A Warcraft player's letter to the FFXIV community

Hey!

As you guys undoubtedly have noticed, there has been a so called "Mass Exodus" from World of Warcraft due arguments from the warcraft community with the devs, 2 very bad expansions in a row with questionable game design choices and now recently, a law suit from the state of California dropped in.

The reason I am writing this is due to a concern from the FFXIV community. Since the reputation that Warcraft has.

With the latest expansion "Shadowlands", the game design choices has been nothing but questionable. The loot drops in end-game content was massively hindered, with giving next to nothing in the way of loot dropping for us players when doing content. The only thing we have to rely on was a weekly chest with rewards, called "The Vault".

The Vault gives rewards based on your completed activities over the week, by doing Raiding, Keystone Dungeons (A time based hard version of dungeons with modifiers, increasing in difficulty each level) and PVP content.

With this reward chest every week, it is our only reliable failsafe source of upgrades to gear, but only 1 piece of gear, each week.

People on masse aim towards doing the highest possible level, 4 to 10 of them in a week, which has encouraged "Gate Keeping", by that I mean that people wants to make sure they can get their runs done for the week, with minimal hassle and complications.
Minimal amounts of deaths, high performane on damage and get the work done fast.

Also with the use of multiple addons, it gives measurements on how much a player has done this form of content previously. Giving players a rating status, which people uses to filter out who to pick and who to deny for groups. Also DPS meters are heavily used during runs and is an additonal form of measurement.

On top of this, over 2 expansions, there has been end game activities that only pushed for one thing: wasting your time as much as possible to increase active in-game time.
If you miss out on 1 week, of doing your chores? You have to play catch up or you will fall behind.

Every time you log in to play Warcraft, you logged in not to play, but to do the daily chores.

The meta in end-game content is very strong, which pushes people into playing a class in very specific ways, just to "do the damage / performance they are supposte to do, according to statistics".

It has reached a point now in Warcraft when the community are angry, dissappointed, feeling ignored by the devs, we are tired of doing tedious grinds, only to have yet another system come in and replace the old one, making us start from scratch. There are plenty more things that are very wrong with Warcrafts current game design, but also the devs attituted to players feedback.

The basic mantra of Blizzard: While there is three major issues in the game, they solve a fourth imaginary problem, that THEY consider to be a problem inside the office.

(Scroll down for the second part)

Now to my view on FFXIV:

I have now reached the early stages of Shadowbringers expansion, and so far, everything feels like it has just been a breeze. A overwhelming sense of freedom that I can play what I want, I can do what I want and I am not being restricted from playing my game.

The story in this game, is mindblowing kind of good. It has so much narrative detail to it that I always walk around with the sense of "I want to know what happens next". There is so much motivation to continue the main story questline as it is so captivating.

The dungeons feels like actual dungeons, with the trash mobs being actual trash and the bosses actually being real bosses.

The Trials has been an absolute blast and the community has been nothing but amazing helpful people taking their time to shortly explain strategies to fights.

The Jobs are well explained in what they do, their purpose in parties and playing without being hassled about "do more DPS" is very freeing. It feels very easy to get into it as well as you just need to follow the combos. The gameplay in FFXIV is a very strong factor on why I am having a great time.

The rules of no addons use feels great as the UI in the game, is very well made and fully customizable so the need for addons, is non-existant.

GMs in this games feels like they are really active and it feels comforting to know that there will be a real actual person reading my reports instead of receiving a copy-pasta standard reply from a bot on Blizzards side.

So when people asks me "Will you be bringing the toxic nature that can be found in Warcraft?": There is nothing in FFXIV I can complain about, there is nothing in the community to complain about. I think people can rest easy knowing that the game itself feels amazing, the story is amazing, the content is amazing. The devs are clearly listening to its community and the game itself is so easy to pick up on. I would honestly be struggling if I were asked to poke holes in FFXIVs game design.

Will the streamer Asmongold bring toxic people into the FFXIV? Considering the very active GMs, I find it very unlikely that IF there is a few toxic people that trickles in, they wont be online for very long. Asmongolds streamer persona is very much this "Macho Bro" kind of vibes, but on his second channel and streams, when you get to know the real person behind the persona of Asmongold.

I know he can come across as this "Macho Bro" from an outside perspective, but he is definitely a positive streamer that only wants a MMO to succeed. I can strongly recommend to check out his second youtube channel and streams on Zackrawr and get a sense of the real person behind the camera, so to speak.

I also love his collabs with Zepla.

Playing FFXIV, feels like I am once again free to just play my game, in the right kind of way.

