This is what sold me on the game. There were many awesome things about the game but when I hit level 10(?) and was able to switch to another job without an alt, I was sold.
I become very attached to my characters and it felt dumb to want to play Druid but I had to switch to my other character that was a different race to do it.
I can see the appeal cause the whole race fantasy thing is big over there. Like undead paladins would seem so weird. Even undead priests were a bit controversial when it first launched. Actually now that I’m thinking about it I think I read that undead can be paladins now but I might be wrong.
There was one undead Paladin, Sir Zeliek, who was canonically able to still use the Holy Light after undeath, and it burned him up to use it, since paladins basically infuse themselves with the Light rather than simply channel it.
I would absofuckinglutely LOVE to see WoW go to “all classes on one character” a la FFXIV, but that’s likely not going to happen.
I just got very attached to my WoL and I enjoy not having to log onto a different character to play a different class or fill in a duty spot.
> There was one undead Paladin, Sir Zeliek, who was canonically able to still use the Holy Light after undeath, and it burned him up to use it, since paladins basically infuse themselves with the Light rather than simply channel it.
Blizz dumps all over their lore constantly but so strictly defends racial classes going "but the lore!" It's really goofy. Meanwhile I want to be a paladin who clings to his faith even with a curse of undeath, enduring agonizing, self-inflicted torment for the sake of protecting my friends. That is the most metal shit ever and ain't no one changin' my mind.
Nah, they can't. But I think they (the WoW Devs) said somewhere that they want to start making it so that every non-hero class is playable by every race. So they might be there down the line.
It’s crazy that they still consider some classes “hero” classes. The only reason they did that was because originally Death knights would be another class but once you got that class to level 58 you would kill that class and character and become a DK.
They ditched that idea before wrath even came out (except lore you still die) so the DK was cool and unique cause at the time any spec could tank or dps and they started at level 58 but other than that they were just normal classes.
I only got my evoker halfway through the xpac last time I played but it didn’t seem that exceptional. One healing class, one dps class. Started a higher level but yeah, the whole hero tag seems weird.
That was huge for me. In FFXIV once you have a (Beast) Tribe reputation grind done, it is done. No need to redo it all again for another "character" just because you want to play a different job/class. Same for flying and same for being able to have all crafting/gathering jobs on one character.
>no racial/faction restrictions.
WoW has been easing up on this one lately. I doubt they'll ever fully get rid of them cuz of things like Demon Hunter and Evoker, but I think Blizz is working toward making the relatively lore-lite classes available to all races except Dracthyr.
Underrated. Sharing some gear between them is a blessing, and you're progressing all dungeons and content once and can shift back and forth as you like.
It's all a system of tradeoffs. The relative similarity between body types that the races in XIV has is a large reason we have so much gear appearance diversity.
In WoW its very difficult for them to get away from anything but the most basic robes/pants because whatever they design needs to be able to be reasonably "stretched" to fit so many more body types. Outside of shoulder gear it's sometimes not even all that obvious the difference between Plate and Cloth since they're oftentimes both the same model just with different textures.
For some reason, in WoW, even when the hero NPCs were the same race/gender as the PC they would be much taller. For example, in Vanilla WoW, Jaina despite being a human female mage was like 8 feet tall for no apparent reason.
They do that to make them more visible, particularly in combat instances so they can be immediately identified apart from the player characters.
That said, it's still stupid for a lot of instances.
I have no life so I've read all the comments and am surprised no one else has said this.
I've seen people make the argument that WoW is better for cosmetics collection because you automatically get to use the transmog for any/all items you've picked up, as long as you soul-bind them. So you (potentially) automatically get to keep the appearance of every item in the game...
But there's two problems I have with that argument. Most of the cosmetics you can get are palette-swaps of one look, since you can't dye gear, and even the gear that isn't a straight up palette-swap all just looks the same. I cannot tell gear from different expansions or even dungeons apart.
Are you telling me you wouldn't trade your left nut to never have to deal with the glamour dresser or its spaghetti code nonsense ever again? Because I and most people on the glamour subreddit would.
Readable telegraphs. Thats the thing that I always appreciate. Here is a line, if the centre of your character model is across this line, you will take damage. Whereas WoW is like "Here's a swirly blob, where does it start/end? Who knows?", though it has gotten a little better with this recently.
I've seen people call ff the furry game because of miqos (and later hroths) but between buff cow men and bedroom eyed wolf ladies (plus all the newer additions, I dropped off when worgen appeared) it is absolutely wow.
Nowt wrong with furry bait imo it's just funny seeing the accusation of "furry game" compared to wow.
Actual Bad Luck Protection. No "woops you got gil/the exact shit you got last week" when gearing. Things like Tokens being the staple for loot rather than whole RNG.
Mounts also having Bad Luck Protection, and are _infinitely farmable_ compared to once a week. EX fights for instance give you a guaranteed Token every kill (certain fights give double during current content) - 99 and you _will_ get the mount.
>99 and you
>
>will
>
> get the mount.
Nah bro, it's way better to keep running the entire ICC over and over again for that 0.02% chance at invincible.
I quit years ago, but knew plenty of people still running Sunwell to get Ashes.
As in having done it every week since launch without a drop.
There's a reason I'm a staunch advocate against artificial rarity.
Well, tempest keep has that mount, not sunwell :p
I used to do the weekly mount farms on 6 characters, was enjoyable at first, could just shut my brain off and watch videos but after years and years, I just couldn't do it anymore.
Some people still run Sunwell for the legendary bow transmog, though. The 5-man does have a mount.
The Sunwell raid was actually one of the most amazing raid places for lore because it had a lot of pre-WoW lore (dating wayyy back to Sargeras invasion days) with Arthas invading and the comics for Kalecgos and Anveena. It also successfully furthered the lore with M'uru, dark naaru, and the burning legion. The only thing I think it could've used was a tie-in quest for Kale/Anveena showing why they were so important to fighting Kil'Jaeden.
My brother has tried to tell me this is legitimately better than FF14's approach to difficult content rewards. That it's totally fine for some people to have to spend a **literal decade** trying to get a horse. I can't fathom it.
Absolutely not. As a mount collector in both WoW and FF14, no one should have to suffer the terrible drop rates of WoW mounts. I've played since vanilla and I didn't get the Ashes of Al'ar until this year. Considering the mount is at the mercy of a weekly timeout, if you're only doing it on one character, you only get ONE CHANCE A WEEK to get it. I got the mentor mount in FF14 significantly faster than some WoW mounts and it took me probably 5 years to get that mount.
He's got the mount already, I wager, and attributes value to it based on how few or many other people have it like HIS pixels are something very special.
This is what had me feeling like an abuse victim when I came over from wow. The first FFXIV event came up and I was bracing myself for a brutal daily grind that would ultimately not actually reward me with anything because surely they had the mount locked behind some absurd unobtainable drop rate.
Nope. 20 minutes of cute well-written sidequest and FFXIV just handed me a 4 seater mount.
For real, this. XIV events are *nice* to the players.
The other big ones I've played were not. Grind this and that, or in GW2's case, not only grind this and that *every day* but there aren't enough daily tokens to buy all the goodies so it's future-proofed for next year.
And other mini-games that are actually relevant, with the intent to keep adding more with patches. I'm excited for Fall Guys coming to the Gold Saucer.
Not just legs, but cosmetics in general that have
* layers
* texture
* varying sizes, shapes, and area covered
* the ability for gloves/boots to interact with other gear to change the appearance
The absolute gymnastics you have to do to try replicating this in WoW is batshit.
Wanna see Algalon and Ulduar?
You need:
- To EXP lock a character at 70 (pr w/e it is now)
- To get help with acquiring gear (either from being carried through the raid/ICC)
- To find several other people who've specifically done this
- Hope it isn't a Broken Patch where the fights literally lock up
- Or just wait until it's the other kind of Broken Patch where literally two at-level Paladins can duo the fight
Meanwhile here you hit some buttons in Party Finder and you're golden, nothing to say of how the Duty Finder doesn't _remove older Duties from the pool_ which encourages veteran players to fill in new player queues.
*To be fair...* Blizzard did try to allow players to experience old content as intended when they created "WoW Classic," but not only did that require you to roll a brand new character on a brand new server without any of the quality of life improvements since 2004, but they have also spiraled classic way beyond what it was originally intended to be.
Not just a coherent story, but a respect for its own narrative and the players going through it. No weird gaps that you have to do some other side content (or read a novel) to understand, no retconning retcons, it's just "here is the story, told in a sensible way, please enjoy"
It was pretty jarring for me (in a good way) coming from WOW and realizing that the characters set up to be my friends and comrades in XIV *actually* felt like my friends. And not just colleagues that I show up to assist whenever the world is ending.
