Besides story, what does this game have?

[xmirrors]

Story is *chef's kiss* but the MMO format really, really hurts it. The amount of dialog is also too heavy sometimes, this is true. I think it's why most people skip job quests as it seems particularly bad there. I'm going through PLD right now (ARR) and sometimes find myself skipping ahead without missing any context.

[Shakzor]

I don't like raiding in any MMO, dungeons are usually more my thing. I just wish FFXIV had something like Mythic Plus.



Glamour is nice, but it's not possible to get properly invested in it when there's only 400 glamour dresser slots. I have already 400/400 and I haven't even maxed out all the jobs yet.



Unfortunately, it has to be for me whether I like it or not because WoW is dying and no one wants to play a game run by sexual predators.

Or just play... neither? You don't HAVE to play an MMO at any given time

[Onikaroshi]

Or just play... neither? You don't HAVE to play an MMO at any given time

Honestly, I no longer find non-mmo style games that fun, specially single player.

[ercarp]

Or just play... neither? You don't HAVE to play an MMO at any given time

Honestly, I no longer find non-mmo style games that fun, specially single player.

My biggest gripe with non-MMOs is that they all feel dead and artificial to me. I don't particularly like interacting with other players that much in MMOs, but just seeing other players running around makes the game feel that much more alive. I've recently been playing Breath of the Wild and it's hard for me to get into it because the world feels so lonely when you're just running around in the wild all by yourself. Makes it feel like some kind of shitty private server of an MMO.

[ippollite]

My biggest gripe with non-MMOs is that they all feel dead and artificial to me. I don't particularly like interacting with other players that much in MMOs, but just seeing other players running around makes the game feel that much more alive. I've recently been playing Breath of the Wild and it's hard for me to get into it because the world feels so lonely when you're just running around in the wild all by yourself. Makes it feel like some kind of shitty private server of an MMO.

Okay so you like seeing other players running about. Honestly, that doesnt restrict you to an mmo. You can go play POE or GTA:Online if thats the criteria. Heck, lostark2 might be in your wheelhouse as well. What specifically about mmo's do you enjoy? Do you like just grinding stuff on your own around other people? Playing the storyline? Organising and grouping with others? Challenging, group content? Or is it just the social element? Because that would definitely help you if you want answers here on ff14 specifically, and potential recommendations outside that box if it doesnt fit.

[shise]

Not much. It is something different and therefore fresh... it is simply living on the hype train. Eventually it will go down too like most other games. This one benefited from happening at the time WoW has reached its lowest point.

The game is fun if you want to play a heavily story focused game tho.

[Ghost of Cow]

This one benefited from happening at the time WoW has reached its lowest point.

XIV just "happened" recently? News to me!

[Tojara]

Personally I think the trials and raids are really good. The only issue is that there aren't a lot of them at any given time. Issues aside however, you can always go back and do every trial and raid in the game synced, meaning that your relative iLvL will be around what would be 'current' at the time. It's easier for sure, but FF14 does it's downscaling 'okay' (certainly better than other games).

Dungeons are a mixed bag for me, and that's mainly because they don't really feel like dungeons. As a singular experience playing through the story for the first time they're really good, but for repeated content they fall off really hard. Part of this is because they don't really feel like dungeons, like I said before. There's zero exploration in any of the dungeons after ARR (and even in ARR there isn't much exploration really). It's odd, but sometimes you find people lost in the dungeons, which is perplexing considering all of them are singular hall ways with zero deviation. Me saying that 95% of dungeons are 3 bosses with 4 packs of trash between each boss isn't an exaggeration, it's literally the formula they use for every dungeon. That said, the boss design in most dungeons (probably from late SB onwards) is really good.

The above is just the group content. I don't engage in anything I'm about to explain, but there's housing (good luck getting it, although you can get apartments instead) and the "RP" element in this game. A simple trek into any of the cities will see either wholesome RP, degeneracy (mostly this), or people automating bots on bards to play midis from pretty much any popular game you can imagine.

So yeah, it has just as much as any other MMO I can think of. There are elements people might really love but they have to trudge through a story they may or may not be interested in (personally, I liked it). It's a big ask for anybody just starting out, and there's no way one can convince me that ARR is ever engaging nor does it have a good story. If you actually like raiding and don't really care for the story, you can always skip everything if you have a group waiting for you, because I think the raiding is good enough to warrant 'boosting'. You can always go back and do the story in your spare time. If ARR is making you want to pull your eyes out but you still want to give the story a chance, I'd suggest skipping ARR and starting in HW TBH (ARR can be summed up in like probably 3 paragraphs of relevant information TBH). If you don't like the story after going through HW though, the story probably isn't for you.

