Just downloaded Final Fantasy XIV Online

Off-Topic Games, Gaming and Hardware
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FFXIV is awesome. The story of the expansions are easily as good if not better than any single-player RPGs. (And I hear the story got even better in Shadowbringers.) On the casual level there are a large variety of things to do at end game. The class and profession system let you do everything on one character which is great because it makes you more attached to your main. There is housing, the transmog is really good, you have the FFVII Gold Saucer, game controller support, the music is bloody fantastic, etc.

The reason I returned to WoW is because I play MMOs for the social and I dearly missed my guild with whom I raided for over 10 years, and also because I wanted to see the end of Legion before Blizzard breaks our artifact weapons. If it wasn’t for that, I would never have returned to WoW, save maybe to level a toon to 60 in classic. (But then I’d quit again, grinding The Molten Core at classic end-game is out of the question for me.)

There are things WoW definitely does better than FF though.

  • The raids are much better for one thing. Between having only 4 bosses per tier without any trash, the rather slow server tick, and some random meta nonsense like healers being told to worry more about their DPS parse than their healing parse, it’s difficult to see any hardcore raider opting for FFXIV over WoW, unless they consistently fail to fill a 20-man group.

  • PvP is the other obvious thing WoW does better. PvP in FF is more or less a mini-game where you get a baby version of your skill set that is specifically designed for PvP and that is not impacted by gear. In WoW, PvP is not a second class activity. One could argue that sacrificing PvP allowed their PvE to be really good, but PvP is important to a lot of people and that can be an absolute deal breaker. (Although to my experience, serious MMO PvPers prefer action combat MMOs like BDO or GW2.)

  • WoW’s game engine is a lot better. Seamless zones since WoW 1.0, much faster server tick, no random limitations like not being able to send whispers to people in instances or not being able to equip things while talking to a vendor, support for UI addons, etc. The account and server system is also garbage in FF. You can’t even create a character on a congested server even though your friends may play on one such server. (/feelsbadman if your SO plays on Aether…)

  • Probably the most important: the low-level experience is also a lot better in WoW. The quests in FF are usually not interesting in themselves (they’re usually fetch quests and go-talk-to-that-dude types of quests) the reason they’re fun is the story that is told by them, but the story is slow and awfully paced before the first expansion and it can really feel like a chore at times. On the other hand, the post-Cataclysm zones in WoW have small and self-contained storylines and are therefore much better paced than the beginning of FFXIV.

None of those really stopped me from enjoying XIV, but you definitely want to consider those if you’re thinking of making the switch.

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While I have never completely “quit” WoW during my time in FFXIV, I’ve definitely largely migrated over there. Still dabble back in WoW every so often, including taking a short break from FFXIV at the moment; after doing the MSQ and busy days at work, a short break doesn’t hurt; the game isn’t going anywhere.

But yes, it’s tough to leave behind the people you know in WoW, even if it’s just the small remnants of who remained in the guild (ranging between 2-5 people at best).

Though I do have some comments on your other points…

To be perfectly honest, I prefer the raiding setup in FFXIV… keeping in mind that I have zero interest in the “hardcore” versions in either game. I dabbled in Heroic Raiding during WoD, but it was never any more enjoyable for me; it was just frustrating. As such, I’ve never really bothered with it from Legion onwards (heck, pretty much dropped raiding entirely) and just went back to my lone wolf ways; I’ve also never felt inclined to bother with Savage Raiding nor Extreme Trials in FFXIV, at least when they were current.

So from my angle, the (normal) raids in FFXIV are a near-perfect set-up. You’re free to do them as you please, you always get some reasonably challenging content (LFR in WoW often devolving into beating up big piles of health until they cough up loot). To top it up, the Normal Raids Roulette gives you a random choice of one encounter out of a possible 28 (all of Alexander, Omega, and the first tier of Eden); thanks to the level sync system, essentially permanent timewalking, the encounters never feel too easy as you’re always doing them at the intended level and not absurdly overgearing it.

But I can see, from the hardcore raider’s perspective, FFXIV would feel lacking.
For everyone else (interested in PvE), it’s very much a different story.

… unless you are actually expecting LFR difficulty, FFXIV doesn’t go THAT easy on you.

I’d say this one comes down to personal preference.

The lower level experience in WoW is definitely much faster paced, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s better. Those self-contained storylines are better for grabbing your attention at the time… but they rarely, if ever, amount to anything else beyond it.

FFXIV’s early levels are known for being notoriously slow paced, but it’s constantly building on itself and giving more depth to the plot; by the time it starts taking off during the lead-up to Heavensward, there’s been a huge amount of world-building, character development (well, more “character-establishing”), and setting up the plot.

It’s definitely a struggle for those used to WoW’s faster pacing to get into, but as you go on, it just keeps building upon itself and getting better. It becomes increasingly interconnected as time goes on.

Taking a look at two antagonists in the early portions of FFXIV, both who give long motive rants before boss fights against them (in the same dungeon no less), continue to develop as the game goes on.

