What is special about FFXIV?

[FobManX]

Its a Final Fantasy MMO. It covers all of the Final Fantasy themes while also being a mechanically sound MMO. All in all, its just fun. I haven't had this much fun playing an MMO since I first started WoW.

[D3athsting]

Looking at how things are going these days, i daresay it's not a blizz product

[Deleted]

the whole thing about this game is special everything the stories the virtual life the fights, just unique and classic

[mathewhayden]

I played WoW and the big difference for me in pacing terms is that in WoW you had quite full questlines for zones, whereas FFXIV doesn't really have that. You have the 'Main Scenario' which is the questline that takes your hero through the game, and then each city has its own quest and each class has its own questline. So your hand can be held quite a lot if you want.

[Draenox]

The story in the game is phenomenal considering that it is an MMO. The battle system feels a bit rigid to me since I am so used to WoW, but I still like it. I am burned out with endgame stuff at the moment so can't comment on that, but the overall leveling experience in this game is the best I have ever had in any MMO.

[Outsider24]

I was a fan of the graphics in FF XIV. Plus the Nostalgia of it being FF itself.

Pugilist/Monk is what I played and I had a good experience combat wise.

The grind is my only gripe to get leveled. At least when the game first came out. It took me the whole month to get 50

[Katchii]

It took me the whole month to get 50

I still laugh a little inside whenever I see someone say something like this.

I know MMOs have changed quite a bit, but I remember back when getting to max level wasn't just a foregone conclusion, it took work and effort.

While FFXI is by no means a great measuring stick for this... it took people months, some even took years, to reach max level when 75 was the level cap.

OT: I like it because it has a real solid feel, great story and amazing visuals. If you like fantasy themes and enjoy MMOs, this game just FEELS good.

[ex-trion]

I'm playing FFXIV just a few weeks so I want to ask you for your opinion. What is special about FFXIV?

In my opinion ffxiv is great because of graphics, style and the story. But I dont know anything about Endgame and what people can do except the story.

Thanks for everyone who wants to help me.

For me, it was being able to have all of your classes on one character. I know it would the game in a lot of ways, especially that it's been out for more than 11 years, but there are a lot of times I wish the same could be said of WoW.

RIFT came close. It was even closer in the beginning when it was being developed, but that changed later on.

[Aruhen]

I don't know how it can take someone to reach 50 in this game the first time... even during the launch. Now of course if you only played an hour every few days then that makes sense but then that isn't a grind. That's just you hardly playing at all.

[Outsider24]

I don't know how it can take someone to reach 50 in this game the first time... even during the launch. Now of course if you only played an hour every few days then that makes sense but then that isn't a grind. That's just you hardly playing at all.

I played every night after work. Also took several PTO days playing the whole day and it still took a month to get 50. In fact I was the first of my friends to reach 50 and we were racing to do so.

It was a grind for me anyhow and at the start of the release it was harder to level compared to now. I was new to the game and didn't know all the best leveling habits which can make it a true mmo lvling experience. Even if it did feel like a grind.

But if you are stating that I am inferior because it took me that long...well than good for you.

[SodiumChloride]

It's pretty much a different themed WoW.

[Wrecktangle]

I don't know how it can take someone to reach 50 in this game the first time... even during the launch. Now of course if you only played an hour every few days then that makes sense but then that isn't a grind. That's just you hardly playing at all.

It took me and my 2 friends who were all leveling together approximately a month to hit 50 as well. We did not rush, played a little bit every day, sometimes a good bit on the weekend. That was with my 2 friends skipping every single cutscene (I watched tho).

[Deleted]

took me 13 days... don't remember if I took time off or not.

[Madruga]

took me 13 days... don't remember if I took time off or not.

I took around 15 days too... Seeing evey single cutscene and reading all texts too.

Most of these 15 days I was in vacation, though, so...

[Aruhen]

Yeah took me around 13ish days too. I could have finished earlier if I didn't waste time trying out other classes. I didn't rush too.

You guys still didn't answer how much is "just a little". That could be 2 hours or 4 hours. If all you did was just play maybe 2 hours a day then of course it would have taken a long time. It takes a decent amount of time in WoW too if you just level for an hour or two a day without heirlooms.

