Any ARR 2.0-2.55 players? Tell us your experience during those times.

Can be any, like something fun/weird/annoying/stressfull/boring/etc experience.

Also something that you missed during those times, like systems/job skill/etc

I miss going into Labyrinth of the Ancients and Syrcus Tower and actually seeing boss mechanics. ARR is also what made me hate doing Fates so much, because they were the most optimal way to level alt jobs at launch. I was 100% over them by the time 2.1 came around and I continue to hate doing them to this day.

It's hard to describe what it was like back then. Everything was new. It was all exciting. Every patch was fun. I still miss the feeling I had when I was raiding Coil. It's something no other raid has given me. People here like to talk about how bad ARR is. It wasn't bad then. It was incredibly fun.

I miss how you had to think more before engaging packs in dungeons.
Like using Sleep spell was used whenever possible.
Was important to pull 1 pack at a time a lot of times, as more could prove fatal.
And non-magic-user jobs used TP for skills and could run out of it if spamming TP-heavy skills.
Using Sprint drained all TP so that was a no-no during fights.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

I miss how you had to think more before engaging packs in dungeons.
Like using Sleep spell was used whenever possible.
Was important to pull 1 pack at a time a lot of times, as more could prove fatal.

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I don't think it was really. I remember wall pulling in WP and AK even back in i90 gear. Sleep was just used to make it so you didn't have to kill trash mobs, you just bypassed them and locked them out with the boss wall when you pulled. That's why they added the forced parts to both dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I don't think it was really. I remember wall pulling in WP and AK even back in i90 gear. Sleep was just used to make it so you didn't have to kill trash mobs, you just bypassed them and locked them out with the boss wall when you pulled. That's why they added the forced parts to both dungeons.

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sure, endgame 2.0-2.55 one could do so with higher gear.
I did runs with all tanks that went better and faster than a normal group setup.

was more refering to during leveling.
the feeling of adventure and danger.
that's something really missing in a lot of MMOs lately.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

sure, endgame 2.0-2.55 one could do so with higher gear.
I did runs with all tanks that went better and faster than a normal group setup.

was more refering to during leveling.
the feeling of adventure and danger.
that's something really missing in a lot of MMOs lately.

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When I first started I remember reading books while using one hand to tank dungeons....

It wasn't that much harder back then. Everyone was just new.

Sure those same dungeons are easier now. But that's due to a multitude of reasons. One of them is potency increases. Another is the way ilvl sync works. They changed it at some point either late ARR or in HW to sync to HQ stats instead of NQ. That also had a lot to do with stuff getting drastically easier.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

When I first started I remember reading books while using one hand to tank dungeons....

It wasn't that much harder back then. Everyone was just new.

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well everyone have different experiences I guess.
just because I had it one way doesn't mean it was always like that.
have to remember that it's a personal point of view, not a fact.
neither is more right or wrong than the other, as like said, everyone have different experiences.

FATE farming *jumps off a cliff*

I’ll never forget unlocking carpenter and having a blast then finding out I could get every job

I remember the old map...

Chocobo not being a given, you had to work to get a significant number of GC seals at level for it.

Titan HM was challenging, and you couldn't queue for it. So people stood around in Mor Dhona looking for parties like classical MMORPGs, and everyone wanted to do it because he's the last step to finishing a vanilla Relic Weapon. Taught me the value of getting more expensive tome gear first; accessories might be cheaper but they do nothing for your VIT, which was a necessity for surviving his party-wide AoEs.

Demon Wall was a real challenge.

Relic Atmas were super low drop rate. Could go days farming FATEs for them, only to find out in the end all they really did was palette swap the Relic Weapon and you had to do another long-ass grind afterward to actually make it better.

3 new dungeons per patch was god-damn heaven, compared to 1 these days.

Catboys everywhere.

I made it to the end of ARR and then HW dropped the week after.

It was pretty magical, ngl.

I think I started during that time. I recall Fate farming Dark Devices in Ceruleum Processing Plant and ppl getting pissed if it ended early.

