Final Fantasy 14 Players trying WOW?

[Rulakir]

Wait until they release Wrath Classic, that is the best version of the game. I do miss warlock, I hope FFXIV adds a DoT job in the future.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Most of the people tend to use the whole lawsuit situation as a way to justify their hate for a video game, while forgetting that all the victims were actually workers at Blizzard as well. That the entire discussion around the lawsuit was game dev industry and how Blizzard isn't the only company with these problems.
The victims of these actions also helped build the games. The people at Blizz Walkout are workers too.

Even the Activision employees said that boycotts aren't going to change anything and might do more harm than good. This just impact the workers' bonus.

Truth is, if WoW was in a good state or at it's prime time like FFXIV is now, many wouldn't bat an eye, since it doesn't serve their own narrative of treating a video game as some source of evil. People are just using a sad and grave situation to fuel their opinions about something that has little to do with it - a game.

They choose to remain at Blizzard even after the fact. I cannot feel any sympathy for anyone still at that company.

[Themarvin]

Play WarCraft 3, it is better.

[Imoye]

- faster gcd and sound effects when fighting enemies make it feel you are actually hitting with force (kinda a weird one I know) and combat feels much more responsive and less button bloat.

As much as I love FFXIV, the combat in WoW is technically superior to FFXIV combat. You do indeed literally feel that you're hitting targets with your abilities. I believe this has to do with the very solid responsiveness of the UI as well as the matching sound effects and visuals which together create solid sensory feedback. FFXIV in comparison feels nowhere near as responsive when clicking on an ability and everything from animation to sound feels way more detached, almost laggy in comparison to WoW.

The button bloat I don't agree with, however. WoW of today is extremely simplified compared to what it used to be - and many classes are a complete snorefest because you spam the same 3-4 buttons 24/7. It's dull and not challenging at all.

[Melorie]

They choose to remain at Blizzard even after the fact. I cannot feel any sympathy for anyone still at that company.

You cannot feel sympathy for people that worked in a creative project for years and depend on that work to feed their families and want to see things getting better? You lack so much empathy, I simply have no words. You don't know these people's choices nor what they are able to do and what is tying them to this company, and yet you judge. Life is not black and white, and you clearly don't care about the victims and just want to spread hate. I have pity for everyone that have to endure people like you with this type of mindset into their lives, honestly.

[linayar]

Sorry, been sick, so my proofreading isn't super lucid.

"World PvP environment caused by [flying] mounts" (not sure I left out the most important part) is referring just to how world PvP ends up greatly changed in feel and flow because of the ability to engage far more quickly--and, if one kills successfully, disengage with far less recourse. The same stuff I talked about earlier.


I do think it's still a "risk" in that if invested in one skill set, e.g., something that plays like an Objective Team Shooter, only to have it later pushed towards something radically different, e.g., something that plays like a 3rd-Party-Favored Battle Royale, you've gotten to know something that then has very little use after that shift. Of course, we could say the same for radical balancing patches in PvE in games with actual customization (multiple, very distinct builds available to a given class), so... /shrug.

But yeah, BGs and arenas are right there and World PvP has never been a gameplay type/mode that the developers would sacrifice anything else for (a bit of a shame, imo, because I think it can be incredibly fun if not left quite so barebone), so it's ultimately fine.

I think the way to not have that type of "risk" is either to not lock flying in the first place or only lock it for the leveling process. That way, people are more used to open world pvp with flying. Making people get used to pvp with no flying and then adding flying a year into every expansion would make that change have a bigger effect.

Or, as we've said earlier, just have no flying in warmode.

There are reasons to lock flight, though, unless one can do with flight everything that can be done without it. That includes things like set pieces (imagine some of the killer views moving between plates your first time on the moon in Endwalker); enjoyable auxiliary movement systems like grappling hooks and gliders or, hell, catching a ride on giant flying monster; the dangers that world presents (absent in XIV, so I realize we have no such examples here) and diversity of those dangers' forms; etc. Immediately flight greatly reduces the depth available to zone design unless many careful considerations are taken into account.

