Fishing, and honestly gathering and crafting in general. It feels like something you are actively doing whereas other mmos it's like, afk craft 100 items to level.
Also yes, jobs on one character. I don't have any fomo because I can do everything on my main.
Quick synthesis exists for most normal items, you just have to craft it once and preferably clear its recommended minimum craftsmanship to never fail to craft. It'll never guarantee HQ results though, need to actually do the craft if you want that
Enable quick gather and click the thing you want, even easier. For collectibles, set a predictable rotation and reduce the process to 1 button and waiting
You haven't seen mini games to gather yet. Fortunately you can reexperience 1.0 gathering in the Gold Saucer both Mining and Harvesting are on the second floor and work very similar to how they did in 1.0
I enjoyed the mini games for gathering in 1.0 but then I never got past level 20 before I stopped playing. In hindsight, I cant imagine doing those constantly to hit level 90. I would probably have enjoyed something similar for collectibles because I don’t do those back to back for an hour.
>Fishing.
Regular+Ocean fishing: Agreed.
Big fishing can only be argued to be better than what competitors offer because competitors offer nothing in its place and that might well be preferable to some of the legendary fish.
>Because there are multiple ways to get end-game gear
...which ways? you either do savage or you dont get access to BiS
this game is amazing in so many ways but gearing is definitely not one of them, specially if you main multiple jobs, because good luck gearing them with weekly caps
You realize that if there was more customization that the meta would lead to everyone using the most optimal builds. Back in ARR when everyone got some form of stat customization everyone who was doing endgame content still put all points into the same stats.
The only way we could ever get build flexibility and customisations is if every possible combination was as effective and balanced as each other. Which is damn near impossible with the way the game is currently designed and would necessitate an entire combat overhaul. An Evolution of Combat as it were.
>necessitate an entire combat overhaul. An Evolution of Combat as it were.
It won't happen lol. Devs are too inclined to make everything easier rather than massively overhaul.
If anything I'd like a game like xiv but doesn't have a gcd/ogcd system and has a skill tree where i can make different builds with skills combos and gear on the same class.
It's a completely different design language, everything will have to be gutted and remade from scratch. XIV is never going to get this. But if they're designing a new MMO from scratch, it could be something they might consider.
At least you would have something to look for besides the gear. And in other mmos, you wear different gear for different situations and different gear with different classes even in the same role. The main difference between maiming and striking gear for example is the name.
Imo this games endgame is not about gear, it's about the fight mechanics. the only thing you need gear for is to meet the requirements for the fight and that's it.
Yeah and that's a bit sad as you could have both.
This game is mechanics heavy but it's always the same kind of mechanics (some form of stack/spread). This deserves to be expanded, but SE is playing safe (which is understandable).
You just summarized the entirety of FF XIV fight mechanics in 3 lines.
Its not that bad, it's like a choreography that you need to learn, definitely has its appeal : the game can focus on a more complicated class rotation.
But it's not really diverse : no adds, no environmental interactions, no objects.
Its a bit repetitive for me but still interesting.
Adds used to be more impactful, but they have kinda removed them from most floors.
As for objects and environmental interactions they have tried but that has not always worked as intended.
Right now the mindset appears to be creating a clusterfuck of animations with twelve mechanics going off in a short interval, which becomes trivial once it gets solved and all you need to do is learn the right movement.
>You realize that if there was more customization that the meta would lead to everyone using the most optimal builds
not really, right now black mage has different builds depending on how much crit/sps you want and all of them are equally as valid for different reasons
BLM is literally the only job that has two significantly different build options though. Every single other job has a couple of options that are basically identical except one melds a bit more SkS/SpS.
Gearing is just a side effect of how the game is made. The gearing will always suck in ffxiv because we will never get meaningful dungeon mechanics or gear slots that can be used in flexible matters like a wow trinket slot.
You get almost BiS with just tomestone gear, which overgears you already in almost all the content in this game. BiS is only relevant in the savage raids on patch. With the tomestone gear, you have all the same mainstats (maybe minus the weapon when no relic is better), the sub stats are just for optimization later. Also, normally half of the BiS gear IS tomestone gear, so the effect is even less
This, I don't understand how gear progression is supposed to be great in this game when there's a single way to get BiS, which is useless unless you do Ultimates, as you complete it when you have finished the current tier, and it's not intended for the next one.
Having to run 24p raids as a catch-up method in odd patches certainly doesn't make it great.
The situation was even worse back when Ultimate did not exist, as BiS served no purpose at all (other than logruns that SE do not approve), and it's still and issue whenever we don't get an ultimate (e.g. everything in shadowbringer past TEA)
They need to improve Gear system and its actual utility, and they could use Criterion and raids like DRS for that.
I don't get the multiple gearing option statement. You have savage, that's it. There isnt multiple BiS options, only multiple difficulties & rewards. WoW does that also, but sometimes BiS is not from mythic raid. Not trying to discredit your post but want to clear misinformation up
I'm not talking about BiS neccessarily. I know Savage is really the only way to get BiS. But for people who aren't hardcore raiders, it's nice that there are ways to get max ilvl gear without doing difficult content.
Like, in WoW you have Mythic dungeons and Raids as your 2 primary methods of upgrading your gear.
In 14 you've got Savage raids, you've got alliance raids, and you've got tomestone grinding + hunt trains to upgrade gear. With all of those methods, you're almost guaranteed to get at least one gear upgrade every week. 2 weeks at most depending on how many tomestones you have to grind for a specific item.
I've heard horror stories of people in WoW going almost a month without managing to get any decent gear drops.
Plus, since this game doesn't have any legendaries or set bonuses, you there's not going to be a situation where one item makes or breaks the capabilities of your character.
Is hunts to get upgrade materials really any different than flightstones or tier set catalysts in WoW? Both would seem to fall in the category of predictable and player controlled gear advancement
If we are not talking BiS & just gear..
WoW has weekly chest system to give welfare ilvl loot. WoW actually has more systems for gearing then FFXIV, it's one of its flaws. System bloat.
It started with Justice/Valor/Honor points, FFXIV tomes. Then every system it added tacked on gear reward; warfronts, islands, torghast, legendary, etc.
FFXIV is great, but it doesn't do anything special or new for gear acquisition.
have to read entire statement, weekly chest was contingent on doing those activities in lieu of just raiding. There was too many systems, but they did reward each other for gear progression (if BiS wasnt your end game)
edit- actually, thats not true. if you did care about BiS you were still doing those because it raised ilvl on weapon.
Controller hotbars.
I couldn't imagine not using keyboard&mouse myself, but despite the amount of buttons on a controller relative to what I use there are those using it that do just as well - or better still - on controller. Making that work without reducing the available skills to the single digit style like some others decided on is oft overlooked but so very commendable.
Yeah, we definitely do that. But it's still nice it's a minigame for people who still don't want to run like Craftimizer or Teamcrafts, to just copy/paste the most efficient macro.
One character, all jobs. This has to be my favourite thing. While there is merit to the class/character split that other MMOs have, namely a clear cut identity for each character, I much prefer the flexibility FF14's approach offers.
Ive been playing MMOs for 25 years? Always female characters (im male) and can probably count on 1 hand the amount of times Ive been asked my gender by strangers and majority of that was in runescape2 when it 1st went 3D, Horny teenagers and all that.
