[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[ippollite]

As someone who spends an embarrassing amount of time in character creation, WoW gives the illusion of choice. They were also inconsistent in the amount of effort they put into every race with the remodel. While it appears they took pains to make sure the female BE faces resembled their BC versions, they made little attempt with female NEs and no attempt whatsoever with female humans who all have the exact same face just with different makeup. They also added that irritating default smile to female models, so if you want an NE who doesn't smile you have 3 face choices and it ruined some of the BE 'resting bitch' faces as well.

Tauren females only ever had 4 faces and while Trolls had 6 and I think Orcs had 9, everyone used the same 'pretty' face for both. Having 10-15 face options when most of them are ugly or old isn't a lot of choice when there are only a couple of attractive faces in the bunch. Once you deep dive into WoW's character customization it's not that great, it only appears so on the surface. They do seem to be working on it though.

I'm not saying FFXIV couldn't or shouldn't do better. The Au Ra I made was pure accident because I picked the face before I realized you couldn't change the horns, but by that point I liked what I'd created and couldn't capture the same magic with the face with the horns I did want. I don't understand why those can't be separated. Course, the upside is the horns are such a turn off for so many other people I almost never see anyone with my character's face. Also, for whatever reason, FFXIV players seem adverse to non flesh tones. It's rare I see red, green, blue skin, etc. I ran into clones of my characters in WoW all the time and I have yet to in FFXIV, so that's been nice.

Anyway. :P Combat gets a lot better around 60. It shouldn't take anywhere near that long, but I've had as much or more fun on some FFXIV classes than I did in WoW. DRG is as much fun as ret pally (my former main) to me. DNC playstyle reminds me of Wrath ret pally, something lights up - hit it! MCH is great now and probably more fun than I had on my hunter (any spec) after all the ability pruning. I do think some jobs go overboard with the amount of abilities they have.

My main disappointments have been that DRK isn't more like DK and that there isn't a dedicated DoT job.

ARR is in desperate need of more work though. I don't think it needs a complete overhaul, but it desperately needs an editor to trim down the dialog and a massive reduction in teleporting all over the place just to talk to people.

If they don't rework it, there's definitely a few quests that could be trimmed down. The one quest that always irked me is the 'crystal braves' recruitment quest. I get the whole 'remember me' feature of it (alongside the 'do we really want to recruit this guy?'). But honestly, it could start with alphi going on his diplomatic/recruitment mission, and then have you visit him in uldah at the end of his chain, with us meeting the gang as we hand out their uniforms (where they can say their lines from the former quest itself). Even then, and if you don't want to reform it that much, just meet alphi in uldah, then do the uniform handout and if players remember who they were, they remember, if they dont... it doesnt really matter anyway. Its such a huge waste of time. It really stood out.

If i was going through the arr experience with a fine tooth comb, im pretty sure there's a few hundred that could be altered in this way: Instead of: 'please go here, meet this guy, fetch this thing, please return to them, then return to us with the item' it could just be, 'The amal'jaa have provided us with this item, please do the next (hopefully active - ie. kill/discover something) quest!'

But none of this compares to the biggest issue in arr: The pacing of new skills. If there was one thing that would make arr a more engaging experience, its a more consistent flow of new skills. Not only would you feel more engaged in your character, you also wouldnt have that SUPER annoying experience of getting a new skill, entering a dungeon excited to use it and realise your character level is higher than the dungeon you're now running. If there was literally a guideline for the introduction of the flow of new skills, the msq is it. If im level 35 running an msq lvl 22 dungeon... shouldnt i at least have almost all my core class job skills by level 20?

Were i looking at this, utility (genuinely unrequired in low level dungeons - where the deleveling primarily occurs) is a little less important than having a nice st rotation (with ogcd fillers) and some kind of aoe or two). So i'd maybe change up not only the order but the pace of these class skills. It seems a no brainer. It also means that when you DO get your job, the pace and rotation builds at a fair pace (without these random class skills confusing you). Level 1-30 is you having your core tools for your class (no more 3 buttons for 20 or so levels, rogue!), Level 30-50 is the subtle transformtion and building of your core class fantasy through your job quests and skill rewards (each staggered 5 levels to encourage and teach you how to work them in).

It puts the class fantasy, character development, and the gameplay center stage whilst the msq can still be a bit naff.

