FFXIV vs GW2

[Mat13295]

The major difference between the two is you'll actually see more than 1-2 people if you leave a city hub in GW2 and go out into the world.

[Velvet_Lunarfang]

GW2 has the following:

Mounts: These things are used not just for a simple "Get from Point A to Point B faster", but they're also used for platforming. A mount that can jump super high up to scale cliffs, a mount that hovers over water and dangerous environments, a mount that lets you teleport through sand portals, a mount that glides (that can be used for insane flying tricks if you master it), a mount that actually flies (short spurts, has an endurance thing for how long that lasts).

Gear: It's all horizontal, with each gear having different substats you switch between. Example, one type has Power/Toughness/Vitality (basically damage/defense/HP), another can have Healing/Condition/Vitality (healing/DoTs/HP). Once you unlock Exotic gear (orange), the only thing higher are ascended pieces (pink) and legendary (purple, same stats as pink, just unique cosmetics that you can change stats whenever). Due to this, gearing out is rather easy and the only gear changes you go for are cosmetic or are because you want to try a different build.

Classes: All of them are absolutely unique, and the elite specializations alter the classes further, making for some very interesting variations of the base class.

Races: The only 2 weak links here are Humans, and Norn (giant humans that transform into beasts). Outside of those 2, most if not all of the races in this game are completely unique. Sylvari are sentient plant people that as a race are only 20 years old when the game starts. Asura are basically goblins with super high tech magical devices and golems. Charr are the former villainous faction from GW1 who are essentially demon cats in the middle of their industrial steamtech revolution with tanks, helicopters, guns, etc. Those are just the playable races too. You have Skritt, which are rats that get smarter as more of them gather. Tengu, which are sentient bird people. Kodan, who are bear people, etc etc. There are a lot of unique races in this game.

Regions: A ton of explorable zones with hidden locations, across a large amount of biomes. Swamps, plains, ocean (you can swim and explore underwater), desert, jungles, postapocalyptic wastelands, snowy mountains and frozen lakes, etc etc.

Free Trial: Has some restrictions, but you get the base classes and a TON of content to do without paying a dime. I'd say it's comparable somewhat with FFXIV's free trial.

Are all the races playable?

[Skivvy]

GW2 has the following:

Mounts: These things are used not just for a simple "Get from Point A to Point B faster", but they're also used for platforming. A mount that can jump super high up to scale cliffs, a mount that hovers over water and dangerous environments, a mount that lets you teleport through sand portals, a mount that glides (that can be used for insane flying tricks if you master it), a mount that actually flies (short spurts, has an endurance thing for how long that lasts).

Gear: It's all horizontal, with each gear having different substats you switch between. Example, one type has Power/Toughness/Vitality (basically damage/defense/HP), another can have Healing/Condition/Vitality (healing/DoTs/HP). Once you unlock Exotic gear (orange), the only thing higher are ascended pieces (pink) and legendary (purple, same stats as pink, just unique cosmetics that you can change stats whenever). Due to this, gearing out is rather easy and the only gear changes you go for are cosmetic or are because you want to try a different build.

Classes: All of them are absolutely unique, and the elite specializations alter the classes further, making for some very interesting variations of the base class.

Races: The only 2 weak links here are Humans, and Norn (giant humans that transform into beasts). Outside of those 2, most if not all of the races in this game are completely unique. Sylvari are sentient plant people that as a race are only 20 years old when the game starts. Asura are basically goblins with super high tech magical devices and golems. Charr are the former villainous faction from GW1 who are essentially demon cats in the middle of their industrial steamtech revolution with tanks, helicopters, guns, etc. Those are just the playable races too. You have Skritt, which are rats that get smarter as more of them gather. Tengu, which are sentient bird people. Kodan, who are bear people, etc etc. There are a lot of unique races in this game.

Regions: A ton of explorable zones with hidden locations, across a large amount of biomes. Swamps, plains, ocean (you can swim and explore underwater), desert, jungles, postapocalyptic wastelands, snowy mountains and frozen lakes, etc etc.

Free Trial: Has some restrictions, but you get the base classes and a TON of content to do without paying a dime. I'd say it's comparable somewhat with FFXIV's free trial.

You explained this far better than I was attempting to do.

One thing that should be pointed out if story is a big thing to you, on top of the expansions, there are also "Living Story" chapters that really fill in a lot of the story, but the older LS chapters are NOT automatically included - even if you buy base game + the xpacs. I believe there are package deals now and then for all xpacs + living stories (check Steam also), but otherwise you will need to buy the older chapters from the cash shop. If you log into the game when a new chapter is released, you WILL get that for free.

About the cash shop, you can buy gems with money OR in-game gold with the exchange option. Handy for those who prefer to save some money and just grind away in-game for things.

Are all the races playable?

They are. And you can play any job on any race.

[Midareyukki]

Are all the races playable?

Not all the ones Ryu listed, no. The playable ones are Asura (imp-like lalafell), Norn (giant buff humans), Charr (panthers), Sylvari (living flora) and normal Humans. Stuff like Skritts, Kodan, Tamini or Tengu aren't playable, but that's not the point he's making. In the roster that IS playable, you have so much variety. Only the Norn are human-like. Compare that to FF14 where until Hrothgar came out, the furthest we've gone from "humans with appendages" was Au Ra. And even then, Hrothgar are literally only fuzzy Roegadyn with a different head model.

And while I doubt they would do this, if GW2 decided to make any of the non-playable "beast" races they have playable, they could with honestly relatively little fuss. Square went up in flames trying to make Hrothgar playable, and that was after they tested out how a furry race would be received with the Lupins... who, again, are just fuzzy humans with a canine head. Compare to the Charr whose anthropomorphic body is still rather feral and different than other races. Or the Sylvari, whose humanoid figure has alien features to them, including glow-in-the-dark skin.

And you can play any job on any race.

That you can. And the best part is that alts aren't server-locked x)

[Kewitt]

Why ask about a competitor game on ffxiv official forms?

[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.

[Striker44]

Why ask about a competitor game on ffxiv official forms?

My guess would be chances are better that people who've played one MMORPG might have played the other compared to posting somewhere random.

Personally, I loved the world in GW2. It's very expansive, there's a ton of stuff to do in each zone, the "vistas" are like the Sightseeing Log except you actually get some pretty sweet panoramic shots whenever you reach one. Classes have a lot of variety, and even within a class changing which weapons you use also changes what abilities you have access to. You can also join multiple guilds/FC's on the same toon and switch between which is your "active" guild at any time. There's a lot of good stuff there.

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.

[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.