What's so good about FFXIV?

[Kithelle]

FFXIV was seeing a large surge of new players before Asmongold went over there.

It was seeing a growth, it wasn't really a surge till he started streaming it

[Graeham]

Square Enix actually cares about their players. Toxic trolls actually get punished. The community is nicer than WoW's. The combat feels more dynamic.

This point is personal but there isn't a half-dozen furry races.

I don't think they care any more than most corporations. They just happen to have better PR and more restraint when it comes to ranting on Twitter.

Yoshi-P did have an infamous incident when he told his team to go kill themselves (considered to be a horrific, deeply upsetting insult in Japan) when a New Year celebration event didn't go as planned and his character arrived on the wrong server due to miscommunication.

Alas, it appears to have since been scrubbed from the internet so take that with a pinch of salt.

The constant fawning over Yoshi-P, Soken and Ishikawa is off-putting. I like them well enough but they're far from perfect and could do better but nobody can criticise them ever in the eyes of many FFXIV players.

[TheRevenantHero]

It was seeing a growth, it wasn't really a surge till he started streaming it

It had 22 million players in April, months before Asmongold started playing.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think they care any more than most corporations. They just happen to have better PR and more restraint when it comes to ranting on Twitter.

Yoshi-P did have an infamous incident when he told his team to go kill themselves (considered to be a horrific, deeply upsetting insult in Japan) when a New Year celebration event didn't go as planned and his character arrived on the wrong server due to miscommunication.

Alas, it appears to have since been scrubbed from the internet so take that with a pinch of salt.

The constant fawning over Yoshi-P, Soken and Ishikawa is off-putting. I like them well enough but they're far from perfect and could do better but nobody can criticise them ever in the eyes of many FFXIV players.

I'm not going to say they're perfect because no human is. I heard about the Yoshi-P incident and it's pretty fucked up. But the thing is....unlike Blizzard, SE doesn't let trolling and all around toxic behavior run rampant like Blizzard does with WoW. You're practically encouraged to be a dick to people in WoW.

[dlld]

I wouldn't say it's a weeb stigma and more along the lines of people being sheep...if Asmongold went to say ESO instead that game would be having a big boom simply because they follow their master.

People like Asmongold don't typically leave WoW forever and he will probably be back some day and with him his followers.

Asmongold did play eso for like.. 2 streams? Don't think he liked it, and im guessing his viewers didn't either. And asmon hasn't fullstop quit wow or made any claims to be doing so, he's just done with 9.1 but will return this time next year when 9.2 comes out.

[CaptainV]

Why is everyone migrating to this game now? what makes it so good?

So if your genuinely asking ill tell you as follows:

- Its doing what WoW used to do, better.

- Imagine WoW didnt deviate into the MoP/WoD/Legion/BFA style temporary content approach and didnt just toss it away. With exception to some things (Districts being built up, crossover FF events and a single pvp event) almost every content in the game has always found a way to be constant, relevent and endless.

- Generally the community is undeniably defencive of the game, but for reasons generally well deserve, the game is a solid 9/10 over all (this isnt to rate individual expansions but over all, gameplay/music/story/content/endgame and so on) to just do, there are glaring issues (pvp, the 1-50 leveling experience and patch content) but everything else is fairly smoothe.

- The MMO itself has 10+ years of planned content that was set in motion with a long term story, one you can see never deviated from its path, it feels consistant while WoW constantly changes the goalpost every expansion. Even when the story -DOES- feel like a filler it never actually IS, a filler.

- Filler content in general is actually fun to do, from Hildebrand to the MGP, theres little things to do.

- Crafting with ACTUAL end game, to crafting and gathering.

- Leveling all the classes on a single char may feel weird at a glance, but frankly is a welcome change, your not meant to use boosts on your main, only your alts.

- New game+ If you actualy -do- use boosts lets you replay old content at end level with a full set of gear building up to how you got to a specific chapter.

