So, I’m in the process of downloading FFXIV. GEttin’ tired of WoW. Anyone else like FFXIV?
P.S. I posted this before looking down and seeing all of the FF threads lol…I will check those out…Feel free to post here, however!
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I’m giving it a shot right now, after cancelling my sub to wow yesterday I decided it was time to try something else. Who knows where it will go?
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My wow sub is still going as it’s a 6 month deal but it’s ok.
I’ll play this til patch, then maybe after.
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FF14 is amazing. The first 50 levels and base game are extremely slow and youre going to wonder why anyone hyped this medicore game
after that? once you hit heavensward its pure bliss. I cannot explain just how good it gets
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You mean the ARR content in general. Changes are you’ll be well over 50 by the time you finish it all T.T
I’m overleveled from the MSQ already… unless they hard level cap you, which would suck.
The combat starts off slow, I mean REALLY slow, but I promise you that it gets better. By the end of the game you are weaving so many off GCD abilities into that long global cooldown that you will not often be without a button to press.
The story starts off slow too. ARR does have its good moments, but it can feel like a bit of a slog at times. Specially since the dungeons are all a bit samey (they get better after ARR). Heavensward is where it starts picking up. It’s a brilliant expansion. Stormblood is… okay. Shadowbringers is absolutely freaking amazing.
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Oh you don’t have to tell me! I’ve been playing FFXIV since 1.0 off and on. It’s been about a year since I played it last.
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I actually rather enjoyed the 1-50 content when it first came out. Was my first experience with a story based MMO so i was actually really enjoying the fact that the story was so long.
Every now and then i’ll take a stroll through memory lane still with new-game+
The only problem i face with the game right now is i only play it for the story anymore. Endgame content cycle is highly repetitive and not going to change at all. You can pretty much work out your gearing path for an entire expansion that hasn’t even come out yet.
basically me but the opposite. I just play wow for the story even though I dont like it
See, though, I like this. I know what I’m going to get, when I’m going to get it, and when I can chill/level alts/farm old content/etc.
Being “done for a bit” is definitely not a bad thing.
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FF14 is a great game. The only game I have ever unsubbed WoW to play full time. Some advice I would give is join an FC, always helpful to have a guild. I would also advise leveling two jobs (which is their classes) during MSQ. Keep up with the job quests and enjoy the beauty of the game. Be social with people over there. Best of luck, hope I run into you in Eorzea and Azeroth.
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i like the music, graphics, quests but i haven’t gotten far yet. i mean it’s cool game just dont have time for both WoW and FF. i think i maybe got like 2-3 years left in WoW before im ready to quit if they don’t get their act together imo.
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It seems that Kevin Jordan, the class designer from Vanilla-Wrath, plays it. Note his screen when he minimizes the browser he was using when reacting to Asmongold’s thoughts on Shadowlands:
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You got a timestamp for that?
The time stamp is already on the link.
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Yeah the game is pretty cool, I play it on the side. Unfortunately though, both the combat and the story suffer a severe case of the “it gets much better later” syndrome, worse than any other MMO I’ve played since the pre-WoW days.
Resist the temptation to buy a story skip though, it’s a story driven MMO (basically an MMOJRPG) so it’s worth playing it from start to finish, even if the first hundred hours make a terrific job of hiding that fact.
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I’m going to toss out a huge list of thoughts here. I’ve played WoW since launch in 2004 (and still play), and have been playing FFXIV for a while now.
The TL;DR are:
- There are things FFXIV is better at than WoW. Also, there are things WoW is better at than FFXIV.
- FFXIV is a great game. Conversely, by no means is WoW a terrible game. There is room for both games to exist.
But if you want specifics, here they are:
Be forewarned, the story for the base game (A Realm Reborn, aka ARR), is slow, hard to become invested in, and pretty mediocre. If you play with English dialogue, the voice acting is atrocious.
- It’s not until later, beginning at Heavensward (first expansion), and definitely by Shadowbringers (current expansion), that the story improves significantly. This is when most people feel drawn to the storytelling, and care about the other NPC’s in the story. If you read about people loving the “top notch” storytelling, they are NOT referring to ARR at all.
- Voice acting also improves substantially after ARR, when known actors are brought onboard to replace the previously terrible ones. The actors for Gendry Baratheon and Roose Bolton (Game of Thrones) both play significant characters in Shadowbringers.
That said, if it turns out you love the story in ARR, then more power to you! I wish it was that way for myself!
Combat in instances (dungeons, trials, and raids) will seem very easy up until and including level 50. There’s hardly any mechanics you have to worry about during this time. It can be viewed as boring for a veteran WoW player, but don’t worry, things rapidly begin to become more complex after that! One could argue that the first 50 levels are tailor made for people with zero MMO experience - which is more than ok in my opinion.
There is much less emphasis on alts, because your character can learn all combat, gathering, and crafting classes. To switch a class, you simply change the main weapon that is wielded. I love this, because grinding alts and re-grinding reputations, is what caused me to burn out in WoW.
You don’t have to worry about farming an instance a thousand times for a mount to drop (for yourself). In FFXIV, there is a totem system. A totem drops every time you complete the encounter. For example, there is a mount that drops occasionally in Hades’ Elegy (Extreme). You get 2 totems every time you beat Hades. If you have really bad RNG, and/or keep losing the roll to another player, it’s ok - eventually you can buy the mount from a NPC vendor for 99 Hades totems.
The player base is less elitist than that in WoW. FFXIV is more casual friendly (i.e. those of us with real life responsibilities and good paying jobs). There are friendly players in both games, but the chances for randomly meeting a friendly player is far greater in FFXIV.
