Hello, (random person)! I hope your hazmat suit hasn’t punctured today whilst roaming the forums. I’m a long-time WoW player that recently finished the entire MSQ of FF14, including all the required content in between and a tiny bit of optional stuff. Now watch as I try to vigorously provide some constructive thoughts on each MMO. These are just my rambling, most notable thoughts put to the keyboard. You’re welcome to disagree and agree!
I preface by saying I’m not going to cover everything about each MMO. I’m not covering art+music, housing, race diversity, glamour/transmog, class/Job design, encounter design, or anything like end-game progression, etc. Although I did think about it. Each MMO has their ups and downs for all things aforementioned.
Mounts: I didn’t have a lot of them in FF14 compared to WoW, but I think each game has a fairly similar and interesting catalog. Surprisingly, I find it funny how people might complain about reskins on WoW when in FF14 you have the exact same thing happening. FF14 might have one thing over WoW, in that once you get a complete collection of reskins you unlock a super variant that’s unique in their own right.
Marketboard and Auction House: The WoW auction house is less susceptible to scams and more accessible to all. In my weak efforts to make Gil in FF14, I resorted to market flipping, and my success rate was uncanny. The FF14 Marketboard reminds me a lot of the old WoW Auction House before its last revamp. I think Retainers are a real scuffed system - they sell items for you, but have a cap of 20 different auctions they can perform at one time - and having to pay real life money to gain more retainers is gags. Designing a retainer is great though; basically creating your own NPC! Each auction system uses some kind of tax - WoW uses an auction entry fee - FF14’s is much more egregious with regional/city rates between 3-5%.
This is the part where comparisons and contrasts get stark.
Professions: WoW professions are a lot more clean cut compared to FF14. Gathering in WoW is a simple cast bar and crafting is no different. FF14’s gathering professions are very engaging and I enjoy that about them. FF14 crafting professions are complex and you’re prone to success and failure, low and high qualities. And the entire system is entirely undercut when you realize there are macros online that you can use to automate the entire process for the best outcome. One thing WoW should learn from FF14 on professions is they can be a fun mini game with meaningful progression, gear, and quests like those from Legion.
Leveling: Each MMO takes leveling differently. In WoW you can reach max level in maybe 14 hours. That’s a guesstimation. In FF14 it’s far longer your first time and leveling side jobs probably longer than any guesstimation I can make. The most important point I want to make on leveling is: WoW might be short, but I’d rather have it shorter for alt-classes than a long crawl like in FF14. Leveling a side Job in FF14 is a horrific atrocity: A true grind*. WoW could learn a thing about making your first leveling character a longer journey, and FF14 could learn to make the alt-journey a shorter one or one with more long term variety.
*Grind: Zone one time quests, beast tribe dailies, leves, sightseeing logs, hunting logs, FATEs, LFG, etc.
Open World: WoW’s open world has developed a lot over the years into now that’s something that inspires returning on a daily basis at endgame to complete a large cluster of different recurring quests, killing rare creatures, or finding treasure chests. It’s all there, laid bare, for you to enjoy. While leveling, you have a decent adventure of quests ahead of you going across the entirety of each zone, and along the way you might find some quests will turn into world quest games to play once at max level. Additionally, you can find those rares and treasures mid leveling/questing.
FF14’s open world could learn from WoW, in my opinion. Aether nodes are the only incentivised exploration you’ll have if only following the MSQ. The grind* isn’t required for a first time Job as the MSQ fills out all EXP needs, leaving all of them for an alt-Job. Rares are a thing but you’re damned to find them as there’s no prompts, or kill them by yourself else you’ll be condemned by the community that do organized kill-trains.
Questing: From the quests I’ve done, FF14 severely lacks ones that are innovative. Most involve collecting an item, killing something, or talking to an NPC somewhere. Just like WoW, sure, but more so stale across 3 expansions. By the time I got the Stormblood I was surprised to find a mini game where I zoom my camera in like a sniper rifle and shoot something; which lasted for no less than a minute. FF14 could learn a lot from the way WoW opts to have playground quests where you frequently do something outside-the-box. When FF14 introduced role-playing scenarios in the MSQ I squealed in joy as that’s a fantastic step in the right direction. Golden Saucer quests out in the world is what I’m asking for, more or less.