[Strangebrew]

Fights like this is what makes the game special to me


Not a single boss in WoW have been as boner inducing as what Thordan and primals are.

That plus it's a very story driven game, and it fits for a wide audience, from roleplayers to hardcore raiders, in comparions to WoW that feels like "raid or dont bother playing the game"

[Wrecktangle]

You guys still didn't answer how much is "just a little". That could be 2 hours or 4 hours. If all you did was just play maybe 2 hours a day then of course it would have taken a long time. It takes a decent amount of time in WoW too if you just level for an hour or two a day without heirlooms.

In my instance, we probably played an average of 3 hours a night. Like 8-11.

I miss the good old days. I remember it took me quite some time to reach 60 in vanilla WoW.

Not a single boss in WoW have been as boner inducing as what Thordan and primals are. That plus it's a very story driven game, and it fits for a wide audience, from roleplayers to hardcore raiders, in comparions to WoW that feels like "raid or dont bother playing the game"

I can actually echo this. I haven't felt any actual story driven appreciation for another MMO's bosses since Ulduar/ICC. Fighting the primals even on normal mode leveling up was an absolutely mind blowing experience thematically.

That said a lot of other areas have grown stagnant and needs revitalization.

[cookie4231]

WHat makes it special for me is more personal... I basically stuck with this game for five years, and met my best friend on the game. Not only that, but I made some close friends too!

However, it does have very deep and great lore. And I do love playing Dragoon more than anything.

[Sosoulsu]

It's less responsive than WoW.
There's less class variance.
Features launch unpolished but eventually get polish in later iterations.

But what makes it special is the worldbuilding, the story, and the general polish the game has. It is a very well-crafted game, despite its issues with responsiveness.

[Project 501D13R]

Over all it's a more convoluted version of WoW, the GCD starts at 2.5 seconds and while it can be reduced by FF14's equivalent to haste, the most you can expect it to be reduced is .2 seconds, as a result the skill cap for the game is much lower than wow, the most challenging content is the few savage raids that heavensward has right now, which in terms of difficulty are about even to the earlier raid bosses on heroic assuming you are properly geared for them. The game relies far too much on re-using old content and brute RNG, an example of this is the recent anima weapon quest chain, anima weapons in terms of what you need to do to acquire them is comparable to getting a legendary in wow, however what you get is just something that's a small step above what is currently available. The current anima weapon phase involves two primary steps, step 1 is you gather up elemental crystals by doing fate events, this depends far too much on RNG, and can take you anywhere from 4-10 hours unless you get very lucky, again with re-using old content you can skip this step if you have the relic weapon from the previous expansion, then you get a weakened version of the anima weapon and have to run a series of dungeons to 'get the weapon some exp' that is pretty much what the quest says, the game then leads you through with some convoluted half excuses for why you must run these specific dungeons in a specific order. After that you have to deal with bartering with an npc to get the first true phase of the anima weapon, this contains two parts, part 1 is you have to gather up 20 of 4 different items, these can be acquired a number of ways, by spending FF 14's equivalent to justice and valor badges, by farming tokens for beast tribes (which require your rep to be maxed out already and are also old content), or by farming alexander (a current tier raid), to get all 80 items means running each wing of the 4 wings of the alexander raid 200 times each unless you use the other methods for acquiring the 4 items, then on top of that you have to trade that same NPC 4 of 4 different high quality items, which can run for over 1 million gil EACH in FF14's equivalent of the AH. That means unless you already have those profs leveled to 60 and thus can gather the items and make them yourself, or have a guildie who can do it for you, you'll end up spending more than 12 million gil at least. And this is just the first step, for an item that is a grand total of 5 Ilvl's higher than what you can buy with FF14's equivalent of valor points, and that valor weapon only takes a week and a half worth of those valor points to buy said weapon.
And that's not even starting on the prof system which requires you to have a completely separate gearset for them, and also require that you use items made by other professions to level, which was intended to ensure that every profession can make money, what it means in practice is that level 40-50 materials can run for over 10K gil on the AH.
The only thing I can honestly say FF 14 has done better than wow is boss battle music.