I absolutely LOVED doing dungeons and fighting in general. All the jank that some people say when referring to the job design was actually enjoyable to me. Protect, cleric stance, aggro management, being a healer with proper buffs like a real FF game, etc...

I remember a lot of the old glitches you could use to get out of bounds. There used to be holes in the map in Outer La Noscea and Costa that were really fun to explore. The monstrous potency with no falloff damage that Holy and Flare used to have were really satisfying. Leveling all of my crafters and being delighted by the cool cross-class skills that had a real impact on getting your other classes up; having a 50 weaver with Careful Synth 2 was excellent when starting over with a new class to level. Houses weren't impossible to find. I don't miss Northern Thanalan FATE farming for that awkward leveling gap in the mid 40s when there wasn't much else to do for experience.

Pharos Sirius oh i loved that dungeon it hit hard and then they nerfed it but it was good, Arum Vale before it became easy was quite fun and everyone hoped for SMN/BLM or WHM to be able to take down the adds of the last boss haha. Amdapor Keep and Wanderers Palace the level 50 dungeons to get the Darklight armour, haha could basically run to each boss and lockout the adds, bummer if a player died. Oh i miss my dots as a scholar.

I suppose I remember the original fate chain dark devices in Northern Thanalan when we were level capped at 50 where we would all aoe the hell out of one of the fates to level by never completing fate properly it was insane XP till it was nerfed. ARR wasn't so bad I think for me as we took the content as it came out as it was all had nothing else so the levelling and number of quests didn't seem as bad as people who go through all expansions.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Demon Wall was a real challenge.

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Those bees still give me nightmares..... ;_;

Or when the tanks (or someone didnt have to be a tank) would accidentally aggro mobs from those two rooms in Stone Vigil. Until the higher gear and such Those two rooms were hell and only one was optional. >.<

I started the game back in beta 4 on PS3.

It was my first MMO and I started with 3 friends, eventually we were joined by 2 more. Everything was a new experience. Even with the slower parts of the story we were still having fun fighting classic FF bosses in the trials as we unlocked them.

We really struggled in some dungeons. I remember grinding Ifrit HM for the weapon to make it easier to beat Demon Wall in AK and to help get past the dps check of Titan HM's heart. I was reeeeeally bad at the game back then and ignoring a lot of my skills as a Bard. It was honestly playing in 8 man instances with strangers and seeing other Bards in action that encouraged me to use more of my skills.

I remember on the run where I finally got my Ifrit Bow the party nearly wiped but I was able to save the day with the Bard LB3 which was the same as the healer LB at the time.
A lot of us were pretty bad at the game back then. I remember Ifrit HM groups disbanding if we didn't have a caster to LB the nails or a Paladin to stun Eruptions. The DF couldn't fill parties in progress for trials at launch.

We had to level multiple classes for cross class skills. As a Bard I needed Pugilist and Lancer for their damage buffs. Roulettes didn't exist, so FATE parties were a common way to level. I remember being excited when chains like the Highbridge fates in East Thanalan and the Svara ones in Coerthas spawned.

Glamour didn't exist at launch. I remember hating my Darklight bard sandals.

I and a lot of my friends fell in love with Ishgard during the ARR story so it was a dream come true when Heavensward sent us there.

Edit: I really miss the Flaming Arrow ground aoe on bard it was fun.
I vaguely remember Rain of Death having an additional effect on it that lowered enemy damage but it was taken away and given to one of the Warrior combo finishers instead.
Ah yes there's an old salt topic about it on Reddit haha

It was a wonderful era, you could find players around every corner exploring, doing content , asking for groups instead of having the whole server in Limsa/Uldah wearing shirts/sneakers/short pants and doing bee dance 24/7 pretending to playing some alternative version of Second Life/Sims.

People were more friendly and nobody cared about you "social status/logs/gppse/mods" back in ARR we didn't have players crying or having "anxiety " about everything unlike now.

Also farming Atmas was the peak of rage in shout chat.

