ARR or Heavensward Classic

It's all in the name ! Choose.

No.

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

Probably neither. I started shortly into ARRs launch but didn't get far because I was still in the Navy. I'd end up losing that account - By the time I got out, HW was out and Stormblood would get announced many months later.

While I enjoyed my time it's not as though you can't experience the same content now. The game could use some tweaking numbers-wise to give old content back its oomph.
But on the whole, you don't really need a classic version as it stands now. I believe the game is in a good state in general. (some may disagree about this - but I feel like a lot of the jank is gone that was redundant. Lots of qol also)

It's kinda funny actually, there was a topic of conversation about potentially letting players skip our Hydaelyn Zodiark story because its so long.
I think that this is better actually.
Games are supposed to expand the content. That's sort of why I fell out of love with "World" of Warcraft. Became less of a world and more of a "Continent" of Warcraft per expansion.
It lost that nice sense of progression in completing content because you could just bypass it all and go congregate at the end.

In FF14 you can play through ARR and HW on at least a technical level and I enjoyed that the most because when you do those MSQ quests, when you do that quest chain to unlock bonus dungeons, bonus trials, the raids.
It's like it's happening for you - for the first time. I wouldn't pass on that for anything because it was a fun experience.

If there is a demand for a "classic" version of the game - we'll see. For now I think the game lets you play through the expansions almost evergreen.

How about a robust 7.x, and 8.x instead-?

How much new content are you willing to give up for nostalgia?

I'll take a Heavensward Classic and a 64oz slushie to go, please.

The only benefit of a classic version would be getting the missing parts of ARR MSQ back instead of losing them forever.

Can't play as Hroth. 0/10. Heard the jobs were fun back then tho. Would gladly play a modern version with those ported up.

Scholar is a job that existed back then, so I'd play it for that reason. I'd rather healers just not being atrociously designed, but if that's the only way for Scholar to be a real job again, then I'll take what I can get.

I'd honestly gladly take back all the inconveniences like cooldowns not resetting on wipe, running out of TP naturally and having to queue up for the raid at the entrance if it meant I can get HW SCH, MCH and SMN back.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

The only benefit of a classic version would be getting the missing parts of ARR MSQ back instead of losing them forever.

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Like that part of the quest to go see Ramuh, where the sylphs disguise themselves as the Scions and you have to figure out who's real and who's fake along the way. That element was cut out of the MSQ, but there's still mention of doubt over "the real Thancred" or something. For newer players who never experienced this quest in its original form, that makes no sense at all.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

Like that part of the quest to go see Ramuh, where the sylphs disguise themselves as the Scions and you have to figure out who's real and who's fake along the way. That element was cut out of the MSQ, but there's still mention of doubt over "the real Thancred" or something. For newer players who never experienced this quest in its original form, that makes no sense at all.

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IIRC it doesn't quite make no sense because you arrive at the tail end of the chaos to all of them still talking about the sylphs pranking them, but it's still a major loss and any time the topic of the ARR adjustments comes up, people always raise this as an example of them being too brutal with their editing. It really should have only lost the minor step of helping some no-name Wood Wailers recover from being powder-bombed, while retaining all the part with the Scions.

At minimum, they really should have turned a lot of the cut quests into sidequests that pop up at the appropriate points, especially if quests involving the major characters can have some kind of "temporarily available detour" that has to be done at that point or you miss out.

Someday I'd like to do a "quest review" thing and look at what should have been kept or not. There are some things that would have been better retained, while other parts of MSQ still have some pointless bogging-down that could go.

Neither. I prefer a mixture of HW and Stormblood. Remove TP, keep aggro management with tank stance and dps stance, keep cleric stance

Anyone who played since then knows how much Quality of Life we've had since then. It's easy to forget just how much we've had, but if any of us went back to then, we'd miss all the Quality of Life and want to return to now.

Contrary to what you see everyone say, most of what SE has done since ARR has been improving the game.