[Lane]

All jobs at the bare minimum should have an AoE in their teens like ranged physical DPS do. The ability dump at 50 needs to be spread out throughout the leveling process. I hate it when people say it's slow to learn your class. I learned jack all about how to play a DRG by spamming 2-3 abilities for 40+ levels. Frankly, I think the level 60 DRG toolkit should be at level 50 and I'm sure that's true for a lot of the other jobs as well.

I can't remember what part of ARR it was, only that it was a constant back and forth to an NPC in Aleport that eventually led to the Siren on the Isle of Umbra. I didn't think that quest chain was ever going to end and I got so annoyed with it I started spam clicking through everything because at that point I no longer cared what was happening I just wanted to be done with it. I still have no idea what that all had to do with anything. ARR is full of stuff like that.

I think the bigger problem is there are entire quest chains that could be removed except they had those characters show up later and comment on what happened in ARR. Hell, the WoL even has a discussion with Ardbert in ShB about the Titan quest chain if you pick the "you're putting me off my dinner" dialog option. :P

They could also stand to use more combat in the MSQ. Too much of it is go to quests just to talk to someone and every 20-30 chatting errands you get to do a dungeon or trial. It doesn't feel good.

[ippollite]

It really doesnt. And it gets super egregious in the post ARR patches (and yes, i agree, they are so much better than what came before them for genuine world/gamebuilding). But i really remember finishing praetorium, getting flight, not remotely understanding the flow, and being hit with this brick wall of another x-amount of quests and all their sub quests and feeling really deflated. I just wanted to hit the next expansion. I think it genuinely tempered my heavensward experience (which was pretty negative at the time) just because i had to do all these quests in the run up to it (and the msq in the run up to 3.0-3.3).

So here's the order of operations: Fix the flow of class skills into job skills. THEN trim the fat of pointless quests that really could be resolved with a literal sentence (instead of unnecessarily porting into multiple destinations - any quest that does that can be resolved with a dialogue text summing up what you could have done). THEN trim the verbiage. Where minfillia needs a paragraph, make it a sentence.

I also agree. There was some point where i complained in these very forums, that i just spent an hour or two not playing the game, but teleporting between quests. It wasnt even 2.55. It was just teleporting, watching a cutscene, teleporting, watching a cutscene... And all of it could have been summarised. I know there's so many call backs and the writers really focus on those tiny snippets three expansions back (i just watched a streamer - i forget who - hit a point in the msq in arr where they mentioned the rejoining and it literally stunned me this was introduced so early). But they have the literal benefit of hindsight. They know where the story is going in ew. They PROBABLY know where it's going in the next expansion. They can trim appropriately whilst leaving the hints and breadcrumb trail. They can also red herring as much as they like.

ARR, worldbuilding that it is, and i love its worldbuilding, shouldnt necessarily be the source of all further plot-points. Its perhaps time for us to let it go. What made this experience genuinely wonderful is the call backs. But the game never depended on just ONE callback. That's why we all smack our head when it pays off. Because the idea was infused, hinted at, developed, progressed, and then finally explored very directly. ARR has its charm, but its a literal barrier in such a linear experience to the actually brilliant content in this game. Its now an issue for new players. So it will need a team devoted to streamlining it. My hope is they realise it's an idea that needs to happen, and not just something 'if we have time'.

[Tojara]

They could also stand to use more combat in the MSQ. Too much of it is go to quests just to talk to someone and every 20-30 chatting errands you get to do a dungeon or trial. It doesn't feel good.

This is a big reason why HW and ShB are better leveling experiences (well, that and just better stories) than Stormblood. ARR gets a slight pass, but Stormblood was awful in regards to actually doing things while leveling. It had about as much action as listening to a book being read to you, and that really isn't much of an exaggeration. It's a lot of running back and forth while reading dialogue.

There's no doubt FF14 does a better job presenting it's story and telling a story. It's mostly cohesive with a narrative that has a bit more thought put into it than WoW. WoW has really good moments, but the lack of build up between expansions in addition to having some of it's more interesting plot points requiring you to read books, comics or short stories that take place outside of the game really does it a disservice.

"Pray, return to the shifting sands" will forever be burned into my fucking mind and whenever I saw that when leveling in ARR (not the skimped down version) there was a 50% chance I just logged off and decided to come back another day.

