How does FFXIV fare against other modern MMORPGs?

My feelings are actually somewhat mixed on this. To sum it up briefly, FFXIV to me doesn't stand out in any one area in particular, but what it does have that other MMOs (that I've played) don't is a pretty even consistency across the board.

Graphics? After playing Black Desert Online, pretty much every other 'modern' game looks outdated. Artstyle? Though this is a personal preference, I much prefer the ethereal world designs of Blade & Soul or Tera rather than something like Eorzea, a world that appears to be fairly grounded in reality. Yeah, I know, you've got a couple floating island areas, but that's got nothing on Tera's giant glowing pattern across the sky, to use one of dozens of examples in particular. Other people who have tried Tera will hopefully understand where I'm coming from. Character creation? Oh, don't even get me started. FFXIV is blown out of the water instantly by PSO2 and just about every Korean MMO out there. No contest.

Combat? Well again, this is more personal preference, but I much prefer action combat-oriented game systems like Black Desert Online, PSO2, Blade & Soul, Soul Worker, and more. I don't exactly find mashing out one button combo over and over to be terribly engaging. Eureka burnt me out super quick for that exact reason. I enjoy being fast and mobile and cleaving through enemies like the WoL does in FFXIV's trailers, but cannot be found in the actual game itself.

Story? Believe it or not, while FFXIV's story is several notches above standard MMO fare, I do not consider it to be the best story in an MMO. Blade & Soul's main story ending, for example, literally had me in tears. I also found that The Secret World's main story was more engaging and compelling, and Mabinogi's was fairly decent as well... though to be fair, nothing kills my engagement faster than spamming fake deaths over and over like FFXIV's writers seem to have been doing lately. It was old at the beginning of Heavensward, and it's no better now.

The thing is, while FFXIV doesn't really shine to me in any of those categories—along with having a stale content cycle, messy coding, and the ever-present Server Limitations™—it still remains my top MMO at the moment, and that's because it lacks the massive drawbacks that the other games have. Black Desert Online has fantastic graphics and combat, but has barely any endgame, heavy reliance on unbalanced PvP, and greedy devs intent on bleeding the playerbase dry. PSO2 has tons of content and amazing character customization, but the content cycle was too fast for me to keep up with, and they've been gradually moving to more of a mobile game-style payment system, which turned me away. Blade & Soul has great combat, stellar PvP, and a world design to die for, but it lacks substantial endgame content. Though these games' individual aspects beat out FFXIV, FFXIV remains the most consistent of the lot, whereas the other games have huge negatives to outweigh their huge positives. And that's why I prefer FFXIV at the moment.

Comparing TESOs combat to our game is a little bit like comparing apples and pears. The former is a Action RPG (with a very short GCD) while our game is a classic tab-target MMORPG. Also enjoying TESOs build system requires quite a bit of masochistic fun as you have to deal with a developer that loved to reshuffle the game every three months by nerfing/buffing skills & gearsets in fun ways. The game has no gear progression (everything has a fixed level) so this is their way of simulating that. I defected to FF14 after enduring that for 4 years.

Housing is way better in TESO (instanced housing, a better editor, way more objects), graphics is a matter of preference. I loved that each and everything is VOed, even the tinniest quest. The base story and the first DLCs were fine but the story quality has dropped of.

What I really love about FF14 is the game offers content for all kind of players. TESO really only caters to the end game players with their expansions/DLCs.

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Originally Posted by Sapphire_Dianta

because it [FFXIV] lacks the massive drawbacks that the other games have. <snip> other games have huge negatives to outweigh their huge positives. And that's why I prefer FFXIV at the moment.

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Very much this. The greatest strength of FFXIV is that it has no critical weaknesses. It might not be the best in anything (ok, crafting system might be the best one out there) but it does pretty much everything reasonably well.

I'd also like to add that at least for me the amount of grind has been pretty much on the sweet spot. Enough to sometimes feel like a grind but never too much. Excluding Eureka. That's a turd and a big "nope".

FFXIV consistency where it does alot of things right.

But mainly because FFXIV as a MMO has one of the least toxic communities out of other MMOs.

Compelling story + good community + consistent good quality of content = a win for me.

I don't know about you guys. But for me ffxiv is quite straightforward. I mean as in new patch : craft new gears > complete new raids > complete new msq > complete new dungeons. Then after that you just wait till the following week to clear your raids to hopefully get new gears. There isn't much open world content except for A/S rank hunts, special fates or the eureka grind. Otherwise to me open world is pretty bland. It's always the same formula for every patch nothing new. I still continue playing just because of friends.

I like the fact that no matter when you start you can experience everything the game has to offer as if you were there at launch (with the exception of 1.0 and a few higher end fights that were nerfed), I tried WoW recently only to find out that, unless you've been playing since the game's launch and buying all the supplementary material, you won't be able to make much sense of the story.
That was a huge drawback for me and made me appreciate XIV a lot more.

