Finally tried WoW

[Masekase_Hurricane]

After years spent playing Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV since Alpha, I finally decided to give World of Warcraft a proper try—and honestly, it just makes me frustrated with Square Enix.

WoW has so many features that feel like quality-of-life improvements SE should have implemented long ago. Here's what stands out:

1. Unlimited slots on Auction House (seems that way not 100% on this)
   
2. A fully customisable mount
   
3. Minimal loading between areas
   
4. Fun side quests
   
5. Fully voiced campaign replacing your name or skipping it in the dialogue using terms like mate, friend, etc.
   
6. NPCs travelling with you and interacting better, giving you a lift and talking through the journey
   
7. Being able to queue in dungeons as all specialisations you are able to do on that job (i.e. for WAR: tank and DPS)
   
8. Dungeons that you have quests in, with the ability to gather and collect gear
   
9. Being able to talk to NPCs without getting off your mount
   
10. Being able to gather without getting off your mount
    
11. You feel like an adventurer in the open world again
    
12. Timewalking is so much better than XIV's version of redoing past storylines
    
13. The glamour system is far superior
    
14. Not repeating storyline on alts (as long as you have finished the story on main)
    
15. A free level jump with an expansion
    
16. If inventory is full and you didn’t collect drops, they are mailed to you
    
17. Carrying things on your mount for fetch quests i.e hold an egg..
    
18. Can be aggroed in air, water and on land.

I’m still playing XIV for now, but my patience is wearing thin. When a 20+ year-old game makes all your long-standing frustrations seem easily solvable, it’s hard not to question how much longer I’ll stick around. That's just things I can remember there's so much more...

p.s Trying it with 3 friends who are also long time players, but hey ho Yoshida says play other games....

[Volgia]

Timewalking the best way of redoing storylines................................

[VictorSpoils]

Timewalking the best way of redoing storylines................................

moredotsmoredots

[Gokki]

1. Yes, and the ability to post multiple stacks at once.
2. That's cool
3. Same as in FF, but FF's system is outdated because it has to load everything everyone else has instead of streaming.
4. Same as in FF
5. It's just different because MC is different.
6. Same as in FF
7. I'd love to be able to queue up as a bunch of jobs i can do. YoshiP said "it's impossible to do it because XYZ" but it's 2025, other games have no problem handling matchmaking like that. They need to improve their skills/tools.
8. That would be cool, but it requires improving a lot of the game's backend to handle complex interactions like this. Kinda lame not to be able to in 2025
9. Nice QoL
10. Nice QoL, but FF has a deeper gathering system with skills and animations. How would that work when gathering collectibles?
11. Subjective, WoW zones have more stuff to do in them, FF's are mostly empty.
12. Absolutely not LOL, timewalking is horrible for a variety of reasons. FF has New Game+ if you care about the actual story, and has MINE setting for dungeon runs if you care about the experience.
13. Agree, needs to be copied into FF
14. Irrelevant as there's no reason to play multiple characters.
15. Irrelevant as there's no reason to play multiple characters.
16. Yes, other games do this too. Not sure why FF hasn't yet.
17. That would be nice, but it wouldn't change anything because then the devs would just make them longer.

In essence: there's a few things WoW does that should be copied to FF, but otherwise they're different enough that it's hard to compare beyond the obvious QOLs.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

1. Yes, and the ability to post multiple stacks at once.
2. That's cool
3. Same as in FF, but FF's system is outdated because it has to load everything everyone else has instead of streaming.
4. Same as in FF
5. It's just different because MC is different.
6. Same as in FF
7. I'd love to be able to queue up as a bunch of jobs i can do. YoshiP said "it's impossible to do it because XYZ" but it's 2025, other games have no problem handling matchmaking like that. They need to improve their skills/tools.
8. That would be cool, but it requires improving a lot of the game's backend to handle complex interactions like this. Kinda lame not to be able to in 2025
9. Nice QoL
10. Nice QoL, but FF has a deeper gathering system with skills and animations. How would that work when gathering collectibles?
11. Subjective, WoW zones have more stuff to do in them, FF's are mostly empty.
12. Absolutely not LOL, timewalking is horrible for a variety of reasons. FF has New Game+ if you care about the actual story, and has MINE setting for dungeon runs if you care about the experience.
13. Agree, needs to be copied into FF
14. Irrelevant as there's no reason to play multiple characters.
15. Irrelevant as there's no reason to play multiple characters.
16. Yes, other games do this too. Not sure why FF hasn't yet.
17. That would be nice, but it wouldn't change anything because then the devs would just make them longer.

In essence: there's a few things WoW does that should be copied to FF, but otherwise they're different enough that it's hard to compare beyond the obvious QOLs.

The difference feels like one is a waiting room to play a game, and the other is a full game—with dungeons being just one of many things to do. Jokes aside, the only real difference seems to come down to realistic graphics versus cartoon/comic book style visuals. But once you get past that, it’s essentially the same type of game—just handled far better.

