Can we stop using the term wow redugee. It is super derogetory, as someone who has played both I can safely say their are a lot of things that wow clearly does better. A couple of things ff14 slightly does well, but it is not this wonderful oasis.
Can we stop using the term wow redugee. It is super derogetory, as someone who has played both I can safely say their are a lot of things that wow clearly does better. A couple of things ff14 slightly does well, but it is not this wonderful oasis.
At the time the thread was made, the title made perfect sense in context as there were a LOT of players coming over from WoW. It was never intended to be literal, and was a tongue in cheek kind of joke. No one is saying it's perfect or some kind of oasis or that it's better than WoW.
Aye, the difference being, the DD one does not cause a wipe or save from a wipe in most circumstances. It just makes stuff go down a bit faster. I just remember a single one in the Nabraxus? Nahalex? some Ascian with N in the front (spoiler about ARR patch content) fight, as we were too long in the other phase, and no DD used LB on the add to end the phase faster.
I already had it quite early on on my bars on the DDs, as I saw a meme about it once and read it up. However, the game does a terrible job (i.e. none at all) introducing it, and explaining what it does in which role. Now it's on one of my shared bars with all jobs, so it shouldn't be an issue anymore.
Their was a video on what would happen if creatures/characters from other blizz IPs crossed over. Sc2 was last. A lvl 1 mage would completelt stop zerg, protoss and terran. The diablo characters would be a threat since they are divine creatures but any character like Jaina or Thrall would basically stomp them. Wow in general has the most powerful characrers.
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Not that many people even left. This thing like their was a mass exodus was never a thing. As someone who plays both wow still has way more players, it is not even close. The only people who lefy were streamer fanboys following people who make up less than 1% of the playerbase.
Yes, there is quest in uldah. Search in google how to start it cause its quite complicated.
Also when it comes to "wow refugees", most of the time when i speak with sprouts its like this:
1- me
2- other guy
Yes, there was mass exodus, half of people i met are sprouts. Try talking to them and ask where they come from.
Whether a lot of people actually left or not isn't really the narrative, it was simply that WoW was having a rough patch, there was a huge influx of people into FFXIV and a lot of streamers that covered WoW were covering FFXIV during that particular time frame (and some still are).
It was only ever expected to be a transient thing and it happens all the time.
The term "WoW Refugee" is not ever intended to be literal, it's a joke, because WoW has been around for so long the idea that people leave it to go somewhere else (either permanently or temporarily) is just...normal.
From what I've seen, yes a lot of WoW players jumped ship to FFXIV, but not all of them. The people who made up WoW's original demographic from Vanilla through Wrath - people who liked the progression and the social aspects of the game - almost certainly didn't jump ship because FFXIV isn't a replacement for that game. It's a replacement for retail, which they hate. That original playerbase is more likely to either jump to Classic, private servers, or drop out of MMO entirely. That last part is pretty big. It's important to remember that WoW used to be humongous in the mainstream. You had Chuck Norris advertising the game and the South Park episode. Many people who never played video games wound up playing WoW, and only WoW. So when they checked out of WoW, they didn't move to alternative games. They just quit gaming altogether. And that original playergroup is far, far larger than the playerbase that plays retail WoW today (12 million people at WoW's height during Wrath vs maybe 2 million people still playing retail today).
The modern retail WoW demographic is more likely to jump ship to FFXIV, as FFXIV is very similar to retail WoW (it's mostly a play by yourself game and a lobby simulator with loot treadmill, is a content based game not a social focused one). However, there are again other options for those players than FFXIV. You have ESO and GW2. You also have WoW private servers that offer some of retail's experience but with improved systems. Etc. You also have to remember that WoW's fandom is overall older than FFXIV's and has very, very different tastes. Just look at all of the "but FFXIV is an anime game" responses.
From what I've seen, the FFXIV playerbase overblows the "WoW exodus". The FFXIV fandom is an echochamber, younger, and has a lot of crossover with the anime fandom (which has always had an inferiority complex). I go on to forums or reddit or XIV generals on 4chan and people are always talking about WoW. Meanwhile, I go to WoW forums or the WoW subreddit or the WoW general on 4chan, and people hardly ever talk about FFXIV. Maybe a few people bring up things in FFXIV they wish WoW would do, or some people say that they want suggestions for alternatives to WoW, but for the most part you don't see a lot of people saying "I'm going to jump ship to FFXIV!"
