A Warcraft player's letter to the FFXIV community

[ShizukuOikawa]

Welcome aboard from another WoW refugee here myself.. lol.

My history with WoW, FFXIV and MMO's is a bit different..

While those two appear be to be most peoples favorites, my favorite MMO just happens to be Lunia... a game that died out in 2013 and no longer exists I pray every day for them to do a reboot for it someday as I assume it's only temporarily gone.. hopefully... I am losing my mind without it as the weeks months and years go on.. I spent 5+ years daily 10,000+ hours playing this game... I could talk forever about it.. it was my life.. and I don't have it and it's depressing... there is a private server out there.. but it's not the same... not the same at all.. different community, population and vibe I get compared to the original. I started in 2008, and Ragnarok Online was my first MMO also in 2008 not long before Lunia.. I love Ragnarok Online and also played it for 5+ years... but that's another story...

I started WoW in March 2019... technically I started around 2013 with a free trial, but I couldn't get into it and didn't have the money or interest to pay for subscription. In 2019 March I thought I'd give it another chance because I thought that trial back then was fun.. just subscription doesn't feel like it's worth it because it adds up.. I still didn't have money for WoW but my brother is a great guy and helped pay my subscription.. and man, I got really into it... players are very friendly to me for some reason, maybe cause they rarely see new players.. I discovered all these areas, did all kinds of stuff I barely remember, traveled all around Azeroth.. Warlock was my main for a while, loved it with demonology (even tho I was never good with him in mythic+) ..all I did in 2019 was WoW mostly after RE2 remake. I often wish I had played way back then during the classic, TBC and wrath days or even cata/MoP/WoD/Legion at least... but no.. BFA just happened to be my first expansion technically, 8.1.. 8.2 was probably my favorite times in WoW, had great times doing mythics then.... 8.3 was supposed to be the best, but I didn't like it that much... 2020 was a drag for me.. cause WoW was getting boring with less things to do, corona, and struggling with little to no games.. I finally got into VR in September 2020 and that was a blast. I haven't done too much Mythics in Shadowlands, but I'm not too interested as I feel burnt out after grinding it too damn much in 8.2, and just to know your entire gear set will be worthless in just a few months.. I find that one of WoW's biggest weakpoints is you constantly need to upgrade your gear to the next big thing every few months... even legendaries for christ sakes.. how are 9.0 legendaries worthless in 9.1? Makes me not wanna play to be fully honest with yall, it's a crappy move and makes no sense playing at all until you actually feel like getting the best which won't take long to be worthless again.. like... at least in Ragnarok, the best gears you get can be good for either forever or many many years, as for Lunia, they did need to be upgraded every 4-8 months, only for myth, not stage gear.. but at least it was more fun to earn than it is in WoW.

I really loved classic at launch, it was amazing... tens of thousands of players queued in every server... it was like the MMO heaven dream we all dreamed of, literally... my only problem was that I accidentally joined a RP/PVP server thinking it would be awesome because I like RP, PVP not so much, so.. getting ganked really pissed me off. I eventually bought a server change, but... it was still a great experience.. I was an undead mage... not my main race or class.. but I still had fun. stayed lvl 41 for a long time feeling like I finished once I obtained my mount... months later I got back to it, stopped at level 52... it seemed impossible to get to 60 when there was no parties for BRD, and I ran out of quests to do. Months later TBC comes out.. during the prepatch I was having a blast.. with my new blood elf warlock.. main class/race.. it was incredible trying warlock in classic for the first time as a blood elf right before TBC came out .. I got to 60.. then waited at that portal.. outland was freaking insane in the beginning.. there was too much competition in quests having to kill certain mobs everyone was grabbing first.. it was hard but still fun.. I kind of gave up playing classic up till level 63.. I would play it more.. but.. I think I'm just gonna wait for wrath classic or maybe one day I'll be in the mood to play it more. I kinda stopped classic because I was in the mood to make a new Vulpera Death Knight.. he was my new main for a while and I had a blast with him.. super cute little smol fox doing bad ass damage, loving all 3 specs, went from Blood>Frost>Unholy. And then Asmongold made his "I'm gonna start FFXIV in July 3" statement... and a lot of people seemed to be moving to FF14.. 9.1 was around the corner, but I was already getting bored... knowing there won't be much content to do and the sub may not be worth a dang.. so... I gave FFXIV a 5th or 6th chance..

