FFXIV vs GW2

[Skivvy]

For cons, I'd say the biggest one was the platforming activities. It's very rare a game can get the movement engine just right (WoW is the only one I've played to date where I feel completely in control of precise movement). It felt more like the challenge in GW2 platforming was fighting the engine itself and getting it to register what you were trying to do rather than actually finding the path and doing the jumps themselves. For me, the rest of GW2 was "good." No real cons, but nothing really spectacular, either, once the "newness" wore off. I find I enjoy things like the story and the music immensely more in FFXIV.

I don't know what a few people here were talking about regarding GW2 feeling "inhabited" compared to FFXIV. Maybe it's because I'm on a high-pop server (Greg), but I find the "world" here feels very inhabited and I'm always running into a good number of people wherever I go, even when it's random zones from older expansions.

I've always thought the controls in GW2 were pretty decent for the platforming, but I never got into WoW, so maybe I'm missing out on the superior version.

As far as the activity levels in GW2 vs XIV, I think one of the things that works in GW2's favor is that your level will scale down to match whatever zone you're in, so you can still get XP and rewards, or play with friends, or just go explore things you missed previously and it's still beneficial for you.

[Striker44]

I've always thought the controls in GW2 were pretty decent for the platforming, but I never got into WoW, so maybe I'm missing out on the superior version.

As far as the activity levels in GW2 vs XIV, I think one of the things that works in GW2's favor is that your level will scale down to match whatever zone you're in, so you can still get XP and rewards, or play with friends, or just go explore things you missed previously and it's still beneficial for you.

Going between WoW, FFXIV, and GW2, for me I found FFXIV is the one that hits my sweet spot. WoW either doesn't scale anything down at all, or scales it up at certain points where leveling actually makes you weaker. GW2 scales everything, which actually irks me sometimes because if I'm going through an old area for exploration, vistas, etc., I just want to breeze through. FFXIV lets you breeze through the zones, but if you actually want to do things like FATES, you level sync for it to match the zone. I find it's a nice balance for me.

[Skivvy]

Oh! And if PvP is your thing, it's pretty big over here. I don't really touch it myself, I'll join a world vs. world zerg once in a great while, but maybe someone else can chime in on the finer details :3

PvP gets its own separate maps, so you don't have to worry about getting ganked out in the open-world.

[SturmChurro]

I've been playing it quite a bit lately during downtime in FFXIV. There just isn't much to do in this game at the moment. Anyway, moving on, the GW2 story can be very difficult to follow (if that is what you were looking for). If you purchased the expansions, and don't own the various 'Living World' seasons you will pretty much have no idea what is going on going into each. Living World is pretty much the story in this game told between each expansion that leads directly to the events of said expansion. They are 'free' if you played during certain periods, however new players definitely won't have them, and returning players probably won't have most. The expansions and the living world seasons can cost quite a bit of money (about $100 bundled on Steam, if I recall), by the way. I will say though, it is much easier to just jump straight in and play, since you can do the story, and any expansion you want in any order you like. So, if you were more gameplay oriented, this can be pretty good.

Aside from that, there are plenty of things to work towards for quite awhile as a new(er) player, even as a 'free to play' player, and the world is surprisingly very populated, and this includes older expansion zones (so not just purely populated by free to play), and older living world zones (yes, they also include zones). I quite like the dye system, although many of the dyes are locked, and, as a more aesthetic oriented player, I like the amount of glamour pieces available to strive for. I have played this game before as well, GW2 was one of my first mmorpgs, but having not played it in so long, I still have a lot to do and earn. In terms of combat, I think It's most closely like ESO, but I personally think it's a lot more fluid, and I do like it better, however the game suffers from legibility, in my opinion.

In comparison to FFXIV, FFXIV has much better storytelling, and structure. However, the GW2 story has some unique flavor dialogue that I really enjoy, that this game has very little of. My character's race is acknowledged multiple, multiple times in various dialogue, and my own character even has unique dialogue for that as well. It's something small, but it's something I like, and wish I could see more of here. I also do like that racial features are taken into account for many pieces in the game, whereas here they just are not. The charr (cat orc people with horns) have unique feet and look to be able to run on all fours. Their armor sets actually are shaped around their unique feet, and many of their helmets are shaped around their unique heads. In this game, hrothgar get their faces smashed, and that's IF they get a helmet. The overall character animations seem a lot more unique and natural as well.

[Cach]

GW2 sounds incredible on paper, but I can't stick to it for very long. I guess the whole horizontal thing is not for me. Also, I ended up only doing WvW and crafting.

+Map design and the open world are great, full of things to do and very alive (some maps have gimmicks I hate, tho).
+Different races actually feel different, not just slightly modified humans.
+The action style fighting is mostly great.
+They have a very original approach to mounts and their functionality.
+Glamour system is pretty good.
-Everything is aggressively monetized.
-Very arbitrary time locks on crafting.
-LFG could use an update.
-Story, while not horrible can give you whiplash. You can tell every time when a writer got fired.

[einschwartz]

I've just started playing a few days ago on trial. It's a very good game for people like me who loves open world exploring. I'm still getting used to the jumps in gw2 due to the movement involves actual physics, but doing jump puzzles is definitely less jank conpared to xiv.