And personally I don't want DRK to be like DKs in WoW. Truth be told, story wise both of these jobs/classes have some of the best narratives in their respective games, with DRK being leap years above anything else I've played. A lot of the job quests in FF14 are really silly or kind of dumb. While some of them are entertaining, there are ones like GNB which are pretty stupid right from the get go. The only thing DKs and DRK share in common is that both aren't afraid to throw rules or morals to the side if it's the best course of action. DKs in Legion literally raided the Paladin class hall because they thought the best way to save the world was to raise the strongest, regardless of their wishes.

If you play FF14 for story and you're at the point where you're just leveling up other jobs just to have (but not necessarily play in any serious capacity) I'd highly recommend shelving every other "check mark to 80" and just level a DRK. It's sort of hilarious because DRK is pegged as a moody or emo like job, and while your mentor certainly has those qualities the conclusion is pretty much nothing like those labels attached to the job. It's basically talks about human nature and both loving/trusting yourself to do what's right. Certainly a more "hero" like story than the other half a dozen jobs I played (again, just story wise).

[Lane]

There was some point where i complained in these very forums, that i just spent an hour or two not playing the game, but teleporting between quests. It wasnt even 2.55. It was just teleporting, watching a cutscene, teleporting, watching a cutscene... And all of it could have been summarised.

Same. It's why it took me a month to get through ARR. I would go days between playing because logging on to spend a couple hours doing nothing but teleporting and chatting wasn't fun. Worse because I didn't care about or even like most of the story. At least if I'd had that much it wouldn't have been so bad.

And personally I don't want DRK to be like DKs in WoW.

I should clarify. The problem with DRK, for me, is that it performs essentially the same as every other tank job except with a different skin. I wanted something that set it apart. I was disappointed even the 'blood' spells just drain mana. It doesn't need to be a carbon copy of a Blood DK, but it just wasn't what I was expecting.

Lore wise, DRK is fine. I wasn't looking for another Ebon Blade (though I love it so). However, I only liked the 30-50 quest chain. HW became all about Rielle. SB is slightly better, but still not as good mostly because Myste annoys the Hell out of me.

[starstationprofm]

exaggeration and hyperbole won't support your arguement, only point out how hollow it is. ARR is still a step above what wow has to offer as a whole, and is only lesser in comparision to itself but still well done in establishing a meaningful foundation for all that came later.

How? It barely has any voice acting, the characters look like play dough and quite frankly so far it looks like generic bad guy doing generic bad guy things.

The character customisation is a joke. 4 faces each tied to a facial hair style?

How are people not more up in arms about how BAD the character customisation is? For months I heard " FF14 devs actually listen!!! " on and on, it doesn't look like they listen at all. How hard can it be to add a few beards and faces?

I play a Lancer. My rotation has been 1>3 + 1>2 for 26 levels, then it became 1>3 + 1>2>4. Holy shit. This is 2004 WoW level bad. I swear to God Vanilla Rogue or Hunter are more engaging.

- - - Updated - - -

You were the guy that claimed WoW currently had 5m players in one of the news threads, weren't you?

WoW had 5+ mil in 2016 and Blizzard's MAU is the same in 2021 as it was in 2016.

So yes, it seems pretty likely that WoW has 5m players.

I don't see how that's relevant, though. This isn't a WoW thread. What I said about FF14 is true. The story is very slow/generic, the graphics are terrible and the character customisation is worse than MMOs from the 2000s.

[dope_danny]

Same here. I tried to get into it late in Stormblood and early Shadowbringers, but I couldn't even get past the first Eureka map, since everyone already had moved on to the later maps or was not interested in it anymore. At least Bozja can be used for leveling I guess (which also came way too late for me, as I maxed every job by 5.1). It's also one of these "one day" things, I really want some of those relic skins as well.

on Light at least Eureka is way more packed than Bozja. Hell its more packed then zones on my WoW server. Just jup in, say 'lfg fate train' and you will easily level up super fast and get the crystals for a relic and elemental armour.

The worst part is Pagos, it sucks dick and Pyros and Hydatos are a lot of fun afterwards.

[Cosmic Janitor]

on Light at least Eureka is way more packed than Bozja. Hell its more packed then zones on my WoW server. Just jup in, say 'lfg fate train' and you will easily level up super fast and get the crystals for a relic and elemental armour.

The worst part is Pagos, it sucks dick and Pyros and Hydatos are a lot of fun afterwards.

It might be better now but it certainly didn't use to be that packed back in early ShB on Louisoix. Currently I'm still busy with Delubrum Reginae, as I fear that one will become a major pain in the ass later (I can also double dip on last and second to last stage there right now), so I'm trying to get as much from there as possible before the expansion.

