Playing with an alt in XIV has made me realize I genuinely do like the lower-level MMO experience
Like, I dunno. I like having to hoof it through the Black Shroud instead of just flying over or having all my fast travels unlocked already. I like having the chance of regular aggro. I like having a quest log that isn't full of things that are world-ending and not having a page full of timers and a personal to-do list sixty miles long. I certainly would love it if this level 17 Conjurer had more then two buttons in a fight but that's the tradeoff.
There is a fun balance in the MMO experience where you go from "this is a big world and with that comes certain things like needing to actually transverse environments" to "nah fuck it this world is a checklist and you just warp everywhere to efficiently make meters go up" and while XIV never hits all the way to the latter side, it does so enough that I kinda prefer the early phases where it doesn't. Like, I'd take a little inconvenience here and there: fewer Teleport locations, more actual threat from random mobs out and about, etc.
coincidentally some of my favorite stuff is in Stormblood was just "helping M'Naago help Ala Mhigans get back on their feet."
might be the reason it took me so long to get through SHB is I'm not as into "IT IS THE END OF DAYS UNLESS YOU, HISTORY'S SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON, GOES TO BE A SUPERHERO ALL THE TIME" knowing that I had an expansion and a half of Majorly Important Events to go, and might be it's why Dawntrail sounding more like it is about expanding the world past how cool I personally am feels like it's gonna be something of a treat at the end of that.
s'kinda like superhero fatigue, maybe I want more "street" stuff then "massive universal events"
(which isn't to say I didn't love the ShB story and the First very dearly. The First felt more like "home" then Eorzea does. But dang if I don't pine for more quiet moments in the narrative. Likewise I think killing some of the ARR quests after the Scions get cleaned out is a shame. Made you sit with it a bit more.)