I never played 1.0 but having looked into it I do think it did some things much better. It had a darker atmosphere as well - some of which creeped into ARR and HW but has slowly become less and less common as the game desperately tries to get rid of anything even remotely gritty and serious. Which indicates a major shift in their intended target audience.

A shame, that. I care more about world building than any specific character. The Scions are all bland to me but I could more easily stomach their perpetual presence if the game actually let me enjoy some of the darker elements in the setting. Both in terms of major and minor affairs. We've already done it in other Final Fantasy games so I'm really not sure why there's such an aversion to having a full on thief or pirate in our band of associates. An unapologetic but not necessarily cruel one at that.

I enjoy it when there's looming threats in the background. FFXIV has very little of that now and whatever they do introduce seems likely to be resolved almost as quickly as it emerges.

For example, the Daedric Princes are always a threat in Tamriel. FFXIV, meanwhile, has not only rid the board of Garlemald and the Ascians but is apparently set to wrap up the Void as well. That's in addition to the known universe being revealed to largely just be a wasteland of dead worlds.

Everything just feels so clinical and predictable to me at this point. Which is a real shame since I really did like the earlier expansions quite a bit. Yet recent interviews have not given me much cause to believe that recently established trends are going to be any different.

It is what it is, I suppose. We'll see how 6.2 goes and if it's more of the same then I've got other things lined up to play during my gaming time.