Well... I haven't been playing steadily. I actually haven't played for almost a year. I played for about 3-4 months total, unsubbed, and am only on now because of the free week. This was back during... 2.1? 2.2? Whichever patch added in the Extreme Primals, Haukke and Copperbell Hard Modes, Pharos Sirius, the first Crystal Tower, King Mog, Ultima Hard Mode, the housing, but before "Atma grinding" was a thing. I liked the game, but I didn't really know anyone in my guild besides the 2 people I joined with (from WoW), and I was always on much later than anyone else was (timezones are an even bigger issue when you work full time and have to commute in rush hour, unlike when I was playing WoW in college and lived like 15 minutes away), and the long solo DPS queues kinda took its toll. I did manage to get my Relic Weapon and its upgrade, and a couple of gear pieces from Crystal Tower (and that SICK dark green i90 SMN coat, not the light green one you get just for reaching 50, no the sick dark green one. it's so cool.), but I didn't do any endgame raidy progression after that. I'm not really sure of the community feel of Ultros, tbh, I play MMOs really insularly, and didn't really interact with many people outside who I knew and my guild.
That said, I did notice when patch notes got posted to r/ffxiv (by the way this comic is posted there i didnt do it) and hell, they added a lot to this game between then and now. They didn't even wait for an expansion to put in an entire new class (rogues/ninjas), for starters. Since I stopped, there's 2 new Crystal Tower sections, 2 more Binding Coils (the endgamiest of the endgame), several Hard Modes of existing dungeons and bosses, several original new dungeons, several new Primal fights, more things for the retainers to do aside from being your bank and auctioneer, and that extremely elaborate marriage system (Like have you read about that? You have to like, schedule a timeslot for the ceremony and send invitations and there's a bunch of options for the ceremony if you pay a bit of real money. It's nuts!) among other things. Also, you know, the Golden Saucer. I think every patch had something really good and significant.
I actually haven't done anything as a SMN since logging in for free week, because I really don't know where to start. I unlocked the Saucer, and took the deluge of quests that it dumped on me to show me where all the new stuff starts, and then my eyes went cloudy, I switched over to CNJ which I had at like 15, and started healing a lot of low level dungeons. Instant queues are great, and already having Swiftcast and Eye for an Eye doesn't hurt either.
There's a lot of things I like about the game, like how the class progression is a lot simpler. There isn't like, talent trees and 3 versions of the same class for every class, yet each class has its own flavor, even if they're the same role. SCH and WHM play differently from each other; BLM and SMN; DRG, MNK, and NIN; etc. Even simple interface stuff, like tab-targeting making an audible "click" when you switch targets, and the big targeting arrow, are great. But then there's a lot of things I notice are very shamelessly grindy, like the aforementioned Atma grind, along with almost everything that involved your relic weapon after the first upgrade. Actually, wait, the first upgrade too, that involved getting tomestones, which wasn't nearly as painful, but still grindy. I also hate hate HATE the crafting, but that seems to be just me. I also haven't tried the controller UI at all, and everyone I hear who talks about it loves it. I think I'm just too used to keyboard/mouse for these kind of games.
by Adol The Red » Mon Mar 02, 2015 10:24 am 
Pie and I are excited you decided to Adol!
