlocked as soon as I logged in. I was disappointed to learn that first I have to trudge through a ton of low-level "kill 3 of these mobs!" quests and fetch quests that comprise the early story quests.

I really hope the story quests get more interesting later on.

I feel like if I never enjoyed 1.2 FF14 I wouldn't even be aware of these downgrades, and I'd love the current game a lot more :\

I'd say you're HOPEFULLY alone in this but I know there are other misguided souls out there. I don't miss anything from 1.23, everything is there, mayhaps with a little bit of different presentation such as what was once an opening cutscene is now 10 levels worth of story, the way that Soken's music is simply amazingly incredible, he's done incredible things.
Can't say much about the textures, right now my game is playing better than 1.23 played, graphics-wise and damn- Why the hell ever would I want to 'unlock' anything or level up for? To do quests, of course! I like their story, their tales, even the simplest ones. I know what has always been the goal for me, so not having to labor and hunt for only a piddly handful of quests is amazing for me, personally

No, I'm with you.

I know liking Final Fantasy XIV pre-2.0 update, let alone pre-1.23, is taboo, but I for one did - but then I liked the game at its original release, actual problems aside and bar a few particular flaws.

All the same however I certainly agree with with your points. The game is vastly improved now in a lot of ways, but a lot of good things were lost in the rebuild and no matter what people will say, pre-2.0 Final Fantasy XIV the game was not 'utter crap', nor indeed pre-1.20. If it was, there'd have been no salvage attempt; we're playing in a setting created in large part by Hiromichi Tanaka's team. Yoshida's mob have done a lot of good but they themselves must have recognised there was good in Tanaka and co's work or they'd not have put so much effort into the rebuild.

I can say without a doubt that had I not enjoyed the game pre-2.0 as much as I did, particularly features that weren't carried over, then I would probably be enjoying v2.0 a great deal more than I am now. Not that I'm not having fun.

I always found the battle system around the end of 1.0 better than in 2.0 (minus the troubles with delay / lag, but even that is not completely gone now despite the ground markers). I've already thought in alpha and beta that it didn't feel as fun and exciting as it once did. It's the one thing I miss the most, other than the nice animations we had. But I stayed with the game because I love Eorzea and its history and I consider it my home. But sometimes I'm like... Darn, what did they do to this? ^^;

Couple of things I miss are the animations and the music but what I'm a bit dissapointed with, is the new world, while it's better than the old, some of the zones are quite small and not that immersive. I don't mind that the world isn't seamless and while the copy/paste world in 1.0 was painfull to move through, the scale of the world was good and exploring was fun.

In ARR, the Black Shroud area they did very well, it's quite big and immersive, with Thanalan and La Noscea I feel like they didn't quite succeed. When in Black Shroud I feel like I'm in a forest but when in Thanalan, I don't feel like I'm in the desert, also both Thanalan and La Noscea are very linear when compared to Black Shroud.

As much as I'm enjoying ARR, it's a bit cluttered and messy compared to 1.0. The UI and aesthetic of 1.0 was much cleaner looking, it's one of the features that really caught my interest when deciding to play it. Here are some screens to show what I mean.

A beautiful merchant strip in Limsa
http://i43.tinypic.com/25ro65t.jpg

Playing my DRG in skirmish
http://i41.tinypic.com/2w4d5w4.png

I really love the look of the old achievements menu
http://i44.tinypic.com/20jfwg9.png

The "downgrade" in textures is hardly that noticeable and will likely become a moot point altogether when they get DX11 support patched in. The lighting effects however are far superior to 1.0, not even in the same realm.

As for combat, I only miss that certain abilities are now on the GCD that I would rather not be, such as Shield Bash (needs it's own timer)

Also the quests are not boring in the least, did you try reading them? Much better than the drivel you find in many other games, at least their writing team put forth an effort to create a compelling story or humorous anecdotes and side-stories. Besides after level 15 you pretty much have free reign, but the game introduces you to how things work and gives you some direction.

I do miss Uematsus' score. But Soken has done a fantastic job , I can't complain too much!

Overall I enjoy ARR more, but I definitely can agree with some of this stuff. The opening cutscenes leave much to be desired, especially since the older ones were more engaging. I also enjoyed the music (mainly the fact that it was actually played) much more than the little teasers they implemented this time around.

I initially felt like the game was better looking before. To be fair though, that doesn't bother me anymore, as it's still a really pretty game.