Your Top 5 Areas for Improvement and Brief Suggestions Therefor

[Kayerin]

Honestly I only want one improvement (in multiple areas): Update All ARR areas for flying/swimming and bring back the missing areas from 1.XX.

The southern half of Mor Dhona, the West Shroud (which at least one NPC in game has been saying they are cleaning it up since the launch of 2.0 and there's been more than enough time; it should be plenty clean enough for adventurers now), Coerthas Central Lowlands, Coerthas Eastern Lowlands, Coerthas Eastern Highlands and the other 2/3 of Northern Thanalan somehow vanished between 1.23 and 2.0.

I'd also like to see O'Ghomoro and Vylbrand's volcano made accessible.

Merging the two-part cities into one and making them seamless with the surrounding regions would also be nice.

[Mikki]

1) Better Cutscenes: One need only look at the cutscenes seen in 1.0 to realize how far we've fallen from grace. The cutscenes from the original version of the game were so much more dynamic and felt like they put a lot of work into them. Compared to now, it feels like they just play with emotes in a cutscene until they get something they like. Honestly, it's disappointing. When ARR first released, I could understand the change. They were working on a tight schedule with a limited budget and a lot of pressure. They needed to make it work and they needed it done as quickly and easily as possible. Additionally, the inclusion of the PS3 was imperative for a few reasons (keeping promises, including a demographic they rely heavily on, getting the most reach possible). The PS3 limitations were certainly a factor. However, with PS3 support dropped officially and the game being as successful as it is, I see no reason why cutscenes should not improve.

2) More customization options: I think everyone would agree here. Customization options are lacking. Our characters all look the same. It's sad. But seeing them create unique NPCs now is certainly a step in the right direction... I hope they improve customization for players too in the future.

3) Gil sinks: We need them. Gil feels almost useless in this game. It makes working hard to be an omnicrafter feel less worth it as well, since the only thing you've accomplished by doing it is not having to spend your money. It's not like you've worked toward making money to spend on cool things. Apart from housing and some mounts, there's literally nothing to spend money on except penta-melding which doesn't act as a gil sink since it just shifts gil between players, apart from the small tax.

4) Allow us a chance to earn ALL cash shop items in-game. In fact, this could be a gil sink. Make it RIDICULOUSLY expensive, that's perfectly fine. At least there's a way to earn it in game if you want to AND now we have a lovely gil sink to boot. Perhaps make it release on mog station a week to a month before it's available in-game. I promise you that there will still be those people who want to get it "first" and will buy it through the mogshop and also people who don't have much gil who will also buy it there. Additionally, make anything you purchase in the cash shop ACCOUNT WIDE. I have no freaking clue why I'm spending 18 USD for a glamour outfit on a P2P MMO and only getting it for a single character. Wth, seriously.

5) Reduce ability/item bloat. Currently, I'd say there are a comfortable amount of abilities; maybe some that we don't need. However, I fear that they will feel the need to add even more abilities in the next expansion. Please, give us upgraded versions of existing abilities rather than new ones. 25-ish abilities are more than enough. As for items, certainly the 999 stacks have helped tremendously. But having HQ vs NQ and having sooo many items is honestly a headache. Some items are literally only used for making one thing. Expand uses of some mats and get rid of others.

[Dyvid]

A leveling experience after you hit max level: Players need to continue leveling up at end game. New gear is fine but how long can you keep turning out new sets? Maybe in the next xpac you don't connect abilities / traits with job levels but something we earn over the life cycle of the expansion?

Don't forget older content models: Seriously why didn't you add new areas to Golden Saucer with flying and swimming? Update the wards with a system similar to Doma Enclave that would unlock new thing like playgrounds, parks, concerts stages, etc.

Variety to the grind: Stormblood level 70 dungeons was the wrong direction. Rather than have a "End Game" and "Level 70" dungeons, why not have a 4-man dungeon and an 8-man dungeon? 8-man runs gives the devs more room to design different and unique runs.

[Ameela]

1. Get rid of weekly limits or change them to accommodate the fact that you can have multiple classes on one character, maybe have you collect different tomes for each class, each with their own weekly limit.

2. Add some kind of option to lock exp gain or level sync to any level at will while outside of an instance, so newer players can experience all the quests on their class of choice without being grossly overleveled.