I apologise for the long post, thank you for reading and here is a fat chocobo giving you a cookie :)

Welcome to Eorzea! Glad you're enjoying it. It's exactly as you said about bringing any toxicity. If it breaks the ToS, it will be handled just like the toxicity that already exists. Because as you mentioned, our devs have very clear thoughts about what they do and do not want to allow in the game.

Firstly, welcome!
Glad to have ye all with us!
And no apologises required, monsieur! All songs are meant to be sung!
The environment makes the community, so even if different cultures are met, they soon shall adapt.
Have fun, have laughs and enjoy your journey!

Well said!

It’s true, FFXIV is an absolute delight unto itself. The story is incredible, the gameplay is super fun (SO loving multiple jobs!), and the community is amazing.

Huzzah! Welcome to Eorzea!!!

The ops view on wow seems very close to my view on GW2. Both seem to be going down the same self destructive path.
FF14 on the other hand is brimming with charm, it feels magical and alive in comparison. A game made for the gamer and not the pocket.
I have never been much of a wow fan, spending most of my game time playing GW2. Now I'm here, I am in for the long haul so don't even think about trying to get rid of me or I shell cast my most potent 'charm' spell on you.

There is always something to make me smile in FF14.

People sporting glamour striking a pose for their audience.
The cute little cat girl weaving a new blouse in the middle of a bloody battle.
The male ncp that says to the female npc ' hey lass you give me a right hard on'

Welcome to Eorzea and absolutely no need for apologies!

People asking about toxicity is inherent to two things i believe. The first is that they care about the game and the community and the second is the wrong assumption that people are born toxic and therefore carry said toxicity with them. At the end of the day, the fear of losing a cherished thing is what makes people afraid.

The game is not perfect, the community is not perfect, but what matters, i believe, is that everything in this game feels as if it was made with love and respect and care for the people who play it. For me that's amazing, it's what attracted me to the game, together with the incredibly amazing story (obviously that's my personal opinion, not everyone agrees, but that's absolutely fine). Having said that, as someone with mental health troubles, i've lost count how many times the game has literally saved my life since i started playing in June 2020. And for that i'll be eternally grateful.

It's good to have more people and the additional diversity can only be a positive thing as we only advance and learn from examining other people's views and perspectives.

Once more, welcome!

Welcome to Eorzea!

I've never played WoW, but understand the feeling of being in a place you dislike, and how it affects your mood. I hope you'll be able to enjoy FFXIV for a long time!

Welcome aboard!

Just to address some of your concerns with your WoW experience, when you hit endgame of an expansion early on, there can be this feeling of "daily chores".. like a weekly raid for loot, a daily roulette or beast tribe, etc.

...BUT there really is no issue with being "behind" in this game. Any items or gear that is current will only get easier to get as an expansion ages.

So! When Endwalker drops, and you get to the end, don't feel like you have to grind out tomestones...or that you NEED to get a complete set of raid gear. You can absolutely walk away from the game for a year and then spend a matter of days to be back at end-game level gear. (Not necessarily BiS, but you'll be able to do all content!)

I guess that's the big point. You can (and should) just play at your pace. Have fun!

oh, and on Asmongold- I never knew him before he started FFXIV and I have actually really enjoyed watching some of his streams. He has genuinely just been having a good time and it shows.

welcome to the journey.

I hope you continue to enjoy a game which doesnt resemble a daily job you have to do in order to just stay in the same place and maybe pull a bit ahead. best part of being here, is as has been said, if you miss some time, you will never be "behind" like WoW

good to have you here and enjoy your time always ^^

Welcome to Eorzea.

To be honest, FFXIV is not perfect. Some issues are growing over the years, like old systems didnt get a revamp (Jobs, Glamours, Housing, PvP maybe, etc).

But overall, its still the best FF in the series. Name one FF you can play for 6 years or longer ; )
Additionally, there are no alternatives to FFXIV. You may find other MMORPGs fresh or new, but all of them are missing basic features from FFXIV (like story, music or gamepad-controls). There is no other (good) MMORPG where I can play as a Dragon-Girl xD

In conclusion: Take your time, have fun and maybe take a rest, adventurer.

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Originally Posted by Meatball

The dungeons feels like actual dungeons, with the trash mobs being actual trash and the bosses actually being real bosses.

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If that's how you feel I can only assume WoW's dungeon design must be really atrocious.
I can't imagine what would have been worse than the same hallway with 2~3 trashes followed by a boss arena repeated since 2015 in this game... How would that even be possible? Empty short hallways with no trash at all between boss arenas?
Honestly, FFXIV's dungeon design died the moment Heavensward came out, for sake of making everything DF friendly. And then the dead body got kicked and stepped on in the ground when Trusts happened and dungeons became even more shallow.

