WoW to FFXIV transition guide..

[Molly_Millions]

Here's my complete guide:

1) forget about WoW. it sucks.
2) start playing a real MMO
3) profit

[Keres]

2) start playing a real MMO

Which one would you recommend?

[Molly_Millions]

Which one would you recommend?

the only one that's worth playing atm, this one.

[Catalyst67]

Here's my complete guide:

1) forget about WoW. it sucks.
2) start playing a real MMO
3) profit

Obviously WoW doesn't suck because it has more subscribers, just saying (I like both FFXIV and WoW). To me, the mechanics of the game go to WoW, and the community goes to FFXIV, and people will pick depending on what they find more important of the two, in my opinion.

[Giit]

that's like saying Justin Beiber doesn't suck because he's got more friends on facebook.

[Altera]

The thing that makes me want to uninstall FFXIV is the animation locks and the unresponsive actions that you use. I mean seriously, when I use an ability, I don't want my character to squat down for two seconds and take a sh1t (for example: invigorate). That is precious time in battle I don't want to waste, for DD and for the animation lock trying to move or dodge something.

FFXIV plays like other FF games. With good looking animations to watch as you character pounds the enemy. And DD is scaled around the animation locks etc. And makes people have to time when to use them properly.

In WoW, the insane buttonsmashing. Got really tiresome. Everything is just a big mess of animations of spells and strikes. You cant even see what you character is using. Just looks like throwing his arms around wildly.
But we all have different preferences. I grew up with Final Fantasy and other TurnBased RPG, and I love them more than the real time combat system. ^^

[fusional]

i still find it amusing how many people on these forums flail around about how bad WoW is... while playing this game. it's like we've played completely different games all this time. WoW is a superior game in almost every aspect. that's why it's popular. that's why people who get bored of it keep going back after trying every other MMO on the market, hoping it will be the one to replace WoW. and then it's not.

there's more for casuals, there's more for mid-cores, there's more for hardcores. the loot system is vastly superior, the challenging stuff is more challenging (and more rewarding), the easy stuff is more accessible. the UI is superior (mods, customization), the gameplay and controls are superior, the mechanics are deeper, there's more for min-maxers... and you can't even say the community is worse, because this community is no better. 3/4 of the threads people make are crying about the same dumb crap people cry about in the WoW forums.

as far as this game requiring more thinking? you must be joking. figuring out a perfect rotation on a particular boss takes a couple hours. figuring out the best combination of gear/stats for an encounter takes a couple hours. figuring out the mechanics of a new content for first kill takes... a couple hours. this game is 100% easier in every aspect except for how unintuitive it is. as far as WoW? take a tour around Elitist Jerks. enough said.

but sometimes a game runs its course and you're just looking for something new. or perhaps people simply don't like the direction a game is going. quite a few people from XI and WoW come to FFXIV as a result. most quit immediately after, and for good reason. some stay for the promise of 2.0. if 2.0 doesn't deliver, most will go back to XI/WoW/Tera/etc.

but keep the silly WoW-bashing to yourselves, especially when most of it is just baseless (and downright strange?) opinion. this thread asks for a road map to introduce to people who've come over from WoW to keep them playing. if you can't immediately admit this game's faults and recognize why that may be powerfully discouraging to most new players, especially in relation to other MMOs- you likely lack the perspective to give OP what he's asking for.

the bottom line is, the best way to keep new players playing is to warn them of this game's many faults upfront. be honest. then tell them how to deal with and/or circumvent those faults, or how those faults will be addressed in 2.0. because making this game out to be something it's not is *surely* not the way to keep a new player's interest. period.

[Antipika]

i still find it amusing how many people on these forums flail around about how bad WoW is... while playing this game. it's like we've played completely different games all this time. WoW is a superior game in almost every aspect. that's why it's popular. that's why people who get bored of it keep going back after trying every other MMO on the market, hoping it will be the one to replace WoW. and then it's not.

there's more for casuals, there's more for mid-cores, there's more for hardcores. the loot system is vastly superior, the challenging stuff is more challenging (and more rewarding), the easy stuff is more accessible. the UI is superior (mods, customization), the gameplay and controls are superior, the mechanics are deeper, there's more for min-maxers... and you can't even say the community is worse, because this community is no better. 3/4 of the threads people make are crying about the same dumb crap people cry about in the WoW forums.

as far as this game requiring more thinking? you must be joking. figuring out a perfect rotation on a particular boss takes a couple hours. figuring out the best combination of gear/stats for an encounter takes a couple hours. figuring out the mechanics of a new content for first kill takes... a couple hours. this game is 100% easier in every aspect except for how unintuitive it is. as far as WoW? take a tour around Elitist Jerks. enough said.

but sometimes a game runs its course and you're just looking for something new. or perhaps people simply don't like the direction a game is going. quite a few people from XI and WoW come to FFXIV as a result. most quit immediately after, and for good reason. some stay for the promise of 2.0. if 2.0 doesn't deliver, most will go back to XI/WoW/Tera/etc.

but keep the silly WoW-bashing to yourselves, especially when most of it is just baseless (and downright strange?) opinion. this thread asks for a road map to introduce to people who've come over from WoW to keep them playing. if you can't immediately admit this game's faults and recognize why that may be powerfully discouraging to most new players, especially in relation to other MMOs- you likely lack the perspective to give OP what he's asking for.

the bottom line is, the best way to keep new players playing is to warn them of this game's many faults upfront. be honest. then tell them how to deal with and/or circumvent those faults, or how those faults will be addressed in 2.0. because making this game out to be something it's not is *surely* not the way to keep a new player's interest. period.