3. Add more glamour plates (one for each class at least) and let us at least use them in any non-instanced area.

4. Make end-game dungeons actually hard and make sense with the difficulty curve of the levelling ones, the drop-off in difficulty from Castrum Abania to Ala Mhigo and every other post-MSQ dungeon is astounding.

5. Lower the price on non-current tome gear, a fresh 70 player now will have a much harder time gearing up and doing current content due to the lack of cheap and easy tome gear you could get back in SB launch with Verity.
Yes you can still get Verity gear with hunt seals, but this gear will get you nowhere in the current end-game landscape.

[Enkidoh]

Honestly I only want one improvement (in multiple areas): Update All ARR areas for flying/swimming

Unfortunately the ARR zones simply are not set up for flight (it was a bit of a stretch to allow swimming in them), many are just too small and if you were flying you'd be there in a second - this is why ground mount movement speed can be increased twice in those areas, it's to compensate for not being able to fly there (and probably we never will, sadly.).

and bring back the missing areas from 1.XX.

The southern half of Mor Dhona, the West Shroud (which at least one NPC in game has been saying they are cleaning it up since the launch of 2.0 and there's been more than enough time; it should be plenty clean enough for adventurers now), Coerthas Central Lowlands, Coerthas Eastern Lowlands, Coerthas Eastern Highlands and the other 2/3 of Northern Thanalan somehow vanished between 1.23 and 2.0.

Now this I agree with! Alas Coerthas Eastern Lowlands is already in the game, as a PvP-only instanced area (it's the zone used for Fields of Glory - Shatter), and because of that (there are Allagan ruins in there) access to it is virtually closed off to the public. But the other areas I definitely would love to see return (maybe have the southern half of Mor Dhona as a new zone, maybe name it 'Silvertear Falls' or something).

Merging the two-part cities into one and making them seamless with the surrounding regions would also be nice.

Sadly this will not happen, as it was a specific and deliberate change from 1.0 that was done deliberately (and for good reason, the 1.0 Gridania and it's stupid long passageways meant it took forever to get anywhere and was a major complaint by 1.0 players, at least now it's all nice and compact). So this sadly will never happen.

[KisaiTenshi]

Sadly this will not happen, as it was a specific and deliberate change from 1.0 that was done deliberately (and for good reason, the 1.0 Gridania and it's stupid long passageways meant it took forever to get anywhere and was a major complaint by 1.0 players, at least now it's all nice and compact). So this sadly will never happen.

Not really.

There's a far more obvious reason that has passed. During launch, these areas were packed, so they needed to be split so the "area where people sit there and craft" was separate from the "area where people hang around the Aetheryte" , of which the GC areas for Ul'dah and Gridania are in the Aetheryte zone.

They could easily restore these areas to a single zone now. But that may have to come with several other updates, like being able to swim in Limsa Lominsa and Gridania (there's a river running through it), and having Ul'dah expanding some of the ridiculous cut off areas. (The outer ring was the original loading tunnel, and the area we briefly see at the end of 2.x.) Gridania doesn't need to restore the original loading tunnel, as it was just obviously a loading tunnel. The Limsa Lominsa Loading tunnel however feels like an entire area is missing.

Presently, Ul'dah and Gridanaia are empty , maybe 6 players between both areas (and 80 bots in the GC area.) The Limsa Lominsa area has maybe 30 players, max.

[Shurrikhan]

Sadly this will not happen, as it was a specific and deliberate change from 1.0 that was done deliberately (and for good reason, the 1.0 Gridania and it's stupid long passageways meant it took forever to get anywhere and was a major complaint by 1.0 players, at least now it's all nice and compact). So this sadly will never happen.

The only real concision the change created was to exiting the city, just as to Limsa Lominsa, by skipping the long bridge (or, in Grid's case, pair thereof). In all other cases, the minimum time spent in the black screen reloading already takes longer than the few additional steps. Pass through a 10-meter tunnel at a meter per second, or spend 10 seconds loading...

They could also just as easily, say, reduce the gap between the Gridania marketplace and the aetheryte, such that whatever assets are implied by the loading screen gap are simply skipped. They're two separate decisions: loading screens do not uniquely allow for reduced travel times.

And that's not even mentioning the sprint nerf or what reverting it, as it applies to out-of-combat travel, could accomplish...