Y'all weren't kidding about the 7th astral era (post-ARR) questlines hahaha!

[Linuriel]

FFXIV combat starts out slow, but picks up as you level, and by the time you're max level it's pretty frantic. It's like in WoW, where you only get to use 2 or 3 abilities at your low levels, but gain more as you go along. There's a lot of skill weaving in between global cooldowns. It takes some getting used to the slower GCD, but the story is worth it after the post ARR slog. Unless you just hate anime and anything Japan because you simply hate it and that's it. Then yeah, it might not be for you.

You use way more abilities at low levels in WoW and if I have to fight myself through that awful experience and quit at level 35, you designed a shit MMO.

[Different Strokes]

You use way more abilities at low levels in WoW and if I have to fight myself through that awful experience and quit at level 35, you designed a shit MMO.

I've looked across many of the classes, and in FF by the time you are 30, most classes have 4-5 core abilities they're using regularly, and 2 or 3 longer cooldown abilities or irregularly used abilities. That's pretty comparable to most WoW classes. If the last time you played was heavensward, then you might have had a point, but the game has changed drastically since then, especially in terms of granting abilities at much lower levels. If you just want a lower GCD, sure, WoW has you mashing buttons much harder, but the amount of abilities at low level are much better than the were 6 years ago

FFXIV is the only MMO in metacritic's games of the decade list (which includes expansions), was the only MMO to be nominated for multiple VGAs, won playstation's ongoing game of the year, and has gained about 5 million new accounts since the release of Shadowbringers about 6 months ago. It's an incredibly solid game that is swelling in subscribers rapidly and winning or being nominated for prestigious awards. If you don't like it that's your opinion, it's most certainly not a shit mmo, lol.

[leviathonlx]

FFXIV is the only MMO in metacritic's games of the decade list (which includes expansions), was the only MMO to be nominated for multiple VGAs, won playstation's ongoing game of the year, and has gained about 5 million new accounts since the release of Shadowbringers about 6 months ago. It's an incredibly solid game that is swelling in subscribers rapidly and winning or being nominated for prestigious awards. If you don't like it that's your opinion, it's most certainly not a shit mmo, lol.

Recency bias is a thing. You see this occur with any 'of the year' or 'of the decade' award.

[Different Strokes]

Recency bias is a thing. You see this occur with any 'of the year' or 'of the decade' award.

You mean how lately the game has come out? FFXIV has been out many years, and though shadowbringers is very recent, the base game itself has been getting high scores and stellar reviews. Go compare the FFXIV expansion releases to say... Past WoW expansions. Wrath of the lich king tied Shadowbringers in overall score from critics, and got an substantially higher user score.

There are plenty of recent games as well, however FFXIV has been packing heat and setting the stage to take the #1 MMO spot.

[leviathonlx]

You mean how lately the game has come out? FFXIV has been out many years, and though shadowbringers is very recent, the base game itself has been getting high scores and stellar reviews. Go compare the FFXIV expansion releases to say... Past WoW expansions. Wrath of the lich king tied Shadowbringers in overall score from critics, and got an substantially higher user score.

There are plenty of recent games as well, however FFXIV has been packing heat and setting the stage to take the #1 MMO spot.

And the base game of WoW got high scores and BFA was the best selling expansion ever and I'm willing to bet me eating shit if I'm wrong that Shadowlands will manage to do the same if not better sales. No one should really take 'game critic' scores seriously and definitely not things like 'player' metacritic scores given the tendency for people to review bomb things who may or may not even play the game and this is definitely something that occurs a lot for WoW (and Square and FF14 are given a pass for things that Blizzard would be burned at the stake for IE: 2 humanoid races that still can't even show most helmets added in the expansion that added them). And recency bias is a thing when the expansion came out 5 months ago and is fresh on peoples minds though its Steamchart numbers did drop like a rock shortly after release to numbers the game had back in January (sure it's a small portion of the playerbase but it's the only real numbers we have for any MMO that doesn't involve Armory/Lodestone mining and there's no reason to think the demographic that plays on Steam is that wildly different from console and other PC players). But hey if you think FF14 will take the '#1 spot', whatever that is and however you'd ever determine that when no numbers are ever given for either game as game companies care more about time played in game than number of subs these days, then you do you but this is a pretty pointless debate as neither person is going to convince the other.

