how much do SSD's help the game

[Riardon]

For this game you won't see huge difference on loading times cause it doesn't read huge files from disk like other games. It's fairly optimised for this reason to run on consoles. They avoided high res textures for that reason. It's not only that the consoles do not have the processing power for this but the loading times too. This game is only 15 GBs while other MMORPGs are around 40Gbs. You will see a difference with an SDD but do not expect the big difference you see in other bigger games.

[Hiruke]

For this game you won't see huge difference on loading times cause it doesn't read huge files from disk like other games. It's fairly optimised for this reason to run on consoles. They avoided high res textures for that reason. It's not only that the consoles do not have the processing power for this but the loading times too. This game is only 15 GBs while other MMORPGs are around 40Gbs. You will see a difference with an SDD but do not expect the big difference you see in other bigger games.

With my HDD I load areas fast. I don't feel the need to get an SDD.

People need to stop getting premade computers with cheap 5200RPM HDDs and start buying quality 7200RPM+ drives.

^Factually inaccurate, as explained by other responses.

I don't know why we have a 3 page long thread that was solved in 3 posts.

Anyone who thinks an SSD won't load a zone faster than an HDD has no idea what a "huge difference" means to begin with. I originally had FFXIV on my HDD, but I fixed that in less than a day because I hated the load times and quickly put it onto my SSD.

Is the difference between a 4 second load time and a 12 second load time "huge"? I would think that halving or thirding your load time would be considered significant. I certainly wouldn't want to do something like hunts without an SSD. Think the 8 seconds won't help? It will. Or if you have to port more than once, it adds up (going to Limsa, then Mist, then La Noscea? hey, SSD just saved you up to 24 seconds or more).

And I'm not talking about junk HDDs. I mean 7200 ones. Who even has the other? Seriously. (Edit: I guess all those Lenovo laptops do. Haha. A 7200 rpm HDD would certainly be a little faster, but the load time would still be significant, as I've seen on my own not-a-laptop. I've seen those Lenovos load a zone, and it takes foooorever.)

If you don't mind the load time on HDD being that long, obviously you don't care enough to have an SSD. If you feel going from 8-12 seconds to 4 seconds "isn't a big deal, because hey I'm eating popcorn guy" then fine. But does that help the OP? Nah. The OP has already been informed of the difference, and can make their own decision. The rest is just superfluous. Maybe you like watching that black screen between zones. I'd rather not. Maybe the OP doesn't either. Guess they can figure that out based on the math.

Similarly, many of you may think that having a better video card and more frame rate "just isn't a big deal". This thread wasn't an opinion piece, though. It was "how much do SSDs help the game" not "does random guy I don't know care about how much SSDs help the game". Really.

Anyway, I don't see why better load times would help your laptop bench better. First problem is having a laptop for gaming, but I guess for many that's unavoidable. Better keep that thing cold.