ARR was better

[Vrankyl]

This... this is bait right? Please tell me it is bait.

Jobs had identity - Ah yes the Identity of Dragoon dying if a boss coughed magically in their direction. Or Paladin going 1-2-3 again... and again... and again... There was some good job identity, don't get me wrong. Like Bard and Monk but uh... there was also a lot of very bad identity too.

Jobs had a reason to level multiple (cross class system) - The Cross Class System is one of those 'good on paper bad in practice' things. It seems like a neat thing. Until you get a healer who refuses to to get Swiftcast because they don't want to level Thaumaturge, or a Warrior without Provoke because they don't want to be a Gladiator and other similar stuff. Which happened faaaaaaaaar too often. Hell it was just not very intuitive either as a lot of sprouts didn't even know they had to do those things to get it. Or even do those things to unlock jobs. Remember when you had to level Conjurer to unlock Paladin? Pepridge Farm remembers and says good riddance.

Hunting log and the Hunt kept the overworld alive - As others have said, the hunt is still there, the hunt log was kind of pointless beyond leveling. It was the Fate trains that kept it alive. The best way to level at higher levels was to hit up the Central Coerthas or North Thanalan Fate Trains.

Things weren't handed to you (you had to work a lot harder to clear content and save allowances) - I uh... not really? The primals were a lot simpler, and hell the real challenge of Titan EX was the netcode and lag and not actual challenge.

The raids were harder and had more complex tank/healer mechanics - Eh... some were, some weren't. It's as hit or miss as it is now.

The dungeons were harder (lost city of amdapor anyone?) - Lost City of Amdapor was face roll easy at launch. The only one I ever saw that people struggled with was Pharos Sirius.

The relic was harder, involved the over world and HAD a gil sink, AND dungeons even contained some of the pieces, AND crafters could make money selling the weapon needed - Harder is subjective. Sure the relic specific trials were neat, but simple. Atma farming and books weren't hard they were just FF11 nightmare grinds.

levequests had meaning - Battle ones yes, I will give you that. Battle Levequests are gone for a reason. Gathering and Crafting Levequests still have plenty of meaning.

Grand company was useful - Eh? Not anymore than it is now. Sure a lot of materials were locked behind Grand Company seals but that was frankly it.

Glamour system was more robust - Okay you lost me here completely. HOW?!?!

Elemental attributes on gear - Was pointless. No one did this outside of super duper niche situations.

Tradeable raid glamour meant raids had value in clearing them weekly (the dreadwyrm attire) - As others pointed out, this was a HW feature not ARR.

[Bright-Flower]

For me, the game is just flat out better now than it was.

Granted, I don't do high end content. So I can't comment on the coils of bahamut in particular. But I'll take the dungeons and bosses we've gotten in the recent expansions over ARR any day.

Paladin, my main job, has more identity now than it did back then. I enjoy Dragoon and Monk more than I did in ARR/HW as well. The other jobs I really enjoy playing, Dancer and Red Mage, didn't even exist yet.

The story, boss design, dungeons etc are just a lot more fun. Sure ARR experimented more in dungeons but a lot of those experiments were duds. Especially for content designed to be done over and over like dungeons in roulettes. I'm sure solving the puzzle in Sunken Temple of Qarn was fun the first time. Not so much as a new player coming in with people already knowing the solution and it technically being faster to just fail the puzzle anyway and not pick up the tablets.

I'm frankly glad the cross class system is gone. You shouldn't have to level other jobs just to get some key abilities like a taunt etc, or just to unlock your job etc. Being able to level everything on one character is a boon in FFXIV. Having to level say, archer or whatever to unlock black mage, or having to level paladin to play warrior effectively, was bad and I'm glad that system is gone.

For me the game has just gotten better with each expansion HW through SHB and even EW wasn't really a decline for me so much as just not as big of a bump up.

[Kalocin]

I don't miss having to reset my stats every time I changed jobs or waiting on CDs to reset after a wipe. Likewise, people also not having certain skills because they didn't have the job levelled. Swift cast res? Naw didn't want to level blm. You used up all of your TP (Also a thing back then you had to manage) on sprint and if you didn't have invigorate you kind of just did nothing. Then there was the accuracy stat point which you were forced to get up and had different amounts. Pretty sure you also didn't even get your tank stance until like near 40 for some reason lol. While I do miss some of the RPG features, I can't say I miss the jank.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Heavensward was peak. Fight me.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Heavensward was peak. Fight me.

The peaks was in stormblood.

[Sunako]

The peaks was in stormblood.

ARR got Coil and Stormblood got Ultimate Coil so both are acceptable answers

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

ARR got Coil and Stormblood got Ultimate Coil so both are acceptable answers

I hate having to explain the joke but I meant the zone.

[Kaurhz]

Heavensward was peak. Fight me.

I too enjoy an expansion that was bad design until 3.3

[Battler-Ushiromiya]

I don’t understand why you included this unless you weren’t actually playing during ARR and just found a page somewhere that had a list of expired ARR content.

That's exactly what he did lol

[TaleraRistain]

Like Jeeq said, overworld was populated because we were out there doing FATEs. This is because we had a hard stop at (I believe, it's been a bit) level 47 where we ran out of MSQ experience and had to go do FATE farms to get the next quest.

Having to level two classes was also pretty annoying, because they often were two different styles of play. So you're jiving with this class that you love but then you get stuck not able to progress to the Job step because you have to stop at 30 and go level this other class to 15 before you can keep jiving with the class you were enjoying.