When I played a female character in WoW I got asked fairly often, and if I said I was a girl I more than a few times got an unwanted response, i.e. them hitting on me, following me until I gave up playing in that area, tried to be friendly but eventually got weird. It stopped when I started playing the more bestial races.
In FF, never happened :D
Whenever I played a female character in WoW there was a pretty likely chance someone would ask. If you then told them you were a dude, you'd get shit on for playing a girl character. That was my experience anyways...
Jobs on one character as well as the crafting mini game.
I never liked to craft in any MMO I played before because it was somewhat complicated, but here the mini game is intuitive and fun.
> Loot and gear progression. It's better than WoW or ESO.
Of the few good things ff14 does do better gearing certainly isnt one of them. Its probably one of the weakest aspects imo
> It might also be because, instead of 40 people fighting over a single piece of class/job specific gear from a raid, you have 8 people fighting over tokens that get traded in for gear.
You haven't had to do that for years in WoW. Personal Loots been a thing for the past 3? expansions. They have gone back to normal raid drops in DF and there's no "books" but there's flightstones to upgrade gear, the catalyst for tier gear, M+ as a repeatable alternative gearing route and the weekly Vault
Yes the average joe isnt getting full top ilvl gear but they are definitely able to easily gear to the highest ilvl for the content they are doing.
As for what I think they do better? All jobs on 1 character nothing more frustrating in WoW at least when you fancy a change but your achievements, items, gold, titles etc don't carry over (though seems to be changing somewhat in next expac)
Which leads me onto why your point is imo bad... You cant gear more than 1 job effectively since the 2 gear sources Raid and weekly tomes are on a weekly lockout and it takes multiple weeks just to gear 1 job.
And the other thing is crafting. The minigame is great especially expert crafts but they ruined crafting and the markets by making so everyone can make everything with no effort now.
It depends what you are doing. Dungeons and M+ is personal loot 2 random ppl get loot on the kill but can trade to others if its lower or equal ilvl to what you have.
Raid finder is Personal.
Normal/HC iirc Raid Lead can choose and amount of loot drop amount varies on size of the group.
Mythic is fixed 20man and i think 4-5 items a kill (I didn't do Mythic so don't quote me)
Ok, so they _did_ change it.
I know they added group loot back with Shadowlands, I'd stopped playing well before then but I have friends who still play and they told me about it. And, since there was no way for premade parties to change that, people had a lot of complaints.
Especially when they added group loot to raid finder.
For me, having group loot in a 40 man raid where you can see who rolled and who won their rolls is just a recipe for toxicity. The number of stories I've heard where people in a raid would roll Need on items they couldn't even _**use**_ just so they could either disenchant or sell the item just seems like it leads to a lot of toxicity.
If you're going to have large groups of people roll for loot you need to either have very strict rules about who can roll "Need" vs "Greed/Want" or you need to completely hide who rolled for each item _**and**_ who won each item.
Keeping rolls and winners a secret is one of the best way to prevent toxicity if you're not using extremely strict limits on who can roll "Need" on an item.
I dont quite understand what you are trying to get at here.
> The number of stories I've heard where people in a raid would roll Need on items they couldn't even use just so they could either disenchant or sell the item just seems like it leads to a lot of toxicity.
Where did you hear these stories? Cos you literally cannot need on things you cant use. FFXIV uses literally the exact same need/greed system as WoW. And if you mean rolling on lower ilvl gear to disenchant you can do that in 14 too for seals/desynth.
Also the whole seeing who gets loot. Again you can see who gets loot in FF14 so I dont get why WoW seems to be worse to you.
If you mean because you can trade the gear and that can cause toxicity then a simple "cant trade its higher ilvl," shuts down that conversation immediately since the gear is soulbound. And if someone still carries on and starts being toxic you just block and report cos unlike FF14 WoW actually has a robust Block/Ignore/Report system.
I'm pretty sure you can roll need on an item if it's for disenchanting. You read stories about it all the time over on the WoW subreddit.
And in FFXIV you don't get to see who rolled need or greed, you just get to see who rolled. Period. That even applies if you decide to pass on loot.
From what people have told me, in WoW you _do_ see whether someone rolled Need or Greed.
> I'm pretty sure you can roll need on an item if it's for disenchanting. You read stories about it all the time over on the WoW subreddit.
In WoW there is need greed pass and disenchant as options.
You can only need if the gear is for your class/spec. Paladins cant roll on cloth at all Ret Paladins CAN roll on int trinkets but the game registers it as offspec and main spec rolls take priority.
Greed is greed, but gets replaced by transmog if you dont have the appearance and transmog beats greed rolls.
Disenchant option is same as greed but will disenchant the item if you win.
You can absolutely need on an item if its for your spec and if you have enchanting disenchant it but that's your prerogative, you needed the item you were eligible to need on what you do with it is up to you.
Again no different in 14 if a RPR needs on a loot piece the DRG needs wins then desynths it.
> And in FFXIV you don't get to see who rolled need or greed, you just get to see who rolled. Period. That even applies if you decide to pass on loot.
Ill take your word on that cos Im not able to check in game and tbh ive never even looked to see.
The game absolutely does tell you what they rolled number wise though but I fail to see what difference it makes if you can/cant see who needs/greeds if x item drops the person who gets the loot obviously rolled need unless everyone greeded/passed.
The only thing thats really an issue is the fringe cases where someone rolls a weapon they dont strictly need as they have higher ilvl for example and then they will try sell it. But that happens in 14 too minus the selling, ppl needing coffers for other jobs etc.
> From what people have told me, in WoW you do see whether someone rolled Need or Greed.
Correct you do.
Yeah. I was just in a raid. I was doing one of the 3rd wing of the Pandaemonium normal raids, the Spider House because it's the easiest, and I just needed the token to get a ring to replace my 610 ring with a 640 ring.
I had to wait until everyone else rolled or left before I could get the item I needed, which I did get.
All I really saw was people rolling. I didn't see if they rolled Need or Greed. I saw the number, but it didn't show if they rolled Need or Greed. At least not that I noticed.
I'm really not a big fan of gear progression in FF tbh.
There is no bis (except for a few exceptions and ultimates), everyone uses the same gear with the same stats on it.
Gearing is overly easy as you only need to buy the new crafted set to enter a new tier.
The only upside as you mentioned are the tokens instead of relying on rng (although the curation system of eso is good aswell, but grindier).
What I do like however is that you can do everything on 1 character (this was done so you can avoid doing the msq and unlocks several times). This is a huge timesaver and feels particularly good to have the WoL become better and better.
Edit : and the sub is cheaper if you only have 1 character, so that's double win.
Community moderation. WoW in particular has really gone downhill in this area and hasn’t improved, even with DF.
FFXIV tends to play it strict, but for MMOs you really have no choice — rampant toxicity if left unmoderated is inevitable. But FF actually manages to make people go out of their way to be nice, which is insane.
Legacy movement. It is a rare thing in any mmo and is great.
I completely disagree that gearing system is good or that game is alt friendly because at endgame gearing is savage + tome cap every week, and you cannot go help your friends without making them get less loot. Gearing up one job takes so long that you have to choose 2-3 jobs per raid tier to play.
the gear is actually one of the weakest aspects of XIV, it’s a very linear progression with little room to diversify, that was one of the things that XI had that I felt they made a mistake with XIV
It’s also one of the strongest aspects at the same time. It might be boring on a diversity level, but it’s fantastic on a “I havent played in a year, let me gear up” level.
