FF14 devs just keep doing your thing because my god

[linayar]

I am by no means a Blizz fanboy, but this thread is pretty much borne of pure sentiment/resentment rather than any objective standards.

You say that, but you then apparently attempt to counter with subjective (aka non-objective) arguments for comparison:

Things that FFXIV has:
- Better Story
- Better Crafting/Job System
- Friendlier Community
- Better Player Housing (better than garrisons, so not a high bar)
- Better PVE content overall
- Better Graphics/Player models

Things that WoW has:
- Better Transmog System/Banking/Inventory System
- Better PVP
- Trade Chat
- Better Leveling
- Larger Community, albeit more toxic
- Larger Endgame Community
- In-Game Store that actually works and accepts your payments
- Better Add-ons
- Feels like an MMO

At the end of the day, they're both tab-target games designed for casual players, but one's a single-player oriented story game built in the Final Fantasy Universe and the other's an MMO. It's not a fair comparison.

I agree with some of those points and disagree with others, but all of them are subjective except for the points on WoW having a trade chat and perhaps larger endgame community, although apparently faction imbalance is an issue for some people in that endgame community.

On that note, if you're just saying that WoW has a trade chat, then that's an objective fact, but if you want to imply that WoW is better (or worse) because it has a trade chat, then that's subjective, especially when people are not just using trade chat to facilitate trade.

At any case, this this thread is not really about specific features, but the OP's subjective view on the respective dev's management and plan for each game.

[Shougun]

FFXIV has . . . class identity and feel.

Graphically I agree but I feel WoW has a lot of extra flair to their classes so I'd personally give class feel to WoW. Demon Hunters get wings, Death Knights can walk on water, Mages have portals, druids can transform into mount form mid air and in combat smoothly and can let others mount them, warlocks with their party teleport skill, etc, etc. There is something that constantly, usually, makes you feel special and reminds you of your class in WoW that honestly I don't feel consistently in FFXIV. Like being a red mage with dual cast and raise is a big highlight that makes you feel special, but that's not each job and some of their specials are not that emphasized. WoW sometimes messes this up really bad and produces some really bad balance for certain trees / classes.. (which is why I suggest FFXIV try to do this more on the role play / outdoorsy side) but I still think WoW, when it's not poorly balanced, has a stronger sense of class identity (gameplay 'vibe' wise, not visually).

I like the gameplay feeling of FFXIV over WoW, I've not played high end WoW in aaaaagggesss but I just remember my hunter's rotation being this mana hungry mess rather than the methodical fun dance in FFXIV. But I want to say I've not played in ages so, not sure how high end classes feel now.

I definfetly feel FFXIV could be inspired by some of WoW's desires to add identity to jobs. Like why does Dragoon take fall damage? Not that but perhaps he should be able to jump higher too. There are ways you can add flair without it messing things up, and far more carefully perhaps in actual combat too (although the combat differences are obviously the waaaaaaaay harder one to deal with, especially if you want to be concerned about end game content which is a good concern to have ).


Definitely agree to that last bit though that the end goal player is different in both games (well in general to all the other points as well, just not so much on the class identity- visually I'm reminded of my job, mechanically sometimes, but the feel and uses I get out of it even less so, I feel those feelings are flipped when I played WoW... looong ago lol. And some of those reasons are fair, balance in WoW, especially when I played way back when was like "what's balance? No seriously what is that? Can I eat it?". . It was reallllly bad for some jobs back then xD.).

[Rae88]

Graphically I agree but I feel WoW has a lot of extra flare to their classes so I'd personally give class feel to WoW. Demon Hunters get wings, Death Knights can walk on water, Mages have portals, druids can transform into mount form mid air and in combat smoothly and can let others mount them, warlocks with their party teleport skill, etc, etc. There is something that constantly, usually, makes you feel special and reminds you of your class in WoW that honestly I don't feel consistently in FFXIV. Like being a red mage with dual cast and raise is a big highlight that makes you feel special, but that's not each job and some of their specials are not that emphasized. WoW sometimes messes this up really bad and produces some really bad balance for certain trees / classes.. (which is why I suggest FFXIV try to do this more on the role play / outdoorsy side) but I still think WoW, when it's not poorly balanced, has a stronger sense of class identity (gameplay 'vibe' wise, not visually).