Again, for my part, I hate the idea of unlearning flight. My absolute preference has always been the likes of GW2, with distinct mounts, but also to have them persist as combat companions. In such a design, one can curtail the negative effects on zone depth of the unlimited and basically physics-less flight we see in XIV and WoW -- since those mounts do not have unlimited or basically physics-less movement. If your companion-mount consumes considerably more stamina when it has to get you up somewhere, too, then fun little auxiliary movement systems don't lose relevance, even if you may replace, say, gliders with just... your ever-available mount. It'd also adds a further risk element to combat, a potential emotional fixture, etc., etc. The only downside is that it constrains available mounts, since they ought to be unique to each other and must have their commensurate costs for power. Which is why you'd never see it in a game like XIV, where we have flying behemoths who move identically to chocobos.

I think that's just a matter of questing design. If you make quests that you can't "cheese" with flight and/or make quests that make use of flight, then flying wouldn't be an issue.

You cannot even use a mount in most raids. You spend almost half your time in daily open world loops, for better or worse, mounted. You are looking at mounts as worth the same amount despite wildly different contexts. There's merely pre-content (and you can teleport to where you begin your daily grind loop just as you can teleport / be summoned to a WoW raid instance), and in-content -- or, what merely gets you to that gameplay and what is part of that gameplay. One's mount is an in-content factor (part of the actual gameplay) in the open world.

Improved mount speed accelerates a good half of all you do in the open world. Improved gear accelerates most of the other half, the time spent fighting rather than mounted (though, ofc, gathering and item-interactions are also a thing off mounts and are not affected by gear).


You get to said zone. You have 4 objectives. They will take you about 11 minutes of combat and 8 minutes of travel, total. That gear helps the 11 minutes does not cause literally more than doubling your speed (200% to 410% + avoiding dangers and ignoring topography) for the 8 minutes to be a non-factor. They both accelerate those processes.

Ok, so you're fixating on the time save effect of flying, but that only highlights the difference between open world and raid for me.

The way that WoW has been designed, not mounting in raid does not matter to me because I'm likely to be fighting something, whether the boss or the enemies in between, and (at least in BfA raids) there are a lot of those non-boss enemies compared to FFXIV (even Coil). With the open world, the enemies in my experience do not feel like they are part of the content unless they are near quest objectives. Otherwise, they are just something for me to pass through.

So, yes, flying does save time, but that's a good thing, because it's saving time from the part that is not related to the content that you are trying to do.

And at the end of the day, WoW still has non-flying mounts, which means people who want to experience everything on the ground can still do so.

On a side note, since you mentioned GW2, I think not having flight at all would actually be preferable for me rather than the current system of flight unlock. I think if you don't want people to fly, then just stick with it and design a flightless world. But if you want people to fly, then design a world that you won't feel "underappreciated" with flight. (And I disagree with that, by the way, as I appreciated the world of WoW with flight, even if it may not be the in the same way that others want me to appreciate it.)

[Shurrikhan]

On a side note, since you mentioned GW2, I think not having flight at all would actually be preferable for me rather than the current system of flight unlock. I think if you don't want people to fly, then just stick with it and design a flightless world. But if you want people to fly, then design a world that you won't feel "underappreciated" with flight. (And I disagree with that, by the way, as I appreciated the world of WoW with flight, even if it may not be the in the same way that others want me to appreciate it.)

I think I've missed the clue somewhere here. Which part are you disagreeing with?

GW2 did exactly that, at first, and only moved away from that in the new expansion's zones and only with the conviction to do mounts, as a concept, better than any other MMO.

Or, as we've said earlier, just have no flying in warmode

That, so long as rewards get increased once flight in unlocked for most, would be my preference. I'm probably in the minority on that, though.

If you make quests that you can't "cheese" with flight and/or make quests that make use of flight, then flying wouldn't be an issue.

That's... so much easier said than done. You'd need mobs to suddenly have hugely increased threat acquisition areas, to be able to see through objects, being able to move at target mount speed (instead of just at normal sprint speed), etc., as to avoid their being bypassed by flight -- and those lasting dangers, then, aren't going to be worth the sudden gimmickiness of making those dangers last despite flight.

To pull off something like that, it needs to be a deliberate and thematic world design, like having separate and much more dangerous creatures already make use of the various air/aether currents such that trying to slip in among them by using those same means of transport risks getting their attention, much like risking the attention of giant crocodiles or the like when taking a canoe down a speeding river to get back to a quest hub more quickly. It then becomes a matter of comparative risk and reward, where sometimes you crank that risk up to basically ground players across set pieces or key areas and at other times you greatly loosen it in order to let player better milk (their knowledge regarding) those means of quick travel.