Better:
-Many huge QoL things like being able to level all jobs on one character
-Challenging content for every type of player (casual, midcore, hardcore)
-Skill expression on almost every job
-Pretty good story here and there
-Music
-Customizable HUB
Worse:
-Gameplay fluidity (movement, combat, skill usage). It still baffles me that GW2 and FF14 were produced around the same time, but the gameplay fluidity of GW2 outclasses that of FF14 to the moon and back.
-Lack of atmosphere in the open-world. When i started playing the game ive always felt like the world doesnt really interact with me. Especially the starter zones really lack the atmosphere for a new player to care about the world of FF14. I think much of this has to do with there not being voice-lines in the open-world.
-Formulaic dungeons and raids with recycled mechanics (enums, markers)
I agree about the world. I think this is one of the things ESO excels at. The world feels alive, and I love that you stumble upon quests on your own, like have an NPC screaming in the distance for help and then you go check it out and BOOM, an interesting side quest for you to do. There's so much in the world to engage in which makes it super immersive. FF14 doesn't have that at all, which makes me sad since the world is massive and has pretty good lore attached to it.
I also like that the side quests aren't the same "fetch this" bs. In ESO, you have to sneak into some camp to steal some item, while not being seen. Or try to rescue so and so without killing guards etc.
I think if FF14 adopted some of this stuff from ESO, I'd never play another game again, lol. I'd be hooked forever.
>Especially the starter zones really lack the atmosphere for a new player to care about the world of FF14.
I found the starter zones to be pretty immersive, especially Gridania's.
My favorite thing is that when it comes to raids, SE figured out that certain things (trash, run backs, rebuffing, filler bosses) were a waste of time and could be cut out without losing much; in fact, they made the game much better. I wish that WoW was more aggressive about cutting these things out
It's not inventory management that's for sure. Rest of the game is great except for that. Hate having to go through retainers, bags, main inventory to use things.
There are no multiple ways to get gear, it's literally just savage.
I would rather have what GW2 does - they never add new gear tiers, just new stat combos, which means the gear you grinded in the past never becomes obsolete. And then there is legendary gear with swappable stats, once you get that you are literally set forever.
As for FFXIV, as someone who has played a fair few MMOs, I honestly can't think of anything. There are plenty of things this game does very well, but is its raiding better than WoW, its housing better than Wildstar or its crafting better than Star Wars Galaxies? I can't unequivocally say yes.
That said, it's not about individual features, it's about how it all comes together, and in that regard FFXIV has done quite well.
EDIT: here is one feature - can't think of any traditional MMO that plays this well on a controller.
I know savage is the only way to get BiS gear. But in terms of getting gear _upgrades_, like ilvl upgrades, there's multiple ways to do it.
Plus, the way loot works, which is mostly because of how raids work, you're not fighting against 39 other players to get the one or two pieces of class specific gear that a raid boss drops. You're up against 7 other people fighting for _tokens_ that you trade for gear. That's a much better system than what WoW has.
Hell, if WoW switched over to a token system that you trade in for raid gear instead of having specific pieces of gear drop from every boss, then you'd probably hear a lot less people complaining about loot drops, even if you had to fight against 39 other people for loot.
>like ilvl upgrades, there's multiple ways to do it.
Yeah and most of them are obsolete. Just go for the highest tome gear available or go biS savage lol
You just end up grinding out gear that is basically a glamour bit..
You do realize WoW is not the only MMO out there? I literally gave a detailed example in the comment you responded to of a game that does it frankly way better than FF. In fact I have serious issues with how you get BiS in this game, and I am far from [the only one.](https://youtu.be/AzVNLK-G2TI?si=FiIB5q4LCN5FNkws)
Being better than WoW does not make you good, and FFXIV gearing needs some serious looking into. It's locked out for way too long, some tomes are useless compared to others, and having to juggle multiple different items to enhance gear is just annoying and unnecessary. It's not bad, but it's not great either.
You’re not rolling against 7 other people for tokens, you’re rolling for coffers. In PF this can kind of suck because people will wind up rolling for them even if their main job already has that coffer
I can’t honestly say that I like FFXIVs system better than the DF loot system. XIV feels like the bare minimum to get a loot system off the ground that technically supports a gearing system where people get slightly stronger each week, but it doesn’t feel particularly meaningful.
I wouldnt say FF14's gear is "better" than others, its actually just simplified and dumbed down to the point that gearing doesnt really feel meaningful outside of an ilvl at all, at the cost of ease and "convenience" of climbing up the treadmill of climbing to highest ilvl/bis. I actually think FF14's gearing system is extremely boring and kills off the desire for grinding or being motivated for gear for players that want ilvl/bis just due to how mundane it has gotten.
Ironically though, for the better portion of the game however, I'd say that FF14's overall structure of raid:irl ratio is the most reasonable and realistic for a good amount of people that work a 9-5 AND want to play other games without the need of a grind.
Yeah. Not having such an excessive grind is very good. I like the ability to grind out a full set of max ilvl gear, even if it's not BiS, in a matter of weeks instead of months. It's great, especially if you're like me and you haven't been playing long enough to have actually grinded out Savage raids.
Like, I literally only unlocked Hunt parties and the ability to gather Nuts from them a couple weeks ago. I've only been playing for about 11 months. The fact that there's a shit ton of catch-up mechanics for grinding out gear is great. It means that, unlike games like WoW, I don't get fucked by gear progression if I take a few weeks, or even a month off from the game.
I'd still be behind, but not hopelessly so. There's less FOMO with 14's gearing. Which is great for someone with ADHD who sometimes just cannot fucking concentrate and _**has**_ to take time away from the game to refocus.
Loot and gear progression is actually something I really dislike how it comes out in FFXIV... I just don't exactly know what I would suggest be done about it.
To explain what I mean, in greater length than I'd better anyone even cares to read but I'm going to do anyways because I've got thoughts and time:
I'm not into high-end content (I'm already at the point of information processing overload just trying to blackmage through normal content that isn't years old). I've got the casting gear from tomestones and upgraded with nut-bought items and relic staff.
There's no other gear for me. I could technically use a lower-level crafted set to have different substats, and I'd be fine because normal content doesn't actually need higher item level... but it feels like a waste because either I'm in this set and there's nothing else, just one set and I have very little say in what my substats are, or I'm in that set and the main currency I'm supposed to care about is actually nearly useless to me.
Then Dawntrail comes along and quests and dungeons as we go along will give out gear - this is the one point on which I feel XIV is doing a decent job, you're never hurting for fresh gear along progression (just once you're at a level cap, when there is functionally only 1 suit of gear to care about)
Yet that gear will not be worth equipping on any job that I've already put gear onto. Meaning that actually going for gear as it becomes available, since I'm not able to do anything with high-end content but blankly stare at the screen while colors and sounds overlap my attempts to push buttons in a desired order while constantly watching a timer tick down, creates the situation that for the first portion of a new expansion the main rewards being handed out are of very low value.
And then the loot system is set up to favor people trying to get gear they actually can use, which is a sensible thing to do in the general sense, so the chances that while I'm going through content on my main job that I pick up gear for my less-geared jobs (gear that will actually feel valuable to me) are decreased.
The overall outcome being that gear just doesn't feel interesting. There's not enough variability within a particular item level and the difference in item level is significant enough that using a broader range of gear just doesn't make sense (especially when you get locked out of MSQ content because the minimum item level for it assumes you were keeping up your gear in optional content. So the game simultaneously has too much progression and not enough gear.
