WoW Veteran considering switching - few questions

[AceofH]

Simply put i'm burning out on wow and thinking about playing FF14. few questions.

Character Creation - is it in depth? one of the things i find lacking in wow is how...lacking character creation is.

Classes - how varied are the classes and what would be the closest classes to Assassination Rogue and Affliction Warlock?

Rotations - are dps rotations overly convoluted or pretty simple?

Professions - hard to level? easy to level? what types of professions does the game have?

Talent Trees - does the game have talent trees like current wow? or like BC/Vanilla days? or no talent trees at all?

Dungeons - are there lots of dungeons while leveling up? or few?

and most importantly

How good is the story and story telling?

Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game?

[Eleccybubb]

1. Pretty in depth. Lot more stuff to choose from.

2. Bit of variation. Some healers for example are more focused on direct healing and regens or shields and direct healing.

3. Some are combo based and some do take a while to learn.

4. Not hard to level but takes some time to master and craft the best stuff.

5. No. It has no talent trees at all. It has traits you gain that affect abilities or change them every few levels.

6. https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Dungeons Shows every dungeon from 1-70.

7. Story is actually really amazing. One of the best I've played in an MMO.

And lastly. Just have fun is all I can offer as advice.

[Shanden]

Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game?

There is a free trial which answers most of your questions.

[Deleted]

i switched from wow after 11 years to ffxiv & never regretted it for a moment.
the ffxiv storylines beat wows into next week, the cut scenes are also so much better & i really enjoyed both a realm reborn & heavensward.
i havnt bought stormblood yet as im taking a break from mmo's atm, but i will indeed be coming back to ff in the near future.

[Eleccybubb]

F2P to lvl 20 tells you almost nothing about the game at higher lvls or endgame.

FF14 is F2P to 35. It allows you to unlock a job, do the Main story and a few dungeons along with 2 trials that require basic mechanics. And Guildhests which are micro dungeons that show off some mechanics.

Not many games do their trial to endgame. Guild Wars 2's base model is the only one that I know of and even then it is restricted.

[Caolela]

FF14 is F2P to 35. It allows you to unlock a job, do the Main story and a few dungeons along with 2 trials that require basic mechanics. And Guildhests which are micro dungeons that show off some mechanics.

My mistake. I didn't see the first line of OPs post, thought the other guy meant WoW F2P.

[Arkedral]

I have been playing FFXIV for just about a month now. I am only scratching the surface of learning how everything goes. But so far, it has been a very refreshing experience after 10 years of WoW.

[Lynarii]

Simply put i'm burning out on wow and thinking about playing FF14. few questions.

Character Creation - is it in depth? one of the things i find lacking in wow is how...lacking character creation is.

Classes - how varied are the classes and what would be the closest classes to Assassination Rogue and Affliction Warlock?

Rotations - are dps rotations overly convoluted or pretty simple?

Professions - hard to level? easy to level? what types of professions does the game have?

Talent Trees - does the game have talent trees like current wow? or like BC/Vanilla days? or no talent trees at all?

Dungeons - are there lots of dungeons while leveling up? or few?

and most importantly

How good is the story and story telling?

Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game?

1) Character Creation is more in depth than WoW, but it isn't going to hold a candle to some of the MMOs out there with character creators you can literally spend weeks tweaking.

2) Classes are generally fairly varied, and you do have the advantage of being able to swap them on the fly with a single character. Assassination Rogue would be Ninja (but that is a very very loose comparison. The WoW rogue combo system is not one that FF uses, and stealth is not really a significant part of any kit) and Affliction Warlock would be Summoner (Was closer in Heavensward where SMN was heavily DOT based, they've moved to a bit more nuke-heavy design in Stormblood, due to Squenix trying to limit how many DOTs are kicking around)

3) It depends heavily on what job you run. Some jobs (DRG or SMN comes to mind) requires knowing your ability timings very well and when to hold a CD, others (I'm looking at you SAM) can deal reasonable damage with very little knowledge of what you're doing.