To be fair. None of he modern MMO gives me any reason to keep playing for more than few weeks. That says all. Maybe they can have a single characteristic which is better than FFXIV, but as overall games, no, there is no MMO currently better than FFXIV.

This is the only modern one that caters to weebs and anime fans. So there you go. But it's pretty standard content, casual PvE some PvP etc.
WoW is the king, ESO has better PvE, GW2 better PvP. BDO better lifeskills/crafting. But is it's own thing.

its wow with a different art syle.

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Originally Posted by greytonberry

its wow with a different art syle.

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Going to have to object to this one. Strenuously. Aside from both being MMOs and having the same general features, they are about as different as two games in the same genre can get. PvE combat, PvP combat, Crafting, Gathering, and Story are all very different between the two. And that's just core gameplay; their "fluff" content is even more diverse with the games' respective approaches to housing, pets, minigames, etc. all being wildly different (or even nonexistent.)

Currently I bounce between WoW and FFXIV. I love both for various reasons. If I had to choose one I'd definitely choose FFXIV over WoW though. In the long run I've always stuck with it longer and I never really got bored as quickly as I do with content in WoW. Which I know everyone in the XIV community tends to complain about lack of content lol. But then again I don't clear everything the day it's released.

I used to really enjoy BDO but not so much anymore. The combat is probably the best in any MMO I've played though. I couldn't get into ESO at all. I like GW2 but the lack of any real gear progression feels odd to me. Once you have the best gear you're pretty much set so to me their raids seem pointless and I'm not a huge fan of PvP or WvW.

Anything else I can't really compare because they're smaller F2P mmos that I feel are just money grabs or P2W lol.

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Originally Posted by Stanelis

if SE would actually have cared

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It's a mistake to think the only way a company can show they "care" is to try and frequently change things up. It may not set them up to be market leaders, or the best MMO, but the idea that they don't care because they don't change things as often as other developers do (which often necessitates long wait times between patches or overhauls that disrupt the game, and that's assuming they get the change right...or don't keep changing and end up messing the game up because they thought they had to keep changing *cough Blizzard*) is a tad on the silly side.

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Originally Posted by Rymm

Interestingly enough, I did the ESO beta too and hated it; never even bothered to get the actual game. My husband recently picked it up however and ever since then has been hounding me to join him. I finally caved tonight when he told me Steam had it, both expansions, and 4 major DLCs all bundled together for 50% off. Since it was a good deal and there's no sub for it I figured I could give it a try again. We'll see if it sticks this time.

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Hope you enjoy it. The game has changed a lot since back then. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think it's a pretty good game.

Oh, and make sure you grab your free mansion. All you have to do is log in before October 7th, and own Summerset (which it seems you do). Here are the full details of the event:

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/summerfall

And if you're like me and don't like cash shops, they fully allow buying "gifts" with gold from other players. There is a discord that helps make this easier and safer. And GMs will even reimburse you if you have proof that someone cheated you in such a deal (and probably ban the person scamming you).

And if you're fine with the cash shop, they offer sales, sometimes up to 75% off on some stuff. On top of that, they also seem to offer Crowns for 50% off in December. At least, they did the past two years, I think.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Here's an example:

Just the other day, family member went to Stormwind City to do the daily Fishing/Cooking quests.

Some guy was /yelling Anti-Semitic remarks over and over and over again.

Or how about all the /spit emotes from opposite-faction players back in the day when accidental flagging was a thing, they would run around us while flagged and we'd go find a safe area to wait for the pest to go away, and they'd start spamming /spit on us because we wouldn't fight them (because yanno we're on a PvE server for a reason).

How about the plethora of times that I've seen wipes happen in LFR ToT and SoO back in MoP when I did those, there'd be a wipe and people would finger-point and argue with each other about who was to blame and then people'd start spamming DPS parses in the chat until people started leaving the raid.

yadda yadda.

EDIT: on the wiping subject.... I've seen lots and lots of wipes in XIV in 8 player content too..... rarely does anybody point fingers. Heck a lot of times nobody says anything, and sometimes people will even politely give pointers... "nobody should stand underneath meteors except for tank... lb3 the tear" etc etc. The only times I've seen toxicity is after 3 wipes then people start sounding a little annoyed.

But in WoW.... back in MoP when I used to LFR back when the rewards were worth doing LFR for, the toxicity in LFR was ridiculous. One Wipe was all it took to get people to lose their crap.

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Have you met XIV /shout chat?

As for PvP gank-hards, for every couple of them, there's also a guy who will use their Death Grip to pull you out of certain death, and then tank the rare for you... Likewise, I've placed my Mammoth mount over LoSed corners (as tab targeting will require line of sight) so they couldn't be clicked on, if even seen, and given how many new the strat in order to get away from corpse-campers long enough to heal and remount, I'm sure I wasn't the only guy on my side who didn't care for the few ****s among us. Not to say I didn't enjoy World PvP when its purpose was fully just that. Heck, there are few things that draw more nostalgia, especially back in Vanilla / Burning Crusade times.