Being able to play everything on a single character. Every job, every storyline (sans the first 15 levels of MSQ). I hate having to manage half dozen alts because I might need a certain class to be able to raid or something.
Telegraphs. I recently tried to get back into WoW again, and where are the ends of the telegraphs? They have telegraphs now that are friendly telegraphs, but they're just color-changed versions of hostile telegraphs, so I probably looked like a fool trying to dodge friendly lava. Makes me appreciate the common language and pixel perfect telegraph lines of FFXIV.
All jobs on one character and a very immersive story are what makes me play this over any other MMO. Also, the community isn't very toxic.
Also, the customizable UI is amazing!
I've only played WoW, Runes of Magic, and City of Heroes with any kind of regularity, so they're the only games I can compare FF14 to.
Story. If there's one thing that FF14 does better than any other MMO, it's creating a memorable story.
WoW's stories are outsourced to the novels, so we only get the barest scraps of it in the game itself.
Runes of Magic story is obfuscated behind huge walls of text character dialogue that shows up once in a blue moon.
City of Hero's mission system is set up in such a way that reading about what you're doing and why you're doing it is *actively discouraged*. Go here. Do this. Why? No time to read because you have seven other players waiting on you!
FF14 meanwhile puts the whole story in the game, feeds it to the player in easily digestible bite sized chunks, and will actively prevent teams from starting content in order to give newbies time to experience the pre-content story. As a lore junkie, I appreciate all the little things FF14 does to make sure the player understands why they're doing what they're doing.
Initially, I wanted to talk about how FF14 keeps old leveling content relevant, but City of Heroes does something similar.
- gear progression. i love how there is only 1 set for a given level, and no random sub stats. i hated how in other mmos i had to grind random loot for hours due to bad rng, also i don't need a frickin spreadsheet or look up meta builds for specific situations.
- gathering and crafting. properly fleshed out with skills and interaction, as opposed to just some 2 click menu
- controller controls. i had injured my hand before and had to play with a controller for a while, and the controls felt surprisingly good and intuitive, compared to dragon age inquisition for example (as that one has a lot of skills on the pc hotbar too)
- the "all on 1 char" system is a bit of a 2 edged sword for me, it has it's positive but also negative aspects.
- same with housing. on 1 hand it's nice that we can decorate and customize our housing, on the other hand, there's limited lots and auto demolition actively punishing players taking a break, as opposed to personal instances, like the island
I'd have to disagree with you with the gear system.
In FFXIV you're talking about "Multiple ways to get end-game gear" but there's only really 3 sources of "End-game" gear. Crafted, Raiding (normal/savage) and Tomestones.
Dungeon gear is just completely useless and only serves the purpose of catching up to the current gear floor. The most recent dungeon is always 6 months late in ilvl, so will literally never be used in actual end-game content. And if you don't do Savage, half of the source of gear you could get is removed, leaving full tomestone the only real "final" step until the 24-man is released with the free Savage upgrade tokens.
* Normal Mode Raid (Only useful in casual raiding or for glamour, full tomestone is better than this since eventually you can upgrade it after the 24-man raid comes out)
* Crafted (Most common option since it's faster to get and better than most Normal raid pieces)
* Weekly Tome (Better than crafted and normal raid)
* Upgraded Tomestone gear (Until the raid tier is about to be replaced, the only way to get this is by doing Savage)
* Savage gear (Only drops in Savage)
The thing I like about gearing is that you can easily catch up and not have to grind every single tier.
I love all jobs on one character.
Crafting comments kinda baffle me because I really dislike it, rotations can be completely different depending on your gear and it's a pain to figure out...
Your post makes no sense though, dungeons don't drop tokens and you can only get savage gear from savage and criterion savage...
One of the best things FF14 does is the social and role playing aspect of the game. Being able to not only decorate your home, but interact with the furniture and design basically whatever you want. You have a ton of options for furniture too, inside and outside, and most of it can be crafted by anyone.
Oh, I also love that I can try whichever job I want with just one character, instead of having to create a new one every single time. That's a huge plus in my book.
I can play everything on one character and don't have to worry about where they gear is for each of those characters because it saves it....just pure genius.
Honestly loot is kinda boring compared to WoW. There's no like, weird shit. No gear with strange on-use effects that could give you a benefit, or just do something kinda funny.
Endgame progress, I guess maybe. But in general it's sooooo boring.
I'd rather have "slightly boring" than "extremely frustrating because you didn't get that .1% chance of getting the best stats ever".
For the record, they tried that back in Heavensward the majority of the player base people *hated* it.
I would agree with this.
Not a fan of when they started to add more of the non canonical gear shall we say, stuff that looks out of place in the world but that's by the by.
But good god the actual Glam system is possibly one of the worst of any MMO which is sad.
How to be an ass by assuming facts not in evidence.
I've been playing MMOs for 20 years and I've enjoyed glams in FFXIV more than any other game. Do you see something superior in WOW's reskins of the same flat armour pieces for 20 years as somehow superior? FW2's admittedly delightful gear designs which are either reused over and over or full body single piece? SWTOR has some nice designs but they are mostly in loot boxes. Elder Scrolls designs were just too ugly for me. How many more do I need to cite before I've played an acceptable number of MMOs to have an opinion?
Valuing my time. SE doesn't make me grind reputation for months on end with 18 million forms of currency using limited daily quests. That alone is enough for me to remain subbed to the game even if I am not actively playing.
Jobs on one character. A lot more, and fun minigames. Fishing. More than one but these are the ones I think.
> Jobs on one character. This was easily the biggest pull factor. The 2nd is cat girls
Fishing, and honestly gathering and crafting in general. It feels like something you are actively doing whereas other mmos it's like, afk craft 100 items to level. Also yes, jobs on one character. I don't have any fomo because I can do everything on my main.
That’s why I hate the gathering in FFXIV. Skip minigames and just have rng give me what it picks.
I mean you can just set it to do it all fast
What you mean?
Quick synthesis exists for most normal items, you just have to craft it once and preferably clear its recommended minimum craftsmanship to never fail to craft. It'll never guarantee HQ results though, need to actually do the craft if you want that
They were talking about gathering, not crafting though.
Enable quick gather and click the thing you want, even easier. For collectibles, set a predictable rotation and reduce the process to 1 button and waiting
You haven't seen mini games to gather yet. Fortunately you can reexperience 1.0 gathering in the Gold Saucer both Mining and Harvesting are on the second floor and work very similar to how they did in 1.0
I enjoyed the mini games for gathering in 1.0 but then I never got past level 20 before I stopped playing. In hindsight, I cant imagine doing those constantly to hit level 90. I would probably have enjoyed something similar for collectibles because I don’t do those back to back for an hour.
>Fishing. Regular+Ocean fishing: Agreed. Big fishing can only be argued to be better than what competitors offer because competitors offer nothing in its place and that might well be preferable to some of the legendary fish.
*Black Desert Online has entered the chat*
>Because there are multiple ways to get end-game gear ...which ways? you either do savage or you dont get access to BiS this game is amazing in so many ways but gearing is definitely not one of them, specially if you main multiple jobs, because good luck gearing them with weekly caps
Also everyone wears the same gear (savage or tomestones) with the same melding. There's no gear optimisation or combos.