Welcome! I find this community amazing. I am a refugee from ESO. As games go it's a great game, it's the lack of customer service and the draconian measures employed by the forum staff on ESO that make it bad. ESO just doesn't communicate with it's players and hasn't for a long time. So I am glad to be here where the level of caring about customers and the game outshines all. As for Asmondgold, I like him at first I was like why this guy is always saying BD's then I realize it's just funny. I'm a older gal so it's refreshing to me to listen to his perspective. I hope he continues with FFXIV and becomes a great partner to the game. Enjoy!

Ions obsessions with raid content over all other content is shallow and it shows by how quick you would burn through WoW's current end game with pve vendor for gear. After you get the gear you would quickly find a shallow MMO with no actual end game because everything else has been allowed to whither.

Asmongold is spending multiple hours doing 7+ year content, Annie is going Triple triad/Gold saucer and other streamers like Rich are having a ball playing with housing/rp/glamour.

Meatball, you nailed it. Another WoW refugee here and if I could point to a single event that drove home the difference between the FFXIV and WoW communities it would be a 8 man run I did a few days ago.

It was six of us sprouts and 2 veterans. The fight was waaaay up in the sky on an airship fighting a dragon and one of the sprouts thought there was a safety barrier at the edge of the ship and promptly jumped off to their death before the fight even started.

To my jaw-dropping amazement no one went off on the player. No one rage quit the instance. Instead, one of the veterans suggested that we ALL jump off the ship to reset so that the player wouldn't miss out on the content.

We all laughed, jumped off to reset and proceeded to finish up the instance, having a very good time and NO ONE stressing about dps or calling others out.

It's like a weight has been lifted and you can once again enjoy the game for the game itself with like-minded folks.

Thank you Eorzeans for welcoming us WoW refugees.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by texas_boy

Meatball, you nailed it. Another WoW refugee here and if I could point to a single event that drove home the difference between the FFXIV and WoW communities it would be a 8 man run I did a few days ago.

It was six of us sprouts and 2 veterans. The fight was waaaay up in the sky on an airship fighting a dragon and one of the sprouts thought there was a safety barrier at the edge of the ship and promptly jumped off to their death before the fight even started.

To my jaw-dropping amazement no one went off on the player. No one rage quit the instance. Instead, one of the veterans suggested that we ALL jump off the ship to reset so that the player wouldn't miss out on the content.

We all laughed, jumped off to reset and proceeded to finish up the instance, having a very good time and NO ONE stressing about dps or calling others out.

It's like a weight has been lifted and you can once again enjoy the game for the game itself with like-minded folks.

Thank you Eorzeans for welcoming us WoW refugees.

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if it was a dragoon, I would say they learned their class well

that is very funny though, and yes, its a much more relaxed environment here... usually. as with all games, you will have some less than amusing encounters, but its.. people, what can you do?

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Originally Posted by texas_boy

To my jaw-dropping amazement no one went off on the player. No one rage quit the instance. Instead, one of the veterans suggested that we ALL jump off the ship to reset so that the player wouldn't miss out on the content.

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I briefly played WoW 5-6 years ago and my dungeon running experience was very similar. Nobody cared that I was new or that I sucked. A recent reddit post summed up what I think the root cause why things there have become so miserable. The base difficulty level has surpassed what the vast majority of the population is willing or able to complete. Worse if you make any mistakes or take too long you lose progress.

Reading that brought back the horrified feeling I got during Wildstar's "Gold-or-Bust" era. Dungeons there weren't worth running unless you scored Gold (before the timer, no deaths, no failing avoidable mechanics). Carbine eventually fixed that but not until the initial population had bled out. Not in the least surprised WoW is experiencing a similar issue.

Both of these should serve as cautionary tales for those demanding Souls' like difficulty to "teach" people the game. The only thing that teaches people is that they need to find another game.

I think a lot of it has to do with the only penalty for death in XIV (in most content) being a little bit of wear and tear on your gear. Just visit a mender after the fight, pay a small fee, and you're all fixed up. And omnicrafters have it even easier, with a right click repair all option.

With the penalty for failure reduced to merely having to start over in most regular content, the player base is a lot more forgiving of silly mistakes like jumping off the cliff. Besides, most of us have done it. I famously yeeted myself off the ledge of Titan Ex as a bard when it was at 1% and I was the last party member alive, six years ago. My friends still tease me about it.

Now, in some of the endgame systems, there is a steeper penalty for death. Eureka deaths cost you experience points. Bozja deaths cost you mettle. And in the case of Bozja's big raids, too many wipes means you're going to run out of time, so it's definitely the kind of thing where people will yell at each other for easily avoidable mistakes that can cause a wipe.

But for most daily content? It's not a big deal at all. You wipe, you laugh, you peel yourself off the floor and start over again.

