ARR or Heavensward Classic

[Doopliss]

And if we're being honest, not even Heavensward in general was complex for any job, let alone aggro management or otherwise. FFXIV has always been a relatively easy and forgiving game. It was less forgiving in Heavensward and had very punishing mechanics, like how vital positionals were, how much of a commitment Cleric Stance was, and other such examples, but so what? The game wasn't difficult to clear content with. Everyone was still able to progress the MSQ and clear all the major story questlines barring Coils of Bahamut (which no amount of simplified job design would help players clear until we got strong enough to solo them unsynched). So you occasionally wiped in a dungeon or alliance roulette every once in a while. You got up, and you did it again, and cleared it.

At the end of the day, the complexity of job design is and has always been largely optional for 95% of FFXIV.

This is going to sound sarcastic but you're like, legitimately the smartest person on the forums right now, lol. A lot of people really don't get this. I know there's many in current day FFXIV that haven't ever experienced HW (the expansion, not the story) due to timing, so it's not something they can really know, but even with the goofy jank present at the time, FFXIV was by far and wide the most easily understandable MMO my dumbass 17-year-old brain had ever seen back around 2014.

For all the "you're just nostalgic!" and "you're wearing rose-tinted glasses!" remarks, I feel like nearly the opposite phenomenon is happening to those who seemingly can't stand the idea of HW-esque job designs. They're imagining it being way worse than it actually was...or had perhaps some unfortunate run-ins in party finder, I guess.

Now, I don't actually think they'll ever bring the game back to that level of job "complexity," but I honestly feel like it's just a hard truth that they've steered way too far into the opposite direction. They need to be less scared about raising the skill ceiling. Compared to now, it was rare to hear somebody in full earnestness claim the endgame was too boring throughout A Realm Reborn to Stormblood...which I think is telling.