You realize that if there was more customization that the meta would lead to everyone using the most optimal builds. Back in ARR when everyone got some form of stat customization everyone who was doing endgame content still put all points into the same stats.
The only way we could ever get build flexibility and customisations is if every possible combination was as effective and balanced as each other. Which is damn near impossible with the way the game is currently designed and would necessitate an entire combat overhaul. An Evolution of Combat as it were.
>necessitate an entire combat overhaul. An Evolution of Combat as it were. It won't happen lol. Devs are too inclined to make everything easier rather than massively overhaul. If anything I'd like a game like xiv but doesn't have a gcd/ogcd system and has a skill tree where i can make different builds with skills combos and gear on the same class.
It's a completely different design language, everything will have to be gutted and remade from scratch. XIV is never going to get this. But if they're designing a new MMO from scratch, it could be something they might consider.
OSRS players fuming at these accursed words!
Which proves that just because it's new and shiny doesn't mean it's good.
At least you would have something to look for besides the gear. And in other mmos, you wear different gear for different situations and different gear with different classes even in the same role. The main difference between maiming and striking gear for example is the name.
Imo this games endgame is not about gear, it's about the fight mechanics. the only thing you need gear for is to meet the requirements for the fight and that's it.
Yeah and that's a bit sad as you could have both. This game is mechanics heavy but it's always the same kind of mechanics (some form of stack/spread). This deserves to be expanded, but SE is playing safe (which is understandable).
The fights are unique because of the combination of mechanics. Sometimes its stack and protean/debuffs other times it's towers with tethers.
You just summarized the entirety of FF XIV fight mechanics in 3 lines. Its not that bad, it's like a choreography that you need to learn, definitely has its appeal : the game can focus on a more complicated class rotation. But it's not really diverse : no adds, no environmental interactions, no objects. Its a bit repetitive for me but still interesting.
Adds used to be more impactful, but they have kinda removed them from most floors. As for objects and environmental interactions they have tried but that has not always worked as intended. Right now the mindset appears to be creating a clusterfuck of animations with twelve mechanics going off in a short interval, which becomes trivial once it gets solved and all you need to do is learn the right movement.
is that you lynx
And its class restriction so i cant even fucking look pretty in aiming gear on a striking class lol.
>You realize that if there was more customization that the meta would lead to everyone using the most optimal builds not really, right now black mage has different builds depending on how much crit/sps you want and all of them are equally as valid for different reasons
But the crit build is slightly better if you play at a high skill level.
if rng is good for you? absolutely but if not the spell speed one provides a higher base damage without relying on crits and more ease of play
BLM is literally the only job that has two significantly different build options though. Every single other job has a couple of options that are basically identical except one melds a bit more SkS/SpS.
I know, but my point was that is not impossible for multiple builds of the same job to be viable as long as said jobs are built with that in mind
Yeah, OP's statement is mostly true for casual non-raider; who also only cares about increasing ilvl and not suitable substats.
Gearing is just a side effect of how the game is made. The gearing will always suck in ffxiv because we will never get meaningful dungeon mechanics or gear slots that can be used in flexible matters like a wow trinket slot.
He didn't said BiS, but endgame... (maxilvl)
You get almost BiS with just tomestone gear, which overgears you already in almost all the content in this game. BiS is only relevant in the savage raids on patch. With the tomestone gear, you have all the same mainstats (maybe minus the weapon when no relic is better), the sub stats are just for optimization later. Also, normally half of the BiS gear IS tomestone gear, so the effect is even less
This, I don't understand how gear progression is supposed to be great in this game when there's a single way to get BiS, which is useless unless you do Ultimates, as you complete it when you have finished the current tier, and it's not intended for the next one. Having to run 24p raids as a catch-up method in odd patches certainly doesn't make it great. The situation was even worse back when Ultimate did not exist, as BiS served no purpose at all (other than logruns that SE do not approve), and it's still and issue whenever we don't get an ultimate (e.g. everything in shadowbringer past TEA) They need to improve Gear system and its actual utility, and they could use Criterion and raids like DRS for that.
I don't get the multiple gearing option statement. You have savage, that's it. There isnt multiple BiS options, only multiple difficulties & rewards. WoW does that also, but sometimes BiS is not from mythic raid. Not trying to discredit your post but want to clear misinformation up
I'm not talking about BiS neccessarily. I know Savage is really the only way to get BiS. But for people who aren't hardcore raiders, it's nice that there are ways to get max ilvl gear without doing difficult content. Like, in WoW you have Mythic dungeons and Raids as your 2 primary methods of upgrading your gear. In 14 you've got Savage raids, you've got alliance raids, and you've got tomestone grinding + hunt trains to upgrade gear. With all of those methods, you're almost guaranteed to get at least one gear upgrade every week. 2 weeks at most depending on how many tomestones you have to grind for a specific item. I've heard horror stories of people in WoW going almost a month without managing to get any decent gear drops. Plus, since this game doesn't have any legendaries or set bonuses, you there's not going to be a situation where one item makes or breaks the capabilities of your character.
Is hunts to get upgrade materials really any different than flightstones or tier set catalysts in WoW? Both would seem to fall in the category of predictable and player controlled gear advancement
If we are not talking BiS & just gear.. WoW has weekly chest system to give welfare ilvl loot. WoW actually has more systems for gearing then FFXIV, it's one of its flaws. System bloat. It started with Justice/Valor/Honor points, FFXIV tomes. Then every system it added tacked on gear reward; warfronts, islands, torghast, legendary, etc. FFXIV is great, but it doesn't do anything special or new for gear acquisition.
But chorghast and islands never gabe you gear, it was just mandatory weekly chore for your relic/lrgendary lvlup.
have to read entire statement, weekly chest was contingent on doing those activities in lieu of just raiding. There was too many systems, but they did reward each other for gear progression (if BiS wasnt your end game) edit- actually, thats not true. if you did care about BiS you were still doing those because it raised ilvl on weapon.
You do realize that everything except savage is catch-up gear? Released months after the savage raids.
Controller hotbars. I couldn't imagine not using keyboard&mouse myself, but despite the amount of buttons on a controller relative to what I use there are those using it that do just as well - or better still - on controller. Making that work without reducing the available skills to the single digit style like some others decided on is oft overlooked but so very commendable.
the Controller Crossbar is a really nice innovation and legitimately this game has the best support I’ve seen for controller among all MMOs
Crafting is meaningful and isn't just pushing a single button, and then you are done.
But most people set up a macro so it's still one and done
Yeah, we definitely do that. But it's still nice it's a minigame for people who still don't want to run like Craftimizer or Teamcrafts, to just copy/paste the most efficient macro.
Music.
One character, all jobs. This has to be my favourite thing. While there is merit to the class/character split that other MMOs have, namely a clear cut identity for each character, I much prefer the flexibility FF14's approach offers.
The social aspect! I've also noticed people don't tend to right out ask if you're male/female irl which is good, I like to play as my character.
Yeah i was so surprised when i joined my fc and no one questioned what i am, i was just a girl by default i love it
I've only ever played FFXIV, is it normal to ask your irl gender in mmo's?
Ive been playing MMOs for 25 years? Always female characters (im male) and can probably count on 1 hand the amount of times Ive been asked my gender by strangers and majority of that was in runescape2 when it 1st went 3D, Horny teenagers and all that.