[Swnem]

I actually like everything in it except the long GCD, which i got used to and it's not so bad with the off GCD's.
With that said, i like some things more than others.
Like, the crafting is great, but i just don't enjoy crafting on any mmo very much.

I enjoy the dungeons, the raids (both kinds), the bonus zones like Bozja which have their own progression, live the gold saucer with all it's mini games, the triple triad in particular. The PvP is good fun too, despite what some looking for more competitive esports say cause i'm not one of them and think esports focus ruins games. I prefer to focus on fun.
The artifact weapon questlines are always an achievement in themselves that rewards several shiny weapon skins.

But, of course, the story is the main course.

Reading your story, a thing in life you need to learn is that especially younger people will hype trash. I see for example the Tales of fandom saying every latest game is the best ever and they are in fact mediocre trash.

With that said, you do seem to imediatly build insane expectations. So, let me be brutally honest.
FFXIV is not perfect. No mmo is. Every mmorpg will involve boredom and grind. It's part of the package. The fun comes where you can find enjoyment in it.
For this, being invested in the story, world and characters is extremely important.
You can see a new expansion as just 6 more zones, or you can see it as a journey with your scion pals where you uncover secrets and have epic struggles in a zone you heard about but never saw until now. You get to know it's people. It's personal.
Now, if you didn't get invested in the story, oh it's just another zone with weird monsters and fate's. Nothing too exciting.

Your mindset and your expectations dictate in great part how you enjoy something. Entertainment isn't a science. It's not empirical. Each opinion you see is the opinion of that one person with their own circunstances.

I actually didnt even watch FMA brotherhood. I watched the first take on the series and was satisfied, but i am not a fan. I didn't feel like watching more.
Fans of the manga? Yeah, probably they will hype it up as the best thing ever.

Your circunstances and your expectations. You have to get to know yourself. You are not gonna like everything everyone else hypes up.

You want to enjoy FFXIV, you are gonna have to let yourself imerse in the story. Otherwise nothing will feel special or meaningful, cause you removed what makes it so in this game.

If all you want is instant gratification, i don't think you will be able to enjoy much at all. You need to change your preset. You have to let the game go slowly and build up.

[kiramon]

Me saying that 95% of dungeons are 3 bosses with 4 packs of trash between each boss isn't an exaggeration, it's literally the formula they use for every dungeon. That said, the boss design in most dungeons (probably from late SB onwards) is really good.

It's true - they use the exact same formula in dungeons, for leveling, for gearing, etc. The mob one is completely true with a few extra outliers -- I have a feeling though they do it for cooldowns since their idea of playing optimally is just lining up cooldowns, which mob spacing like that lets them control it.

[Caprias]

My biggest gripe with non-MMOs is that they all feel dead and artificial to me. I don't particularly like interacting with other players that much in MMOs, but just seeing other players running around makes the game feel that much more alive. I've recently been playing Breath of the Wild and it's hard for me to get into it because the world feels so lonely when you're just running around in the wild all by yourself. Makes it feel like some kind of shitty private server of an MMO.

There are tons of multiplayer games out there with more and less player interaction, you don't need to play the currently most successful thing on the market especially when you don't enjoy the part that arguably made it this successful, to add to that XIV doesn't try to be a evergreen game, you will run out of content/stuff to do and will have to wait until the next patch and this is fine.

XIV just "happened" recently? News to me!

People are acting like the only time FFXIV got momentum was during Blizzards shenanigans the last half year.

Let's ignore the very steady rise since HW pretty much 7 years ago, that wouldn't fit into the narrative lmao.

[dlld]

People are acting like the only time FFXIV got momentum was during Blizzards shenanigans the last half year.

Let's ignore the very steady rise since HW pretty much 7 years ago, that wouldn't fit into the narrative lmao.