[Rogalicus]

and BFA was the best selling expansion ever

It wasn't. It had slightly higher 'first day' sales when that 'first day' lasted for 10 months and had allied races locked behind pre-order.

[leviathonlx]

It wasn't. It had slightly higher 'first day' sales when that 'first day' lasted for 10 months and had allied races locked behind pre-order.

Can try to spin it any way you want to try and lessen it but every company reports sales figures the same way and nor does it matter what perks the game offered to entice people since that isn't unique to WoW either. So yes, it was still the best selling expansion.

[Different Strokes]

And the base game of WoW got high scores and BFA was the best selling expansion ever and I'm willing to bet me eating shit if I'm wrong that Shadowlands will manage to do the same if not better sales. No one should really take 'game critic' scores seriously and definitely not things like 'player' metacritic scores given the tendency for people to review bomb things who may or may not even play the game and this is definitely something that occurs a lot for WoW (and Square and FF14 are given a pass for things that Blizzard would be burned at the stake for IE: 2 humanoid races that still can't even show most helmets added in the expansion that added them). And recency bias is a thing when the expansion came out 5 months ago and is fresh on peoples minds though its Steamchart numbers did drop like a rock shortly after release to numbers the game had back in January (sure it's a small portion of the playerbase but it's the only real numbers we have for any MMO that doesn't involve Armory/Lodestone mining and there's no reason to think the demographic that plays on Steam is that wildly different from console and other PC players). But hey if you think FF14 will take the '#1 spot', whatever that is and however you'd ever determine that when no numbers are ever given for either game as game companies care more about time played in game than number of subs these days, then you do you but this is a pretty pointless debate as neither person is going to convince the other.

Calling game rating and critic sites, and numerous awards a BS way of rating a game, and then propping up sales figures as some penultimate measurement of what makes a good game...

*Slow clap*

Of course you'll probably realize how silly of an argument that was and go "Of course I don't think it's a good way to measure a game!"

BfA's day 1 sales of the game reached 3.4 million, and while they rate that as the highest selling expansion ever... well... I can tell you it's not as big a deal as you think it really is. As pointed out by the other poster, BfA also had the longest pre order period of any expansion, with CURRENT GAME DLC locked behind buying it. That's not a spin. That's literally what it was. Another gimmick to create artificially high numbers for Blizzard to report something to anxious share holders.

All of the phenomena you speak of occurred and occur with WoW as well, recency bias and all of that, number of hours dropping off precipitously shortly after an expansion drop, all of that. I played the game for over 10 years myself, I played MMOs before it like everquest, I played MUDs, I can tell when the giants of the era are on life support and the new era is being ushered in. Is WoW "dying"? I wouldn't say that, it'll be like that grandfather that lives on life support for the next 20 years, something that's never truly the same but just kind of "there" and every time there's a family gathering or holiday (expansion) a lot of people will feel obligated to go visit and then desert the gathering shortly thereafter. This is something that happens with every MMO. The expansion hype. I imagine the peaks and falloffs for WoW would be more extreme than FFXIV in both cases, the peak and the fall off.

We also must remember the trouble with counting WoW's success by its sub numbers: The sub numbers were propped up a lot by asia early on, something they decided to include as a matter of street cred, boasting material, but later regretted when fans began to see writing on the wall that wasn't quite there yet (but now is) when that popularity in the east dropped off.

Also, it's pretty hard to measure subs these days for anything, when MMOs used to be these exclusive massive worlds that required sub fees to maintain the servers running them at massive cost, and now subscriptions are just seen by most as this unnecessary bulky cost added on top. FFXIV is growing constantly as far as concurrent active users. It has peaks with expansion and patch releases, sure, but I'm not going to count those peaks, nor am I going to count the falls from those peaks, I'm looking at the overall upward trend in average user activity.

There are two MMOs in this day and age that have the clout to charge admission fee, monthly fee, and operate cash shops within their park, and while one is just barely maintaining its userbase, if not slowly, ever so slightly bleeding a loss, the other one is steadily rising and rising faster.

Most days that I log into FFXIV, I can see chat from brand new people talking about how they left WoW, and wanted to see if FFXIV is any good, etc. I can tell you that a lot of them stick around.

