Other activities in WoW this expansion can get you Heroic raid-level gear, tbh. From the other perspective, I actually think this is a big thing that made XIV unsatisfying to play as a raider, because it felt like there was no way gear-wise to distinguish myself from players who didn’t raid outside of a few percentile difference of secondary stats (which outside of crit don’t feel impactful or like they do much).
I’m not saying the way you felt was wrong, just pointing out that it can have the opposite effect on some players too. Titanforging issues aside, at least if you’re a Mythic raider or M+ junkie in WoW it’ll show in your gear and stats.
See for me, I don’t have any interest in “distinguishing myself” in a video game. I don’t base my enjoyment on how my character compares to someone else. It doesn’t bother me if someone else has similar gear to mine or that maybe they got it easier than I did. What someone else has or does means little to nothing to me. All that matters to me is what I have and what I do and if I am having fun playing.
I am not really a competitive type of a player. I prefer more cooperative play.
It’s a beautiful game for sure and the character creation is fantastic. As well as all the mogs (fan service ). But the combat and zoning, meh. Still, it’s totally worth checking out. I played a little but did not get sucked in.
As far as anyone knows, FFXIV isn’t more popular than WoW. It’s definitely slowly growing or at least maintaining rather than declining, but neither company releases proper numbers anymore. SE only gives “total accounts” once every now and again which is entirely useless as its the number that WoW has in the hundreds of millions, and Blizzard doesn’t release numbers at all anymore.
FFXIV starts off VERY slow, in terms of combat. It has a very long GCD compared to WoW, which the game attempts to fill with more oGCD buttons than WoW typically has, but you don’t have those at low levels.
Despite what people might say, no, FFXIV does not ever get fast, or up to the same speed as WoW. Combat is still noticeably slower than WoW at max level, even with the “fast” classes, even with the oGCD abilities. It’s “good enough” if you enjoy the rotation otherwise, but it’s a major turn off for me.
If you don’t enjoy it for the increased story focus, FFXIV isn’t worth playing. It’s basically WoW if WoW had kept developing in the same mindset as Cata but forever. The base game post-rerelease quite literally felt like an eastern rip of Cata made for a Western audience, although they’ve put some work into it since then.
Personally, I think it’s worth playing for a couple months when expansions are new, do some early endgame, then just let it sit until the next one is almost out. Maybe catch up on story a month early so you don’t have to feel like you’re rushing to see new content, but ultimately the slower combat and Cata-style endgame makes it get very dull to me very fast.
It’s a wet dream if you’re a final fantasy fan, but it’s just an “alright” alternative to WoW otherwise, and that’s just not enough to pull me away from here long-term.
Oh, also, the graphics are constantly overstated. They’re not particularly good even by WoW’s standards, they just have a particular style. Which is fine, but people like to pretend it’s some beautiful next gen masterpiece sometimes.
Yeah, I gotcha. It’s not my sole motivating factor either, and as I said elsewhere in the thread it was more XIV’s healing design that pushed me away (DPSDPSDPSDPSDPS) than the issues with raid gear, but it didn’t help either.
As another aside, I used to always praise WoW raid gear (even LFR) for having things like tier sets that were specific to class, as well as trinkets that could change how your class played if you obtained it and I liked that about raiding. Sadly, tier sets went the way of the dodo in BfA, and trinkets seem pretty uninspired thus far but before then that was always something else I thought WoW did a bit better for the raiding crowd (while not leaving it completely out of the reach of a casual player, so long as they slogged through LFR once a week).
Raids are still fun in XIV (the music is sexy pretty much every tier) and I did them for a long time despite no real reason OTHER than fun for doing so. But like anything you play for a long time (I’ve played since CBT), I got burned out and disillusioned and wanted a break. It happens.
It’s a good game once you get into it, but the lower levels are definitely quite sluggish if you’re used to WoW (especially at higher levels); the 2.5 second GCD definitely takes some getting used to, but on the bright side “empty GCDs” where you wait for everything to come off cooldown are pretty much unheard of. Off-GCD abilities become very common at higher levels as well.
… but up to level 50 or so things can definitely seem quite slow.
The community is actually quite nice, and the hardcore endgame crowd tends to keep to itself for the most part.
Unlike WoW, the endgame crowd doesn’t try to cram their optimization ideology down everyone’s throats. I suppose it has something to do with linking DPS meters and use of add-ons is a bannable offense, even if the game’s mods will turn a blind eye if the data gained is used for “productive purpose” (translation: keep the data to yourself). Even then, you find the endgame crowd has no trouble helping newbies they run into… for the most part.
A little side story to show the difference…
Actually had someone leave my group today after one wipe… which is actually a rarity. The group complained about them leaving after just one wipe. So even though it was followed by 2 other people leaving (wait was taking too long, and it was a healer we lost too) and waiting for 10 minutes for the group to completely fill up again… we ended up clearing the boss on the second attempt, despite pulling with just one healer (he was confident enough to solo heal the boss, so why not?) and having a close call on the DPS check.
At the end of it, I walked out of there with 2 commendations despite being the off-tank (essentially just a beefy DPS who acts as a back-up tank in this case). All I did was help out how I could, main tank did most of the work; hopefully he got at least two at the end of that run (he got mine at least).
Definitely known to be the most touchy subject. I don’t mind the whole “Healers are expected to DPS during downtime” side of it, I think the same would apply in WoW if it were true. The ebb and flow of damage intake in FFXIV probably changes things up a bit, less spammy with the heals.
… though I can see the frustrations of having to rez other player constantly.
Still, I haven’t done TOO much healing in FFXIV myself (and pretty much none in WoW)… so yeah, I won’t comment too much on that.
Follow the Main Story Quests, there’s something in the UI which should guide you to the next one (assuming you haven’t turned it off). Also make sure you do your class quests to stay up to date.
This is a big advantage for FFXIV (or big disadvantage if you are competitive), it doesn’t dive into the competitive aspect much at all… in fact, pretty much no one cares about it.
Clear the “Ultimate” difficulty fights?
At most, people will say “hey, shiny weapon there!”
This is part of what makes the game, as a whole, less toxic than WoW right now. You can be non-competitive, everyone’s there to have fun and progress at their own pace.
No hard numbers… but the combination of WoW seemingly falling into a death spiral and FFXIV surging in popularity has caused people to raise the question. The two games are probably closer than most people realize.
There’s a fairly strong possibility the next FFXIV expansion (only a few months away) could push past WoW’s numbers, especially if WoW doesn’t get its act together.
I wish they would just remove your access to forums then, you say everyone here is so horrible. You must still have feelers for WoW otherwise you wouldn’t be here trolling like a what did you call it… vile neckbeard?
![:triumph:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/triumph.png?v=6" ":triumph:")
). But the combat and zoning, meh. Still, it’s totally worth checking out. I played a little but did not get sucked in.