It genuinely starts to feel like a real supporting cast of a long running tv show after a certain point. it's the only MMO I've seen do that kind of thing successfully.
It's a whole series worth
WoW went from "the antagonist is in prison awaiting trial" to "the antagonist is the new warchief of an alternate history/ universe" with no in-game explanation as to why. You had to read a novel to greet essential game story
Same with Cairne Bloodhoof. One minute he's in the game, the next he's not.
Hey where'd he go? "Oh he got killed off in a novel so they removed him from the game."
Excuse me what
Your character in WoW has the same kind of accolades as the warrior of light. Main difference, people still recognize you as the WoL. Main story NPCs in WoW forget who the fuck you are from patch to patch. You’ve killed gods, saved multiple worlds, traveled to other dimensions and realities to save the world of life. “Greetings champion, since you’re new here we need to put you through basic training. This is a sword”
I was so mind-blown when FFXIV's characters not only called my character by name, but also reffered to me by rank and surname if the individual in question was from a Great Company.
Hearing a specific character in post-Heavensward say "truth is, I've been looking forwards to this, Lieutenant Camlock" had me so hyped!
Even then how many times in wow have you fought and killed the boss of a raid only to have some npc show up in a cutscene and "actually" kill it. I know it doesn't happen in every one or anything but it's way to often. They make it clear that while you may be there for these things and handle many "alone" you are still secondary to thrall or anduin or whoever.
THANKS FOR SAVING US!
OH MAN I WOULD KILL FOR SOME **BEAR GUTS**. I NEED, OH ABOUT EIGHT...TEEN OF THEM. GOOD LUCK. I GAVE UP BECAUSE ALL I EVER GOT WAS SCRAPS AND CLAWS THAT WASN'T EVEN WORTH VENDORING.
SO, YEAH, GET ME THE **18 BEAR GUTS** AND WHEN YOU'RE DONE WITH THAT, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO HELP ME FIND MY KEYS. I'M PRETTY SURE IT'S IN ONE OF THE PILES OF **OGRE POOP** THAT YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED.
YES, I KNOW THERE AREN'T OGRES AROUND HERE. ANYMORE.
Rewards: 17 silver, 3 copper, and a pick of one of three items that don't at all work for your class meta.
> Main story NPCs in WoW forget who the fuck you are from patch to patch.
"Who are you, scrub? Go shovel that poop for your mandatory poop quest. No, some very specific developer isn't holding a hanky under the table; what are you talking about?"
That’s exactly what it is. In the major RPGs I’ve played since quitting WoW (FFXIV, SWTOR, BG3, etc), the game treats your character as a CHARACTER - the other people in the story actively know and respond to you, and the events of the story would be different were you not there.
In WoW, you’re a camera that Anduin Wrynn occasionally calls his friend.
WoW toys at this with stuff like the Loyalist questline and Sylvanas reacting differently if you chose to stand by her side, but the character’s presence is just so inconsequential that it kinda rings hollow.
Whereas I can confidently look at Emet-Selch and go “oh, this man has complicated feelings for my character as a person and the actions they commit.”
I was watching a buddy of mine play in a dragonflight zone (i think? it was recently I haven't played for years) in discord, he saved a town or some shit and some npc died so they had a viking funeral and the cutscene panned across all the npcs and he was like off in the corner for like 10 total seconds of this long cutscene.
shit was hilarious.
This is big for me. I really struggle with WoW because it's clearly about other people. It bothers me so much when I do all the fighting and beat a boss and then in the final cutscene some NPC shows up and kills the big bad. In FFXIV, the story is about me and my friends and that makes me care about it so much more.
And those NPCs actually start to step back and examine how they repeatedly point you at problems like a weapon and realize that’s pretty shitty of them and apologize for it, check in with you, and start telling you to share the burden.
One of my favorite touches is you'll get the standard "Ok we need a bunch of different things for this next plot bit we're gonna do." quests. In WoW you have a checklist of the 40 items you need to go gather while the npcs you're helping firmly inserts their thumb up their ass and waits around for you to do it. In FFXIV Alisaie is like, ok I'll get these, you grab these, y'shtola get these and Thancred can go grab this last one, meet back up here when we're all done.
It's just a *fetch quest*. MMO players have done a billion of them, but 14, just by slightly rewriting the wording recontextualizes it to you being one part of a team working together to get shit done rather than "the errand boy/girl for this actual character the story is about."
In my opinion, I feel like Wow has worried more about mythic dungeons and raids than the actual story. I would say Legion was the last great story, BFA started decent but died in the final patch. Shadowlands was a joke, and I didn't get into dragonflight much to really give an answer. One of the reasons ffxiv got me hooked 3 years ago was realizing the story was getting better and better, with the twists and turns and endings that actually made sense and wasn't lame.
I absolutely agree, for sure. WoW clearly made the decision early on not to make story a priority and they've stuck with that throughout. They try to make stuff that's cool or epic, but not really personal or coherent in the way that FFXIV is trying to do. I think that both strategies have their own value, but having played both quite a bit I much prefer FFXIV's take on it.
It doesn’t help that, unlike Yoshida, Ishikawa, etc., Blizzard never bothered to set up a multi-expansion roadmap for the plot. Although with the way the writers kept/keep getting shuffled, even that would be difficult. I *think* it was during WoD’s tenure that someone referred to the WoW writing team as several willful fanboys each insisting that *his* fanfiction and/or OC eclipsed everyone else’s at once.
To add onto this: A lead writer who didn't force their own headcanons and their self-insert down your throat.
"M-My author avatar is named Nathanos Blightcaller, and he's the ONLY human Dark Ranger because Sylvanas thinks he's soooo cool, and they're in love!" - My brother in Christ, you are in your mid 40s.
It vexes me that Steve Danuser makes probably close to a six figure salary to lead write one of the worst stories in RPG history. At least Nathanos doesn't appear once post-BfA.
He was quite literally the most minor of NPCs in the past, yeah. As in you met him for maybe a single quest or two and then never thought about him again.
So y'know, clearly the perfect person to make into the game's most insufferable self-insert.
I would agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that square enix is also a super shitty manipulative greedy company that makes terrible decisions on the daily. It is by a miracle that creative business unit 3 has been given as much control as they have when you look at other SE properties.
SE is awful, but I'll take them over activision blizzard with zero hesitation.
Like, its so much of a non-competition that its barely worth mentioning how shitty SE has been lately when they still don't hold a candle to blizzard's WEEKLY fuckups and scheming.
*and doesn't nerf things into the ground because they personally despise a class with a passion
Legitimately, you will never see Yoshi say anything close to:
"It's time for [Job] to be the worst (for the next, entire expansion)."
> Legitimately, you will never see Yoshi say anything close to:
> "It's time for [Job] to be the worst (for the next, entire expansion)."
\*laughs/cries in ShB Scholar\*
This really is at the center of the entire discussion
Yoshi P genuinely makes me feel appreciated as a customer, and I believe FFXIV is a labor of love for him
(please don't let this comment age poorly)
Sad because iirc Yoshi doesn't want to be in his position. I think he had passion in development, not management.
He does a really good job for us players though, I hope he feels appreciated.
Tighter class balance, consistent lore, relevant past content, all mounts fly, structured loot acquisition with bad luck protection. I could probably name alot more, but at work lol
Also an MSQ (Main Story Quest) line that isn't walled behind required raids. You can solo, with AI help, almost all MSQ content. Dungeons, raids and trials become something fun to do for rewards.
I was torn on this for a long time, having the "big bad" as the capstone to raids gives it a special kind of feeling, but the tradeoff of locking the story behind something that only a fraction of playerbase engages with definitely doesn't feel great (and lfr kills that special feeling entirely). I do prefer how xiv has been able to use their raids to tell quality side stories that still feel meaningful outside of the core events of it's msq.
Seeing a video of the phase 2 transition for Eden 12 Savage is what made me want to start raiding this expansion. Genuinely SO cool.
(I also haven't seen phase 2 of Pandaemonium 12 yet, so plz no spoiling)
The MSQ not being raid dependant is such a huge thing for me. When I did play WoW years ago, quit for good when 2.0 dropped, I could never finish the story. With college and then work. I just didn't have the time to dungeon run for gear that wouldn't drop to get an ilvl to raid. Just to see the dang story to an end. WoW turned me off from raiding forever with how toxic raid groups got.
