Hooking a WoW veteran

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Originally Posted by HPDelron

Combined with the fact mechanics seem harsher in FF14, I think it does leave room for a fair argument that if not strictly more "Complex" FF14 rotations are more demanding, particularly taken in context of a progression encounter.

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Mechanics here are reacting to things as they happen. WoW's mechanics are reacting to things after they've already happened, or pre-reacting to them because your DBM addon just screamed at you. They're rather fond of leaving puddles underneath you, that you need to get out of, over our markers before puddles. And then there's the whole DBM debacle, that gives you a timer before any sort of mechanic is happening, to warn you that you're actually going to have to do something in the next 5 seconds.

Class complexity doesn't make things automatically better. And WoW's structure doesn't use a combo system that needs you to do three attacks to do a thing or three versions of the same spell (with the exception of the healers in WoW having a Quick, normal, and sometimes heavy version of the same basic healing spell) WoW at the time of Pandaria had over 26 buttons, several or dozen of passive upgrades, multiple unique abilities or perks bestowed to them by their special gear, useable trinkets, and if your an engineer many, many more gadgets, among other things and they all did something different. But it gets even more complicated. There are 12 classes with 3 specializations with a talent tree for each of them and now in Legion an extra talent tree in the form of their artifact weapon. Granted, naturally you will be finding some cookie cutter builds and top best builds. Yes most of them are DPS cause all 12 classes have at least one DPS spec. Some specs changes how the class works less than others, while like the monk or Druid who can be tank, DPS or healer have wild changed. And yes among specs within the classes they do share some of the most basic of abilities, but with Pandaria onward (as far as I know) they've been making an effort to make each spec more and more unique than the other. Yes sometimes some classes have completely useless moves or moves that are too similar, but I haven't came across that case as bad as it was pre-Pandaria. And the only complexity from FF14's jobs are come from their excessive weaknesses and bloated buttons such as combos when it's just: Do power up combo, then do powerful combo, rinse and repeat. I'm serious about the melee DPS, it's simple because it's a routine. Ranged are based on conditions such as if the DoTs are up or not. And Magic is a mixed bag of whatever melee or ranged as to deal with to damage : fire on; ice on; fire on; ice on. Then Heavensward gave job changes adding a whole bag full of problems all while making enemies use telegraphed and avoidable AoEs excessively more. Problems such as, not only is ranged less mobile than ever before, they have to move more than ever before while dealing with timers, procs, and anything that isn't the enemy.

FF14 has been playing super safe since 2.0 but doesn't really excel at much of anything except the story and forcing everyone to do it to progress through the game. Their classes follow a formula so much that despite what ever unique gimmick they have, it's too similar. Their range of abilities aren't as expansive as WoW is or was as far as I remember from Pandaria. You cannot do more than one action at the same time; there's a 0.5 sec CD on everything you do.

Healing is too easy in FF14. Incoming damage is slow and your spells are mega heals. There is rarely a mechanic that challenges them compared to the mountain of random things targeted to DPS (and sometimes anyone but the MT), or whatever the tank has to deal with. Resource starvation is a wide spread fear among players, even to the point of being actually irrational a lot of the time. Some because this IS the first MMO they've ever played, others cause they never needed to push it. Raids are a simple walk in the door and beat someone up, and are 100% scripted. What's simple in WoW is the most advanced thing in FF14. So advance you can't trust almost anyone here to tank Onyxia post-cataclysm. or know when is the time to use HoTs. Tanking in anything but extreme raids or trails is all about threat and less about staying alive, unless you choose to push the pulls. They'll like you if you reduce the damage. AoEs are hard pressed. Where as in WoW, the healer has to worry about resources the most, and DPS has to end the fight as fast as possible so that healers don't go OOM, and Tanks have to make the healer's and consequently everyone's lives easier by doing whatever they can to stay alive, reducing damage down to as far as 10% commonly with active mitigations. By the way, in FF14, active mitigation super sparse, with Inner beast and Shelltron being the only two. DRK gets none. Parry is the worst in FF14, where as in WoW we'd kill for some more parry/dodge.

Information such as stats are not communicated well at all. Nobody knows what the crit rates and parry rates actually are. Oddly more raiders I've ran into here are even more rigid and unwilling to do more than one strategy, where as in WoW we'd know 2 or maybe more cause we can deal with it, but maybe that's changed now cause I haven't been back in WoW since WoD and the garrisons and freaking social media patch. People fighting over when's a good time to use enochian in 7 minutes of trash, or worse about the direction devs want to take healing DPS when they wrote it and literally kneecapped all the healer's ability to hit anything ONLY to screw that up by lowering the accuracy requirement and giving more attacking spells to the healer to further perpetuate the issue, when there is clearly a direction the devs want to take with it. And frankly add that kind of screwed up mess with how they did the extreme raids and you'll be right on point. It's not to say WoW is perfect with how they've been doing things. They've been going on and off with the bad and the good, someone on the outside, and maybe the inside will question what in the world is going on there!? Yes I've meet loads of people in WoW who could NOT function without mods (freaking inept healers and their healbots), or fail constantly even while having the DBM tell them everything. And I've developed a strong hate for mods that I have never used DBM or (almost) any mod.