FFXIV SPOILERS WITHIN
  • Nero has a HUGE grudge against Cid for being the “better engineer” during their younger days… but after you fight him in the Praetorium, he runs away. He then returns for the Crystal Tower plotline in ARR, where he shows some heroic traits, assists in activating Omega in the post-HW content to counter Shinryu, and actively assists Cid throughout the Omega raid series… then makes out like bandit with extra consulting fees to get back at Cid.
  • Gaius is especially interesting, as he’s thought DEAD until the post-SB content where it’s been revealed he’s taken up the mantle of “Shadowhunter” and is actively hunting Ascians in the background. But what is more interesting is his motive rant during the Praetorium, where he notes that summoning primals is “bleeding the land dry”; you don’t find out what this means until the late post-SB content and come across “The Burn”, which is dead land completely deprived of aether. You also find out this is a lie, as it was due to a device somewhere else which was redirecting the flow of aether.
  • And for the biggest twist of all – EMET-SELCH (not the first name he goes by, but that’s a spoiler all by itself). From the moment he appears in the plot in the post-SB plot and throughout Shadowbringers, he pretty much blows everything up and turns the entire story upside-down. The guy is a walking fountain of too many spoilers to risk mentioning.

The sad truth is that FFXIV would have a hard time pulling off these plot twists without taking the time to properly establish them (slowly) over time and at the beginning of the game.

Trying to cram too many plot points and world-building into too little time could run into what could be called the “Xenogears Problem” (just made up the term, named after a game where the issue exists) where the plot risks becoming too dense and convoluted for the vast majority of people to digest and understand what’s going on.

The plot of FFXIV itself is colossal in scope… but it takes time to properly build and execute that plot. It does mean a slow-paced beginning, but it leads to bigger and better things as it just keeps building upon itself.

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I’m not a hardcore raider by any stretch of the imagination. I never participated in a current expansion mythic raid in my life, and the last heroic raid I have done was Hellfire Citadel.

I still prefer World of Warcraft raids by a long shot.

I raid for the group play and the social interactions with my guildies. In FF you’re done for the week after 30 minutes because there are only 4 bosses and no trash at all. In a WoW raid, even if my guild has a raid solidly on farm, we can still spend an hour and a half clearing it just because there is an actual dungeon with trash and 3x the bosses. And then maybe you can do an alt raid on your other raid night. While I think the job system of FF is a good thing, one downside is that it makes it exceedingly rare to have people with raid-ready alts, so you’re limited to one raid a week unless the raid is old and Square has removed the weekly loot restriction… or you just don’t care that you’ll be looting nothing.

I haven’t read your other point because I don’t know if your spoiler section contains Shadowbringers spoilers.

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No skill or talent customization.
Invisible walls.
Heavily instanced.

Does not feel like an MMORPG. Game is still decent but not my cup of tea.

ESO is prolly my go to besides WoW.

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Doesn’t feel as bad with our new BFA GCD.

Also, you have to remember it is designed to played with a console in mind - but I do agree it does feel slow.

Still I look forward to when FFXIV has enough clout to start making announcements/releases to coincide with WoW’s.

With every misstep WoW makes - FFXIV picks up more stragglers.

Maybe then the devs can change the abysmal direction they are taking WoW in.

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And yet, despite the game feeling “slow” to some, Every encounter is filled with using those extra half seconds between actions to position yourself, react to something, or prepare to use a cooldown that will help the party survive some impending mechanic.

The interface feels slow, but the encounters almost never do. That extra split second of GCD is thinking, planning and reaction time, and you need every fraction of it.

And that buffer extends to people with different controllers, too, so that it can cross platform with PS4, and they can provide valuable input, dps, and mechanic navigation, BECAUSE that gcd bridges consoles and keyboards.

Slower gameplay isnt necessarily a bad thing. The encounters are a lot more thought out because it takes the additional thinking/reaction time into account., allowing everyone, not just the hypergamers to participate meaningfully.

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You are entirely right here, its not necessarily a bad thing for a game to be slower paced woth more emphasis on thinking out your actions more carefully.

I personally prefer WoW’s pacing, thats just me though. I personally dont think either setup is wrong but I just could not get use to the GCD in FFXIV. For me, thats what killed my enjoyment.

With thay said, I really think people should branch out though and give other MMO’s a try now and again even if you love WoW. Having those different experiences and seeing how others do things is great :slight_smile:

Personally I am looking forward to trying Pantheon when it ever releases.

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I still maintain Wildstar was the “better” mmo. It is a shame what happened with their mismanagement and launch.

Just goes to show how much ‘sunk cost fallacy’ can go. Players aren’t willing to “wait” for missteps from new IPs when they have fully functional alternatives already existing.

WoW has also done a decent job implementing other game features into theirs. WoD garrisons were absolutely deliberate to “compete” with Wildstar housing (as terrible as they were comparitively). But those profession based plots/buildings in WoD were not a coincidence.

I hope FFXIV continues to does well. In fact I want it to start out-pacing WoW. Unfortunately that may be the only way left to force the devs to wake up on this terrible design direction.

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Prepare to be playing the best mmorpg on the market today!

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