4) Professions are not difficult to level, but they are time consuming. Primarily because you are almost required to go all in on them. The way the system is set up, it's almost impossible to just be a 'blacksmith', due to the majority of recipies requiring components from other jobs. If you're crafting, you probably want to max all 8 crafting jobs and all 3 gathering ones. Otherwise expect to get fleeced at the market board for materials, and potentially even lack crucial abilities.

5) No talent trees. Every <insert job here> will have access to all the same buttons as every other one of the same job. Since you can level multiple jobs, you get variety by swapping job rather than swapping talents within a job.

6) There's a dungeon at levels 15, 16, 17, 20, then every 4 levels from 20-38, every 3 levels from 38-50, a pile of them at 50, then every 2 levels from 51 onward (with another pile at 60)

7) Quality of story telling is heavily a personal taste thing. The story for FFXIV puts the player character in the central role from almost the very beginning, so it depends on how much you like that. I personally enjoyed it, and feel that there were a couple of really powerful moments in the story. And some kinda head-desk missteps as well.

8) While you are by no means locked to your first choice of classes, it could be advantageous to sit down with someone who knows the game well to get information on how the jobs play at higher levels. Many of them change significantly as they level up, and it would kinda suck to start out as a rogue and be loving it... until mudra are added and suddenly it's horrible. (I hate mudra so much)

[Shanden]

8) While you are by no means locked to your first choice of classes, it could be advantageous to sit down with someone who knows the game well to get information on how the jobs play at higher levels. Many of them change significantly as they level up, and it would kinda suck to start out as a rogue and be loving it... until mudra are added and suddenly it's horrible. (I hate mudra so much)

There is a simply trick for that: play the trial until you finish the Quest The House That Death Built (click). This allows you to play the dungeon palace of the dead, which has its own level system (inside and outside level are not the same). Inside it you can play every class up to level 60 within hours (once you finish floor 50, you can always start at level60). This way you can experience all basics classes yourself. Still no Dark Knight/Astrologian/Machinist (require Heavensward and finished basic story) or Samurai/Red Mage (require Stormblood), but it leaves an impression how the game plays at higher level.

Edit: oh I forgot to mention that you only get the job of your class (for example Paladin for gladiator) inside palace of the dead if you already have it outside (you get job classes at class level 30). At least leveling inside the dungeon is the fastest method leveling available to you. The first class should still be leveled with the main story quests because all the game features are locked behind story progress.

[IdonotplayWoW]

Character Creation - More so than WoW, not completely however there are more features such as customising characters body and facial appearances but there isn't a lot more to it than that, as each selection of facial is pretty restricted, in comparison to let's say Black Desert Online's Character customisation. But you can create something new if you're inventive or creative.

Classes - You have a total of around 13 classes, each have some variety to how you can play them, however you do not have any access to talents or talent points, and it is solely based on how you want your rotation to be and what you want to gear your classes stats about, A Summoner would probably come close to an affliction warlock, having one of the most DoT based spells in the game as an offensive DPS class, where as a Ninja would play the role as your Assassination Rogue.

Rotations - Some are, but some are more challenging to master than others, it's pretty much the same as WoW at this point, but unlike WoW you have to take into account that you may have a longer GCD.

Professions - Carpenter, Blacksmith, Armourer, Culinary, Alchemist, Weaver, Leatherworking, Goldsmith, Fishing, Mining, Botany, all of which you can level on one character, Botany and Mining are the grindy gathering ones, while fishing may be the most relaxing, imo. As for the the disciples of the hand (crafting classes): Each will take a varied amount of time to level all of them to max level, but they have different class quests for each milestone which keeps things interesting, depending on how dedicated you are it will take you less or more time to level all of them, as for hard or easy? It's easy once you master it, but it's definitely got the best crafting system in any MMO on the market.

Talent Trees - As said above, no talent trees.

Dungeons - There are less dungeons than WoW, due to the fact that WoW has more expansions that FFXIV does, but FFXIV dungeons focus more on Quality and are not dungeons with a stupid amount of trash mobs, and each fight is both fair and aesthetically pleasing.

