How does FFXIV fare against other modern MMORPGs?

[MomomiMomi]

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

It's basicaly FF14 auto-attacks that hit between your abilities, except instead of auto-attacks, you have to actually hit the attack button, then immediately hit an ability to cancel your attack's animation. In a way, it's similar to oGCDs. You do it for every ability. It's something like a 30% dps loss if you don't.

[Dreamsoap]

FFXIV genuinely has a ton of content to it. It's the only MMO I've been able to stick to. I played GW2 off and on for a while but it honestly lacked a good sense of aesthetics for outfit/ armour designs, and I got really sick of people pumping up the whole "dynamic event" thing as if it's a total game changer. At least FFXIV doesn't try to make FATEs out to be something they're not. I have never really liked MMO stories either, but FFXIv's I found to be at least fairly more interesting. For one thing characters actually have personalities. Otherwise I just play F2P MMOs but that market is incredibly stale right now. Join in beta > play for a year >game goes P2W by this time > quit. Though combat wise I preferred games like Tera, and character creation like Revelation Online. FFXIV has the most "meat" to it though, so it's where I stay. I think my absolute favourite aspect is just being able to multi class on one toon.

[Melichoir]

WoW's artwork is pretty good, but maybe thats personal preference. Well atleast hte promotional artwork. Ingame assets are aiite, but it is an older game.

As for WoW from a gameplay standpoint, yeah, I liked it alot in its early years. TBC was my favorite. But overtime, the game became more generic and repetative. Not that FFXIV doesnt have that, but I think WoW epitomizes the end of a MMOs life span (if it gets there through old age). Newer MMOs tend to have newer and fancier things, so it staves off the monotony for a while. For now, FFXIV is probably my favorite of all that I played. Its not perfect, but its entertaining.

[Maeka]

WoW's artwork is pretty good, but maybe thats personal preference. Well atleast hte promotional artwork. Ingame assets are aiite, but it is an older game.

As for WoW from a gameplay standpoint, yeah, I liked it alot in its early years. TBC was my favorite. But overtime, the game became more generic and repetative. Not that FFXIV doesnt have that, but I think WoW epitomizes the end of a MMOs life span (if it gets there through old age). Newer MMOs tend to have newer and fancier things, so it staves off the monotony for a while. For now, FFXIV is probably my favorite of all that I played. Its not perfect, but its entertaining.

Eh, I'm kinda on the fence about that.

FFXIV beats WoW in graphics hands-down, though WoW has gotten better the latest two expansions with graphics. It isn't quite as bad as it was way back when.

As for gameplay... the height of awesomeness in WoW was Mists of Pandaria. Back then, most classes had a very fast and frenetic playstyle, especially WW Monk. WW Monk was the epitome of fun, just button mashing goodness. It felt awesome. Several other classes, like Blood DK were far more awesome in MoP too. Also, in MoP, there was plenty of light-hearted quests, characters, there was a ton of mood and atmosphere in the areas, I loved the pandaren NPCs, the music, Jade Forest was a beautiful zone, as was the Valley, I remember the first time I rappelled down the wall and into Dread Wastes, feeling like I was going into no-man's land, it was just a great feeling.

I haven't had that kind of feeling yet from WoD, Legion, or even BfA. Not to say those areas are bad, they just can't measure up to what Pandaria was.

Then WoD came out and they gutted many specs, especially Rogue and Monk because they felt that you should be Out of Energy every other move. *sigh* If I wanted low level rogue, I'd just play low level rogue, thanks.

Nowadays some of the specs are still fun, though not quite as much. The fact they felt they had to strip haste off of most gear, and drop you waaay down to sub-8% when you first get to 120 and have a bunch of empty GCDs everywhere with no oGCD abilities to fill the gaps, well... it just doesn't feel as fun.

Pretty sad when FFXIV has more action with a longer GCD, lol.

[Claviusnex]

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.

Another thing is you can subscribe to get access to the unlimited crafting inventory. If you drop your sub you can no longer add to the crafting inventory but you still have access to everything you put in it until it is empty. It also works when they have their free ESO Plus weeks. It is a good way to fill up the bags for free and/or reduce your monthly sub costs. The monthly sub also pays out Crowns at the same rate you would by them from the cash shop.

[Maeka]

It's basicaly FF14 auto-attacks that hit between your abilities, except instead of auto-attacks, you have to actually hit the attack button, then immediately hit an ability to cancel your attack's animation. In a way, it's similar to oGCDs. You do it for every ability. It's something like a 30% dps loss if you don't.

That sounds like the dumbest thing I've ever heard of to have in a game.

You have attacks... and you can use them, but you have to try to use another ability to cancel out of the animation just so you can squeeze more attacks in... *sigh* Really, now. Glad I don't play that game, that would drive me crazy just by how fundamentally stupid it is. Do they actually support that, I mean, is that SUPPOSED to be a feature? Or is it just simply gaming the system and dodging limitations?

Really wish video game makers would actually realize that the animation is supposed to actually mean something, that the animation is your character actually performing the attack and cancelling out of it should also mean cancelling your attack too because you know if you go to swing a sword at someone and you stop in mid-swing, that you're going to do jack all other than maybe a feint (and that's only if you're actually trying to do a feint).