. . . . .Also FF14 releases 2 dungeons every major patch.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

Class complexity doesn't make things automatically better. And WoW's structure doesn't use a combo system that needs you to do three attacks to do a thing or three versions of the same spell (with the exception of the healers in WoW having a Quick, normal, and sometimes heavy version of the same basic healing spell) WoW at the time of Pandaria had ... Yes sometimes some classes have completely useless moves or moves that are too similar, but I haven't came across that case as bad as it was pre-Pandaria. And the only complexity from FF14's jobs are come from their excessive weaknesses and bloated buttons such as combos when it's just: Do power up combo, then do powerful combo, rinse and repeat. I'm serious about the melee DPS, it's simple because it's a routine. Ranged are based on conditions such as if the DoTs are up or not. And Magic is a mixed bag of whatever melee or ranged as to deal with to damage : fire on; ice on; fire on; ice on. Then Heavensward gave job changes adding a whole bag full of problems all while making enemies use telegraphed and avoidable AoEs excessively more. Problems such as, not only is ranged less mobile than ever before, they have to move more than ever before while dealing with timers, procs, and anything that isn't the enemy.
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Healing is too easy in FF14. Incoming damage is slow and your spells are mega heals.
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I haven't been back in WoW since WoD and the garrisons and freaking social media patch.

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I'll quote you in response to everyone's comments about complexity. When I mentioned the complexity of rotations, I meant the current iterations. Not the rotations of Pandaria (which was great!), not WoD and not any other expansion. The abilities have now been pruned twice since Pandaland and many classes are a mere shell of what they used to be.

I'm also going to specify that complexity of rotations doesn't directly relate to how many buttons there are in total, how much customization specs or classes have or how complex the encounters are mechanic-wise. What I meant by rotational complexity is the multi-layered thinking required to use the rotation. You can have a 20 button combo or you can have 20 buttons with different cooldowns, resource effects, durations, stat modifiers, situational or positional effects, random activation times and interdependent effects. The latter obviously requires more attention and better understanding of when to use each ability.

Healers play roughly the same: watch resources, heal, use cds and raise. What adds to complexity in FFXIV is having to predict damage to utilize some of the most powerful tools properly, extending or spreading previously casted heals, dealing non-negligible amounts of damage and directly supporting the party in the case of AST. Dps rotations in WoW involve some procs and primary/secondary resource management, but for many classes it ends there and AoE can be totally passive cleave (see Unholy DK). FFXIV dps jobs can have the additional aspects of changing their rotation to keep up a buff/debuff, supporting the party, rigid ability timing, difficult recovery and positional requirements (WoW classes more often have gap closers for melee and mobility options for casters than FFXIV jobs do, allowing the rotation to continue uninterrupted).

There are also the extreme cases. The simplest WoW spec, BM hunter, is currently played by building a resource, using a special move straight after and dumping the resource in 3 different ways (Big Attack, Small Attack, AoE). All FFXIV ranged/casters have something additional they have to keep in mind. On the other hand, WoW's allegedly most difficult dps spec, Feral Druid, keeps up 3 dots (attempting to snapshot them with buffs active), maintains a buff, uses possible procs before dots, uses a buildup-finisher filler and lines up cds. FFXIV Ninja: keep up 2 dots (attempting to snapshot them with buffs active) and a debuff, maintains a buff, manages party enmity and TP, uses a combo filler and lines up cds (including mudras and oGCDs). Mudras also have to be learned by heart (15 usable combinations -> 6 effects). The ninja opener seems, to me at least, much more difficult than Feral's because it has more things to memorize and WoW enables macroing some things together without causing delay.

Since WoW's easiest spec is easier than anything in FFXIV and even their hardest spec has an equal here, it makes me wonder why it's a question at all that FFXIV rotations are more complex. Now, you are right, it doesn't automatically make things better. But it can in some cases make the game more interesting to a player and that's the kind of thing we are trying to suggest in this thread. The difference in rotations was one of the first things I noticed when swapping my Hunter to Bard and throughout my time here I have continuously thought that WoW classes were both easier to understand and easier to play well without practice. You may disagree and that's fine. I think I've said all there is to say on my part.