Back in BC, I hadn't realized I was on a 90% Horde server til I already had a couple 60s. I just assumed the population was lower than it was. So when I went into Hellfire Penninsula, there were very few Alliance to do the group quests with. Yet there were plenty of Horde who'd duo them with me, alternating who gets the first tag. (This was a PvP server, mind you, which I joined because a friend had randomed onto it.) While I was relieved that PvP/PvE servers became an in-game choice with War Mode, despite that overwhelming Horde population I still was rarely attacked even as the naive little Alliance guy questing in the middle of 5+ Horde, so it was rarely any real problem.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

It's a mistake to think the only way a company can show they "care" is to try and frequently change things up. It may not set them up to be market leaders, or the best MMO, but the idea that they don't care because they don't change things as often as other developers do (which often necessitates long wait times between patches or overhauls that disrupt the game, and that's assuming they get the change right...or don't keep changing and end up messing the game up because they thought they had to keep changing *cough Blizzard*) is a tad on the silly side.

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10000% this lol. Not only that you can go into the WoW community and see just how much they think blizzard actually cares about them even with all the new systems (that are broken or just not fun btw) that have been added. I play a shadow priest in WoW and it's a dumpster fire of a spec yet blizzard still has yet to say a single word on the spec since like early beta regardless of all the community feedback. And that's just one spec.

To say SE doesn't care is laughable. If we're saying that then no game developer cares about their playerbase just because a handful of people didn't get what they wanted or some crazy new system isn't added every new patch.

ETA: Most of this was in response to the "if SE actually cared" comment btw.

Eso has a few things going on for it better then FFXIV (housing is lightyears better) but i too could not get into it that much.
Tera i feel has better combat and far better rewards, but it is not overly optimized on PS4, FFXIV is.

For me it is the people that keep me playing FFXIV, have made friends over the years. Other MMo's i have felt it was harder to interact and make friends.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Have you met XIV /shout chat?

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Maybe it's just Lamia, but people rarely shout.

I think I've seen toxicity, maybe once in a /say conversation in Limsa, once. But I wasn't sure if it was actually toxicity or just a couple friends jokingly talking smack.

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As for PvP gank-hards, for every couple of them, there's also a guy who will use their Death Grip to pull you out of certain death, and then tank the rare for you... Likewise, I've placed my Mammoth mount over LoSed corners (as tab targeting will require line of sight) so they couldn't be clicked on, if even seen, and given how many new the strat in order to get away from corpse-campers long enough to heal and remount, I'm sure I wasn't the only guy on my side who didn't care for the few ****s among us. Not to say I didn't enjoy World PvP when its purpose was fully just that. Heck, there are few things that draw more nostalgia, especially back in Vanilla / Burning Crusade times.

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I think that's kind of an exaggeration... I've not seen anywhere near that amount of friendliness compared to how many toxic players there are. I just haven't.

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Back in BC, I hadn't realized I was on a 90% Horde server til I already had a couple 60s. I just assumed the population was lower than it was. So when I went into Hellfire Penninsula, there were very few Alliance to do the group quests with. Yet there were plenty of Horde who'd duo them with me, alternating who gets the first tag. (This was a PvP server, mind you, which I joined because a friend had randomed onto it.) While I was relieved that PvP/PvE servers became an in-game choice with War Mode, despite that overwhelming Horde population I still was rarely attacked even as the naive little Alliance guy questing in the middle of 5+ Horde, so it was rarely any real problem.

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It does seem like the community has gotten more toxic over time? I don't recall the BC days that well. Well, yeah you know what I recall?

Before the days of Dungeon Finder.... we had to use the LFG chat channel. I recall terrible game design and me arriving at Lv70 when Black Temple was current content and being brick-walled in progression because I needed Normal Dungeons and nobody would do Normal Dungeons because everybody was on Heroics. I couldn't do Heroics.

So I was dead in the water until Wrath.

But I won't hold that against Blizz; they fixed that crap since. But yeah. I don't remember the community that far back to be honest. I do remember some toxicity starting in Wrath, but it really got worse in Cataclysm as a lot of people hated that expansion. Then as Pandaria was rather popular (despite the people whining about it) moreso than Cataclysm, in-game population shot up and more toxicity spread.... then WoD came out, I took a couple year hiatus, came back in Mid-Legion and... yuck.

General Discussion over there is just a cesspool of incessant whining, just like it is today.

People think XIV General Discussion is bad? Hooo boy. They've never seen WoW o-boards.

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Originally Posted by Kasmiya

10000% this lol. Not only that you can go into the WoW community and see just how much they think blizzard actually cares about them even with all the new systems (that are broken or just not fun btw) that have been added. I play a shadow priest in WoW and it's a dumpster fire of a spec yet blizzard still has yet to say a single word on the spec since like early beta regardless of all the community feedback. And that's just one spec.

To say SE doesn't care is laughable. If we're saying that then no game developer cares about their playerbase just because a handful of people didn't get what they wanted or some crazy new system isn't added every new patch.