- The questing text isnt as rediculasly long to read as wow questing and can be fairly easy to follow, provided you pace yourself (This is not a game for people with a rush-to-the-finish mentality!)

- Content is designed to be paused and returned to, your not missing content if you left the game a few months you can come back and feel like you can just, pick up, carry on where you left off, and progress towards new content easily, while theres no rush to get there so it actually makes it worth the slow progress rather than skipping an entire expansions worth of content to get to the current patch.

Asmongold did play eso for like.. 2 streams? Don't think he liked it, and im guessing his viewers didn't either. And asmon hasn't fullstop quit wow or made any claims to be doing so, he's just done with 9.1 but will return this time next year when 9.2 comes out.

9.2 wont be comming out any time soon until blizzard fixes its company over all, and with the lawsuit happening even if they dont want it to, with that lawsuit going through, it could heavily delay 9.2's launch till december 2022 at the earliest, yes, that is a very realistic possiblity.

Zack also admitted in a recent XIV stream for 2.4 that he is "taking a break" from WoW and he isnt sure when he'll be returning, he said he may play TBC but thats it, he has no interest in retail as things are.

[dlld]

It had 22 million players in April, months before Asmongold started playing.

That's a pretty misleading number to state without context. It has 22million registered accounts, including free trials. Personally I'm counted twice in that statistic since i have a age old time limited trial account dead somewhere. However if you also mention that number was 18m sometime after shadowbringers launch or 20m a year ago, it clearly means the game has attracted quite a lot of new players lately to check it out.

[Kithelle]

Asmongold did play eso for like.. 2 streams? Don't think he liked it, and im guessing his viewers didn't either. And asmon hasn't fullstop quit wow or made any claims to be doing so, he's just done with 9.1 but will return this time next year when 9.2 comes out.

I just was using ESO as a example...it's the first mmorpg that popped into my head other than wow and xiv

There aren't a lot of strong mmorpgs these days...seen some of the ones I used to enjoy die. Seeing more mobile ones pop up these days than pc...but that's probably best for another discussion.

[TheRevenantHero]

That's a pretty misleading number to state without context. It has 22million registered accounts, including free trials. Personally I'm counted twice in that statistic since i have a age old time limited trial account dead somewhere. However if you also mention that number was 18m sometime after shadowbringers launch or 20m a year ago, it clearly means the game has attracted quite a lot of new players lately to check it out.

The point I'm making is that Asmongold isn't the reason for the large playerbase as many people on this forum like to say.

[dlld]

The point I'm making is that Asmongold isn't the reason for the large playerbase as many people on this forum like to say.

Obviously FF14 had a healthy player base before he started to stream but he is responsible for the recent spike in concurrent users that has been boosted significantly (50%+) beyond shadow bringers launch numbers which was the previous record and even if the spike is over it is still daily getting significantly over old record numbers of concurrency. It wouldn't surprise me if that 22m was 23-24 already lol. But I digress, this isn't the asmon thread.

[TheRevenantHero]

Obviously FF14 had a healthy player base before he started to stream but he is responsible for the recent spike in concurrent users that has been boosted significantly (50%+) beyond shadow bringers launch numbers which was the previous record and even if the spike is over it is still daily getting significantly over old record numbers of concurrency. It wouldn't surprise me if that 22m was 23-24 already lol. But I digress, this isn't the asmon thread.

I'm not denying he contributed to the recent spike in players but a lot of people on this site act like the game was dead before Asmongold decided to play.

[Irian]

I've been playing since ARR and for me it's just the environment and storytelling method. There's a lot less focus on race, mass war crimes, idiotic and pointless conflicts and world-ending threats. I care about the context when I'm playing a game and FFXIV actually tries very hard to get you to care, and in my case it succeeded. The story would stand on its own as a non-MMO JRPG, I'd argue it's better than every FF story since 10.