I started this game since either 2011 or 2012... not only could I barely afford subscriptions and not like it, but I did not enjoy my classes I played... I played gladiator the first few times... didn't like it, the rotation was so stupid to me.. years later around 2019 after my WoW nostalgia dropped, I tried Rogue, and Rogue was also boring bad rotation... like all you do is press 2-3 buttons in a pattern row over and over.. seriously.. I didn't have nobody to talk to, to tell me otherwise how things get better and blah blah blah.. but.. I just didn't play much.. but then... I saw the Machinist class.. and I love gun classes in MMOs, a lot. So I really wanted to be a Machinist assuming the game would be sooo much better.. but... being level 30, I did research as to when and how I can be a machinist.. apparently I had to be level 50... and be in Ishgard.. and it took the entire ARR+prepatch content to get there... I think I looked at a list of quests required from where I was, and I was like wow screw that.. I heard about this booster thingy so.. I was stupid enough to buy that... and I got a fantasia/name change while at it... I wish I didn't skip it because, not only do I barely know some of these things in game like the story mainly, and regions I didn't explore like Cortheas... I just wanted to play machinist.. that's all I wanted to do... and in the end, I didn't like it.. very boring just like gladiator and rogue. It was better than those, but still didn't like spamming spread shot constantly in dungeons, it was repetitive spamming 1 button that does same damage as my single target hits.

So from then on I stopped FFXIV and moved on back to WoW and some VR games.. and I already mentioned my TBC story, so right after that... I gave FFXIV another chance.. just after regretfully boosting my character, I didn't feel like redoing my character cause I spent 100+ hours on it.. so.. I changed my looks and name again, and decided to try Dark Knight... I tried Dark Knight cause asmongold talked a lot about it and I looked it up, sounds and looks very appealing.. and that's when I started actually loving this game... finally.. after all those years, I found something I enjoyed.. I had a blast using him throughout Heavensward. At 60... I found out the existence of Gunbreakers... and I love FF8/squall... I dressed up as him for halloween once and I have his sword IRL xD I love it.. so.. I just had to try Gunbreaker... and damn.. it felt like the closest thing we'll ever get to a FF8 remake i've dreamed of.. it plays amazing, I really missed playing Dark Knight again, it was hard to choose between the two... but I don't regret using my gunbreaker all the way to stormblood and the end of shadowbringers. So.. I'm stuck needing more item level for a shadowbringers dungeon.. I didn't feel like using my gunbreaker more, time or a break... I wanted to try so many other classes, white mage, summoner, and black mage... Black Mage SHOULD'VE been my first class.. but I didn't know any better..I loved black mage a lot, first I used it on an alt, but this game isn't alt friendly, so.. I used it on my main, and I leveled black mage all the way to.. currently about to hit 74. I loved my journey.. but...

I'm getting bored and depressed... I feel like I have a problem.. I can't find a better game than FFXIV.. and it's all I've spent my time on and been wanting to do for the last entire month+.. I've been living here.. but it's been getting kind of scary... like.. going deep in the rabbit hole and there's nothing better I can ever do until who knows when... like.. there's no games i'm interested in coming out in 2021... the only thing that would make me quit FFXIV now it seems like it'd have to be a Lunia reboot... if that ever happens which I highly doubt... that would make my life better now I think... but.. I don't know... I'm getting bored of doing daily roulettes and gold saucer and leveling my fishing too which is like 58. I took this game too seriously I think, and now I don't know.. I took 2 or 3 days of a break... and idk what I'm gonna do now in the future.. apparently I've spent 160 hours in FFXIV in the past 2 weeks... that's over 3 times as much as a full-time job 40 hours a week.... I have nothing better to do in my life to occupy my time.. youtube is not doing it for me all the time either... it's depressing and scary that it feels like my life might be coming to an end soon.. I hope not.. but.. yeah..

that's where I'm at right now.. and as far as Asmongold... yeah... I found out about him when I was in my WoW phase, he was all over YouTube tutorials I was looking up how to get mounts and do certain things, it was hard to miss him, because he's everywhere... I thought he was an asshole at first.. but.. the more videos I saw, I thought he was an alright dude... I hardly ever go to his streams because I'm not a twitch guy, I watch all his YouTube videos.. I did watch his FFXIV stream... and yeah.. I was one of those idiots that followed him around... not for very long though, I had my own life and business to take care of... I just took a screenshot beside him and that was enough for me lol. He's one of the only things I seem to look forward to seeing every day in my YouTube feed... along with other YouTubers... Bellular is okay but his videos can be boring and don't feel too much on topic to the title... and Zepla has really great content I like a lot, her collabs with Asmon were good, like that transmog competition not long ago..