Just a friendly reminder that not all Wow refugees here did it because some streamer we never watched or care about told us to. Honestly if I knew the streamer community was going to show up I probably wouldn't have bothered to start. Though luckily I had an old trial account I never really got started with so I was able to come in on the Goblin server and not with wherever people yelling poggers (whatever that means) polluted, hah

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Ions obsessions with raid content over all other content is shallow and it shows by how quick you would burn through WoW's current end game with pve vendor for gear. After you get the gear you would quickly find a shallow MMO with no actual end game because everything else has been allowed to whither.

Asmongold is spending multiple hours doing 7+ year content, Annie is going Triple triad/Gold saucer and other streamers like Rich are having a ball playing with housing/rp/glamour.

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If someone started WoW for the first time, then they would also have a lot of older content to go through...

Meanwhile veteran players in FFXIV arguably lack much content to focus on because so much of it is designed to be a 'one and done' affair.

WoW also has the equivalent of Triple Triad in the form of pet battles and archaeology as well as a toy system to collect weird and wonderful items.

I prefer FFXIV, but I'm not going to pretend as if it consists of sunshine and roses at every turn.

I'm another fellow WoW refuge. I had been playing both WoW and FFXIV for the last week or two but my WoW guild pretty much disbanded due to a chunk of our raid team leaving the game following the news of the lawsuit and subsequent horrible response from Blizzard. I wasn't intending on leaving the game, but I don't have it in me to start over with a new group of people and a lot of the folks I enjoyed playing with are switching over to FFXIV, so here I am!

I'd lie if I said I hadn't grown frustrated with the state of the game for the past few years, my grievances having already been eloquently laid our by Meatball above. I gave Shadowlands a try and concluded the game just isn't for me anymore, hence why I was now playing TBC Classic (until last night, anyways).

I played FFXIV back in 2014 with a few RL friends but they eventually took a break so I quit and never thought of returning. The game felt too casual for my liking and the community too focused on role-play instead of actual gameplay and end-game progression. Upon returning, I'm now realizing I was just on a role-play focused server and regretting missing out on several years of what is shaping up to be an absolutely amazing game.

I've now started over on a different server with my former WoW buddies and having a grand old time. I love the fact that older content isn't rendered irrelevant the moment something newer and shinier comes out. Now I get to enjoy everything I missed out on and slowly catch up until I'm ready for Endbringer ^.^

A big thank you to the FFXIV community for being so amazingly welcoming of us lost sheepies and so patient with our noobishness as we go through unfamiliar dungeons and duties (I always watch guides before throwing myself at the unknown, but it hasn't stopped me from dying here and there <.<)

See you in Eorzea!

I think its going to really depend on what you feel is daily chores. The end-game cycle mostly revolves around raids and duty finder.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Meatball

The dungeons feels like actual dungeons, with the trash mobs being actual trash and the bosses actually being real bosses.

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Eh. They feel like linear video game levels, not dungeons to explore.

Blackrock Depths and Blackrock Spire were AWESOME. They remain as two of the most memorable dungeons I've ever played through, feeling like actual places to explore and filled with people. They weren't a linear path with blocked off doors like a typical video game level; they were cities with bedrooms, storage rooms, kitchens, breweries, armories, prisons, colosseums, you name it. The place was laid out like a city and there were multiple different routes you could choose to get to where you wanted to go. Populated by NPCs you talked to and remembered, rather than simply killed and forgot about. You went into the dungeon, met characters, learned their stories, they gave you quests, and you completed multiple questchains inside them. They weren't just hallways you ran down AoEing mobs down and getting loot at the end and then forget about. You spent time in those two dungeons and thus came to view it as another part of the world, rather than a video game level you only see in LFD/Duty Finder.

Modern WoW and FF14 dungeons are got setpiece video game levels, but they're not good dungeons to explore and hang out in.

Here's the thing about FFXIV: the tools are there to entertain yourself. But if you don't use those tools, the game gets stale extremely fast once you hit 80. There's a lot less hand-holding than in WoW, or multi-layered systems that lead from one grind to the next.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by texas_boy

It was six of us sprouts and 2 veterans. The fight was waaaay up in the sky on an airship fighting a dragon and one of the sprouts thought there was a safety barrier at the edge of the ship and promptly jumped off to their death before the fight even started.

To my jaw-dropping amazement no one went off on the player. No one rage quit the instance. Instead, one of the veterans suggested that we ALL jump off the ship to reset so that the player wouldn't miss out on the content.

We all laughed, jumped off to reset and proceeded to finish up the instance, having a very good time and NO ONE stressing about dps or calling others out.

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You'll run into those who will have a stick up their butt from time to time. But there's a large number of the player base that isn't interested in treating things as Serious Business.