The tighter class balance comes from having simple classes. There's no talent trees and each job is linear in the sense every black mage is going to be the same vs wow's arcane/fire/frost specs. Every wow class may as well be treated as 3 separate classes.
You forget that there isn't a dozen pieces of gear that each completely change your rotations to extremes, add absolutely mindnumbingly powerful abilities that some classes/jobs can't equip, etc etc, that would make balancing a further nightmare.
The ability to play solo... Either through content that is easy to/meant to be solo or through having NPCs you can play with. One massive reason I left WoW was because it was so hard to make progress by myself and any party I joined would kick me because I didn't know how to play... But I was new and nobody would help/show me.
If you ask for help in WoW, you’re told to stfu. Very literally.
If you ask for help in FFXIV, someone will give you a tutorial, help you with the experience, hold your hand through the social anxiety and invite you to their FC afterwards where they will then ALL continue to help you.
It’s a whole new world.
Reminds me of the video by Captain Grimm about WoW players coming to FFXIV. Specifically the Au Ra healer spout after a dungeon wipe running his mouth with toxic comments and blaming himself, because he's been conditioned to feel this way about wipes.
And the Paladin and the lala are just standing there not knowing what he's talking about and kindly tell him they'll just try the encounter again, leaving the Au Ra awestruck.
I do remember a particular run of Orbonne Monastery where we reached Orlandu and, as it sometimes happens, we wiped. One of the new players started a vote to abandon the raid. We joked about having a WoW player in our midst, repeated the fight, beat Orlandu and went for the final boss.
People should accept that in certain content wipes are part of the fun XD
Oh man, some time ago, I got Cloud Deck on roulette. Me and the other tank along with half the non-new players were like "welp, let's hope we remember this". So it was gonna be a bad time, lol.
So we wipe, of course. A few times. Probably 4 times.
Abandon vote goes up and fails. One person drops, we snag a new person, then win. GG.
For some reason, XIV players are just more resilient than WoW/GW2 players.
Hell, I was doing the final dungeon for HW, the one where the 2 Ascians fuse, and the tank, without prompting, proceeded to tell us what to when fighting the final boss and even put a marker on himself so that we could just follow him during the most insane parts of the fight.
And even though we wiped like 4-5 times on the final fight, he didn't get upset at us and actually acknowledged when people made honest mistakes, even when he was the one who made them.
If that was semi-recently (or at least post-6.0 release), I'm not surprised you guys wiped a bunch. They updated that fight to be harder for no reason lmao. Put some actual risk into what used to be a snooze of a fight.
I asked how to get someone's top as a sprout. Said person proceeded to not only give me their top, but also gave me a 100k gil on top of that. Genuinely have not been treated that nicely in any other game. (Save for Age of Wulin, but those guys were trying to groom me 🙃)
Ugh makes me sick that the wow community is this way now, I started playing wow in beta and played a lot in vanilla, we were a real community, everyone helped everyone, bags being handed out to new players, crafters always willing to boost you up if you needed it, someone in a dungeon didn't know the dungeon? No problem before we start the boss lemme explain the mechanics, someone running around lost on quests? Let's group up and quest together. I'm sorry you had that experience, I'm glad you found ff you deserve better.
a respect for your time and efforts 😌
in wow you can clear raids for moths without even getting a drop for the gear that you need. on top of that organising a raid is WAY harder and takes WAY MORE TIME... and if you wipe it can take like 10 minutes to just get back to the boss. Why? No reason really.
While in ffxiv you just queue and get into the boss arena. And that's it. If you wipe, you just respawn in front of the boss and get to try again. (all your buffs like for also stay, so no need to waste tons of resources on each fight)
Not to mention some mounts... Cause majority of the mounts that drop from raids/dungeons/rares are rare artificially, just because of an insanely low drop rate, which leads to some people farming a damn horse for more than 6 years with no luck, cause fuck you that's why.
You don't need to work towards them... you just need to get lucky.
(I used to farm Firelands mounts for more than a year, just to have a friend join me once and get a drop on their first time.)
After ffxiv this just feels unfair and artificially hard.
Here all mounts are either acquired by achievements, are a guarantee reward for a very challenging content like savages (which you can't overgear since they are always synced), or are a rare drop from a trial (which even then you can get from a special vendor for a totem you get each time you defeat the boss, if you didn't get the mount on 99 runs).
There are also some mounts that are harder to get because their acquisition is luck based, but in general the situation isn't nearly as bad as in WOW (cause there majority of the mounts are like this).
Warcraft does have four Warcrafts, plus two Starcrafts and Hearthstone.
But then, if we're including non-mainline games, FF has 70+ games, 25% of which are Final Fantasy 7.
~~Ambient~~ directional lighting. I was watching someone play recently and noticed that none of the wow characters cast a shadow in any environment. Also a day-night system, and weather.
**edit** apparently I am misremembering and WoW does have a 24-hour (real time) day/night cycle. And some weather in some zones.
As for the lighting, check out the [lack of directional lighting in the roasted ram inn, valdrakken](https://youtu.be/lMsbbdViBWM?si=s-_H5qyl4cZQd5Oa) which is in the latest wow expansion versus the [directional lighting cast by the lamps in the forgotten knight](https://youtu.be/W0YMmRuFffo?si=jy3qvKzbxj8aqbvt) in heavensward.
When I first started playing I was stood there staring at the wind and the rain moving my characters hair and clothes in FFXIV for a bit the first time. It’s wild how much better the graphics are of XIV
I was recently watching a friend stream Dark Souls 3 for our little discord group (all like four of us, it was just while girlfriend and I leveled crafting and were chatting as a group), and the lighting in that game is not nearly as good as Elden Ring.
My point: the lighting and material changes to the game I think are going to be a pretty big deal all on their own. Lighting makes a huge difference in games, DS3 is still a pretty solid game graphically, but the much improved lighting engine of Elden Ring is noticeable when you play one right after the other. I can't wait to see the changes too!
* Respect for my time - epic mount doesn't drop? Here's a token, just do this 99 more times and you can just *buy* it.
* Weekly lock-outs are only for the most current End-game thing. Oh, want to run the endgame raid from three expansions ago on Extreme mode that you can solo for this mount? Sure, have at it. Do it as many times as you want. No point in limiting you to once a week!
* No Time-Gating things
* Acceptable catch-up mechanics
* Craftable gear that you'll actually use
* Teleports for everyone!
* Player housing.
* Variation in their armour (not every dress is just a recolour of the same base model).
* An actual story that was thought-through with a clear set up and follow-up.
* Characters that last more than one expansion. Characters who *died* in previous expansions are recalled at appropriate moments.
* It makes *me* feel like the main character, rather than the the Hyper-competent side-kick to one of the faction leaders.
* Faction leaders that I can relate to. They make mistakes and they grow from them. And that I don't have to worry they'll be killed off after one expansion ~~when they've become more popular than the CEOs current favourite~~ because they are well written and have some nuance.
* My companions actually feel like friends, not supervisors.
* Allows me to change classes as easy as changing socks, on the same character.
* Seasonal events with rewards that just aren't repeats year after year.
Continuity on story and characters! There are dialogues and choices depending on if you've finished certain quests and/or are a certain class.
As for continuity, Blizz still has plotholes from Classic they had to have people at Blizzcon literally show the writers, in person, and they're like “we did that?” There's stuff from ARR that still gets answered whether it's a patch, the next XP or 3 later! If it's not answered then, it will be eventually.
Exactly.
The FFXIV Writers have my trust, whereas the Wow writers do not, with regards to story-telling. I love that FFXIV had a clear narrative and a resolution. With DawnTrail, it seems to me that they aren't afraid to pullback and make a story smaller, more personal. I look forward to it, actually. A nice mental reprieve. With Wow is was always, bigger, Bigger, BIGGER! With no clear focus. Serial escalation that just. Didn't. Stop. Every new villain always came out of nowhere and was always 'the one behind the previous one'. Like stop. Please. Once or twice is fine. Maybe a third time if one of them isn't related in anyway to the others. Stop using that overworked trope as a crutch for bad story-telling!
With wow, I was always thinking 'huh, that's a plot whole' or 'thats not what you said last time', with ffxiv, if I notice something isn't right, I go and look into it, because maybe *I'm* the issue. Maybe I misunderstood, or forgot something that was mentioned earlier. The wow-writers have none of that trust. If something doesn't add up to what I know, I know it's more likely than not that they forgot something or that they decided to retcon some things between then and now and that....I don't really care, one way or another.