There's going to be a lot of WoW players that try the game out because of Asmon/their friends, and be disappointed. That's okay. I feel like FFXIV is a lot more nichey and narrow appeal than WoW is, it doesn't try to go out of its way to try to be things it isn't, and it doesn't try particularly hard to appeal to crowds that simply aren't interested in MMORPGs with story and world-building.

[kaminaris]

In short:

XIV is WoW done right

bit longer:

- community is A LOT nicer, because of game design decisions
- 8 man raids, gtfo with 20 man illusionary "epicness", id rather raid with 7 friends than with 5 friends and 14 strangers.
- better story
- trillion times better scaling and dung/raid settings (min ilvl no echo etc), timewalking done right
- Doesnt waste your time, you won't be alt tabbing much, instant teleports
- Gold saucer is infinitely more fun than darkmoon
- Developers that actually care about players


and probably a lot more, the only downside i can think of is that wow has better addons.

[TheRevenantHero]

In short:

XIV is WoW done right

bit longer:

- community is A LOT nicer, because of game design decisions
- 8 man raids, gtfo with 20 man illusionary "epicness", id rather raid with 7 friends than with 5 friends and 14 strangers.
- better story
- trillion times better scaling and dung/raid settings (min ilvl no echo etc), timewalking done right
- Doesnt waste your time, you won't be alt tabbing much, instant teleports
- Gold saucer is infinitely more fun than darkmoon
- Developers that actually care about players


and probably a lot more, the only downside i can think of is that wow has better addons.

Most mounts have their own theme music that plays when you ride that mount. I feel like this should have been on your list :P

[Arewn]

Imagine if WoW stuck with a consistent, quality focused experience ever since WotLK.

Consistent patch cycle, QoL improvements and general game refinement (for the most part) without compromising the integrity of the experience, and experimental features were separated into a side section of the game where they can be tested and enjoyed for what they are without affecting the main experience.

Typically it isn't doing anything revolutionary, just a good, enjoyable, quality product.
And seriously look at their patch history/release dates. It's almost mind blowing how consistent they are with content delivery.

Also people seem to have this impression that it has "recently blown up", and that's true to an extent. But it has actually been big for a while now. The end walker announcement pulled huge numbers, and that happened before all this stuff with Asmon/Bullular/etc.
I think the more accurate statement is that it has recently blown up in the WoW community.

[GreenJesus]

Since I'm caught up on MSQ, I've just been doing any old dungeons/trials/raids I haven't completed yet and casually leveling alt jobs. By doing the old instsnces I unlock more variety for roulette and maybe lower the queue time?

[Aggressive]

Why is everyone migrating to this game now? what makes it so good?

Gamers want a relationship with designers that talk and communicate with them. Gamers also want a atmosphere that is as less toxic as possible. Even if that atmosphere is heavily moderated, people want to play and do things without copious amounts of negativity. And last but not least people want to follow developers that really care about the game and play their own game. People also don't want to follow developers who are wasting the money of the gamers by touching and grabbing on one another instead of making content for the game.

[everydaygamer]

All the story is in game. No need to watch videos online or buy books.

[Irian]

All the story is in game. No need to watch videos online or buy books.

This is another big one for me personally, I loved being a lore nerd and keeping up with WoW's story, but around the time of Cataclysm the huge majority of actually important story details started happening in books. It makes me feel like the world they describe in the novels and the world that I'm actually playing in are completely different, with the one I'm playing in being the much worse and less interesting one.

[Dakhath]

All the story is in game. No need to watch videos online or buy books.

There is actually a fair amount of written work outside of the game as well, you don't have to pay for it, but it's still out of the game itself.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...m_the_shadows/

Im sure there is more, but this is what popped into my head.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There is actually a fair amount of written work outside of the game as well, you don't have to pay for it, but it's still out of the game itself.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...m_the_shadows/

Im sure there is more, but this is what popped into my head.

There is also the Zenos backstory which was included in a book you had to buy, but it seems to have been retconned as of patch 5.1.