Final Fantasy XIV 1.23b - Would you Play it if Available?

[Shurrikhan]

Absolutely would play. I don't know for how long though. Tbh, I've been trying to find my disc so I can explore the world again via *cough* less official means.
It might turn out that I'd be satisfied after a couple laps around each zone (Coerthas and Dhona will be my must-resee sites) and a Darkhold run, but at least that much should be quite enjoyable.

Would I play it over ARR? Unlikely, though both find themselves in a coincidentally similar situation right now - short of remaining content worth doing. Quite often the flaws in ARR I'd already pointed out to some degree in 1.1 (the soonest I played was pre-Yoshi but post-bug fixes) and 1.2. Similarly, few ARR changes do I think were "for the better" so much as just, by happenstance, better than 1.x. I don't especially consider myself biased towards one or the other. Given an alternate world where the development time of ARR had instead been spent improving upon 1.23, perhaps even bringing in the same cataclysm as opened up ARR but without the complete reboot to engine, zones, and combat and likely focused instead on improvement to its own priorities, then I would be very interested in comparing them, but as they are presently there really doesn't seem to be any fair comparison to be had.

Just my two cents on the state of the game as it was:
- It would be foolish to call 1.23 combat more tactical in any way. It was even more pre-determined, and still basically followed a combo and half-combo system according to CDs on those abilities that are now your GCDs. Auto-attack animations were more jarring, and many ability animations a bit more repetitive (the squat-to-victory oGCD animation was even less varied then), though there were also plenty that looked great. The animation locks I did not especially find an issue. Pace of combat, depending on the player and encounter, was often closer to ARR than the game was given credit for. I actually felt like ARR was a slow-down during the beta, because the combined time of gaining enough TP and executing a full combo was less than the sheer GCD wait across a combo with the original GCD speed.
- The UI wasn't that big an issue; had it had better mouse-wheel use or anything of that sort I would easily prefer the master menu to the current spread of functions across the current micro-menu, especially since I could bind the master menu to a mouse button with my cursor already ready to hit the option I wanted. It really could have used a separate item activation key, as not to require the master menu for elevator use / activating portals, etc.
- ...I'm sure enough has been said on world differences and general ambiance already...