How does FF14 compare to WoW? (And other MMOs)

[Payotz]

I am genuinely confused about this statement. Mmos by design heavily rely on content being repeatable. For example you have to keep doing the same content over and over again to get gear whether that's through currency or loot drops.

I meant that most content in FFXIV is a one and done thing. MSQ cutscenes are great, the solo instances are great, the writing is amazing.
The only main problem is that well, you run through it once and then you're done.

The only content that's repeatable in the game is pretty much:
- 450 tome grind once per week
- Roulettes
- Savage Raids once a week (with the addition of parse running that's not supported by the game)
- EX fights
- Bozja
- BLU

That's pretty much it. There's content in there that's replayable, but it's very few in between that people literally rely on RP and player made events to not afk in Limsa.
I'm not saying that they don't have any content that's replayable. In fact, BLU and Bozja is a really good step forward in that direction, they just need more of it.

[ItMe]

I honestly don't consider content with AI allies as raiding. I see them more as single player content due to the fact that you're playing with bots, not other people. I also apply the same logic with PvP, "PvP" with bots isn't really PvP, it needs players, like how Raiding needs players. Unless the AI starts speaking in voice chat and becoming sentient, then I'll keep holding that view.

I think Mavrias summed it up best when they said:

I think there's just a fundamental difference between our definitions of raiding as it pertains to single player games, which is fine.

Why not both? It's fun and it's fun to do it with people. That's like implying that playing Team sports isn't fun. Team sports are fun because the game is fun and playing with other people are fun.

You absolutely can have both.
Like team sports, there absolutely are things that are both.
I'm questioning wether raiding is both.

And it's not like raiders don't socialize either, we do. There's multiple discord servers related to raiding, people arguing about rotations, theorycrafting about melds, sharing fight-specific strats and tips. Like even just doing content is socializing, especially with a group of friends. People make fun of each other for getting damage down, Healers call out what they heal or who they will rez. People call out who's north blue or south blue, and people talk shit between pulls, and meme between pulls.

Hell, I've made a lot of my good friends from raiding in this game. We're not all robots that only cares about the order of how we press our buttons. There's a reason that it's called a raiding community.

I dont understand what this is in response to.
I never suggested raiders dont socialize. I feel like I actually learned into that being one of the core draws to raiding.

I think what you meant here is the side fluff that happens in the game. I do agree that FFXIV can't survive right now if it gets rid of the fluff, because there's very few content in the game itself that's actually repeatable. The game relies on players actually making content for themselves, so of course it's not gonna stand without the fluff.

What it definitely needs is repeatable raids and content that's outside of the 8-Man Savages and Ultimate. And frankly, it can benefit from that focus a whole lot. Maybe Savage dungeons? Maybe Savage raid mutations? I don't know, but it needs something.

Yeah yeah YEAH!
(I agree with you a lot here)
Side fluff can be super important.
Having players engage consistently with one element/activity is fine. The more that one thing dominates the games design... well that can lead to problems.

Some games are 80% one activity with some peripheral things for the player to do (like many racing games).
And that's not inherently bad.

Some games are 100% their core activity... like Tetris.
And Tetris rocks!

But raiding? Is that a strong enough core to build a large percentage of your game around?
As fun as it is, I personally don't think so.

[Penthea]

I meant that most content in FFXIV is a one and done thing. MSQ cutscenes are great, the solo instances are great, the writing is amazing.
The only main problem is that well, you run through it once and then you're done.

The only content that's repeatable in the game is pretty much:
- 450 tome grind once per week
- Roulettes
- Savage Raids once a week (with the addition of parse running that's not supported by the game)
- EX fights
- Bozja
- BLU

That's pretty much it. There's content in there that's replayable, but it's very few in between that people literally rely on RP and player made events to not afk in Limsa.
I'm not saying that they don't have any content that's replayable. In fact, BLU and Bozja is a really good step forward in that direction, they just need more of it.