QFT.

Glad to see they are still people with common sense on forums. One may or not like WoW gameplay style, graphic style etc. But saying that WoW is "bad" while XIV is "good" is just a complete non sense.

You may like XIV more than WoW, that's a matter of preference, not quality.

The part in bold is even more true. Raid progression in WoW (or even most of "WoW-like" games such as Rift etc.) is way harder than anything we have on XIV. And it's not hard because of the latency, lack of having a proper UI, timesink due to awful mechanics (no group rez, high downtime between attempts). It's hard because of how mechanics are punishing and require a perfect raid coordination in order to be able to defeat bosses, especially when you are low on gear (i.e. soon after a new raid tier is introduced).

DPS checks are tight, everyone have to focus on raid-wide mechanics during the fight from simple "Don't stand in fire" to Interupt spell X/Y/Z with a rotation, buff tank/use CD on tank during a certain phase, tank swapping mechanics because of debuff stacking on tank, add management and so on... We are looking at sometime 10 mechanics to follow in a single boss phase.

Next to that, Garuda is baby's first boss. Take Garuda's mechanics to WoW, with the same UI, low latency and so on, everyone would just defeat her. On XIV? It's a challenge due to how crippled the current version is.

Which bring me to the point of this thread. The most important part that players transitioning from WoW to XIV have to understand is that they will feel less efficient on XIV. They will never be able to perform as many things as they could perform in WoW. No more casting 3 abilities on 3 different target in couple seconds. They need to understand that in XIV this is "normal" and that everyone is the same and it's not them being bad at it.

[MrKupo]

I would say that this game is not so much about skill spamming as it is about positioning and moderation.

In most other MMOs, you can get away with spamming your strongest skills without worrying about the tank losing hate. If the tank does lose hate, it is purely the tank's fault.
In this game, the DDs and the healers are just as responsible for keeping hate down as the tank is responsible for keeping the hate up. That means slowing down your nukes and watching your DPS. It also means using various skills to either transfer hate to the tank or reduce hate to oneself.

[Antipika]

I would say that this game is not so much about skill spamming as it is about positioning and moderation.

In most other MMOs, you can get away with spamming your strongest skills without worrying about the tank losing hate. If the tank does lose hate, it is purely the tank's fault.
In this game, the DDs and the healers are just as responsible for keeping hate down as the tank is responsible for keeping the hate up. That means slowing down your nukes and watching your DPS. It also means using various skills to either transfer hate to the tank or reduce hate to oneself.

It is true that hate in other MMOs isn't usually a limit for people DPS'ing. DPS-er job is to output as much DPS as they can and tank usually don't have to worry about hate at all if their gear and macro rotation are correct.

However you do have punishing mechanics in place to prevent people just brainless spam couple DPS macros and be only like pew pew during a whole encounter, on top of "stay out of the fire" things that forces you to move.

Common mechanics such as:

- Reflective shield: You DPS, you kill yourself (and often in one hit). Or you may kill another raid member or even the whole raid.
- Regenerate boss HP: You DPS/do any action, boss cure HP. If your raid-DPS is low, you'll eventually wipe your raid because of enrage timer.
+ Add any kind of penalty you could receive by DPS'ing at the wrong time. From a lower max HP debuff, to a damage reduction penalty, buffing the boss or an add, etc.

So in the end, it's about the same. Tons of mechanics can be there to make DPS-er life hard and reduce their DPS output and make fight less monotonous for them. The difference with XIV is: you know exactly what impact any action will have in advance. You know that casting a spell while reflective shield is up will kill you. There is no guess.

On XIV, threat/enmity is obscure. You don't have any 100% accurate idea if casting a spell will or will not make you take aggro. We don't have any real formula either. If you want to max out efficiency, you' may end up in the "red" often, when drawing a line between "red" and "aggro (flashing red)" is impossible. With experience, you can approximate it, but that's about it. So you may take aggro.

If you never take aggro, does it mean that you were at 100% efficiency? Is there a way to know? Nope. You can't tell if casting one extra spell at any given time would or would not have generated enough hate for you to take aggro. So you have to try and be efficient, while having no way of knowing your exact limit.

I liked that in XI a lot (not being able to measure enmity etc.), but a lot of players don't.