Ok, so you're fixating on the time save effect of flying, but that only highlights the difference between open world and raid for me.

It's not a matter fixating on this or that. Unless you want to say that exploration and travel are not and cannot be an intended element beyond purposely wasting player time, then they will be part of the open world content. As a part of said content that changes the way you said content, both ground mounts and later flying mounts reshape that experience.

So, yes, flying does save time, but that's a good thing, because it's saving time from the part that is not related to the content that you are trying to do.

If I don't want to kill the boss, but merely want the loot, is overgearing content to the point that it poses no challenge a good thing? It isn't -- loot aside -- content that I am trying to do, after all, so surely it must be, no?

There's always going to be some split between design intent and the far narrower matter of what a specific player wants from that content. To say, though, that exploration can only be a time-waste, so long as it increases the time until rewards received, but the same cannot be true for combat alone... is disingenuous.

And at the end of the day, WoW still has non-flying mounts, which means people who want to experience everything on the ground can still do so.

You and I both know this has no bearing.

For one, you switch flight to not automatically trigger even on flying mounts, and that ground mounts aren't outright removed from your mounts collection upon acquiring flight does not mean that they are intended to be of use thereafter in zones in which you've unlocked flight. It's just not a world that suddenly allows every non-winged creature to float through the air or propel itself along on flatulence.

Consider also, say, what portion of Party Finder groups will accept minimum ilvl fresh runs in week 7+ after a tier's release. It matters little to most players that it was doable at release at min ilvl and with a blind party because there is comparative loss for doing so at that point. That a player enjoys the open world doesn't mean they won't feel obliged to simply directly teleport to the dungeon's stone to more quickly summon their friends, etc., because it's still, in the end, a multiplayer, treadmill-centric game. We do feel obliged to play not only around our own preferences but also around those we play with and even to occasionally sacrifice our preferences outside of group contexts alone so that we can increase the range of content and players we can engage with.

[Flashock]

Yeah the responsiveness is something to be admired and praised in wow but..
Over the years the pruning of abilities ect have reduced their rotations down to almost nothing.

Tanking in wow is like 1 builder + 1 spender + 1-2 cds.
I was shocked first playing FFXIV finding how tanks (PLD specifically) have a rotation that doesn’t repeat for an entire minute, and I find that way more enjoyable than spamming 1 for resource and dumping with 2 and use a flavor spell once a minute.

[Driavna]

GW2 did exactly that, at first, and only moved away from that in the new expansion's zones and only with the conviction to do mounts, as a concept, better than any other MMO.

IMO they did, since mounts just increase our mobility options and ArenaNet can always add new ones with different skills that give access to locked areas in future expansions without removing our ability to use what we already have.

However, I also think that proper flying is too much of a convenience and prefer what BD has done with their T10 Pegasus (I think one of GW2 mounts works the same).

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah the responsiveness is something to be admired and praised in wow but..
Over the years the pruning of abilities ect have reduced their rotations down to almost nothing.

Tanking in wow is like 1 builder + 1 spender + 1-2 cds.
I was shocked first playing FFXIV finding how tanks (PLD specifically) have a rotation that doesn’t repeat for an entire minute, and I find that way more enjoyable than spamming 1 for resource and dumping with 2 and use a flavor spell once a minute.

And yet, in dungeons, they still have far more nuance in their tanking, just by virtue of WoW actually having tanking tasks (interrupts, stuns, aiming cleaves out, baiting pools, far more active mitigation, mobs to focus-burn down, kiting, mini-kiting, CC, cases in which to take more damage to deal more damage because the focus target is worth it to kill sooner, tank enmity not being multiplied to damn near infinity, etc.).

It's a little sad that they only direction XIV thinks to add complexity to its tanks, and the processes of tanking, is to just... pretend they're DPS.

And heck, many of those low-button rotations still have far more contextual depth available to them than our long looping 18-button rotations. At least you'd never be stuck there hitting 7 buttons to perform a single point of decision, and a seemingly niche skill usually used for A would also be used, conditionally, in cases B, C, D, and E.