Do new players miss out on certain things that vets got to experience?

[Hyunckel]

But there's no reason for Lightning to return, though... lore-wise, anyway. First two times made sense because of the release of the game. Third time was for the anniversary, but that was pushing it.

Anyway, one thing new players will never get to experience (unless they group up with three other new players) is the "first time" experience for level 50 dungeons. If they just queue up in Duty Finder, there's a very high chance they'll be forced to speed run and miss out on admiring landscapes, etc.

Then let's hope it'll come into the cash shop, like the kabuto helmets or halloween helmets. I couldn't care less for the lore-wise reasonning

[MasamuneBranford]

The only big missables are the 1.0 storyline, 1.0 hildebrand storyline, 1.0 quests, the 1.0 dalamud storyline (couple dozen missions / unique boss battles / unique villains / unique battlefields / unique armor rewards) and the 1.0 grand company rank quests). Those who completed the 1.0 storyline got an achievement called "once in a lifetime" and their 2.0 storyline was different as various Npcs all remembered the previous deeds of your character.

[kyuven]

Original Atma drop rate xD.

Anyone who misses that needs their head examined and/or needs to seriously re-evaluate their priorities.

[Renik]

The battle of ishgard sounds like an 1 time event to me, like the fall of dalamud and the garlean attack. it could be a closure event like these, make sure to be there just in case.

[Enkidoh]

I actually doubt very much that SE would make this so-called 'Battle of Ishgard' quest a 'one time only' event though - it's more likely to be just another trial battle like Primal fights, as remember, the Fall of Dalamud/Seventh Umbral Era events in 1.0 were to send the original game off with a bang, due to 1.0 always planned to be shutdown and then be completely replaced by ARR - not to mention it was to provide a logical reason for how and why the environments and maps in ARR were completely changed from their 1.0 originals.

Heavensward, on the other hand, is just an expansion pack to ARR, and all existing story quests will be still be completely playable for new players once the expansion is released. After all, it's not like SE removed the Shadowlord fight once Rise of the Zilart was added in FFXI. Expansion packs just add to the game's story and content, not completely replace existing content.

As SE stated the 'Battle of Ishgard' is to provide the stepping stone from the existing '2.0' story into Heavensward, and with the existing storyline being kept intact once the expansion releases for any new players just joining, there is no reason for SE to make this event 'once only'. But I guess we'll find out in due course.

[Zerocamus]

Batle of ishgard> cape westwind or batle on the big bridge. Some sort of battle on the bridge to ishgard, against lots of dragons and posibly nidhog who flees in the end. Leading the higher ranks of ishgard to ask for our help and opening their dors to us.

[Odett]

You won't really miss much on the fights themselves, but rather the experience you have with the fights. Like back in 2.0, beating Titan HM for the first time and feeling accomplished as hell with your shiny new relic, or beating T5 without the echo, and T7 without the nerf, but that's really all there is. You still get to experience all these fights, you'll just have a different perception of them.

[Juneri]

You won't really miss much on the fights themselves, but rather the experience you have with the fights. Like back in 2.0, beating Titan HM for the first time and feeling accomplished as hell with your shiny new relic, or beating T5 without the echo, and T7 without the nerf, but that's really all there is. You still get to experience all these fights, you'll just have a different perception of them.

Exactly. You can still do the content, but it's just not quite the same. I'm sure T5 was hard when it came out, but it only took a couple sessions for me to get through, probably within a week or two of 50. This really hit home when I finally went back to do some of the older level 50 dungeons later on, e.g. Wanderer's Palace. The videos and guides made it seem decently challenging, and I'm sure it was hard indeed back in the day, but in practice we just burned through everything super quick due to the power creep since then.

[Moontide]

Having played during 2.0/early 2.1 and picking things up recently again on a new character, I can say that new players are mostly missing on
+ Monotonous FATE grind parties
+ Way more bots & RMT spam
+ Higher percentage of self-centered jerks
- More challenging dungeons due to everyone being new and not overgeared
- Less social pressure to skip group instance cutscenes because you're the only one new

[Kiara1]

There is a nerf SE added called Echo
Which is basically a buff for players who suck. And unfortunately you are not gonna get to see the old content when it was hard because most people are overgeared and the echo buff.