[NineSpine]

How? It barely has any voice acting, the characters look like play dough and quite frankly so far it looks like generic bad guy doing generic bad guy things.

This so comically wrong that it is hard to know where to start, especially when FF14 has some of the most complex and interesting villains in any video game.

[NineSpine]

Yes, but from the perspective of someone playing through ARR it does seem this way.

Shadowy dudes appear and look ominous and we're told that they're bad and we're good and then someone summons a monster and rawr we fight and stuff.

It's another common complaint about the ARR experience. Even Square clearly wasn't entirely sure where to take the Ascians at first.

There are enough breadcrumbs that pan out very well that it is hard to believe that they didn't have a relatively clear idea of where it was going broadly.

You can't tear down expectations and surprise people unless you set something up first. The ARR experience is certainly slow and gets really clunky at points, and it could be tightened up a lot, but I also think the faults are wildly overstated and often doubled down on by people that clearly went in looking for things to hate and simply aren't interested in ANY story told this way.

[starstationprofm]

This so comically wrong that it is hard to know where to start, especially when FF14 has some of the most complex and interesting villains in any video game.

What exactly is comically wrong?

It barely has any voice acting, the characters look like play dough and quite frankly so far it looks like generic bad guy doing generic bad guy things.

The first 2 points are facts. The voice acting is scarce and not good, and the graphics being pretty bad is also fact.

The only point that COULD be wrong is the last one, and if your argument is that I need to play all the way to Shadowbringers or whatever for the story to be good then that's not the ''gotcha'' you think it is.

[NineSpine]

What exactly is comically wrong?



The first 2 points are facts. The voice acting is scarce and not good, and the graphics being pretty bad is also fact.

The only point that COULD be wrong is the last one, and if your argument is that I need to play all the way to Shadowbringers or whatever for the story to be good then that's not the ''gotcha'' you think it is.

The story in ARR is great. It is just told in clunky ways and has some weird dry periods. It is very inferior to the story that comes after it, for sure, but even ARR makes the story in WoW look like a joke even when WoW is at its best. The best storytelling in WoW is laughable compared to the worst storytelling in FF14.

"It barely has any voice acting" is a very stupid criticism when you are drawing comparisons to WoW in the same post. WoW has great voice acting, but horrible lines delivered by great actors isn't anything to hang your hat on, and it has way less voice acting than FF14.

I think the game looks 100 times better than WoW (and most other MMOs look even worse), although gshade goes an extremely long way in making that the case. Do the isolated models and textures in WoW look better? In a lot of cases yes, but WoW also has the downsides of really awful character animations (especially in cut scenes), abysmal facial movement, an inability to break out of the saturday morning cartoon aesthetic, and numerous other problems that are hard for people who have spend a decade in WoW to appreciate because they are so used to it.

It's the same reason that people with a straight face complain about cat girls in FF14 and then turn around play one of WoW's multiple furry races.

[dope_danny]

It might be better now but it certainly didn't use to be that packed back in early ShB on Louisoix. Currently I'm still busy with Delubrum Reginae, as I fear that one will become a major pain in the ass later (I can also double dip on last and second to last stage there right now), so I'm trying to get as much from there as possible before the expansion.

I imagine the echo outside Hydatos letting chains hit 600-900% xp certainly helps compared to back in the day. So far i've noticed most people i've grouped with are wowfugees and never touched it back then to get burned like most of us that hit Pagos and said "yeah, fuck THAT". Honestly with under 3 weeks to Endwalker i recommend checking out if its busy on your datacenter now before it gets quiet again its worth getting over the Pagos wall.





While theres still crowds that is.

[Katchii]

"Pray, return to the shifting sands" will forever be burned into my fucking mind and whenever I saw that when leveling in ARR (not the skimped down version) there was a 50% chance I just logged off and decided to come back another day.

Without trying to be too snarky, and more just poking fun (because I totally get it that it's annoyingly memorable) it's obviously not THAT burned into your brain, because it's called "The Waking Sands" not "Shifting." =P

[Val the Moofia Boss]

As someone who spends an embarrassing amount of time in character creation, WoW gives the illusion of choice.

