Combat system is beyond saving.

[Aravell]

It always happens when someone mentions HW, people come in with "You're just nostalgic" or "You just have rose-tinted glasses on", god forbid someone enjoyed something you didn't.

I still think HW MCH and SMN were the best they've ever been, it's not nostalgia or rose-tinted glasses, it's a preference.

[Zarkovitch]

3.0 WAR was the most unbalance tank ever. They have to restrict LB due how broken the job is. If y all thought WAR EW was OP, It's nothing compare to 3.0 WAR. Butcher block was the strongest combo and the best aggroing, Old strom path 10% mitigation 24/7, storm eye is must for your co-tank and your ninja. Unchained free 20 seconds of to do whatever without no penality from the tank stance. Offensive stance give crit %. Equilibrium give health on tank stance and 200 TP damage stance, meanwhile the other tanks have nothing like equilibrium. Holmgang was still the best invul in game due is short cd and no worry for heal equilibrium carries for the healing department back in days. awerness plus raw intuation easiest combo of soaking so much dmg, it make sheltron garbage compare to that. WAR 3.0 was such a must you trolling if you dont have one in raid.

[xivYuiM]

It always happens when someone mentions HW, people come in with "You're just nostalgic" or "You just have rose-tinted glasses on", god forbid someone enjoyed something you didn't.

I still think HW MCH and SMN were the best they've ever been, it's not nostalgia or rose-tinted glasses, it's a preference.

I get the "it's nostalgia" comment every time I bring it up but the issue with that logic is that I have been saying the "return to heavensward" chant ever since the day the 4.0 patch notes came out. I don't know how in 2017 I would have been nostalgic for something that I had only been missing for 48 hours.

[ty_taurus]

3.0 WAR was the most unbalance tank ever. They have to restrict LB due how broken the job is. If y all thought WAR EW was OP, It's nothing compare to 3.0 WAR. Butcher block was the strongest combo and the best aggroing, Old strom path 10% mitigation 24/7, storm eye is must for your co-tank and your ninja. Unchained free 20 seconds of to do whatever without no penality from the tank stance. Offensive stance give crit %. Equilibrium give health on tank stance and 200 TP damage stance, meanwhile the other tanks have nothing like equilibrium. Holmgang was still the best invul in game due is short cd and no worry for heal equilibrium carries for the healing department back in days. awerness plus raw intuation easiest combo of soaking so much dmg, it make sheltron garbage compare to that. WAR 3.0 was such a must you trolling if you dont have one in raid.

If balance is the main concern, couldn’t you resolve that fairly easily with number adjustments? The thing people are fixated on with Heavensward has nothing to do with balance and everything to do with the actual playstyle of a job. It’s easy to go in and adjust numerical values.

[Nebelheim]

I get the "it's nostalgia" comment every time I bring it up but the issue with that logic is that I have been saying "return to heavensward" chant ever since the day the 4.0 patch notes came out. I don't know how in 2015 I would have been nostalgic for something that I had only been missing for 48 hours.

I get those comments also or "you think you enjoyed it or want it back but you don't" type of comment. Why is it hard to believe that people genuinely enjoyed the game back then and always comes in with "You really didn't enjoy it you just think you did because of nostalgia". I genuinely enjoyed the game and it's combat more back in heavanswards then the overly simplified combat we have now.

[Espon]

Half of the playerbase hasn’t even experienced the actual final fantasy XIV combat system that had things like:

• Aggro management
• Cleric stance and Multiple tank stances (3.x WAR was the best job in the history of this game)
• TP (sprint not draining it was a good change)
• Dungeon packs actually being a threat
• Multiple viable builds for all jobs
• Power level being driven by skill rather than solely depending on your gear ilvl

The list goes on.

A lot of your points makes it sound like you never actually played back in Heavensward and are just basing it off things you read online. Also what you find fun does not extend to absolutely everyone. I've been playing since ARR beta and many things you've stated in this thread I find as needless jank and am glad it has been removed or changed. There are many areas in this game I feel could use improvements, but bringing back old frustrating elements does not make the game more fun for me, it makes the game more frustrating and annoying to play.