Oh, and you'll find that in regards to jumping off edges we're like lemmings. One person goes and the rest are like "Wait for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" cause it's fun.

It sounds like you were doing Bismarck and you can't raise people who go man overboard there so it's even more of an excuse to mass suicide and reset. Not, as I mentioned, that we need much excuse to do that :D

"I know he can come across as this "Macho Bro" from an outside perspective, but he is definitely a positive streamer that only wants a MMO to succeed. I can strongly recommend to check out his second youtube channel and streams on Zackrawr and get a sense of the real person behind the camera, so to speak."

This is where you lost me 100%.

Welcome to FFXIV!
We also have Housing >:)
Take your time, go your own pace. There are people always doing content, even the really old content & many guides out there
And pay things forward- be helpful where you can, it goes along way in FFXIV

I'm not worried about the toxic folks- they're not limited to WoW, there are plenty in FFXIV & toxic people in FFXIV are dealt with very quickly

Happy to see you are enjoying the game! Welcome to the community :3

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Originally Posted by Tabmow

"I know he can come across as this "Macho Bro" from an outside perspective, but he is definitely a positive streamer that only wants a MMO to succeed. I can strongly recommend to check out his second youtube channel and streams on Zackrawr and get a sense of the real person behind the camera, so to speak."

This is where you lost me 100%.

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Why would that lose you, out of curiosity?

Welcome to FFXIV and I'm happy your having so much fun here! This is my first and favorite MMO and video game and it's so nice seeing it grow and just get better over time with more nice, positive and friendly people like you joining. ^^

And Asmongold is indeed a positive streamer. I LOVE watching his FFXIV content in YouTube and I sometimes feel like an addict whenever he doesn't post anymore of his playthroughs. xD

Welcome aboard :) from another WoW refugee here myself.. lol.

My history with WoW, FFXIV and MMO's is a bit different..

While those two appear be to be most peoples favorites, my favorite MMO just happens to be Lunia... a game that died out in 2013 and no longer exists :( I pray every day for them to do a reboot for it someday as I assume it's only temporarily gone.. hopefully... I am losing my mind without it as the weeks months and years go on.. I spent 5+ years daily 10,000+ hours playing this game... I could talk forever about it.. it was my life.. and I don't have it and it's depressing... there is a private server out there.. but it's not the same... not the same at all.. different community, population and vibe I get compared to the original. I started in 2008, and Ragnarok Online was my first MMO also in 2008 not long before Lunia.. I love Ragnarok Online and also played it for 5+ years... but that's another story...

I started WoW in March 2019... technically I started around 2013 with a free trial, but I couldn't get into it and didn't have the money or interest to pay for subscription. In 2019 March I thought I'd give it another chance because I thought that trial back then was fun.. just subscription doesn't feel like it's worth it because it adds up.. I still didn't have money for WoW but my brother is a great guy and helped pay my subscription.. and man, I got really into it... players are very friendly to me for some reason, maybe cause they rarely see new players.. I discovered all these areas, did all kinds of stuff I barely remember, traveled all around Azeroth.. Warlock was my main for a while, loved it with demonology (even tho I was never good with him in mythic+) ..all I did in 2019 was WoW mostly after RE2 remake. I often wish I had played way back then during the classic, TBC and wrath days or even cata/MoP/WoD/Legion at least... but no.. BFA just happened to be my first expansion technically, 8.1.. 8.2 was probably my favorite times in WoW, had great times doing mythics then.... 8.3 was supposed to be the best, but I didn't like it that much... 2020 was a drag for me.. cause WoW was getting boring with less things to do, corona, and struggling with little to no games.. I finally got into VR in September 2020 and that was a blast. I haven't done too much Mythics in Shadowlands, but I'm not too interested as I feel burnt out after grinding it too damn much in 8.2, and just to know your entire gear set will be worthless in just a few months.. I find that one of WoW's biggest weakpoints is you constantly need to upgrade your gear to the next big thing every few months... even legendaries for christ sakes.. how are 9.0 legendaries worthless in 9.1? Makes me not wanna play to be fully honest with yall, it's a crappy move and makes no sense playing at all until you actually feel like getting the best which won't take long to be worthless again.. like... at least in Ragnarok, the best gears you get can be good for either forever or many many years, as for Lunia, they did need to be upgraded every 4-8 months, only for myth, not stage gear.. but at least it was more fun to earn than it is in WoW.