I should clarify a bit when I talk about complexity in the gameplay. In my mind, an interesting and well-designed class should have a number of tools that are not all appropriate for every situation but requires you to think about what would be best to use. Maybe an enemy is a caster, so you have a combo the third hit of which slows casting that you must keep up. Maybe there's a spellcaster in your party and you have a move that makes the enemy vulnerable to magic. Maybe you have a number of fast attacks that deal smaller bits of damage for enemies that are immune to and brush off large, heavy hits. Situations where the player has a choice on what tool to use, and the exercise of that choice is what separates good players from poor ones.

(Cont. below)

In a great many games, you simply have a rotation. Even as a Dragoon, I have my 1-2-3 main combo on repeat, plus a 4-5-6 combo for piercing debuff, and then my jumps on cooldown. But one of my jumps leaps me away from the enemy -- I save that for when some nasty nastiness is about to drop on me. That's not part of my rotation, but it's a tool to use at the right time.

As a level 20 Arcanist, my friend simply puts up 2-3 DoTs, then spams Ruin. As a level 20 Rogue, I have a two-hit combo plus a DoT. It's hard to see at an early stage how things will get more interesting and compelling later on. I don't want to squeeze the game into a box it doesn't belong in ... but if things *do* become compelling later, I must be able to show that to my friend (and myself!), and judge whether the slog up to there is worth it.

I can only speak for Tanks but at 60 at least imo things are worth it in terms of complexity. Sure Tanks have our Cooldowns that we need to use at the right time and all that. But we do also have some tools that aren't stritctly just for when we're about to take a big hit. Like Paladin has the spell Clemancy that heals a target for like about the same as a Physick. Maybe abit less and then heals me for half of that amount. Its a nice off tank tool to use if the healers are busy to heal people and they forget about themselfs.

But yeah I think that all the jobs has like at least one or two situational use abilities like Clemancy.

And hell there also some abilites within our rotations that has situational other uses. Again using Paladin as an example, the ability spirits within hits for a pretty decent amount and goes down depending on how much hp you have. But it can also be used for the Silence compent of it. Though most of the time I just use it for the damage.

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Originally Posted by Arkazon

As a level 20 Arcanist, my friend simply puts up 2-3 DoTs, then spams Ruin. As a level 20 Rogue, I have a two-hit combo plus a DoT. It's hard to see at an early stage how things will get more interesting and compelling later on. I don't want to squeeze the game into a box it doesn't belong in ... but if things *do* become compelling later, I must be able to show that to my friend (and myself!), and judge whether the slog up to there is worth it.

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If your friend really comes from WoW then at level 20 he has as many abilities as a level 5 class here. Leveling actually gives you stuff. We also have housing and subraces, two things that wow fans have been crying for in vain for years. Also the story doesn't ger retconned every second patch. We also never go for more than four months without a content update.
If these aren't enough, he is hopeless.

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Originally Posted by Balipu

If your friend really comes from WoW then at level 20 he has as many abilities as a level 5 class here. Leveling actually gives you stuff. We also have housing and subraces, two things that wow fans have been crying for in vain for years. Also the story doesn't ger retconned every second patch. We also never go for more than four months without a content update.
If these aren't enough, he is hopeless.

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A couple things here.

1. Wow automatically plays faster then FFXIV. 2.5 global cd vs 1.5 global cd makes a world of difference.
2. your numbers are quite wrong. my lvl10 shaman has 5 abilities while my lvl20 rogue in ffxiv has 10. 3 of them are big cd's, 1 is a buff and the other is my stealth.
3. Leveling in ffxiv is slower, a lot slower then WoW is currently. This means you gain abilities faster and are out of the "meh" zone a lot faster.
4. Due the wow spec system you can pick the best leveling spec to speed up the leveling process. Find balance going to slow? Here go feral. Affliction dots not to your liking? Have fun with destro.

Overall if you want to level quickly, WoW is by far the better choice.

I admit I did pull that number out of my butthole. But generally the early levels of wow do have 4-5 level gaps where you get no new abilities, useful gear or gameplay functions. ARR might have a longer global cooldown but at least I don't have to stick with a two button rotation even after my level hits double digits *cough* hunter *cough*.
I may be wrong but I really don't believe that with quests, hunting logs, fates, guildhests, levequests, duties, challenge log and deep dungeons ARR levels slower than wow.

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Originally Posted by Balipu

I admit I did pull that number out of my butthole. But generally the early levels of wow do have 4-5 level gaps where you get no new abilities, useful gear or gameplay functions. ARR might have a longer global cooldown but at least I don't have to stick with a two button rotation even after my level hits double digits *cough* hunter *cough*.
I may be wrong but I really don't believe that with quests, hunting logs, fates, guildhests, levequests, duties, challenge log and deep dungeons ARR levels slower than wow.

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It is, there is no doubt about this fact. This is because once an expansion is released, the previous exp gets boosted quite a bit. Combine that with heirlooms which can give you passive exp boosts for everything (not just killing monsters like ffxiv) you can speed level insanely fast in WoW.