[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Graeham]

It is a clone.

Leveling works the same way. Quickly over and done with.
You spend 90% of your time at level cap grind gear in raids. Over and over and over again.
2nd best gear (aka catch up gear) comes relatively easily because the developers need to lower the barrier of entry to raiding.
Character customization is non-existent because it would be too difficult to balance for the purposes of raiding - the point of attribute allocation and choice in gear is pretty much gone.
Crafting professions are relegated to sideshow status because they don't want to inconvenient raiders (increasing the barrier of entry to raiding).
... etc.

They followed Blizzard's chain of decisions in pretty much lockstep.

It's not a clone at all.

Leveling isn't particularly difficult but it's nowhere near as easy as it is in WoW. You - thankfully - can't throw cash at the game to skip the leveling process almost entirely.

If you choose to spend 90% of your time in raids then...that's your choice. Absolutely nothing is forcing you to do that. It's like playing Fallout 4 and complaining that you spend most of your time building settlements because you make the decision not to go out into the game world and explore.

Gear being replaced by something better is pretty every now and then is standard in modern MMO's.

Character customisation isn't perfect and could do with additional options but it's still far more in-depth and less dated than what WoW offers...especially in terms of smooth animations.

Crafting is far from a 'sideshow'. It's optional, yes, but it's super in-depth compared to what other MMO's offer. Each crafting - and gathering - profession is literally it's own class.

[Gutler]

Too far behind for what?

Story? Take your time. No rush.

Raiding? Just grind Lore Tombstones for catch up gear - like you do in WoW with valor.

The last time i remember playing was before they added the new stage to the relic weapons (i have yoichi bow atm).

[alturic]

How does the world transfer service work on the Mog station? Can you move (pay?) to Balmung? Even if you are in a different data center?

[Faroth]

Hmmmm i really want to get back into FFXIV but i havent played in months and i feel i'll be to far behind....

Outside of MSQ, the gearing gets pretty good catch up mechanics.

[SodiumChloride]

The last time i remember playing was before they added the new stage to the relic weapons (i have yoichi bow atm).

No rush for that right?

If you need a weapon to raid, you can get a iLv230 one by grinding DF Alex's last wing for 7 "gears" combined with 1000 Lore. Will take you 2 months to get. Eso iLv200 weapon is also available for Jobs.

- - - Updated - - -

It's not a clone at all.

Leveling isn't particularly difficult but it's nowhere near as easy as it is in WoW. You - thankfully - can't throw cash at the game to skip the leveling process almost entirely.

If you choose to spend 90% of your time in raids then...that's your choice. Absolutely nothing is forcing you to do that. It's like playing Fallout 4 and complaining that you spend most of your time building settlements because you make the decision not to go out into the game world and explore.

Gear being replaced by something better is pretty every now and then is standard in modern MMO's.

Character customisation isn't perfect and could do with additional options but it's still far more in-depth and less dated than what WoW offers...especially in terms of smooth animations.

Crafting is far from a 'sideshow'. It's optional, yes, but it's super in-depth compared to what other MMO's offer. Each crafting - and gathering - profession is literally it's own class.

Clone doesn't mean exactly the same. But it's very very very similar. Your progression through the game is similar to WoW. The self-imposed limitations on gameplay mechanics (for the sake of raiding) is similar to WoW.

FFXIV is WoW with thicker make-up. Underneath, it's skeleton, is pretty much just WoW ...

But we are just arguing semantics now.

[Florena]

It's not a clone at all.

Leveling isn't particularly difficult but it's nowhere near as easy as it is in WoW. You - thankfully - can't throw cash at the game to skip the leveling process almost entirely.

If you choose to spend 90% of your time in raids then...that's your choice. Absolutely nothing is forcing you to do that. It's like playing Fallout 4 and complaining that you spend most of your time building settlements because you make the decision not to go out into the game world and explore.

Gear being replaced by something better is pretty every now and then is standard in modern MMO's.

Character customisation isn't perfect and could do with additional options but it's still far more in-depth and less dated than what WoW offers...especially in terms of smooth animations.

