Quote Originally Posted by Sebazy View Post
A few things that stand out vs FFXIV:

The art direction and attention to detail within the world was completely unrivalled. It had so many little flourishes and details that on the surface of things, were completely pointless yet mesmerisingly beautiful. It really did feel like a living breathing world in places with things surprising you even after you'd played it for years.
Imo the art of XIV is superb and one of its strongest points. It has to be something else. I think the way you interact with the world makes you miss a lot of the beauty in XIV. Linear instance runs that are more about speed and not stopping to smell the roses. You don't want to waste the time of the cross-world people you're randomly matched with, and there's no reward for exploration (well there's only one path anyway). The beauty and attention to detail by the artists is there but the game design is such that it can often be underappreciated.

XIV does a lot of things better, but it won't win on immersion since things are streamlined or QoL'ed down to an almost arcadey experience to satisfy a broad audience of people who don't have a lot of time on their hands. It's a lot of menu-driven stuff including that big catalogue of instanced battles, and people forget the geography of the world, forget the journey because they are just used to the world being a list of teleport destinations on a menu.