There is far too much Quality of Life for me to even remember off the top of my head, but they include things like cooldown resets upon wiping, not needing to level another class to 15 to unlock your job, not needing to level other jobs for basic role actions, removal of bloat like Featherfoot and Keen Flurry, action/ability upgrading so we don't have to make macros, cone targeting, disable right-click selection of minions and players in battle, hide quest list during instanced duty, alliance raid roulette, normal raid roulette, cross-world PF, [Duty Complete], [Duty Complete (Weekly Reward Unclaimed)], [Practice], PF search, sounds when a party fills, world visiting, DC travel, having 999 stacks instead of 99, being able to teleport to a dungeon boss arena after it locks if you didn't get there in time, listing teleport destinations by expansion, PLD having aoes, tanks having aoe combos, tanks physical mits now mitting everything, not needing to face a target to auto, not needing to face a target to block, ranged attacks not resetting your combo, combos taking longer to expire, buff timers displaying in the party list, waymark saving, more waymarks, mount speed increases (we used to move super slow due to PS3), chocobos no longer in the party so you can queue for duties with it out, double the max food and gysahl green duration, flying in ARR and all mounts can fly, a 4000 cap on hunt currencies instead of 1000, old tomestone gear is pre-augmented, mount and minion favorites, New Game+, unlock quests being blue...

There are a few things people miss from these expansions. But it really is just a few things. Most of it would be a nightmare if we went back. And it's not that they really want things to be as they were then, but rather that they want things to be punishing or sophisticated in the way they were then but not in the same way.

For example, there could be more complex substats... but I don't think people really want them to be like Heavensward like they claim. Because then we had parry, an RNG stat for useless physical mitigation; we had physical mitigation like Foresight and Sheltron and Raw Inuition, elemental mitigation that was useful against only a specific cast in specific fights and therefore useless, and Accuracy which you had to stack to 100% or your combos got interrupted all the time. The substat system was more complex, sure, but not in a good way and I think people mean to do it in a "good way" rather than to copy Heavensward.

All that's really gone from that era could mostly be simulated in the current game by tweaking battle content stuff:
Direct Hit as a stat doesn't apply outside of like... BRD's Battle Voice chance until level 61 (it was introduced in StB; enemy's hp was never balanced to address this outside of specific rebalanced fights like story Ultima Weapon)
Basic weapons kill/spell potencies get associated boosting traits for every expansion level range instead of only at 84 (so combos aren't hitting 1.5x as hard as they did when that content was current)
Remove Vit from pre ShB accessories except fending

It's impossible to put the genie back into the bottle with regards to:
enmity (even just supercharging tank stances enmity generation at 71+ would leave every other job devoid of the many enmity management tools they once had)
AoE damage (was once greatly tied to TP and MP costs as a limiting factor and was also one of BLM's original strengths being resource-free; now fights like t4 and a2s are even more laughably trivial comparatively to their peers; this also doubled down on how trivial dungeon trash is to wall to wall pull)
Dungeon mechanics (trusts exist now and their battle design wasn't made with AI companions in mind, so now we just design around their inability to do things players can do, like yeah while moving, react to other players or reposition enemies)
Maybe the last one could be alleviated going forward by making separate trust versions of dungeons, but at this point not many people seem to think people wanting more variety in dungeons are worth giving a shit about.

Edit for above: reset cooldowns on wipe was a HW change.
The dungeon boss teleport actually forces you into a boss, even interrupts a cutscene you may be watching and rewarding players that don't wait until their team is ready to pull
We still have purely physical and magical mitigation
Keen Flurry provided a way to mitigate and survive certain attacks for DRG (which were more plentiful in that era of the game), who now has nothing but hp recovery, also a tool from that era of the game from both bloodbath (MRD) and Second Wind (PGL)
I get what you're trying to say, but many of these QooLs are just 'differences'. Hell, we could teleport and return in combat in ARR, but they REMOVED that one for some reason.
The game's largely the same except they've removed a ton of systems from battle content and added basically nothing in their place.

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Originally Posted by Chelsei

It's all in the name ! Choose.

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They won't be what you remember. You know too much now.

https://imgur.com/XNnis6v.png

Heavensward. But only for the Monk Gameplay. That was way better then the current one. But to be honest, the current one ist the worst version of Monk.