ETA: Most of this was in response to the "if SE actually cared" comment btw.

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YES! I freaking HATE that.

Why oh why do they have to reinvent the wheel every stupid expansion? Arms Warrior. MoP Arms was great. WoD entirely destroyed it making it nigh unplayable. Legion was "so-so" and now BfA decided to slow it down (like they slowed everybody down).

Or, say, Ret Paladin. They can't make their mind up! We had Selfless Healer way back I think it was Cataclysm. They got rid of that and gave us Word of Glory in MoP and kept it for WoD. Then in Legion, they nerfed it heavily by giving it 2 charges and a massive cooldown, but gave us Justicar's Vengeance for our main heal.

Then BfA they go "Let's nerf JV... and hey you remember that talent you once used way back in Cataclysm? Here you go, you can use that again."

.......sigh. I got used to NOT having to stand and cast to heal and having to wait for HoPo spending before I could heal and now I gotta do that all over again for the first time in 6 years because they just can't make their minds up on what they wanna do.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Here's an example:

Just the other day, family member went to Stormwind City to do the daily Fishing/Cooking quests.

Some guy was /yelling Anti-Semitic remarks over and over and over again.

Or how about all the /spit emotes from opposite-faction players back in the day when accidental flagging was a thing, they would run around us while flagged and we'd go find a safe area to wait for the pest to go away, and they'd start spamming /spit on us because we wouldn't fight them (because yanno we're on a PvE server for a reason).

How about the plethora of times that I've seen wipes happen in LFR ToT and SoO back in MoP when I did those, there'd be a wipe and people would finger-point and argue with each other about who was to blame and then people'd start spamming DPS parses in the chat until people started leaving the raid.

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Oh - I was hoping you had real examples. LFR doesn't count. I already conceded that point. LFR is just what happens when you put a bunch of terrible players with elitist attitudes (not actual elitists, just misguided attitudes) in a room together.

The reason I never see toxicity in WoW is because I've done LFR once in my entire life. I also don't consider trivial stuff toxic either, like someone saying something stupid in trade chat, something FF14 has PLENTY of by itself.

Calling people talking in public chat toxic is a new low. It's not toxic, ESPECIALLY if it's not directed at you personally.

/Spit on enemy factions for not being pvp toggled is also not toxic.

If you find stuff like that toxic, how do you survive real life? I ask that not only as a curious person, but I'm minorly concerned for your well being.

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Originally Posted by Raskbuck

ESO is a beautifully crafted world with decent voice acting, so you might enjoy it. The thing that I disliked the most about it is how you had to "animation cancel" to be effective in combat (the way I understand it, it's basically spam-clicking to attack while weaving skills in between them), so for me it got pretty senseless very fast. If that's not a problem for you, though, I hope you enjoy it!

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I have no experience playing ESO, but that sounds identical to weaving oGCDs. is it just more frequent in ESO?

Pretty sure if people were spitting on me in real life, there would be problems. Just saying.

That kind of behavior is just not acceptable, whether it is in-game or in real life. Just because "it's the internet" and "everybody is anonymous" doesn't suddenly make it something we should accept and just brush off, because that just enables more of the same. It isn't about thin skin or anything like that, it's about refusing to just hand-wave that kind of jerkish behavior.

That, and it's ludicrous to go "oh, that's just trade chat" (it wasn't trade chat, it was /yell) is also stupid. So it's okay to break one of the most basic rules in society (racism) just because it's in a game, in a public chat channel?

Wut?

When did Racism ever become OK?

You trying to say that someone standing in a public place yelling the N-word IRL is OK because he's not offending you directly if you happen to not be black?

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

Oh - I was hoping you had real examples.

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I wasn't going to jump into this conversation, but I can't help but feel that you have a very narrow definition of "toxicity" in games. That's all based on opinion though and just because you don't feel it something is a "real example" of toxic behavior, doesn't mean that everyone agrees with you.

For examples of toxicity in WoW that fits your criteria... Early Legion when the chests you got in M+ dungeons were based on how quickly you completed them, I used to run into a lot of people who would drop group the second it became apparent that we weren't going to 3-chest the run, thus screwing 4 other people out of at least getting 1-2 chests and ruining the key for whoever's dungeon it was. Five-man content was pretty awful in general; it's where I tended to see the most toxicity outside of LFR which you seem to think "doesn't count." But that is because most people only PuG LFR or 5mans. In that case, of course you aren't going to see toxicity in actual raid tiers- who is going stay with a guild or run with a raid group on a regular basis if they are toxic?

Battlegrounds were another hotspot for toxicity. The first thing that went wrong in the BG and the real fighting would start- between the players on the same team. Arguing, finger pointing, name calling, swearing, refusing to help or even move...

Ugh, thanks for reminding me why I quit.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

I have no experience playing ESO, but that sounds identical to weaving oGCDs. is it just more frequent in ESO?

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It's basicaly FF14 auto-attacks that hit between your abilities, except instead of auto-attacks, you have to actually hit the attack button, then immediately hit an ability to cancel your attack's animation. In a way, it's similar to oGCDs. You do it for every ability. It's something like a 30% dps loss if you don't.