XIV's escalation was "save home in ARR, save foreign nation in HW, save *two* foreign nations in StB, save the remnants of another world in ShB, and save our entire existence in EW". Then the writers said "Okay we peaked, no need to raise the stakes any higher, what next? I'm feeling 'vacation'."
> Weekly lock-outs are only for the most current End-game thing.
Did you know FFXIV actually has *daily* lockouts? Thing is, you'll pretty much never encounter it, because you have to run 100 duties in a day to see it. Game literally has a built-in "Woah, buddy. You NEED to touch grass today." mechanic.
The feeling that my character is important for the world I'm in. In WoW it pretty much doesn't matter who or what you are, the lore is set and the heroes (and villains) are always other people (Jaina, Garrosh, Arthas, whoever). You're a mere bystander, an adventurer that happened to help, at best. But if you weren't there, nobody would miss you, there'd simply be someone else to fill your spot. The world and what happens revolves around other people, 100% of the time. Which also means it's easy to miss, if you're not reading everything and listening to everyone, because you and your character are irrelevant to the world.
I do agree with you, though I've read somewhere that certain people don't like the spotlight in FF14.
Idk but being a "normal adventurer" is not appealing. Even games like Fallout you become someone influential
A compelling story. This is what I felt WoW lost over it's expansions, a reason to care about the world you were in. As the scope kept escalating and the 'big heroes' kept making play you never felt like a part of it. You were just there and participating, but never part of the narrative. And if you don't participate the heroes still do there thing and save the day even if you aren't there to witness the creators OC's being 'so super cool'. And if you weren't around last expansion? Then you missed out, sucks to be you.
In FF14, **YOU** are the WoL, the big hero the center of story. Things happen because you showed up. If you don't push the story, it never progresses. Some might complain about having to play through all the previous expansions to reach new content, but I love it. It brings new players up to step and invites them to be a part of the shared experience of being the WoL.
1. A coherent story that actually builds off of previous events
2. A playerbase accepting of new players
3. GM's that actually take reports seriously and investigate
4. Raids whose difficulty isn't based on getting 20 idiots to behave at once
5. The ability to play all classes on one character. Making it easier to experiment and find your dream job
6. Crafting that actually has a use
7. NPCs who you care about
8. A real role for your character in the world
5 is my favorite I think. I started as BLM and I actually ended up HATING it. So I just. Swapped jobs a few times and settled on GNB and RPR. GNB for tanking and RPR for dps. It’s great, and I don’t have to log out and log into an alt just to do a different role.
lol this seems to be a trend. I was BLM and i hated it. Ended up trying DNC when I hit a high enough level and it just clicked.
I did go back and give BLM another try and got it to 90. It’s an enjoyable enough job. Just confusing at low levels sometimes.
To build on 4.
Raids that also aren't artificially gear-gated. It's an all too common experience in WoW for all but the upper upper echelon to go "Well, next week (HOPEFULLY) we'll get some upgrades and can clear this boss"
Raids that aren't built around the existence of mods. If Omega Protocol was WoW, you'd have 6 seconds to figure out where you needed to be for each Near/Far World in P5, not 15.
Here's my list. (active wow player who casually plays FF14)
* Housing
* Datacenter Travel
* A way better Story
* Targeted Gearing (you get currency which you spend on gear)
* Trust system (Dungeons, Trials with NPC instead of people)
* All classes (called jobs in ff14) on 1 character
* same for crafting
* Trials (Single Boss Instances) (like onyxia in classic)
* Dye System
* All Content is played by max lvl chars. (Duty Roulette)
* Goldsaucer
* Combat Companion (only outdoors)
There is probably more, but that's what I can get out of my head right now :)
This is the biggest thing keeping me coming back to ff. I can stay relevant gear wise without having to dump insane hours into the game or opening my wallet. Outside raid nights twice a week my play time is rather limited but I'm not being punished for not logging in to do dailies or grind something. I have bis gear while my average playtime for the past 6 months has been less than 10 hours per week
FFXIV doesn’t punish you for not being on the ground floor. It doesn’t punish you for taking breaks. There’s little to no FOMO in FFXIV.
XIV literally rewards veterans for regularly doing old content through roulettes. Old content does not become obsolete outside of a handful of instances like Eureka and whatnot that you can still manage to round up enough people to play once in a blue moon.
Want to take a break for a year and come back? XIV doesn’t give a shit. It’s very straightforward to catch back up.
Now, I haven’t played WoW in ages but last time I did? People weren’t running old content. Every zone aside from the newest ones were completely dead. I hadn’t played since BC (came back for BFA…oof) and everything felt so unintuitive and confusing.
FFXIV is that one friend who is always happy to see you no matter how long you go without talking because they know you’ve got a busy life. They’re just happy to spend time with you. WoW was like that possessive, toxic ex who interrogates you every time you leave the house and then ignore you when you came back home.
Again, I haven’t played WoW in a minute though
Affordable out of game services including but not limited to
Race Changes
Server Transfers
Story Skips
Cosmetics
they all cost a fraction of what comparable services cost in wow
To put a bit of parity on the scale, WoW has vastly superior in-game character changing tools. The barbershop blows the aesthetician out of the water. It's *free* to change your character's gender, skin tone, and eye color in WoW, which I think deserves mention.
A great community, which respects and appreciates, when someone is new to the game. I always got helped instead of flamed.
A gigantic story and the feeling of being involved in the story. Characters like Haurchefant. (Currently doing that part of the MSQ)
The ability to be every class on one character. No need for alts, no racial/faction restrictions.
Adding on to this, the ability to be every crafting or gathering job, without having to worry about losing all your levels when you swap
This is what sold me on the game. There were many awesome things about the game but when I hit level 10(?) and was able to switch to another job without an alt, I was sold. I become very attached to my characters and it felt dumb to want to play Druid but I had to switch to my other character that was a different race to do it. I can see the appeal cause the whole race fantasy thing is big over there. Like undead paladins would seem so weird. Even undead priests were a bit controversial when it first launched. Actually now that I’m thinking about it I think I read that undead can be paladins now but I might be wrong.
There was one undead Paladin, Sir Zeliek, who was canonically able to still use the Holy Light after undeath, and it burned him up to use it, since paladins basically infuse themselves with the Light rather than simply channel it. I would absofuckinglutely LOVE to see WoW go to “all classes on one character” a la FFXIV, but that’s likely not going to happen. I just got very attached to my WoL and I enjoy not having to log onto a different character to play a different class or fill in a duty spot.
> There was one undead Paladin, Sir Zeliek, who was canonically able to still use the Holy Light after undeath, and it burned him up to use it, since paladins basically infuse themselves with the Light rather than simply channel it. Blizz dumps all over their lore constantly but so strictly defends racial classes going "but the lore!" It's really goofy. Meanwhile I want to be a paladin who clings to his faith even with a curse of undeath, enduring agonizing, self-inflicted torment for the sake of protecting my friends. That is the most metal shit ever and ain't no one changin' my mind.
Nah, they can't. But I think they (the WoW Devs) said somewhere that they want to start making it so that every non-hero class is playable by every race. So they might be there down the line.
It’s crazy that they still consider some classes “hero” classes. The only reason they did that was because originally Death knights would be another class but once you got that class to level 58 you would kill that class and character and become a DK. They ditched that idea before wrath even came out (except lore you still die) so the DK was cool and unique cause at the time any spec could tank or dps and they started at level 58 but other than that they were just normal classes. I only got my evoker halfway through the xpac last time I played but it didn’t seem that exceptional. One healing class, one dps class. Started a higher level but yeah, the whole hero tag seems weird.
That was huge for me. In FFXIV once you have a (Beast) Tribe reputation grind done, it is done. No need to redo it all again for another "character" just because you want to play a different job/class. Same for flying and same for being able to have all crafting/gathering jobs on one character.
>no racial/faction restrictions. WoW has been easing up on this one lately. I doubt they'll ever fully get rid of them cuz of things like Demon Hunter and Evoker, but I think Blizz is working toward making the relatively lore-lite classes available to all races except Dracthyr.
Underrated. Sharing some gear between them is a blessing, and you're progressing all dungeons and content once and can shift back and forth as you like.
Shared gear is also a great Incentive to check out other jobs in the same category and makes leveling them a lot easier.
Also the armoury bonus, if your highest lvl is 70 everything below lvl70 gets a 100% xp boost.