Aggro management amounted to being in tank stance for a few seconds then being in DPS stance for the rest of the fight, and I never felt swapping in and out of Cleric stance was fun and engaging. All TP did was limit your AoE damage output, it was about as pointless as MP currently is.
Dungeons were never difficult outside a few of the old ones allowing you to pull all the packs from one boss to the other and being overwhelmed.
What build variety? Do you mean cross-class skills? The skills that only had a few good ones and you were considered trash if you didn't have them? Oh yeah I sure miss having to do tank swaps with other tanks that didn't have Provoke because they decided to go with a different cross-class skill (aka never bothered to level gladiator high enough)...yeah that was definite the peak of gameplay. Or how about those healers without Swiftcast that would just sit there for several seconds trying to revive someone?
You make it sound like skill is meaningless now. Item level always had a significant impact on your performance due to how much stats increase between raid tiers since this game only has vertical progression.

The thing with stuff like cleric stance is, it was optional. If you were doing any content that was the "normal difficulty" of the time then there was nobody forcing you to use it. If you were worried about activating it and then getting caught unable to heal enough then simply don't use it! It was a brilliant way for people who spent the time to learn the limits of their job to take the risk of turning it on to squeeze out extra damage when they could and, if done appropriately, they would be rewarded for doing so. There is nothing even close to that in the game the way it is today.

Everything is optional. I can choose to not AoE on packs or only spam a single healing spell and still clear most content outside of high-end raids, but that doesn't mean my party will like that I'm playing badly and significantly slowing things down. Healers were expected to use Cleric Stance, especially since all your damage was based on your INT stat and even since the very beginning healers were expected to deal damage.

[xivYuiM]

Do you truly remember Heavensward?

RNG mitigation (parry). Job mechanics built upon the concept of parrying when bosses weren't doing physical damage? Combos breaking due to lack of Accuracy? Janky and redundant abilities, such as attacks you can only use when the boss is at 20% HP, Fluid Aura, Featherfoot and Keen Flurry? No magic mitigation or AoE on PLD? Materia for elemental stats? Bowmage? Vitality vs Strength fight with the devs on tanks?

I don't think that every aspect of heavensward was completely flawless. I do think it was preferable to the state of the game since then though. Of course some things you mention were positive changes like bowmage or no PLD aoe.

I agree that it was more fun to "do well" in dungeons then than it is now, because it shows more if there is a bigger gap between the skill floor and ceiling.

Understatement of the century. I would go so far as to say that the skill gap is nonexistent short of someone deliberately not playing correctly like completely ignoring aoe attacks or doing zero cooldowns as a tank. It is basically impossible to accidentally play "wrong" now and as long as you manage to avoid doing that then all players (in equal gear) are basically identical.

a big part of it was a knowledge gap - casual players not knowing the hundreds of different nuances and min-max stuff about this large game.

Filling that knowledge gap (for me and many other players) was the most fun part of the experience back then. Becoming aware of how little I knew and how much room for improvement there was was very motivating and ultimately very satisfying when I felt I had reached mastery of a given job. Also each job was so different that it was always exciting to pick up a new one and go on the same journey again.

Aggro management wasn't really a thing honestly. You turned on your tank stance, grabbed aggro, then after enough hits you didn't even need stance anymore so you could DPS. And if you stayed in your stance the entire time, you had aggro for sure. Is that description of it much different now?

This was almost true for standard raids/trails but aggro management was a big deal in dungeons or any content that needed AoE damage.

TP was pointless and redundant, mostly unnoticeable unless DPS was low.

Again, perhaps true for raids but in dungeons managing it was important.

[Supersnow845]

If it’s not “you just have nostalgia you didn’t actually enjoy it” it’s “did you actually play HW because it sounds like you just read about it online”

Is it that hard to believe I genuinely prefer HW SCH to that absolute disaster that they showed in the job action trailer that just read as a 30 second advertisement reading “OHMYGOD JUST PLAY SAGE SO WE CAN KILL THIS JOB ALREADY”

[Bitmoar]

Well I respectfully disagree with all of your points and think the game is objectively better in every way. If the devs make any of the changes you suggest I will be speaking to the manager. Further, something tells me you have a lot of optimizations left unmade. I'm not sure where you get the idea that optimization was so much more interesting back then when you've obviously never played optimally.

[caffe_macchiato]

As I've said before Macchiato, sub away, I and many others thank you for your angry money. I don't understand it, but it's your money.

You sure you want people to unsub right now?