How good is the story and story telling? Better than any game you've ever played.
Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game? If you're interested in some Epic content like pre-TBC and pre-Vanilla, Do the Coils of Bahamut, unsynced. you'll thank me later.

[Lynarii]

There is a simply trick for that: play the trial until you finish the Quest The House That Death Built (click). This allows you to play the dungeon palace of the dead, which has its own level system (inside and outside level are not the same). Inside it you can play every class up to level 60 within hours (once you finish floor 50, you can always start at level60). This way you can experience all basics classes yourself. Still no Dark Knight/Astrologian/Machinist (require Heavensward and finished basic story) or Samurai/Red Mage (require Stormblood), but it leaves an impression how the game plays at higher level.

Edit: oh I forgot to mention that you only get the job of your class (for example Paladin for gladiator) inside palace of the dead if you already have it outside (you get job classes at class level 30). At least leveling inside the dungeon is the fastest method leveling available to you. The first class should still be leveled with the main story quests because all the game features are locked behind story progress.

Yeah, that's why I didn't bring up Palace of the Dead. Since a lot of the really important things are tied to the job rather than the class, lacking them wouldn't give a correct impression.

[Shanden]

Yeah, that's why I didn't bring up Palace of the Dead. Since a lot of the really important things are tied to the job rather than the class, lacking them wouldn't give a correct impression.

Well the time limit was removed from the trial, so you can just play your first class to 30 normally, do the job quest, test it in palace of the dead at level 60. If the game suits you until this point you could even level all classes quickly to 30 in potd (matter of hours) and expierence the jobs at 60 without paying anything. Still sounds better to me than asking someone how a specific class/job feels like at endgame.

[Kazgrel]

Simply put i'm burning out on wow and thinking about playing FF14. few questions.

Character Creation - is it in depth? one of the things i find lacking in wow is how...lacking character creation is.

Classes - how varied are the classes and what would be the closest classes to Assassination Rogue and Affliction Warlock?

Rotations - are dps rotations overly convoluted or pretty simple?

Professions - hard to level? easy to level? what types of professions does the game have?

Talent Trees - does the game have talent trees like current wow? or like BC/Vanilla days? or no talent trees at all?

Dungeons - are there lots of dungeons while leveling up? or few?

and most importantly

How good is the story and story telling?

Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game?

Character creation: Fairly in depth. Moreso than WoW, roughly on par with GW2, not as crazy as BDO (but that's a good kind of crazy...in a way)

Classes: Fairly varied; few play similar to others, but each class is locked to a specific role (warriors and paladins are tanks only, white mage is healer only, etc.). Ninja is most akin to any variety of WoW rogue, and Summoner is the DoT-centric caster dps job here.

Rotations: Overall they strike a good balance in terms of having some depth without being overwhelming.

Professions: They are literally their own classes in this game. They are a bear to level up, but imo (having all gatherers and crafters at 70), there's so many nice perks to having them (self-repair, materia melding, etc.). Better to get at least one combat job to max level first, then proceed with gatherers and crafters.

Talent Trees: None

Dungeons: Plenty of them, as well as trials (battles against a single boss) during the story line

Story/storytelling: Very good; overall, a strong point of the game, even if there are characters and/or moments where things are cringe-inducing.

[Shanden]

Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game?

With all the praise to the story someone should tell you that most of the content is locked behind the story progress (Dungeons, riding and many other game features). If you are not willing to pay real money to skip most of the story (this options exists now), you will have to grind it and by god there are so many quests if you play the game as a late joiner. Most of the story is kinda good and entertaining but from time to time it really grinds your gears until you want to hit your head into a wall.
You cannot rush to max level and just raid. If you want to know how many main story quest there are just look at the amount here and expect a lot of cutscenes. In my first month I just finished ARR and it took me another 2 weeks to complete the Heavensward story. Getting to the endgame takes a lot of time, it is worthwhile, but it is a pretty long journey compared to other fast food mmorpgs.