The main thing WoW's character customization has over FFXIV is that you can more radically differentiate yourself from other people. You can pick between very, very different races. You have your default humans, and then you have the small and stout dwarves, and you have the tiny gnomes, and you have hunched over Orcs with broad shoulders, a super hunched over troll, and then you have hulking beastmen in the Tauren, etc. And those are just the vanilla races, not even getting into the majestic alien space goats or the werewolves. Whereas with FFXIV, you pretty much just get 5 different variations of a human, + a tiny race, and a slightly hunched over guy with an disney lion face.

FFXIV's facial customization is more noticeable because FFXIV has a lot of ingame cutscenes with closeups of your character's face, which isn't the case in WoW. I'd argue that WoW gives you more in the way of different faces than FFXIV. FFXIV has ostensibly more hairstyles, but a lot of them are feminine/unisex so you don't have a lot more radically different hairstyles than in WoW.

FFXIV's character creation is also limited in that almost every face makes you look like a teenager or a person in their early to mid 20s. Unless you pick that one male Elezen face, you can't really look older than 30, whereas in WoW you again get more diverse options and let's you be anywhere from a man in his mid-late 20s, to 30s, to 40s and 50s, though you can't really look like a teenager in WoW.

WoW's facial features are also seperated from faces. You can mix and match faces with different beards and mustaches and horns. Not so in FFXIV where the facial features are glued to one face.

WoW also lets you change your shoulderpads, which are a huge part of your look. In FFXIV, your shoulderpads are smaller and glued to your chestpiece, and often times the chestpiece is actually a robe that covers your legs too, (whereas in WoW you can find a lot of robes as leg pieces), so you have less range of visual customization.

They also added that irritating default smile to female models, so if you want an NE who doesn't smile you have 3 face choices and it ruined some of the BE 'resting bitch' faces as well.

Yeah, this is a problem. There is a really pretty Au Ra face, but she has that resting b look. Wish there was a way to toggle different smiles or facial contortions.

This is a big reason why HW and ShB are better leveling experiences (well, that and just better stories) than Stormblood. ARR gets a slight pass, but Stormblood was awful in regards to actually doing things while leveling. It had about as much action as listening to a book being read to you, and that really isn't much of an exaggeration. It's a lot of running back and forth while reading dialogue.

There's no doubt FF14 does a better job presenting it's story and telling a story. It's mostly cohesive with a narrative that has a bit more thought put into it than WoW. WoW has really good moments, but the lack of build up between expansions in addition to having some of it's more interesting plot points requiring you to read books, comics or short stories that take place outside of the game really does it a disservice.

Absolutely. WoW really suffers in that if you want to get the main story (not everything, just the main story), you have to...

Spoiler: 

First, play WC1 and WC2, and the WC2 expansion, "Beyond the Dark Portal". The Orcish campaign of WC1 is the canon ending, and the human campaigns of WC2 and BotDP are the canon ending. You should also read the manuals as a lot of important lore is tucked away in them but isn't outright explained in the game (remember, these games are from the 1990s, when people were still expected to read manuals and important stuff was put in them).

Before you jump into WC3, you should read a few books.

Rise of the Horde goes back to the WC1 era and shows the formation of the Horde on Draenor. This novel is important in establishing what Orcish society looked like, showing how Draenor was destroyed, establishes the key Orcish characters, and sets up Grom's character arc for WC3.

Of Blood and Honor establishes what Paladins are and introduces the character Tirion Fordring, who will become important later on.

Lastly, youu should read Lord of the Clans. After WC2 was released, a guy called Chris Metzen stepped up and became the head writer in charge of the Warcraft storyline. He pushed for an adventure game called "Lord of the Clans" to be made that would setup Warcraft 3, but the game was cancelled, and the events of the game published as a novel. Warcraft 3 directly continues where Lord of the Clans ends.

There are other novels set during this time period, but those are the really important ones. Also, most Warcraft novels are... well they're just not very good. I'm a Warcraft lore nut, and even I wouldn't really recommend that you waste your time reading them. If you want to read good fantasy fiction, go read Dragonlance or The Black Company or something.

Okay, now you play Warcraft 3. Read the manual first, though. Play the campaigns in order. Then the expansion, The Frozen Throne. Then you play the Bonus campaign.

Read the WoW comic, namely the first arc: the Onyxia storyline. This establishes the character of Varian Wrynn, the King of Stormwind. Don't bother reading past the Onyxia arc as the comic goes bad.