Probably most ppl will recall the bees in AK and actually having to communicate and formulate a plan of attack and when to use the LB just outside the boss arena, assuming you still had the LB after the first failed attempt. I still remember IB healing 300% and dying to death sentence in T5 because holmgang wasn't an invuln at the time but that was immediately fixed among other things. It was more game focused as opposed to lifestyle focused just as Annram said about the casual afk's in limsa which actually wasn't the case back then since ppl did that in mor dhona.

Just a shame FFXIV doesn't give newer players that sense of overcoming adversity in content that's not extreme or higher. I will say playing on PS3 it was brutal and you basically had to telegraph attacks due to shotty code and server pings with titan being notable as a group killer.

I guess the best analogy is like going from Demons Souls to Dark Souls. ARR set a lot of the foundation but was super jank with HW taking that and cranking it to the extreme and nearly perfecting it. You will never see Attack Power increases in any buffs after 4.1 because that is utterly broken and it was given to a tank, which was 50% in ARR only to be nerfed to the ground till we have just 100% direct hit crits.

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Originally Posted by kevin_satron

Can be any, like something fun/weird/annoying/stressfull/boring/etc experience.

Also something that you missed during those times, like systems/job skill/etc

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Good memory

• Only having to kill 3 enemies for a quest.
• Seeing Ul'dah and a bright sunny day with a sultan tree for the first cutscene. It made me want to login.
• Having this tease about a group I was going to join and fighting these masked mages and an up and down story up to level 50.
• Not having aoe on Gladiator so I had to switch targets to spread out single-target attacks and gain enmity to prevent BLM aoe from pulling enemies from me.
• Only having cure available in low level dungeons, which were half of the dungeons in the game then and using Cleric Stance to DPS.
• Doing fate trains in places like Coerthas Central Highlands and Northern Thanalan. These died when POTD released and was considered a better way to level alts.

Annoying memories

• Getting into Brayflox normal and dying in seconds as a tank to a single pack because MSQ gear wasn't good enough. Had to go and unlock PLD, buy HQ crafted gear and food.
• Having to level a conjurer to 15 to unlock PLD.
• Cross-class skills feeling useless and abandoned.
• Having to manually compare gear for alt jobs because there was no Recommended Gear button.
• Not understanding where the exits on the map were because we had no red arrows then.
• Having to explain to people what an enmity combo is.
• Having everyone run ahead of me in Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium, skipping cutscenes. After many years, they forced you to watch cutscenes and then split them into three, but only after it had ruined a lot of people's experience.
• Not having RP tags so it had to be hidden in people's search info.

We have had a lot of quality of life changes since then and it can be hard to remember just how bad it was then compared to now.

I miss stance dancing and cross-class skills, but they had good reasons why they had to go. Stance dancing was not something most people would do (they would stay in defense stance all the time, or offense stance all the time, depending on whether the player valued defense or dps more). Using skills from other classes was interesting but pressured you to level all of them, or the abilities were useless, sub-optimal and poorly designed (such as an attack you can only use when the boss is at 20% health or a dot with low potency and low duration).

Element stats were useless, but they were interesting and I liked having the freedom to meld them and use element potions to try to gain a fun advantage against a mechanic. They were removed because they could only confuse new players and we were getting an element mechanic in Eureka.

I played FFXIV since 2.3 and it's pretty interesting overall.

- Some housing item that will destroyed if you put it back to inventory (especially primals furniture).
- If you wanna change between SMN to SCH and vice versa, you better reset the stat points for the BiS...
- Spiritbonding at Urth's Found with crafting gear because the crafting materia were pretty rare. (Also spiritbonding battle gear for Novus steps...)
- ARR FATE were pretty crowded since DPS queue took so long...
- The glamours were pretty limited and it's like Coeurl swimsuit, Sailor, or Nightgown...
- Frontline with WHM Holy were pretty chaotic that SE had to disable Holy in PvP mode...
- Crafting with Hasty Touch until SB... Oh the RNG...
- Skipping cutscenes at Praetorium and Castrum.
- SCH without Esuna at Brayflox is quite chaotic. (Because SCH Esuna unlocked at level 40...)
- Marauder/WAR TP issue that makes them marking the mobs one by one so DPS don't pull others.
- SMN wasted MP so much that sometimes you had to use Energy Drain instead of Fester...
- Healer gear with accuracy completely gone after YoshiP insisted healer to heal, which is why started on ilvl 120-130, healers had to meld accuracy only for DPSing... (WHM was in rough spot because all of their DoT need accuracy while SCH's Bio and Bio 2 don't need accuracy)

Probably I'll add some if I remember something interesting :)

It was a magical time. We were all new to boot. One of my fondest memories from back then was learning to do Titan EX.