[Sorrior]

With all the praise to the story someone should tell you that most of the content is locked behind the story progress (Dungeons, riding and many other game features). If you are not willing to pay real money to skip most of the story (this options exists now), you will have to grind it and by god there are so many quests if you play the game as a late joiner. Most of the story is kinda good and entertaining but from time to time it really grinds your gears until you want to hit your head into a wall.
You cannot rush to max level and just raid. If you want to know how many main story quest there are just look at the amount here and expect a lot of cutscenes. In my first month I just finished ARR and it took me another 2 weeks to complete the Heavensward story. Getting to the endgame takes a lot of time, it is worthwhile, but it is a pretty long journey compared to other fast food mmorpgs.

One thing worth mentioning is myself and many others do not feel this game is about "endgame" solely but the story and the world itself at least far more then wow lol

[Kazgrel]

On the other hand 99% of the cut scenes can be skipped so you don't have to follow the story if you don't want to. You still have to do the quests of course but that's a separate issue

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The only negative thing about them really is that there's not much variation and a lot of them play similarly at least for a big part of the rotations. Classes like the Red Mage stand out, nothing groundbreaking really but very different. Paladin and Warrior play almost exactly the same for example.

Not that this is a bad thing.

Yeah, tanks and healers have so many "standard must-have" things to check off on a list in order to meet the basic functions of the role that it doesn't leave as much wiggle room for variety when compared to dps jobs. I liken the tanks to being 3 different brands of chocolate milk; all fairly tasty, but one or two will stand out for the player (in my case, on the tank front, it's DRK).

"awaits some heathen that would dare say chocolate milk is awful"

[AceofH]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you guys but real life and work are a nightmare atm. Thank you for your answers, your time, and I'll be giving the trial a go

[Veritus7]

11 years in WoW, done some progression raiding during some expansions, I'll give you my 2 copper. The first couple of times I tried to get into FFXIV I hated it. I got to level 31 on a Dragoon and quit. Played again a year and half later and got to 46, still hated it. What I didn't know either of those times is that I needed to break level 50. The game seems to change entirely at that point. The gear is a lot less obnoxious and ugly and quite varied, the story starts getting DAMN good (Heavensward is some of the finest gaming I've ever done across all platforms/games), the rotations pick up and get interesting, the dungeons, raids, and trials (single encounter instances, and they are GORGEOUS) suddenly become fantastic. So, stick with the silliness until level 50. Also know that everything content related has an "attunement" attached the main scenario quest, so be ready for crap tons of questing,

Simply put i'm burning out on wow and thinking about playing FF14. few questions.

Character Creation - is it in depth? one of the things i find lacking in wow is how...lacking character creation is.

Character creation is pretty good, but the number of faces is fairly lacking, I think; however, I think they design the NPCs with their own models, so you'll never see something twice unless you're comparing them side by side with other players. At least, as far as I've noticed.

Classes - how varied are the classes and what would be the closest classes to Assassination Rogue and Affliction Warlock?

No variations whatsoever inside the classes. However, the playstyle from what I can tell, is pretty unique. Rogue/Ninja is basically your rogue, I didn't play assassination so I'm not sure. Arcanist/Summoner is your DoT spellcaster, so that's what I'd suggest for something similar to Affl Lock. Also, the classes have their own class quests, so that's cool. They're not super great, but some, like the Dark Knight, are incredible, as far as story goes.

Rotations - are dps rotations overly convoluted or pretty simple?

Rotations are LONG and convoluted, that's for damn sure. However, I think it's still manageable. It'll take longer to get used to them, but they are satisfying. I never really found WoW's rotations satisfying, it's simply pumping out as many abilities following procs as possible. I think FFXIV's rotations have more depth than that.

Professions - hard to level? easy to level? what types of professions does the game have?

I haven't touched professions, but I understand they are pretty difficult to level, but I do love the depth available to the fact that the professions are actually legitimate classes separate from the War/Magic classes with their quests and stories.

