So I was one of the folks who didn't really give a shit about WoW and would constantly tell everyone I know that FFXIV is the best MMO in the market ever since I started back in 4.2.

Recently, I got burned out from 14 and decided to give WoW a try, to know what's on the other side of the fence. What I concluded is that both games can actually learn a lot from each other. I can go on and on about what WoW can improve on, but since I like FFXIV a lot more, I'll just go onto what I think FFXIV can improve a lot on.

Simply put, WoW's environments, dungeons, raids and open world are a lot more immersive, and it does feel like it's an MMO, rather than a linear RPG with lobbies.

WoW's classes have a lot more class identity than FFXIV's jobs

In WoW, there's a lot more job fluff that sells the class fantasy a lot more, despite it not necessarily contributing combat wise. A few examples would be that a Mage can conjure food and water, Death Knights can walk on water and Beastmaster hunters are the only spec/jobs in the game to tame exotic beasts (yes, they can even tame raid bosses). There's even dialogue amongst the NPCs when you're a specific class, like the guards in Stormwind will act hostile if you are a DeathKnight.

In FFXIV, there's really only three I can think of off the top of my head. The most significant one is pretty much BRD Performance, Ninja Movement Speed and Ninja All Fours. I would want FFXIV to sell the job fantasy a lot more, having Astro fortune tell, having Dragoons jump twice as high normally, and maybe even Scholars just interacting with Lily a lot more akin to how MHW hunters interact with their Palicos.

I think this would go a long way to improving the job fantasy of the jobs, even if it doesn't necessarily improve combat. (Though combat does need some improvements imo, but that's another topic).


WoW's monsters/enemies interact with one another, and the environment

WoW's monsters/enemies have unique interactions with one another and the environment. If you fly throughout its world, you might see two massive Goliaths just battling it out with each other at the center of the map. If an Ogre hits another Ogre while fighting you, they might just fight each other instead while talking smack to each other, until one of them dies, and then they come back straight to you. This genuinely makes the world seem alive, and that the mobs are actually organic and not just trash to kill (even if they are trash to just kill).

In FFXIV, the only times where I saw interactions between enemies and the environment are only in FATEs, in the ARR areas (guards vs enemies), and the Tempest where if a specific monster eats another small monster, it gets a damage buff. I would honestly like a lot more interactions like these in the future. Again, not really gamebreaking gameplay wise, but it makes the world seem organic and and alive.

WoW seamlessly loads one zone into the next with no loading screens

I honestly don't really know if this one is limited by consoles, but being able to fly with no loading screens across zones really helps with immersion. It just feels like you're traveling the world rather than traveling lobby to lobby. This might be the most minor thing in the list, but if it is possible, I'd like to see this happen.


There's a lot more I can talk about, like WoW dungeon design vs FFXIV dungeon design, WoW(and honestly, Destiny) raids feeling a lot more like raids than FFXIV 8 man Savage raids, WoW race fluff, and a few more, but I think the improvements on immersion are a lot easier to implement rather than things like changing the standard dungeon formula.

These are really my opinions after spending a bit of time in WoW, and while I do agree that FFXIV does things a lot better than WoW, there's a lot more things that FFXIV can learn from WoW.