Crafting is far from a 'sideshow'. It's optional, yes, but it's super in-depth compared to what other MMO's offer. Each crafting - and gathering - profession is literally it's own class.

I consider it a bit of a tie with character customization. FF XIV allows you to go much more in depth with customizing a character. But WoW's base races are far more diverse.

[Gutler]

i tend to play summoner more then i do bard so atm i have the ilvl 200 eso book. (my current gear is linked in my sig)

[SodiumChloride]

I consider it a bit of a tie with character customization. FF XIV allows you to go much more in depth with customizing a character. But WoW's base races are far more diverse.

Customization is very limited in both games.

WoW in general has more classes - I count each spec as a class BTW; each spec has to be balance and tweak individually to maintain Blizzard's precious raid balance, they are pretty much classes in all but name.

While FFXIV has cross-class skills, those are pretty much a formality as everyone picks the same ones and there are only so many you can choose from.

In both games, other than choosing your "preset archetype", you don't really have any customization at all - excluding cosmetics of course.

[Kazgrel]

Hmmmm i really want to get back into FFXIV but i havent played in months and i feel i'll be to far behind....

I stopped playing right when 3.1 came out, returned for 3.2 (so 3-4 months of not playing) and I'm pretty much "caught up" at this point in terms of gear/power. Game is fairly easy to catch back up on as far as the gear treadmill goes.

[Nurvus]

What I think is lacking the most in MMOs nowadays, is
1 - the open world feel and interconnection between various activities that BDO brought to the table,
2 - proper encouragement and support for REAL, natural, flowing roleplaying, like some player-made modules of Neverwinter Nights had.
Games like WoW and FFXIV have plenty of roleplayers, but the roleplaying is usually premeditated and limited to specific locations, and definitely not in combat.

Neverwinter Nights had an emote system where you pressed a root key "V" and then a sequence of 2 more keys to choose a "theme" and an "emote". Example: V-E-F, if I'm not mistaken, would result the theme "Exploration" and the emote "Follow me."
Those emotes were ridiculously easy to do even in the heat of combat.

So without the aid of macros you could easily perform cries of war or other things during combat or during a chase.

[Graeham]

I consider it a bit of a tie with character customization. FF XIV allows you to go much more in depth with customizing a character. But WoW's base races are far more diverse.

Yeah. FFXIV's very, uh, 'Japanese' in its character design. I don't mind it personally since I'm happy so long as I can create a classically handsome character which both WoW and FFXIV allow for...albeit in different ways. I do think that FFXIV's developers will probably get around to expanding the options available...perhaps in place of a new playable race during the next expansion. Or at least I hope so.

[SodiumChloride]

My biggest hope for an MMO in the future, is something along the lines of BDO in terms of combat, open world feel and interconnection between various activities.
However, I have yet to see a game that properly encourages and supports REAL, natural, flowing roleplaying, like some player-made modules of Neverwinter Nights did.

A start would be to (as mentioned early) let players create "quests" with rewards they pay out of their own pockets.**

Why should NPCs be the only ones allowed to make requests of players?

** i.e. a contract system (/w penalties for breaking the contract of course like in the real world)

[Florena]

Customization is very limited in both games.

WoW in general has more classes - I count each spec as a class BTW; each spec has to be balance and tweak individually to maintain Blizzard's precious raid balance, they are pretty much classes in all but name.

While FFXIV has cross-class skills, those are pretty much a formality as everyone picks the same ones and there are only so many you can choose from.

In both games, other than choosing your "preset archetype", you don't really have any customization at all - excluding cosmetics of course.

I'm talking just about the aesthetics of the character at character creation screen, not the classes. If we're talking customization within a class gameplay wise WoW takes the cake, though XIV at least allows you to learn every class/job on one character, but they're all leveled separately so it's not as easy as saying "I'm bored of arcane mage, let's give fire a try.'

My point was that XIV allows you many more options for customizing your character appearance not found in WoW, such as more skin and hair colors, facial tattoos, lip color, bust slider etc. While WoW has more diverse core races, but less customization within them. XIV has humans, humans with cat features, really big humans, really small humans, really bland elves and now humans with dragon features. While all of WoW's races are also humanoid in shape at the end of the day, trolls, orcs, tauren etc are more diverse than what XIV offers.