I had ilvl72, I think it was my first EX ever. This was in the days where Titan could choose to do like 10 RNG stomps in a row and would kill all DPS and healers if they weren't actively countering it. Stomps would specially kill me if I didn't switch to Fists of Earth! I was a MNK and my friend BRD. He ran the game on a toaster and Titan could knock him off the stage with like a 5 second delay sometimes. It was hilarious, friends in the FC and I kept dying but learning. For our first clear our experienced WHM kited Titan around the stage for a solid couple of minutes, he was the last man standing. I'll never forget the eruption of joy over coms. Better yet, we went right back in to re-clear. I was already having a great time but God, that fight made me fall in love with this game. Eventually we farmed him and learned him so well that when we had to do Titan HM, it felt harder because of the different, slower bomb pattern.

I'll probably come back tomorrow when it's not 5AM to post some more, I love to reminisce and hear other peoples' stories.

300 being the weekly cap for currency and everything still being the same prices they are today was awful. Took 3 weeks to get your body/pants.

Titan hard mode being a gatekeeper for starting your relic due to awful ping and instant tankbusters and aoes.

Spamming castrum meridianum to be able to buy darklight.

Raid bosses not having cast times for aoes or busters.

Everyone being ninja and mobbing fates when it came out.

Good times, simple times.

Cross class skills.

I don't honestly remember too much about that time period.... though I'll say I really don't miss missing queue pops as a dps because I was doing hildi quests and I couldn't skip the cutscenes fast enough because slow mechanical HDD.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

sure, endgame 2.0-2.55 one could do so with higher gear.
I did runs with all tanks that went better and faster than a normal group setup.

was more refering to during leveling.
the feeling of adventure and danger.
that's something really missing in a lot of MMOs lately.

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Not a fan of punishing danger in my MMOs.

Adventure, sure. Danger? not so much.

ARR has is flaws, but holy fudge it was fun and game felt alive. Now the game felt automatic and damn boring to predict. SHB and EW what's the difference really I just see the same game over again.

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Originally Posted by Knot_D

- Spiritbonding at Urth's Found with crafting gear because the crafting materia were pretty rare. (Also spiritbonding battle gear for Novus steps...)

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Ohhh yes. I remember converting gear to materia would destroy the gear so materia was really expensive.

I remember early on there was an argument that Arcanist was stronger than Summoner due to cross class skills like Blood for Blood. Marauder was popular in PVP over Warrior due to having access to lots of DPS cross class skills.

Edit: I remember being too much of a noob to learn the mechanics of Coil Turn 2 so I would join 3 healer parties in PF that would just let the last node enrage and heal through the raidwide damage.

For me, the most exciting part of 2.0-55 was the continuation of the MSQ. It really impressed me just how much story content we got in each patch, though I understand why now it has had to be streamlined. We got to do things from fight Leviathan, encounter the mysterious Yugiri, battle the zealot Lady Iceheart and then endure that harrowing night in Ul'dah. Not to mention the fact it brought in one of the main enemies/npcs from my Dragoon Job quests as a major character! The fact it left us three months away from the expansion as homeless fugitives, with most of the Scions presumed dead and Alphinaud a broken husk, was shocking and amazing. I enjoyed ARR, but it was in these patches that I truly grew to love the lore and story.