FFXIV genuinely has a ton of content to it. It's the only MMO I've been able to stick to. I played GW2 off and on for a while but it honestly lacked a good sense of aesthetics for outfit/ armour designs, and I got really sick of people pumping up the whole "dynamic event" thing as if it's a total game changer. At least FFXIV doesn't try to make FATEs out to be something they're not. I have never really liked MMO stories either, but FFXIv's I found to be at least fairly more interesting. For one thing characters actually have personalities. Otherwise I just play F2P MMOs but that market is incredibly stale right now. Join in beta > play for a year >game goes P2W by this time > quit. Though combat wise I preferred games like Tera, and character creation like Revelation Online. FFXIV has the most "meat" to it though, so it's where I stay. I think my absolute favourite aspect is just being able to multi class on one toon.

WoW's artwork is pretty good, but maybe thats personal preference. Well atleast hte promotional artwork. Ingame assets are aiite, but it is an older game.

As for WoW from a gameplay standpoint, yeah, I liked it alot in its early years. TBC was my favorite. But overtime, the game became more generic and repetative. Not that FFXIV doesnt have that, but I think WoW epitomizes the end of a MMOs life span (if it gets there through old age). Newer MMOs tend to have newer and fancier things, so it staves off the monotony for a while. For now, FFXIV is probably my favorite of all that I played. Its not perfect, but its entertaining.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

WoW's artwork is pretty good, but maybe thats personal preference. Well atleast hte promotional artwork. Ingame assets are aiite, but it is an older game.

As for WoW from a gameplay standpoint, yeah, I liked it alot in its early years. TBC was my favorite. But overtime, the game became more generic and repetative. Not that FFXIV doesnt have that, but I think WoW epitomizes the end of a MMOs life span (if it gets there through old age). Newer MMOs tend to have newer and fancier things, so it staves off the monotony for a while. For now, FFXIV is probably my favorite of all that I played. Its not perfect, but its entertaining.

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Eh, I'm kinda on the fence about that.

FFXIV beats WoW in graphics hands-down, though WoW has gotten better the latest two expansions with graphics. It isn't quite as bad as it was way back when.

As for gameplay... the height of awesomeness in WoW was Mists of Pandaria. Back then, most classes had a very fast and frenetic playstyle, especially WW Monk. WW Monk was the epitome of fun, just button mashing goodness. It felt awesome. Several other classes, like Blood DK were far more awesome in MoP too. Also, in MoP, there was plenty of light-hearted quests, characters, there was a ton of mood and atmosphere in the areas, I loved the pandaren NPCs, the music, Jade Forest was a beautiful zone, as was the Valley, I remember the first time I rappelled down the wall and into Dread Wastes, feeling like I was going into no-man's land, it was just a great feeling.

I haven't had that kind of feeling yet from WoD, Legion, or even BfA. Not to say those areas are bad, they just can't measure up to what Pandaria was.

Then WoD came out and they gutted many specs, especially Rogue and Monk because they felt that you should be Out of Energy every other move. *sigh* If I wanted low level rogue, I'd just play low level rogue, thanks.

Nowadays some of the specs are still fun, though not quite as much. The fact they felt they had to strip haste off of most gear, and drop you waaay down to sub-8% when you first get to 120 and have a bunch of empty GCDs everywhere with no oGCD abilities to fill the gaps, well... it just doesn't feel as fun.

Pretty sad when FFXIV has more action with a longer GCD, lol.

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Originally Posted by Rymm

Interestingly enough, I did the ESO beta too and hated it; never even bothered to get the actual game. My husband recently picked it up however and ever since then has been hounding me to join him. I finally caved tonight when he told me Steam had it, both expansions, and 4 major DLCs all bundled together for 50% off. Since it was a good deal and there's no sub for it I figured I could give it a try again. We'll see if it sticks this time.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Hope you enjoy it. The game has changed a lot since back then. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think it's a pretty good game.

Oh, and make sure you grab your free mansion. All you have to do is log in before October 7th, and own Summerset (which it seems you do). Here are the full details of the event:

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/summerfall

And if you're like me and don't like cash shops, they fully allow buying "gifts" with gold from other players. There is a discord that helps make this easier and safer. And GMs will even reimburse you if you have proof that someone cheated you in such a deal (and probably ban the person scamming you).

And if you're fine with the cash shop, they offer sales, sometimes up to 75% off on some stuff. On top of that, they also seem to offer Crowns for 50% off in December. At least, they did the past two years, I think.

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Another thing is you can subscribe to get access to the unlimited crafting inventory. If you drop your sub you can no longer add to the crafting inventory but you still have access to everything you put in it until it is empty. It also works when they have their free ESO Plus weeks. It is a good way to fill up the bags for free and/or reduce your monthly sub costs. The monthly sub also pays out Crowns at the same rate you would by them from the cash shop.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

It's basicaly FF14 auto-attacks that hit between your abilities, except instead of auto-attacks, you have to actually hit the attack button, then immediately hit an ability to cancel your attack's animation. In a way, it's similar to oGCDs. You do it for every ability. It's something like a 30% dps loss if you don't.