The game had no notable increased momentum during HW and SB, it started with ShB with the 4.5 patch in jan 2019, thats when both average and peak concurrent users started trending upwards long term looking at steam data. And the game exploded when Asmon started playing, the lawsuits happened after and didn't seem to affect much.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The game had no notable increased momentum during HW and SB

The FFXIV census says otherwise.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Raiding
Treasure maps
Its own card game Triple Triad
Mahjong
Mount collecting
Hunt marks
Side quests and stories
Crafting and gathering and their associated stories
hilidibrand
scholasticate
Blue mage content
Gold saucer, which has its own pile of things
Leveling alt classes
Making tons of money
Bozja
Eureka

And another 50 things I probably forgot

[Shakzor]

Not much. It is something different and therefore fresh... it is simply living on the hype train. Eventually it will go down too like most other games. This one benefited from happening at the time WoW has reached its lowest point.

The game is fun if you want to play a heavily story focused game tho.

The game continuously grew from at the very least Heavensward (june 2015) to Shadowbringers, without any hype. It will just decrease to normal levels, but it will certainly not "go down" anytime soon. People that jumped on the bandwagon "we gotta show we hate wow and blizzard by playing something else!" will leave, but it will probably have gained more new players that prefer the gameplay, aestethics, world or whatever, than it would have without the WoW Exodus. It's pretty obvious it'd just be a temporary thing
They were basically non-existent from most news, but that doesn't mean the game did bad, quite the contrary.

[dlld]

The FFXIV census says otherwise.

One, lets define momentum, does wow have momentum when each new xpack breaks record sales but nobody stays around after a month to three? I'd guess you'd say no, likewise happened with ff14 during HW and SB era, new content bursts grew somewhat but active player numbers quickly dipped to similar levels until 4.5 when everything started rising on a longterm upward trend, which is what I'd call increasing momentum.

[Ghost of Cow]

One, lets define momentum, does wow have momentum when each new xpack breaks record sales but nobody stays around after a month to three? I'd guess you'd say no, likewise happened with ff14 during HW and SB era, new content bursts grew somewhat but active player numbers quickly dipped to similar levels until 4.5 when everything started rising on a longterm upward trend, which is what I'd call increasing momentum.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that chart represents "active players" over the time in question?

If so, that looks like steady growth over time to me, hype periods or not.

[Onikaroshi]

The FFXIV census says otherwise.

-snip-

Hell, preShB they were already talking about how huge the subscriber base was and how massive the preorders were.

- - - Updated - - -

One, lets define momentum, does wow have momentum when each new xpack breaks record sales but nobody stays around after a month to three? I'd guess you'd say no, likewise happened with ff14 during HW and SB era, new content bursts grew somewhat but active player numbers quickly dipped to similar levels until 4.5 when everything started rising on a longterm upward trend, which is what I'd call increasing momentum.

That's the game that FF runs though, it gets boosted for patches and dips during luls, they don't try to keep you handcuffed to the game between patches (unless you have a house haha).

WoW on the other hand tries everything to make you feel bad for taking time off.

[Caprias]

The game had no notable increased momentum during HW and SB, it started with ShB with the 4.5 patch in jan 2019, thats when both average and peak concurrent users started trending upwards long term looking at steam data. And the game exploded when Asmon started playing, the lawsuits happened after and didn't seem to affect much.

First of all steam is a terrible way to try to gage data, most players don't play over steam and i wouldn't recommend it too.

I just fucking hate this mmo tribalism kindergarden going on here sometimes where only one game can be successful and that it can only correlate by the others doing bad or smth, longterm XIV players are not longterm WoW players most of the time, you can absolutely enjoy both games but I doubt that the intersection is super large.

XIV did well and build up their playerbase long before all of those shady things, ofc. there was a big spike of "WoW-tourists" now that will abate again, but I have no doubt that the game will build up further and further longterm as they did before due to the awesome team behind it that takes feedback to heart and doesn't invent the (well working) wheel anew every 2 years.

[Cthulhu 2020]

One, lets define momentum, does wow have momentum when each new xpack breaks record sales but nobody stays around after a month to three? I'd guess you'd say no, likewise happened with ff14 during HW and SB era, new content bursts grew somewhat but active player numbers quickly dipped to similar levels until 4.5 when everything started rising on a longterm upward trend, which is what I'd call increasing momentum.

Dude, we all know MMOs have upward trends around expansions and downward trends as the expansion drags on. This is nothing revolutionary, new, nor is it any indication that hype for a game is going away. Nor is it an indication that the game is losing players. Ever since ARR released there has been a very solid upward trend regardless of TEMPORARY dips.