Do the dev's actually play this game?

[Tuathaa]

That just shows they had 5 million subscribers + which is an arm and a leg above what FFXIV has. They still have waaay more than FFXIV. This is an MMO that has had multi-million subscriber bases for over a decade. Ignoring it would be silly.

Look at what works, what hasn't worked. What brought in subscribers, what lost subscribers? etc.

They still have over 7 mil

[Maero]

I sense you do not play AST as your main. Since AST is my main, i have had no problems keeping up with WHM or SCH. Playing AST is a little bit more RNG, and also about knowing when to use your CDs appropriately. Bad player playing AST, going to have a really bad time keeping up. Have a good player play AST, then be ready for some amazing heals.

I must agree 100% here, while my astro is barely levelled i know plenty of people and have done countless dungeons with Astrologians and they are totally fine

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

I sense you do not play AST as your main. Since AST is my main, i have had no problems keeping up with WHM or SCH. Playing AST is a little bit more RNG, and also about knowing when to use your CDs appropriately. Bad player playing AST, going to have a really bad time keeping up. Have a good player play AST, then be ready for some amazing heals.

This post is also directed at anyone else who thinks AST is fine.
For casual content, yes it performs.
For real end game, NO, it does not. There's a lot of threads talking about the topic already.... my main is AST and it's not performing well for Savage. Also, quoting another post, many people play telephone with anything that's been said. Yes, FEW ASTs have beaten A1 Savage but not without a lot of struggle. FEW, not "many" and honestly, it's probably mostly because there were little to no mistakes, because it is very very hard to make up for mistakes as an AST in comparison to WHM (which I also main since 2.0). So yes, the OP is right about AST underperforming in comparison to WHM/SCH.

If you do not do Savage, don't say AST is fine. Say "AST is fine for casual content, don't know about real end game though." so there is less misunderstandings/misleads and for SE to actually be able to know what needs to be addressed in order to fix the job.

[Ayuhra]

What WoW does, and it does it better than Final Fantasy XIV or just about any other MMO on the market, is feel good.

The game is smooth, the combat is usually fluid and responsive, the UI is simple, it just plays very, very well. That's a huge deal so obviously people will enjoy the game that plays the best.


The problem it has is...everything else, really. WoW when it had its most subscribers was absolutely fantastic but over the last several years it's been dwindling as the more creative minds behind it move on to other projects and the more Activision side takes the reigns to just nickle and dime the playerbase into nothing.

Warlords of Draenor is a skinner box wearing an MMO's skin and that's all it is. It's sad that content droughts are actually expected there now. With the new raid out and no news of a new expansion yet people are EXPECTING Hellfire Citadel's patch to last a year with nothing new to shake things up. Blizzard is apparently fine with the massive spikes in user numbers so they let these droughts happen, promising they are working on something great. Then that something comes out and is not so great.

I think WoW is an important monster look at for any MMO. At its best it's been amazing but at its worst it is hollow, shallow and depressing. If FFXIV is taking notes (and I can tell it is) it should learn from WoW's strengths but also its failures. That means not doing many of the things WoW's been doing since Cataclysm.

Right now, comparing Heavensward to Warlords, Heavensward doesn't play quite as well but is still the better experience by far.

[Kaurie]

Interesting, I am not sure if we are thinking the same thing in regards to 'fluid combat', but the biggest reason I do not play wow is how horrible combat feels. I pre-ordered Draenor, resubbed and logged in with my jump to 90. I went out and started my way through the story. 30 minutes later I logged out and unsubbed. The only reason? Combat was way too clunky and it just felt very dated.

That said, when I did play WoW (years ago now), I loved the little things. The world felt alive and massive, much more than FFXIV. I loved customizing my traits to build my character. I loved the quest design system, especially how it made it easier to quest in groups (with the ability to track in your log who has the same quests etc) in addition to quest designed for groups. I definitely felt that WoW did a better job with gathering/crafting than FFXIV.

Ultimately, outside of story, combat and end-game, I felt WoW is superior in every other way. I play here, because the story and combat are deal breakers or makers for me.

[Gramul]

Considering the probably spend a minimum of 8 hours a day on it, I'm pretty sure they are fully aware of what they're doing.

We just happen to hate the ever loving life out of it.

[Ayuhra]

--snip--

Fluid in that I feel (personally, obviously some may disagree) that WoW combat is a bit less clunky than in FFXIV. Rotations in this game sometimes seem complicated and long just for the sake of being complicated and long. In WoW I didn't feel like I needed a multi-button Razer Naga with a side keyboard just to do my basic rotation. I feel that way here sometimes.

Warlords is probably a bad example of what I'm talking about, though, since it went too far in the other direction. To simplify rotations it gutted the classes abilities down to the most basic things and individual class identity was lost in the process so everything plays the same. I absolutely don't want to see that happen here. I'm not sure I'd call Warlords combat clunky (at least not on the classes I play) but it is certainly boring and uninteresting.

[Kaurie]

snip.

Oooh, ok I get what you mean. I can agree with that.

[BreathlessTao]

Eeeh.... OP asks a valid question though. One I have asked myself, of no one in particular, when certain things frustrated me to no end and I let out a heavy sigh. However, those weren't exactly the same issues, not with the DoW/DoM jobs anyway.... Although I won't argue the fact that those too could use some tweaking, almost all of them.

My issues are the insane amount of RNG involved in just about everything; the blatantly non-existent actual rule system when playing TT with NPCs and the easy workarounds to tournaments; the non-accessibility of so many items and features; the incredible repetitiveness of certain quests and designs; the unbelievable time- and gil-sinks finetuned to the top few % of players who burn everything out faster than one could blink (cue non-accessibility); the whole housing fiasco................ I guess I could go on, or I could give a detailed list of these, but I think everyone has an inkling as to what I'm on about.

[Twilite]

I'm starting to remember why I didn't play very long during beta.