What do you miss from ARR?

[TheGrimace]

Flying is convenient, but it's where community dies. Being forced to run on the ground makes it far more likely to see other players going about their business. Once you get flying, that feeling of randomly happening upon people happens less frequently. The only time you're likely to see players you know is when you're in a town running from point A to point B, and there's no flying elevation variations preventing you from seeing each other.

[Allegor]

It's something small but I loved that feeling that the zones are all actually connected and part of some endless world - mostly because there isn't flying so the smokes and mirrors work better.

For example, you could see Ul'dah from the farthest corner of Eastern Thanalan, and even if the zones had invisible walls they just kept going to make it seem the zones were bigger than what they actually are, like the canyons in Thanalan or the ocean/islands in La Noscea. Now go to any HW, SB or ShB zones and fly up a bit, the zones are basically cages - they're surrounded by endless mountains and fog, even if the zones in question are literally right next to each other (The Fringes and The Peaks being a prime example), probably because it'd be too heavy on ram to render pointless scenery.

There's also the towns and the sense of immersion. Go to any ARR zone and you can actually go inside most if not all building, whereas most HW and almost all SB zones have fake towns. As in, literal boxes painted over to make it look like a building - heck even most of Kugane, a main hub, is smokes and mirrors despite being made up almost entirely of inns, restaurants or stores, places that constantly have people walking in and out.

TL;DR - ARR zones were the most 'realistic' and immersive zones.

[Theodric]

I miss being able to enter almost every building in a settlement. Aleport is still one of my favourite settlements to this day as you can enter almost every building within it.

I miss how the game's story and atmosphere had a 'grittier' style to it. That still exists to a degree but there's way too many fake deaths and convenient plot devices at play now.

I miss how the zones were smaller but more numerous overall.

I miss how some dungeons - such as Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius - were tough before they were hit by the nerf bat.

I miss the puzzles associated with some dungeons as well as the branching paths.

[Recon1o6]

I realised there was more than I thought that I missed...

Some difficult pre nerf (pharos, satasha hard, dzemael) and some branching dungeons. A pity they never put any rewards of worth behind the paths

every class/job having a good kit by 30 and a full one by 50 with options to customise through cross class. As a previous poster said it made you stronger by picking up more jobs.
In addition I miss the themes that some jobs had, eg white mage having elements wind/earth (still no water...) and how all jobs were unique, not this homogenised snore fest.

Relic being useful from the get go, not only just before the final patch

Players having to actually up their game and get more skilled for the harder fights such as titan hm, where such things as hard enrage and parses weren't a thing.

Moenbryda *sniff*

Veteran rewards. While I admit that it shouldn't be exclusive because someone picked the game up later, there's plenty of things that could be given for subbing for so long. Fantasia for example

The devs actually listening closely to feedback and answering questions on the forum

[Genz]

+1 for the smaller, higher density, more varied and prettier areas.
But they're able to make big and pretty areas, like Eureka Amenos. So it's probably just a question of actually putting the effort to do it or not.
Same thing with towns : Kugane is big and pretty, but they dropped the ball with the needlessly big and empty Cristarium.

[Enla]

I'm in the minority, in that I actually don't have much care or nostalgia for the old areas from ARR. For every Eastern La Noscea there would be a Coerthas Central Highlands mucking up your leveling experience and generally driving you to maddening distraction. Though I will fully admit my utter hatred of the latter is borne from copious hours spent FATE grinding back in ARR and having to deal with the sheer inane tedium of trying to run to FATES on that particular map - on top of trying to do levequest turn ins. Spend enough hours making the run from Camp Dragonhead to Whitebrim and you'll slowly go insane.

That said one thing I did love about ARR maps were the unintended 'secret' areas that were left behind. Like being able to jump to the top of that giant crystal formation in one of the maps or the hidden path in the East Shroud that led you under the Temple Lake and literally past the Castrum walls long before it was even considered for Dungeon status. SE has been slowly patching out those fun little areas over the past few years, with the East Shroud being made inaccessible a few months ago. I really, honestly wish they had kept them in and/or made them into a dedicated secret area that you could get an achievement for finding. Just embrace it - and patch the 'you step here you fall through the world' pieces of floor on the East Shroud riverbed.

That said even if I'm not overly fond of the old ARR areas, I do desperately miss how alive they felt. Even towards the end of ARR, right before HW dropped, pretty much every area had some kind of FATE train going. Or crafters/gatherers running about. The world felt so alive back then, and now the only time the world even comes close to being that populated is when a new expansion drops - and even then only for two weeks and only in the new areas. I miss being around people.

[Kresus]

The rate at which content became available.

[spf1200]

Gates being worth doing. Used to be you could use the to level as an alternative to dungeons. Now thought they barely give any XP and are just a waste of time

[AnimaAnimus]

Reasonable glows on relics that enhanced the look of the weapons instead of hiding them under a mess of ridiculous particle effects

[Metsonm]

Cleric Stance made healers way more interesting and, while I get why it's gone, I miss balancing DPS and healing. Related: somewhat interesting DPS rotations on healers.