You forgot a few:

• The msq now is repeatable with New Game+ although as far as I'm aware the entire msq isn't there but the point still stands
• Players often repeat msq content to lvl up new classes
• It seems you forgot deep dungeons exist, which are hugely popular for lvling
• Crafting and gathering requires a tremendous amount of repetition
• Pvp
• Hunt marks
• Fates, while not very interesting they are repeatable

but it's very few in between that people literally rely on RP and player made events to not afk in Limsa.

Hrmm...not all players rp though. Many are happy to continue repeating the in-game content SE provides. As for idling, well everyone does that. People take breaks to eat, walk the dog, etc. How common it may look is hugely due to how the game doesn't log you out after a certain period of inactivity. I am certainly guilty of leaving myself logged in when I go to play console games.

[van_arn]

The single player equivalent of raiding in a single-player game would be superbosses.

Stuff like the dark eidolons from ffx or the weapons in ff7.

You need a party of exceptionally equipped players, some good strategy, and a lot of time to get to the point where you can consider taking them on.

Perhaps some exceptionally gifted players can take on these bosses with less gear and more skill, but if defeated these bosses will often drop items that only they can provide.

[Payotz]

I think Mavrias summed it up best when they said:

That's fair then. I'll go forward with my definition.

You absolutely can have both.
Like team sports, there absolutely are things that are both.
I'm questioning wether raiding is both.

Yes it is. It's both fun and socialization.
We enjoy the combat, we just need it to be more repeatable.
We play this game for fun, and we tackle this type of content for fun.
The feeling of actually completing a fight is amazing, and the adrenaline is something no other content that's currently in the game can replicate.

I dont understand what this is in response to.
I never suggested raiders dont socialize. I feel like I actually learned into that being one of the core draws to raiding.

Then apologies for that. I assumed you implied that we didn't socialize due to your question.

Yeah yeah YEAH!
(I agree with you a lot here)
Side fluff can be super important.
Having players engage consistently with one element/activity is fine. The more that one thing dominates the games design... well that can lead to problems.

Some games are 80% one activity with some peripheral things for the player to do (like many racing games).
And that's not inherently bad.

Some games are 100% their core activity... like Tetris.
And Tetris rocks!

But raiding? Is that a strong enough core to build a large percentage of your game around?
As fun as it is, I personally don't think so.

And like I said. It can, as games like Monster Hunter, GTFO, Dauntless, God Eater demonstrate.
Will it actually stand up with FFXIV style of raiding? No.
What needs to be done? Change up the style of raiding from static to something that's dynamic and repeatable.

[Jeeqbit]

Let's add to the list that beast tribes, normal trials, raids and dungeon roulettes are also repeatable.

[Penthea]

Let's add to the list that beast tribes, normal trials, raids and dungeon roulettes are also repeatable.

I suppose they just listed the content they're interested in repeating instead of all the content that is repeatable.

[Rae88]

What's really ironic there is that when WoW first came out, it gained so much popularity because it was the alternative to the niche hardcore raiding games like EverQuest. Even though EQII came out at almost the same time and also was supposed to be an alternative to the group-centric EQ, WoW was even more accessible than EQII. Now they are both games that cater to the very audience they patterned themselves against.

100% this. The evolution of World of Warcraft is an interesting one.

People were so upset with the difficulty of Everquest raids that they went to the more casual and easier World of Warcraft. In fact many Everquest raiders who were really annoyed at EQ would become WoW developers in those early days. The raids are actually pretty easy by today's standards, only a couple of mechanics in the raids, but this drove participation levels up. In fact if you check the warcraft classic logs and compare them with retail, many, many, many, MANY, MAAAAAANY more people are parsing in Classic compared to the combined parses of normal, heroic, and mythic on retail. In other words the raids in Classic or Vanilla are still CRAZY popular and part of that is because it's easier. WoW was always a casual game, people who think it's hard is misremembering things. It was always a casual alternative to Everquest and that's how it became popular.