I like the gameplay feeling of FFXIV over WoW, I've not played high end WoW in aaaaagggesss but I just remember my hunter's rotation being this mana hungry mess rather than the methodical fun dance in FFXIV. But I want to say I've not played in ages so, not sure how high end classes feel now.

I definfetly feel FFXIV could be inspired by some of WoW's desires to add identity to jobs. Like why does Dragoon take fall damage? Not that but perhaps he should be able to jump higher too. There are ways you can add flare without it messing things up, and far more carefully perhaps in actual combat too (although the combat differences are obviously the waaaaaaaay harder one to deal with, especially if you want to be concerned about end game content which is a good concern to have ).


Definitely agree to that last bit though that the end goal player is different in both games (well in general to all the other points as well, just not so much on the class identity- visually I'm reminded of my job, mechanically sometimes, but the feel and uses I get out of it even less so, I feel those feelings are flipped when I played WoW... looong ago lol. And some of those reasons are fair, balance in WoW, especially when I played way back when was like "what's balance? No seriously what is that? Can I eat it?". . It was reallllly bad for some jobs back then xD.).

Wow has a different kinda problem with class feel. That is the community feels class identity in WoW has been lost in favour of spec identity, which has also helped in the button count pruning.

Like if you play as a Shadow Priest in WoW, it feels really hard to actually feel like a priest

[linayar]

There is something that constantly, usually, makes you feel special and reminds you of your class in WoW that honestly I don't feel consistently in FFXIV.

That's because WoW lacks something that is ingrained to FFXIV: the character of the WoL itself, which transcends any job. Mage portal, DH wing, DK walking on water would be things that the WoL can do (not exactly the same features, but the general idea) regardless of the job: teleporting/attuning with aetherytes/aethernets, flying and diving with any and all mounts, even switching jobs.

[Bright-Flower]

I hear people bring up spec identity vs class identity but it's not something that's ever really bothered me.

As far as FFXIV's formula goes, it doesn't really bother me as long as the content remains enjoyable. I know many people in WoW are also tired of 'borrowed power' like artifacts, heart of azeroth etc that go away at the end of each expansoin. WOW keeps throwing expansion specifics mechanics each time and they can be really hit or miss, or require some adjustments that feel good at the tail end of the expansion but then it's time for the new one so it's all gone now that they have it in a good spot finally.

[Shougun]

Wow has a different kinda problem with class feel. That is the community feels class identity in WoW has been lost in favour of spec identity, which has also helped in the button count pruning.

Like if you play as a Shadow Priest in WoW, it feels really hard to actually feel like a priest

Yeah, we don't want that system :P. I don't think jobs need 'specs'. I just think the jobs need more flair, when possible (not harming balance).

Merely talking about the extra effort they went into flare for jobs. That doesn't happen so much here, and while some of it is because of balance (fair concern) there are plenty of opportunities to do so that wont hurt balance.

That's because WoW lacks something that is ingrained to FFXIV: the character of the WoL itself, which transcends any job. Mage portal, DH wing, DK walking on water would be things that the WoL can do (not exactly the same features, but the general idea) regardless of the job: teleporting/attuning with aetherytes/aethernets, flying and diving with any and all mounts, even switching jobs.

Sort of. When you're a dragoon you don't tank. Even though you're WoL you don't transcend your job in combat.

Certain features make sense to transcend jobs sure, but even then there is clearly room they could do more. Like Ninja has on all fours passive as an example. Dragoon could be rocking reduced fall damage, which would go in line with their identity of the lords of jump.

Another example is playing music doesn't transcend jobs.

I understand what you're trying to get it, but it's only sort of true and I don't think it hurts anyone if a dragoon could jump higher or take less fall damage simply to better give that job identity. Nor is it out of place concept in the game, given ninja passive or bard music.

[Puremallace]

FFXIV has story, graphics, class identity and feel.

WoW has high end PvE content (Mythic+ and Raiding)

Till SE figures out how to not drop what they're doing and make raiding feel like raiding and something like Mythic+ that's relevant the entire expansion to the next one, neither will be superior over the other entirely. They both serve and miss marks entirely because two different type of players.

Go look at the recent Mythic + updates because they actually ruined it. Turns out it was competing too much with raid drops and well Blizzard cannot have that so they gutted the rewards in their latest expansion. Also you seem to be confusing the two developers.