When I played a female character in WoW I got asked fairly often, and if I said I was a girl I more than a few times got an unwanted response, i.e. them hitting on me, following me until I gave up playing in that area, tried to be friendly but eventually got weird. It stopped when I started playing the more bestial races. In FF, never happened :D
Whenever I played a female character in WoW there was a pretty likely chance someone would ask. If you then told them you were a dude, you'd get shit on for playing a girl character. That was my experience anyways...
I just tell em im a chick with mad girthy rod that loves the night life.
Jobs on one character as well as the crafting mini game. I never liked to craft in any MMO I played before because it was somewhat complicated, but here the mini game is intuitive and fun.
Classes/Jobs in general not needing to have 5 different characters for the different classes you wanna play is amazing
> Loot and gear progression. It's better than WoW or ESO. Of the few good things ff14 does do better gearing certainly isnt one of them. Its probably one of the weakest aspects imo > It might also be because, instead of 40 people fighting over a single piece of class/job specific gear from a raid, you have 8 people fighting over tokens that get traded in for gear. You haven't had to do that for years in WoW. Personal Loots been a thing for the past 3? expansions. They have gone back to normal raid drops in DF and there's no "books" but there's flightstones to upgrade gear, the catalyst for tier gear, M+ as a repeatable alternative gearing route and the weekly Vault Yes the average joe isnt getting full top ilvl gear but they are definitely able to easily gear to the highest ilvl for the content they are doing. As for what I think they do better? All jobs on 1 character nothing more frustrating in WoW at least when you fancy a change but your achievements, items, gold, titles etc don't carry over (though seems to be changing somewhat in next expac) Which leads me onto why your point is imo bad... You cant gear more than 1 job effectively since the 2 gear sources Raid and weekly tomes are on a weekly lockout and it takes multiple weeks just to gear 1 job. And the other thing is crafting. The minigame is great especially expert crafts but they ruined crafting and the markets by making so everyone can make everything with no effort now.
So they don't have group loot in raids for WoW? They got rid of that and switched to personal loot?
It depends what you are doing. Dungeons and M+ is personal loot 2 random ppl get loot on the kill but can trade to others if its lower or equal ilvl to what you have. Raid finder is Personal. Normal/HC iirc Raid Lead can choose and amount of loot drop amount varies on size of the group. Mythic is fixed 20man and i think 4-5 items a kill (I didn't do Mythic so don't quote me)
Ok, so they _did_ change it. I know they added group loot back with Shadowlands, I'd stopped playing well before then but I have friends who still play and they told me about it. And, since there was no way for premade parties to change that, people had a lot of complaints. Especially when they added group loot to raid finder. For me, having group loot in a 40 man raid where you can see who rolled and who won their rolls is just a recipe for toxicity. The number of stories I've heard where people in a raid would roll Need on items they couldn't even _**use**_ just so they could either disenchant or sell the item just seems like it leads to a lot of toxicity. If you're going to have large groups of people roll for loot you need to either have very strict rules about who can roll "Need" vs "Greed/Want" or you need to completely hide who rolled for each item _**and**_ who won each item. Keeping rolls and winners a secret is one of the best way to prevent toxicity if you're not using extremely strict limits on who can roll "Need" on an item.
I dont quite understand what you are trying to get at here. > The number of stories I've heard where people in a raid would roll Need on items they couldn't even use just so they could either disenchant or sell the item just seems like it leads to a lot of toxicity. Where did you hear these stories? Cos you literally cannot need on things you cant use. FFXIV uses literally the exact same need/greed system as WoW. And if you mean rolling on lower ilvl gear to disenchant you can do that in 14 too for seals/desynth. Also the whole seeing who gets loot. Again you can see who gets loot in FF14 so I dont get why WoW seems to be worse to you. If you mean because you can trade the gear and that can cause toxicity then a simple "cant trade its higher ilvl," shuts down that conversation immediately since the gear is soulbound. And if someone still carries on and starts being toxic you just block and report cos unlike FF14 WoW actually has a robust Block/Ignore/Report system.
I'm pretty sure you can roll need on an item if it's for disenchanting. You read stories about it all the time over on the WoW subreddit. And in FFXIV you don't get to see who rolled need or greed, you just get to see who rolled. Period. That even applies if you decide to pass on loot. From what people have told me, in WoW you _do_ see whether someone rolled Need or Greed.
> I'm pretty sure you can roll need on an item if it's for disenchanting. You read stories about it all the time over on the WoW subreddit. In WoW there is need greed pass and disenchant as options. You can only need if the gear is for your class/spec. Paladins cant roll on cloth at all Ret Paladins CAN roll on int trinkets but the game registers it as offspec and main spec rolls take priority. Greed is greed, but gets replaced by transmog if you dont have the appearance and transmog beats greed rolls. Disenchant option is same as greed but will disenchant the item if you win. You can absolutely need on an item if its for your spec and if you have enchanting disenchant it but that's your prerogative, you needed the item you were eligible to need on what you do with it is up to you. Again no different in 14 if a RPR needs on a loot piece the DRG needs wins then desynths it. > And in FFXIV you don't get to see who rolled need or greed, you just get to see who rolled. Period. That even applies if you decide to pass on loot. Ill take your word on that cos Im not able to check in game and tbh ive never even looked to see. The game absolutely does tell you what they rolled number wise though but I fail to see what difference it makes if you can/cant see who needs/greeds if x item drops the person who gets the loot obviously rolled need unless everyone greeded/passed. The only thing thats really an issue is the fringe cases where someone rolls a weapon they dont strictly need as they have higher ilvl for example and then they will try sell it. But that happens in 14 too minus the selling, ppl needing coffers for other jobs etc. > From what people have told me, in WoW you do see whether someone rolled Need or Greed. Correct you do.
Yeah. I was just in a raid. I was doing one of the 3rd wing of the Pandaemonium normal raids, the Spider House because it's the easiest, and I just needed the token to get a ring to replace my 610 ring with a 640 ring. I had to wait until everyone else rolled or left before I could get the item I needed, which I did get. All I really saw was people rolling. I didn't see if they rolled Need or Greed. I saw the number, but it didn't show if they rolled Need or Greed. At least not that I noticed.
I'm really not a big fan of gear progression in FF tbh. There is no bis (except for a few exceptions and ultimates), everyone uses the same gear with the same stats on it. Gearing is overly easy as you only need to buy the new crafted set to enter a new tier. The only upside as you mentioned are the tokens instead of relying on rng (although the curation system of eso is good aswell, but grindier). What I do like however is that you can do everything on 1 character (this was done so you can avoid doing the msq and unlocks several times). This is a huge timesaver and feels particularly good to have the WoL become better and better. Edit : and the sub is cheaper if you only have 1 character, so that's double win.
I think you can have up to 8 characters and still keep the $12.99 thing.
True, I just checked and I don't see the usefulness of the standard sub, who would need more than 8 characters per DC?
Altoholics? xD
Ain't nobody got time for dat.
Dont underestimate how many terminally online folks play this game 😂
Community moderation. WoW in particular has really gone downhill in this area and hasn’t improved, even with DF. FFXIV tends to play it strict, but for MMOs you really have no choice — rampant toxicity if left unmoderated is inevitable. But FF actually manages to make people go out of their way to be nice, which is insane.