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That sounds like the dumbest thing I've ever heard of to have in a game.

You have attacks... and you can use them, but you have to try to use another ability to cancel out of the animation just so you can squeeze more attacks in... *sigh* Really, now. Glad I don't play that game, that would drive me crazy just by how fundamentally stupid it is. Do they actually support that, I mean, is that SUPPOSED to be a feature? Or is it just simply gaming the system and dodging limitations?

Really wish video game makers would actually realize that the animation is supposed to actually mean something, that the animation is your character actually performing the attack and cancelling out of it should also mean cancelling your attack too because you know if you go to swing a sword at someone and you stop in mid-swing, that you're going to do jack all other than maybe a feint (and that's only if you're actually trying to do a feint).

I know a lot of 2D action games love that crap too, but at least in those games, if you use an attack cancel, it's to stop your attack and dodge getting hit and you do actually forfeit the attack in so doing, or at least part of it.

EDIT: IN FACT, Animations are partly WHY a Global Cooldown exists in the first place, lol. It's one of the reasons why WoW took a lot of buff abilities off of oGCD and put them on GCD because they said that they were tired of making these animations that nobody saw because people would use 2-3 abilities in one second which did not allow the game to actually display said animations.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Do they actually support that, I mean, is that SUPPOSED to be a feature? Or is it just simply gaming the system and dodging limitations?

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It was unintentional design, but they've adopted it as is.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

It was unintentional design, but they've adopted it as is.

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I might be wrong on this, but it sounds like they realize at that point it was too far gone and broken and said "screw it we'll just leave it like that because it'd be too difficult to redesign the game to fix it at this point" .... or something along those lines.

In my opinion and limited knowledge of MMORPGs (WoW, GW2 and FFXIV) to me FFXIV is a middle of the pack thing. The thing it does well, it does really, really well. While the things that are weaker are really, really weak.

My personal favorite is GW2 and I'm going to try to make sense of why. The game feels like an adventure at all times. The 9 professions all have different viable specs for every activity of the game no matter what expansion you are on. It rewards exploration with collectibles, jump puzzles, lore, achievements all over the maps. The dynamic events make the world feel alive although they have been weaker in impact both for HoT and PoF expansion. But I liked the idea of enemies taking out a bridge in Kessex Hills if the event to defend/rebuild it failed, settlements being taken over etc. The open world feels dangerous. Although that point feels less relevant since the addition of mounts, getting from point A to point B can be perilous depending on which path you take. The abandonment of the holy trinity of MMOs is refreshing and feels new (to me atleast). The WvW feature is a nice introduction to low level PvP while being a sort of PvEvP thing. The mastery system is a great addition to expand upon existing systems such as crafting legendaries, making traversal easier, upgrading mounts. Dungeons, Fractals and Raids I haven't done much, but what I did do gave me a grand old time and since Fractals go all the way up to level 100, I'll be working on those a while.

The negative on GW2 though, is that it's not a game for everyone. I feel like it breaks the classic MMORPG formula and that may turn down some players. Also the game is tedious before the introduction of mounts. It's very actionny and the screen clutter is everywhere during large scale boss fights. But if you invest some time and try to find a place for you in their community, I'm thinking anyone can find something to enjoy in it.

I still play Wow. I took about a week plus off from it to play FFXIV, starting with free, then I bought the complete; I could see how good FFXIV was.

Wow is more polished in some ways, though the look/music and atmosphere are far better in FFXIV. While playing FFXIV, I often find myself looking at the environments and just saying, "Whoah..."
Default interface use, such as just using your bags and such, seems way easier in Wow.

Wow has transmog, which is much better than what FFXIV has. However, I've not done much with FFXIV's, perhaps it is not as strict as Wow's? In Wow I can't mog a caster robe, as a death knight (plate armor class.) They've made it pretty simple in Wow, though; You get a lot and it is simply in your transmog system, you can sell it/whatever and it is still in there. You don't have to do something for it to be in there. Then you can simply save transmog sets.

You level, from nothing, just WAY easier in FFXIV (while having more fun along the way.) As I said, starting with the free time I got hooked on FFXIV. Now I'm a 48 lancer/44 fisher(or around that.) This is in a bit over a week, or something. Meanwhile, a main complaint (in Wow) is trying to level up a new character; This is brought more to the forefront because of "heritage armor", where you have this neat "mog" of "race armor" if you level the character up from 1.

FFXIV has "jobs", making me feel like I don't need "alts." This is one of the things I really like about FFXIV. It also took me some time to note that I can just switch to them whenever, like my lancer could be out fighting stuff and think "I'd like to fish here..." then just switch to the fisher by going to "character" then saved outfit for fisher.