[Gutler]

I have a feeling if i do come back i kinda want to return my character to her original race and go back to lalafell

[Nurvus]

Customization is very limited in both games.

WoW in general has more classes - I count each spec as a class BTW; each spec has to be balance and tweak individually to maintain Blizzard's precious raid balance, they are pretty much classes in all but name.

While FFXIV has cross-class skills, those are pretty much a formality as everyone picks the same ones and there are only so many you can choose from.

In both games, other than choosing your "preset archetype", you don't really have any customization at all - excluding cosmetics of course.

Actually, WoW manages to provide some degree of customization that only really becomes "useless" at the very highest level of gameplay, and even then, there are those who manage to use an otherwise considered "too complicated to make good use of" talent combination with exceptional effectiveness.

I agree that each WoW spec is equivalent to a FFXIV's job which already gives WoW a tremendous advantage in variety, but I think it goes way beyond that, because each spec provides you with multiple viable playstyles, as you can actually choose talent combinations that fundamentally change your rotation and in some cases even stat weights.
Although in most cases there is an optimal choice per encounter, Blizzard has done a decent job at making two or three distinct playstyles within a spec viable for 99% of the content.
Last but not least, in FFXIV, if you compare two players that know their class and know the encounter, have the same job and gear, the ability for one of them to stand out through skill is null.
This is because the rotations in FFXIV, no matter how complex, are always premeditated - procs in that game are obvious and devoid of any depth - to the point that you actually plan ahead to use a "shortened" version of your rotation at a certain point of the fight because e.g: you know you'll have to get to the other side of the platform after X seconds of DPSing Leviathan to avoid getting knocked out of platform.

If it weren't for the limitations on FFXIV macros making them a DPS loss, I guarantee people would use 2 or 3 different macros to handle their entire rotation perfectly in any given boss fight.

[alturic]

Last but not least, in FFXIV, if you compare two players that know their class and know the encounter, have the same job and gear, the ability for one of them to stand out through skill is null. This is because the rotations in FFXIV, no matter how complex, are always premeditated - procs in that game are obvious and devoid of any depth - to the point that you actually plan ahead to use a "shortened" version of your rotation at a certain point of the fight because e.g: you know you'll have to get to the other side of the platform after X seconds of DPSing Leviathan to avoid getting knocked out of platform.

At first I was going to reply with "whaaaa?", then I realized in any game that's true. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, knowing your class is meant as "knowing what are the proper abilities and rotation", right?

[Sorrior]

Have any recommendations for what servers are constantly bustling with activity? Don't want to play on a dead server. heh.

I am on one of the smallest servers and see people all the time no worries no matter but Balmung/gilgamesh are the largest

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How does the world transfer service work on the Mog station? Can you move (pay?) to Balmung? Even if you are in a different data center?

Yes and it voids the whole locked server thong. It is 20 dollars for all character to another server if you wish(so feel free to make 8 then transfer)

[Kazgrel]

Maybe it's me, but I'm at the point of my eyes about to spin out of my head due to rolling too much over how every third post in this thread is a complaint about something in this game that can honestly be applied to any and every MMO, perhaps even more than just that genre, even.

Don't think I lack nits to pick about the game. I definitely have plenty of those. But that applies to damn near any game I've ever played.

[Sorrior]

Maybe it's me, but I'm at the point of my eyes about to spin out of my head due to rolling too much over how every third post in this thread is a complaint about something in this game that can honestly be applied to any and every MMO, perhaps even more than just that genre, even.

Don't think I lack nits to pick about the game. I definitely have plenty of those. But that applies to damn near any game I've ever played.

Honestly I wish someone would do SOMETHING about Sodium. All he does is complain and something like 90% of his suggestions just are not viable or realistic. Nit for ffxiv at least

[Eleccybubb]

Tbh if you want FF14 to be like WoW well go play WoW. If anything the true WoW clone is Rift.