I really loved classic at launch, it was amazing... tens of thousands of players queued in every server... it was like the MMO heaven dream we all dreamed of, literally... my only problem was that I accidentally joined a RP/PVP server thinking it would be awesome because I like RP, PVP not so much, so.. getting ganked really pissed me off. I eventually bought a server change, but... it was still a great experience.. I was an undead mage... not my main race or class.. but I still had fun. stayed lvl 41 for a long time feeling like I finished once I obtained my mount... months later I got back to it, stopped at level 52... it seemed impossible to get to 60 when there was no parties for BRD, and I ran out of quests to do. Months later TBC comes out.. during the prepatch I was having a blast.. with my new blood elf warlock.. main class/race.. it was incredible trying warlock in classic for the first time as a blood elf right before TBC came out .. I got to 60.. then waited at that portal.. outland was freaking insane in the beginning.. there was too much competition in quests having to kill certain mobs everyone was grabbing first.. it was hard but still fun.. I kind of gave up playing classic up till level 63.. I would play it more.. but.. I think I'm just gonna wait for wrath classic or maybe one day I'll be in the mood to play it more. I kinda stopped classic because I was in the mood to make a new Vulpera Death Knight.. he was my new main for a while and I had a blast with him.. super cute little smol fox doing bad ass damage, loving all 3 specs, went from Blood>Frost>Unholy. And then Asmongold made his "I'm gonna start FFXIV in July 3" statement... and a lot of people seemed to be moving to FF14.. 9.1 was around the corner, but I was already getting bored... knowing there won't be much content to do and the sub may not be worth a dang.. so... I gave FFXIV a 5th or 6th chance..

I started this game since either 2011 or 2012... not only could I barely afford subscriptions and not like it, but I did not enjoy my classes I played... I played gladiator the first few times... didn't like it, the rotation was so stupid to me.. years later around 2019 after my WoW nostalgia dropped, I tried Rogue, and Rogue was also boring bad rotation... like all you do is press 2-3 buttons in a pattern row over and over.. seriously.. I didn't have nobody to talk to, to tell me otherwise how things get better and blah blah blah.. but.. I just didn't play much.. but then... I saw the Machinist class.. and I love gun classes in MMOs, a lot. So I really wanted to be a Machinist assuming the game would be sooo much better.. but... being level 30, I did research as to when and how I can be a machinist.. apparently I had to be level 50... and be in Ishgard.. and it took the entire ARR+prepatch content to get there... I think I looked at a list of quests required from where I was, and I was like wow screw that.. I heard about this booster thingy so.. I was stupid enough to buy that... and I got a fantasia/name change while at it... I wish I didn't skip it because, not only do I barely know some of these things in game like the story mainly, and regions I didn't explore like Cortheas... I just wanted to play machinist.. that's all I wanted to do... and in the end, I didn't like it.. very boring just like gladiator and rogue. It was better than those, but still didn't like spamming spread shot constantly in dungeons, it was repetitive spamming 1 button that does same damage as my single target hits.

So from then on I stopped FFXIV and moved on back to WoW and some VR games.. and I already mentioned my TBC story, so right after that... I gave FFXIV another chance.. just after regretfully boosting my character, I didn't feel like redoing my character cause I spent 100+ hours on it.. so.. I changed my looks and name again, and decided to try Dark Knight... I tried Dark Knight cause asmongold talked a lot about it and I looked it up, sounds and looks very appealing.. and that's when I started actually loving this game... finally.. after all those years, I found something I enjoyed.. I had a blast using him throughout Heavensward. At 60... I found out the existence of Gunbreakers... and I love FF8/squall... I dressed up as him for halloween once and I have his sword IRL xD I love it.. so.. I just had to try Gunbreaker... and damn.. it felt like the closest thing we'll ever get to a FF8 remake i've dreamed of.. it plays amazing, I really missed playing Dark Knight again, it was hard to choose between the two... but I don't regret using my gunbreaker all the way to stormblood and the end of shadowbringers. So.. I'm stuck needing more item level for a shadowbringers dungeon.. I didn't feel like using my gunbreaker more, time or a break... I wanted to try so many other classes, white mage, summoner, and black mage... Black Mage SHOULD'VE been my first class.. but I didn't know any better..I loved black mage a lot, first I used it on an alt, but this game isn't alt friendly, so.. I used it on my main, and I leveled black mage all the way to.. currently about to hit 74. I loved my journey.. but...