Wow makes gathering easier, though. I can be out on my Death Knight, doing stuff, while passing all the herb/mine and fishing nodes on the way, which I can gather AS my Death Knight. This was my main way for making lots of gold, in both the Legion expansion and now Battle for Azeroth.

FFXIV seems more complex to me, while also not having something like "Wowhead" (as near as I can tell.) I might have a question in FFXIV, about a quest or some treasure bottle or something. I then may just eventually give up, when the treasure bottle map has an X on a spot I can't find, while searching on the web only yields other posts/information about the treasure bottle map that I DON'T have. So I just eventually give up. Meanwhile, Wow has Wowhead. You have a problem in Wow and you can find the quest/item on Wowhead with lots of good posts explaining what you do.

Right now, I'm subscribed to both. Wow has taught me a good MMORPG Lesson:

Don't put all your MMORPG eggs in one basket.

Both may frustrate me at different times, or have downtime on different days.

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Originally Posted by Kuzulo

FFXIV seems more complex to me, while also not having something like "Wowhead" (as near as I can tell.) I might have a question in FFXIV, about a quest or some treasure bottle or something. I then may just eventually give up, when the treasure bottle map has an X on a spot I can't find, while searching on the web only yields other posts/information about the treasure bottle map that I DON'T have. So I just eventually give up. Meanwhile, Wow has Wowhead. You have a problem in Wow and you can find the quest/item on Wowhead with lots of good posts explaining what you do.

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There are various 3rd party sites along with youtube where people can get the information they need for items, quests and boss fights. Probably about as many sites as WoW has in total, but Wowhead's way more organized than all the others, including anything FF XIV has. But the information is indeed out there to research if people feel the need to. FF XIV could use something Wowhead-like though imo.

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Originally Posted by Kuzulo

FFXIV seems more complex to me, while also not having something like "Wowhead" (as near as I can tell.)

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Most of your answers can be found at either https://xivdb.com/ (run by the same company as wowhead,) https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Main_Page, or https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki. Oh also, since you mentioned you are a fisher, meet your new best friend- http://ff14angler.com/

RE:Kuzulo:

I play WoW to this day, and... eh, some things are better there, but other things are better here.

One thing I hate on WoW, is no job switching. I really wish I could change jobs, to be honest. The sheer amount of crap they expect each character to do with little alt catchups is just bleh. Reputations, the gearing up phase that can take 2-3 weeks, etc etc.

Leveling up, you just blaze through the levels, ignoring entire swaths of content on your way up, and I find myself trying to find the most weird ways to level because I eventually get bored of the quests, etc.

Meanwhile here in FFXIV, you can just do Roulettes (which I enjoy doing in XIV)... in WoW? The dungeons don't give a huge amount of XP, and they take forever, and sometimes the wait times can be abysmal. 1h+ waits in some level brackets as DPS jobs.

However, in WoW... I do like the World Quest system (it acts a lot like FATEs), where you can just go out and get pieces of gear, though I feel that the item level curve is a little too slow where they keep giving me stuff that's the same level or lower than what I already had.... that, and weapon acquisition is terrible. Just love seeing the wrong weapons come up again and again.

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Originally Posted by Rymm

I wasn't going to jump into this conversation, but I can't help but feel that you have a very narrow definition of "toxicity" in games. That's all based on opinion though and just because you don't feel it something is a "real example" of toxic behavior, doesn't mean that everyone agrees with you.

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Alternatively - just because someone feels that something is a "real example" of toxicity doesn't mean it actually is or people agree with them ;).

Now - that aside, you're correct my definition is most likely much more narrow than your average hello kitty island adventure/club penguin player for sure. I'm a successful professional adult in the financial services industry. I regularly deal with some pretty cutthroat people and if I was made of butter I'd have died a long time ago.

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For examples of toxicity in WoW that fits your criteria... Early Legion when the chests you got in M+ dungeons were based on how quickly you completed them, I used to run into a lot of people who would drop group the second it became apparent that we weren't going to 3-chest the run, thus screwing 4 other people out of at least getting 1-2 chests and ruining the key for whoever's dungeon it was. Five-man content was pretty awful in general; it's where I tended to see the most toxicity outside of LFR which you seem to think "doesn't count." But that is because most people only PuG LFR or 5mans. In that case, of course you aren't going to see toxicity in actual raid tiers- who is going stay with a guild or run with a raid group on a regular basis if they are toxic?

Battlegrounds were another hotspot for toxicity. The first thing that went wrong in the BG and the real fighting would start- between the players on the same team. Arguing, finger pointing, name calling, swearing, refusing to help or even move...

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Regarding your examples - I agree wholeheartedly on the dropping party and abandoning key issue. That is bad. I would consider that behavior toxic.

BGs are no different than PVP in FF14 which was "SOOOOOO" toxic they had to shut chat off lol.

I pugged raid tiers all the time, including up to over half a current tier worth of mythic bosses. Very little toxicity in any of those. Holding people accountable isn't toxic by my standards though so YMMV.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

It's basicaly FF14 auto-attacks that hit between your abilities, except instead of auto-attacks, you have to actually hit the attack button, then immediately hit an ability to cancel your attack's animation. In a way, it's similar to oGCDs. You do it for every ability. It's something like a 30% dps loss if you don't.

