I wouldn't mind FFXIV becoming a WoW clone in the casual/hardcore appeal if...

[fusional]

dynamis lord wasn't really hard at all. people just didn't get enough attempts on it due to the extremely long lockouts and the fact that you had to run through dynamis for hours just to get to him in the first place. and over time when LSs got a good 30-50 attempts under their belts, they figured out the zerg strat and the rest is history. while you can argue the average LS took more than 30-50 attempts to get him down, 30-50 is what most 'high-end' raiding LSs in this game will take to down Rivenroad (Hard). average LSs obviously a lot more. is Rivenroad (Hard) difficult compared to other stuff in FFXIV? yes. is it difficult compared to stuff in FFXI? sure. is it difficult compared to Firefighter 25 in WoW, or any number of other encounters?

no. not by any stretch of the imagination.

once again, it's clear you're speaking from a position of inexperience. and before you go any further, know that if someone who had only ever played WoW and never really experienced much of anything of note in XI or XIV said there was absolutely *nothing* difficult in either of those games, i'd disagree with them every bit as strongly.

fafnir was a joke. and you think the average WoW raider couldn't duo serket? well your average XIV player couldn't even make the cut in your average WoW raiding guild- and neither would most XI players. i don't speak from a position of ignorance, either. i had full martial set, full earthen set, full neptunal set, full homam set, hauteclaire, ridill, bahamut's mask, shadow ring, shadow mantle, full af2 for all of the jobs i played- the only thing that eluded me before i quit was defending ring simply due to ridiculously low drop rate. i tanked bahamut v.2 before tp burn. i straight tanked kirin before tp burn. i regularly solo tanked byakko as NIN and PLD both. i held nidhogg for 10+ hours with just a few people before enrage timers. solo tank proto ultima? i had trouble staying awake. blah blah blah. all of that i considered patently easy compared to healing Yogg Saron 0 keepers (alone in the darkness).

the only things TRULY difficult in XI were AV and PW.

i experienced everything XI had to offer before i quit, i experienced everything WoW had to offer before i quit, and so far i've experienced everything XIV has to offer. WoW's endgame raiding experience as a whole soundly trumps the other two, period. and i know with absolute certainty if you'd ever even attempted any ulduar hardmodes at all you'd be hard pressed to disagree.


thinking kara or gruul's or blackwing descent are equivalent to "WoW endgame" is tantamount to calling ifrit (hard) XIV endgame, or sky triggers XI endgame. you've only scratched the surface, and assuming everything from that point on is no different is absolutely foolish.

this is a pointless argument, though, because every single example i can think of from a difficult raid in WoW you likely haven't experienced, so you'll just disagree anyway.

the bottom line is simple- yoshi looks to blizzard as providing a solid blueprint for making an MMO successful for a reason, and he is absolutely wise for doing so. he is also wise in understanding that you can't just directly copy, and you can't neglect key factors just for the sake of trying overly hard to be different. he understands that a successful MMO needs to do right what WoW did right, while maintaining its own identity and providing enough content for any kind of gamer to feel satisfied.

all this baseless hate for WoW (and the illogical, off-base comparisons) is not only futile- it's downright ignorant.