Talent Trees - does the game have talent trees like current wow? or like BC/Vanilla days? or no talent trees at all?

No talents whatsoever. No customization whatsoever; the various classes don't even have distinct roles. Paladin is strictly tank and that's it. That got under my skin since I love playing Ret Paladin in WoW and play that archetype in other games. However, I'm also a rabid Final Fantasy fan and love dragoons so I found a suitable replacement. I've found the lack of variety in the classes to be overshadowed by the depth of the rotations and lore of the classes. So I was able to come to terms with it.

Dungeons - are there lots of dungeons while leveling up? or few?

Holy mother of all that is good and virtuous, there is a MASSIVE number of dungeons in this game. Quite a few while leveling, but unless you're a tank or healer, they are not the fastest way to level, but you will be doing them as part of the main scenario quests and your daily duty roulette.

and most importantly

How good is the story and story telling?

I'll break this out in the current iteration of the game:
ARR main quests (levels 1-50): boring at first, great later. I really enjoyed the end. Also, between level 50 ARR and level 50 Heavensward, there's 100 main scenario quests, with scattered dungeons and trials. The ending is phenomenal and a great build up to Heavensward.
Heavensward (levels 50-60): One of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. Would play it again for the first time again and again if that were possible. Between Heavensward and Stormblood, there's only like 40 quests this time around.
Stormblood: (levels 60-70): Really good. I liked heavensward better, but I think that's personal preference. Still pretty great I think.

Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game?

Like I said before, trudge through until level 50. As a WoW veteran, it was an excellent switch. But it also helps that I am a big Final Fantasy enthusiast as well, and there are endless amounts of references to other Final Fantasy games. All are in good taste and none of it overshadows the game itself.

[Chandrassa]

Simply put i'm burning out on wow and thinking about playing FF14. few questions.

Character Creation - is it in depth? one of the things i find lacking in wow is how...lacking character creation is.

Classes - how varied are the classes and what would be the closest classes to Assassination Rogue and Affliction Warlock?

Rotations - are dps rotations overly convoluted or pretty simple?

Professions - hard to level? easy to level? what types of professions does the game have?

Talent Trees - does the game have talent trees like current wow? or like BC/Vanilla days? or no talent trees at all?

Dungeons - are there lots of dungeons while leveling up? or few?

and most importantly

How good is the story and story telling?

Lastly - Anything else you think i should know going into the game?

I recently made the switch as well.

1. Yes, character creation is pretty in depth. Make sure you're happy with your character since you won't need to (or want to) make an alt. Ever. If you do, you'll have to play through the main scenario quests again (see question 7).
2. Dunno about classes yet, only tried one.
3. Rotations are getting pretty good by level 50. They start out mega-bland, however, and stay that way for the first 30-40 levels. A warning that there isn't a high skill cap in the game, or perhaps there's a high skill floor. Randomly pressing buttons won't have you at 1/4th performance like in WoW. Mostly, don't be as appalled by the 2.5 second GCD as I was. I quit the game over that, twice, before realizing that at higher levels I'd have enough off-gcd buttons to keep it engaging.
4. dunno, haven't.
5. seems like no talent trees at all, near as I can tell.
6. Tons of dungeons. The first ones are super simple, but that's fine while you're still leaning how to control your character. They ramp up in terms of complexity. I hear I've got a long way to go yet.
7. The story is pretty great. The main scenario quests have just good enough of a story that I am keeping my inner "go go go" person in check, even through the errand quests. However, the main scenario story is also a big problem if you really want to make it to the raiding scene. Be warned that you'll have to make it through something like 600 quests before you're "caught up" in Stormblood. You can pay to skip them, but if you want to see the lore you'll pretty much need to be okay with a long slog. The quests really don't respect your time, but at least they make fun of themselves for how much of your time they are wasting. I dunno. I think they should fix that by trimming the fat from the MSQ, even though I'm enjoying the journey so far (at about 200 quests in).