Next, you play World of Warcraft, namely the Vanilla storylines located on Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. You're going to need to create two characters: one on the Alliance side to do their storylines, and one on the Horde side. There isn't really a main storyline at this time, but there are a few important storyliens:
-On the Alliance side, you should do the Westfall questline (which climaxes with the Deadmines dungeon). Then do the Blackrock Mountain storyline (begins in Burning Steppes and climaxes with the Molten Core raid).
- On the Horde side, you should do the Barrens and Ashenvale questlines to get a feel for the struggles the Horde faces, and the tensions with the Alliance.

That's the main gist of Vanilla WoW. Then you move on to the Burning Crusade expansion. Now, be warned that the writing for TBC was wonky. There are quite a few retcons of prior lore, and WC3 characters being uncharacteristically shoehorned into evil. Here are the important questlines you should do:
- You should create a Draenei and a Blood Elf character and do their starting questlines to get a feel for what they are about.
- Do the Escape from Perneholde dungeon. This let's you play through the Lord of the Clans story, and it also sets up the Ashbringer storyline that will take center stage soon.
- On your Horde character, go to Nagrand and do the Mag'har storyline. This is one of the best Horde storylines in Warcraft, and introduces the character of Garrosh, who will be very important later on.
- Do the Sunwell storyline: unlock the Isle of Quel'danas, then do the Magister's Terrace dungeon, then finish off by doing the Sunwell Plateau raid.

Then read the Ashbringer comic.

Next is the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
- Create a Death Knight character and do the starting questline. It's bloody fantastic and sets up the rest of the expansion.
- Do the Dragonblight questline. Sadly, parts of this questline have been removed from retail (particularly the climatic Battle for the Undercity event).
- Do the Storm Peaks questline, then do the dungeons in the area, then watch the 3.1 trailer, then do the Ulduar raid. This reintroduces a WC3 character, and introduces the Titans and their lore, which will be important going forward.
- Do the Icecrown citadel questline. ESPECIALLY do the Crusader Bridenbrad questline in Icecrown.
- Do the Trial of the Crusader, then watch the 3.3 trailer, then do the Icecrown Citadel raids.

I should warn you that there is another big storyline happening at this time, mainly the stuff with the Dragons. I have left this story out because it is not core to the Warcraft story, and I don't think it is very satisfying.

Then read the short story, Heart of War.

Next, you should read the Shattering novel. This book sets the stage for the Horde vs Alliance war arc and develops their characters.

Next, you play Cataclysm.
- Create Worgen character and do their intro storyline, which depicts the Alliance perspective of the invasion of Gilneas. It is very good.
- After you have done the Worgen storyline, create a Forsaken character and go through their starting storyline, and then do the Silverpine Forest questline. This shows you the Horde perspective of the invasion of Gilneas.
- On a Horde character, you should do the Stonetalon Mountains questline.
- Do the Vash'jr and the Twilight Highlands questlines, which depict the Horde vs Alliance war.
- Do the Dragon Soul raid.

Next, you should read Tides of War, which is about Jaina and escalates the war. Once you have finished Tides of War, hop back into WoW and play through the Theramore's Fall scenario, which depicts those events ingame. Also do the Blood in the Snow scenario.

Then you play Mists of Pandaria.
- Create a new Pandaren character and do their intro questline. It's very good.
- Do the Pandaria questing experience. You will want to do the Jade Forest intro twice as Horde and Alliance characters have different intros. The zone questing order is: Jade Forest > Valley of the Four Winds > Kun-Lai Summit > Townlong Steppes > Dread Wastes.
- Do the MoP legendary questline. This has been removed from retail WoW.

As you are doing the MoP legendary questline, you will also want to do other questlines as they come up:
- Do the Mogu'shan Vaults raid, then do Heart of Fear (after you've finished the Dread Wastes questline). Then do the Terrace of the Endless Spring raid.
- Do the Shieldwall and the Dominance Offensive questlines (you will need to do them on your Horde and Alliance characters to get both perspectives).
- Do the Isle of Thunder questline (doesn't matter which side you do it on), and then do the Throne of Thunder Raid.
- Do the Dark Heart of Pandaria scenario.
- Do the Battlefield Barrens questline. This has been removed from retail WoW.
- Watch the "Burdens of Shaohao" cartoon on Youtube.
- Watch the 5.4 trailer.
- Finish the MoP legendary questline and do Siege of Orgrimmar.


Then you read the book: War Crimes. I haven't read it again but from what I recall it was pretty okay, but the Garrosh and Anduin scenes were pretty good. Also, the premise for the next expansion makes no sense unless you've read this book.

