Speaking about XI, I reactivated my account for another attempt this weekend. Last time I tried was 2012, to play between FFXIV 1.0 and ARR release, and I just couldn't. Got to level 17 farming skeletons in some random cave somehow worse than 1.0 guildleves and never came back.
So on a whim this weekend, nothing to play, thought I could give it another chance and damn. Everything I hated about the game is still there, but it seems SE went HARD on making the game easier to navigate and level up and I gotta admit it worked on me. Trust system is serviceable, allows you to do stuff alone, but the requirement to start a battle with a melee attack is the most stupid thing I've seen, yeah Square, I wanna smack a dude with my staff as a BLM just so these NPCs will actually engage. Still, it works, I guess. The Records of Eminence system, however, is perfect for getting those levels and rewards trickling in, that delicious, addictive sense of getting bars filled. First time rewards are great too, and that coupled with sparks makes gearing as a new player a breeze. Except making money, at least they gave you several different storage systems so I guess I don't mind the 30 slot bag. I just want to do the main story as far as I can solo + trust anyways, so I can manage the inventory.
Then there's the teleports everywhere. It seems in these 5 years the game went from extremely hard to navigate to even easier than XIV. There's a billion crystals on the cities, then there's survival books everywhere, and then you can even use the wanted monster system as a teleport. I understand this takes a lot of what made the game special for many, years ago, but I think as a means to simplify things both for the old timers and whatever new players that come in it makes perfect sense. I played until 2 AM saturday then had to force myself to stop today 10PM because of work, it's been a while a game hooked me in so much, and really, I'm playing it as a worse FFXII basically.
That said I cannot imagine how the old timers had the patience to unlock Treasures of Aht Urhgan. Dude gives you 4 options, all include you beating your head into a wall until you get the itens, reminded me of Xenoblade X's bs robot related quests. Choose the garrison trigger itens from strongholds and gotta say FFXI beast strongholds are so much better than XIV but farming stuff is always a pain. I'm just glad I figured out I can pull the Quadav from high ground instead of navigating into the dungeon. As far as I understand I could unlock it a lot easier with a Rhapsodies quest but I want Blue Mage now, not later.
TL;DR: Go play Final Fantasy XI.