I don't know what else to say, this has been my story for the past 3 years kind of.]

and sorry for long multi-post lol, I just felt like speaking my mind to someone, since I can't seem to talk about these things to a therapist...

[Krotoan]

A gentle reminder that going back to your first post and choosing to "edit" it will allow you to bypass the 3k character limit so that you don't need to waste daily postcount on multiple posts to convey a long idea or story.

So what I will generally do is write my post and then cut out everything but the first word (copy and paste to notebook or some other text editor just to be safe), push post.. then edit everything back in.

[ShizukuOikawa]

A gentle reminder that going back to your first post and choosing to "edit" it will allow you to bypass the 3k character limit so that you don't need to waste daily postcount on multiple posts to convey a long idea or story.

So what I will generally do is write my post and then cut out everything but the first word (copy and paste to notebook or some other text editor just to be safe), push post.. then edit everything back in.

Thanks c: that's pretty interesting and weird lol but I did just that, might never do that again since I usually don't write walls of text.. just don't know, felt like talking even if no one cares.

[Meatball]

If that's how you feel I can only assume WoW's dungeon design must be really atrocious.
I can't imagine what would have been worse than the same hallway with 2~3 trashes followed by a boss arena repeated since 2015 in this game... How would that even be possible? Empty short hallways with no trash at all between boss arenas?
Honestly, FFXIV's dungeon design died the moment Heavensward came out, for sake of making everything DF friendly. And then the dead body got kicked and stepped on in the ground when Trusts happened and dungeons became even more shallow.

Most dungeons in WoW are designed after the keystone content these days, meaning that trash mobs are fully capable of wiping a whole group if things goes sideways, the way I feel about FFXIV is that the bosses are the MAIN events while the trash mobs are being normal mobs. Dont get me wrong: trash mobs in FFXIV can give you a rough time but the bosses themselves feels like they are the center of attention when it comes to the dungeon design.

[Alxyzntlct]

...
I'm getting bored and depressed... I feel like I have a problem.. I can't find a better game than FFXIV.. and it's all I've spent my time on and been wanting to do for the last entire month+.. I've been living here.. but it's been getting kind of scary... like.. going deep in the rabbit hole and there's nothing better I can ever do until who knows when... like.. there's no games i'm interested in coming out in 2021... the only thing that would make me quit FFXIV now it seems like it'd have to be a Lunia reboot... if that ever happens which I highly doubt... that would make my life better now I think... but.. I don't know... I'm getting bored of doing daily roulettes and gold saucer and leveling my fishing too which is like 58. I took this game too seriously I think, and now I don't know.. I took 2 or 3 days of a break... and idk what I'm gonna do now in the future.. apparently I've spent 160 hours in FFXIV in the past 2 weeks... that's over 3 times as much as a full-time job 40 hours a week.... I have nothing better to do in my life to occupy my time.. youtube is not doing it for me all the time either... it's depressing and scary that it feels like my life might be coming to an end soon.. I hope not.. but.. yeah..

...

and sorry for long multi-post lol, I just felt like speaking my mind to someone, since I can't seem to talk about these things to a therapist...

First and foremost, wonderful post! I know a lot of folks don't say it but it's very cool seeing stories like this shared and getting that honest, heart felt perspective. ^_^

Part of what you mentioned is concerning, but not terrible because a lot of us have been in a similar situation; focusing on something that helps make life interesting and fun, after which it becomes the focus. However, unfortunately, nothing ever lasts.

The good news is that there's always something else out there in the world, it just requires exploring it a bit. Learning to take that first step into new adventures and trying things out for size, seeing how they feel, and continuing if/when something doesn't click. And then making it a habit so there's always a few interesting things in your life, because if you focus on one thing for too long then you'll get "used to it" and lost interest. Oddly enough, it's actually genetically built into us humans, lol. We're meant to lose interest in things after a time and find something new, because in nature that leads to becoming healthier and happier. For example: Ever stare into the night sky, at the stars, at the same spot and after a bit it just kinda "blanks out"? That's because the visual stimulation is so low that the brain literally shuts off the feed.