Then read Warcraft Chronicle. This is a lore book and mostly rehashes lore you already know (and retcons a ton of stuff), but it is important for introducing the Light vs Void conflict, explains the old gods, gives us a breakdown of the history of Azeroth prior to the War of the Ancients, shows us the Titans, and explains the Burning Legion.

Watch the "Lords of War" cartoon on Youtube.

Then play Warlords of Draenor.
- Do the whole questing experience.
- Do the legendary questline (again, removed from retail).
- Skip the Highmaul raid and just do Blackrock Foundry.
- Watch the 6.1 and 6.2 trailers.
- Do the Hellfire Citadel raid.

Then read the 2016 Illidan novel. This retcons Illidan from his wonky TBC depiction and sets the stage for the Legion expansion. Also, watch the Harbingers cartoons.

Then play Legion.
- Create a Demon Hunter character and do their intro questline.
- Do the Broken Shore intro.
- Do the Val'sharah and Stormheim questlines.
- Do the Death Knight class order hall questline. This sets up Shadowlands.
- Do the Illidan questline.
- Do the Emerald Nightmare and the Nighthold raids.
- Do the Broken Shore zone questline, then do the Tomb of Sargeras raid.
- Do the Argus questline, then do the Antorus raid.

Read the Before the Storm novel.

Then play Battle for Azeroth.
- Do the BFA intro, which is the War of Thorns prepatch storyline. It's extremely good. Then do the Battle for Lordaeron scenario. Also very good.
- Read the short stories "A Good War" and "Elegy".
- Do the BFA questing experience. You will need a Horde and an Alliance character to do both stories.
- Do the War Campaign. Again, you need two characters.
- Do the Battle for Dazar'alor raid.
- Do the Nazjatar questline, then do the Eternal Palace raid.
- Do the Ny'alotha raid.

Then you read Shadows Rising.

Watch the Afterlives cartoons on Youtube.

Play Shadowlands.
- Do the questlines in order. Note that several quests have been removed from retail.
- If you really want to do a Covenant Campaign for the story, then do the Ardenweald one. It's the only covenant that actually gets stuff done.
- Do the Castle Nathrai raid.
- Do the Korthia questline and then do the Sanctum of Domination raid.

You are all caught up on the Warcraft storyline.

TL;DR you have to flip back and forth between reading 5 manuals, reading 12 books (half of which are out of print), reading 2 comics (both of which are out of print), create at least 6 different WoW characters to do the important starting zones, read 3 short stories, listening to an audiobook, and watching cartoons on youtube. As for stuff that is actually ingame, half of the important storylines have been removed from retail and a lot of it isn't available on classic servers yet (and probably never will be). And you need to do raids on the hardest difficulty because the mythic exclusive final phase has important plot stuff happen.

Or you spend dozens of hours listening to Nobbel videos or reading WoWpedia pages that summarize the important parts for you, but at that point you're not getting the experience. It's impossible for new people to get the experience now. Even Kingdom Hearts is easier to get into than this.

Whereas with FFXIV, you just
- play the game until you beat Stormblood 4.0.
- do the Omega storyline.
- continue on with the game until you beat Shadowbringers 5.0.
- do the Eden and Werlyt storylines.
- Read 4 Shadowbringers short stories: A World Forsaken, Through His Eyes, Ere Our Curtain Falls, and An Unpromised Tomorrow.
- Finish the MSQ.

How? It barely has any voice acting, the characters look like play dough and quite frankly so far it looks like generic bad guy doing generic bad guy things.

There is more voice acting as the game goes on but the game never becomes 100% fully voiced.

When people praise FFXIV's villains, they're usually talking about Emet-Selch, a character who is introduced about 200 hours into the game. He has a good voice actor. Also because tragic backstories are trendy right now.

There are fans of other FFXIV villains like Regula but he didn't have voice acting and isn't very popular like Emet.

To a newcomer, the Darth Vader clone and the Organization XIII rejects aren't very promising.

This so comically wrong that it is hard to know where to start, especially when FF14 has some of the most complex and interesting villains in any video game.

Eh. I'd say the only really memorable ones are Zenos (good voice actor, interesting as a third party who threw a wrench into things), Emet-Selch (good voice actor), Fordola (sympathetic), and Regula (only other villain with actual nuance). In a game with a couple dozen villains.

[Myradin]

The first 2 points are facts. The voice acting is scarce and not good, and the graphics being pretty bad is also fact.

