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

[Taramin]

One thing I miss that DID exist when I started, that was removed in the 1.0 -> ARR jump was the ability to repair OTHER people's gear.

I'm also looking crazy forward to the QoL being added in 5.2:
Converting gear into Materia no longer destroys the item, just resets bond to 0%
I can company craft without a party

[Gemina]

I thank SB everyday for SAM

Glamour dresser

Naoki Yoshida (I'm not a legacy player, but bringing him in was huge!)

[Halivel]

A stupid one, but 1st thing I can think of is Aestethycan. They added it quite fast so I can't say it was very far from beginning point, but still I was in need to use fantasia twice just to change haircut before they added the NPC for this.

Glamour dresser is a huge help indeed. Would be nice if we could use plates anywhere, but what we have now is nice as well.

Aside glamour things, I do like crafters revamp a lot. Most of things they did with battle jobs are good for me as well.

Not a thing anymore, but I remember time when using Run on Tank or physical DPS was a punishment because it spent the whole amount of TP you had at the moment and as result you couldn't use any skills because you haven't stamina for it.

Multisit mounts. It's not exactly QoL thing, but it is convenient (especially in Eureka).

Other servers visiting! I don't really need it now, but back when I was on Odin till last year I really missed an opportunity to visit my friends on Phoenix. You know, entering a dungeon or making an alt just to do screenshots together wasn't really convenient. I do hope that at some point cross-DC interactions will be possible as well.

And so on. To be honest, I think that most of changes they did with time made the game only better. There can be some questionable decisions, but it is noticeable FF14 Team does their best or at least tries to.

[TaleraRistain]

When you had to do Duty Roulette solo and they didn't have nearly as many types of roulettes.

[SuperZay]

If we can point only one QoL change... There was no Party Finder when I started. I was doing my bard relic quest and had to go to Eastern Thanalan and shout/wait to find parties to do Hydra, because it and Chimera weren't added in Duty Finder yet. Then they added PF, but you could do content only with people from your server. Then they upgraded it to Cross World Party Finder, massively increasing players pool and participation.
Can't wait for Cross Datacenter Party Finder next.

[Taiku]

World visit. A little sad about servers moving under Crystal (my one and only IRL friend into XIV played on Coeurl), but being able to visit other servers opened up the community a ton. I'm hoping bridges between data centers comes soon.

[Havenchild]

I would say adding cross datacenter PF was a humungous change considering many servers with lower pop struggled to get content done regularly.

When they added the glamour dresser, that freed up hundreds of inventory slots from myself and retainers.

[Antonio_Xul]

Novice Network

When I began playing this game, I didn’t know the basics of what an MMO was. Never played one. When I made my character, the role I chose was based on the weapon I liked most, which was the Axe. I started as a Marauder not knowing what a tank was or how roles played a factor. Needless to say I was terrible playing in dungeons as I didn’t know how to tank, because the game didn’t explain it. Had the Novice Network been there from the beginning, it would have relieved me and my unfortunate party members from a massive headache it was to play ignorantly. It was added a little too late as I was about to quit the game, but decided to change roles as DPS (Dragoon) to give this game one more chance and have been happy ever since. I still don’t tank to this day as I have PTSD from my dungeon runs, but I’m fine with DPS.

[Pheryx]

Gosh. I couldn't imagine FFXIV without the Gold Saucer. For some people they probably have not been there in years but for me I have been playing for a year and it's still my favourite place in the game.

Yeah that place became my home for a while lol

[Bsrking5]

I wish they'd also sort the emotes alphabetically. It always takes me a long time to find random emotes for quests when I'm playing on a controller (on the keyboard I can just type the name).

You can now sort by alphabetically