How does FFXIV fare against other modern MMORPGs?

[Maeka]

-snip-

IF you can get that kind of ridiculous gear.

When I last played, like last year I think it was.... yeah last year... the gear that one could get solo did not let you "WS every few seconds" whatsoever. Basic entry-level 119 gear that took forever to get while solo and getting a group in modern days? lol. Yeah right.

They did add the "handout 119" stuff (or rather updated 117) right before I left, but even that gear was rather weak, barely 119 from what I read. Looked like it was a bit under-budgeted just to push your Trusts up to full power.

To get anything good, you had to do Ambuscade (nobody wanted you because you couldn't do the hard mode with that kind of gear, nor could you solo the easier modes very well because most Ambuscades had mobs that were VERY solo un-friendly with AoEs that the AI trusts could not handle whatsoever) or get Su3 gear.

To get Su3 gear, you had to do months and months and months of JP grinding on a specific job (it was not character wide, mind you) and then pay tens of millions of gil per piece, if any pieces were actually up on the market (family member took 3 weeks+ to finally get the set for her THF) and even then you're still out on jewelry. Have fun grinding old content to get starter gear before you can even THINK about starting new content, IF you could find a group of people who don't mind carrying a newbie to get caught up.

So they finally made combat OK, but only if you have top of the line gear which you're never going to get without years of grinding and preparing.

That's somehow better?

[Stanelis]

IF you can get that kind of ridiculous gear.

When I last played, like last year I think it was.... yeah last year... the gear that one could get solo did not let you "WS every few seconds" whatsoever. Basic entry-level 119 gear that took forever to get while solo and getting a group in modern days? lol. Yeah right.

They did add the "handout 119" stuff (or rather updated 117) right before I left, but even that gear was rather weak, barely 119 from what I read. Looked like it was a bit under-budgeted just to push your Trusts up to full power.

To get anything good, you had to do Ambuscade (nobody wanted you because you couldn't do the hard mode with that kind of gear, nor could you solo the easier modes very well because most Ambuscades had mobs that were VERY solo un-friendly with AoEs that the AI trusts could not handle whatsoever) or get Su3 gear.

To get Su3 gear, you had to do months and months and months of JP grinding on a specific job (it was not character wide, mind you) and then pay tens of millions of gil per piece, if any pieces were actually up on the market (family member took 3 weeks+ to finally get the set for her THF) and even then you're still out on jewelry. Have fun grinding old content to get starter gear before you can even THINK about starting new content, IF you could find a group of people who don't mind carrying a newbie to get caught up.

So they finally made combat OK, but only if you have top of the line gear which you're never going to get without years of grinding and preparing.

That's somehow better?

I m mostly talking about ambuscade gear and UNM weapons (montante +1) here, nothing extravagant. And you can definitely do the hard mode in low difficulty setting with lower end gear, they can be low maned (I know it, its what I did last summer during the login campaign, it doesn't take long to get and I was basically naked before I started).

Also, your statement wasn't even true in 2006, the game was slower paced but with the proper optimisation there were little to no downtime. Obviously if you were playing MNK or more generally a melee in a fail party without any support there was a lot of downtime, but that came from non ideal party setups. Avesta's solo video are still online on youtube, please watch them and tell me you can do that with 10 APM...