How does FFXIV fare against other modern MMORPGs?

[Kasmiya]

Currently I bounce between WoW and FFXIV. I love both for various reasons. If I had to choose one I'd definitely choose FFXIV over WoW though. In the long run I've always stuck with it longer and I never really got bored as quickly as I do with content in WoW. Which I know everyone in the XIV community tends to complain about lack of content lol. But then again I don't clear everything the day it's released.

I used to really enjoy BDO but not so much anymore. The combat is probably the best in any MMO I've played though. I couldn't get into ESO at all. I like GW2 but the lack of any real gear progression feels odd to me. Once you have the best gear you're pretty much set so to me their raids seem pointless and I'm not a huge fan of PvP or WvW.

Anything else I can't really compare because they're smaller F2P mmos that I feel are just money grabs or P2W lol.

[Berethos]

if SE would actually have cared

It's a mistake to think the only way a company can show they "care" is to try and frequently change things up. It may not set them up to be market leaders, or the best MMO, but the idea that they don't care because they don't change things as often as other developers do (which often necessitates long wait times between patches or overhauls that disrupt the game, and that's assuming they get the change right...or don't keep changing and end up messing the game up because they thought they had to keep changing *cough Blizzard*) is a tad on the silly side.

[MomomiMomi]

Interestingly enough, I did the ESO beta too and hated it; never even bothered to get the actual game. My husband recently picked it up however and ever since then has been hounding me to join him. I finally caved tonight when he told me Steam had it, both expansions, and 4 major DLCs all bundled together for 50% off. Since it was a good deal and there's no sub for it I figured I could give it a try again. We'll see if it sticks this time.

Hope you enjoy it. The game has changed a lot since back then. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think it's a pretty good game.

Oh, and make sure you grab your free mansion. All you have to do is log in before October 7th, and own Summerset (which it seems you do). Here are the full details of the event:

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/summerfall

And if you're like me and don't like cash shops, they fully allow buying "gifts" with gold from other players. There is a discord that helps make this easier and safer. And GMs will even reimburse you if you have proof that someone cheated you in such a deal (and probably ban the person scamming you).

And if you're fine with the cash shop, they offer sales, sometimes up to 75% off on some stuff. On top of that, they also seem to offer Crowns for 50% off in December. At least, they did the past two years, I think.

[Shurrikhan]

Here's an example:

Just the other day, family member went to Stormwind City to do the daily Fishing/Cooking quests.

Some guy was /yelling Anti-Semitic remarks over and over and over again.

Or how about all the /spit emotes from opposite-faction players back in the day when accidental flagging was a thing, they would run around us while flagged and we'd go find a safe area to wait for the pest to go away, and they'd start spamming /spit on us because we wouldn't fight them (because yanno we're on a PvE server for a reason).

How about the plethora of times that I've seen wipes happen in LFR ToT and SoO back in MoP when I did those, there'd be a wipe and people would finger-point and argue with each other about who was to blame and then people'd start spamming DPS parses in the chat until people started leaving the raid.

yadda yadda.

EDIT: on the wiping subject.... I've seen lots and lots of wipes in XIV in 8 player content too..... rarely does anybody point fingers. Heck a lot of times nobody says anything, and sometimes people will even politely give pointers... "nobody should stand underneath meteors except for tank... lb3 the tear" etc etc. The only times I've seen toxicity is after 3 wipes then people start sounding a little annoyed.

But in WoW.... back in MoP when I used to LFR back when the rewards were worth doing LFR for, the toxicity in LFR was ridiculous. One Wipe was all it took to get people to lose their crap.

Have you met XIV /shout chat?

As for PvP gank-hards, for every couple of them, there's also a guy who will use their Death Grip to pull you out of certain death, and then tank the rare for you... Likewise, I've placed my Mammoth mount over LoSed corners (as tab targeting will require line of sight) so they couldn't be clicked on, if even seen, and given how many new the strat in order to get away from corpse-campers long enough to heal and remount, I'm sure I wasn't the only guy on my side who didn't care for the few ****s among us. Not to say I didn't enjoy World PvP when its purpose was fully just that. Heck, there are few things that draw more nostalgia, especially back in Vanilla / Burning Crusade times.

Back in BC, I hadn't realized I was on a 90% Horde server til I already had a couple 60s. I just assumed the population was lower than it was. So when I went into Hellfire Penninsula, there were very few Alliance to do the group quests with. Yet there were plenty of Horde who'd duo them with me, alternating who gets the first tag. (This was a PvP server, mind you, which I joined because a friend had randomed onto it.) While I was relieved that PvP/PvE servers became an in-game choice with War Mode, despite that overwhelming Horde population I still was rarely attacked even as the naive little Alliance guy questing in the middle of 5+ Horde, so it was rarely any real problem.