I'm getting bored and depressed... I feel like I have a problem.. I can't find a better game than FFXIV.. and it's all I've spent my time on and been wanting to do for the last entire month+.. I've been living here.. but it's been getting kind of scary... like.. going deep in the rabbit hole and there's nothing better I can ever do until who knows when... like.. there's no games i'm interested in coming out in 2021... the only thing that would make me quit FFXIV now it seems like it'd have to be a Lunia reboot... if that ever happens which I highly doubt... that would make my life better now I think... but.. I don't know... I'm getting bored of doing daily roulettes and gold saucer and leveling my fishing too which is like 58. I took this game too seriously I think, and now I don't know.. I took 2 or 3 days of a break... and idk what I'm gonna do now in the future.. apparently I've spent 160 hours in FFXIV in the past 2 weeks... that's over 3 times as much as a full-time job 40 hours a week.... I have nothing better to do in my life to occupy my time.. youtube is not doing it for me all the time either... it's depressing and scary that it feels like my life might be coming to an end soon.. I hope not.. but.. yeah..

that's where I'm at right now.. and as far as Asmongold... yeah... I found out about him when I was in my WoW phase, he was all over YouTube tutorials I was looking up how to get mounts and do certain things, it was hard to miss him, because he's everywhere... I thought he was an asshole at first.. but.. the more videos I saw, I thought he was an alright dude... I hardly ever go to his streams because I'm not a twitch guy, I watch all his YouTube videos.. I did watch his FFXIV stream... and yeah.. I was one of those idiots that followed him around... not for very long though, I had my own life and business to take care of... I just took a screenshot beside him and that was enough for me lol. He's one of the only things I seem to look forward to seeing every day in my YouTube feed... along with other YouTubers... Bellular is okay but his videos can be boring and don't feel too much on topic to the title... and Zepla has really great content I like a lot, her collabs with Asmon were good, like that transmog competition not long ago..

I don't know what else to say, this has been my story for the past 3 years kind of.]

and sorry for long multi-post lol, I just felt like speaking my mind to someone, since I can't seem to talk about these things to a therapist...

A gentle reminder that going back to your first post and choosing to "edit" it will allow you to bypass the 3k character limit so that you don't need to waste daily postcount on multiple posts to convey a long idea or story.

So what I will generally do is write my post and then cut out everything but the first word (copy and paste to notebook or some other text editor just to be safe), push post.. then edit everything back in.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

A gentle reminder that going back to your first post and choosing to "edit" it will allow you to bypass the 3k character limit so that you don't need to waste daily postcount on multiple posts to convey a long idea or story.

So what I will generally do is write my post and then cut out everything but the first word (copy and paste to notebook or some other text editor just to be safe), push post.. then edit everything back in.

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Thanks c: that's pretty interesting and weird lol but I did just that, might never do that again since I usually don't write walls of text.. just don't know, felt like talking even if no one cares.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

If that's how you feel I can only assume WoW's dungeon design must be really atrocious.
I can't imagine what would have been worse than the same hallway with 2~3 trashes followed by a boss arena repeated since 2015 in this game... How would that even be possible? Empty short hallways with no trash at all between boss arenas?
Honestly, FFXIV's dungeon design died the moment Heavensward came out, for sake of making everything DF friendly. And then the dead body got kicked and stepped on in the ground when Trusts happened and dungeons became even more shallow.

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Most dungeons in WoW are designed after the keystone content these days, meaning that trash mobs are fully capable of wiping a whole group if things goes sideways, the way I feel about FFXIV is that the bosses are the MAIN events while the trash mobs are being normal mobs. Dont get me wrong: trash mobs in FFXIV can give you a rough time but the bosses themselves feels like they are the center of attention when it comes to the dungeon design.

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Originally Posted by ShizukuOikawa

...
I'm getting bored and depressed... I feel like I have a problem.. I can't find a better game than FFXIV.. and it's all I've spent my time on and been wanting to do for the last entire month+.. I've been living here.. but it's been getting kind of scary... like.. going deep in the rabbit hole and there's nothing better I can ever do until who knows when... like.. there's no games i'm interested in coming out in 2021... the only thing that would make me quit FFXIV now it seems like it'd have to be a Lunia reboot... if that ever happens which I highly doubt... that would make my life better now I think... but.. I don't know... I'm getting bored of doing daily roulettes and gold saucer and leveling my fishing too which is like 58. I took this game too seriously I think, and now I don't know.. I took 2 or 3 days of a break... and idk what I'm gonna do now in the future.. apparently I've spent 160 hours in FFXIV in the past 2 weeks... that's over 3 times as much as a full-time job 40 hours a week.... I have nothing better to do in my life to occupy my time.. youtube is not doing it for me all the time either... it's depressing and scary that it feels like my life might be coming to an end soon.. I hope not.. but.. yeah..

...

and sorry for long multi-post lol, I just felt like speaking my mind to someone, since I can't seem to talk about these things to a therapist...

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First and foremost, wonderful post! I know a lot of folks don't say it but it's very cool seeing stories like this shared and getting that honest, heart felt perspective. ^_^

Part of what you mentioned is concerning, but not terrible because a lot of us have been in a similar situation; focusing on something that helps make life interesting and fun, after which it becomes the focus. However, unfortunately, nothing ever lasts.