I know a lot of 2D action games love that crap too, but at least in those games, if you use an attack cancel, it's to stop your attack and dodge getting hit and you do actually forfeit the attack in so doing, or at least part of it.

EDIT: IN FACT, Animations are partly WHY a Global Cooldown exists in the first place, lol. It's one of the reasons why WoW took a lot of buff abilities off of oGCD and put them on GCD because they said that they were tired of making these animations that nobody saw because people would use 2-3 abilities in one second which did not allow the game to actually display said animations.

[MomomiMomi]

Do they actually support that, I mean, is that SUPPOSED to be a feature? Or is it just simply gaming the system and dodging limitations?

It was unintentional design, but they've adopted it as is.

[Maeka]

It was unintentional design, but they've adopted it as is.

I might be wrong on this, but it sounds like they realize at that point it was too far gone and broken and said "screw it we'll just leave it like that because it'd be too difficult to redesign the game to fix it at this point" .... or something along those lines.

[AxlStream]

In my opinion and limited knowledge of MMORPGs (WoW, GW2 and FFXIV) to me FFXIV is a middle of the pack thing. The thing it does well, it does really, really well. While the things that are weaker are really, really weak.

My personal favorite is GW2 and I'm going to try to make sense of why. The game feels like an adventure at all times. The 9 professions all have different viable specs for every activity of the game no matter what expansion you are on. It rewards exploration with collectibles, jump puzzles, lore, achievements all over the maps. The dynamic events make the world feel alive although they have been weaker in impact both for HoT and PoF expansion. But I liked the idea of enemies taking out a bridge in Kessex Hills if the event to defend/rebuild it failed, settlements being taken over etc. The open world feels dangerous. Although that point feels less relevant since the addition of mounts, getting from point A to point B can be perilous depending on which path you take. The abandonment of the holy trinity of MMOs is refreshing and feels new (to me atleast). The WvW feature is a nice introduction to low level PvP while being a sort of PvEvP thing. The mastery system is a great addition to expand upon existing systems such as crafting legendaries, making traversal easier, upgrading mounts. Dungeons, Fractals and Raids I haven't done much, but what I did do gave me a grand old time and since Fractals go all the way up to level 100, I'll be working on those a while.

The negative on GW2 though, is that it's not a game for everyone. I feel like it breaks the classic MMORPG formula and that may turn down some players. Also the game is tedious before the introduction of mounts. It's very actionny and the screen clutter is everywhere during large scale boss fights. But if you invest some time and try to find a place for you in their community, I'm thinking anyone can find something to enjoy in it.

[Kuzulo]

I still play Wow. I took about a week plus off from it to play FFXIV, starting with free, then I bought the complete; I could see how good FFXIV was.

Wow is more polished in some ways, though the look/music and atmosphere are far better in FFXIV. While playing FFXIV, I often find myself looking at the environments and just saying, "Whoah..."
Default interface use, such as just using your bags and such, seems way easier in Wow.

Wow has transmog, which is much better than what FFXIV has. However, I've not done much with FFXIV's, perhaps it is not as strict as Wow's? In Wow I can't mog a caster robe, as a death knight (plate armor class.) They've made it pretty simple in Wow, though; You get a lot and it is simply in your transmog system, you can sell it/whatever and it is still in there. You don't have to do something for it to be in there. Then you can simply save transmog sets.

You level, from nothing, just WAY easier in FFXIV (while having more fun along the way.) As I said, starting with the free time I got hooked on FFXIV. Now I'm a 48 lancer/44 fisher(or around that.) This is in a bit over a week, or something. Meanwhile, a main complaint (in Wow) is trying to level up a new character; This is brought more to the forefront because of "heritage armor", where you have this neat "mog" of "race armor" if you level the character up from 1.

FFXIV has "jobs", making me feel like I don't need "alts." This is one of the things I really like about FFXIV. It also took me some time to note that I can just switch to them whenever, like my lancer could be out fighting stuff and think "I'd like to fish here..." then just switch to the fisher by going to "character" then saved outfit for fisher.

Wow makes gathering easier, though. I can be out on my Death Knight, doing stuff, while passing all the herb/mine and fishing nodes on the way, which I can gather AS my Death Knight. This was my main way for making lots of gold, in both the Legion expansion and now Battle for Azeroth.

FFXIV seems more complex to me, while also not having something like "Wowhead" (as near as I can tell.) I might have a question in FFXIV, about a quest or some treasure bottle or something. I then may just eventually give up, when the treasure bottle map has an X on a spot I can't find, while searching on the web only yields other posts/information about the treasure bottle map that I DON'T have. So I just eventually give up. Meanwhile, Wow has Wowhead. You have a problem in Wow and you can find the quest/item on Wowhead with lots of good posts explaining what you do.

Right now, I'm subscribed to both. Wow has taught me a good MMORPG Lesson:

Don't put all your MMORPG eggs in one basket.

Both may frustrate me at different times, or have downtime on different days.