Can any WoW refugees explain the exodus to XIV to me?

[JackHatchet]

I play both MMOs fairly actively. People tend to burn out from either for various reasons. And if you haven't played one at all--the honeymoon phase of jumping into something fresh can be exciting.

But a good example from my experience. I hated FFXIV's Eureka, so I played WoW more often. And in Warcraft I might hate daily quests, so I'll craft in FFXIV. People who jump ship generally do so for a few reasons. Either they're bored of the game in general. They hate a new system/feature, or they're simply excited to try something new.

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Each game has their own pros and cons, and I actually hate the mentality of the MMO industry of it being 'us vs them.' I'm an MMO player, and I play MMOs as my genre of choice. I have things I love about all games, and things I hate from each one. And none of them is perfect.

For example,

Things I love in FFXIV
-All classes on one character
-Crafting
-trials (bosses without trash)
-maps
-character design
-glamour choices

things I hate about FFXIV
-Glamour wardrobe sucks compared to WoW's
-races are extremely limited, everything is either a human or human with funny ears
-combat tic timers
-server latency, because only NA server is on East Coast
-I can't message in a duty
-I can't have more than 4 chat windows
-I can't have more than 8 chat channels (linkpearls)
-I can't look directly up
-very limited or no voice acting in boss fights. No audio/vocal cues

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Things I like about Warcraft
-More raid bosses. More progression, more leveling curve
-almost all bosses have audio cues or talk (immersion)
-I love night elves
-more diversity in classes (nothing like a fury war, arcane mage, or druid in FFXIV
-Soloing old content feels nostalgic
-addon's and DPS meters are great tools

Things I hate about Warcraft
-crafting feels pointless
-I can't teleport instantly to any town. I'm a casual, and hate wasting time flying around
-Loot is too random, you get saved--even if you don't win something. In FFXIV you always get something, even if it's a book from savage
-WoW doesn't have /gpose, and screenshots are not as fancy

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Those are just 'some' of the everyday things I enjoy and hate from both games on a fairly regular basis. But there are certainly bigger things that push people over the edge like Eureka or Azerite power. And now both games are getting heavy into time-gating content. Both companies are guilty of that. The best advice I can say, is there is no 'greener grass' on the other side. But some games do some things better. And some do some things worse.

I enjoy FFXIV to craft, and to run maps with my wife. She plays FFXIV (she doesn't play WoW), and I enjoy bullshifting in Novice Network (WoW doesn't have a global chat channel). And then I enjoy raiding in Warcraft. Warcraft raiding (for me) is just miles ahead of FFXIV. I love the learning curve, and how you basically have normal -> Heroic -> mythic which is 24 bosses to work through as a pre-made group. Where as FFXIV just has savage to do as a premade, and that's only 4 bosses. And you still have to be pretty decent to actually clear all 4 savages. No getting drunk and spending 4 hours raiding with friends and feeling like you've accomplished something in FFXIV. Because you either clear the first 2 raid bosses in 30 min and waste 3 hours wiping, or you clear the first 2 fast and call it a night. Yeah, it can seem like some busy work to get through WoW's 8 normal, then 8 Heroic, and get stumped somewhere in Mythic. But that casual together time as a raid team 'IS' why I raid. I want to spend time with friends, and 4 bosses per 6 months is simply not enough content. And all that pugging crap in FFXIV doesn't give the same feeling.

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Note. I play FFXIV about 4-6 hours a week, and WoW about 6-8 (depending on if the raid goes into over time). I basically only play WoW to raid, and I play FFXIV to hang with the wife and the FC.

[Edax]

I play both MMOs fairly actively. People tend to burn out from either for various reasons. And if you haven't played one at all--the honeymoon phase of jumping into something fresh can be exciting.

Each game has their own pros and cons, and I actually hate the mentality of the MMO industry of it being 'us vs them.'

It's because most people don't have the personal time to invest themselves in two MMORPGS simultaneously.

[Keddera_StormMoon]

Eh, I left WoW shortly after they added the Blood Elves. It destroyed the feel of the Horde completely and I just couldn't stick with it anymore.

I wandered around several MMO's, but none really grabbed me until FFXIV

[Geigerette]

I posted about this in another thread, so I won't get all the way back into it, but I think a lot of it has to do with a couple of posts between Reddit and another post by Blizzard in their own forums asking for votes for the game as BEST MMORPG, and the resulting community comments strongly favouring FFXIV as the best. Mix that in with general MMO player unhappiness from these people who WANT TO PLAY AN MMORPG GAME FOR THE LOVE OF GAMING AGAIN, and then finding a new game that seems loved after years of going without, people were bound to leap into SE's arms.

[Lauront]

Eh, I left WoW shortly after they added the Blood Elves. It destroyed the feel of the Horde completely and I just couldn't stick with it anymore.

I wandered around several MMO's, but none really grabbed me until FFXIV

With me, it was the opposite. I loved blood elves but never liked the Horde, and felt they could've either done with a genuinely separate subfaction, or a separate faction entirely tailored to the Highborne-based races. I also wanted high elves added for Alliance so they could feel free to expand on fel corruption for the blood elves and not reserve them for people who wanted the high elf aesthetic; they ended up doing this in a much less clean way with void elves and DHs. I'm guessing we'd both have preferred them out of Horde.

At this point, though, I don't enjoy the game anymore. Yes, I liked the spec system and Blizzard's creativity in implementing new abilities, but that's really the only thing I still care for in it. I don't like how it looks compared to 14 and I've lost interest in its lore direction.

Whatever XIV's wrinkles, it is for me the better of the two.

[AxlStream]

things I hate about FFXIV
-server latency, because only NA server is on East Coast

The NA Datacenters are in Sacramento though... Which is on the WEST coast.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I left WoW because I was a Horde main, and they kept turning the Horde into the villains. I liked the gray-vs-gray morality they had early on, where neither side was always right or always wrong, but then came Garrosh Hellscream, who was (at best) inconsistent through Cataclysm before taking a running leap down the slippery slope in Mists of Pandaria. We finally give him the boot, put Vol'jin in charge....and he doesn't get to do much of anything throughout Warlords of Draenor and gets unceremoniously stabbed in the back to put Sylvanas in charge for Legion. She then proceeds to make Garrosh look like a reasonable fellow. Oi.

[KaivaC]

Thanks all. The responses have been very helpful in helping me with my question.

[ApolloGenX]

Terrible storylines, forced plot that makes no sense. The alliance continuing to be made fools while being told "this is your moment"... meanwhile the Horde is a bunch of genocidal lunatics. Oh and quests are boring and the necklace mechanic that replaced the evolving weapons is garbage. Essentially, terrible story, terrible quests, terrible systems.

[Derio]

Can someone explain WoW lootboxes that I see ppl complaining about?