You almost never see outright hostility in FFXIV. The FFXIV GM’s make it top priority to answer tickets, verify complaints of toxic player behavior, and take action against the offending player. The FFXIV game director has made it a mission for his team to make the gaming experience great for everybody, and toxic behavior is NOT welcome.
Some character races have an anime aesthetic to them (Human Midlander, Miqo’te, etc.). Others do not (Human Highlander, Roegadyn, etc.). WoW players who criticize the anime look of parts of the game never (1) acknowledge the parts that lack the anime look, nor (2) acknowledge that they play a game criticized for its “cartoonish look” (e.g. impossibly huge arms, ridiculously huge shoulderpads).
WoW has a better lighting rendering engine at the moment (the game already supports ray tracing, but you need a RTX card to truly enjoy this). On the other hand, character polygon counts are far higher in FFXIV than WoW, thereby providing much higher levels of detail. You can zoom in and observe eyelashes and eye pupils on characters, and closely observe the pattern/look on a characters ring, worn on either hand.
Crafting in WoW allows using mats directly from bank/inventory. FFXIV does not do this (yet), and so it becomes a chore to hunt down a specific mat in your hundreds of bank space, allocated across multiple retainers.
WoW’s transmogrification system is much easier, simpler, and intuitive to use. FFXIV’s implementation is limited by storage space (you get a dresser to use, but it is limited to only 400 items), and you only have a maximum of ~15 transmog save slots (called glamour plates in FFXIV).
WoW does not have a dye system yet for items and gear. FFXIV does.
I played Asheron’s Call and Star Wars Galaxies back in the day. I loved having player housing back then, and now have it again in FFXIV. I don’t think I will ever have that in WoW.
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My partner and I have been trying it out over the past few weeks. A few thoughts are:
The Bad:
- It doesn’t put it’s best foot forwards if you’re trying to get into it. The registration via steam (or in my case Mac) is atrocious. It feels like you’re working with a website about 20 years out of date.
- The initial game experience is… ropey. You can spend an hour stuck in a city doing fetch quests rather than trying out your abilities. An odd map in those cities can make finding quest givers particularly frustrating as zones are layered over each other. (My partner got so frustrated early on they nearly quit several times).
- It’s… not as anime as I expected but the costumes lack WoW’s sense of culture. In wow an orc or a goblin has a certain… look. You see city guards and kind of learn about their culture through visual osmosis. FF14 is VERY random which means there’s less sense of ‘place’.
- The artwork isn’t as stylized as wow, and most zones feel… functional, lacking the sense of life WoW’s do. There’s not much in the way of ambience - no small fauna running around for example.
The Good
- The Story. The story and overarching narrative are so good it puts WoW to shame. I felt like I was playing through a book (in the best possible way). I quickly understood the threats I was facing, grew fond of the core NPCs I interacted with and felt like most things I was doing drove the plot forward. Fantastic experience and one that makes WoW’s efforts look painful in comparison.
- The classes. I like how varied these are. Most are built around very different play styles with less concern about balance than wow needs to be (as you can swap at will). I lOVE how each has a story associated with it (including the professions).
- I’m enjoying the more movement heavy combat with the telegraphed moves. While I don’t hate wows, I think DBM n co are kind of a blight on the player experience. We shouldn’t need them.
- Very friendly community (especially to new players).
- I find a lot of the ‘minor’ aspects of the game that appeal to me when I want to do casual stuff all have unique NPCs and storylines that add to the experience. Whatever I’m doing it feels like I’m… meeting people and learning about things.
Generally? It’s a great MMO. It had flaws but it feels like its growing as I move through the game. WoW… feels like it’s been in a holding pattern for years. It definitely deserves the acclaim it gets and it’s worth playing if you enjoy wow but wonder how they could actually improve Azeroth.
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Great post, I agree with all your points, especially the negatives.
FFXIV could definitely reduce the barriers to playing the game (for new players). It might be hard to fix ARR content once it’s gone live, but they could definitely improve on basic things such as account setup. I had the same frustrations myself when starting out.
I may like FFXIV, but I still love WoW, especially back during its prime, from 2004-2010. However, I’m skeptical about WoW ever becoming as good as it was back then. Blizzard is no longer an independent, small game studio, and the corporate focus has shifted from making a good game, to earning profits (case in point: cash grab with character boosts for classic TBC). The original people who created the magic of Blizzard, and who were responsible for WoW’s success from vanilla through WotLK, are now all gone.
Plus, Kevin Jordan (influential dev on design of vanilla through WotLK; exited after WotLK) plays FFXIV. Listening to him talk about what makes a good MMO is like a free masterclass on designing a good MMO.
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If I was fixing FF14? I’d probably:
- Focus on cleaning up the ease of registering by improving the website
- Fix the first 15 levels or so. Maybe start outside the town and work your way into it and your first job hall. Let new players play first before learning certain basics.
- Make sure players don’t miss certain useful mechanics as they level. A lot of things are hidden away behind blue quests and its hard to know what’s useful and what’s entirely optional.
- I’d definitely go back and add voice acting to the core story. It’s a huge deal to engagement.
With wow? Jeez… this is tougher.
I saw one YouTuber say: “Wow is like a pub I used to go after work. Where all my friends were, where the pool table was amazing, where the beer was great and cheap. But 6 or 7 years ago, the original owner sold it to a faceless developer. And now the beer is watered down, the music is tasteless and too loud and no one you know still drinks there. The pool table still exists but its dominated by professional players who demand people play at their level. Which the new owner doesn’t mind as they get a cut of the profits.” ^^
I felt it was fairly accurate.
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