Awesome changes made that weren't there when you started playing?

[Powercow]

MP regenerates on its own and doesn't involve interacting with an Aetheryte once every 10 minutes!

[Highwilds]

A setting that disables camera from turning and locking towards the NPC you talk to.

[tdb]

Inventory expansion
Estate relocation
Glamour dresser
Quick gathering

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Duty finder didn't exist, nor did jobs, or sidequests. Party finder wasn't in either. Heck, dungeons didn't exist as we know them

Oh, and the biggest qol ever, gear no longer explodes into bits if you fail a meld, tho material wasn't a thing in the beginning either.

Or NMs, which we don't really have anymore, just hunts.

Oh and I forget the best one, we now get exp from every mob kill

[KatieConnr]

Quick gathering

Quick gathering is amazing!!

[Yshtola]

Too many Zoomers in here

[Krotoan]

.. ARR was a nice change.

oh and that pesky "fatigue" XP penalty. Glad when they got rid of that.

[StriderShinryu]

The "new" glamour system is a huge one for me. I know that there are issues with the current system, particularly in relation to the limited slots available, but it's so much better than the old system that it's almost incomprehensible.

Adding Red Mage and, to a lesser extent, Sam and Machinist. Not surprisingly, having classes you really enjoy playing makes a world of difference. I always liked Ninja but FF14 rewards playing a diversity of jobs and only having one you like kind of sucks. Now I have multiple favourites and it can even be hard to choose which I want to play on a given day.

And, most recently, smoother, simpler crafting at least to get your basics done. While I haven't actually tried the new system yet just knowing it's a smoother, simpler, faster process with no need to cross class means it's something I actually will try. While I respected the old system and how it actually rewarded knowledge and skill (until you just did everything with macros), it always felt like such a slog with having to raise multiple crafts I didn't care about that I bounced off it every time I tried.

[Iscah]

Glamours below Lv50 were the first big improvement for me, after getting through most of ARR having to compromise between looking presentable and being up to date. The dresser is fantastic too, making outfits much quicker to manage and frees up some new possibilities for having multiple outfits per job, but that earlier availability change had the bigger actual impact.

[Enkidoh]

Duty finder didn't exist, nor did jobs, or sidequests. Party finder wasn't in either. Heck, dungeons didn't exist as we know them

Oh, and the biggest qol ever, gear no longer explodes into bits if you fail a meld, tho material wasn't a thing in the beginning either.

Or NMs, which we don't really have anymore, just hunts.

Oh and I forget the best one, we now get exp from every mob kill

.. ARR was a nice change.

oh and that pesky "fatigue" XP penalty. Glad when they got rid of that.

^All this. So many things in ARR we take for granted simply did not exist in the old broken 1.0. Things that would have thought to have been common sense to be included, but were not.

And, to add to that, not in the game itself but connected to it: direct credit/debit card billing.

That awful third-party 'Clicknbuy' thing SE originally used as the only subscription method for 1.0 prevented so many people from playing because they either did not trust that merchant or their debit/credit card had problems using it. Despite the fiddly nature of the current credit/debit card payment system for ARR, it's light years ahead of Clicknbuy was for 1.0. I'm so glad that's gone.