[MicahZerrshia]

While I don't agree with the timewalking part (FFXI handled expansions better than WoW or FFXIV) as someone who has been playing WoW during this dark time too, I feel the same in a lot of ways. It took me some time to get past my dislike of the graphics, but now I actually think they are better than XIV's in a lot of ways and the cutscenes, man are they done leaps and bounds better with more natural movements, albeit a little exaggerated, rather than just npc's doing the same boring stiff emotes again and again. Even TWW's storyline is leaps and bounds better than DT. Characters are much much much more likeable and we have a real and amazing antagonist in Xal'atath. Anduin and Alleria make things exciting when they come on screen, as apposed to, well, the exhaustion that was the entire cast of DT. The main cast puts the scions to shame. And the game itself is just much more enjoyable, classes are much more fun, content feels rewarding and it is just fun, dungeons are a lot more fun and have some neat mechanics and I look forward to doing content there, esp content like Delves which I think are a blast. Even farming content for old mounts, glams, etc feels better since it's one and done on all characters.

It's almost as if they got rid of the ppl who were holding them back, took the feedback they got from the player base over the years and took some time to really turn it over and come up with a solution. The game is not perfect, but holy moly does it feel good to play compared to this game right now. Who would have thought investing in your product and taking time to actually talk to your customers and thoughtfully adapt could completely refresh your game and make your players excited again. Cannot wait to see their housing system.

Gotta give a special shout out to dungeons here too. I did a dungeon awhile ago that had me fly on my mount from airship to airship defeating mobs and then when I was fighting the boss, she would periodically do this big attack required me to jump on my mount and fly to avoid it and then spin back around, land and continue the fight on the airship deck. The whole time I was just sitting there in awe after 15 years of boring hallways and bosses that just require I take 2 steps to the left.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Gotta give a special shout out to dungeons here too. I did a dungeon awhile ago that had me fly on my mount from airship to airship defeating mobs and then when I was fighting the boss, she would periodically do this big attack required me to jump on my mount and fly to avoid it and then spin back around, land and continue the fight on the airship deck. The whole time I was just sitting there in awe after 15 years of boring hallways and bosses that just require I take 2 steps to the left.

Haven’t formed a full opinion on dungeons yet since I’ve only done two, but they were already way more fun—and I really like that you can choose the difficulty: easy, medium, or hard. That alone makes them feel more dynamic and less like a one-size-fits-all grind. I also really like that the time I’ve spent doing professions actually levels my main—instead of being a completely separate EXP system like in XIV. I've only played for 4 days I'm 57 WAR, 300 in classic mining and 300 in classic Engineering.

While I don't agree with the timewalking part (FFXI handled expansions better than WoW or FFXIV)

Not going to disagree if we start bringing FFXI into the mix. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for the cap increase to 99, I’d probably still be playing it. What’s sad is that WoW actually feels closer to XI than XIV ever has—and that says a lot.

[YovelaLindswood]

Haven’t formed a full opinion on dungeons yet since I’ve only done two, but they were already way more fun—and I really like that you can choose the difficulty: easy, medium, or hard. That alone makes them feel more dynamic and less like a one-size-fits-all grind. I also really like that the time I’ve spent doing professions actually levels my main—instead of being a completely separate EXP system like in XIV. I've only played for 4 days I'm 57 WAR, 300 in classic mining and 300 in classic Engineering.

I love the dungeons. There are a lot of really unique systems in the dungeons they play with. Like back in dragonflight one of the bosses was basically playing basketball with it while fighting. This xpac theres a part where you all hop in a mine cart and throw dynamite at the boss before the fight starts. My favorite dungeon in the game is one where every single voice line in the dungeon is a pun, and I do mean EVERY voice line. Dungeons in general are great since its completely a pull what you are capable of kinda game where skill expression for tanks exists. Different difficulty scaling is so good for the game and honestly cant wait for you to try out mythics. They're an absolute blast and a really fun self challenge to climb in rating.

[YovelaLindswood]

Gotta give a special shout out to dungeons here too. I did a dungeon awhile ago that had me fly on my mount from airship to airship defeating mobs and then when I was fighting the boss, she would periodically do this big attack required me to jump on my mount and fly to avoid it and then spin back around, land and continue the fight on the airship deck. The whole time I was just sitting there in awe after 15 years of boring hallways and bosses that just require I take 2 steps to the left.

Broooooooo dawnbreaker is so fire. Its also got skill expression when you drop off the airship into the city to kill the lieutenants and general. The lieutenants arent mandatory and killing them only reduces the damage the general does to you. So you can skip them based on your parties skill and gear. Also worth noting the rp in the final boss. He flees at about 50% hp and the dungeon ends but he's also a boss in the season 1 raid that starts at 50% where you left him. The raid boss also uses stronger modifications of the mechanics in the dungeon too along with a couple others. Great world building.

[Codyjt92]

You feel like an adventurer in the open world again

This makes me feel like you didn't actually play the game.

If you have that much dis-taste for FFXIV, maybe it's just time for you to move on.

FFXIV does a lot far superior to that of WoW. I would know, I played WoW for over 15 years. WoW is far from what is used to be. WoW today is nothing like the game that most people fell in love with. If they would have done what FFXIV has done (Update the game, make it feel current, but leave the base recipe alone) I'd most likely still be playing WoW today.

If you look at classic vs retail. The two games share the same name, but they are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT games. When WoW completely redesigned itself with WoD, they went from having 10 million+ active subs to 5 million active subs in less than 6 months. This drop is sub count is literally what made Blizzard stop report sub counts to the public.

Don't get me wrong, FFXIV is far from perfect. The devs need to stop adding new systems and go back and update systems they have in place. It seems like the devs create a system, just to never touch it again. Many of the FFXIV systems are the same from 10 years ago with little to no updates. This is what they need to do. They don't need to completely overhaul the game to make it completely something different.