What things did you used to dislike or were annoyed by, but have since warmed up to?

[TwiibieTwuu]

The combat honestly.

ESO and Wildstar were the first MMOs I properly put time into. And playing ffxiv for them first time felt kinda eh. Didn't help I started as a Arcanist. I just enjoyed movement and combat too much.

I don't mind tab targeting now though.

(Ain't gonna lie. if there was a button to change the combat into something more fluid I would smash it in a heartbeat)

[Shurrikhan]

The combat honestly.

ESO and Wildstar were the first MMOs I properly put time into. And playing ffxiv for them first time felt kinda eh. Didn't help I started as a Arcanist. I just enjoyed movement and combat too much.

I don't mind tab targeting now though.

(Ain't gonna lie. if there was a button to change the combat into something more fluid I would smash it in a heartbeat)

Starting as an Arcanist nearly scared me away from the reboot at first. Luckily a couple other Legacy friends and I decided to switch from typical DoT-spread-and-focus-spam to DoT-kiting en masse to keep things interesting. One ACN in Totorak is kinda dull, especially if things die too quickly to hit the DoT value breakpoint on more than a single mob. 4 of them chain-pulling the whole dungeon with mobs heavied and trailing behind so that they arrive to the gather nearly dead? Much better.

I'll add one more for myself, too: ShB Dark Knight. I've finally given up on looking for the mythical areas new and more complicated than SB DRK and have just come to enjoy the sheer absurd power that is TBN. Ally would have died? Nope, TBN. Would have taken damage from that tankbuster? Nope; CDs + TBN.

[Nemmar]

The GCD. I hated it, and in a way still do. But seeing how they used it to introduce a different kind of skills (off the gcd) and playing in a gamepad, i came to tolerate it.

Still wish it was lowered though.

[Granyala]

I'll probably get stones thrown at me for saying this:

The GCD.

When I came from WoW, maining a shadowpriest with very high haste levels, it was pretty much unbearably slow. I regularly raged about it.
After a few years of WoW abstinence and going back I have to admit I rather enjoy the more relaxed pace of FF-XIV.

Unless when I am in critical healing situations... then I typically mutter sth. like "come on kitty, faster, faster.. heal his ass already!"

[Lethros]

When the Ridorana Lighthouse was added I didn't like it, but now it's a favourite out of all the alliance raids (50-70)

[Kacho_Nacho]

For me, it was the GCD. It felt like I was healing in slow motion. Nowadays, I enjoy it.

[AnaviAnael]

DPSing as a healer. I came from FFXI where that wasn't a thing and didn't understand why people wanted healer DPS. Dungeons became a lot more fun after I retrained my thought process.

[Bonbori]

Probably the biggest one for me was tanking. I didn't like it years ago in SWTOR so when I came into FF14, I had already decided I was never going to tank. And then I learned of all the clunkiness and counter-intuitiveness of playing tanks in SB which only fed my tanxiety even more. Plus, none of the three options at the time appealed to me aesthetically so I wasn't even interested in any tanking jobs.

But towards the very very tail end of Stormblood, during the last patch, I was helping a friend get through AAR and decided to take one for the team and pick up PLD to at least get her through the AAR dungeons which I was familiar enough with to be comfortable tanking. To my surprise, I found the experience quite fun! PLD itself... not so much, but at that point I was already looking forward to Gunbreaker so I was more focused on enjoying the universal mechanics of tanking and it turned to be a lot less scary than I had assumed!

Fast-forward to Shadowbringers, a gunblade tank job finally came out that I was super excited to play and... it was almost everything I wanted it to be! I wish they hadn't just whimsically changed the sound effects, that decision was completely out of the left field, but in terms of aesthetics, gameplay, controls, combat flow and how intuitive their tanking tools are, it's just all around perfect! I've tanked all the current dungeons, normal raids, EX trials and recently substituted for our static's OT in E1S and I've had so much fun in all of them! I love tanking now.

[ValyrianBlood]

Lalafels

Not so much NPCs (tho I couldn't take them that serious, esp males with beards lol) as the PCs.
I honestly wondered, why the hell u would play a potato if u could be a badass with literally anything else?
I kinda understood if female players would roll one bc they are so cute, but why in the hell would a male player play a Lala (sexist much??)?
I was so clueless and confused (and taking the game too serious), I even googled it and I found my answers and stopped being so ignorant.
Since then they grew on me, I see them differently and I'll never judge a Lala anymore. I'm always happy when I see one in my group as it became rather rare in my eyes.
I'm even considering rolling one myself for a time, just to be a ball of joy