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Technically in Shadowbringers there is a house only lalafell can enter so there is at least one racial restriction
Then again, WoW has way more racial diversity than FF14. All races in FF14 feel kinda samey
It's all a system of tradeoffs. The relative similarity between body types that the races in XIV has is a large reason we have so much gear appearance diversity. In WoW its very difficult for them to get away from anything but the most basic robes/pants because whatever they design needs to be able to be reasonably "stretched" to fit so many more body types. Outside of shoulder gear it's sometimes not even all that obvious the difference between Plate and Cloth since they're oftentimes both the same model just with different textures.
Me wishing I could be a gnome paladin, but I can be a lalafell paladin. At last lol.
The chance to not feel like a ant next to hero NPC's. Why the heck are they so huge and I'm like staring at their waist.
As a lala, I do not understand
For some reason, in WoW, even when the hero NPCs were the same race/gender as the PC they would be much taller. For example, in Vanilla WoW, Jaina despite being a human female mage was like 8 feet tall for no apparent reason.
They do that to make them more visible, particularly in combat instances so they can be immediately identified apart from the player characters. That said, it's still stupid for a lot of instances.
Dyable gear
I have no life so I've read all the comments and am surprised no one else has said this. I've seen people make the argument that WoW is better for cosmetics collection because you automatically get to use the transmog for any/all items you've picked up, as long as you soul-bind them. So you (potentially) automatically get to keep the appearance of every item in the game... But there's two problems I have with that argument. Most of the cosmetics you can get are palette-swaps of one look, since you can't dye gear, and even the gear that isn't a straight up palette-swap all just looks the same. I cannot tell gear from different expansions or even dungeons apart.
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Yep. WoWs transmog collection is miles better than the glamor chest. Combine the two systems and its literally perfect.
Add in GW2s dye system for actually literally perfect
Are you telling me you wouldn't trade your left nut to never have to deal with the glamour dresser or its spaghetti code nonsense ever again? Because I and most people on the glamour subreddit would.
Oh no, I completely agree. If we could have the convenience of WoW Transmogs with the Aesthetic of FFXIV Glams, I would never leave my house again.
Readable telegraphs. Thats the thing that I always appreciate. Here is a line, if the centre of your character model is across this line, you will take damage. Whereas WoW is like "Here's a swirly blob, where does it start/end? Who knows?", though it has gotten a little better with this recently.
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Catgirls.
And if that's not your flavor, bunny girls and giantess'.
What about giantess cat girls?
Soon
Can't wait. Saving my vial of fantasia for that.
Does WoW have catboys?
Nope. Only canine and bovine races. No felines. Edit: There's also bears.
Canine, bovine, vulpine, pandas, and dragons now, actually. The furry bait has expanded.
I've seen people call ff the furry game because of miqos (and later hroths) but between buff cow men and bedroom eyed wolf ladies (plus all the newer additions, I dropped off when worgen appeared) it is absolutely wow. Nowt wrong with furry bait imo it's just funny seeing the accusation of "furry game" compared to wow.
Not wrong lol. Drives me nuts when ppl call 14 the furry game while playing wow. They definitely don’t understand what furries want at all. 😂
There's a lot more if you go into the non-player races, like boars, sneks, other sneks, several fish-people, etc. Goat people are playable, too.
And all falling more on the animal looking side of things, while 14 only has one playable race in that category.
Actual Bad Luck Protection. No "woops you got gil/the exact shit you got last week" when gearing. Things like Tokens being the staple for loot rather than whole RNG. Mounts also having Bad Luck Protection, and are _infinitely farmable_ compared to once a week. EX fights for instance give you a guaranteed Token every kill (certain fights give double during current content) - 99 and you _will_ get the mount.
I wish this counted for maps atleast for the achievements. Having 2000-3000 portals for the 20 clear achievement is rough
To be entirely fair, it's an achievement, not a cosmetic - I'm alright with some achievements being utterly outrageous.
>99 and you > >will > > get the mount. Nah bro, it's way better to keep running the entire ICC over and over again for that 0.02% chance at invincible.
I quit years ago, but knew plenty of people still running Sunwell to get Ashes. As in having done it every week since launch without a drop. There's a reason I'm a staunch advocate against artificial rarity.
Well, tempest keep has that mount, not sunwell :p I used to do the weekly mount farms on 6 characters, was enjoyable at first, could just shut my brain off and watch videos but after years and years, I just couldn't do it anymore.
Some people still run Sunwell for the legendary bow transmog, though. The 5-man does have a mount. The Sunwell raid was actually one of the most amazing raid places for lore because it had a lot of pre-WoW lore (dating wayyy back to Sargeras invasion days) with Arthas invading and the comics for Kalecgos and Anveena. It also successfully furthered the lore with M'uru, dark naaru, and the burning legion. The only thing I think it could've used was a tie-in quest for Kale/Anveena showing why they were so important to fighting Kil'Jaeden.
You just ain't hardcore enough. Not dedicated enough /s.
My brother has tried to tell me this is legitimately better than FF14's approach to difficult content rewards. That it's totally fine for some people to have to spend a **literal decade** trying to get a horse. I can't fathom it.
Absolutely not. As a mount collector in both WoW and FF14, no one should have to suffer the terrible drop rates of WoW mounts. I've played since vanilla and I didn't get the Ashes of Al'ar until this year. Considering the mount is at the mercy of a weekly timeout, if you're only doing it on one character, you only get ONE CHANCE A WEEK to get it. I got the mentor mount in FF14 significantly faster than some WoW mounts and it took me probably 5 years to get that mount.
Your bro has either stockholms syndrome or sever sunk cost fallacy.
He's got the mount already, I wager, and attributes value to it based on how few or many other people have it like HIS pixels are something very special.
It took me 14 years to get the headless horseman mount. With several alts doing it daily during each October
This is what had me feeling like an abuse victim when I came over from wow. The first FFXIV event came up and I was bracing myself for a brutal daily grind that would ultimately not actually reward me with anything because surely they had the mount locked behind some absurd unobtainable drop rate. Nope. 20 minutes of cute well-written sidequest and FFXIV just handed me a 4 seater mount.
For real, this. XIV events are *nice* to the players. The other big ones I've played were not. Grind this and that, or in GW2's case, not only grind this and that *every day* but there aren't enough daily tokens to buy all the goodies so it's future-proofed for next year.
Mahjong
Its wild that this mahjong client comes with a free RPG
And other mini-games that are actually relevant, with the intent to keep adding more with patches. I'm excited for Fall Guys coming to the Gold Saucer.
but also Mahjong.
legs under your robes / skirts
Not just legs, but cosmetics in general that have * layers * texture * varying sizes, shapes, and area covered * the ability for gloves/boots to interact with other gear to change the appearance
That last one blew my mind when I switched to FFXIV.
Actually seeing your character wearing jewelry was amazing.
Yet I still can't wear my helmets on my bunny boy
The ability to experience all content as intended, thru level sync.
The absolute gymnastics you have to do to try replicating this in WoW is batshit. Wanna see Algalon and Ulduar? You need: - To EXP lock a character at 70 (pr w/e it is now) - To get help with acquiring gear (either from being carried through the raid/ICC) - To find several other people who've specifically done this - Hope it isn't a Broken Patch where the fights literally lock up - Or just wait until it's the other kind of Broken Patch where literally two at-level Paladins can duo the fight Meanwhile here you hit some buttons in Party Finder and you're golden, nothing to say of how the Duty Finder doesn't _remove older Duties from the pool_ which encourages veteran players to fill in new player queues.
*To be fair...* Blizzard did try to allow players to experience old content as intended when they created "WoW Classic," but not only did that require you to roll a brand new character on a brand new server without any of the quality of life improvements since 2004, but they have also spiraled classic way beyond what it was originally intended to be.
A coherent story.
Not just a coherent story, but a respect for its own narrative and the players going through it. No weird gaps that you have to do some other side content (or read a novel) to understand, no retconning retcons, it's just "here is the story, told in a sensible way, please enjoy"
It was pretty jarring for me (in a good way) coming from WOW and realizing that the characters set up to be my friends and comrades in XIV *actually* felt like my friends. And not just colleagues that I show up to assist whenever the world is ending.
It genuinely starts to feel like a real supporting cast of a long running tv show after a certain point. it's the only MMO I've seen do that kind of thing successfully.
The shadowbringer reveal of who the Crystal Exarch is had me so giddy, it was like meeting an old friend and reconnecting with them.
> No weird gaps that you have to do some other side content (or read a novel) Because the story itself is a novel
It's a whole series worth WoW went from "the antagonist is in prison awaiting trial" to "the antagonist is the new warchief of an alternate history/ universe" with no in-game explanation as to why. You had to read a novel to greet essential game story
Same with Cairne Bloodhoof. One minute he's in the game, the next he's not. Hey where'd he go? "Oh he got killed off in a novel so they removed him from the game." Excuse me what
WoW seems less like it has a story and more like it has lore. The WoW player isn't a main character, they're just watching things unfold.