The good old days, when the bosses hit hard, 24 man raids had damage and mechanics and sometimes forced a random player to take a 30 minute penalty because it locked the first area off at the start meaning no one could progress.
Spamming both LotA and Brayflox Hard mode for 1500 Myth tomes to do the book step of relic.
WHM Divine Seal Regen being super busted.
Inner Beast on Warrior and both PLD and WAR having the ability to drop Tank stance for more damage.
Monk being soooooo good to play. It was basic but man was it fun just going fast and mauling bosses.
Seeing Mor Dhona flooded with players at cap on their mounts.
Gathering around Urths Gift with spiritbonding gear on to get grade 4 materia to make money and for relics.
Funny wipe moments when someone moved during Blighted Bouquet in T6.
Gathering around the raid entrance on raid nights and seeing your fello raiders waiting also. Actual interaction with others.

Ah ARR just take me back now.

Well I really enjoyed my time during ARR, the best 2 years of my online gaming time, it heavily reminded me of the first years of WoW, with how things were kinda new to me.
I surely had my terrible times but also my fair share good times, I remember running in Ul'dah everyday to greet my friends, and we'd occasionally jump in a dungeon or trials whenever we could.
Also how I had to get help from a friend because nobody could get turn 9. God Bless him for the help.

Then HW came and everything went downhill for me. Oh well, life goes on.

Dragoon was in a pretty rough place until 2.4, pretty much the only time it wasn't welcome in groups.
Not being able to queue for duties if you had your Chocobo out. Your queue being cancelled if you accidentally brought your Chocobo out.
TP being a thing, which meant physical classes couldn't use sprint in combat if they didn't have invigorate available. Also meant you couldn't AoE indefinitely without becoming TP dry very quickly.
The cross class system which meant you have to level other jobs to get key skills for your own.
PLD being able to raise out of combat.
EU servers being located in Canada so ping was a nightmare.
Vase off, Skinchange and the emoting Gates.

Completing castrum wall to wall pulls, taking all the mobs into the boss rooms XD..

FATE leveling in Northern Thanalan...

Rage of halone till the end of time paladin combo, with flash as your primary means of holding aoe aggro .

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

I absolutely LOVED doing dungeons and fighting in general. All the jank that some people say when referring to the job design was actually enjoyable to me. Protect, cleric stance, aggro management, being a healer with proper buffs like a real FF game, etc...

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Yeah, I miss using TP, aggro management, helping out other jobs with your abilities. It felt like a team effort. These days it feels more like 8 people happen to be fighting the same enemy.

Seeing Ishgard from afar without being allowed entry and only getting little revelations via quests felt pretty magical, too. :)

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Yeah, I miss using TP, aggro management, helping out other jobs with your abilities.

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MNK and WAR in shambles...

Also dying and using sprint turns your TP to 0...

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Originally Posted by Knot_D

Also dying and using sprint turns your TP to 0...

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Exactly. Retreating actually had a modicum of depth and decision making. Nowadays you run past everything with your chocobo anyway.

people sold titan hard clears for 300-600k (which back then was a LOT of gil) because the servers were so bad a lot of ppl struggled lol

started playing game at 2.0 on playstation 2 with hdd later changed to computer it has been a fun ride.ps my best time was running thru areas with no map to get the map to pop up always set my local crystal so when i died i could go back and start up wherer i left off.

It's a love-hate relationship.

On one hand of the coin, everything really had a bit of substance and you'd see/learn a lot just simply progressing through the game, and quite a lot of things did feel punishing, whether or not these were for the right reasons does vary.

You had a great deal of stuff to do back then, or at least it felt like it since most facets of the game were investment intensive (e.g., crafting back in those times was a lot more demanding than it is now). I liked the feeling that some facets of the game just simply demanded attention. This gave a sense of content, despite the game overall having less content back then in every sense.

But on the other hand, how intensive some areas were, and most especially the quests as part of the main story were an absolute annoyance and were part of the reason that I dropped the game for a while. That being said, it's a lot better now in this department.

I think one of the golden moments for me though was the whole... Well, in the absence of deep dungeons and in the absence of squadrons FATE trains were a lot more attractive back then than they are now, so it did give a lot more sense of wonder and population in the world. Now it just feels like an uninhabited wasteland 90% of the time. I feel in this way things have regressed. Open world FATE trains for leveling back then was just like pleasure, honestly.