Blizzard uses raids as a gear delivery system which is why everything else in the game is pretty garbage when it comes to gear acquisition. The raids are hit or miss with zerg bosses that barely anyone remembers from one patch cycle to the next and everyone having some strange nostalgia years later about how fun it actually was because the bar has been lowered so far.

This MMO is just not designed for high end pve raid content because the UI is trash and not allowing addons makes it harder to coordinate on raid leaders.

[Sparky_Mage]

There are only three things I miss from my years playing WoW.

The Transmog Collection, Mounts and achievements being account-wise, and the ability to use addons.


FFXIV has a more stable community and content schedule, and we have a dev-team and leadership here who not only actually PLAY their own game but also who treat us as actual people not just wallets with legs. They tell us if we wanna take a break, to just unsub for a while so we don't burn out. They care about their staff's health and safety and delayed/removed some events to ensure their staff could be given time to adjust to work-from-home to avoid getting sick. Meanwhile over in WoW, they have actually made it HARDER to unsync-run Legion raids than it was to do it last expansion and have told players 'It is working as intended', and have dangled the carrot of future character customization upgrades as being content for future expansions as a cynical ploy to drag back players as subs drop with the next big screw-up Blizzard will do. FFXIV and it's team arent perfect, they make mistakes. But at least they are human, which is more than I can say about Ion and his team.

[Penthea]

- Better Add-ons

Honestly I'm so glad I don't have to deal with add-ons anymore. Blizzard are VERY lazy when it comes to updating their ui because they can rely on third party developers to do it for free with add-ons. This isn't good because third party software isn't QA tested by Blizzard which means they are prone to being buggy, and no keeping your add-ons up to date isn't enough to escape problems.

I can't even begin to count the amount of times I have experienced issues while doing content because someone's add-on stopped working correctly. 10 minute raid boss pulls reduced to nothing because someone's add-on bugged out which lead to a wipe. Delays on pulls because someone's add-on stopped working correctly. Someone uninstalling add-ons mid raid because they saw that a particular fight is far more demanding on their pc than usual so they need to purge some add-ons to get some fps back. This didn't happen every time I raided but it was rare that we went a full lockout without some manner of add-on delay happening at least once.

Never mind how having add-ons made me dread patch day. Instead of logging in being excited about new content I would log in thinking "oh god what's broken this time". Sometimes add-ons would break so badly that they made other add-ons also malfunction, and then I'd have to remove each one by one to find which one was causing that domino effect. And if that was an add-on I absolutely needed for raiding then I would have to hunt for a replacement if I had a raid that day and hope it would suffice.

Sure a person could say "if you hate them so much why did you use them?" and the answer is: I had no choice.

Not only was I doing content in which having specific add-ons was mandatory and it was like this almost across every raid team, the base ui is so crap that I had to get other add-ons just to be able to play my class effectively.

WoW has been around for 16 years and you still can't move your action bars with its base ui. You still can't move most individual elements. You still can't resize most individual elements. So many of the options we take for granted in other mmorpgs, including this one, are completely absent from WoW's base ui. Blizzard's sheer laziness with keeping their ui up to date forces so many players into using add-ons, particularly raiders.

So yea everyone is entitled to their opinion but personally I'd rather deal with no add-ons and play a game that gets regular ui updates that I know won't randomly bug out, than play another game that rarely gets ui updates so you then have to rely on third party software to bring the game up to date and then deal with the issues that come from a lack of QA. Sure you get more options with add-ons, but that can also mean more problems. I don't miss dealing with that at all.

[linayar]

Sort of. When you're a dragoon you don't tank. Even though you're WoL you don't transcend your job in combat.

Certain features make sense to transcend jobs sure, but even then there is clearly room they could do more. Like Ninja has on all fours passive as an example. Dragoon could be rocking reduced fall damage, which would go in line with their identity of the lords of jump.

Another example is playing music doesn't transcend jobs.

I understand what you're trying to get it, but it's only sort of true and I don't think it hurts anyone if a dragoon could jump higher or take less fall damage simply to better give that job identity. Nor is it out of place concept in the game, given ninja passive or bard music.

The easy explanation for playing music is that it's tied to your arms. That's how abilities are limited to certain jobs and is the one defining identity of a job or class in FFXIV.

And yes, there are other certain abilities that don't transcend jobs, like a dragoon cannot tank and a dragoon cannot cook either. But that's why the WoL isn't simply the WoL. It's not one or the other, but both. It's the WoL + whatever current job/class that is being used.