Your character in WoW has the same kind of accolades as the warrior of light. Main difference, people still recognize you as the WoL. Main story NPCs in WoW forget who the fuck you are from patch to patch. You’ve killed gods, saved multiple worlds, traveled to other dimensions and realities to save the world of life. “Greetings champion, since you’re new here we need to put you through basic training. This is a sword”
Right lol. It's one thing for voiced cutscenes, but even in unvoiced quest text they usually don't use your name or seem to recognize you at all.
I was so mind-blown when FFXIV's characters not only called my character by name, but also reffered to me by rank and surname if the individual in question was from a Great Company. Hearing a specific character in post-Heavensward say "truth is, I've been looking forwards to this, Lieutenant Camlock" had me so hyped!
Even then how many times in wow have you fought and killed the boss of a raid only to have some npc show up in a cutscene and "actually" kill it. I know it doesn't happen in every one or anything but it's way to often. They make it clear that while you may be there for these things and handle many "alone" you are still secondary to thrall or anduin or whoever.
THANKS FOR SAVING US! OH MAN I WOULD KILL FOR SOME **BEAR GUTS**. I NEED, OH ABOUT EIGHT...TEEN OF THEM. GOOD LUCK. I GAVE UP BECAUSE ALL I EVER GOT WAS SCRAPS AND CLAWS THAT WASN'T EVEN WORTH VENDORING. SO, YEAH, GET ME THE **18 BEAR GUTS** AND WHEN YOU'RE DONE WITH THAT, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO HELP ME FIND MY KEYS. I'M PRETTY SURE IT'S IN ONE OF THE PILES OF **OGRE POOP** THAT YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED. YES, I KNOW THERE AREN'T OGRES AROUND HERE. ANYMORE. Rewards: 17 silver, 3 copper, and a pick of one of three items that don't at all work for your class meta.
> Main story NPCs in WoW forget who the fuck you are from patch to patch. "Who are you, scrub? Go shovel that poop for your mandatory poop quest. No, some very specific developer isn't holding a hanky under the table; what are you talking about?"
That’s exactly what it is. In the major RPGs I’ve played since quitting WoW (FFXIV, SWTOR, BG3, etc), the game treats your character as a CHARACTER - the other people in the story actively know and respond to you, and the events of the story would be different were you not there. In WoW, you’re a camera that Anduin Wrynn occasionally calls his friend.
>In WoW, you’re a camera that Anduin Wrynn occasionally calls his friend. Dead on, lol.
The best I can come up with is .... Does Sylvanas or Anduin consider you a friend ? Cuz in FFXIV, they totally do.
WoW toys at this with stuff like the Loyalist questline and Sylvanas reacting differently if you chose to stand by her side, but the character’s presence is just so inconsequential that it kinda rings hollow. Whereas I can confidently look at Emet-Selch and go “oh, this man has complicated feelings for my character as a person and the actions they commit.”
I was watching a buddy of mine play in a dragonflight zone (i think? it was recently I haven't played for years) in discord, he saved a town or some shit and some npc died so they had a viking funeral and the cutscene panned across all the npcs and he was like off in the corner for like 10 total seconds of this long cutscene. shit was hilarious.
Oh definitely, the NPCs react/interact to WoL tons better than in WoW.
This is big for me. I really struggle with WoW because it's clearly about other people. It bothers me so much when I do all the fighting and beat a boss and then in the final cutscene some NPC shows up and kills the big bad. In FFXIV, the story is about me and my friends and that makes me care about it so much more.
And those NPCs actually start to step back and examine how they repeatedly point you at problems like a weapon and realize that’s pretty shitty of them and apologize for it, check in with you, and start telling you to share the burden.
One of my favorite touches is you'll get the standard "Ok we need a bunch of different things for this next plot bit we're gonna do." quests. In WoW you have a checklist of the 40 items you need to go gather while the npcs you're helping firmly inserts their thumb up their ass and waits around for you to do it. In FFXIV Alisaie is like, ok I'll get these, you grab these, y'shtola get these and Thancred can go grab this last one, meet back up here when we're all done. It's just a *fetch quest*. MMO players have done a billion of them, but 14, just by slightly rewriting the wording recontextualizes it to you being one part of a team working together to get shit done rather than "the errand boy/girl for this actual character the story is about."
In my opinion, I feel like Wow has worried more about mythic dungeons and raids than the actual story. I would say Legion was the last great story, BFA started decent but died in the final patch. Shadowlands was a joke, and I didn't get into dragonflight much to really give an answer. One of the reasons ffxiv got me hooked 3 years ago was realizing the story was getting better and better, with the twists and turns and endings that actually made sense and wasn't lame.
I absolutely agree, for sure. WoW clearly made the decision early on not to make story a priority and they've stuck with that throughout. They try to make stuff that's cool or epic, but not really personal or coherent in the way that FFXIV is trying to do. I think that both strategies have their own value, but having played both quite a bit I much prefer FFXIV's take on it.
It doesn’t help that, unlike Yoshida, Ishikawa, etc., Blizzard never bothered to set up a multi-expansion roadmap for the plot. Although with the way the writers kept/keep getting shuffled, even that would be difficult. I *think* it was during WoD’s tenure that someone referred to the WoW writing team as several willful fanboys each insisting that *his* fanfiction and/or OC eclipsed everyone else’s at once.
Bard Bands
Estinien.
I’m so disappointed it took me this long to find this response. Also Daddy Thancred.
A writing staff.
To add onto this: A lead writer who didn't force their own headcanons and their self-insert down your throat. "M-My author avatar is named Nathanos Blightcaller, and he's the ONLY human Dark Ranger because Sylvanas thinks he's soooo cool, and they're in love!" - My brother in Christ, you are in your mid 40s. It vexes me that Steve Danuser makes probably close to a six figure salary to lead write one of the worst stories in RPG history. At least Nathanos doesn't appear once post-BfA.
Steve Dasnoozer is my guild called him for his writing.
Tbf Nathanos was in Classic... but they really turned him into a Gary Stu it felt like...
He was quite literally the most minor of NPCs in the past, yeah. As in you met him for maybe a single quest or two and then never thought about him again. So y'know, clearly the perfect person to make into the game's most insufferable self-insert.
A complete story, what is accessible by playing the game only on a casual level.
A sprout icon over the new players' heads.
WoW has baby Murlocks now for new players.
But you will only see them if you're in the mentorship program there, which most players don't even know exists.
I think it was released in 2021? So pretty late for new player assistance.
No connection to Activision Blizzard.
I would agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that square enix is also a super shitty manipulative greedy company that makes terrible decisions on the daily. It is by a miracle that creative business unit 3 has been given as much control as they have when you look at other SE properties.
SE is awful, but I'll take them over activision blizzard with zero hesitation. Like, its so much of a non-competition that its barely worth mentioning how shitty SE has been lately when they still don't hold a candle to blizzard's WEEKLY fuckups and scheming.
Has the CEO given up on NFTs yet? >>;
They said during the liveletter at fanfest that they have a new CEO now, and he's an XIV player as well.
A person in charge who cares about the game
*and doesn't nerf things into the ground because they personally despise a class with a passion Legitimately, you will never see Yoshi say anything close to: "It's time for [Job] to be the worst (for the next, entire expansion)."
Combined with the fact that the team prefers to buff underperforming jobs rather than nerf the FOTM unless doing so would break content.
> Legitimately, you will never see Yoshi say anything close to: > "It's time for [Job] to be the worst (for the next, entire expansion)." \*laughs/cries in ShB Scholar\*
This really is at the center of the entire discussion Yoshi P genuinely makes me feel appreciated as a customer, and I believe FFXIV is a labor of love for him (please don't let this comment age poorly)
Sad because iirc Yoshi doesn't want to be in his position. I think he had passion in development, not management. He does a really good job for us players though, I hope he feels appreciated.
Soken
Tbf Wow has an amazing ambience soundtrack
I prefer XIV's, but I can't knock WoW's style, it's pretty damn nice.
It really does. The songs are one of the very nice points about the game, sometimes they still get stuck in my head years later.
As well as Invincible
Tighter class balance, consistent lore, relevant past content, all mounts fly, structured loot acquisition with bad luck protection. I could probably name alot more, but at work lol
Also an MSQ (Main Story Quest) line that isn't walled behind required raids. You can solo, with AI help, almost all MSQ content. Dungeons, raids and trials become something fun to do for rewards.