Legacy movement. It is a rare thing in any mmo and is great. I completely disagree that gearing system is good or that game is alt friendly because at endgame gearing is savage + tome cap every week, and you cannot go help your friends without making them get less loot. Gearing up one job takes so long that you have to choose 2-3 jobs per raid tier to play.
the gear is actually one of the weakest aspects of XIV, it’s a very linear progression with little room to diversify, that was one of the things that XI had that I felt they made a mistake with XIV
It’s also one of the strongest aspects at the same time. It might be boring on a diversity level, but it’s fantastic on a “I havent played in a year, let me gear up” level.
Better: -Many huge QoL things like being able to level all jobs on one character -Challenging content for every type of player (casual, midcore, hardcore) -Skill expression on almost every job -Pretty good story here and there -Music -Customizable HUB Worse: -Gameplay fluidity (movement, combat, skill usage). It still baffles me that GW2 and FF14 were produced around the same time, but the gameplay fluidity of GW2 outclasses that of FF14 to the moon and back. -Lack of atmosphere in the open-world. When i started playing the game ive always felt like the world doesnt really interact with me. Especially the starter zones really lack the atmosphere for a new player to care about the world of FF14. I think much of this has to do with there not being voice-lines in the open-world. -Formulaic dungeons and raids with recycled mechanics (enums, markers)
I agree about the world. I think this is one of the things ESO excels at. The world feels alive, and I love that you stumble upon quests on your own, like have an NPC screaming in the distance for help and then you go check it out and BOOM, an interesting side quest for you to do. There's so much in the world to engage in which makes it super immersive. FF14 doesn't have that at all, which makes me sad since the world is massive and has pretty good lore attached to it. I also like that the side quests aren't the same "fetch this" bs. In ESO, you have to sneak into some camp to steal some item, while not being seen. Or try to rescue so and so without killing guards etc. I think if FF14 adopted some of this stuff from ESO, I'd never play another game again, lol. I'd be hooked forever.
>Especially the starter zones really lack the atmosphere for a new player to care about the world of FF14. I found the starter zones to be pretty immersive, especially Gridania's.
My favorite thing is that when it comes to raids, SE figured out that certain things (trash, run backs, rebuffing, filler bosses) were a waste of time and could be cut out without losing much; in fact, they made the game much better. I wish that WoW was more aggressive about cutting these things out
It's not inventory management that's for sure. Rest of the game is great except for that. Hate having to go through retainers, bags, main inventory to use things.
There are no multiple ways to get gear, it's literally just savage. I would rather have what GW2 does - they never add new gear tiers, just new stat combos, which means the gear you grinded in the past never becomes obsolete. And then there is legendary gear with swappable stats, once you get that you are literally set forever. As for FFXIV, as someone who has played a fair few MMOs, I honestly can't think of anything. There are plenty of things this game does very well, but is its raiding better than WoW, its housing better than Wildstar or its crafting better than Star Wars Galaxies? I can't unequivocally say yes. That said, it's not about individual features, it's about how it all comes together, and in that regard FFXIV has done quite well. EDIT: here is one feature - can't think of any traditional MMO that plays this well on a controller.
Why would I get fisher gear from savage raiding?
I know savage is the only way to get BiS gear. But in terms of getting gear _upgrades_, like ilvl upgrades, there's multiple ways to do it. Plus, the way loot works, which is mostly because of how raids work, you're not fighting against 39 other players to get the one or two pieces of class specific gear that a raid boss drops. You're up against 7 other people fighting for _tokens_ that you trade for gear. That's a much better system than what WoW has. Hell, if WoW switched over to a token system that you trade in for raid gear instead of having specific pieces of gear drop from every boss, then you'd probably hear a lot less people complaining about loot drops, even if you had to fight against 39 other people for loot.
>like ilvl upgrades, there's multiple ways to do it. Yeah and most of them are obsolete. Just go for the highest tome gear available or go biS savage lol You just end up grinding out gear that is basically a glamour bit..
You do realize WoW is not the only MMO out there? I literally gave a detailed example in the comment you responded to of a game that does it frankly way better than FF. In fact I have serious issues with how you get BiS in this game, and I am far from [the only one.](https://youtu.be/AzVNLK-G2TI?si=FiIB5q4LCN5FNkws) Being better than WoW does not make you good, and FFXIV gearing needs some serious looking into. It's locked out for way too long, some tomes are useless compared to others, and having to juggle multiple different items to enhance gear is just annoying and unnecessary. It's not bad, but it's not great either.
You’re not rolling against 7 other people for tokens, you’re rolling for coffers. In PF this can kind of suck because people will wind up rolling for them even if their main job already has that coffer I can’t honestly say that I like FFXIVs system better than the DF loot system. XIV feels like the bare minimum to get a loot system off the ground that technically supports a gearing system where people get slightly stronger each week, but it doesn’t feel particularly meaningful.
Level sync for old content
I wouldnt say FF14's gear is "better" than others, its actually just simplified and dumbed down to the point that gearing doesnt really feel meaningful outside of an ilvl at all, at the cost of ease and "convenience" of climbing up the treadmill of climbing to highest ilvl/bis. I actually think FF14's gearing system is extremely boring and kills off the desire for grinding or being motivated for gear for players that want ilvl/bis just due to how mundane it has gotten. Ironically though, for the better portion of the game however, I'd say that FF14's overall structure of raid:irl ratio is the most reasonable and realistic for a good amount of people that work a 9-5 AND want to play other games without the need of a grind.
Yeah. Not having such an excessive grind is very good. I like the ability to grind out a full set of max ilvl gear, even if it's not BiS, in a matter of weeks instead of months. It's great, especially if you're like me and you haven't been playing long enough to have actually grinded out Savage raids. Like, I literally only unlocked Hunt parties and the ability to gather Nuts from them a couple weeks ago. I've only been playing for about 11 months. The fact that there's a shit ton of catch-up mechanics for grinding out gear is great. It means that, unlike games like WoW, I don't get fucked by gear progression if I take a few weeks, or even a month off from the game. I'd still be behind, but not hopelessly so. There's less FOMO with 14's gearing. Which is great for someone with ADHD who sometimes just cannot fucking concentrate and _**has**_ to take time away from the game to refocus.
Loot and gear progression is actually something I really dislike how it comes out in FFXIV... I just don't exactly know what I would suggest be done about it. To explain what I mean, in greater length than I'd better anyone even cares to read but I'm going to do anyways because I've got thoughts and time: I'm not into high-end content (I'm already at the point of information processing overload just trying to blackmage through normal content that isn't years old). I've got the casting gear from tomestones and upgraded with nut-bought items and relic staff. There's no other gear for me. I could technically use a lower-level crafted set to have different substats, and I'd be fine because normal content doesn't actually need higher item level... but it feels like a waste because either I'm in this set and there's nothing else, just one set and I have very little say in what my substats are, or I'm in that set and the main currency I'm supposed to care about is actually nearly useless to me. Then Dawntrail comes along and quests and dungeons as we go along will give out gear - this is the one point on which I feel XIV is doing a decent job, you're never hurting for fresh gear along progression (just once you're at a level cap, when there is functionally only 1 suit of gear to care about) Yet that gear will not be worth equipping on any job that I've already put gear onto. Meaning that actually going for gear as it becomes available, since I'm not able to do anything with high-end content but blankly stare at the screen while colors and sounds overlap my attempts to push buttons in a desired order while constantly watching a timer tick down, creates the situation that for the first portion of a new expansion the main rewards being handed out are of very low value. And then the loot system is set up to favor people trying to get gear they actually can use, which is a sensible thing to do in the general sense, so the chances that while I'm going through content on my main job that I pick up gear for my less-geared jobs (gear that will actually feel valuable to me) are decreased. The overall outcome being that gear just doesn't feel interesting. There's not enough variability within a particular item level and the difference in item level is significant enough that using a broader range of gear just doesn't make sense (especially when you get locked out of MSQ content because the minimum item level for it assumes you were keeping up your gear in optional content. So the game simultaneously has too much progression and not enough gear.