Feeling this right now. CNJ is the last job I had to get to 30, so I queue up for random (healer needed) roulette hoping for something easy. I get Ifrit. More healing intensive than I wanted, but fairly sure I can manage it. Then I get a massive lag spike. -_- Standing there casting and casting, nothing happening. Great, I'm going to come back to a wipe. I don't know how much time passed, but when everything 'caught up' the tank and BLM were dead and the RDM was kiting Ifrit. Okay, well, maybe this is salvageable - except that yours truly completely forgot about Swiftcast and kept trying and failing to hard cast Raise. -_-
I'm managing to keep myself and the RDM up because RDM is an absolute boss in this encounter, BLM reminds me I have Swiftcast and then...! I res the BLM instead of the tank by accident. *sigh* BLM says res the tank, except I can't, Swiftcast already burned and Raise has such a ridiculously long cast time I can't stand in any one place in the arena long enough to manage it. BLM dies again so I'm like, F it, guess we're 2-manning this. Which we did. RDM was thrilled and gave me a commendation. :P
Ugh, I still feel bad. Not much I could do about the lag spike, but what a disaster of a recover even though we managed it in the end.
"We must now recognize that the greatest threat of freedom for us all is if we go back to eating ourselves out from within." - John Anderson
Don't feel dispirited. Whm goes on this weird oscillation in difficulty. 1-30 its fine. 31-49 it gets really hairy at times. Then all 50 content is an absolute doddle (thanks medica 2). After that it gets comfortably chill for a while in heavensward right the way through stormblood. As you start getting lilies and incorporating them into your main heal, you can literally heal forever. The problem thereafter is really the challenge of the encounters themselves. I noticed that from castrum fluminis, the mechanics start getting trickier and as a healer you kind of need to be on top of them first (because more often than not if you're down, and theres no one there to res you, its a wipe), so its not so much ever the healing in itself that's the hard part. Its the dodging all the shit going off around you and not getting caught in a one shot/two tick/overlap mechanic.
Oh, and also begging y'shtola and alisaie to not just run out of the first mechanic, but also the second overlapping one. If yshtola starts hard casting a spell, theres a damn good chance she's gonna finish it. This was a nightmare in the first boss in Amaurot. The two of them had a real knack for blowing each other up. Anyway, im ranting. Good job on getting through it. Im going through healer ptsd at the moment so i guess my hopeful message got lost in the lifestream.
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Haha, sorry, yeah. I try to make mention of it as much as possible without implying im an alchoholic (its almost always only days when i dont need to teach/go in to work (weekends/public hols)), it just so happens that august is the summer holidays, so theres been more of it than usual). That way everyone can just ignore it and assume the worst That being said, its chuseok next monday-wednesday (and all my classes were cancelled today and tomorrow (school event)). So dont expect it'll let up this week. Also im finally double vaccinated which means i can finally go back to the gym after chuseok (its been a year and a half), that may temper the annoying amount of free time i have after work and clear my head again from these terrible habits. (:
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Yeah, at the time i started the thread there really werent that many people switching to ff14 (well, comparatively - it was still the 'underdog' game at the very start of its hype train). It was pre the asmongold surge. Also it only really came into existence because there were really only two threads at the time with any real traction: The megathread and the what do you not like about the game? thread. And i felt like the megathread was really for people already established in the game, whilst the other one was deliberately negative.
On top of this, after posting the thread, i IMMEDIATELY regretted even mentioning the word WOW in the title. It constantly starts thread derailments (exactly like this) where we all have to talk about ff14 in relation to wow. I think ive apologised for this at least 3 or 4 times already in the thread. (:
Last edited by ippollite; 2021-09-15 at 09:41 AM.
People seem more not sure of the words to use, open? Friendly? Whatever, .. have had more people just come up and do random fun stuff with me in the few weeks I been leveling than the past years on wow. Be it teasing my cat dude calling him cat daddy to stopping me after turning in a quest and playing the berserk song cause I had a big sword XD
It’s is rather fun I have to say and interaction like it are something I miss.
So im doing this side quest for the pixies. Its about this orphan who refuses to eat anything. And its... kinda worldbuilding. I mean, not so much that your playerbase wont run to the nearest forums and talk about it (and thus eject themselves from the experience), but its just really nice. You and your flying pig friend npc solve some trivial bullshit that makes npc2 (who sort of sent you on this quest) marginally happy. Beginning, middle, end. Basic storytelling. I want to say every side quest chain follows the formula (at least since sb), i cant though. But theres gonna be a few that do. This is one of them and im happy (as the player behind the avatar) i did it.
...oh wait! Its a blue quest... i should have known better. Theres a pixie very annoyed by my interference. Down the rabbit hole we go (once again!). Goddamn pixies!
Last edited by ippollite; 2021-09-17 at 02:59 PM.
Graphically the player/gear models are superior, though the environments feel very drab.
Other players definitely seem friendlier and more inviting, haven't seen any drama in dungeons yet either.
Game seems to use its open world a bit better.