Story (No Spoilers): FF14’s story is one to be desired in WoW for a few specific reasons:
In FF14, the interpersonal relationship and encounters between the player-character and NPC’s is excellent. There are clear callbacks to previous story beats and player/character interactions. Meanwhile in WoW, we have little fireside chats to admire between NPCs and the story quest dialogues which never develop anything truly meaningful between player and NPC.
In FF14, the overarching narrative is coherent, and fluid with every main story beat being effectively closed eventually so others may open soon after. Meanwhile in WoW, the Sword of Sargeras is still impaled into Silithus despite the story suggesting the wound is no longer infectious or prone to manipulation by the Old Gods.
In FF14, antagonists have their motives usually presented in a coherent, tasteful manner not shrouded in too much secrecy depending on the villain. All characters are typically vocal about their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and intentions. Meanwhile in WoW, we hardly know what Zovaal’s doing and what Sylvanas is really hoping for. To find out, we’re fed bread crumb comments by the Primus as he clearly knows more than we do, but hardly tells us anything by the end of the 9.1 storyline.
In FF14, the cutscenes themselves are well enough animated with the in-game models. To complete the story you have to go through all expansion iterations. In WoW, each expansion is in its own time bubble and the story can never clearly assume you’re the same hero of a previous expansion or player/character interaction. WoW cinematics are incredibly designed although recently the story context’s for each have been poorly received.
Shadowbringers introduced the Trust system; clear dungeons with story NPC’s. I think this is the step in the right direction if you hate being an MMORPG. Group content shouldn’t recede into single player content. FF14 is single player enough as is. Same goes for WoW.
Someone should machinima a proof of concept of what a small segment of WoW storytelling would look like if slowed down and presented like FF14 or Guild Wars 2.
Shadowlands & Endwalker: Shadowlands will likely go down as a funky expansion where the narrative was questionable, the systems were glazed with balancing issues, and strange content droughts. But a fine expansion if you quit worrying yourself to death about min-max potential. Endwalker will probably go down as a massive success for Square Enix, fans, and FF14 itself. I look forward to seeing where WoW takes the players next and I will be there to engage whatever’s next. I, too, will play Endwalker to see its story come to a close.
In conclusion, I’m now gonna do you dirty and make some phat takes:
I think FF14 is a great MMORPG but it lacks a lot of innovation and is no better than WoW. It’s seemingly built on the back of A Realm Reborn’s systems and mechanical limitations and Square Enix has never attempted to make stark upgrades in what it can possibly do. You can appreciate how Blizzard at least tries each expansion to update WoW in a major way to keep things innovative and fresh, regardless of its a system flop. FF14 takes no chances, and Shadowbringers feels like a 2016 expansion release consequently. Endwalker will likely feel the same and it’s a shame because it’s 2021 and the moment-to-moment questing and open world designs are stale. At least, if anything, FF14 makes up for everything in consistency in the quality of each expansion release. Each is better, but not that greater than the last. I think after Endwalker, the developers should place FF14 back under hard development to update its system and mechanical potential. If it does in a huge, great way? It’ll obliterate WoW.
WoW should attempt to add a more robust storyline that’s interpersonal with its characters and does not constantly hide behind secrets. Such as the Sylvanas/Anduin Torghast cinematic(s) being slowed down and norm. More horizontal progression systems: content similar to what all other mainstream MMO’s do today. As well as meaningful profession roles which can use some of the great mini games we all know Blizzard is capable of designing.
Check out Guild Wars 2. It’s a major underdog.
Fantasia is a clear scam. WoW’s barber shop is something to be greatly appreciated as Square Enix milks its users to customize your character beyond a few features.
Illidan Stormrage could beat Estinien Wyrmblood in a 1v1 no items Final Destination.