These days Blizzard focuses almost entirely on raiding and hard end game content, the very thing WoW started out being against in Vanilla, and neglecting almost every other part of the game. Maybe they wanted to push the ESport thing but WoW will never succeed as an ESport, casual fans don't know what's going on. Weird.

Anyway I hope the FFXIV developers take note of what's going on with WoW and avoid the same mistakes

[Payotz]

(This was initially a part of my reply to ItMe, but I'm just gonna split it to another post for visibility)

You forgot a few:

• The msq now is repeatable with New Game+ although as far as I'm aware the entire msq isn't there but the point still stands
• Players often repeat msq content to lvl up new classes
• It seems you forgot deep dungeons exist, which are hugely popular for lvling
• Crafting and gathering requires a tremendous amount of repetition
• Pvp
• Hunt marks
• Fates, while not very interesting they are repeatable

> The msq now is repeatable with New Game+ although as far as I'm aware the entire msq isn't there but the point still stands
Technically yes, but so is running around Limsa, and despite me enjoying running around Limsa, I don't count that as repeatable content.

> Players often repeat msq content to lvl up new classes
If you mean doing roulettes, and dailies then yes. I admit, this is something that I forgot. I'll add this to the list.
If you're talking about New Game +, then no, unfortunately, New Game + does not give any rewards to repeating them.


>It seems you forgot deep dungeons exist, which are hugely popular for lvling
Which is technically added to Bozja, because you can't level from 70-80 using HoH or PoTD.
If there's a new DD expansion of HoH to level 70-80 like PoTD with Heavensward, then yes I'll take this as repeatable content.
Unfortunately, it's not.

>Crafting and gathering requires a tremendous amount of repetition
Ishgard Restoration, sure. I'll deem that as "Repeatable" content, but if you're saying that crafting itself is repeatable content, then you might as well say that practicing your rotation on the striking dummy is repeatable content.

>Pvp
Which is dead half the time, and where they can't fix because most people don't have interest in it, and they can't fix because the server ticks aren't snappy enough for split second decisions.
Ever had to CC a healer in Frontlines and then see him fly back towards his backline due to Holmgang not applying until after a second or two later? Yeah, that's the problem.
I honestly don't know how Square could fix it without fixing server backend.

>Hunt marks
Which is pretty much added to the 450 tomestone grind. People don't do trains for fun, they do it for tomes.
Which is technically repeatable, but only for the once a week variety.

>Fates, while not very interesting they are repeatable
And so is running around the overworld and farming the 200,000 enemies down achievements.

See where I'm going here? All of these are technically repeatable content. Technically. The main question is this, do you think that this is acceptable repeatable content for 5-6 months of content drought?
If no, we should ask:

Do they need more work to expand it? Yes. Bonus points if they attach new content into old content, or revitalize content. Idk, just do something with it (like the Relic grind, but make it more interesting).
Do they need more work to add more of it? Yes. Especially the ones that does have a timesink in it, like Bozja and BLU. Bonus points if it adds to your character that you can carry with you across the expansions (BLU).

Hrmm...not all players rp though. Many are happy to continue repeating the in-game content SE provides. As for idling, well everyone does that. People take breaks to eat, walk the dog, etc. How common it may look is hugely due to how the game doesn't log you out after a certain period of inactivity. I am certainly guilty of leaving myself logged in when I go to play console games.

See, there's a reason why most people's experience in the game is literally log in, alt+tab and do something else.
Not all players RP yes, that's why they need to add more content on top of it if these players don't wanna engage in the side fluff the game has at this time.
They need to add content too for these types of players.

[Jojoya]

You absolutely can have both.
Like team sports, there absolutely are things that are both.
I'm questioning wether raiding is both.

Of course raiding can be both. But it's not going to be both for everyone. Not everyone likes the same thing.

Don't enjoy raiding in a MMO? Do the other content. There's plenty of it. Those who do enjoy raiding will do that and skip the other pieces of content they don't enjoy.