That said the main quest is a snore fest most the time. And there's a number of things people complain about in retail wow that are present, even worse, or completely absent here.
so im randomly hitting dungeons because they're in my quest log (sans trial - im so sorry every single player who has to deal with me). And then i hit this random dungeon/trial where shadowhunter has kids. (ruby something). So much of this very annoying game has all these random pointless, skippable (and you wont miss anything important) quest lines. But this game keeps world building in spite of you. Its so annoying... and yet really amazing that you cant just ignore the storyline. It keeps smacking you in the face whether you like it or not and making you wonder how much youve missed just playing the most basic (msq tunneling) experience.
Oh, theyre ophans and theyre mad (one day i'll stop real time reacting). And since cid is here, i suppose this is a raid unlock?
Last edited by ippollite; 2021-09-18 at 03:05 PM.
Did you complete the whole MSQ? If you haven't your analysis doesn't really change if I'm being honest. While I think the overall story is really good there are giant mounds of filler to get to the good stuff, making the MSQ way longer than it has to be. RPG going to RPG I guess, but the game really isn't as super deep as the dozens of hours each expansions dialogue will lead you to believe (even though I think it's overall pretty excellent). The TLDR here is that there's a lot of TLDR in the game, with ARR as an entire entity being a big TLDR.
Most of the side stuff is just world building, but I'd consider the weapons program trials in ShB to be really good side stuff and something you should probably complete, and as a whole I think trials are generally some of the best content in the game, and that includes post MSQ ones. Alliance raids are sort of the biggest anomalies in the game with the ShB one being just downright fucking awful, with absolutely nothing to do with the story at all. If you care about Nier and that genre of games maybe you will like it, but it's probably one the longest Alliance raid unlocks in the fucking game that has nothing to do with the game.
That ShB alliance raid wasted so much of my time that when I unlocked Bozja and the other zone that I basically skipped through the entirety of the resistance weapons in addition to the zones storylines. While I paid attention to everything else in the game, I'm at a point where I just want to see cool shit and given the grind that exists in these zones, the last thing I wanted to do is pay attention to all of the dialogue here. Maybe I missed out, but I fully intend to go back and just watch everything I skipped because it's not like the quests themselves that I did on the field of Bozja were all that exciting.
As far as Bozja goes I'm pretty mixed on them. The 24 and 48 man "Alliance raids" are a mixed bag for me, with some of them being really amazing (the queen one has REALLY cool boss mechanics), and others being awful. It really made me sit down and change my UI like crazy because trying to play a BLM with up to 48 people is visual eye cancer, but maybe I'm wrong trying to learn critical engagements and the big scenarios with a class that has to sit and turret surrounded by one shot mechanics. The areas themselves are really boring and it's essentially a giant fate hub, or Korthia style area for those familiar with WoW. The good thing about it is that it's not mandatory and some of the critical engagements are really cool.
Last edited by Tojara; 2021-09-18 at 05:04 PM.
I'm mid way through SB, and I take days away from progressing the MSQ.
one day I'll craft lots of stuff for requisitions, or quests, to level up my gatherer/crafters.
another day I'll level my lowest levels class to unlock their jobs at 30 (gotta get used to the job names & icons for high level content).
The ARR MSQ suffers from being excessively wordy as they were settling into the story and their style. paragraphs and paragraphs of text saying what could have been said in a single one. Alphinaud and urianger were like this by design because one is a patronizing know-it-all and the other just talks archaicly in a winded fashion but for other cases it could have been avoided. Fortunately it gets better and more interesting after the major ARR event occurs the closer you get to the next expansion in post-ARR.
ARR does establish the foundation of everything which comes later, but a lot of the wordy stuff is better to just skim.
I only just completed ARR last night. Admittedly it has a very strong finish, although a bit too heavy on the cinematics. Narratively I wish it'd done a better job sprinkling the empire throughout the ARR quest chain, as it often felt like i'd go hep a farmer for hours, suddenly get involved with big important people....then get sent to another farm somewhere to make cheese.
FF14 definitely presents its actual main quest stuff very well when its not being filler. The ending of ARR was more hype than any raid in wow to be honest. But the road to get there is long and boring, that if i didnt have other friends playing, i'd have probably bailed like I did when I actually joined briefly in 2016.
Its odd, its not like leveling in wow isn't full of random mundane stuff, but WoW's world has more...character to it. I could (and have) picked pumpkins and killed rats for hours in WoW, but it feels like pulling nails in FF14.
Now that im starting 5.3, i wanna give my random ratings.
What criteria to use?
Gameplay: (dungeons, world content, raids, trials, etc)
Story: (is it engaging)
Entire Package: (all the other stuff and worldbuilding)
Objective Score: (related to other games)
These are of course comparative (and used against one another - rather than an objective score versus other games... actually, hang on, ill add in an ill considered objective score as well just because...)
So, ARR:
Gameplay: 40/100
Story: 2.0: 40/100, post 2.0: 60/100
Entire Package: 65/100 (so much world building, plus loads of stuff to do from squadrons to beast tribes to coils to extreme raids, its... decent).