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Sounds more like BNS then I think I understand. Thanks for the insight.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

You have attacks... and you can use them, but you have to try to use another ability to cancel out of the animation just so you can squeeze more attacks in... *sigh* Really, now. Glad I don't play that game, that would drive me crazy just by how fundamentally stupid it is. Do they actually support that, I mean, is that SUPPOSED to be a feature? Or is it just simply gaming the system and dodging limitations?

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Look at oGCDs, they cancel animations all the time. In fact some of them actually cancel in a cool fashion, for instance on PLD: casting Goring Blade into Requiescat looks cool. On DRG Full Thrust into Jump also looks cool.

In BNS - animation cancelling actually looked cool sometimes and made sense from a gameplay perspective.

FFXIV has been my best experience so far.

My first was Runescape. I wasn't even a teenager when I played that. I still have a silly money making guide on supercheats where I considered crafting leather goods and NPC'ing them to be uniquely lucrative. My favorite thing about Runescape was the crafting. I've always had the urge to craft.

My second was Fiesta Online, a little later into my teens. The combat felt okayish, but the crafting system always felt dissapointing to me. All the crafts used mob specific drops, but the problem is, the level of the material increased with the level of the mob, and the lower the level the mob was compared to the player, the lower the odds the mob would drop any materials. This went so far as to be a 0% drop rate if you were even 5 levels higher. This made actually leveling the crafting skills basically impossible without frequently creating alts to farm mats with. However, the shop and personal housing system was pretty fun. Around this same time, I also played Ragnarok Online on private pirate servers. Crafting was dissapointing, and the community was straight garbage. Basically, only a small minority of people you saw were actual players, the rest were RMT bots. I did enjoy the class advancement system, though.

After Fiesta Online switched hands for management, it became a pretty ugly cash grab. I couldn't stand it anymore. I spent like half a decade looking for another MMO. I gave WoW a shot, but it just didn't have a feel I appreciated, and I never even reached the point where you could start crafting professions. I never liked the model design, and I didn't like that I couldn't be the class I wanted, on the race I wanted, in the faction I wanted. I remember trying a couple other random MMOs, but something about the korean and chinese mmo's I tried around then quickly lost their charm, as they all basically felt cookie cutter products, modeled in the exact same ways, and basically were linear, self- played games. Crafting is usually a non factor too.

Then, I came back to the states from my assignment in South Korea, and I saw the big news. "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, coming soon! Preorder for early access!" It was dated to release in like only 2 weeks! I learned during that time that XI had existed outside my notice this whole time. XIV once had an original version that was shut down due to major dissapointment and was being reworked extensively. I preordered without hesitation.

I fell in love during early access.

Ultimately, for my personal tastes, and what I look for in a game. Final Fantasy XIV has no equal. This is a point I want to make. Each person looks for something different and unique to them in their games. One person may consider FFXIV trash. Others, like me, will consider it the golden standard. Remember that when discussing this with people.

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Originally Posted by ChaseNetwork

Ultimately, for my personal tastes, and what I look for in a game. Final Fantasy XIV has no equal. This is a point I want to make. Each person looks for something different and unique to them in their games. One person may consider FFXIV trash. Others, like me, will consider it the golden standard. Remember that when discussing this with people.

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But WHY is it the golden standard for you? Share some insight. What makes the game special to you. Why do you like a certain feature, etc.

Yes, coming from Wow the Xp is definitely better... I'm a 52 fisher suddenly (passing up my main 49 lancer Job.) This is mostly from... fishing, rather than levequests (been doing leves on the lancer, for the seals!!!)
Fishing is actually kind of fun, especially if you go to the next area where you'll get good XP off some of them.

I'm also behind on the MSQ, having found out about them kind of late. So I can't get to the heavensword areas yet. Luckily, the Archaeon fisher pieces were on the Market board as well.

It said I have to do "before the dawn", but I'm at "into the beast's maw", go into some dungeon (server just went down before I could see which one, forget now OH The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak )
Yikes, I only have a few million to do.

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Wow does have its good points, like catch up mechanics. Currently, in Wow Battle for Azeroth, you can do stuff to get 340 epics out in the open world (part of the warfronts thing, which is non PVP actually.) Then, if like Legion, they'll have some hub area where you do stuff and get points for "relinquished gear", which will probably be even higher Ilevel epics.

FFXIV gets me doing dungeons though, so that is kind of fun. I'm more antisocial in Wow. The dungeon queues can be rather long, in FFXIV, though.

Jeez, what is with the server right now? It mentions maintenance but that is not until 11 PM? I'm going to miss the game time window of 9 am to 2:59 PM to catch this fish again, during clear skies, for this level 50 fisher quest.

One thing they could do to make it fare against newer mmo's is boost the graphics to it and fix clipping issues to it.