[Kasmiya]

It's a mistake to think the only way a company can show they "care" is to try and frequently change things up. It may not set them up to be market leaders, or the best MMO, but the idea that they don't care because they don't change things as often as other developers do (which often necessitates long wait times between patches or overhauls that disrupt the game, and that's assuming they get the change right...or don't keep changing and end up messing the game up because they thought they had to keep changing *cough Blizzard*) is a tad on the silly side.

10000% this lol. Not only that you can go into the WoW community and see just how much they think blizzard actually cares about them even with all the new systems (that are broken or just not fun btw) that have been added. I play a shadow priest in WoW and it's a dumpster fire of a spec yet blizzard still has yet to say a single word on the spec since like early beta regardless of all the community feedback. And that's just one spec.

To say SE doesn't care is laughable. If we're saying that then no game developer cares about their playerbase just because a handful of people didn't get what they wanted or some crazy new system isn't added every new patch.

ETA: Most of this was in response to the "if SE actually cared" comment btw.

[Maero]

Eso has a few things going on for it better then FFXIV (housing is lightyears better) but i too could not get into it that much.
Tera i feel has better combat and far better rewards, but it is not overly optimized on PS4, FFXIV is.

For me it is the people that keep me playing FFXIV, have made friends over the years. Other MMo's i have felt it was harder to interact and make friends.

[Maeka]

Have you met XIV /shout chat?

Maybe it's just Lamia, but people rarely shout.

I think I've seen toxicity, maybe once in a /say conversation in Limsa, once. But I wasn't sure if it was actually toxicity or just a couple friends jokingly talking smack.

As for PvP gank-hards, for every couple of them, there's also a guy who will use their Death Grip to pull you out of certain death, and then tank the rare for you... Likewise, I've placed my Mammoth mount over LoSed corners (as tab targeting will require line of sight) so they couldn't be clicked on, if even seen, and given how many new the strat in order to get away from corpse-campers long enough to heal and remount, I'm sure I wasn't the only guy on my side who didn't care for the few ****s among us. Not to say I didn't enjoy World PvP when its purpose was fully just that. Heck, there are few things that draw more nostalgia, especially back in Vanilla / Burning Crusade times.

I think that's kind of an exaggeration... I've not seen anywhere near that amount of friendliness compared to how many toxic players there are. I just haven't.

Back in BC, I hadn't realized I was on a 90% Horde server til I already had a couple 60s. I just assumed the population was lower than it was. So when I went into Hellfire Penninsula, there were very few Alliance to do the group quests with. Yet there were plenty of Horde who'd duo them with me, alternating who gets the first tag. (This was a PvP server, mind you, which I joined because a friend had randomed onto it.) While I was relieved that PvP/PvE servers became an in-game choice with War Mode, despite that overwhelming Horde population I still was rarely attacked even as the naive little Alliance guy questing in the middle of 5+ Horde, so it was rarely any real problem.

It does seem like the community has gotten more toxic over time? I don't recall the BC days that well. Well, yeah you know what I recall?

Before the days of Dungeon Finder.... we had to use the LFG chat channel. I recall terrible game design and me arriving at Lv70 when Black Temple was current content and being brick-walled in progression because I needed Normal Dungeons and nobody would do Normal Dungeons because everybody was on Heroics. I couldn't do Heroics.

So I was dead in the water until Wrath.

But I won't hold that against Blizz; they fixed that crap since. But yeah. I don't remember the community that far back to be honest. I do remember some toxicity starting in Wrath, but it really got worse in Cataclysm as a lot of people hated that expansion. Then as Pandaria was rather popular (despite the people whining about it) moreso than Cataclysm, in-game population shot up and more toxicity spread.... then WoD came out, I took a couple year hiatus, came back in Mid-Legion and... yuck.

General Discussion over there is just a cesspool of incessant whining, just like it is today.

People think XIV General Discussion is bad? Hooo boy. They've never seen WoW o-boards.

10000% this lol. Not only that you can go into the WoW community and see just how much they think blizzard actually cares about them even with all the new systems (that are broken or just not fun btw) that have been added. I play a shadow priest in WoW and it's a dumpster fire of a spec yet blizzard still has yet to say a single word on the spec since like early beta regardless of all the community feedback. And that's just one spec.

To say SE doesn't care is laughable. If we're saying that then no game developer cares about their playerbase just because a handful of people didn't get what they wanted or some crazy new system isn't added every new patch.

ETA: Most of this was in response to the "if SE actually cared" comment btw.

YES! I freaking HATE that.