So yeah... I'd say rapidly gaining customers is a pretty good measure of success, vs "Just barely beating out the sales of 3 out of your 4 previous expansions with a gimmick". Makes you wonder what BfA sales would have been if there wasn't DLC locked behind it, and pre orders were available 3-6 months ahead of time like normal.

[Yoshingo]

Do the Crystal Tower somewhere in between there, that's relevant to Shadowlands and is cool regardless, to break up the flow.

[thilicen]

Just made it to 7AE myself. My God if I ever thought the filler quests in WoW were bad..
"Run across the entire world for me would you?"
"Great, now run back.".

Here's to the crazy folk who actually do it without teleporting.

[Rogalicus]

Can try to spin it any way you want to try and lessen it but every company reports sales figures the same way and nor does it matter what perks the game offered to entice people since that isn't unique to WoW either. So yes, it was still the best selling expansion.

The only spin I see here is trying to interpret "largest day 1 sales" as "best selling expansion". If you have overall sales data for BfA versus other expansions, feel free to link it.

[dope_danny]

Do the Crystal Tower somewhere in between there, that's relevant to Shadowlands and is cool regardless, to break up the flow.

I can't imagine how little impact some of shadowbringers must be without doing Crystal Tower. To a lesser extent Omega and Alex as well i guess when you include the Tycoon dungeon.

[thilicen]

I can't imagine how little impact some of shadowbringers must be without doing Crystal Tower. To a lesser extent Omega and Alex as well i guess when you include the Tycoon dungeon.

This the chain down in Easern Mor Dhona? Would be nice to take a break from serving as an innkeeper and moving boxes around -.-

[dope_danny]

This the chain down in Easern Mor Dhona? Would be nice to take a break from serving as an innkeeper and moving boxes around -.-

Its kind of a prequel to shadowbringers and theres going to be some confusing shit going on if you dont run it.

[thilicen]

Its kind of a prequel to shadowbringers and theres going to be some confusing shit going on if you dont run it.

Alright will check it out, cheers!

[Florida Man]

You use way more abilities at low levels in WoW and if I have to fight myself through that awful experience and quit at level 35, you designed a shit MMO.

You can compare your personal enjoyment of the two games, but keep something in mind. FF14 is a Final Fantasy game with MMO elements to it. Like in all FF games, it starts up extremely slow. Like save my cat from a tree, I have three spells for 30 hours. By the end, you’re killing God and have enough spells to do it. The inclusion of off GCD abilities makes rotations in FF14 much more difficult than any in WoW. I say this as someone who has played both games from beginning to end of its creation, and who actively pays for both subs. I love both games equally.

WoW is an MMO with RPG elements added to it, the opposite of FF14. They go about their gameplay from different angles, so they will NOT feel the same for newbs. You can make a more accurate comparison if you’re comparing end game experiences.

[Kallisto]

Do the Crystal Tower somewhere in between there, that's relevant to Shadowlands and is cool regardless, to break up the flow.

Honestly think crystal tower should be made msq while butting out some post arr msqs to side quests with how it is pretty much necessary to understand some of the character motivations of one particular extremely important character.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Honestly think crystal tower should be made msq while butting out some post arr msqs to side quests with how it is pretty much necessary to understand some of the character motivations of one particular extremely important character.

You could say the same for the Warring Triad questline to that as well, seeing as how that storyline will soon take center stage.

[Katchii]

You could say the same for the Warring Triad questline to that as well, seeing as how that storyline will soon take center stage.

How will the Warring Triad become center stage? I don't remember any references to them in Shadowbringers.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

How will the Warring Triad become center stage? I don't remember any references to them in Shadowbringers.

Spoiler: 

• The questline introduces Unukalhai, a Warrior of Light from the 13th. ShB's ending implies that he is another shard of the WoL's/14th Convocation member's soul.

• Unukalhai was rescued by Elidibus, showing a side of him that isn't seen in the MSQ.

• Unukalhai still has loyalty to Elidibus which are unresolved.

• Elidibus is the last remaining unsundered Ascian, and has taken over as the main antagonist in the story

• Unukalhai was unable to save the 13th shard, which became the Void. We are almost certainly going to return to the Void in the Eden questline and possibly restore it.