How does FFXIV fare against other modern MMORPGs?

[Sapphire_Dianta]

My feelings are actually somewhat mixed on this. To sum it up briefly, FFXIV to me doesn't stand out in any one area in particular, but what it does have that other MMOs (that I've played) don't is a pretty even consistency across the board.

Graphics? After playing Black Desert Online, pretty much every other 'modern' game looks outdated. Artstyle? Though this is a personal preference, I much prefer the ethereal world designs of Blade & Soul or Tera rather than something like Eorzea, a world that appears to be fairly grounded in reality. Yeah, I know, you've got a couple floating island areas, but that's got nothing on Tera's giant glowing pattern across the sky, to use one of dozens of examples in particular. Other people who have tried Tera will hopefully understand where I'm coming from. Character creation? Oh, don't even get me started. FFXIV is blown out of the water instantly by PSO2 and just about every Korean MMO out there. No contest.

Combat? Well again, this is more personal preference, but I much prefer action combat-oriented game systems like Black Desert Online, PSO2, Blade & Soul, Soul Worker, and more. I don't exactly find mashing out one button combo over and over to be terribly engaging. Eureka burnt me out super quick for that exact reason. I enjoy being fast and mobile and cleaving through enemies like the WoL does in FFXIV's trailers, but cannot be found in the actual game itself.

Story? Believe it or not, while FFXIV's story is several notches above standard MMO fare, I do not consider it to be the best story in an MMO. Blade & Soul's main story ending, for example, literally had me in tears. I also found that The Secret World's main story was more engaging and compelling, and Mabinogi's was fairly decent as well... though to be fair, nothing kills my engagement faster than spamming fake deaths over and over like FFXIV's writers seem to have been doing lately. It was old at the beginning of Heavensward, and it's no better now.

The thing is, while FFXIV doesn't really shine to me in any of those categories—along with having a stale content cycle, messy coding, and the ever-present Server Limitations™—it still remains my top MMO at the moment, and that's because it lacks the massive drawbacks that the other games have. Black Desert Online has fantastic graphics and combat, but has barely any endgame, heavy reliance on unbalanced PvP, and greedy devs intent on bleeding the playerbase dry. PSO2 has tons of content and amazing character customization, but the content cycle was too fast for me to keep up with, and they've been gradually moving to more of a mobile game-style payment system, which turned me away. Blade & Soul has great combat, stellar PvP, and a world design to die for, but it lacks substantial endgame content. Though these games' individual aspects beat out FFXIV, FFXIV remains the most consistent of the lot, whereas the other games have huge negatives to outweigh their huge positives. And that's why I prefer FFXIV at the moment.

[TalithaSolarien]

Comparing TESOs combat to our game is a little bit like comparing apples and pears. The former is a Action RPG (with a very short GCD) while our game is a classic tab-target MMORPG. Also enjoying TESOs build system requires quite a bit of masochistic fun as you have to deal with a developer that loved to reshuffle the game every three months by nerfing/buffing skills & gearsets in fun ways. The game has no gear progression (everything has a fixed level) so this is their way of simulating that. I defected to FF14 after enduring that for 4 years.

Housing is way better in TESO (instanced housing, a better editor, way more objects), graphics is a matter of preference. I loved that each and everything is VOed, even the tinniest quest. The base story and the first DLCs were fine but the story quality has dropped of.

What I really love about FF14 is the game offers content for all kind of players. TESO really only caters to the end game players with their expansions/DLCs.

[Squigley]

because it [FFXIV] lacks the massive drawbacks that the other games have. <snip> other games have huge negatives to outweigh their huge positives. And that's why I prefer FFXIV at the moment.

Very much this. The greatest strength of FFXIV is that it has no critical weaknesses. It might not be the best in anything (ok, crafting system might be the best one out there) but it does pretty much everything reasonably well.

I'd also like to add that at least for me the amount of grind has been pretty much on the sweet spot. Enough to sometimes feel like a grind but never too much. Excluding Eureka. That's a turd and a big "nope".

[Derio]

FFXIV consistency where it does alot of things right.

But mainly because FFXIV as a MMO has one of the least toxic communities out of other MMOs.

Compelling story + good community + consistent good quality of content = a win for me.

[KatenKyokotsu]

I don't know about you guys. But for me ffxiv is quite straightforward. I mean as in new patch : craft new gears > complete new raids > complete new msq > complete new dungeons. Then after that you just wait till the following week to clear your raids to hopefully get new gears. There isn't much open world content except for A/S rank hunts, special fates or the eureka grind. Otherwise to me open world is pretty bland. It's always the same formula for every patch nothing new. I still continue playing just because of friends.

[Ameela]

I like the fact that no matter when you start you can experience everything the game has to offer as if you were there at launch (with the exception of 1.0 and a few higher end fights that were nerfed), I tried WoW recently only to find out that, unless you've been playing since the game's launch and buying all the supplementary material, you won't be able to make much sense of the story.
That was a huge drawback for me and made me appreciate XIV a lot more.

[Xlantaa]

To be fair. None of he modern MMO gives me any reason to keep playing for more than few weeks. That says all. Maybe they can have a single characteristic which is better than FFXIV, but as overall games, no, there is no MMO currently better than FFXIV.

[Lubu_Mykono]

This is the only modern one that caters to weebs and anime fans. So there you go. But it's pretty standard content, casual PvE some PvP etc.
WoW is the king, ESO has better PvE, GW2 better PvP. BDO better lifeskills/crafting. But is it's own thing.

[greytonberry]

its wow with a different art syle.

[Rymm]

its wow with a different art syle.

Going to have to object to this one. Strenuously. Aside from both being MMOs and having the same general features, they are about as different as two games in the same genre can get. PvE combat, PvP combat, Crafting, Gathering, and Story are all very different between the two. And that's just core gameplay; their "fluff" content is even more diverse with the games' respective approaches to housing, pets, minigames, etc. all being wildly different (or even nonexistent.)