What era of design was your favorite?

[EmeraldSerenade]

ARR.

Every ARR zone is extremely busy and full of interesting things/locations.

[Anarnee]

For jobs and content design it was HW, but I have to say DT is the funnest dungeons have been in years, depending on how occult crescent goes in might become my favorite for normal content at least. I hope it's as good as Bozja was.

I can firmly say I've only enjoyed PVP in DT, but I was fine with not doing it before. I do actually look forward to doing it nowadays.

[Loppi]

Unironically Stormblood was my favorite MSQ

[KageTokage]

ARR had the best zone design. All of the expansion areas feel needlessly spacious.

As far as actual gameplay goes I think it peaked in SB then went downhill from there as kits began to get pruned/dumbed down and encounters shifted more heavily to extremely scripted mechanics and aggressive use of body checks/pass or fail.

[Kohashi]

The jobs were vastly different back then and that impacted the perception of those mechanics more than you may think. Maybe people wouldn't be here complaining too much about boring mechanics if jobs maintained their earlier levels of complexity from Stormblood or Heavensward, for example.... who knows...

Perception doesn't equal reality.

The mechanics are still the same. I did watch MTQ guides from back then (https://youtu.be/sUaYmgSzkR4?si=tiG9I2g9rqB5cjBJ), and yes, I could see classes were different, however, the movement and how you resolved mechanics was exactly the same. So, yeah, I don't get it when people cry about the "old times" regarding the fights.

Classes well, I guess, each to their own.

[Kozh]

Perception doesn't equal reality.

The mechanics are still the same. I did watch MTQ guides from back then (https://youtu.be/sUaYmgSzkR4?si=tiG9I2g9rqB5cjBJ), and yes, I could see classes were different, however, the movement and how you resolved mechanics was exactly the same. So, yeah, I don't get it when people cry about the "old times" regarding the fights.

Classes well, I guess, each to their own.

I mean, you're only perceiving the fight through a video so you can't really understand why it felt different.

[Valence]

Perception doesn't equal reality.

The mechanics are still the same. I did watch MTQ guides from back then (https://youtu.be/sUaYmgSzkR4?si=tiG9I2g9rqB5cjBJ), and yes, I could see classes were different, however, the movement and how you resolved mechanics was exactly the same. So, yeah, I don't get it when people cry about the "old times" regarding the fights.

Classes well, I guess, each to their own.

If you're comparing them in terms of busyness, they're definitely a lot less invasive or intricate than today. But they also had more variety and unique things.
Either way, they were less invasive precisely because they weren't the only thing players had to play with since the battle system was still a thing with a pretty hefty weight as well.

[Jeeqbit]

I can say for certain, for example, that doing A12S as a DRK now would be completely braindead compared to how much focus and attention it required at the time. At the time I was juggling so much focus to its very intricate ways of unlocking different parts of its rotation in time for mechanics at certain times in the fight, while preventing MP running out, keeping a DoT up, very regular tank busters and spears, etc.

Now you'd just do 1-2-3 spam and hit CDs like Dark Mind for TB. The AoE rotation is just a 2-button combo with occasional gauge spend and no risk. Totally braindead.

[Kohashi]

I mean, you're only perceiving the fight through a video so you can't really understand why it felt different.

Did the damn mechanics resolve the same way or not?

So, where is the amazing variety that people talk about, or the unique mechanics, a great portion of this forum is crying about, and which was lost?

"If you're comparing them in terms of busyness, they're definitely a lot less invasive or intricate than today. But they also had more variety and unique things."

examples please. I was basically falling asleep between each mechanic. Explain how elevation or riding the spaceship was so different, to how the M5s dance lights or sneks in p8s were?

How classes were is not even the main thing I am talking about, just strictly mechanical uniqueness, pace, complexity, and variety.

[Rithy255]

For me shadowbringers and early Endwalker I felt paladin was most fun, gameplay wise.

Shadowbringers I used to have a lot more intrest in the game and leveling jobs, but even then I did see issues with job design in some areas.
Ideally shadowbringers should have toned down some simplifications it made and tried to balance the game for something inbetween Stormblood and shadowbringers, but instead they doubled down on simplifying the game.

Story wise Shadowbringers and heavensward to me were the strongest, I always felt like Endwalker was very overated, Stormblood far eastern areas I loved the others were meh, DT and ARR story I mostly skipped but dislike strongly.