What do you miss from ARR?

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I miss the feeling of seeing more dangerous high-level areas that you can't get to yet. Being a Lv5 newbie looking down the path from North Shroud's beginner area at the Lv25 banemites ready to eat me alive if I cross the bridge, or peering through the tide gates in western La Noscea to the Sahagin base. It's there to be entered, if only I were strong enough.

Somewhat contrastingly, I also miss non-aggressive enemies. Obviously the further in you get, it's appropriate that there are more things trying to kill you, but there's no reason for everything to be. Passive enemies, where logical, make more sense and add to the world. There's no reason for butterflies to be attacking you viciously.

Yeah, why the heck is everything in Heavensward onward so hostile? It's weird.

[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.

[Billythepancake]

I miss having buttons to press on healers. Now I just spam broil until I go numb.

[Eldevern]

For the main part... the discovery feeling from the beginning.

Unknown maps with no real idea of what we will discover, the difficulty we could have even in Brayflox, the CT runs with real strat and the challenge to skip the one shot timer, some people who left before CT3 release, the lively feeling in cities and mor dhona with people talking and searching teams, recruiting for FC, the fate trains, the feeling the time we invested had some kind of worth (Ixals crafts), the crossskills.

Now, everything gives the strange vibe of a permanent rush.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Some of the English voice actors. Merlwyb, especially, but I also preferred the original voices for Raubahn, Aymeric, and Midgardsormr.

[MrPresident]

My friends. :3 We used to get up to some stupid things back when the game was new and everyone was having fun together. Over the years just about all moved on, and I feel like I'm in a far different place where finding that type of a group again just isn't going to happen.

It’s kind of like real life in that friendship groups kind of get locked in. You of course can still make friends in the game, but it’s not the same making friends with another multi level 80 expert compared with when you were all new and finding your way in the game.

[MOZZYSTAR]

• The amooount of dungeons we got, there were so many! *Q* Dungeoning rarely got stale because we weren't grinding the same one or two every single day for poetics
• You know that boss in Crystal Tower where there are the big black aoes and adds that everyone just ignores (the classic "burn the boss" guy)? His battle used to be fun before we could burn him. When doing the mechs, we'd have to bounce around the different platforms.
• Stoneskin - in that Chrysalis(?) trial, it was actually very hard as a healer and I remember us needing to apply Stoneskin onto the tank before every tankbuster and it was ultimately an MP eater. The trial was tough, but it was so much fun. I have a feeling that WHM now use Medica II before a fight or a pull now (when they don't need to) is because they no longer have protect or Stoneskin, so while SCH applies barriers in the start, WHM might feel useless to start off because it has nothing other than Medica II anymore (which does nothing for the first 15 seconds on most fights).
• Protect - I just liked having that little routine of protecting people before we marched onward
• Two classes to make one job. To get dragoon, Lancer needed to be level 30 and Marauder needed to level 15 (really gave it that mini off tank vibe). Also enabled dragoon to have some aggro skills if it ever needed to crowd control while healer was rezzing tank (rarely ever happened, tbh, but it was cool when it did).
• Point distribution - this enabled us to really customise our classes in how we wanted to play them, really, and it felt kind of rewarding to be able to do that. Made them feel more unique to one's play style. But from my understanding, it was scrapped so that people were on fairer playing fields, for savage, or something... (What I don't miss about this is that SCH's and SMN's attributes were linked so you'd need to get a special potion from the GC and re-distribute points if you ever wanted to swap classes)
• The areas were smaller but more detailed - there's a lot of detail in the first three citystates, whereas Crystarium feels very big and very empty. A lot of people wanted bigger areas and felt they were too small, but imo I thought they were the perfect size? I do love SHB areas (non-Crystarium), though!


I'm sure there's more but that's what I have off the top of my head. It's been so long since I've played ARR (and... when Iplayed it, it was back in 2.x so :| )

[MPNZ]

1. The areas allowed players to explore at their own pace instead of just outright pushing players to rush through them (LV15 versus lv50+). I literally went exploring every zone and was just a wandering adventurer until someone on my friend's list started yelling at me to just go get my Chocobo already since I was like lv 25 and still hadn't completed several dungeons like tamtara and sastasha. It was really exciting trying to get to the end of the lv45-50 Amalja zone. And, this is mostly because of how flight and area progression are just designed based on rushing through areas and collecting aether currents to progress through the story. Though, that aspect seems to be a little bit better, but it's literally difficult to see due to flight being so unlimited

2. Which basically means the seemingly nonexistence of just any exploration-taxonamy content until the last zone in StB with that super amazing note on the ground inside the tomb area. There was a lot of places to explore, visit, and find without a ton of pressure that only exists if it's part of the story (Azzim Steppe) or when allowed by the story (LV15, ARR dungeons). And, yes. Eureka is totally not content designed to cater exploration-taxonomy players as it's basically just a huge monster-closet-killing-fest, and the great Gobul Library is only fun if players are ok with you reading the books. Eureka is so ew. Oh, and Dravania was terrible because there was a lot of areas that were locked behind progression with areas that would have benefited from being allowed to climb or jump to that wouldn't just be obvious achiever-bait like Kugane tower

3. The ability to clear dungeons if the tank or healer died with utility, strategy, job & enemy knowledge. OMG, this one time against coin counter was really fun and scary because the PLD & Lnc died and teleported back to the start and he started chasing me, so I basically ran in a wide circle around the boss room with only ShBnd to keep him still and we ended up beating him and then the HLR scolded the two afterwards and I'm never going to forget it, and it's a strategy that's was learned naturally from fighting overworld mobs

[MrPresident]

• You know that boss in Crystal Tower where there are the big black aoes and adds that everyone just ignores (the classic "burn the boss" guy)? His battle used to be fun before we could burn him. When doing the mechs, we'd have to bounce around the different platforms

I’d definitely be up for an alternate raid roulette where you’re ilevel synced and have to do the mechanics. I feel sorry for newer players who don’t get to fully experience old content like this.