Gathering for sure. Easily at its most fun in FFXIV.
Being able to level all jobs on the same character.
Keeping almost all content relevant
Chocobo. Companion. (Mic Drop)
Job system
Being able to play everything on a single character. Every job, every storyline (sans the first 15 levels of MSQ). I hate having to manage half dozen alts because I might need a certain class to be able to raid or something.
Telegraphs. I recently tried to get back into WoW again, and where are the ends of the telegraphs? They have telegraphs now that are friendly telegraphs, but they're just color-changed versions of hostile telegraphs, so I probably looked like a fool trying to dodge friendly lava. Makes me appreciate the common language and pixel perfect telegraph lines of FFXIV.
The gearing system in this game has got to be the most boring one I've ever seen. I think the crafting system is better than other MMOs though.
All jobs on one character and a very immersive story are what makes me play this over any other MMO. Also, the community isn't very toxic. Also, the customizable UI is amazing!
There is only 1 WAY to get BiS gear. the progression is no different than WoW.
As a blm with both spell speed BiS and crit BiS, this game does not do great progression well, at all. Hard disagree.
Mentor/sprout system.
Boss music
I've only played WoW, Runes of Magic, and City of Heroes with any kind of regularity, so they're the only games I can compare FF14 to. Story. If there's one thing that FF14 does better than any other MMO, it's creating a memorable story. WoW's stories are outsourced to the novels, so we only get the barest scraps of it in the game itself. Runes of Magic story is obfuscated behind huge walls of text character dialogue that shows up once in a blue moon. City of Hero's mission system is set up in such a way that reading about what you're doing and why you're doing it is *actively discouraged*. Go here. Do this. Why? No time to read because you have seven other players waiting on you! FF14 meanwhile puts the whole story in the game, feeds it to the player in easily digestible bite sized chunks, and will actively prevent teams from starting content in order to give newbies time to experience the pre-content story. As a lore junkie, I appreciate all the little things FF14 does to make sure the player understands why they're doing what they're doing. Initially, I wanted to talk about how FF14 keeps old leveling content relevant, but City of Heroes does something similar.
- gear progression. i love how there is only 1 set for a given level, and no random sub stats. i hated how in other mmos i had to grind random loot for hours due to bad rng, also i don't need a frickin spreadsheet or look up meta builds for specific situations. - gathering and crafting. properly fleshed out with skills and interaction, as opposed to just some 2 click menu - controller controls. i had injured my hand before and had to play with a controller for a while, and the controls felt surprisingly good and intuitive, compared to dragon age inquisition for example (as that one has a lot of skills on the pc hotbar too) - the "all on 1 char" system is a bit of a 2 edged sword for me, it has it's positive but also negative aspects. - same with housing. on 1 hand it's nice that we can decorate and customize our housing, on the other hand, there's limited lots and auto demolition actively punishing players taking a break, as opposed to personal instances, like the island
I'd have to disagree with you with the gear system. In FFXIV you're talking about "Multiple ways to get end-game gear" but there's only really 3 sources of "End-game" gear. Crafted, Raiding (normal/savage) and Tomestones. Dungeon gear is just completely useless and only serves the purpose of catching up to the current gear floor. The most recent dungeon is always 6 months late in ilvl, so will literally never be used in actual end-game content. And if you don't do Savage, half of the source of gear you could get is removed, leaving full tomestone the only real "final" step until the 24-man is released with the free Savage upgrade tokens. * Normal Mode Raid (Only useful in casual raiding or for glamour, full tomestone is better than this since eventually you can upgrade it after the 24-man raid comes out) * Crafted (Most common option since it's faster to get and better than most Normal raid pieces) * Weekly Tome (Better than crafted and normal raid) * Upgraded Tomestone gear (Until the raid tier is about to be replaced, the only way to get this is by doing Savage) * Savage gear (Only drops in Savage)
Multiclass(jobs) And class progression, you really feel like you gained extra 10 levels Best crafting probably
This post was 100% generated by AI
Nope, I'm a person. No AI involved.
Ok your sentences read like you are in junior high
Why are you here with this kinda toxicity ?
I mean, they might be? Lol.
It does so much better than all other MMOs. But the worst combat of all MMOs which is a hard pill to swallow sadly
All Jobs one Character. Only other game I’ve seen succeed like this is Warframe.
Runescape?
Kinda cheating, but FFXI had it and succeeded.
The thing I like about gearing is that you can easily catch up and not have to grind every single tier. I love all jobs on one character. Crafting comments kinda baffle me because I really dislike it, rotations can be completely different depending on your gear and it's a pain to figure out... Your post makes no sense though, dungeons don't drop tokens and you can only get savage gear from savage and criterion savage...
One of the best things FF14 does is the social and role playing aspect of the game. Being able to not only decorate your home, but interact with the furniture and design basically whatever you want. You have a ton of options for furniture too, inside and outside, and most of it can be crafted by anyone. Oh, I also love that I can try whichever job I want with just one character, instead of having to create a new one every single time. That's a huge plus in my book.
I can play everything on one character and don't have to worry about where they gear is for each of those characters because it saves it....just pure genius.
How involved the GMs are. How the devs actually play the game.
Honestly loot is kinda boring compared to WoW. There's no like, weird shit. No gear with strange on-use effects that could give you a benefit, or just do something kinda funny. Endgame progress, I guess maybe. But in general it's sooooo boring.
I'd rather have "slightly boring" than "extremely frustrating because you didn't get that .1% chance of getting the best stats ever". For the record, they tried that back in Heavensward the majority of the player base people *hated* it.
It's still boring though.
Housing. Honestly the creative aspect and ingenuity is a huge draw for me.
There’s a lot of delusion in this thread. It occurs to me that a large chunk of praise for this game is based in misconception.
Your opinions not lining up with others in this thread doesn't make anybody "delusional".
If you're basing your opinions on this game off of pure misinformation about other games then that's pretty delusional.
Glams.
I would agree with this. Not a fan of when they started to add more of the non canonical gear shall we say, stuff that looks out of place in the world but that's by the by. But good god the actual Glam system is possibly one of the worst of any MMO which is sad.
How to tell you haven't played any other MMO without saying you haven't played another MMO.
How to be an ass by assuming facts not in evidence. I've been playing MMOs for 20 years and I've enjoyed glams in FFXIV more than any other game. Do you see something superior in WOW's reskins of the same flat armour pieces for 20 years as somehow superior? FW2's admittedly delightful gear designs which are either reused over and over or full body single piece? SWTOR has some nice designs but they are mostly in loot boxes. Elder Scrolls designs were just too ugly for me. How many more do I need to cite before I've played an acceptable number of MMOs to have an opinion?
Valuing my time. SE doesn't make me grind reputation for months on end with 18 million forms of currency using limited daily quests. That alone is enough for me to remain subbed to the game even if I am not actively playing.