I started playing literally a month or so before SB release so I'd be curious to see how things actually were during HW, but also have to admit that I'd be greatly demotivated to play due to the lack of DNC, Hrothgar, a significant part of my glamours, and the 4.0 hairstyle I've had on my Roe since. Yes, I am vain like that lol

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Originally Posted by Yuella

Neither. I prefer a mixture of HW and Stormblood. Remove TP, keep aggro management with tank stance and dps stance, keep cleric stance

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TP was still a thing in both expansions.

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

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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 !

Still thinking there is a place for a FFXIV Retail and Classic :)

It's not that i don't like what the devs are doing right now but... what we loved back then (jobs gameplay) is not coming back, so...

HW was peak XIV, so HW classic for me

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

No auto-dismount when talking to NPCs.

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Oh god, I remember this nonsense. You couldn't queue for a dungeon if you had Chocobo Companion active. And correct me if I'm misremembering, but it was even stupider in the other direction -- if you summoned Chocobo Companion while you were already in a dungeon queue, it automatically kicked you out of the queue without warning..?

I'm a sick man, I'd happily Take a ARR Classic if it was something we could mess around with on the side.

Just ... No.

Bow Mage was not a pretty thing.

I think if people really want a XIV Classic then the devs should come up with a list of "These are all the QoL changes that will be removed" and see if people still want it.

If prior to Shadowbringers, they had explained that one of the QoL changes that would be removed from healers was any and all forms of fun, I can tell you what my answer would've been...

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

There is far too much Quality of Life for me to even remember off the top of my head, but they include things like cooldown resets upon wiping, not needing to level another class to 15 to unlock your job, not needing to level other jobs for basic role actions, removal of bloat like Featherfoot and Keen Flurry, action/ability upgrading so we don't have to make macros, cone targeting, disable right-click selection of minions and players in battle, hide quest list during instanced duty, alliance raid roulette, normal raid roulette, cross-world PF, [Duty Complete], [Duty Complete (Weekly Reward Unclaimed)], [Practice], PF search, sounds when a party fills, world visiting, DC travel, having 999 stacks instead of 99, being able to teleport to a dungeon boss arena after it locks if you didn't get there in time, listing teleport destinations by expansion, PLD having aoes, tanks having aoe combos, tanks physical mits now mitting everything, not needing to face a target to auto, not needing to face a target to block, ranged attacks not resetting your combo, combos taking longer to expire, buff timers displaying in the party list, waymark saving, more waymarks, mount speed increases (we used to move super slow due to PS3), chocobos no longer in the party so you can queue for duties with it out, double the max food and gysahl green duration, flying in ARR and all mounts can fly, a 4000 cap on hunt currencies instead of 1000, old tomestone gear is pre-augmented, mount and minion favorites, New Game+, unlock quests being blue...

There are a few things people miss from these expansions. But it really is just a few things. Most of it would be a nightmare if we went back. And it's not that they really want things to be as they were then, but rather that they want things to be punishing or sophisticated in the way they were then but not in the same way.

For example, there could be more complex substats... but I don't think people really want them to be like Heavensward like they claim. Because then we had parry, an RNG stat for useless physical mitigation; we had physical mitigation like Foresight and Sheltron and Raw Inuition, elemental mitigation that was useful against only a specific cast in specific fights and therefore useless, and Accuracy which you had to stack to 100% or your combos got interrupted all the time. The substat system was more complex, sure, but not in a good way and I think people mean to do it in a "good way" rather than to copy Heavensward.

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Okay nevermind, Jeeq has a good list here. I mean I would think DC travel alone would be a dealbreaker. Do people who want Classic really only want to be able to queue with those on that DC? The queues would probably be worse than Dynamis.

I would never play on it because ye olden days are absolute garbage. But I fully support this idea if it gets the homogenization whiners to clam down at last as they enjoy their miserable garbage rotations that are ~*so player expressive and complicated*~. And also laugh at warrior mains as they yearn for death until like 2.1.

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Originally Posted by Arkdra

I would never play on it because ye olden days are absolute garbage. But I fully support this idea if it gets the homogenization whiners to clam down at last as they enjoy their miserable garbage rotations that are ~*so player expressive and complicated*~. And also laugh at warrior mains as they yearn for death until like 2.1.

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The last part was gold ! XD