By the sounds of it you're in ARR content still. They replaced all the voices in HW and on, and the graphics get better in later expansion areas, just like WoW does.

The only point that COULD be wrong is the last one, and if your argument is that I need to play all the way to Shadowbringers or whatever for the story to be good then that's not the ''gotcha'' you think it is.

How dare the entire game not be of the standard of the latest expansion, unlike wow right?

[NineSpine]

Eh. I'd say the only really memorable ones are Zenos (good voice actor, interesting as a third party who threw a wrench into things), Emet-Selch (good voice actor), Fordola (sympathetic), and Regula (only other villain with actual nuance). In a game with a couple dozen villains.

Nidhogg and Gaius are both fantastic characters.

And between those and the ones you listed, we have the villains that you spend the vast majority of the story contending with. Are there a lot of uninteresting throw aways? Sure, but few of them are the targets of real time investment.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The story in ARR is great. It is just told in clunky ways and has some weird dry periods. It is very inferior to the story that comes after it, for sure, but even ARR makes the story in WoW look like a joke even when WoW is at its best. The best storytelling in WoW is laughable compared to the worst storytelling in FF14.

The story in ARR is so so. If it didn't have the FF name attached to it, it would be a forgotten JRPG only brought up occasionally on the r/JRPG subreddit. The main problems are that 1. hardly any of the characters are particularly likeable, and 2. the abysmal pacing. In 2.0, it isn't until the Waking Sands gets attacked and we meet Cid and Haucherfant that I started giving a crap about any of the main characters. (I particularly liked some of the background NPCs, like Shamani). The plot is likewise pretty boring until the Waking Sands gets hit and you go to Coerthas and get entangled in the heretic plot, and then slows down again until the bombastic finale.

During the ARR patches, I started liking Minfillia, Tataru, Alphinaud, Raubahn, and Nanamo, but most of the cast was still meh to me. And the story is still badly paced: you have this interesting Ul'dah plot, but then it's being constantly interrupted by the primal of the week, when we already fought three primals in ARR 2.0.

[NineSpine]

The story in ARR is so so. If it didn't have the FF name attached to it, it would be a forgotten JRPG only brought up occasionally on the r/JRPG subreddit. The main problems are that 1. hardly any of the characters are particularly likeable, and 2. the abysmal pacing. In 2.0, it isn't until the Waking Sands gets attacked and we meet Cid and Haucherfant that I started giving a crap about any of the main characters. (I particularly liked some of the background NPCs, like Shamani). The plot is likewise pretty boring until the Waking Sands gets hit and you go to Coerthas and get entangled in the heretic plot, and then slows down again until the bombastic finale.

During the ARR patches, I started liking Minfillia, Tataru, Alphinaud, Raubahn, and Nanamo, but most of the cast was still meh to me. And the story is still badly paced: you have this interesting Ul'dah plot, but then it's being constantly interrupted by the primal of the week, when we already fought three primals in ARR 2.0.

If ARR existed as a complete story, it would be a low tier JRPG, but since this is an episodic story it isn't really reasonable to isolate it for comparison like that. As a first act, which is what it is, it's great. Like I said, it can be tightened up a lot and has bad pacing issues, but it gets talked about like it is a complete failure of a story.

[Lane]

Re: Ascians. They were incredibly generic not only in ARR but on up until ShB, frankly.

The best storytelling in WoW is laughable compared to the worst storytelling in FF14.

I can't agree with this. I'd take Wrath over ARR any day.

I'd echo most of what Val said about it.

*snip*

- WoW does give more faces, it's just that most of them are not attractive (and it's rare that anyone chooses an unattractive face). It's the same with FFXIV's hairstyles. Want a long, feminine hairstyle without bangs? Good luck, but they've got 20 different short hairstyles to choose from instead.

- I saw maybe one person in 16 years who used one of the old faces in WoW. They exist, but nobody uses them. Whenever I inspected a player I could guess with almost 100% certainty which face they picked because there were always only one or two 'good' ones that everyone chose.

- I'm not a fan of FFXIV linking facial features to face.

- WoW has a lot of customization options in transmog but hardly any worth using as the majority of the gear in WoW is hideous.

- I was disappointed to learn that you can't set your facial expression with the emotes for it.

- You forgot the part where WoW ends up retconning it all anyway because, as Ion said, they don't want their hands bound by lore. :P

- I liked everything about Emet overall. He's definitely one of my favorite all time video game villains.