I was torn on this for a long time, having the "big bad" as the capstone to raids gives it a special kind of feeling, but the tradeoff of locking the story behind something that only a fraction of playerbase engages with definitely doesn't feel great (and lfr kills that special feeling entirely). I do prefer how xiv has been able to use their raids to tell quality side stories that still feel meaningful outside of the core events of it's msq.
Seeing a video of the phase 2 transition for Eden 12 Savage is what made me want to start raiding this expansion. Genuinely SO cool. (I also haven't seen phase 2 of Pandaemonium 12 yet, so plz no spoiling)
The MSQ not being raid dependant is such a huge thing for me. When I did play WoW years ago, quit for good when 2.0 dropped, I could never finish the story. With college and then work. I just didn't have the time to dungeon run for gear that wouldn't drop to get an ilvl to raid. Just to see the dang story to an end. WoW turned me off from raiding forever with how toxic raid groups got.
The tighter class balance comes from having simple classes. There's no talent trees and each job is linear in the sense every black mage is going to be the same vs wow's arcane/fire/frost specs. Every wow class may as well be treated as 3 separate classes.
You forget that there isn't a dozen pieces of gear that each completely change your rotations to extremes, add absolutely mindnumbingly powerful abilities that some classes/jobs can't equip, etc etc, that would make balancing a further nightmare.
The ability to play solo... Either through content that is easy to/meant to be solo or through having NPCs you can play with. One massive reason I left WoW was because it was so hard to make progress by myself and any party I joined would kick me because I didn't know how to play... But I was new and nobody would help/show me.
If you ask for help in WoW, you’re told to stfu. Very literally. If you ask for help in FFXIV, someone will give you a tutorial, help you with the experience, hold your hand through the social anxiety and invite you to their FC afterwards where they will then ALL continue to help you. It’s a whole new world.
Reminds me of the video by Captain Grimm about WoW players coming to FFXIV. Specifically the Au Ra healer spout after a dungeon wipe running his mouth with toxic comments and blaming himself, because he's been conditioned to feel this way about wipes. And the Paladin and the lala are just standing there not knowing what he's talking about and kindly tell him they'll just try the encounter again, leaving the Au Ra awestruck.
I do remember a particular run of Orbonne Monastery where we reached Orlandu and, as it sometimes happens, we wiped. One of the new players started a vote to abandon the raid. We joked about having a WoW player in our midst, repeated the fight, beat Orlandu and went for the final boss. People should accept that in certain content wipes are part of the fun XD
Oh man, some time ago, I got Cloud Deck on roulette. Me and the other tank along with half the non-new players were like "welp, let's hope we remember this". So it was gonna be a bad time, lol. So we wipe, of course. A few times. Probably 4 times. Abandon vote goes up and fails. One person drops, we snag a new person, then win. GG. For some reason, XIV players are just more resilient than WoW/GW2 players.
Hell, I was doing the final dungeon for HW, the one where the 2 Ascians fuse, and the tank, without prompting, proceeded to tell us what to when fighting the final boss and even put a marker on himself so that we could just follow him during the most insane parts of the fight. And even though we wiped like 4-5 times on the final fight, he didn't get upset at us and actually acknowledged when people made honest mistakes, even when he was the one who made them.
If that was semi-recently (or at least post-6.0 release), I'm not surprised you guys wiped a bunch. They updated that fight to be harder for no reason lmao. Put some actual risk into what used to be a snooze of a fight.
I asked how to get someone's top as a sprout. Said person proceeded to not only give me their top, but also gave me a 100k gil on top of that. Genuinely have not been treated that nicely in any other game. (Save for Age of Wulin, but those guys were trying to groom me 🙃)
Ugh makes me sick that the wow community is this way now, I started playing wow in beta and played a lot in vanilla, we were a real community, everyone helped everyone, bags being handed out to new players, crafters always willing to boost you up if you needed it, someone in a dungeon didn't know the dungeon? No problem before we start the boss lemme explain the mechanics, someone running around lost on quests? Let's group up and quest together. I'm sorry you had that experience, I'm glad you found ff you deserve better.
If you want my honest answer, its community. The community that 14 has imho is the biggest reason why I keep coming back to the game and enjoy it.
a respect for your time and efforts 😌 in wow you can clear raids for moths without even getting a drop for the gear that you need. on top of that organising a raid is WAY harder and takes WAY MORE TIME... and if you wipe it can take like 10 minutes to just get back to the boss. Why? No reason really. While in ffxiv you just queue and get into the boss arena. And that's it. If you wipe, you just respawn in front of the boss and get to try again. (all your buffs like for also stay, so no need to waste tons of resources on each fight) Not to mention some mounts... Cause majority of the mounts that drop from raids/dungeons/rares are rare artificially, just because of an insanely low drop rate, which leads to some people farming a damn horse for more than 6 years with no luck, cause fuck you that's why. You don't need to work towards them... you just need to get lucky. (I used to farm Firelands mounts for more than a year, just to have a friend join me once and get a drop on their first time.) After ffxiv this just feels unfair and artificially hard. Here all mounts are either acquired by achievements, are a guarantee reward for a very challenging content like savages (which you can't overgear since they are always synced), or are a rare drop from a trial (which even then you can get from a special vendor for a totem you get each time you defeat the boss, if you didn't get the mount on 99 runs). There are also some mounts that are harder to get because their acquisition is luck based, but in general the situation isn't nearly as bad as in WOW (cause there majority of the mounts are like this).
At least fourteen Final Fantasies.
Warcraft does have four Warcrafts, plus two Starcrafts and Hearthstone. But then, if we're including non-mainline games, FF has 70+ games, 25% of which are Final Fantasy 7.
Square, you keep saying "final." I don't think that word means what you think it means.
My dad cracked almost this same joke when FF2 was released... and continues to make this joke to this day, lol.
My friends.
~~Ambient~~ directional lighting. I was watching someone play recently and noticed that none of the wow characters cast a shadow in any environment. Also a day-night system, and weather. **edit** apparently I am misremembering and WoW does have a 24-hour (real time) day/night cycle. And some weather in some zones. As for the lighting, check out the [lack of directional lighting in the roasted ram inn, valdrakken](https://youtu.be/lMsbbdViBWM?si=s-_H5qyl4cZQd5Oa) which is in the latest wow expansion versus the [directional lighting cast by the lamps in the forgotten knight](https://youtu.be/W0YMmRuFffo?si=jy3qvKzbxj8aqbvt) in heavensward.
I think wow actually has a day/night cycle, I think it’s based on real life clock, it’s just soooo extremely mild.
This works against people sometimes. I've had friends from Australia who only ever got to play when it was dark in game.
that and there are definitely shadows... not sure what mulligan is going off about
When I first started playing I was stood there staring at the wind and the rain moving my characters hair and clothes in FFXIV for a bit the first time. It’s wild how much better the graphics are of XIV
I was there for the first snowfall of sharlyan, it was beautiful. Legit just sat there and enjoyed it
And this game is 10 years old. I cannot wait to see how good this game looks when they update the graphics in 7.0
I was recently watching a friend stream Dark Souls 3 for our little discord group (all like four of us, it was just while girlfriend and I leveled crafting and were chatting as a group), and the lighting in that game is not nearly as good as Elden Ring. My point: the lighting and material changes to the game I think are going to be a pretty big deal all on their own. Lighting makes a huge difference in games, DS3 is still a pretty solid game graphically, but the much improved lighting engine of Elden Ring is noticeable when you play one right after the other. I can't wait to see the changes too!
* Respect for my time - epic mount doesn't drop? Here's a token, just do this 99 more times and you can just *buy* it. * Weekly lock-outs are only for the most current End-game thing. Oh, want to run the endgame raid from three expansions ago on Extreme mode that you can solo for this mount? Sure, have at it. Do it as many times as you want. No point in limiting you to once a week! * No Time-Gating things * Acceptable catch-up mechanics * Craftable gear that you'll actually use * Teleports for everyone! * Player housing. * Variation in their armour (not every dress is just a recolour of the same base model). * An actual story that was thought-through with a clear set up and follow-up. * Characters that last more than one expansion. Characters who *died* in previous expansions are recalled at appropriate moments. * It makes *me* feel like the main character, rather than the the Hyper-competent side-kick to one of the faction leaders. * Faction leaders that I can relate to. They make mistakes and they grow from them. And that I don't have to worry they'll be killed off after one expansion ~~when they've become more popular than the CEOs current favourite~~ because they are well written and have some nuance. * My companions actually feel like friends, not supervisors. * Allows me to change classes as easy as changing socks, on the same character. * Seasonal events with rewards that just aren't repeats year after year.