The good news is that there's always something else out there in the world, it just requires exploring it a bit. Learning to take that first step into new adventures and trying things out for size, seeing how they feel, and continuing if/when something doesn't click. And then making it a habit so there's always a few interesting things in your life, because if you focus on one thing for too long then you'll get "used to it" and lost interest. Oddly enough, it's actually genetically built into us humans, lol. We're meant to lose interest in things after a time and find something new, because in nature that leads to becoming healthier and happier. For example: Ever stare into the night sky, at the stars, at the same spot and after a bit it just kinda "blanks out"? That's because the visual stimulation is so low that the brain literally shuts off the feed.

I suspect that if you were able to get 1-2 more hobbies you enjoyed in your life, it'd help make FFXIV more interesting for you when you return to it. I do my best to spend some time with other things before I circle back to the game, even though there's a lot within it that I'm thoroughly enjoying bouncing between.

For example, I'm not solely focusing on any one thing in this game and as a result I'm enjoying the heck out of it! I've been playing for almost 3 months and I just barely started Stormbringers recently, lol. While going through the story I was playing BLM (which I love), and between the story and doing side quests and once I was able, daily routlettes, I just suddenly hit 80! So I decided to start up a Tank and Healer job (GNB and AST respectively, both of which I also love), and I've already gotten those two up to 70 because I took a break from the story because I was enjoying learning them both.

(And I maaaaay have also started BLU because I heard it was cool, and it is!)

I'm sure you get the point, lol.

But the last part is the most important: I know it's not easy to speak to a therapist, but it's one of those things that if you're ever questioning your life, then it becomes incredibly important. I never liked it, but like I said above, it's just one of those other adventures that one can learn to roll with. The payoff is well, well worth it.

Welcome to FFXIV, everyone has said the great things this game has to offer so I'll not focus too much on that; although, personally huge fan of the respect of players time, jobs (and system itself in general), and then the team themselves, but overall just a great game to be getting into - especially as all those players can be trying many many hours of content for free :3.

I don't expect Yoshida to be making comment on all of this especially as it's still a case in progress (or if he does it'll be one slowly and carefully crafted message as it's clearly an extremely.. extreme situation going on right now), but I think many can take heart in that he's not the character to macho rub in the salt everyone experiences (no "hah we're the best, look at them bleeding subs to us"), a bit before this he had kind words for the legacy and talent of WoW and I really admire that he looks outside to improve internally and respects those while he does it (it's such an amazing resource to be able to see 'live' research).

I take no joy in seeing all the fires going on over there, and am greatly sadden to hear some of these things from certainly a place that holds a special place in my childhood heart (and still felt they've had talented moments, though clearly my personal bias is with FFXIV). While the reason so many feel the need to leave is clearly ... not ideal ... welcome here and hopefully everyone here will lift and rise together!

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Originally Posted by Alxyzntlct

First and foremost, wonderful post! I know a lot of folks don't say it but it's very cool seeing stories like this shared and getting that honest, heart felt perspective. ^_^

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Thank you for reading and the response ^_^ yeah, BLM is a lot of fun... but... BLM is not life... it's all I'm doing with my life as of late, and... I just.. can't find a solution of what else to do sometimes. I do need more hobbies.. being on the computer has been my only hobby for a really long time, it's the reason I didn't go to high school, and never got a real girlfriend. Where I live, I don't see how I can fix my hobby finding issue... maybe start doing exercise and going for walks.. but.. I don't know.. maybe I just don't appreciate life enough.. I always try to complete goals of success in games that usually don't matter in the end... I would love to meet a cute girl friend but... I don't know where... and I need to be happy with my life before I'm happy with someone else.. and I am happy with my life.. I'm not struggling, having a great time, it's just.. very lonely... I also have no one to talk to about my game experiences in my real life, and people don't care on facebook neither lol.

I just came from World of Warcraft as well after a long break. BfA and Shadowlands are horrid expansions and I genuinely wonder how the game failed so quickly after seeing how good Legion was. I'm looking forward to playing FF14 as everyone says it's a better overall game.

Welcome! FFXIV is a giant community with plenty of differences, so don't be surprise if we also have some bad apples. But as the saying goes, environment shapes the people, majority of the players are good, kind and friendly. This is the game that the devs are very close with the community, in touch with reality but at the same time is strict with people breaking the game rules. So feel safe, feel free and feel like a home every time you login.

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Originally Posted by ShizukuOikawa

Thanks c: that's pretty interesting and weird lol but I did just that, might never do that again since I usually don't write walls of text.. just don't know, felt like talking even if no one cares.

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I mean, people might not read what you've written entirely because hey, it's the internet, but you should feel free to write as much or little as you like. Long or short, this should feel like a safe and welcoming place you can write.