Underwater combat is refreshing.

All characters are voiced. Including your own character. Though I heard it's based on the class you pick?
I wish there's a voice sample in character creation. I remade my character three times until I find the voice that I like.

[SturmChurro]

I've just started playing a few days ago on trial. It's a very good game for people like me who loves open world exploring. I'm still getting used to the jumps in gw2 due to the movement involves actual physics, but doing jump puzzles is definitely less jank conpared to xiv.

Underwater combat is refreshing.

All characters are voiced. Including your own character. Though I heard it's based on the class you pick?
I wish there's a voice sample in character creation. I remade my character three times until I find the voice that I like.

I'm not sure if it's class specifically, but rather race and sex. For example, I play female sylvari, and they are voiced by the same voice actress who voices femshep (Jennifer Hale). This can all be hit or miss though, depending on one's disposition. I personally like voice acting to this extent, and you can your character will even actively talk while using abilities, for example. There's definitely unique lines based on your class, from what I can tell.

[Deo14]

GW2 has incredible amount of QoL features and in general game systems that actually make sense. They're not afraid to go against the flow to make new things or to rethink old ideas. Some of the more notable things are:
+ Game uses actual horizontal progression. My main's armor that I made in like 2013/2014 is still BiS today.
+ You can change your entire build while you're inside instance (as long as you're not in combat)
+ Mounts are actually fun, not just x% passive movement speed increase
+ There is no combat ress, but you get downed before fully dying
+ No ability downsyncing bullshit
+ WvWvW and PvP in general
+ Condition-based builds (builds focused on DoT, except that debuff have more complexity than just "deal X damage every Y seconds")
+ Actual choice in how you play. Sure, some specs will inevitably be weaker, but in FF we have 19 homogenized and streamlined jobs (compared to 9*(3+1)=36 specs, which can be further customized with different talents and weapon types) and yet we still have balancing issues.
+ Actual 99.99% server uptime. You can even play game for 3 hours on old patch when new one drops
+ You can salvage(desynthesize, except you can do all at the same time) all your looted gear, which will give you materials, which can be simply send with single button from your inventory to your collectable bank storage. This means no inventory problems.
+ Money - I play GW2 on and off since beta and I started FFXIV year ago and I've spent more money just on sub alone. GW2 has cash shop, but you can convert gold to "premium" currency. I even upgraded my DLCs to deluxe edition for ingame gold.
+ Legendary gear is something else. Imagine time investment of getting all ARR relics. That's maybe half legendary weapon in GW2. But you can obviously choose different ways to get all materials and so on, so it won't get boring.
+ FFXIV's FATE is nowhere near GW2's events and meta-events.
- Main problem is however performance. GW2 sometimes runs like shit, but it's becoming more tolerable, with things like dx12 proxy and just generally PCs getting more powerful (and AMD CPUs finally getting decent single-core performance)
- Also gatekeeping on raids is very aids. Do you want to start raiding? Finish 250 raids, then you might be accepted into some PF group.

In general, I enjoy encounter design much more in FF, but it took me long time to deal with the fact that there is barely any engaging open world content and the endgame content is just treadmill.

Most importantly, unlike FFXIV which claims to "respect your time", GW2 actually does. I'm enjoying FFXIV at the moment, but I know that I can go back to GW2 anytime I want and I won't miss anything and all my gear will be up to date. I can't say the same about FFXIV.

[RyuDragnier]

- Also gatekeeping on raids is very raids. Do you want to start raiding? Finish 250 raids, then you might be accepted into some PF group.

Depends when you try to do them. I've found Saturdays tend to be the day where you find the people most willing to train new raiders, and if you're completely new they often suggest Wing 4 or Wing 1. I personally prefer when the group trains people on Wing 4, the first 2 bosses are essentially training dummies with very few mechanics. The 3rd fight is more akin to a normal raid fight, and the 4th...well, I hope you've got a handkite, tank, and oil kite ready and are ready to learn how hectic it can get fast.

[Zebraoracle]

People have noted a lot of other points already so I'll avoid them, but for me, the combat in GW2 is a big minus.

I know it's gotten *better* than release, but outside of raids (I can't give an honest opinion on them as I never got into them because the grind in GW2 is horrendous and the two or three times I tried coming back I just couldn't stay interested long enough to keep playing) the combat is very... spammy, for lack of a better word. I don't know how disingenuous this statement is considering FF14's combat can be mildly spammy as well (a lot of jobs use their damage CDs upon availability when they don't need to be saved for the 2 minute burst window) but GW2 was a lot worse, so I'm totally open to being corrected here. However from what I remember, the game's combat is very hit or miss.

I mentioned the grind a moment ago but I'll mention it again - from what I remember the grind for getting into raids, getting a legendary weapon, and doing high end fractals is absolutely ridiculous. I freaking hope it's gotten better.

The community can be really... uh, unpleasant sometimes. Definitely not the game's strong point.

My last negative is GW2 is less of a Guild Wars 2 and more of an MMO with the Guild Wars name lol. Gosh I miss GW1...

Frick, now I want to give GW2 a try again. Augh. Does anyone know if the steam version requires a whole new account or is it tied to your normal account?