Stuff I Miss From 1.0

[Balipu]

Okay, I read the comments, watched the videos And I have a verdict on 1.0 as final as it can be without actually playing it.
Stuff is broken down into three categories. Glad it got changed, understand why it was changed, want to change back.
Glad
Large, expansive contentless world with very little people in it and large chunks of it inaccessible due to monsters way above level gap guarding basically nothing that would make it worth going there.
- Maybe it's just me, but I don't play a multiplayer game to escape from people. Sure the zones are small, but that's still better as it is filled with stuff and that stuff can be done.
Solution: Large, expansive world with content and people with large chunks of it only accessible with groups, due to monsters slightly above level cap hiding secret lore object, treasures or both.
Being able to to wear gear of different classes far below the recommended level and most skills being cross class.
- Variety is cool but not having a level gap defeats one of the purposes of leveling, and with the gear and ability mix match classes become non-existent really. That also includes iconic FF classes and their iconic looks.
Understand
The better animations(dat pugilist), better graphics and more open world
- Hate to admit it, but some things like the characters look miles better. Still, I can totally understand how that would cause huge FPS drops in crowded areas like cities and raids. I can only hope that with time we can come back to this level. (with butts of course)
Lack of duty finder.
-True, having to walk around the world makes you more of a part of it, but it makes doing dugeons that much longer. Consequently, you can do less each day. Would make farming allagan tomestones a pain in the not implemented butt.
Want it back
Being able to attack parts of the enemy(this sounds neat, why is it gone?)
Getting xp gradually in a fight and therefore getting some even if you die(again, thumbs down for taking this away)
Gear granting other stuff instead of just stat growth(seriously, wow legendaries had this ten years ago. why take away)
Scions being badass
Main scenario characters appearing in Hildi questline, and profession trainers appearing in main scenario (seriously, isolating questlines so much makes it less like a world)
Primals showing up outside of their fight, like Garuda wasting a village instead of just staying in her lair, waiting to be knocked down.
NPC's progressing as well as us. Like how some of the Scions were fresh arrivals at the beginning and how Merlwyb had to fight to gain respect.
More gear slots(Yes, damit. I have two ears and ten fingers each with multiple digits. This should probably extend to weapons as well. Both Monk and NInja dual wield weapons so I want two weapons. Two distinct looking weapons preferably)
Old Final Fantasy spell names (this is a no brainer. Leave numbered spells for Ted Woolsey I want fira and firaga)

[Sancta]

The above cap mobs in Gridania were actually guarding relic pieces and if you aggroed the Treant it'd one shot you since all is above cap, and passage was only known to the few who knew of the hidden passageway past the salamanders and into the Treants. Also the moogle primal had a better story to fight in that area; remember the different guardians you hate to kill in that treant infested area before you could face king mog.

[Balipu]

They were actually guarding relic pieces and if you aggroed the Treant it'd one shot you since all is above cap. Also the moogle primal had a better story to fight in that area. Guys remember the different guardians you hate to kill in that treant area, was totally badass.

Well i didn't know about that one. This is the first time it was mentioned here. If you promise to use the edit function I would be more than happy to talk about your 1.0 experiences. I can understand why they went with the quick route again, despite that being the very same thing that sealed the fate of 1.0. After all, many were waiting to get back into a game, and this was probably the fastest route to make a stable and quite decent game. One year after that and ARR is quite impressive. I just don't understand why the spell names are different and why the story is worse.

[Velox]

Old Final Fantasy spell names (this is a no brainer. Leave numbered spells for Ted Woolsey I want fira and firaga)

1. Go to macro interface
2. Enter macro name as "Firaga"
3. Enter the following information

/micon "Fire III"
/ac "Fire III" <t>

4. Place new macro on skill bar
5. ????
6. Profit!


With this method, players have a choice ^_^

[Aegis]

- Maybe it's just me, but I don't play a multiplayer game to escape from people.

I think the difference is that in 1.0 you would group up with people in a hub (Like Ul'dah) then head out to traverse the wilds with them. The number of other players you would see would be smaller, but you would have more interaction with them. Whereas in 2.0 you either remain in the hub queued up for DF or flock to the 'open world content' (lol) as part of a zerg (FATEs, hunts circa 2014, etc). There's no exp parties, no chest key farming in strongholds, no primal key farming etc.

The reason there's none of this grouping up for open world content is because the areas are simply not dangerous and even if they were, there's no reason to visit them. Hunts were a brief change to this pattern while they were a good source of tomes, but they were zerg fests and not challenging because there's no realistic way to scale up a mob to deal with 100+ attackers.

