Request for A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood Classic, in that order.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Since classic 1.0 is off the table for whatever reason, can we get classic Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood, in that order, instead?

If Activision Blizzard can give World of Warcraft players Classic World of Warcraft for 1.0, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, then Square-Enix and Creative Business Unit 3 can do something similar for Final Fantasy XIV with Classic A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood.

[MediArgentum]

You know what? I'd play it.

They're not gonna do it though. So I can only hope they keep improving the existing game instead.

[Kaurhz]

They should do Stormblood classic, if they ever were going to consider this.

ARR classic would simply be missing a lot of crucial Quality of life IMO.. Something which they ironed out over HW and SB... Before going needlessly aggressive with it on subsequent expansions.

[Jeeqbit]

The issue is mainly things like quality of life. So what would be better, if they did anything like this at all, is:

• Simulate the combat system from prior expansions. They can already have a separate leveling system, so it could technically be a separate leveling system that you can turn on, and then that uses old battle system data and functions much like how Eureka or Palace of the Dead have separate leveling systems and adjust how battle values scale.
• Restore access to old versions of attacks and traits when enabled. I know this is possible because of the fact Blue Mage can enable/disable attacks into the Action List.
• The "instanced area" with this different combat just happen to resemble all the open world and dungeon and raid content from that expansion.

By far the most controversial thing in every MMORPG is changing the combat. It is the biggest risk any MMORPG takes, and predictably so after decades of MMORPGs.

But anyway, I think a better and similar solution would just be some sort of skill tree system which they will probably elaborate at Fan Fest later this month. Because then you could simply choose current gameplay vs old gameplay depending on playstyle.

The only other reason to do this than the combat system is to make old content relevant again, but they could do this easily by adding Faux Hollows for doing a random Extreme trial MINE each day, and for doing a random set of 4 Savage raids MINE each week. Oh, and setting all previous expansion dungeons and trials to MINE by default.

[DRKoftheAzure]

They should do Stormblood classic, if they ever were going to consider this.

ARR classic would simply be missing a lot of crucial Quality of life IMO.. Something which they ironed out over HW and SB... Before going needlessly aggressive with it on subsequent expansions.

The main goal of making this request was to add value to the subscription since... well... Dawntrail was not as good as people would have like it to be, and that is me being VERY nice about Dawntrail in its current state... and adding classic A Realm Reborn, classic Heavensward, and classic Stormblood, would help bring player numbers back up somewhat, like what Activision Blizzard did with World of Warcraft classic... Although, for Activision Blizzard, it was mostly due to reluctance and a necessity to appease shareholders and investors, and I'm pretty sure the shareholders and investors of Square-Enix and Creative Business Unit 3 want to be appeased, so this is my solution to a problem that they seem to have found themselves in...

Adding the crucial quality of life improvements to A Realm Reborn classic and beyond would be up to the developers discretion but most importantly, player demand... which I assume player demand is going to be EXTREMELY HIGH be for said crucial quality of life improvements to be added to A Realm Reborn classic and beyond.

Heck, they could make Legacy servers THE A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, AND Stormblood classic servers, and add more if population issues arise BECAUSE of how popular classic A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood are.

[DRKoftheAzure]

The issue is mainly things like quality of life. So what would be better, if they did anything like this at all, is:

• Simulate the combat system from prior expansions. They can already have a separate leveling system, so it could technically be a separate leveling system that you can turn on, and then that uses old battle system data and functions much like how Eureka or Palace of the Dead have separate leveling systems and adjust how battle values scale.
• Restore access to old versions of attacks and traits when enabled. I know this is possible because of the fact Blue Mage can enable/disable attacks into the Action List.
• The "instanced area" with this different combat just happen to resemble all the open world and dungeon and raid content from that expansion.

Quality of life is up to the developers discretion. As for the points that you provided a possible alternative solution, it would not work because Square-Enix and Creative Business Unit 3 need some way to get players to re-subscribe again ever since Dawntrail was not well received by players... even though there are some things that I liked that came from the 7.x series of patches... but some of those things could have been in the game since as early as 2.1(glamour and armoire updates), with others being as early as 4.0 or even 5.0 launch(job abilities being added to replace a LOT of the stuff that they removed)

By far the most controversial thing in every MMORPG is changing the combat. It is the biggest risk any MMORPG takes, and predictably so after decades of MMORPGs.

That much I agree on, and sometimes the best solution is the "if ain't broke, don't fix it" approach... but quality of life adjustments to make combat more fun or to make certain things work better is always welcome...

But anyway, I think a better and similar solution would just be some sort of skill tree system which they will probably elaborate at Fan Fest later this month. Because then you could simply choose current gameplay vs old gameplay depending on playstyle.

I would not have my hopes TOO high with skill trees, personally speaking... simply because if they DO skill trees, they'll just lock it to Field Operations like they did with Lost Actions, Phantom Jobs, and whatever the Eureka version of Lost Actions are...

[CCheshire]

No, it was miserable back then when it was the current patch for many problems and it would be still miserable in 2026 esp since not even in the current DT FFXIV is getting enough funding alone or resources so why make it worse by taking them away even more for no reason at all?

[Aidorouge]

I'd rather they not waste their already shoestring budget on a version of the game that would fracture the already dwindling playerbase, and only appeal to a small portion of people here anyway.

I know I wouldn't touch a Classic version of ARR, HW, and STB at least, given all that I've heard about how the game played back then.

[Jeeqbit]

Creative Business Unit 3 need some way to get players to re-subscribe again ever since Dawntrail was not well received by players...

Not particularly true. They have seemed pretty content with the reduction in subscriptions. They told their investors it was simply normalizing after the Covid spike, which I disagree with, but there is a fair argument that Endwalker created an unrelated, persistent spike that brought over 50% of the former playerbase back at one point or another to see the finale of what they had once played. It was possibly the strongest selling point in the game's history - "end of the arc" to a story that we initially felt was going to last forever ie. just kill primals always. I was really quite shocked to see the % of past and present players that have the Endwalker MSQ minion.

Regardless, the number of subscriptions has increased somewhat due to the patches and their goal with the 8.0 announcements will be the try to bring more people back. And at least for the initial release, they will succeed, because they just will. People always come back for expansion releases and that's just how it works.

sometimes the best solution is the "if ain't broke, don't fix it" approach

Main issue is that instead of fixing things they often just flat out remove them.

I would not have my hopes TOO high with skill trees, personally speaking... simply because if they DO skill trees, they'll just lock it to Field Operations like they did with Lost Actions, Phantom Jobs, and whatever the Eureka version of Lost Actions are...

You seem unaware that Yoshi-P himself said he was discussing skill trees, talents and ability points with his team, for 8.0. He said they were just ideas, at the time. He then said he had decided on what he was doing, but of course will not be telling us until Fan Fest.

[Vespar]

WoW content, if memory serves, tends to become obsolete after a few expansions and things/people move on. Whereas ARR, HW, and SB are part of an overarching story that hasnt become obsolete or no longer played. Its an integral part of EVERY players' story experience. You dont just skip or miss it in any way (unless you story skip or cutscene skip it yourself). You still have to progress through it in some fashion. So in my mind, a classic version isnt needed for those.

That said. 1.X absolutely could use a classic version for those that didnt play it. But I felt it could be better served by recreating it as a side story content DLC pack.