I suspect that if you were able to get 1-2 more hobbies you enjoyed in your life, it'd help make FFXIV more interesting for you when you return to it. I do my best to spend some time with other things before I circle back to the game, even though there's a lot within it that I'm thoroughly enjoying bouncing between.

For example, I'm not solely focusing on any one thing in this game and as a result I'm enjoying the heck out of it! I've been playing for almost 3 months and I just barely started Stormbringers recently, lol. While going through the story I was playing BLM (which I love), and between the story and doing side quests and once I was able, daily routlettes, I just suddenly hit 80! So I decided to start up a Tank and Healer job (GNB and AST respectively, both of which I also love), and I've already gotten those two up to 70 because I took a break from the story because I was enjoying learning them both.

(And I maaaaay have also started BLU because I heard it was cool, and it is!)

I'm sure you get the point, lol.

But the last part is the most important: I know it's not easy to speak to a therapist, but it's one of those things that if you're ever questioning your life, then it becomes incredibly important. I never liked it, but like I said above, it's just one of those other adventures that one can learn to roll with. The payoff is well, well worth it.

[Shougun]

Welcome to FFXIV, everyone has said the great things this game has to offer so I'll not focus too much on that; although, personally huge fan of the respect of players time, jobs (and system itself in general), and then the team themselves, but overall just a great game to be getting into - especially as all those players can be trying many many hours of content for free :3.

I don't expect Yoshida to be making comment on all of this especially as it's still a case in progress (or if he does it'll be one slowly and carefully crafted message as it's clearly an extremely.. extreme situation going on right now), but I think many can take heart in that he's not the character to macho rub in the salt everyone experiences (no "hah we're the best, look at them bleeding subs to us"), a bit before this he had kind words for the legacy and talent of WoW and I really admire that he looks outside to improve internally and respects those while he does it (it's such an amazing resource to be able to see 'live' research).

I take no joy in seeing all the fires going on over there, and am greatly sadden to hear some of these things from certainly a place that holds a special place in my childhood heart (and still felt they've had talented moments, though clearly my personal bias is with FFXIV). While the reason so many feel the need to leave is clearly ... not ideal ... welcome here and hopefully everyone here will lift and rise together!

[ShizukuOikawa]

First and foremost, wonderful post! I know a lot of folks don't say it but it's very cool seeing stories like this shared and getting that honest, heart felt perspective. ^_^

Thank you for reading and the response ^_^ yeah, BLM is a lot of fun... but... BLM is not life... it's all I'm doing with my life as of late, and... I just.. can't find a solution of what else to do sometimes. I do need more hobbies.. being on the computer has been my only hobby for a really long time, it's the reason I didn't go to high school, and never got a real girlfriend. Where I live, I don't see how I can fix my hobby finding issue... maybe start doing exercise and going for walks.. but.. I don't know.. maybe I just don't appreciate life enough.. I always try to complete goals of success in games that usually don't matter in the end... I would love to meet a cute girl friend but... I don't know where... and I need to be happy with my life before I'm happy with someone else.. and I am happy with my life.. I'm not struggling, having a great time, it's just.. very lonely... I also have no one to talk to about my game experiences in my real life, and people don't care on facebook neither lol.

[Zavinus]

I just came from World of Warcraft as well after a long break. BfA and Shadowlands are horrid expansions and I genuinely wonder how the game failed so quickly after seeing how good Legion was. I'm looking forward to playing FF14 as everyone says it's a better overall game.

[ksuyen]

Welcome! FFXIV is a giant community with plenty of differences, so don't be surprise if we also have some bad apples. But as the saying goes, environment shapes the people, majority of the players are good, kind and friendly. This is the game that the devs are very close with the community, in touch with reality but at the same time is strict with people breaking the game rules. So feel safe, feel free and feel like a home every time you login.

[kaynide]

Thanks c: that's pretty interesting and weird lol but I did just that, might never do that again since I usually don't write walls of text.. just don't know, felt like talking even if no one cares.

I mean, people might not read what you've written entirely because hey, it's the internet, but you should feel free to write as much or little as you like. Long or short, this should feel like a safe and welcoming place you can write.