[DSX]

FFXIV ver1.x was its own game with a mature world and a mature story and I miss that a lot. FFXIV ARR is just another theme-park clone with a miniature toothless world and a story that doesn't take itself seriously (a shallow hero story) that has the luxury of access to the Final Fantasy name and allowed use The Final Fantasy skin on its assets.

[Magis]

FFXIV ver1.x was its own game with a mature world and a mature story and I miss that a lot. FFXIV ARR is just another theme-park clone with a miniature toothless world and a story that doesn't take itself seriously (a shallow hero story) that has the luxury of access to the Final Fantasy name and allowed use The Final Fantasy skin on its assets.

This is what makes me regret never coming back to FFXIV 1.0, and what gives me fond memories of FFXI and heck, even Vanilla WoW. The games felt like they wanted to present a world first and a game second. You felt invested in your character and felt part of the world, with real dangers and adventure. Now-a-days it's all about dishing content at you one plate at a time forgetting that there is also the roleplaying part of an MMORPG. Just look how ignored the open world is and everything else is sectioned off into instances, nice little walled off content packs for you to consume. Even the storyline feels separate from the actual world, and one of the points I'll give to WoW for doing, where rather than having a "main story" that progresses through the game, they had multiple stories in each zone that explained the lore of what was going on around the world, intertwining into a overall meta story (in vanilla, the recovery of the world after WCIII, and the tensions between the two factions). This made quests more interesting (rather than XIV's boring fetch quests), and allowed Blizzard to make locations more varied and interesting.

For example, the zone Duskwood had a questline explain why a section of the zone had worgen (werewolf types), and it turned out a npc hiding in an abandoned town accidentally unleashed them after finding a relic of the Night Elves (a race that mostly inhabits the other side of the world). There was also a questline that had you uncover a evil mage, and in it's climax caused a wandering highlevel NPC to path from the bottom of the zone, to the town (killing any sad low-level who got in it's way) causing a fight between the nightguard and the monster (Stitches).

I could see FATEs kinda being that, but why not incorporate them into the questlines and build up to the climax (fate style boss), than just POOF, here is some reason why they are here, go kill with 40 people. Heck, some FATEs don't even have a reason why they are there!

Sorry got a bit ranty there.

[Balipu]

Long talk about story

Sorry got a bit ranty there.

Well the problem isn't really that there is a main story but that the questlines are isolated so it feals less like a world of interconnected stories. I mean, you do the main scenario, the hildibrand questline, the class and job storylines, the profession quests, the grand company quests and soon realise that all of those are completely separate from each other. The way I saw it in 1.0, the individual storylines were more connected. Urianger in the Hildi questline, Sisipu in main scenario, Nael van Darnus in Grand Company quests. It expanded the same story horizontally therefore gave the impression that both it and the world is bigger.

I still think ARR is a great game and it hurts to see most here think it is a piece of garbage abusing the Final Fantasy name, but there really are a lot of things that 1.0 did a lot better. Still it seems the world was not ready for 1.0-s innovations so drastic changes were necessary to make the MMO marketable. Perhaps gradually bringing back some of the old features could occur later. Untill then, enjoy all the stuff comming with 2.5

[Gramul]

Still it seems the world was not ready for 1.0-s innovations so drastic changes were necessary to make the MMO marketable

I feel like 1.0 would have done well if they:
1. Finished the base game and had actual content on release.
2. Had viable graphics settings for lower end systems.
3. Avoided all the awkward anti-bot systems they had that ultimately did nothing but inconvenience the regular player. (the old markets for example)

[Felis]

Well the problem isn't really that there is a main story but that the questlines are isolated so it feals less like a world of interconnected stories. I mean, you do the main scenario, the hildibrand questline, the class and job storylines, the profession quests, the grand company quests and soon realise that all of those are completely separate from each other. The way I saw it in 1.0, the individual storylines were more connected. Urianger in the Hildi questline, Sisipu in main scenario, Nael van Darnus in Grand Company quests. It expanded the same story horizontally therefore gave the impression that both it and the world is bigger.

Neither Nael nor Urianger were part of the 1.0 original storyline. They were part of the 7th umbral storyline, that were identical with the 1.0 GC storyline.
Sisipu was part of the original storyline because of the "let introduce all the guilds in the starter city to the player" part at the beginning. Once you finished the starter city story part with the rank 15 storyquest and joined in the rank 20 storyquest the Path of the Twelve (the Echo support group from Minfillia), you never saw her in the mainstory again.