Why oh why do they have to reinvent the wheel every stupid expansion? Arms Warrior. MoP Arms was great. WoD entirely destroyed it making it nigh unplayable. Legion was "so-so" and now BfA decided to slow it down (like they slowed everybody down).

Or, say, Ret Paladin. They can't make their mind up! We had Selfless Healer way back I think it was Cataclysm. They got rid of that and gave us Word of Glory in MoP and kept it for WoD. Then in Legion, they nerfed it heavily by giving it 2 charges and a massive cooldown, but gave us Justicar's Vengeance for our main heal.

Then BfA they go "Let's nerf JV... and hey you remember that talent you once used way back in Cataclysm? Here you go, you can use that again."

.......sigh. I got used to NOT having to stand and cast to heal and having to wait for HoPo spending before I could heal and now I gotta do that all over again for the first time in 6 years because they just can't make their minds up on what they wanna do.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Here's an example:

Just the other day, family member went to Stormwind City to do the daily Fishing/Cooking quests.

Some guy was /yelling Anti-Semitic remarks over and over and over again.

Or how about all the /spit emotes from opposite-faction players back in the day when accidental flagging was a thing, they would run around us while flagged and we'd go find a safe area to wait for the pest to go away, and they'd start spamming /spit on us because we wouldn't fight them (because yanno we're on a PvE server for a reason).

How about the plethora of times that I've seen wipes happen in LFR ToT and SoO back in MoP when I did those, there'd be a wipe and people would finger-point and argue with each other about who was to blame and then people'd start spamming DPS parses in the chat until people started leaving the raid.

Oh - I was hoping you had real examples. LFR doesn't count. I already conceded that point. LFR is just what happens when you put a bunch of terrible players with elitist attitudes (not actual elitists, just misguided attitudes) in a room together.

The reason I never see toxicity in WoW is because I've done LFR once in my entire life. I also don't consider trivial stuff toxic either, like someone saying something stupid in trade chat, something FF14 has PLENTY of by itself.

Calling people talking in public chat toxic is a new low. It's not toxic, ESPECIALLY if it's not directed at you personally.

/Spit on enemy factions for not being pvp toggled is also not toxic.

If you find stuff like that toxic, how do you survive real life? I ask that not only as a curious person, but I'm minorly concerned for your well being.

ESO is a beautifully crafted world with decent voice acting, so you might enjoy it. The thing that I disliked the most about it is how you had to "animation cancel" to be effective in combat (the way I understand it, it's basically spam-clicking to attack while weaving skills in between them), so for me it got pretty senseless very fast. If that's not a problem for you, though, I hope you enjoy it!

I have no experience playing ESO, but that sounds identical to weaving oGCDs. is it just more frequent in ESO?

[Maeka]

Pretty sure if people were spitting on me in real life, there would be problems. Just saying.

That kind of behavior is just not acceptable, whether it is in-game or in real life. Just because "it's the internet" and "everybody is anonymous" doesn't suddenly make it something we should accept and just brush off, because that just enables more of the same. It isn't about thin skin or anything like that, it's about refusing to just hand-wave that kind of jerkish behavior.

That, and it's ludicrous to go "oh, that's just trade chat" (it wasn't trade chat, it was /yell) is also stupid. So it's okay to break one of the most basic rules in society (racism) just because it's in a game, in a public chat channel?

Wut?

When did Racism ever become OK?

You trying to say that someone standing in a public place yelling the N-word IRL is OK because he's not offending you directly if you happen to not be black?

[Rymm]

Oh - I was hoping you had real examples.

I wasn't going to jump into this conversation, but I can't help but feel that you have a very narrow definition of "toxicity" in games. That's all based on opinion though and just because you don't feel it something is a "real example" of toxic behavior, doesn't mean that everyone agrees with you.

For examples of toxicity in WoW that fits your criteria... Early Legion when the chests you got in M+ dungeons were based on how quickly you completed them, I used to run into a lot of people who would drop group the second it became apparent that we weren't going to 3-chest the run, thus screwing 4 other people out of at least getting 1-2 chests and ruining the key for whoever's dungeon it was. Five-man content was pretty awful in general; it's where I tended to see the most toxicity outside of LFR which you seem to think "doesn't count." But that is because most people only PuG LFR or 5mans. In that case, of course you aren't going to see toxicity in actual raid tiers- who is going stay with a guild or run with a raid group on a regular basis if they are toxic?

Battlegrounds were another hotspot for toxicity. The first thing that went wrong in the BG and the real fighting would start- between the players on the same team. Arguing, finger pointing, name calling, swearing, refusing to help or even move...

Ugh, thanks for reminding me why I quit.