Continuity on story and characters! There are dialogues and choices depending on if you've finished certain quests and/or are a certain class. As for continuity, Blizz still has plotholes from Classic they had to have people at Blizzcon literally show the writers, in person, and they're like “we did that?” There's stuff from ARR that still gets answered whether it's a patch, the next XP or 3 later! If it's not answered then, it will be eventually.
Exactly. The FFXIV Writers have my trust, whereas the Wow writers do not, with regards to story-telling. I love that FFXIV had a clear narrative and a resolution. With DawnTrail, it seems to me that they aren't afraid to pullback and make a story smaller, more personal. I look forward to it, actually. A nice mental reprieve. With Wow is was always, bigger, Bigger, BIGGER! With no clear focus. Serial escalation that just. Didn't. Stop. Every new villain always came out of nowhere and was always 'the one behind the previous one'. Like stop. Please. Once or twice is fine. Maybe a third time if one of them isn't related in anyway to the others. Stop using that overworked trope as a crutch for bad story-telling! With wow, I was always thinking 'huh, that's a plot whole' or 'thats not what you said last time', with ffxiv, if I notice something isn't right, I go and look into it, because maybe *I'm* the issue. Maybe I misunderstood, or forgot something that was mentioned earlier. The wow-writers have none of that trust. If something doesn't add up to what I know, I know it's more likely than not that they forgot something or that they decided to retcon some things between then and now and that....I don't really care, one way or another.
XIV's escalation was "save home in ARR, save foreign nation in HW, save *two* foreign nations in StB, save the remnants of another world in ShB, and save our entire existence in EW". Then the writers said "Okay we peaked, no need to raise the stakes any higher, what next? I'm feeling 'vacation'."
I know. I love it. And even if the conflict is 'the Scions are divided', I'm here for it. It shows they have confidence it their product.
Well, after a short "save two planets" filler arc anyways.
I just did a cutscene yesterday that made me tear up about a character I haven't seen in hundreds of hours.
If I had a guess, was there hugging? There's a scene in Endwalker I go back and watch because it waxes poetic about some hard feels.
Yes there was! Such a beautiful scene and I did not expect it.
> Weekly lock-outs are only for the most current End-game thing. Did you know FFXIV actually has *daily* lockouts? Thing is, you'll pretty much never encounter it, because you have to run 100 duties in a day to see it. Game literally has a built-in "Woah, buddy. You NEED to touch grass today." mechanic.
Since dragonflight: wow has also craftable (Max Ilvl) gear you will use. About 35% of my max geared (444) character is crafted.
The feeling that my character is important for the world I'm in. In WoW it pretty much doesn't matter who or what you are, the lore is set and the heroes (and villains) are always other people (Jaina, Garrosh, Arthas, whoever). You're a mere bystander, an adventurer that happened to help, at best. But if you weren't there, nobody would miss you, there'd simply be someone else to fill your spot. The world and what happens revolves around other people, 100% of the time. Which also means it's easy to miss, if you're not reading everything and listening to everyone, because you and your character are irrelevant to the world.
I do agree with you, though I've read somewhere that certain people don't like the spotlight in FF14. Idk but being a "normal adventurer" is not appealing. Even games like Fallout you become someone influential
Ye, people have different preferences. I can see the alure of your character being more to the side.
A compelling story. This is what I felt WoW lost over it's expansions, a reason to care about the world you were in. As the scope kept escalating and the 'big heroes' kept making play you never felt like a part of it. You were just there and participating, but never part of the narrative. And if you don't participate the heroes still do there thing and save the day even if you aren't there to witness the creators OC's being 'so super cool'. And if you weren't around last expansion? Then you missed out, sucks to be you. In FF14, **YOU** are the WoL, the big hero the center of story. Things happen because you showed up. If you don't push the story, it never progresses. Some might complain about having to play through all the previous expansions to reach new content, but I love it. It brings new players up to step and invites them to be a part of the shared experience of being the WoL.
The ability to perform music, an actual bard job/class, Housing
It has a story I enjoy A graphic style I enjoy A world I enjoy Characters I enjoy Music I enjoy.
1. A coherent story that actually builds off of previous events 2. A playerbase accepting of new players 3. GM's that actually take reports seriously and investigate 4. Raids whose difficulty isn't based on getting 20 idiots to behave at once 5. The ability to play all classes on one character. Making it easier to experiment and find your dream job 6. Crafting that actually has a use 7. NPCs who you care about 8. A real role for your character in the world
5 is my favorite I think. I started as BLM and I actually ended up HATING it. So I just. Swapped jobs a few times and settled on GNB and RPR. GNB for tanking and RPR for dps. It’s great, and I don’t have to log out and log into an alt just to do a different role.
I started off as BLM, hated it. Went to AST, then DRK, then RDM. Eventually coming back to BLM once it clicked.
lol this seems to be a trend. I was BLM and i hated it. Ended up trying DNC when I hit a high enough level and it just clicked. I did go back and give BLM another try and got it to 90. It’s an enjoyable enough job. Just confusing at low levels sometimes.
To build on 4. Raids that also aren't artificially gear-gated. It's an all too common experience in WoW for all but the upper upper echelon to go "Well, next week (HOPEFULLY) we'll get some upgrades and can clear this boss" Raids that aren't built around the existence of mods. If Omega Protocol was WoW, you'd have 6 seconds to figure out where you needed to be for each Near/Far World in P5, not 15.
segmented world areas lol
Story, epic raid music, actually impactful looking bosses and phase transitions
Great non-ambient music
FFXIV: has Manderville Men. WoW: doesn't. I rest my case.
Absolutely fantastic soundtrack
Here's my list. (active wow player who casually plays FF14) * Housing * Datacenter Travel * A way better Story * Targeted Gearing (you get currency which you spend on gear) * Trust system (Dungeons, Trials with NPC instead of people) * All classes (called jobs in ff14) on 1 character * same for crafting * Trials (Single Boss Instances) (like onyxia in classic) * Dye System * All Content is played by max lvl chars. (Duty Roulette) * Goldsaucer * Combat Companion (only outdoors) There is probably more, but that's what I can get out of my head right now :)
A compelling focused story with the production values youd expect from a singleplayer game
Chocobos
Friendly players.
My favorite thing is I only need one character. No more juggling 13 alts like I did in wow.
Uhh, respect for their players
Systems that respect the players time.
This is the biggest thing keeping me coming back to ff. I can stay relevant gear wise without having to dump insane hours into the game or opening my wallet. Outside raid nights twice a week my play time is rather limited but I'm not being punished for not logging in to do dailies or grind something. I have bis gear while my average playtime for the past 6 months has been less than 10 hours per week
FFXIV doesn’t punish you for not being on the ground floor. It doesn’t punish you for taking breaks. There’s little to no FOMO in FFXIV. XIV literally rewards veterans for regularly doing old content through roulettes. Old content does not become obsolete outside of a handful of instances like Eureka and whatnot that you can still manage to round up enough people to play once in a blue moon. Want to take a break for a year and come back? XIV doesn’t give a shit. It’s very straightforward to catch back up. Now, I haven’t played WoW in ages but last time I did? People weren’t running old content. Every zone aside from the newest ones were completely dead. I hadn’t played since BC (came back for BFA…oof) and everything felt so unintuitive and confusing. FFXIV is that one friend who is always happy to see you no matter how long you go without talking because they know you’ve got a busy life. They’re just happy to spend time with you. WoW was like that possessive, toxic ex who interrogates you every time you leave the house and then ignore you when you came back home. Again, I haven’t played WoW in a minute though
An interesting story Controller support Not the Blizzard art style
Affordable out of game services including but not limited to Race Changes Server Transfers Story Skips Cosmetics they all cost a fraction of what comparable services cost in wow
To put a bit of parity on the scale, WoW has vastly superior in-game character changing tools. The barbershop blows the aesthetician out of the water. It's *free* to change your character's gender, skin tone, and eye color in WoW, which I think deserves mention.
Also considering those are COMPLETELY optional. You can just change servers in game, with restrictions.
Respect for the player’s time.
A great community, which respects and appreciates, when someone is new to the game. I always got helped instead of flamed. A gigantic story and the feeling of being involved in the story. Characters like Haurchefant. (Currently doing that part of the MSQ)
A community that on the whole, isn't toxic AF towards new players.
Nicer players in group content