Objective Score: 55/100
Heavensward:
Gameplay: 60/100
Story: 80/100 (so much more engaging)
Entire Package: 60/100 (its more of the same, innit?)
Objective Score: 7/10
Stormblood:
Gameplay: 90/100 (every single dungeon and trial was super fun - honestly, it felt like the perfect difficulty - reminder, im a story player, not a high end gamer).
Story: (pre yanxia): 30/100 I hated it. From Yanxia on, 80/100
Entire Package: 50/100 (i burst through it so dont really have the perspective everyone else who played it when current has).
Objective Score: 7/10
Shadowbringers:
Gameplay: 70/100. I think trust spoiled this for me. I really feel those deaths in dungeons in a way i might not have if i ran them with others. And it kinda sours the enjoyment a tiny bit. Im almost certain the dungeons are so much fun (amaurot was genuinely amazing, but sooooo challenging with the trust system, just as an example).
Story: 90/100. I loved the sb story. I thought the shb hype was a bit much. But compared to everything that came before it... You just have to experience it. Then post on the spoiler thread every crackpot idea you have because your brain is going to be so engaged trying to solve a puzzle (that the game WILL explain to you anyway, but who cares, youre gonna want to piece it together all by yourself anyway because you are so engaged and immersed). Its... im not sure?... fun? Its super fun.
Entire Package: 75/100. The universe building is enormous. No idea about the side content. But its so big for lore drops. Were i playing this whilst current, i reckon it'd squeeze a few extra points. Or maybe Bozja would sink it into oblivion. Ive no idea. All i know is that the pixie beast tribe quest is fun and the world building is enormous.
Objective Score: 9/10
Ooooh, can i knock 5 points off the story (5.2/3 transition spoilers) because my character didnt say to the people who think they're the warrior of light "would you please stfu and look at the effing sky? How dumb are you? I literally gave you night time (after 100 years), barely a day ago? What the hell is wrong with you? You want to be a warrior of light? Did you not see that shit for the past 100 years? What is literally wrong with you?" I knocked 5 points off the score. There you go, endwalker. Make me proud!
ETA2: The clipping of my hairstyle (its literally basic af) is unacceptable. You hear me squeex! UN. AK. SEPTIBLE!!
Last edited by ippollite; 2021-09-20 at 03:54 PM.
One of the big reasons I didn't like Stormblood is because I felt like it padded the story elements far too much with pointless stuff, and a lot of the pre-Doma stuff was really bad. It led to a really disjointed experience and I found myself not caring about half of the storyline in general.
Also, another huge critique of Stormblood (and this isn't an exaggeration), is that there's barely any combat or interactive parts in the MSQ that isn't just reading through chat boxes. Both HW and ShB tell just as a complete story (or more IMO) while having a good mix of scenarios, combat quests or just generally questing that doesn't involve jumping through 600 million chat bubbles.
It's funny because for me the two best parts of the game are the MSQ and the actual raiding itself. I haven't done savage or extreme trials, but I don't really have to in order to know that they would be excellent content. The normal mode versions of all of these things (once your UI is setup so you can actually see shit) are all utterly fantastic, and while there's decidedly less overall raid content in FF14, it's just as good IMO. I know that savage and extreme trials are more than just numbers checks, to where they expand on the encounters themes and add quite a bit more. My only critique would be that some of the encounters are incredibly long, and some of the encounters have action time sequences when I think is really lame.
The dungeons in FF14 will never really be a selling point to me. As a singular experience (doing them once) they're really good, but that's about it. Aside from a couple dungeons the formula for bosses, trash pacing and length of the dungeon is virtually the same from level 1 through 80.
Extra areas like Bozja/Zandor and Eureka are really interesting concepts, which are sort of mixed to me depending on which one you're talking about. All in all they serve a cosmetic purpose, a gearing system, alternative combat system, while mostly telling a side story that's interesting on it's own. Some of them are pretty good, while other's a pretty meh. The redeeming factor is even the meh ones are something you can entirely skip if you want, and generally just serve as a grindy way to obtain cosmetic weapon experiences that eventually become your BiS weapon near the end of an expansion.
Alliance raids are really bad in general and I can't think that I've ever had a positive experience with them as I've grumbled about them multiple times in the FF section of these boards. Hilariously enough, the 24 and 48 man "alliance raids" in Bozja and Zandor are actually way better than any of the 3 standard Alliance raids that appear through the game, especially from a mechanics and fun standpoint (granted the 48 man ones without a proper UI setup is an absolute cluster fuck).
I play WoW for dungeons and raids. I play FF14 for the MSQ and the raids as well. I think they both do raids in interesting ways, and while I like that WoW puts out far more actual raid content, I can't deny that the presentation nor the raid size of FF14 isn't a compelling selling point.